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First, a look at my parents. My parents waited 8 years before they had kids. Dad was 31 when I was born. My mom was 29. I have one sister that’s two years older than me.
While in high school, I attended a Christian conference that challenged my views on many things, including family size. I began to consider the possibility of having a larger-than-typical family—to be fruitful and multiply for the sake of making disciples and the kingdom of God.
While Stacey and I were dating, and during our engagement, we considered the possibility of having a big family. I thought big was 5, she thought it was 4, so we just added them together. We actually became parents very early in our marriage. We were married in early October, and we had our first child in early July. You can do the math if you like.
We had a child, graduated college, changed churches, changed states, and started seminary all over the course of about 6 weeks.
Though we were both from very supportive families, we were now 7 hours from my family and 10 from Stacey’s. We had a 6-week old baby, and only knew a few people here in North Carolina. I bring that up mainly to communicate that we were in a place that we had to find our parenting support among a completely new set of people. This was before social media. We were left with the Bible, the Holy Spirit, phone conversations, and the church.
We had three children in three years, then a three year pause, and then more came. Now it’s 25 years later. We have nine children, one daughter in law, one grandson, and will soon have a son-in-law. Our oldest is 24 and our youngest is 7. We’ve been driving a 15 passenger van for almost 17 years. It’s now for sale, if you’d like to buy it.
A look into our home
We have homeschooled all the way through.
I’m on at least my third time reading through the Chronicles of Narnia out loud.
I’ve been attending with my kids or leading youth group for around 13 years. Jack will graduate out of high school youth group in 11 more years. I’ll be 58.
We have changed and grown over the years. We are not the same parents we were for our oldest kids. The convictions and principles are still there, but we definitely live it out more naturally, wisely, and kindly than we did in the early days. Stacey and I have now spent more years married and parents than we did as kids and singles.
Total years of parenting for this class?
This is not 451 years of awesome parenting. It’s 451 years of learning, sinning, failing, repenting, receiving forgiveness, growing, becoming wiser, being corrected by others. The hard part about parenting is that you can’t put your responsibilities on hold while you take a class or read a book. Your kids are right there needing you. If you’re here this morning to learn and don’t have kids yet, good for you!
I don’t bring up our experience so that you’ll just take the things we say without question, debate, or thoughtfulness—though I would much rather you seek parenting wisdom from faithful believers in your own church than from some “expert” creator on YouTube or a podcast.
Before we address parents, it’s good to say a couple things to those who are not yet parents or not even yet married.
Your parents are being called to parent well, but God calls you to honor and obey them even when they don’t. Notice how these commands don’t include qualifiers or caveats:
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” (Exod 20:12)
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” (Eph 6:1–3)
Here are four choices you can make that will have a massive impact on how fruitful you’ll be as a parent:
As I hope to convince you today, the real authority for how we ought to parent our children is the Bible. Applying the principles we learn from scripture and the Holy Spirit takes wisdom, humility, and the community of faith. God does not intend for each of us to read the Bible and then make our own life decisions without the scrutiny or wisdom of the people of God around us and in history.
Also, even with all of our collected wisdom as a group of teachers, we are not in your situation with your children. My large family context may sound very different than your situation. Every family is unique. We may have encountered something similar to your situations, but we cannot simply give formulas to one another that are supposed to generate good kids.
How do we learn to parent? Where do the influences come from?
Let’s take a few minutes to jot down some of the various messages you’ve received that are seeking to influence on how you parent. Here are five categories.
The point of the exercise is not to treat all other influences as “bad” and only learn from the Bible or the church. There are many things we can learn from our parents and peers, or from psychology, or from others who have spent a lot of time observing and thinking about parenting.
What we want to be aware of as Christian parents is that all of these influences should be placed in their respective positions of importance and emphasis. When they contradict one another how do we choose among them?
The way your parents handled discipline and spanking when you were a child may have wisdom behind it, but it must be compared with what the Bible actually says. The study of child development may help us know how our children work or how they think, but that is not an equal authority to scripture. The values of our culture around us may feel normal or right to us, but they most definitely should be challenged by the priorities of the Bible and the Christian Gospel.
What are we talking about when we say that we should be Christian parents? Here are some potential options:
What decisions or directions do we have in mind to offer a five-week parenting class? What are you hoping to hear about?
| Christian Parents | Non-Christian Parents |
|---|---|
| We have a God-given book that explains the purpose of parenting, the methods of parenting, examples of good and bad parenting, and what to do when things go wrong. We have commands, promises, warnings, and truth. | They can experiment with what others have done, what seems to work, depending on your self-directed goals. They could lean on “science” to tell them how to change behaviors. |
| We have a Heavenly Father to learn from and emulate. How God treats us gives us incredible insights into how we should love our children. | They only have earthly fathers to learn from. Some of these have admirable qualities; others were terrible examples. But, all of them are flawed. |
| We have the Holy Spirit working in us and in our children. We have promises from God regarding sowing and reaping. We know that heart change is only possible through God’s work. | It’s all up to the parents (or teachers, or mentors). There is no acknowledgement of supernatural help other than “luck.” Since there is no supernatural help, they are left to their own tools (guilt, fear, reward) to try to manipulate behaviors. |
| We know that the world is corrupted and damaged by sin, and that our parenting will be flawed, but that’s not the end of the story. We have a Redeemer who fixes broken things and people, who cleanses us from all evil. | There is no real solution when things go off the rails. |
| We have experienced God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace, and can learn to extend that grace to others around us, especially our children. | They can attempt to be nice or tolerant, but have no real basis for mercy or generosity. |
| We have a community that is committed to our growth and good, including helping us parent according to God’s design. This community is also committed to the same goals for our children. | Parents are on their own, unless they can find some community that shares similar values as them. Because fads change, this is really difficult. Many of the communities (sports, education, arts) can easily become idols. |
| We believe in the Providence of God. This means that God foreordained that you would be your kids’ parents, and that they would be your children. | Kids may be treated as accidents or interruptions to our life and plans. |
| We know what real success is as a parent. We have the Dominion Mandate, the Greatest Commandment, and the Great Commission that shape our goals. | The highest goal can be successful or happy people. |
| We have eternity to look forward to. Earthly success is not all there is. | Whatever is gained or achieved in this life is all there is. |
Our children do not belong to us? We are ambassadors (Tripp).
We are working to accomplish something in our kids’ lives that we cannot bring about on our own—heart change and salvation.
Our example, expectations, and relationship to our children should be saturated with the Gospel. We are sinners saved by grace and in need of God’s help.
We ourselves are children of God and under his authority. We do not get to make things up as we go along.
Genesis 1:27–28 (ESV)
It is striking that the first positive command given to Adam and Eve was to have children. We should not intentionally separate having and rearing children from the other goods of marriage. Though there are exceptions, and not every couple is able to have children, the biblical norm is that marriage leads to parenting.
And this parenting, even from the beginning has a purpose. Children are one of the ways that God accomplishes his mission in the world. Here we are specifically reading the Dominion Mandate to fill the earth and subdue it, but we could also include the Great Commission as well.
Matthew 28:18–20 (ESV)
Don’t leave parenting out of the Great Commission. Ensuring that the gospel goes out to the whole world will involve evangelizing and teaching our children to do all that God has commanded.
Psalm 127 (ESV)
This passage is a strong antidote to the poisonous and destructive attitude in our culture toward children. This attitude can even creep into the church.
Please notice that the emphasis in Psalm 127 is not that parenting is difficult, but you need to do it anyway. God is holding out the blessing of children here.
However we as couples work through the questions of when and how many children we think we should have, we really must embrace the truths and principles in this Psalm.
Children are a blessing and a reward.
Being pro-life means so much more than trying to stop abortion. It means welcoming and treasuring life, whether through child-bearing in marriage, or through adoption and taking care of orphans.
We are to send our children (shoot our arrows) out into the world on God’s mission. They are not for us to keep around.
There are movements in our Christian circles which would use this passage to say every Christian couple should have as many children as possible. I believe that’s making the passage say more than it does. Each man’s quiver does not have the same capacity. However, Psalm 127 is a check on our tendencies to view children as inconvenient, loud, messy, expensive, stress-inducing interruptions to our otherwise fulfilling lives. Children are a blessing.
This does not mean that parenting isn’t hard. But, we must be careful of defining “the good life” as that time before we were parents or that time after they fly the nest. One of the blessings of parenting is the way that God uses our children as a tool in our own sanctification. A good friend of mine used to remind me that God has a button he can push in each of my children for my sanctification and growth in holiness and the fruit of the Spirit.
do not miss the need for God’s grace in parenting in Psalm 127. Parenting is a mysterious blend of two biblical ideas: (1) you reap what you sow, and (2) God blesses us more than we deserve. Anyone with adult children following the Lord would say, “It wasn’t us, it was the Lord. It was all grace.” And yet, it is undeniable that our children are truly impacted by our faithfulness and diligence in parenting—or the lack of them. Our actions have consequences. You see this idea at work in Psalm 127:1
Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
- Psalm 127:1
More than any other specific book in the Bible, the book of Proverbs has a lot to say about parenting. Much of the time, when I’m reading in Proverbs, I’m listening for what the Lord is commanding me. But, there are times when we should listen in and realize that this is a father speaking to his own son. This is the case in Proverbs 3.
Let’s listen in and hear an inspired aim for parenting.
Proverbs 3:1–18 (ESV)
Deuteronomy 4:9 (ESV) — "“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—"
Ephesians 4:1–2 (ESV)
There is no formula or recipe.
There is no shortcut.
You will learn some practical helps through the rest of this class, but remember, our method is Humility and Love
Here are some other recent messages.
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