Our children’s behavior is going to be shaped by whatever controls their hearts. And God gives parents the privilege of helping their kids see that connection over and over.
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.” I’m Andy Owens. And once again, I’m joined by Mark Celoria. Mark welcome back.
Mark Celoria
Thanks Andy. Hey everybody.
Andy
Mark, just to help our listeners get to know you a little more, what’s something you’d like to eat.
Mark
Mellow Mushroom pizza. Hallelujah.
Andy
That stuff is good. Where’s somewhere you like to go?
Mark
Lately the beach.
Andy
The beach. Okay. And what’s something you like to do?
Mark
Board games, and specifically solo board games. I know that sounds pathetic but it’s like somebody doing a puzzle or Sudoku, got a little man corner at our house and I just enjoy the mental effort it takes to win some of these games it’s fun.
Andy
That’s fun. You used to have another hobby too, right?
Mark
I did, another childish hobby, Legos. But yeah, I gave that up when I became a man. I gave up childish things.
Andy
Childish ways.
Mark
Yeah that’s right still working on that.
Andy
Well again, thankful you’re here brother. So chapter 10 of Paul Tripp’s book “Parenting” is about character and he explains what he means by character by setting a scene that we can all relate to probably to some degree. At the beginning of the chapter is a mom who is trying to get ready for dinner guests and she’s stressed, she’s behind and her three elementary aged kids, who are old enough to recognize she’s having a hard time, and also old enough to help, are playing video games. And they are very content to keep playing games and ignore mom’s distress and not offer any help.
And Paul Tripp says, “If we don’t recognize the need to proactively shape our children’s character, we’re going to miss a lot of opportunities.” There are sins of commission, things we actively do to disobey, we lie, we steal, we hit, we rebel actively. He says you can’t just address these active rebellion you also have to address the lack of character, so sins of omission. We’re called to worship God, love God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. We’re called to show kindness, to practice humility, and patience, and gentleness, and ultimately to love one another.
And so, I think we could summarize his call to shape character to in the phrase being conformed in every way to Jesus, being shaped more and more like Christ. And he starts the chapter talking about several encouragements to parents, ways we should pray first, talk to the Lord before we talk to our kids. We shouldn’t respond with lack of character to try to develop character in them. But one of the biggest things and really what the chapter is about is our need to help our children make a connection. He calls it a stunning connection. Mark, what is that connection that he says we need to help our kids make if we’re going to cultivate character?
Mark
Right, just worship is at the center of our character, is what we love that defines our actions. The things that we love will motivate us to behave in certain ways. And so of course, as Christians, Christian parents, we want our children to love God first. If we can figure that out, if we can lead our children to just love God, we know God’s word teaches us very clearly that live a life worthy of the gospel, that’s where the behavior will flow from that, but so worship is really the center.
Andy
He says there’s a war going on for the control of our kids’ hearts and our own hearts as well and that’s what he’s talking about, about worship. It’s not like, “Hey, do my kids bow down to an idol of wood and stone or do they worship God?” It’s, “Hey, what we worship is connected to what, is ultimately what controls our hearts.”
Mark
And worship, they could be worshiping something that’s very good like they might worship excellence. And so, their identity is wrapped up in how well they do academically, etc. Yeah oh yeah. And so, sometimes we take a good thing and we make it an ultimate thing and that’s what idolatry is. We’re not always talking about self-destructive things but I think that’s an important distinction.
Andy
Yeah. And he’s not making this up on his own, he’s getting it from Romans one. In Romans one it says that humanity has exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. And as a result of this refusal to acknowledge God, to give thanks to him, it says that a few verses later they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They were full of envy murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, it goes on and on. There’s all sorts of things, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
And he’s making the point that there is a direct connection to whatever is controlling, ruling our heart that’s going to shape how we respond to the world, to others in our life, to our parents, but our kids don’t see it. And so God, in his kindness, puts us in their lives to help them make this connection. So, to get practical, on page 142 he has this paragraph that I’d like us to walk through a little bit. If your child’s heart is ruled by a desire for control what’s he going to do?
Mark
They probably fight your authority every time. They want to be in control.
Andy
What if your kid wants above all to be right, that’s the desire ruling his heart?
Mark
Just an endless argument, refusal to learn and to admit that they need guidance.
Andy
Acceptance from peers, from friends, others?
Mark
Yeah they’ll cave to temptation just to receive that acceptance and so self-destructive behavior will flow out of that root issue.
Andy
Desire for things, toys, possessions, games, whatever, sports equipment.
Mark
“Mom, dad, I’m bored,” a dissatisfaction, an entitlement, a demand for something new and better.
Andy
Yeah discontent. Okay. What about a desire for independence?
Mark
Yeah every time there’ll be a fight to try to exercise a bit more control over the situation.
Andy
Yeah. So, these are just examples that I felt like were really helpful that Paul Tripp gives to show that we can become enslaved even to good things. They become bad things when they become ruling things in our hearts. And so, that’s what he’s getting at when we help them see this worship and character connection.
Mark
I think about what you just said it’s something we can really chew on and think on the idea that sometimes we worship good things. How many times have we told our child, “You’re a good boy. You’re a good girl.” And the criteria for that is moralistic, it’s based on their actions which obviously is not completely off base.
Andy
You don’t ignore their behavior.
Mark
Exactly right. But we’ve got to teach our children as Christians that there’s something a little different. I just think about the prodigal son story which I certainly love but you have two children and we would be tempted to say the prodigal son is the bad son because of course he did self-destructive behavior. But you have a son, the older son who did everything right and yet in the end, there’s a realization at the end of the story that the heart and the character of this older son is wrong. There’s a motivation and an entitlement that has taken root in this person’s life. And so, we have to be careful as parents that we don’t teach our children that just doing everything we expect of them and doing everything right is equivalent to pleasing God. Certainly there’s, I hope you understand the nuance here I think everyone does, we want to please the Lord with our actions but it must flow from character, it must flow from worship and from a right heart.
Andy
Yeah and the key as it relates to parenting is that our kids just aren’t going to see that connection naturally and that’s where God gives us a tremendous opportunity. Going back to the scene at the beginning of the chapter if the mom was to walk over and ask the kids like, “Why are you guys doing this? Why aren’t you helping me? Why are you just sitting here playing games?” The kids are not going to say, “Because there’s idolatry in our hearts. We love pleasure and mom you know that in this place worship always leads to character deficiency.” They don’t see that, it’s not the way they respond.
And so, it’s our job to help make this connection for them, it’s to help this grace of insight, this grace of wisdom. They need us to not just announce failure, “You’re selfish, you’re not caring about me.” They don’t need us just to instill guilt and attach a consequence and walk away but help them make this connection so that the Spirit of God can work and use that to bring about real deep conviction and confession and draw them to God and his grace.
Mark
That’s right. I mean, in those moments just think about how many of those types of conversations we’ve had with our kids and do we have to talk about this again because we know we’re not addressing the heart we’re addressing behavior but the child’s heart hasn’t changed. Obviously maybe they are wise enough to mitigate like, “Okay, for a little while I need to not play video games because my mom’s mad at me.” But very quickly they’re going to return to what they love which is certainly not that video games are a bad thing but in this situation we’ve not helped the child to realize the heart issue and so I think that’s an important distinction.
Andy
Yeah, that’s good. And so, he says on page 146, “Your children don’t so much need character management as they need worship realignment. It’s just that the worship problem proceeds the character problem.” And so, ultimately, we have to help them see that God is worthy of worship. That’s why in the last chapter it actually, when he talks about these four words that should guide our parenting, the first one is glory. We want them to see the glory of God. So Mark, which parent is going to, what kind of parent is going to graciously, patiently help their kids make this connection over and over?
Mark
Well, I think it’s a parent that themselves is pursuing Christlike character. And I think family worship is a necessary foundation, not to say it has to look like a certain thing like every day at 9:00 we are committed to this although that’s a good discipline. But if you are only responsive in those moments of correction, it becomes moralistic very quickly. But when there have been conversations about the glory of Christ, that last chapter, wow that was so good, the glory of Christ and then the wisdom of Christ being better and the story of the gospel.
Those things, if we’re speaking and laying a foundation and teaching our children that these are of primary importance, then when we say, “Hey, remember how we talked about selfishness and how that’s in daddy and how you inherited that from me? This behavior is an example of that.” The kid feels less condemned and they’re not as worried about, they’re not just trying to mitigate this discipline but they’re really possibly, by God’s grace, going to consider the root issue. And maybe we need the Holy Spirit of course in this equation but I think he’s at work and it’s important for us to just connect the dots for our children.
Andy
That’s right and that’s actually a good encouragement to wrap this up with is that as we seek to make this character worship connection over and over, we have to remember, this is coming from page 147, that we are a tool in God’s hands. He’s the one who has the power to change their hearts. And so, we can be encouraged. This feels like a daunting task and it is but we are instruments in the hands of a gracious God who is more than able to take away a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh and he’s able to set our kids free by the truth to love and to worship him. So Mark, any last word or encouragement from this chapter?
Mark
Well I just, I love that I got to talk about worship, this is what I do. It’s really not about singing, worship is giving our hearts and our minds fully over to the Lord and so I enjoyed the conversation for sure.
Andy
Thanks for joining brother and thank you for joining, our listeners. We hope you’re encouraged and we hope to catch you again on the next episode.
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.