Parents, Children and God
I had a conversation recently with a friend who’s part of a kind of funky, alternative, Gen-X church for thirty-somethings. It was set up a number of years ago, but recently people have started to have kids, and now the first wave of kids are getting up toward two and three and four years old. This has meant a major change to the culture of the place. Suddenly, a bunch of fairly laissez-faire, anti-authoritarian parents are having that world view tested out to see how well it works for bringing up three year olds. Meanwhile, while that little learning experience is going on, the single people and the couples without kids are starting to get quite resentful. They’re saying: I thought I was signing up for something sophisticated and adult – I thought I was part of the emerging church, and I turn up on Sundays now and I feel like I’ve stepped into McHappy Land. It’s proving to be a real testing experience all round.
Children really are a great diagnostic test, aren’t they, of where your heart is and what your values are. And parenting is one of the great arenas of applied theology. You can tell so much about what a society really believes in – what their true ideology is - from the way they bring up their kids. And the same is true for us as Christians. So much of what we believe about creation and wisdom and grace and justice and belief and behaviour and authority and servanthood – so many of those big theological themes get expressed in real, concrete, practical ways in the way we bring up children. Our parenting is a great diagnosis of what our real theology is, and a great test of how we live it out.
So I’m hoping that this morning, as we talk about parents, children and God – I’m hoping that this morning is simultaneously intensely theological and inescapably practical. I’m hoping that those of us who are parents will go home encouraged and challenged in really concrete, specific ways about the way we approach our parenting; and I’m hoping that all of us will be helped to know God better, and to understand our relationship with him.
So let’s start at the beginning – once again let’s go right back to Genesis, and think about creation, and start to build up a picture of what the Bible says about children and parents and parenting from there.
Point one – and this is the foundation, and we could spend the rest of the morning expounding just this point if we wanted to: Children are a blessing from God. From right back at the beginning, the very first word that the Bible has to say about children is that they are a blessing. So God creates humanity in Genesis 1, and his first word is – Genesis 1 verse 28 – his first word is to bless them. ‘God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number…”’ and so on. The very first word of blessing in the Bible is a word about the blessing of children.
With the entry of sin into the world it very quickly becomes a blessing that is attended by complication and sadness and pain. So in Genesis 3, after the Fall, God speaks to the man about the curse on all his toil, and about the entrance of death into the world; and he speaks to the woman and says: “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.” It’s a blessing that is now attended by great pain; but it remains a blessing. So Eve has her first child – chapter 4 verse 1 – and she calls him him ‘Cain’, which means ‘brought forth’ and she says: “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.” And then she has another son Abel, and Cain kills him, and she has a third son Seth, whose name means ‘given’, and she says – chapter 4 verse 25: “God has granted me another child in place of Abel.” You get the feeling already that her sense of the grace of God and the preciousness of her children increases the more that she experiences how fragile and how difficult the whole process is. According to the Bible, children are always to be viewed as a gift and a blessing from God.
Even at this most basic starting point, you can already see the way our society’s view begins to diverge from the Bible’s view of things. At one level, our society can be quite sentimental about kids, and say all sorts of things about how valuable they are. But at the same time, I don’t think we tend to view them as a gift from God – if anything we tend to see them more as a choice or a right. And simultaneously, there is another strand to our thinking that views them basically as an inconvenience. So we postpone and postpone having them, sometimes to the point of aborting them in the womb; we fulminate against people like Jana Pittman for being so foolish as to go and get married and have children and interrupt a promising career of running round in circles and jumping over things. And when we do have children, our tendency is to make our families smaller and smaller, and we farm out the care of our children so as not to interrupt our careers too much, and we pay child care workers some of the lowest wages in the economy and feel resentful that we should have to pay anything, because the government should provide it… And then we read the Bible, and we’re reminded that children are a precious, precious blessing, to be wept for and prayed for and delighted in and welcomed.
Sometimes, of course, that’s hard to do. It’s hard at times with your own children. When Jacob was born, we got a card from some friends who were a bit further down the parenting path than us, and it simply said: ‘Welcome to the land of poo and wee’. And it stuck in our memories because it’s so true. There is so much that is exhausting and unglamorous and repetitive about bringing up children, especially if you’re staying at home and doing it full time, and they don’t always thank you for it or pay you a bonus at the end of the financial year. It’s hard to see your own children as a blessing sometimes.
And it’s even harder sometimes to feel that way about the children of others. When Nicole and I were getting over our second miscarriage, back before Jacob was born, and it seemed like everyone else in the world was having babies, we were so tempted to run away from other parents and to resent them and to avoid their children – it was painful even being around pregnant women and babies. And yet in the midst of all that we begin to discover that it was such a blessing to have children like Bronte and Remi that we did have a relationship with, and to start experiencing the ways that the children of other people could be a blessing to us – a painful blessing, but a blessing all the same. That’s the first word that Bible has to say about children: that they are a gift and a blessing from God.
…entrusted to us for a short time (Gen 2:24, Luke 9:59-60)
Secondly, the Bible reminds us that children are a blessing from God entrusted to us for such a short time. So the second reference in the Bible to the parent-child relationship is about the end of it – or at least the massive transformation that it goes through when our children leave us. Genesis 2:24 – it’s a marriage verse, but it’s also a parenting verse: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” In the normal course of events, in the way that God has made things as our creator, our children are with us for just two brief decades or thereabouts, and then they leave us and they go to start a new family. Now they don’t forget us completely, of course – we still remain their parents – but they’re not ‘our children’ any more, in the same way that they were when they were growing up. And if we’re Christians, we bring up children not only for the probability that they’ll leave us to go and start a family of their own – we also bring them up in the hope that they will be servants and disciples of Jesus, and with the awareness that this may take them to the other end of the world.
Our children are with us for just a short time, and we bring them up in order to send them out. This is another one of the reasons why the marriage relationship really is the central relationship of the family – not only was it there before the children came, but it will also be there – God willing – long after they move on. It also has big implications for the way we parent, doesn’t it. It means we make the most of this brief season of time that we have with our children (particularly the preschool years when they’re with us all day long) – we realise how soon it will all be over, and we organise our lives to make the most of the opportunity while we have it. You don’t talk to a lot of older people who say: ‘I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time on my kids and put more energy into developing my career.’ You talk to plenty of people who say the reverse of that.
And in this brief twenty years or so we are parenting with an end in mind – with a purpose and a goal. It’s not just about enjoying the blessing of children – as good as that is. It’s not just about caring for them and forming a bond with them – as vital as those things are. Alongside those things, and hand in hand with them, it’s about being purposeful. We bring them up in order to send them out; from their earliest days we are bringing them up in order to send them out into the world to be a blessing. We are preparing them – if God blesses them one day with marriage and children – to be husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. We’re preparing them to be friends, neighbours, citizens – most of all, we’re preparing them to be servants of the gospel of the gospel of Jesus.
…for us to care for them and teach them
Which brings us to the second main point of the sermon this morning: Children are a blessing from God, entrusted to us for a short time, for us to care for them and teach them. In fact, we care for them by teaching them. We don’t just care for them with their present needs in mind – we care for them with the future in mind, preparing them for the life ahead of them. I want to say six brief things about that teaching responsibility that we have – six things that come in three pairs, each of which brings together two things that are different from each other but crucially connected together.
- Gospel… (Deut 6:20-23, Eph 6:4, 2 Tim 3:15)
So, first and foremost and fundamentally, we teach our kids the gospel. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Christ is for us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification. Everything in the end revolves around Jesus. So whatever else we teach them, we must teach them about him. We don’t just want to bring up happy, well-adjusted, polite, intelligent kids with an aptitude for sport and a good sense of humour. We want to bring up kids who know God, and the centre of our knowledge of God is the gospel.
Back in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 6, Moses tells the Israelites: ‘In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?” 21 tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders — great and terrible — upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. 23 But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers.’ The meaning of the law is the story of salvation. The exodus story is the ‘gospel’ of the Old Testament, and everything else is built on that foundation. One generation tells the next the mighty works of God.
It’s the same in the New Testament too. So Paul reminds Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15 about how ‘from infancy’ he was taught the holy Scriptures, ‘which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’.
The Bible never speaks of anyone being born Christian – you don’t inherit a relationship with God automatically. But at the same time the Bible’s very clear expectation is that kids in Christian families grow up with the extraordinary blessing of learning the stories of the scripture and the message of the gospel from their very earliest days. It’s not a guarantee that they will grow up as believers, but it’s the normal means that God uses to bring them to saving faith. And it’s when they’re small – when they’re a year old or younger even – it’s right back there in infancy that we have the opportunity to start establishing those patterns: reading them the Bible night by night, teaching them to pray to God as their father, singing with them about God’s greatness, thanking God for food and drink and for all his good gifts and for Jesus, teaching them the patterns of sin and confession and forgiveness. We are the pastors and the evangelists of our children. It’s not kids’ church; it’s not youth group; it’s not school scripture; it’s our job. We are to teach them the gospel.
- and godliness (Deut 6:4-7, Eph 4:20-24; cf. Prov 1:8-9)
We are to teach them the gospel; and hand in hand with that, we are to teach them what it means to live a life of godliness. The two things are distinct – gospel and godliness – but they always belong together. So in that Old Testament passage, in Deuteronomy 6, the same passage where Moses tells the parents to pass on to their kids the story of salvation, he also tells them to use every opportunity, in every part of life, to keep teaching their kids how to walk in the ways of the LORD. So he says to them – Deuteronomy 6:4 – “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Do you get the picture? He’s saying to parents: Live these things; let them be upon your heart; and teach them to your children, by your words and your example, in every situation in life. Teach them the story of salvation and teach them the commandments of God.
That same combination of gospel and godliness is there in the New Testament, in Ephesians. So Paul tells fathers in Ephesians 6:4 to bring up their children in the ‘training and instruction of the Lord.’ If you want to know what that looks like in more detail, you go back to chapter 4, when he reminds them about the way they were discipled. He talks about it as ‘learning Christ’, and he has in mind both the content of the gospel and the lifestyle that goes with it. ‘Learning Christ’ (or ‘coming to know Christ’, in the NIV) is a process that includes learning a whole way of life – unlearning the ways of paganism and learning the ways of the Lord. So he writes, verse 20: “That is not how you learned Christ. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
And then he goes on to talk about a whole list of specific differences in lifestyle that this involves. And if you’re a parent it’s worth going through the next couple of chapters of Ephesians and listing all the things that he mentions about what ‘learning Christ’ includes. So it’s about learning habits of truthfulness and forgiveness and honest work and generosity and self control in speech, and so on. It’s worth reading through Ephesians 4 and 5 and listing all the habits of godliness that Paul talks about there, and asking: how am I going about teaching my children to walk in those ways?
Or you could go to Proverbs to see the same combination, under the big heading of ‘wisdom’, which begins with the fear of the LORD, and finds expression in all kinds of practical, sensible, ethical behaviour – you could go to Proverbs and make a list of all the key aspects of godly wisdom that children are expected to learn from their parents. We are to teach them the gospel of salvation, and hand in hand with that we are to teach them to live a life of godliness.
- with discipline… (Prov 1:2, 6:20-23, 19:18; Hebrews 12:7-11)
That’s the first pair – gospel and godliness – and it has to do with what we are to teach them. The second pair has more to do with how we are to teach them – we are to teach them with discipline and gentleness. First – and we can stay in Proverbs for this one – we are to teach with discipline. The very opening lines of the book of Proverbs make it clear that there is no wisdom without discipline. “The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: 2 for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; 3 for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair.”
Throughout the book of Proverbs, discipline is the handrail along the path to wisdom. It’s all the way through the book. So, for example, in Proverbs chapter 6 verse 20: “My son, keep your father’s commands and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. 21 Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your neck. 22 When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. 23 For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life.”
There are exhortations to heed discipline, and there are exhortations in the strongest of terms for parents to provide discipline. So, for example, there’s Proverbs 19:18 – “Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death.” Or Proverbs 13 verse 24: “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.”
Why is it so necessary? It’s because we are teaching gospel and godliness to children who have inherited our own sinful hearts. Our children don’t come to us pristine and perfect, waiting for us to mess them up – the aim is not just to do as little damage as possible and let them develop spontaneously. They come to us as inheritors of our own sinfulness, and they need the loving corrections of discipline as part of how we teach them.
What is discipline? It’s not just admonitions and verbal reminders and incentive schemes and taking time out to think about things; it’s not just asking kids to say sorry – although it includes all those things. It also, and inevitably, includes moments of punishment – moments of painful correction motivated by love. You can read the passage in Hebrews 12 and you get exactly the same picture. It must never be about losing your temper and taking it out on the kids; but there are times when it will inevitably involve tears; there is no real discipline that is not painful, and if you keep running away from the short term pain, you are only sowing the seeds of long-term heartache. “Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death.”
- and gentleness (Eph 6:4, Col 3:21, Ps 103:13-14)
We teach our children with discipline, and we are at the same time to teach them with gentleness. So Paul says in Ephesians 6: ‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children.’ Or in Colossians 3 he says: ‘Do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.’ The aim is not to break your child’s spirit, or to crush them, or to make them resentful. We are to imitate both the discipline of God and the compassion of God. So it says in Psalm 103: ‘As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust’. If you are a parent, you need to study your children; you need to know them and understand them so that you can shepherd their hearts, not just condition their outward behaviour.
- as fathers… (Eph 6:4, 1 Thess 2:11-12)
We teach gospel and godliness; we teach with discipline and gentleness. And thirdly, we are to teach as fathers and mothers. Notice in Ephesians 6 the way that Paul particularly points the finger at fathers and reminds them of their responsibilities in the bringing up of their children. It’s not that discipline is the sole preserve of fathers; it’s not that fathers are to be remote and compassionless disciplinarians; it’s not that children are to respect their fathers but not their mothers. But there is a sense throughout the Bible that fathers have a responsibility to take the lead in the family in teaching and in discipline, including at the very heart of that task, teaching their children to respect and obey their mothers.
Fathers, that means spending time with your children. There’s no short cuts, no substitutes. And it also means making sure your kids know and your wife knows that she and you are one; that you talk and pray the whole thing through together, that you plan and pray and debrief and back each other up; that even when you’re not in the house you care about what is going on and you stand beside her in every word that she says. Fathers, you are crucially important to your children.
- and mothers (Prov 1:8-9, 1 Thess 2:7)
And alongside that role for fathers, mothers have an equally vital role, teaching and disciplining as well, but also contributing something unique that goes right back to when they nurse them as babies. So Paul puts the two together in 1 Thessalonians 2, and he reminds the Thessalonians how he was like both a father and a mother in the way he discipled them. 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 7: “As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, 7 but we were gentle among you, like a mother [literally a ‘nursing mother’] caring for her little children.” Then down in verse 11: “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.” We are to teach our children as fathers and as mothers, working together as one.
as people who are ourselves the children of a Heavenly Father
And finally, as the very last point, we are to teach our children as people who are ourselves the children of a Heavenly Father. Parenting is such a huge responsibility, and it carries with it an enormous temptation toward fear and guilt and anxiety and legalism and self-righteousness – it is so tempting to make comparisons with other parents, and to try and bargain with God, and to become obsessed with outward impressions and the opinions of others.
And in the middle of all those pressures and temptations we need to keep remembering that we ourselves have a Father in heaven; and we need to let the responsibilities of parenting keep driving us back into the arms of grace; whatever else we do for our children, we need to pray for them, every day – not as an act of legalism but as exactly the opposite – as an act of dependence on grace. And we need to keep learning to parent not from a heart of fear and guilt but from a heart of trust in God.