Five ways the gospel changes our parenting...

5 Ways the gospel transforms your parenting – Part 1

The assumption that keeping a list of rules can make everything right isn’t limited to arm-twisting seven-year-olds.

By Timothy Paul Jones

“Daddy, you didn’t say anything about twisting people’s arms,” she said, and I discovered how dangerous it can be to make a list of rules for your child.¹

The year that we adopted our oldest daughter, she attended first grade at a nearby Montessori school. There, she had some struggles when it came to interacting constructively with other children. To be specific, when things didn’t go her way in a play-group, someone inevitably ended up hurt, and that “someone” was never her.

Not wanting to be sued by the school or by the parents of my daughter’s classmates, I made a list of practices that civilized people generally perceive as unacceptable ways to respond to one another. This list included the many activities that my daughter had already tried—hitting, kicking, punching, scratching—plus a few that she hadn’t yet considered but probably soon would, such as detonating thermonuclear weaponry on the playground. Each morning, I went through the list with her and pointed out how God calls us to value every person as someone created in his image. Everything went quite smoothly for almost a week. Then, on Friday afternoon, I received a call from the school.

“Your daughter has something that she would like to discuss with you,” the school administrator said. She handed the telephone to my child, and the first words that I heard were, “Daddy, you didn’t say anything about twisting people’s arms.” And she was right. I hadn’t included that action on my list, and I was reminded of the danger of making a list of rules. Once we make a list, it’s easy to assume that everything we should or shouldn’t do is included on the list. As long as we stick with the list, everything is fine—or so we think.

Rules are necessary but never enough

The assumption that keeping a list of rules can make everything right isn’t limited to arm-twisting seven-year-olds. “Human nature after the fall,” a German preacher named Martin Luther once pointed out, “is no longer able to imagine or conceive any way to be made right with God other than works of the law.”² Apart from the grace of God in Christ, every one of us tends to lapse into judging our lives and the lives of others by lists of rules and laws.

The problem is that no list of rules can ever lead us or our children to life.

This isn’t because rules are bad; it’s because we are bad (; ). Lists of rules and laws provide helpful guides to reveal our shortcomings and to restrain evil, but they can never produce the righteousness that leads to life (; ). Only the gospel can fill our lives with true righteousness (; ), and God gives us this righteousness through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, completely apart from any human effort to check off the items on anyone’s lists (; ). “The law,” evangelist D.L. Moody once pointed out, “can pursue a man to Calvary, but no further.”³

As followers of Jesus Christ, we understand the centrality of the gospel and the limits of the law. And yet, when it comes to parenting, it can be difficult to see how the gospel should shape our day-by-day practices of guiding our children. That’s partly because parenting requires a seemingly endless list of rules simply to increase the likelihood that our children survive childhood! If none of us made any rules for our children, our preschoolers would most likely spend their days picking their noses with paper clips, sliding butter knives into electrical outlets, and seeing how long the family’s hamster can survive in the microwave. Even when children and teenagers grow older, they need limits to keep them from pursuing foolish and destructive paths.

The problem is that, sometimes, these lists and limits can become the primary focus of our parenting—despite the fact that we’re fully aware that no law can produce lasting joy in this life or fruit that lasts past this life.

I want to challenge you to ask yourself one simple question: What might look different in my day-by-day practices of parenting if the gospel reshaped my perspectives and priorities?

Before we begin to unpack some possible answers, I must admit to you that I am not speaking to you as a master who has reached a final destination; I’m sharing with you as a pilgrim who is on a journey with you. As the father of children ranging in age from second grade to the second year of college, I am struggling day-by-day to allow the gospel to reshape my practices of parenting, and I am reminded daily that gospel-shaped parenting is difficult. It nails our pride-packed human agendas to a bloody cross and calls us to a purpose far greater than our children’s happiness or success. Perhaps most difficult of all, it requires us to see our children as far more than our children and to release their futures to a God who loves them far more than we ever could. With that in mind, let’s look together at four ways that the gospel can reshape our parenting.

1.The gospel reshapes parenting by Revealing who our children really are

To see how the gospel reshapes parenting, let’s first remind ourselves what the gospel is and what the gospel does. The gospel is the good news that God has inaugurated his reign on earth through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we repent and rely on Christ’s righteousness instead of our own, his kingdom power transforms us, and we become participants in the community of the redeemed. United with Christ through his Spirit, we are adopted as God’s heirs, and we gain a new identity that transcends every earthly status. Husbands and wives, parents and children, orphans and widows, immigrants and citizens, the addict struggling in recovery and the teetotalling grandmother—all of us who are in Christ through the gospel become brothers and sisters, “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (; see also ; –48; ; ; ; ; ; ; ). So what does this mean for us as Christian parents?

It means that our children are far more than our children. Our children are, first and foremost, potential or actual brothers and sisters in Christ.

Viewed in this way, our relationship with our children suddenly takes on a very different meaning. I will remain the father of my daughters until death, but—inasmuch as they embrace the gospel—I will remain their brother for all eternity. As a parent, I am responsible to provide for my daughters and to prepare them for life; as their brother in the gospel, I am called to lay down my life for their sakes (). As a parent, I help them to see their own sin; as their brother, I am willing to confess my own sin (). As a parent, I speak truth into their lives; as a brother, I speak the truth patiently, ever seeking the peace that only the gospel can bring (; ; ; ). As a parent, I discipline my daughters so that they consider the consequences of poor choices; as a brother, I disciple, instruct, and encourage them to chase what is pure and good (; ). As a parent, I help these children to recognize the right path; as their brother in the gospel, I pray for them and seek to restore them when they veer onto the wrong path (; ; ; ).

Your children and mine are also eternal beings whose days will long outlast the rise and fall of all the kingdoms of the earth. They and their children and their children’s children will flit ever so briefly across the face of this earth before being swept away into eternity (). If our children become our brothers and sisters in Christ, their days upon this earth are preparatory for glory that will never end (; ; ). Children are wonderful gifts from God—but they are far more than gifts. Seen from the perspective of the gospel, every child in your household is, first and foremost, a potential or actual brother or sister in Christ. Whatever children stand beside us in eternal glory will not stand beside us as our children. They will stand beside us because—and only because—they have become our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Does this mean that, once a child becomes a brother or sister in Christ through the gospel, the parent-child relationship somehow passes away? Of course not! The gospel doesn’t cancel roles that are rooted in God’s creation. Jesus and Paul freely appealed to the order of God’s creation as a guide for leadership in the Christian community (; ; ; ; ). Far from negating the order of God’s creation, the gospel adds a deeper and richer dimension that fulfills God’s original design.

2.The gospel reshapes parenting by calling parents to become disciple-makers

So what happens when parents begin to see their children as potential or actual brothers and sisters in Christ? The writings of Paul provide us with a hint. The same apostle who called Timothy to encourage younger believers as Christian brothers and sisters also commanded fathers to nurture their offspring “in the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord” (; see also ). In other letters, Paul applied these same two terms—discipline and instruction—to patterns that characterize disciple-making relationships among brothers and sisters in Christ. Discipline described one result of being trained in the words of God (). Instruction implied admonitions and guidance to avoid unwise behaviors and ungodly teachings (; ).

Seen in light of these texts, Paul’s command to nourish children in the “discipline and instruction” of Christ suggests that Paul was calling parents—and particularly fathers—to do far more than merely manage their children’s behaviors and provide their needs. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to relate to our children just as we would respond to non-believers in the world or young believers in our church, speaking the gospel to them and training them in the ways of Christ (). God’s creation and humanity’s fall have positioned parents as providers and disciplinarians. Through the gospel, Christian parents have been called to become disciple-makers as well.

This process of parental disciple-making is likely to look different in every household. In my household, it means a family devotional every Sunday evening, intertwined with daily prayers and weekly discipleship times with each of my children. In another household, it might look like a nightly family devotional combined with spiritual debriefings after movies and sporting events. In still other families, it could take the form of songs and Scriptures memorized in the car during morning commutes. The precise way that you disciple your children is negotiable; the practice itself is not. This is not to suggest, of course, that Christian parents should become their children’s sole instructors in Scripture! After all, the Great Commission to make disciples was given to the whole church as a calling to reach the whole world, including children (). Consistent practices of discipleship should, however, characterize parents’ priorities in every Christian household.

¹This chapter was developed from a transcript of my teaching session in Men’s Leadership School at the Jeffersontown congregation of Sojourn Community Church on February 24, 2016; some portions of that teaching session were drawn from Family Ministry Field Guide (Indianapolis: Wesleyan, 2011) and Practical Family Ministry (Nashville: Randall House, 2015).

²Martin Luther, “Tertia Disputatio: Alia Ratio Iustificandi Hominis Coram Deo,” Quinque Disputationes, thesis 6.

³D.L. Moody, Notes from My Bible (Chicago: Revell, 1895), 152.

3. The gospel reshapes parenting by calling parents to become disciple-makers

So what happens when parents begin to see their children as potential or actual brothers and sisters in Christ? The writings of Paul provide us with a hint. The same apostle who called Timothy to encourage younger believers as Christian brothers and sisters also commanded fathers to nurture their offspring “in the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord” (; see also ). In other letters, Paul applied these same two terms—discipline and instruction—to patterns that characterize disciple-making relationships among brothers and sisters in Christ. Discipline described one result of being trained in the words of God (). Instruction implied admonitions and guidance to avoid unwise behaviors and ungodly teachings (; ).

Seen in light of these texts, Paul’s command to nourish children in the “discipline and instruction” of Christ suggests that Paul was calling parents—and particularly fathers—to do far more than merely manage their children’s behaviors and provide their needs. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to relate to our children just as we would respond to non-believers in the world or young believers in our church, speaking the gospel to them and training them in the ways of Christ (). God’s creation and humanity’s fall have positioned parents as providers and disciplinarians. Through the gospel, Christian parents have been called to become disciple-makers as well.

This process of parental disciple-making is likely to look different in every household. In my household, it means a family devotional every Sunday evening, intertwined with daily prayers and weekly discipleship times with each of my children. In another household, it might look like a nightly family devotional combined with spiritual debriefings after movies and sporting events. In still other families, it could take the form of songs and Scriptures memorized in the car during morning commutes. The precise way that you disciple your children is negotiable; the practice itself is not. This is not to suggest, of course, that Christian parents should become their children’s sole instructors in Scripture! After all, the Great Commission to make disciples was given to the whole church as a calling to reach the whole world, including children (). Consistent practices of discipleship should, however, characterize parents’ priorities in every Christian household.

4. The gospel reshapes parenting by providing us with a purpose larger than this life

A few years ago, parents were asked in a survey how they would know if they had been successful in their parenting. The most popular answers from parents were that successful parenting means raising children who are happy and who have good values. The response that landed closest behind these two had to do with whether the child was vocationally successful.1 If this survey rightly represents parents’ real priorities, fathers and mothers are focused on raising children who act good, feel good, and are financially successful.

Morality, happiness, and success aren’t bad, of course—but they make miserable goals for parenting. When these goals become our definition of successful parenting, the gospel is no longer shaping our day-by-day parental practices. Apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, a focus on good morals tends to result either in self-righteousness or rebellion in our children. Financial success can’t guarantee lasting joy or peace, and what makes our children happy in the short term may not be what aims them toward Jesus Christ in the long term. None of these values lasts past this life. And yet, these are the dominant values in our culture when it comes to parenting.

Now, if children were nothing more than a gift for this life, a single-minded focus on children’s happiness and success might actually make sense. As long as the family’s frenetic schedule secures a spot for the child in a top-tier university, forfeiting intentional spiritual formation for the sake of competitive sports leagues and advanced-placement classes would be understandable—if children were a gift for this life only. Working round-the-clock would be plausible, provided that your children’s friends are visibly impressed with the house you can barely afford. If children were a gift for this life only, it might make sense to raise children with calendars that are full but souls that are empty, captives of the deadly delusion that their value depends on what they accomplish here and now.

But the gospel calls us to seek a purpose for our children that’s far larger than this life.

Even before humanity’s fall into sin, God designed the raising of children to serve as a means for the multiplication of his manifest glory around the globe (). A few bites of forbidden fruit, raising Cain as well as Abel, and a worship service that ended in fratricide took their toll on that first family—but God refused to give up on his first purpose to turn the family into a means for the revelation of his glory. God promised that, through the offspring of Eve, he would send a Redeemer to crush the satanic serpent’s skull and to flood the earth with glory divine (; , ; ). From the beginning to end of God’s plan, the family has been his chosen pathway for the defeat of the darkness, the revelation of his glory, and the passing of his story from one generation to the next.

What this means practically is that we should view our children in light of a larger purpose, as potential bearers of the gospel to generations as yet unborn. In God’s good design, our children will most likely raise children who will in turn beget more children. How we mold our children’s souls while they reside in our households will shape the lives of children who have yet to draw their first gasp of air (). That’s why our primary purpose for our children must not be anything so small and miserable as temporary success.

“For what does it profit someone if he gains the world world but loses his soul?” Jesus asked his first followers (). When it comes to our children, we might ask a similar question: What does it profit your child to gain an academic scholarship and yet never experience consistent prayer and devotional times with his parents? What will it profit my child to succeed in a sport and yet never know the rhythms of a home where we are willing to release any dream at any moment if we become too busy to disciple one another? What will it profit the children all around us in our churches if they are accepted into the finest colleges and yet never leverage their lives for the sake of proclaiming the gospel to the nations?

In the beginning, God infused humanity with a yearning for eternity (). If the scope of our vision for our lives or for the lives of our children shrinks any smaller than eternity, our thirst for eternity will drive us to attempt to fill the emptiness with a multitude of lesser goals and lower gods—including the fleeting happiness and success of our children. When the happiness and success of children becomes the controlling framework for life, parents expect their children to have, to do, and to be more than anyone else, and they are willing to sacrifice family discipleship and the proclamation of the gospel to achieve this objective.

I am not suggesting that successes in academics or athletics or vocation somehow stand outside God’s good plan. Learning and play are joys that God himself wove into the very fabric of creation. Although cursed in the fall, work was also part of God’s good design before the fall (; ). And yet, whenever any activity—no matter how good it may be—becomes amplified to the point that no margin remains for family members to disciple one another or to share the gospel in the world around us, a divinely-designed joy has been distorted into a devil-spawned idol. Our purpose in everything that we do as parents should be to leverage our children’s lives to advance God’s kingdom so that people in every tribe and every nation gain the opportunity to respond in faith to the rightful King of kings.

There are a couple of clauses that I have repeated over and over throughout my children’s lives, particularly when they’re considering vocational possibilities. What I’ve said to them is simply this: “I would rather have you on the other side of the world seeking God’s glory than in a house next door to me seeking your glory, and I would rather have you in a grave in God’s will than in a mansion resisting God’s will.” A few weeks ago, one of my children put these statements to the test.

Our oldest daughter had chosen counseling as her major before starting college, and she was halfway through her first semester of the degree. One afternoon, she met me at a coffee shop, and we began to talk about how she might use her education in the future.

“Dad,” she said after a few minutes, “did you know I’m not in the degree program I’m supposed to be?”

“No,” I said, with a bit of confusion. “What degree should you be in?”

“I’m supposed to be in missions, but I don’t know if I want to be that far from my family.”

This admission opened a door in our conversation, and we stepped through it ever so gingerly, exploring a calling that my daughter had sensed for some time. There were a few tears and a lot of questions, but in the end she settled on switching in her degree from counseling to global studies.

As we got up from our table, she said to me, “You always said you’d rather me be on the other side of the world in God’s will than to be right next to you outside God’s will, but I never knew if that was for real or not.”

The only honest answer I could give her was this: “Neither did I. But I hoped it was; I always hoped.”

God calls us—just as he called our father Abraham—to be willing to release every longing for our children’s safety and success for the sake of obedience to God’s Word (). Not every child will—or should—grow up to be a missionary on the other side of the world. But every child is called to place God’s kingdom first wherever they are, and every Christian parent is called to be willing to seek the spread of God’s kingdom above and beyond every earthly comfort or success. This attitude does not come to us easily. In fact, this willingness doesn’t come from us at all! Nothing less than the work of God through his Holy Spirit can create this willingness within us. And yet, what God asks of us in releasing our children to join his mission is no less than what he himself has already done in Jesus Christ: “He…did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” ().

5. The gospel reshapes parenting by freeing us from the delusion that our value depends on our parenting

The longer I’ve been a parent, the more I’ve found myself taking refuge in one final truth about the gospel and parenting. The truth that has become my refuge is simply this: Because of the grace that comes through the gospel, God’s disposition toward me does not depend on how I perform as a parent. I did nothing to gain God’s favor, and there’s nothing I can do to keep God’s favor. Through faith, I have been adopted in Christ (; ). Because I am in Christ, God the Father can never think anything less of me than he thinks of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

So what does this truth have to do with parenting?

Everything!

Meditate for a moment on the implications of this truth: Because of the gospel, God’s approval of you doesn’t depend on whether you provide your children with everything that everyone else thinks they need. God’s approval of you doesn’t depend on how your children act in the checkout line at the grocery store. It doesn’t depend on whether your children grow up breastfed, potty-trained by two years old, classically educated, and protected from artificial preservatives. It doesn’t even depend on whether your children persist in the faith past the pomp and circumstance of their high school graduations. The good news of the gospel declares that God’s approval of you doesn’t depend on anything you do; it depends solely on what Christ has already done. All that any of us must do—which is really no “doing” at all—is to receive what God in Christ has already done.

The implications of this simple truth for parenting are staggering, and I desperately need to be reminded of these implications every day. Because we no longer have to prove ourselves right through our perfect performances, we can humble ourselves and ask our family’s forgiveness when we fail. When we feel overwhelmed as parents, we can cry out for help. When we say no to commitments that would consume our calendars and our souls, we can do so without the guilt and fear that grow out of our desperate yearning for others’ approval. We can be set free from our nagging desire to demonstrate our own righteousness by demanding that other parents measure up to our family’s standards. We can guide our children toward Christ from a foundation of joy and rest, knowing that God has already delivered to us everything that he demands from us.

There is no list of rules for gospel-shaped parenting, with items you can check off as you complete them. There is, however, Christ himself, who has given us his Word, his Spirit, his people, and his gospel. In all of this, our goal is not merely getting to the end of the day with the same number of children we had at the beginning of the day. Our goal is a kingdom that never ends, and our purpose in parenting is to see this kingdom revealed through our families.

1 Mark Kelly, “LifeWay Research Looks at the Role of Faith in Parenting” (March 24, 2009): www.lifeway.com