Control is not the goal! God’s intention is for us to be tools in His hand to produce heart and life change in our kids’ lives.
Intro
The “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast is a family discipleship resource from Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, that aims to equip you and your family to be on mission with God, to the end of the street and the ends of the Earth.
Andy Owens
Welcome back to another episode of “Gospel Shaped Home.” I’m Andy Owens, the pastor of family discipleship. I’m thankful that you have tuned in, and I’m thankful to be joined by Dave Owen again. Dave, welcome.
Dave Owen
Hey, Andy, great to be here, man. Thanks for having me.
Andy
Yeah. Thankful for you, brother. A lot of times, in your self-deprecating way, you talk about yourself, where you’re from, as if you couldn’t read or anything like that. But you went to college, you went to seminary. Tell us a little bit. Where’d you go to school?
Dave
Yeah, I went to Avery University.
Andy
Why’d you go there?
Dave
Business, play a little golf, and basketball.
Andy
Little basketball, two-sport athlete.
Dave
Yeah, that’s it. Then I studied business, and I then went to Southeastern and did there.
Andy
Dave can read, read well.
Dave
Yes, he can.
Andy
He’s a studied man, but mostly he knows and loves the gospel.
Dave
I do.
Andy
Mastered by that truth. Today, we’re talking about chapter 12, which is titled “Control.” I’ll just go ahead and say upfront, the chapter is really not about control. It’s about how control is important, but not sufficient. Dave, what’s he talking about when he says control?
Dave
Yeah. Andy, I think the opening part of the chapter, he gives all of these pretty…When you start reading it, you’re like, “Oh, that’s good.” But I think what he’s trying to expose for parents is that we probably buy into a controlled mindset that we can actually control our children to the point of shaping them to become a Christian. All those, controlling the environment, controlling their hearts, controlling their actions, rewarding their actions in such a way that would produce this righteous child. So I think that’s what he’s trying to get at, and he’s going to obviously unpack that that doesn’t work.
Andy
That doesn’t work, right. He’s careful to not say, “Hey, we don’t try to control anything.” He’s talking about a loving and humble and wise exercise of authority. We need to control influences. There’s legitimate ways we should seek to control, and part of it is connected to what he calls foundational needs that all human beings have. It’s on page one, where’s it at, 66, 67, 68. Dave, what are these foundational needs he mentions?
Dave
Yeah. He lays them out. What I like about it, Andy, he not only gives the word, but he also gives passages to back those things up. He’s not saying that, “No, you shouldn’t exhort some of these things and lead your kids to these things.” But words like guidance. Yes, we want to be able to guide and protect and instruct. And wisdom and authority, even rules and structure that would serve maybe leading your children to a place of repentance. Understanding and confrontation and discipline and warnings and love and forgiveness and security. So he lays out all of these foundational things. Although they are good, they are these means to the greater good that points us to our hope.
Andy
Yeah, these things, they’re really important. The logical flow of this first part of the chapter is that God provides all of these things for his children and that God calls us to represent him to our children. So therefore, God wants to use us in reliance on him to provide these things for our children, all of these things you just mentioned.
To do that, we have to have a measure of control, to exercise loving control. But what he says that’s startling is, “Even if you’ve done all these things, it’s not enough because there’s a deeper, more foundational need than all these.” So what’s that deeper foundational need?
Dave
Absolutely. What he even says at the bottom of page 169, he calls you to understand that all the other good and needed things that you work to provide for your children aren’t the goal of your parenting, but a means to a greater end.
Andy
That’s right.
Dave
That greater end is really trying to point them to the need of the Savior, the need that it is impossible for you as a parent, for me as a parent, to rescue and redeem our children, but to nurture and control the environment, in a sense, that points them to the Savior, that gives them clarity of understanding that they’re born in sin.
I love Charles Spurgeon. I believe he says, “Our depravity is so great that when we’re born, if we had the physical strength, we would reach up and grab our mother’s neck and demand our milk.” The wanting, even when we come into the world, we’re screaming.
Andy
Come in broken, yeah.
Dave
Broken. The greatest need is to be forgiven, to be rescued from ourself and to know Christ and embrace everything that Christ did that we could not do.
Andy
Amen. Paul Tripp, Charles Spurgeon, this idea is not original to either of them. It comes from the Bible, obviously. He goes to Psalm 51, which is a prayer of David after his sin with Bathsheba, after having her husband Uriah the Hittite murdered. The prophet Nathan had come to him, and he writes these words. I won’t read the whole psalm. But he says, “Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, Oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.” He goes on, but…
Dave
Rich.
Andy
Yeah, such a sweet passage. So what Paul Tripp does is he says, “What we see David dealing with in this psalm sets a whole new agenda for us as parents and what God has called us to do in the lives of our children.” It’s important to see, David does a lot more than say, “Hey, I messed up. I’m sorry.” He’s looking at more than a behavior problem, more than a specific action. He’s looking at something deep in his heart.
So Paul Tripp pulls out six agenda-setting observations. I’m going to read them, and we’ll just discuss them up for a minute. Chop it up, all right?
Dave
Let’s go.
Andy
You like that phrase, chop it up. Right?
Dave
Let’s go. Let’s go.
Andy
Number one, your children need to see their sin so they’ll cry out for God’s mercy. What’s he mean?
Dave
Yeah. I’ve always said this over the years, “The depth to which we see our sin affects the height of our worship of the Savior.” If we don’t see ourselves as that bad, then he’s not that great. I think that the need that we have to really teach our children that they’re not bad kids and we’re trying to make them good, they’re dead in their sin.
Andy
And only God…
Dave
And only God…
Andy
…can make them alive.
Dave
“But God is rich in mercy…”
Andy
Amen.
Dave
… Ephesians says, can make them alive. I think that’s what he’s trying to get at.
Andy
Yeah. He says it almost the same way, but we won’t cry out for mercy if we don’t see our sin. So as a parent, we have to lovingly, patiently point them to see what’s in their heart so that they’ll cry out for mercy.
Dave
That’s right.
Andy
That’s right. Thanks again for joining us. That was the first half of Dave and I’s conversation about chapter 12, “Control,” in Paul Tripp’s excellent book, “Parenting.” We hope to catch you next week for the second half of our discussion through this chapter. May the Lord bless you, make his face to shine upon you.
Outro
Thanks for listening to this episode of the “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast produced by Providence Baptist Church of Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information and resources from Providence, visit us online at pray.org. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.