87. Freedom in Parenting Pt 2

Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, John Holyfield and James Safer. Welcome back everybody to the For Freedom Podcast. And we are here this week. We talked last week about parenting and we're sort of referring back to some things that our friend Jim Neuheiser wrote. And parenting is more than a formula. Talking about legalistic formulas within parenting. And so we're going to finish that talk up today. James, how are you doing today? Doing well, John. It's been a blessing to serve the Lord and to be in ministry where we're at. And it's just been a blessing to see my son started baseball and got to head up baseball practice. We won our first game of football. And I'm coaching a little flag football team in my wife's school. And it's been a blessing just to be able to influence some of those kids. There's one guy that I've been mentoring those last couple of weeks. His dad is an atheist, John. He's in a Christian school. And he's my quarterback. And so I took him to lunch a couple times. And it's been great just to be able to get to know him, answer some of those questions that he's had in Scripture. But also just, you know, as his dad's an atheist, he believes that there is no God. He doesn't even understand why they're in a Christian school. And his mom is struggling with some things. And it's just been a great talk. It's been a great time just to be able to influence and impact his life a little bit. But, yeah, it's been great. Good deal. Good deal. Going great. Just working and pastoring and doing that kind of stuff. You work, John? Yeah. And then my son likes to play Mario. And we got this old Mario game. So we all get four controllers. And we just play Mario together. You use four controllers at once? Like you've got four controllers? Or four people have a controller? We have four controllers. You said we all get four controllers. So I'm just confusing your wording there. No, we all get four controllers. Everybody has a controller. We've got four people playing. You see how words can sometimes mess up the meaning when you say things like that? I know. I know. The English language. The English language. Which leads us into Proverbs 22.6. Well, come on. I was trying to segue. Come on. I was trying to do like we did last week. Have a great little segue. All right. So we left off last week talking about this. And I said I was going to explain this passage. But Proverbs 22.6 has been a very misunderstood passage that a lot of people take as a surefire promise that your kids are going to turn out right. It says, train up a child in the way that he should go. When he is old, he will not depart from it. I think some of the problems with this is that the way it's been translated into English. But number one, you have to understand what the context is. And the context is that it's in the book of Proverbs. And what is Proverbs? Proverbs is wisdom literature. It's wisdom literature. What is wisdom literature? You go through the entire book of Proverbs and you see this often. Wisdom literature comes in the form of warnings. It's warning. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. Be careful for this. Watch out for this. You look through the whole book of Proverbs, you see a lot of that. It's warnings. What this is is not a promise. It's a warning. All right? That you need to train up a child in the way that they go. All right? So they won't depart from that. Now, it goes a little bit deeper than that. It's not a promise. It's a warning to train up the child in the way that they should go. But it goes a little bit deeper than that. It says that train up a child in the way. That word way comes from a Hebrew word. It actually goes back to the root word is that of your palate. And it was used in the form of – it was used in language as nursing mothers trying to develop the palate of their infants to take their milk. So it was trying to develop their palate so they could take that. All right? So understand that word and that way. It is train up a child in the way that they should go. That Hebrew construction right there is really saying this. Train them up in their way. I love how Chuck Spindall explains this verse. He says that – think of it like a bent. Each child has a certain bent or way that they are made. We often refer to this to their personality. And what it's saying is train them up in that way. If you train them up in that way, that's the way they will go. Now, you can use that training to hurt your child. You can use the training to bless your child. But whatever personality or way that they go, encourage that. Train them up in that way. Another psalm that sort of says it like it goes along with it is children are like arrows in the hands of a mighty man. And you pull that arrow back and you shoot it. And there it's gone. You are trying to aim that direction that they're going. Okay, so it's – the first thing you have to understand in training your child is paying attention to them and learning what their way is. What is their personality like? A good illustration of this, John. I can reprimand Brody a little bit if he's doing something wrong. And he'll just stand there and look at me. Hudson's the same way. He's a lot like me. If I reprimand him or if I do something and tell him he's wrong, they know they did wrong. They just sit there. With Jade – and some guys are like this too. It's not just because Jade's my daughter. If I raise my voice or if I say you shouldn't have done that in the wrong tone, she'll break down in tears and run to her room. Two different ways. I'm saying the same thing. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do that. Brody's like, all right, Dad, you're right. But Jade, her life is broken in that moment. And so for me, I've got to understand as a parent how I respond to those situations. Maybe I don't raise my voice at Jade. Maybe we have a conversation about those things. Brody understands. She just thinks I'm getting mad at her. And so it is the way that they are. It is their personality, like you said. And it's understanding their emotions and who they are. Sometimes you may say it to your blue in the face. They don't even understand it until you've got to change the approach of how we parent and how we discipline in certain areas. Well, and again, it's understanding that they have different personalities and working with them where they're at. And even that even changes as they get older as well. And so that's the idea that's coming across. It's not a promise. It's not saying this. It's saying that, you know, you're going to – it's really along the same lines as that other verse. It's like they're an arrow. You're sending them out. You're aiming that. And what direction are you going to aim it in and that kind of thing. And for any of our Mandalorian fans out there, David did get this – or Solomon got this thought of this is the way from the Mandalorian. This is the way. This is the way. All right. So we're going to continue on with some of these notes that we have for this discussion on parenting. You know, we talked about these formulas. A lot of times when failure does happen within the home, a lot of these places, the failure is blamed on a failure to follow their formula or keep their law, which we sort of said last time is very much like this wealth, name it, claim it, health, wealth, prosperity gospel. If you failed, it's your fault, not our fault. But – and James mentioned I think last time what about Judas. But also what about Cain? Yeah. You know, if their formula wasn't there, then, you know, what kind of – how perfect was things when Cain was around? All right? God was the one who instructed him and admonished him. And what did he do? He went out and murdered his brother. You know, are we saying that God just totally failed the formula? Yeah. Yeah. And I like how Jim put it here. He made a statement that said this – following these formulas and advocating a certain formula puts you in what he calls parental determinism. Wow, that was a hard word to get at. Where it's basically just a belief that how well you follow this formula is how your kids are going to turn out. And what does – John, what does this turn into? Where does all the responsibility and blame put at? Yeah. It's on you. It's all focused on me. Okay? Me, myself, and I. I didn't follow the formula well enough. I didn't do this. I didn't – all of a sudden, you are the ultimate soul of authority in everything that happens. Which – In reality, one of the last ones we said was last week, God's sovereignty in those children and allowing them to make that choice to follow him or not. It falls back on that child to make the decisions. Parents, yes, you have to have – you have to raise your kids right. You have to do what is right. But it does not fall – all responsibility does not fall directly on you based on how your kids turn out. Well, and take that to the other end. Like what happens if they do turn out right? And you think that it was on you. It develops a pride. You write a book and you tell millions of copies about how great your parenting was. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. All of this formula. I did it. Look at my kids. I had seven of them. They all serve the Lord now. Look at me. Look at me. Yeah. And it's not about that. It's all about me. Yeah, we're supposed to be pointing to Christ and the gospel and to God. Moralistic formulas can also create kids who are Pharisees with the outside of the cup looking clean while the inside of the cup remains filthy. You know, I think this can get to the point where a lot of people say, you know, James, you talked about this, parents that will say, we did this, we did this, we did this, and they were such a great kid. And then they become an adult and they do something. And it's like, where did that come from? I just don't understand. They were always such a good kid. And what was going on? The outside of the cup was clean while the inside, the heart, was black and filthy. Lees Fitzpatrick said this, obedience, which isn't motivated by love for God and his grace, is dangerous. And so we got to be very on guard that we're not cultivating Pharisaical children and a Pharisaical mindset in our home with that. You know, one of the things, John, Ian, I noticed this in Israel, and I got a picture of it somewhere, I may have mentioned it a couple weeks ago, was when we were riding in Jerusalem, there on the mountainside of the Mount of Olives and beside the Eastern Gate there, there is a massive graveyard that dates back prior to even Jesus' death when he was here. So those graves would have been there. It's the most famous graveside in all of the world. People, royalty pay to get buried there. And all the tombs are above ground. They're not underground like we're used to. And the guy was telling us his story about it. And as we're riding around, one of the guys pointed out, he said, guys, look over there. He said, all those tombs, they keep them in immaculate. Awesome. They're white. They're clean. They're perfect condition. He said, the people inside are disgusted. They're dead. They're just dead men's bones. He said, it makes me wonder, is Jesus pointing to those graves over there and saying, Pharisees, you're like those whitewashed tombs. You've kept them perfectly clean on the outside so everyone thinks how perfect they are. But on the inside, you're dead men's bones. And it really brought that image to life because that would have very likely been where Jesus was pointing to when he was teaching that. And this is this whole thing, this pharisaical parenting, because you begin to say, look how perfect my kids are. When in reality, they're sinful human beings like all of us are. And they're putting on this facade just so parents are okay with it. Which brings us to this point. Parenting is not about following the right book, the right teacher, the right method, or the right formula. It's about the gospel. Parenting is about the gospel. And so what we want to be concerned about is parenting the gospel with our children. And understanding this, can we save our kids? Absolutely not. If we can't save our kids, then who are we then dependent upon to save our kids? The one and only Jesus Christ, son. Yeah. Yeah. And so then we depend upon him. So therefore, we are dependent upon his grace on our children. Which causes us to go to him more and be more dependent upon him. And to seek his grace as we are working with our children. In the hard days. In the good days. In the easy days. And in the days that just break our heart. That we are searching to God and we are leaning on God and his grace. And not that we've done the right thing. Or checking the checklist that we did this in our parenting day. They cannot be saved by our works. And get this. They cannot be saved by their works either. And they need to understand that. Yeah. And when they understand that. That's when they begin to understand they need a savior. When they begin to understand that their own good deeds can't save themselves. So John, parenting is more about God than you or your own kids. This is from Leslie Leland. Parenting is your highest calling. And eight other myths that trap us into worry and guilt. And so we're going to give you seven thoughts here from this. That Jim lays out for us. And then we'll give you two concluding statements. John, the first one is. Parenting is about fulfilling God's purposes. Not our agenda. Give us some thought on that. Well, it's about what do you need to know in order to know God's purposes? Well, first of all, you need to know God. And that's why I think coming back to a theology proper and knowing a theology of God is so important for every Christian. But then on top of that, knowing God's purposes is about knowing God's word. And so knowing what God desires of his people. But when it comes down to it, it's not a duty that we're supposed to be working at, doing all these things. It's a relationship that we do these things out of love. We live in obedience out of love. Not out of this idea of that we're going to be pleasing, more pleasing to God or get more blessing from God or God will think better of us. Listen, that happened at the cross. And so fulfilling God's purposes must be born from a heart of love for God. And we only strengthen our love for God when we truly know who God is. Yeah, which leads us right into the next one. Putting God first frees us to better love our children. We love God. We're going to love others. How are people going to know? How is the world going to know that we're disciples of Jesus? By our love for one another. And if we are only consumed about, am I doing, again, what I said at the beginning of last week, X, Y, and Z should equal this area. If I'm only consumed about a formula, if I'm only consumed about making sure these certain seven things are done right, all of a sudden, that's what I'm going to be consumed in. And my kids are never going to know the love that I have for them. And I love my kids more than anything in the entire world. And so if I am only consumed with some man-made formula or some man-made ideology, my kids will never see the love that I have for them. And so we put God first, and then we love our kids as Christ loves us. And we emulate that. We show them that. We love them unconditionally. They make mistakes. We make mistakes. We love them. We talk them through it. We're there for them. We love them through it. Okay? We look at Peter. When Peter denied Jesus, Peter left, went back to fishing. He went back to his own ways. And what did Jesus do? He came back. He sat on the seashore, and he said, Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Come back to me. Come back. I love you as well. Come back and experience the grace that only I can give, the forgiveness that I can give you. And when we begin to parent that way, when we begin to show that forgiveness and to show love toward our kids, we begin to see a holy, great work of God in our lives. Next, God parents us for holiness, not happiness. Right. James, I can't begin to tell you how many times I think people get into things in life because they think that it's about them being happy. Or even they think that their relationship with God is about them being happy. I read somewhere somebody put on their statement about beliefs, and they said, number one, we believe that the purpose for man, for everybody, is to be happy. That is not. John was spurred the chief end of man is what? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. Right. And so if you think you're going into marriage to be happy, the purpose of your marriage is for your happiness, you're going to be wildly disappointed because it's not. It's to glorify God. And the same thing with your parenting. If you think that the reason for having children is so that it will make you more fulfilled and you more happy, you are going to come to pieces because it will not. That is just setting up another idol for you to worship in your heart that will ultimately disappoint you. The ultimate purpose is to glorify God and that he wants us to parent for holiness, not happiness. Yeah. This next one is the one that gets me, even to this day, John. This is the one that I struggle with the absolute most in my parenting because I am, as I said last week, and I'll say it again this week, I am a guy who is numbers and formula math driven. That's just the way God hardwired me. Okay. And so I love the show, The Prophet. I love watching Marcus Lamonis and he'll come in and he'll correct the process to make the product great. And I love watching that side of it. And so when I evaluate my parenting, I want to go through it. I want to do the opposite of this because parenting is more about people than it is the process. And so often we get focused on the process and forget about the people. And we begin to focus on the nuts and bolts, I guess you could say, of what to do and how to do it and doing it the right way, which I'm not saying you shouldn't do it the right way. I'm not saying you shouldn't do things decently and in order. But what I'm saying is when we're only focusing on the process, we lose sight of the people that are right there in front of us. We lose, we get to this mindset and it happens a lot in business culture where everyone's just a number. Hey, I'm just number seven. I had a guy that did our men's devotion just a couple weeks ago. He said, I work for XPO Logistics. And he said, no one knows my name. He said, I'm number 05076. He said, when I go and I check in, I don't say Dan Alford's here to get his shipment. I say 05076 is here to get my shipment. They'll look at me and say, all right, XPO 05076, your shipment's out on number seven. He said, I am just a number to them. And too often our kids can become a number and it's just a process. When they are people, they are people that God sent his son to die for, that he has shown them the grace that only he can give. And yet we treat them as a process instead of a person. God calls us to be faithful, not successful. And I think this is a big thing in Christendom altogether is how we're defining success. How are we defining success? As measurable, numerical, metric, big, size. You know, that's how the world defines success. God defines success in faithfulness and obedience. And so, but the problem we don't like about that is that it's not measurable. We want to be able to gauge success by measuring it. Therefore, if we have this amount or this thing happening or this thing going, then therefore we can say this is being successful. But that's not how God does it. Because God's measure of success is faithfulness. Yeah. And it's like, well, how do we know we're being more successful today than we were yesterday if we're doing the same thing and we're not seeing any different results? And it's like, no, this is a marathon. This is a walk. And his gauge of success, what he's called us to do is to be faithful. You know, sometimes... You know how we judge faithfulness? How? We judge faithfulness by saying, at the end of our life, well done. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. And he determines that. At the end of our life. And he determines it, not us. Yeah. That's... I think some parents probably need to hear, like, you know, you need to chunk the formula. Just spend some time having fun with your kids. Yeah. Just let, like, and forget on the time limit. Just enjoy them and have fun with them and see that they're having fun, too. We must rely... One of the greatest things... Go ahead. One of the greatest things right now, John, we're building a deck on the back of the house. And, you know, we're taking the old deck down, putting a new one up. Bigger, better deck. And the other day, right before we had started, we were digging some holes and getting some things ready. And Brody camped to me that night. And he said, Dad... He said, can I help you build the deck tomorrow when you're out there? You know what my response was? Absolutely not. You're not a man yet. No. I said, absolutely, son. Let's get out there. Get you a hammer. Get your drill. Get a level. Let's go have some fun. Let's beat some boards together and see what happens. And when his face lit up when I said, let's just go hang out and have some fun. Because he just wants to spend time with Dad. Building a bond park. Doing things together. Loving life together. We must... John, as you were saying, we must rely upon God rather than the formulas. And then the last thing, John, before we give our concluding thoughts. Our ultimate hope is in God. Not our kids. Please, please, please, please, please, please do not allow your children to set up as an idol in your heart. Yeah. Do not worship at the idolatry of your children. Do not make your children the place where you worship. So many times we take a love and joy of our kids to an unhealthy place when we set them up in the place of God. And dethrone your children as that place of idolatry. And go back to worshiping God. Place your hope in God. Not whether your kids are going to turn out the way that you've deemed as good or right. Or as a reflection on your parenting. On how they turn out. Okay. Put your hope in God. Yeah. Last two thoughts, John. And we'll finish up today. And thank you guys for listening and being a part of this episode. The first is this. Gospel parenting isn't just another formula. I want you to understand that. That it's not. Okay. The gospel parenting is another formula that I'm going to add to my toolbox. It is the only way we can parent our kids. Is by adding the gospel to our parenting. And making the gospel the center focus of everything we do in our life as a parent. Of the born again believer of Jesus Christ. And so gospel parenting is more than that. It is the only way. And there's not a cookie cutter way to do it. Oh. There's not a cookie cutter way to do it. You know. You can get some good tips here. You can get some good tips there. You know. We'll recommend a book for you. We'll recommend a couple of resources for you. But those aren't going to offer you this surefire one, two, three steps of you do this with your kids and they'll do this. Okay. It's going to help you arrange your thoughts and your heart in a way that you can just love your kids. And lead them and guide them to Jesus. Yep. And then the last thing, John. God is teaching us to graciously love our sinful children just as he loves us. God showed us grace. God commends his love toward us in that while we were what? Yet sinners. Christ died for us anyways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so we need to show that love to our kids and then point them to Christ. You know. And that's what it's about. It's about bringing the gospel to our children. That's right. That's good. John, any closing thoughts? Well. To finish up today? Again, the mini book. Just so you. We didn't say this last time. But this book by Jim Neuheiser is about 75 pages. I mean, it's a short book. It's a small book. And it's about 75 pages. It's worth your time reading that. I want to recommend one that I really enjoyed. Again, I actually picked it up looking for a formula. And whenever I read it, I was like, this is not giving me the formula. But it was changing me like so much. And I thought it was fantastic. It's simply called Parenting, 12 Gospel Principles for Raising Your Children by Paul David Tripp. All right. And it is fantastic. It's fantastic at rearranging your mentality and your heart towards gospel-centered parenting. And so I highly recommend that resource when it comes to parenting. There's one by Elise Fitzpatrick for Mothers called Give Them Grace. And we'll try to link both of those in the show notes. But those are two great books for that. And then next week, James, tell them about next week. Next week, we've got a returning guest, Sean Perron. And I did a solo episode with him last year. John was out of town or something. I can't remember what happened. He wasn't able to be on here. So Lord willing, we're going to have him on here as a guest. And we're going to be talking about helping hurting children. He did a seminar teaching lesson two years ago in Charlotte at the ACBC Conference. And I have used these notes to help other pastors, to help parents. I don't know how many times since I've heard it. So it has been a blessing to me. And so I reached out to him and his secretary about getting him lined up. And so we have him lined up to record. And we're going to walk through those notes, have him give some specifics on some areas. It's a case study that he's actually currently been counseling. I don't know if he still is. But at the time, two years ago, he was a young girl. And some helps that he can give us if we've got hurting kids or how we can actually help kids that have been hurt. And he gives through some main areas of how to identify these things. So I'm looking forward to it. I love Sean's material. I love listening to him. He's a great wise man. He's wise down in his years. I think we're the same age. Me and John and him are all the same age. But I feel like he's just so much more wise than I am. Which doesn't take a lot. But he's a great tool and asset for my ministry that I've really enjoyed learning and leading from him. So that's what we're looking at next week. Awesome. Awesome. And so we thank you guys for listening. And if you've got any questions or comments, just reach out to us. But we'll be moving on. I think in April we're also going to try to tackle the subject of anxiety. So we're very excited about that. But until then, to God be the glory. Sola Deo Gloria. I found my new name. I found that good grace. I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed the content of the podcast, please do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing the podcast on whatever podcast platform you listen to. 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