Transformed Parenting

in these six weeks is to approach this whole idea of parenting from the gospel because that is supposed to transform everything that's supposed to take us to another level that's supposed to teach us that's supposed to transform us okay so what we see then is that the gospel first of all transforms parents all right what you've got to see here is this all right what I want you to see is This isn't, we're not going to learn some nifty techniques to get well-behaved kids. All right, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a transformation of the way we do things.

The gospel helps us to recognize and understand things in a different way, including our children. The gospel helps us to recognize and understand ourselves differently. All right, so let's look at Titus chapter 3. Okay, Titus chapter 3, verses 4 through 7. Go ahead and read that for us. Titus 3, verse 7.

Okay. The gospel transforms parents by giving them new capacities and abilities. In other words, here the Apostle Paul talks about regeneration. When you read the New Testament, regeneration is this new birth, this washing, this cleansing, this change of disposition, so that now we have new capacities for understanding and new abilities that we don't have before we're born again, before the Spirit changes us, before he gives us a new heart.

The gospel delivers us from our captivity to the devil, to sin, and to the world. That is to say, it gives us the ability to act freely from those things. Now, of course, we're still subject to that. We still have to fight temptation. We still have to fight the influence of our culture around us, what the Bible calls the world. We still have to fight our own flesh but now we have the capacity and the ability then to change that Not only that but we have new abilities to understand things that we did not understand before He removes everything.

It's phenomenal to me. This is what I love, is when I see a new Christian. And I'll know this person before he becomes a Christian and after he's a Christian. And the basic person is still there, but there's something totally different about him, right? Suddenly now, they have an interest in the Bible, which they didn't have before. Suddenly now, they want to do what God says.

They hate the things they once loved, and they love the things they once hated. And so with the washing of regeneration, we get a new heart with new desires, new capacity to understand, new ability to obey, okay? So the first thing that has to happen is parents have to be transformed. And it transforms them by giving them a new identity, okay? so that they become agents of the gospel.

All right, I want you to think about this. How do you see your role as a parent? All right, the gospel should change the way you see your role as a parent. Okay? Tell me, what are some of the roles that parents take? I'll turn the pump.

Let me turn the pump. A lot of parents look at themselves as facilitators. You know what a facilitator is? A facilitator is someone who is there to find a way of satisfying the children's desires. Alright? You're a facilitator.

You're there to make sure everything goes just right for your kids. Right? You're not an authority figure. Right? You're a facilitator. Okay, does that make sense?

That's something to work some other rules That perhaps don't Alright, teacher Now, that's not bad In fact, the Bible includes that But when you think yourself as only a teacher You're already starting to operate from the idea That the problem with my child is he's ignorant Now, if you were in Sunday school this morning What would you say the problem with our children are To begin with? They're sinners. They're twisted.

They're perverted already. Alright They not just ignorant So Okay teacher what else What are some of the other roles All right, I'm a disciplinarian, okay? And so we're going to have the military manual. And your job is to march in step and do whatever I tell you to do. Okay? What else?

What else? Hello. Hello. Okay, there's an element of tooth there, but the parentless friend. Have you ever seen that? Have you ever cringed at that?

Yeah. Hey, buddy. It doesn't, it's, it's just not right. You know, some parents see themselves as environmentalists. As long as my kids have the right environment, they'll come out of it. Now look, we have a whole community devoted to that view.

Just a mile that way. If we just have the right environment, we'll save our kids from all the horrible things that are happening. By the way, there's a lot of Christian cancer that way. I'm going to do this and this and this because my job is to make sure that they have the right environment. If I pull all the right buttons, they'll come out okay. That's not what the Bible says, by the way.

Here's one. Survivors. Have you met parents who have that view of their role? Oh, man. They're all over the place. I remember people would say to us when we were just starting out, when we came to the room, my eldest son was, let's see, Alvin was not four yet, not quite four yet.

Okay? And some people were saying to us, oh, enjoy it now, because when they get to be teenagers, it's going to be awful. And that was kind of scary. Right? And there are some parents who have the view that they're just survivors. They've just got to make it through.

But let look at these passages Matthew 28 18 through 20 and we put those by heart But just in case you don want to take the chance in front of everybody let look it up and somebody read it Matthew 20 and 18 through 20. Who's got it? Go ahead, Brian. Oh! Rachel, go! Have you ever thought of your role as a parent as part of the discipling process?

God has called us to make disciples. Okay? Now I want you to think about that. We're gospel agents. Part of our reason for existence as Christians is to make disciples of Jesus. Right?

I must not be the only one who's not. I must be the only one. Right? We're disciple makers. Now look at Ephesians 6.4. Ephesians 6.4 is the one summary statement of parents.

It's the big summary statement for parental authority and what they're supposed to be doing. Okay? Ephesians 6.4. What does it say? Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Now that sounds a whole lot like making disciples.

Alright? So one of the things that we have to see is we have to leave the gospel, transforms us as parents by not just giving us a new capacity and abilities, but giving us a new identity. We are agents of the gospel. We're not just here so my kid can have a better life than me. It's not just, I want you to tell the line. I want you to be obedient.

I don't want you to mess up. It's not that. We're disciple makers. Now, we're going to spend, I think, yeah, next week we're going to spend a lot of time talking about the goal of parenting, which to me is absolutely the most important thing we're going to say about anything. All right? But at least let's get this.

God wants us to be disciple makers okay he wants us to be disciple makers if I have that in my mind it's going to have a profound effect the way I parent. Next, the gospel transforms our goals and expectations. What do you expect from your children? Okay? What do you expect from your children? What do people expect from their kids?

Okay? You as a parent looking around, observing what other parents do, what are some people's expectations for kids? What do they expect from their kids? Okay? Okay, obedience. What else?

Politeness. Respect. Okay. All right, good. I love this one. Things like this.

Well, I expect my kid to do better basically as a good heart, but, you know, some things just aren't. You know, they're not meeting my expectations because it's somewhere else, all right? My Sheila would never have done that if that nasty Eileen hadn't been around. We expect things from our kids that we shouldn't. Because the Bible, the Gospel, tells us not to expect those types of things.

It's not what we ought to expect. The Bible tells you what you should expect from your kids. And you didn't make that right. But let's look at Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through... This is one through four.

What should we expect from our kids? Who's got it? All right. What should you expect from your children? You should expect your children to be skinny. you should expect your children to be those who cannot obey in a way that glorifies God they can you should expect the fact that they going to be those who need to be transformed by the gospel Now, none of this sounds strange to you.

You all know this. But it's interesting how our theology hardly ever penetrates how we think and what we do when we leave here and go home. I ought to expect my kids to do bad things. I ought to expect that. In fact, I ought to expect the fact that they're not going to be the kind of people God wants them to be unless the gospel transforms them. But what we do oftentimes is we act as if our rules are going to change them somehow, right?

If we only get the right environment, then they'll turn out okay. But we have to be thinking this. They're sinners. They can't obey, right? Not in a way that glorifies God. You say, well, shouldn't I expect my kids to obey?

Well, do people in the world obey? I mean, they don't go around murdering people, right? Well, I like it too, but everybody murders people all the time, right? Yeah, there's surface obedience. We can get surface obedience. The law can restrain evil behavior.

But they're not going to be transformed without the gospel. But oftentimes as parents, what do we do? We act as if if I just had the right environment, put the right rules in place, everything will turn out all right. And we forget about the gospel. It's going to transform them from the inside out. All right?

All right, what goal? I didn't phrase that right about expectations, but what should you expect your kids to do? Now, where do you want to take them? Now, people have different goals for their children. What are some goals that people have for their kids? financially successful okay what's that yeah i want my kids to go to college boy that's gotta be it what else oh yeah i want my kid to be a good athlete that's a big one right watch parents wow watch parents at fourth grade basketball games right man i remember working at fourth great basketball game.

I bought one of the stands to park some people out and start kicking off but that another story What else what else did you expect Follow an effort Phil Yeah I want you to follow in my I didn turn out so bad Why don you be like me All right, I want you to have a better life than me. All right, well, this is good. I don't care what you do. Yeah. Okay, I don't care what you do as long as you're happy.

I don't care what you do as long as you're a law-abiding citizen. All right? Okay? You've got to experience life. Those are the sorts of things that we have. But our goal for our children ought to be something different.

If the gospel is real, then our goal should be something different. Can you be a disciple of Jesus without going to college or being a great athlete? Can you be a disciple of Jesus without making a lot of money? Yeah. See, this is what we have to be aiming for. and that should make a difference in the way that we raise our kids. You know, that should make a difference so that you don't want your daughter to be the, you know, being the most popular cheerleader, being the captain of the cheerleader team is not what you're aiming for.

Or the captain of the football team, or whatever the case may be, okay? By the way, Dads, that's kind of hard for us. I remember when the boys were wrestling. A lot of him. I remember. Let me tell you this story.

The archers in junior high, we were starting to wrestle, and the coaches came to me and said, you know what, we think this kid's going to be the first kid from Elgin to go to state. And I'm going, yeah, all right. In 10th grade, he comes to me and says, you know, Dad, I was kind of thinking, I think I'd rather play the cello than wrestle. And I said, good, good, son.

That's great. And inside I'm going, ah! Right? It's like, okay, now you see where your heart is, right? So you know, you just, you can be a great disciple of Jesus if you don't win the tournament. All those things.

So do you think it going to make a difference to a dad I want you to have a better life than I did Alright Is the idea of making a disciple going to affect the way he relates to his children now? Does that make that more of a mind? Oh, well. It's going to transform our parental policies. Okay? What's going to rule your household?

What's going to rule your household? What rules will you claim and enforce to your children? Okay? If all you're after is obedience, that's going to affect you. If all you want to accept is you tell the lie, you do whatever you say when you say it, that's going to have a dramatic effect on the way that you, on the rules that you have, on the way you enforce those rules, all of those things.

Okay? And again, it's quite simple. The gospel simplifies things for us. What's going to be our policies? The commands of the gospel. The commands of the gospel.

When a fight breaks out in your home, is the gospel going to make a difference? Okay? Is the gospel going to make a difference So, why do you waste your kids? I mean, one of the easiest ones to think of is this. When someone is bullying your kid at school, what do you do? Talk.

Right? Typically, we say, Son, don't start anything. Someone starts something with you, make sure you finish it. Right? That's not the gospel. What is the gospel?

The gospel says, love your enemies. How are you going to then as a parent teach your child how to love that other kid? What about when a fight breaks out in your own home? Okay? I'm going to jump right into it. So two kids are fighting over a toy.

What's the typical approach that we take? Who had it first? The Gospel doesn't allow that. The Gospel says you have a heart. You, see, who had it first is, I don't know, what do you call that, maybe justice, but it's not the gospel. The gospel says, both of you need to look at your hearts right now, right?

You want to keep it till you don't care what it says to your brother, and you want to keep it. You've got to covet his heart. You see? The gospel makes a total difference in the way that we approach things like that. It's going to cause us to think differently than what we're normally used to thinking. Does that mean that you don't make household rules like what time you get to bed and where you sit in the car?

You still have to have household rules. You still have to have rules that you have a smooth operating thing. But the question is, are your rules going to attract people to Jesus or drive them away? Are you going to attract them to Jesus or drive them away? So, you have to be thinking of everything in terms of the Gospel. Lastly, the Gospel gives you the source of power for parenting.

It gives you the source of power for parenting. Now, I'm looking at a number of parents here, and I think I know the answer to this. Do you need supernatural power to be a parent? Yeah, you do. I mean, you can do it with the way everybody else does and get by, but you can't do it in the way that I've got. You need supernatural power to be that kind of a parent.

Guys, I can remember, I can remember days, I can remember sitting with Beth in the kitchen. The kids are in that I can put my head on the table and say, are we doing anything right? Are we doing anything right? I can't believe this. You know, it's a long, hard road sometimes. And you need to connect the part.

Where are you going to get it? Well, look at 2 Peter 1, verses 3 and 4. They're two really fascinating verses to me. Please tell us the source of power to be what God wants us to be. So if I want to be a parent that's given, then we're talking about it. Right?

But everybody else works as a good parent. I want to be a gospel parent Where am I going to get the power 2 Peter 1 verses 3 and 4 Rachel wants to read that for us Okay Okay. thing. There's power. Notice, the power is communicated to us in our knowledge of Christ. The more we get to know Jesus, the more power is available for us. That's the conduit of power.

Knowing Jesus gives us power. And then he goes on to talk about promises. We escape the corruption of the world by believing the promises of God. That to me is, I want to I really do a hardcore study on these verses because it seems to be saying this. How do I speak the corruption of the world? Does it take discipline?

Yes. Does it take the ability and capacity to say no to sin and yes to God? Certainly. It's all that. But there's an element of faith. Do I believe what the promises and my desires are saying?

Or do I believe the promises of God? And so there's this cognitive power to be the kind of parents that wants us to become human out of Jesus. I need to, if I'm going to be a good parent, I need to know Jesus better. That will give me the power to be patient, to be joyful in the midst of difficult children, to be able to handle the trials that come with raising kids.

If I'm going to have that kind of power, I need to know Jesus. So as a parent, I need to make that a priority. Alright? turn back to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1. Verses 22 and 23. Here the Apostle Peter is talking about the Word of God.

He says, Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. since you have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God There is power through the gospel ministering faith So I want my children to change How that going to happen As I minister the gospel in faith What's going to change my kids? It's not going to be a bunch of rules. Now, are rules necessary?

Absolutely. We'll talk about that later. But we have in our head this idea that if we make certain rules, somehow they're going to be transformed. It doesn't happen that way. It happens as they're transformed by the gospel. What's going to change your children?

Your irrefutable wisdom, right? How many of us have had children who said, oh, man, Dad, you are so wise. Sometimes it takes marriage and kids for them to ever say that, right? That's not your wisdom. It's not your physical strength because our kids almost always get bigger and stronger than us. By the way, you know what?

This is one thing I've noticed. If all I want is obedience from my kids, if that becomes my goal and that's the thing I live for, they'll obey as long as I'm smarter, stronger, and faster. But guess what happens? They get stronger, smarter, and faster. And when that happens, they don't have to obey anymore, right? At least that's the way they're going to look at it.

It's not my physical strength. It's not my overwhelming intellect. Maybe your children will be transformed by the power of their undying gratitude for all the sacrifices you've made for them as parents. Now, it comes through the gospel. It's the power of the gospel. This has got to be an other thing now.

As we go through this, we're not just saying what you've got to do is work real hard to get a decision and everything's great. It's not over. the gospel is going to be ministering everything that we do everything that we say our discipline our teaching the goal that we have how we view our kids all that has to be gospel centered when it becomes gospel centered then then that's an example the then the gospel permeates everything okay and through that their lives will be transformed so as we start the series I'm convinced that only only gospel parents are going to be put to do with God And that because the gospel reveals Jesus who came with grace and truth So from what we want to do is to talk about how do you build on the gospel? How does that help us understand and react or respond to our kids?

How does that set the goals? How does that help us in every endeavor that we have as parents? It's the grace and truth that's gone into the gospel that will transform all our endeavors. okay so gospel driven is what we're talking about that's what we want to spend the next five weeks developing in terms of how we can all right I'm sure the folks out front aren't done yeah So I'll open it for questions.

Anybody have questions? Yes, Brian. Not necessarily a question. after the change in the doctor's office, and that's what you're feeling. I'm sure you can say that you're not that different, but it's a lot like hearing problems after you've been in the doctor's office. Yeah. I've been trying to learn more, and I'm not that much bothered.

I'm just feeling a lot of panic. Yeah. Yeah. I could do the right thing and be in the right place, but you know, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be my life. Yeah. You have to be able to follow your dreams and your dreams and your life.

I think, you know, it's kind of like that. Well, we, we're going to just think about this. You ever see the cartoon with the kid standing in the corner and he says, We want them to be able to say on the inside, I want to do it right too. And we won't talk about that yet in terms of, is there time? Do we want to change the religion? Sure, but that's not where you stop.

Okay? I've become convinced that the gospel is so central that it just transforms everything that we do. I think a lot of my some of my I knew the right words to say I knew what to do in certain circumstances that kept the pressure off think of it this way it's almost like law ministry law will keep what the law can do and that is it will restrain evil it will keep order but it won't take much time to put me inside that and what we want to do with our kids is to be ministering to them as parents and take the way that that what going to happen Anybody else Any other questions You know, next time we meet, I think, you know, because we're back here.

Of course, you know, I don't care if anybody drinks coffee out front, but we got a whole lot more liberty than you got back here. We're able to. Hey, if you want to bring snacks, go right ahead. You don't have to though. No more questions? Okay.

I hope that in the days coming we'll get down to some nitty gritty stuff. What do I do now? What happens when? Leave those questions out. And let's run it through the Gospel of the Lord. And see what happens.

Okay? Alright. Well. You have to see this. You don't put pressure on Jeff. Just put a stand outside the doors.

Look in the window. Do that kind of stuff. That happens in summer school. All right? Okay. Thank you.