According to God’s wise and loving design, kids are nurtured and grow to know Him, in the context of a healthy, gospel-displaying marriage.
Intro
The “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast is a family discipleship resource from Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. It 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.” Lord willing, if we live and the Lord enables us to do so, we hope to start releasing a second episode each week. You know that we’ve been reading through Don Whitney’s little book, Family Worship, and we’re about to dive into Paul Tripp’s book, Parenting. We also hope to each week have some conversations with folks from Providence about other aspects of family discipleship, and I did want to say this isn’t just a parenting podcast.
We’ll probably talk about parenting a lot, but it’s a family discipleship podcast, and it necessarily includes more than just parenting. We’ll talk about things like marriage and hospitality and ministry and our community and missions, all sorts of things, but today specifically, we want to talk about the connection between a gospel-empowered marriage and healthy gospel-shaped parenting. And to do that, I’m joined by Brian and Tabatha Frost. Welcome guys.
Tabatha Frost
Morning Andy.
Brian Frost
Absolutely. Yeah.
Andy
So glad you guys are here. Let me start out by just asking, how can a healthy marriage be like a greenhouse for raising kids?
Brian
Yeah, so as you think about that term, what is a greenhouse? It’s a controlled environment that allows things of importance to grow and to even flourish. Where if there was no greenhouse, perhaps in that place or at that time, those things will not be able to grow. As you think about life, we live in a broken world where there’s sin, where there’s tremendous selfishness where there’s strife in so many relationships. The very hope that we have, that our kids can thrive and flourish and the very hope that we have that our even marriages and families can, is we have to have another greenhouse.
As you open up the Bible, what you see is that there is one ultimate greenhouse, and that’s the gospel. Where God in His love, He created us, and then we sinned against God. This tidal wave of brokenness swept over the earth. But in His love, He made a promise. Then he made good on his promise to send his son to rescue us, to live without sin, He died on a cross, He was buried, He rose from the dead. And then He says, that for everyone who would put their faith in Christ, that he would not only forgive them of their sin, but He would actually bring them into his family. Into this amazing greenhouse where His spirit would move within us, where his word would guide us, where other family members would be there to encourage us.
When you look at the Bible then, this gospel is this amazing greenhouse, the only one that allows us personally to live and to love and to flourish on this earth. Then God says, that He has even made marriage to be the living display of the gospel on the earth, So that when you have real people, and they look at a man and his wife who love Christ and who have received grace from Christ, and then they give that grace to each other. It allows the marriage in what is a very risky place in this…
Andy
A lot of vulnerability in marriage.
Brian
A lot of vulnerability to where in the controlled environment though of the gospel where we constantly receive more grace than we even need. Where his grace abounds more and more in our life that marriage can then thrive. When you place little hearts and little kids into that home, it’s the love, and it’s the grace that a man and his wife gives to each other that actually allows those kids to then grow in an environment that otherwise would be damaging because they’re sinful and they are unpredictable and they make mistakes and the parents make a lot of mistakes. And so, it’s the gospel that is modeled by the marriage that really allows these young kids that are like young plants to grow and to bear fruit and to even flourish.
Andy
Gospel is in a sense, the ultimate greenhouse. Bringing life and fruitfulness from death. Beauty from ashes. So Tabatha, how about in your own home and your all family? How have you seen your kids flourishing or your parenting shaped by this gospel hope in your marriage and the way your marriage is built around the gospel?
Tabatha
Well, for parenting, knowing that I’m parenting with someone who holds God’s Word as his authority and who tries to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh is such a blessing. I think the kids get to see that close up when they see us having disagreements or when they see us parenting in a way that obviously needs God’s grace to work in it. We show them, remind them that that’s how we also need Jesus. They see our failures close up but they also see…
Andy
What, you guys have fights?
Tabatha
I know, it’s hard to believe. Right? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my boys, “That’s why I need Jesus.” They get to see it close up, us saying I’m not getting it right all the time. But God’s grace is sufficient for our needs in marriage and in His grace is so sufficient for our needs and in parenting. Other than giving specific examples, I don’t know what else I should say.
Andy
There’s a sense in which you know because sin is fundamentally antisocial, I don’t know if fundamentally is the right word there. It is significantly antisocial. It breaks our relationships with God, but also our relationships with other people. The gospel restores both our relationship with God and our relationships with other people. And so, to see the healing effects, the transforming effects of the gospel, we in a sense, have to be in a relationship with others, right? You know, we love God, and we love neighbor. So, for our kids, they … We talk a lot about modeling as a tool of disciple-making in the home. Our kids need to see our own relationships constantly being renewed, being restored, being repaired by the grace of God, and Jesus as we confess sin as we ask for and extend forgiveness to one another and…
Brian
That’s right.
Andy
Other practical?
Brian
Yeah, so you know, we have three sons, and so that puts five sinners in one house, at least for right now. What we have seen certainly through the years in our kids is that they’ve actually in their unpredictability and failure and sin, they have seen us seek to forgive each other and to forgive them so many times that even at times when we’re seeking to correct them, to try in that moment to say, you know there’s truth and there’s love, that’s why I want to share this with you. We care for you deeply, you have violated this, there is a consequence.
And yet, in that moment, to be able to share with them the gospel that they have seen applied in our lives. What it’s done for them, is that even though they know now, more than ever before, that they are sinful, it has produced in them a confidence in how they live. That there’s nothing that they can do that would separate them from God’s love and indeed even from our love, because they’ve seen the gospel, they’ve seen forgiveness at work over and over and over, all the way through their life.
Andy
And ultimately you guys wouldn’t have that love to give to them if you weren’t receiving that love from God through Christ. So that’s just another way that the gospel is constantly giving shape to and empowering parenting that honors God, and that really blesses our kids.
One quick question here. We’re talking about marriage is like a greenhouse and the importance of a healthy marriage to healthy parenting. What about kids who are in a home where, because of sin, because of brokenness, because of all sorts of circumstances that people find themselves in, there’s only one parent, or maybe the parents are just not on the same page to have that you’re talking about—just that alignment of priorities that you guys have. There’s a lot of homes where there’s maybe polar opposite priorities, values, ambitions, or just lots of homes where there’s only one parent. Are those kids destined to be less fruitful? How does God make up for that in his grace?
Tabatha
I think what Brian said, to begin with, is the gospel is the ultimate greenhouse. And so it’s not good parenting that is putting the shelter over those children. Although that is essential, and I think that’s God’s great plan, is to have gospel-centered parenting be a strong protection for our children. But when that’s not there, I think God fills in the gaps with his church. That’s why we have the body that feels in and builds up that reinforces the gospel in those kids’ lives that may not have a marriage to look to in their parents. They have a body of believers that also shared some of that gospel message and that truth where they have other people pouring in that truth into their lives where the marriage may not necessarily be what they want to look too.
Andy
That’s good. Daniel and I had said something similar; I think last week is that family worship is not the gospel. The gospel is the gospel.
Tabatha
The gospel is the gospel.
Andy
Healthy marriage is not the gospel. It’s a means of God’s grace, and it’s God’s designed, but even when that is broken, and even when sin abounds, God’s grace abounds all the more.
Tabatha
Amen.
Brian
That’s right.
Tabatha
Any last words of encouragement from either of you for our parents who are thinking about trying to raise their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, how, why they should think about the gospel constantly empowering and transforming their marriage as well?
Brian
I guess just two last thoughts. One is certainly for those who call Providence their home would just reiterate the importance of the gospel. It’s the only thing powerful enough to save us and to transform our lives and so to continue to press in, to grow deeper in the gospel. And then the second thing I would say is, for those in our church family who are single parents we want you to know that we deeply love you and that we admire you and we respect you, and we want to help you and the world that’s broken, that is threatening, that may have contributed or that has contributed to you being in the place that you’re at. God has supplemented you with the church. We want to be faithful to help in that process. I just want you to know that we love you, admire you, and are so happy that you’re seeking to raise your kids to love the Lord.
Tabatha
I would say one more thing, and I know we’re wrapping it up.
Andy
Go for it.
Tabatha
I would say that we’re going to fail and the church is going to fail, but God and His Word never fails so as parents. I think it’s really important to constantly point your kids to the truth of God’s word because that is going to be an anchor for your soul, and that’s what’s going to help your kids to know the truth when you might not be an accurate display of it.
Andy
That’s right.
Tabatha
Keep bringing them back to God’s word, I think.
Andy
Amen. Amen. Well, thank you guys so much and thank you, listener, for joining us. We hope that you’ve been encouraged. Hope that your hearts are strengthened by God’s grace in Jesus, and we hope to see you next time.
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.