TLP 578: How Your Children Respond to Sin, Part 4 | Conviction

Well, that statement is true on the most freckle-level surface. However, it's actually very wrong, and this is where we need to be very careful when studying.

Our Bibles.

Parenting as Worship and the Focus of This Series

Parenting isn't about us. In fact, parenting isn't even about our kids. Parenting is just one way Christian dads and moms are to worship God. So welcome to the Truth Love Parent podcast, where we train dads and moms to give God the preeminence in their parenting.

Welcome to part 4 of How Your Children Respond to Sin. So far in this series, we've defined sin and talked about what temptation is and isn't. Last time we looked at the first response everyone has to sin, and today we're going to consider the second.

I hope you have followed along with us and are benefiting as we've laid this groundwork. Please check out the description of today's show for free episode notes, a transcript, and related resources to further your study.

In fact, today's resources are invaluable as you help your children navigate the consequences.

Of sin.

And furthermore, we have a resource with a significant discount available for you simply because you joined us today. Now, let's talk about conviction. The third definition in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary for Conviction is the act of convincing a person of error or of compelling the admission of a truth.

We see an example of this in Jude 1, 14 -15, but Enoch and the seventh generation from Adam also prophesied about these men saying, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against.

Him.

But there are a number of biblical words beyond conviction that describe this process and the subsequent experience of those who are convicted. We're going to do a flyover of a number of related passages and apply them to our parenting.

We're going to discuss conviction, guilt, shame, and a few other words that might surprise.

You.

But before we do that, I want to take a moment to make a heartfelt plea. Truth Love Family is struggling financially. To be honest, struggling is probably too nice a word. For years now, we have had a core group of consistent givers whose gifts allowed us to cover our basic necessities, but we've never brought in enough to provide me any kind of living wage.

Despite that fact, I have given myself full time to this ministry to help spread the word about God's plan for our families. In order to increase our audience, we invested a good amount of money in producing our first book, Quit, How to Stop Family Strife for Good, and toward exhibiting our ministry around the country.

Unfortunately, though more and more people appear to be consuming our free podcast material, we're not selling a lot of products, nor are people choosing to partner with us by giving on a monthly basis.

To be honest, I get it. In this world, with technology being what it is, if you want to support someone doing the work of the ministry, you can choose absolutely anyone, anywhere, doing anything. At the same time, literally everyone you encounter is asking for money.

With all that said, I recognize that not everyone can financially support this ministry. But many of you can. Even if it's only $5, $10, or $20 a month, your consistent giving will go a long way. And for those of you who cannot glorify God by giving financially to this ministry, please understand that you can support us by sharing this podcast and the Evermind app with your pastors, friends, and family.

So many people I have met have told me how life-changing this ministry has been for them. From the podcast, to the counseling, to the book, and the online courses, we often hear nothing but encouraging words, and we're honored and humbled to partner with you in the amazing work that is rearing your family to the glory of God.

So will you please consider partnering with us so that we can help you that much more, and in addition, we can reach more and more families with the glorious promises of God? I really thank you for considering it.

Conviction as a Natural Consequence of Sin

Now let's talk about how you can parent your kids in the light of their conviction response to sin. 1. Conviction is a natural consequence of sinning against God. Let us return to Genesis 3. When Adam and Eve's eyes were opened to good and evil, they realized something was wrong.

They tried to cover their nakedness, and they hid themselves from God. We talked last time about the significance of nakedness in this passage, and we can see that Adam and Eve felt shame about their unclothed condition because they decided to make themselves clothes from the surrounding foliage.

By the way, that is a fantastic example of what happens when we humans try to fix our problems by ourselves. I firmly believe that Adam and Eve were very intelligent, and no doubt the clothes they made for fashion were better than anything I could make out of plants, but I also believe the clothes they made were uncomfortable by modern standards, didn't quite do the job as well as they would have liked, and ultimately were destined to fail in a short period of time as the leaves wilted, eventually turned brown, and crumpled to dust.

They probably would have had to have made themselves new clothes every day, perhaps multiple times a day, depending on what they were doing, and that was just the best they could do. Anyway, the point is, Adam and Eve experienced shame and guilt because they were under conviction about what they did.

In John 16, 7 -11, we learn why modern individuals feel bad when they sin. While explaining why he had to go away, Jesus explained to the disciples, "...but I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see me, and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.".

One of the Holy Spirit's most important jobs in this world is to convict, to convince people about three important realities. Just like Adam and Eve came to understand good and evil, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and righteousness, but he also convicts us of the consequences of that sin.

Like Adam and Eve were soon to learn, where there is sin, there is also judgment. I mentioned last time that some of the knowledge your kids glean when they sin is about the consequences of sin. By the way, there are three primary consequences of sin, and there are tons of secondary consequences.

It's important that we teach our kids about the consequences of sin, and to that end, we have a series of podcast episodes all about consequences. You can quickly access that series by clicking on the link in the description of this episode.

It's very important that our whole family have a right understanding of biblical consequences. So, when your children sin, there is a very high likelihood that committing that sin will result in conviction and guilt.

It's not a guarantee because of the third possible response your children may have. I plan to discuss that reaction next time, but it's important to point out here that conviction is not always experienced the same way, or even over time, at all.

Now, when we talk of the Holy Spirit and conviction, it's likely easy for us to imagine that this is something that is entirely in the purview of God. God convicts people. God produces guilt in people.

God creates shame. In fact, I've heard people say things like, I'm not the Holy Spirit, I can't convict my spouse or children. And though it's true you're not the Holy Spirit and are infinitely incapable of doing His job, and though it's true that the Holy Spirit does have a job of convicting people in their sin, that doesn't mean that you're not part of the process.

In fact, it's going to surprise some of you to hear me say that, biblically speaking, we are just as responsible for convicting people, especially our spouses and children, as the Holy Spirit is. Aaron, how can you say that?

Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us to convict people of their sin. Well, that statement is true on the most freckle-level surface. However, it's actually very wrong, and this is where we need to be very careful when studying our Bibles.

The word translated convict in John 16 .8 appears a number of other places in the Scriptures, and we're going to take a look at a few of them as part of the next point. 2. You need to play a heavy part in your children's conviction.

How Scripture Calls Parents to Reprove and Convict

When we search the Bible for the English words convict, convicts, and convicted, we don't find much that applies to our parenting, but when we search the Scripture for the Greek word that underlies those translations, here's some of what we find.

Matthew 18 .15. Now, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault. Between you and him alone, if he listens to you, you've won your brother. The English words translated show fault are the exact same word translated convict in regard to the Holy Spirit.

This verse could read,. Now if your brother sins, convict him of his sin. Ephesians 5 .11 -13 reads,. And do not participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead even expose them, we could say, convict them.

For it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed, same Greek word, by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.

Once again, we have a command that we actively be part of the process by which people are convicted, convinced of their sin. 1 Timothy 5 .20 tells us,. Those who continue in sin reprove in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful.

You guessed it, that word reprove is our word for convict. We find the same word and related ideas in 2 Timothy 4 .2, Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and teaching.

Titus 1 .9 -13 says, Holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine, and to reprove those who contradict. For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things that they should not teach for the sake of dishonest gain.

One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. For this reason, reprove, there's our word again, reprove them severely, so that they may be sound in the faith.

Twice in this passage, we see that conviction is absolutely necessary, in fact, sometimes we must reprove them severely, so that they may be sound in the faith. My friends, these commands represent merely a small sampling of the biblical data concerning our responsibility to reprove, rebuke, admonish, teach, counsel, edify, confront, and convict.

Thankfully, we've spent a lot of time talking about that on the show. I have two important links for you today in the description. The first is our series called A Parent's Five Jobs. Reproving is only one of the five jobs, but we have so much information about it there.

We also have the Biblical Parenting Essentials Conference on the Evermind app, and as a special thank you for joining us in this study, you can use the link in the description of today's episode to get access to that conference and its related resources for only $10.

This resource normally costs $50, but you can get it today for less than the cost of a fast food lunch. Don't miss out on this fantastic offer on a fantastic resource. Just go to the description to get access to it.

Teaching Children About Shame and Guilt

Okay, so when your kids sin, they will gain knowledge from the experience, but they're also going to experience conviction. The first wave of that will likely come from the Holy Spirit and God's common grace in their conscience, but that's not where the conviction should end.

God wants to use you to increase the conviction your children feel. God has you in your kids' lives for a reason, in part because when they sin, he wants you to deepen and widen their conviction as necessary.

That means that you will have to participate in this reproof stage of parenting. Now because of all the amazing resources we have on the subject, I'm not going to get into great detail here, but I do want to point out the following.

Letter A. The best conviction always comes as a result of being exposed to the Word of.

God.

Therefore, you must prioritize using the scriptures as you show your children their sin. Letter B. Reproof is intended to be persuasive. Now yes, we all know that you can't make your kids believe something.

However, the very definition of conviction includes the idea of actually convincing someone that what they did was wrong. Teaching is giving a person information, but reproof is that persuasive convincing.

We have not succeeded in our reproof if the child remains unconvinced. We are only successful in our conviction as the child submits to God's truth and moves toward the correction phase via the repentance bridge.

Now that's not to say that we, you know, didn't convict them well, we didn't reprove them well, we didn't glorify God as we did it. I'm just saying that the process is not complete until the children are convinced of that truth.

So the lesson here is that we shouldn't reprove as if we're merely providing information. We need to approach it from the standpoint that my child's ability to glorify God completely depends on their accepting the truth I'm about to give to them.

Again, we can't change our kids, but too often our reproof, if you can even call it that, really is impotent. The light is weak that we shine upon them, and we make it easy for our kids to listen to our chiding and then turn away unchanged.

So we've learned that conviction is an important response to sin, and we've learned that God wants to use us to deepen and widen that conviction. Lord willing, assuming our kids have sinned and are experiencing that deepening conviction, they, like Adam and Eve, will start to feel ashamed of their sin.

The problem is that sinners hate to feel shame. We hate guilt. That's why you also need to, number three, teach your kids about shame. Now, thankfully, we have a whole series about children and shame.

I highly recommend you listen to those few episodes so you can teach your children all about it. I'm also going to include a link to our Parenting Sorrowing Children series because some sorrows directly related to the guilt and shame our kids experience.

For now, though, I want to reveal that there is both good shame and bad shame. We never want our kids to experience bad shame, but we definitely want them to experience good shame. It's imperative. It's a gift from God.

Therefore, we need to prepare our kids to respond correctly to sin by equipping them with the knowledge necessary to understand biblical shame. And we also need to remind them of these truths when they're in the middle of experiencing.

It.

Love as the Motive for Conviction

So, how can you help your kids respond correctly to sin? Teach them about conviction. Aid in their conviction. Teach them about shame. But number four, motivate your parental conviction with love. In Revelation 3 .19, we read, Those whom I love I reprove and discipline, therefore be zealous and repent.

In Hebrews 12 .6, we see, For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he flogs every son whom he receives. Discipline, reproof, conviction, and admonishment will only ever backfire if we're selfishly motivated.

If we're reproving our kids because they're annoying us or letting us down or because we'd be so much happier if they started being good, we're not reproving to the glory of.

God.

We are sinning and by the grace of God, we will definitely fail to point our kids to Christ. God convicts us because he loves us. We need to convict our kids for no other reason than we love God and we love our kids.

We parent the way God commands because it's an act of worship to him. That means we need to reprove our kids in the way he commands because we love him and want to worship him in our parenting. Now as uncomfortable as conviction is, it's a beautiful gift from God.

In our flesh, we would never feel bad about our sin, but it's God's working in us that brings shame, guilt, and conviction because he loves us and wants to change us for his glory and our good. Therefore, in order to parent our kids well, we need to work with God toward his purpose for our kids.

That means we need to love them enough to prepare them for shame and guilt as well as participate in the conviction that brings about shame and guilt. Please share this series with your friends so they too can better understand how their kids respond to sin.

Feel free to email us at counselor at truthloveparent .com or leave a voicemail at 828 -423 -0894 if you need some individualized assistance for you and or your home. And be sure to join us next time as we look at a really unfortunate but all too common response to sin, callousness.

Truth Love Parent is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you worship God through your parenting. So join us next time as we study God's Word to learn how to parent our children for life and godliness.

And remember that TLP is a listener-supported ministry. You can visit truthloveparent .com forward slash donate to learn more.