Want to Be a Better Father? Dive DEEPER into the Gospel!

The Gospel as the Center of Christian Ministry and Parenting

One of the ways that you grew in patience, gentleness, as a dad, you say that it happened by coming to a deeper understanding of the gospel.

Yes.

Can you speak to that?

I go into the ministry in 1984. Every single sermon that I ever preached included the gospel, but I never preached the gospel. I didn't get it. There was a real disjointed sense to my ministry, to my life, to my preaching, which was, here's what the text says, we're gonna get to the text, I'm going to do my best to explain the text, then there's going to be a brief commercial in there sometime which says, and if you're not saved, here's the gospel, but now...

Call now.

Call now, but let's get back to the legalism, and it was a very law-driven, works-based, you need the gospel to save you, but after that, well, your sanctification is something that you're... That's your work.

Which means that you were parenting with that paradigm as well.

The Gospel in Giving, Forgiveness, and Sexual Purity

Which means I was... Yes, it was like a high... Yeah, performance. Yeah, do and live, don't and die. And then I get a hold of a little orange book by C .J. Mahaney, The Cross-Centered Life. I start to...

The wheels start to turn theologically where I begin to see exegetically that every aspect of the Christian life is tied to the gospel, whether it's giving. Giving is not... New Testament giving is not about duty, but it's, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Or forgiveness, be kindly affectionate to one another, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Or even sexual purity, you are not your own, you're bought with a price. What is that? That's the gospel.

Therefore glorify God in your bodies.

And I'm beginning to see... You really begin to understand gospel.

Indicatives and Imperatives in the Christian Life

Indicatives and imperatives. And I'm seeing that the gospel is... It's almost as if someone came in in the middle of the night and took my Bible and planted these gospel verses everywhere, and I began to see that the gospel is of first importance.

And when I saw this, it was almost as if I got saved all over again, because there was this flood of joy, and there was this power which had not previously been there. And it was almost like, even if I am getting saved for the first time right now, it just doesn't matter, because the only thing that matters is the gospel.

Seeing that, that gospel working in my heart, humility. As you have received Christ, so walk in him. How did you receive Christ? Through the gospel. How do we walk? Through the gospel. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.

It is just everywhere. And I began to be overcome with, I wouldn't say guilt, but just an awareness of this has not been my emphasis on how I have made demands on my wife, how I have ruled my home, how I coached my little league team, how I lived my life, how I pastored my people, how I viewed life.

A Gospel-Transformed Father, Husband, and Pastor

And there was just this paradigm shift, not with condemnation, but there was this paradigm shift which was accompanied with joy, where my children can tell you of the days prior to that. Because prior to that, although I loved my children, and I had good times with my children, and did things spontaneously with my children, and prayed with my children, and did devotions with them, I was a very angry man, a very demanding man, a very unreasonable man.

I wouldn't say it changed overnight, but I would say it almost changed overnight to where there was a gentleness that came over me through the power of the Holy Spirit and understanding the gospel, which had not previously been there.

And my children would tell you that there was a marked difference after that. So yes, growing deeper and understanding the glories of Calvary, it made all the difference in the world to me and my parenting.