The following recording is from a Parenting Conference held at Veritas Church Iowa City in November 2024.

Transcript:

I told my youngest daughter what I was doing, and she kind of looked at me like, “Why'd they ask you?” But then she's like, “You got some good jokes?” I was like, “No, I'm not. Don't put that pressure on me to be funny. It's just…We're going to talk about some important stuff.” So that's going to happen.

Looking forward to being with you guys tonight and tomorrow. How many in here have kids 5 or under? Oh, okay. How many have preteens? Some preteens.

Okay. How many teenagers? All right, good deal. Here we go. Let's do this.

I got three kids and one grandkid, so I entered grandpa age now. So this is awesome. Kid I'm not responsible for, but I just get to love. Moses, my oldest child, and Johnnie, a daughter, and Rudy, a daughter. And I have no idea why they asked me to come do this.

Johnnie, she's actually a part of this church and she's by far my worst child. So you guys have seen her and you're like, “Yeah, why don't your dad come and speak about parenting?” So we'll see how that goes. If you don't know her, she's my best. She's my best child by far.

But I'm no expert. I'm not here to claim to be an expert in parenting by any means. In fact, I would encourage you—I know, like, there's a wealth of information, like, at our fingertips all the time, and we can just get so into the latest book or podcast. But a benefit of being a part of a local church is cross generational relationships. I would encourage you to connect with older people who have raised kids and just ask questions. They're going to give you a wealth of wisdom on what they've done, what they haven't done, what they do differently. Lean into those relationships. That's going to be your best aid in your own parenting—is having friendships that are outside of your stage of life. And the local church gives that to you, so lean into that.

I'm a Bible guy, though, and I want to talk about some things that scripture points us to when it comes to parenting and raising kids. I'll give a verse or some context every point that I give you tonight and tomorrow of, like, where I see that in scripture and how we need to apply it into our life or what that means to our life. But when it comes to parenting, a lot of us do things differently.

There's just different ways to go about it and there's different approaches to it. We got the holidays coming up and how different families handle holidays. And there's just a lot of approaches to parenting. So it could be a sensitive topic. Like, if it's like, “You do it different than I do it,” “I do it different than you do it….” Like, there's some flexibility and then there's some principles in scripture that should guide us. And we want to look at some of those principles of scripture. But there's just a lot of ways that people do it differently.

I remember with my oldest son, he was young, probably first, second grade, and we were walking, and we lived in Arizona, and it was like an outdoor mall area. And there was…Santa Claus was there. And there was like a huge line. It was probably like a 200 yards-long-line to see Santa Claus.

We were not in that line, but we were walking next to it. And I got a bad habit of walking too far in front of my family, like, “Let's go, let's get this done and get out of here.” I'm not a fan of shopping so much. And my son, for probably 10, 15 yards behind me, right when we're parallel with this line, yells out to me, “Dad!” I said, “Yeah?” He says, “I think Santa's one big fat distraction from Jesus.” And all these parents in line just kind of looked at me, like, covering their kids’ ears. And I'm just like, He ain't wrong. Like, so you're gonna have to deal with that in line. Or they're crying. It's like, “Ehh….”

Just like, even things like that, we handle things differently. And talking about parenting can be a challenge because our identity can often be wrapped up in our parenting. Like, we feel, you know, I'm getting judged by how well my kids are doing or how well they're behaving, especially in church world because family life is biblically important. It's not just important, but when you're in a church community, it's biblically important.

So there's this temptation to project. Like, we have it all together, we got it figured out, and everything's fine. And we just kind of…kind of put that in front of everybody because it's something that we all value here. In fact, I had the privilege of going to Zambia with Mark and Jeff this past summer. And one of the interesting things I noticed was the Zambian people were just so friendly, so happy, just a joy to be around.

But anytime you wanted to take a picture, like, these smiling people all of a sudden just got this serious look on their face. They just kind of stood there seriously. And you had…was it, “Seika…Shinka,” like, “Smile! “Like, they're gonna take a picture.” But they went, like, warrior mode whenever you got the camera out. And they're just really serious, but every other time they're smiling.

I felt like that's kind of the opposite in America. Like, we're struggling, we're down, but anytime you get the camera out, we gotta put on this happy face. Like, we have it all together. We're perfect. And you guys live your life so publicly on social media and kind of this projection of great family time, great family dinner, and we just kind of project that everything's going on well in the family.

And then off-camera, it might be like, “I want to strangle my kids,” or “I'm just kind of at each other's throats here.” And there's this temptation to project. And I don't want this weekend for anybody to feel the pressure to project, like, that you have it all together, that you have it all figured out. Listen, you are loved. You are loved by God.

Your justification does not come through your parenting, but the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And we can rest in that. So I want you to know that. And…And, being good, godly, biblically shaped parents is really important.

So on one hand, let's not be crushed by the weight of it. God's grace is sufficient for you. Okay? Do you guys get that? That's important to get.

God's grace is sufficient for you, and being a good, godly parent's a really big deal. So I want us to not be crushed by that weight, but feel the weight. Can we kind of embrace that tension? Like, we're not judged by that. We're not saved through our parenting.

But parenting is an amazing responsibility that we need to take seriously. And I'd also just say on the front end, success in parenting is measured more by what the parents do than what the kids do. Success in parenting is measured more by what the parents do than what the kids do. And we're gonna talk about some things we can do as parents in doing that. So the title or the theme of this talk or these two talks is, “Embracing Different Countercultural Parenting.”

And that's the title because it was a better title than “Random Thoughts on Parenting,” which is probably more accurate to what we're gonna be talking about. But I got, like, seven statements or seven guiding phrases when it comes to parenting, and I'll let you know when we get there. We're only gonna cover three tonight, and then we'll cover four tomorrow morning. But we got seven guiding phrases. But all those phrases fit under the theme of embracing “different.”

Like, we need to embrace “different” as Christians and uniquely as Christian parents. So let's start briefly with establishing—I don't think we have to work too hard on this, you guys are already there—but I wanna lay a foundation on establishing the call on Christians to be different.

This is gonna be the foundation that we build upon. So when I say stuff later that sounds crazy, like, oh, that sounds ridiculous—it's like, yeah, I told you, like it's embracing different. I know nobody thinks that way anymore. I know nobody does that that way anymore.

I know it sounds crazy to this world, but it's kind of under this umbrella of we're called to embrace being different as Christians and kind of countercultural parenting or biblical parenting. And the call to be different as a parent or as a Christian parent is because there's a call to be different as a Christian. We're to be different as a Christian. When God rescued Israel and he said, you're going to be my people and I want you to show the world what it means to be my people, he called them to be holy because he's holy.

And that command gets repeated in the New Testament by Peter, that we are to be holy because God's holy and we belong to God, we're his people. And holy just means set apart. Like, I want you to be different. I want you to be uniquely different for me. I want you to represent me to the world.

I'm different. My people are gonna be different. And there's this call to be holy, to be different. Or when Jesus says this, he's talking in the Sermon on the Mount. This is Matthew, chapter seven.

We've got a handful of verses, we'll put ‘em on the screen. But he says, “Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

So he's saying, hey, I get there's a way a lot of people live. And it's the easy way and everybody's doing it, it's popular. But there's a way I'm calling you to live. And the way I'm calling you to live is different. And it's narrow, not a lot of people find it, it's less traveled and it's hard.

So there's this call to be different, but also there's this call to be a minority when it comes to how you live your life. Like, not a lot of people do this. Not a lot of people parent this way. Not a lot of people live this way. Not a lot of people handle money this way.

Not a lot of people dress this way. Not a lot of people make these ... Like, it's going to be different. You're going to be in the minority and it's going to be hard. Like, he tells you up front, if you're looking for the easy road, it's not this one.

He invites us to a challenging, hard road. And that applies to when it comes to parenting as well. And then you get… Peter gives us this challenge to be different as well. First Peter, chapter 2:9-11.

He says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a set apart nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles …”, like, this isn't your home. You're just sojourning.

Like, you're going to be different in this world. And being different includes in our parenting. And too often it feels like we want our kids to fit in, right? ‘Cause we know if you fit in, if you fit in at school, you fit in on the sports team, life's gonna be so much more easy for you. And we desire that for our kids, we want them to fit in.

But as Christian parents, we should be helping our kids get more comfortable not fitting in, being different. Like that's part of training them. Like, we don't want our kids to fit in. We don't want ‘em on the broad road, we want ‘em on the narrow road. We wanna help develop them.

And just this desire for a parent to want ease for our kids or want them to fit in is not always what's best for them. We want them to get used to being different or to be holy, to be set apart. I remember the way this played out practically once for us. When Moses, my oldest, was in middle school, he was at a choir concert. And of course, Marcy and I went because we had to.

And there was one part in the concert where all the lights went off or kind of went down further. And all the kids grabbed their cell phones and turned on the flashlights and started waving, except one kid, our kid, who just had his hand because he didn't have a cell phone. He was the only kid that didn't have a cell phone because we didn't let our kids get cell phones ‘til they could drive. And it was just like everyone else had their cell phone. And of course, Marc was, my wife was like, “Why didn't you ask? You could have borrowed one of our cell phones.” Like, no, I loved it. Like, one. That's my kid!

Like, he's, he's different, right? And it's like, we could. We can be okay. Like, I want you to be okay being the only kid without a cell phone.

That's okay. And if kids laugh at you for that, welcome to the narrow road, brother! Like, let's do this! And then sometimes it's like, we want our kids to fit in so much, but that's not what's best for them. And it's what was tripping up God's people from the beginning.

Like, Israel was called to be set apart, but it wasn't too long until they were like, we want a king. And why did they want a king? We want a king to be like other nations. We want to look like the people around us. We want to function like the people around us.

And pretty soon, they started worshiping the gods of the people around us. They wanted to fit in. And the same is true for Christians today. There's this temptation to just fit in with the world, to not look different, to not be weird, to not be an outsider. Like, we want to blend in. And maybe the same is true for you and your family life. Like, I just… We're taking our cues from, like… this is how everybody parents. This is how everybody decides what to do with their kids.

This is what everybody's doing in that. But if we're going to talk about being uniquely Christian in how we parent, we have to embrace being different. We have to be okay being the minority. We have to be okay when it's like, “All my friends don't do that.” It's like, “Yeah, but we're not all your friends, right? We're different. We're on a different road. We have to understand that it will be hard. Jesus told us that.”

So when it comes to parenting, can we embrace those things? But just like the narrow road leads to life, the truths of God lived out and applied to our family, even though they're hard and they're not popular or not common, they're what's best. Like, God's truth applied to you and your parenting and to your kids—it's what's best. So I want us to embrace that.

And tonight I'm just gonna tell you it's gonna be more foundational. Like, I'm probably not gonna say anything that's profound. Just be like, “I knew that,” and you're gonna walk out of here and be like, “I knew all that” and I’ll be like, “Great.” We're just gonna lay a foundation, and then tomorrow we'll get more practical and we'll build on that foundation. And when we say, like, crazier stuff tomorrow, I want you to know the foundation that it's being built on so we can have some common language to work through.

Sound good? Okay. I get paid either way, so let's go. All right, first. First of three statements tonight.

First one, the family is a big deal. The family is a big deal. So let's start here. I'm gonna guess that you think your family is a pretty big deal. And I don't mean that in, like, in, like, a prideful way, like, our family's awesome. But, like, you see your value. You value your family. Like, you're at this conference because you want to grow as parents. Like, you see, like, the importance of family.

And this is, like, a common language. I don't care what country you're in, who you talk to. Like, there's a shared love for our kids. Like, we'll do anything for our kids. You don't understand that love.

And then you have a kid, and it's like, “I don't even know this person, and I would die for this person.” Like, I don't know that. Like, I would do anything. And we kind of have this passion for our kids and our family. Like, we know that it's a big deal.

In fact, I was gonna share this with you. I shared this with Mark and Jeff a long time ago. I was like, ah, this. This will fit here. But when my Johnnie, who goes to this church, when she was in first grade, there was a project where the teacher emailed the parents and said, “We would like every parent to write a letter about their kid and what they like about their kid, and put it in a sealed envelope, and then they're going to open it for the first time in front of the class, and they have to read it to the class.”

I was like, “Oh, let's do that. I love that.” So let's go. So Johnnie is standing in front of her class as a first grader, and she opens this letter for the first time to read this to her class. This says “Dear Mrs. Osborne's class. I'm writing to you to tell you just how special my daughter Johnnie is to me. You see, most little girls are born in hospitals, but I bought Johnnie from a unicorn named Harold. She cost three of my favorite baseball cards and a plate of her mother's famous cookies. Don't ask me why a unicorn would want baseball cards, but it was the best purchase ever. The first time I held Johnnie, I better understood what it really meant to love someone. I knew we would go on lots of adventures together. All good adventurers need companions, if you ask me. And Johnnie is the type of companion who can make a great day out of an ordinary day. She can make you laugh when you don't feel like it. And she always gives hugs at just the right times. She has grown into a beautiful girl. And boys, I'm not talking about her looks. I'm talking about her heart. She loves God and cares for other people. She has grown so beautiful that Harold the unicorn wanted to buy her back and he would not stop until he had her. So I shot Harold and we had unicorn for dinner.”

So I was like, yes! I wanted her to read that for like…I was like, yes. This is my daughter. You know I love her.

And you guys feel that way about your kids. I don't know if you've ever had unicorn, but it was good.

But family's a big deal. And I don't mean, like, your family is a big deal. I mean the family is a big deal.

And to give our family the attention and passion and sacrifice and devotion that is needed, then we have to understand the family is a big deal. So let's start here. God has set up three spheres of authority: Government, church, and family.

To the government, he gave the sword. To the church, he gave the keys to the kingdom. And to the family, he gave the rod. We'll get into that tomorrow. But he started with the family. He made Adam and Eve, a husband and a wife who became a mom and a dad. And he started with a family. And the church embraces family language. When you read the New Testament, it talks about brothers and sisters in Christ. We have the same Father. We've been adopted into the household of God.

We've been given…fellow heirs with Jesus Christ. You get this family language. And then the government that will ultimately reign forever is God's kingdom, which is made up of what is referred to as the household of God. So family is a big deal to God, and it's a big thing for society.

So much corruption—like, you read pretty much the whole Old Testament, but specifically in Genesis—so much corruption is just dysfunctional families, just families that are a mess. Like, if you ever feel bad about your family, read Genesis, okay? You'll leave feeling a little bit better. But all kinds of brokenness. And the same thing is true in our society today.

So much corruption in our world is, like, if you pull back the layers, dysfunctional families, breakdown in the family. So when God rescues the Israelites to be his people, when he brings them out of slavery in Egypt, like, “All right, you're gonna be my people. I got you. I bought you. You're mine. I am your God. You are my people.” He has a message for them when they kind of go and get settled and they get the law. This is in Deuteronomy 6. You guys are probably familiar with this.

Deuteronomy, chapter 6. He says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. And they shall talk with them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.”

Like, these instructions. It's like, “Okay, you're going to be my people. So here's what you need to do. You need to get my commandments right. You need to love me with all your heart, soul, might. Like, you need to be devoted to me if you're going to be my people. This is how you need to be set apart. You need to be devoted to me.”

And where does he emphasize where we have to get them right? Our homes, our families, with our kids. Like, he's making a nation. And where is his emphasis of obedience? Under your own roof.

Like, “You need to be talking about me all the time with your kids.” And he's trying to build a nation, but yet he's focusing on a family. Because as the family goes, so does society. When the family breaks down, society feels it.

There's a movie. I don't recommend watching it, per se. It's called The Beekeeper. Has anybody seen The Beekeeper? It's just one of those vengeful movies.

Like, somebody does something, and it's like, let's just kill everybody. And you see, like, corruption in society. And this beekeeper's like, “I'm gonna bring justice” because society's out of control, but the more he chases it down, the problem was you just had a spoiled kid who was never parented.

And it's like, okay, if you don't—and it happened to be the president's kid… I'm not spoiling the movie, it's not like it's a blockbuster movie or anything—but it's like, “Hey, if you don't deal with your kid, I'm gonna. And if you don't deal with your kid, society's going to.”

Like, there's laws, like, there's trouble that you get into. And all this corruption in society is coming. It's like, because parents didn't parent. And you get all these situations even in the school system now, talking to teachers. It's like so much struggle with behavior, it's hard to even educate.

Or I talk with police officers in our church, and they said the majority of our calls are domestic. Like, we're just dealing with kids that parents can't deal with. And there's this breakdown. And when the family breaks down, society feels it.

Right now in our country, we just had an election. We elected a new president. And some people, after this election, feel like it's the end of democracy, and some people feel like it's the beginning of a new golden age of America. But let me tell you guys, government can't fix what's broken in the family. Government can't fix what's broken in the family. Family is a big deal.

It's a big deal. And as the family goes, so goes society. And you see Jesus emphasize the importance of marriage, the covenant union between a husband and a wife, because it's the anchor of a family. You see, Paul, in more than one of his letters, talks about family codes, how a husband should treat his wife, how a wife should treat her husband, how parents should treat kids, how kids should treat their parents.

Like, he does as Peter addresses that as well in his letter. In the qualification of elders, one of the qualifications, you gotta manage your own household. Like, it's just important because as family goes, the church goes. As family goes, society goes. And we gotta get it right in our family.

So family is a big deal. Can we agree on that? Yep. We get some head nods, some amens. All right.

Yeah, we're there on the same page. And it's important to be on that page, because the reason—this is my first point is because later when we get more practical and it sounds heavy or extreme—I'm gonna come back to like, “Yeah, but… ’cause this family's a big deal, and it has big implications. On the church, on society, in schools, like, in our country, in our world. Like, you gotta get it right in the family. And you see that when God's like, “I'm forming a nation,” he emphasized, “so get it right in the family.”

Like, talk about it with your kids. And if we get it right in the family, I think a lot of other things fall into place. So that's number one: the family's a big deal. Number two—I know kickoff's at 8:15. We're gonna get there.

All right? Number two: don't parent in vain. Don't parent in vain. Now, nobody here wants to do that. I don't think that sounds like, “Oh, yeah, I just wanna parent in vain. I want all my efforts not to matter in the end.”

But what exactly do we mean by that when we say don't parent in vain? Kind of this idea of, you're gonna pour your heart into it, you're gonna read the right books, you're gonna listen to all the podcasts, you're gonna try the latest methods, you're just gonna pour yourself into parenting. But at the end, it didn't count. It didn't matter.

Now, parenting is important, and when you understand it, you know that effort matters. It's required and it's necessary. And any of us that have been doing it very long, we also know how powerless we are. Like, we can't just, like, force the outcome that we want—as much as we care, as much as we try. Like, we can't dictate the outcome for our kids.

Guys, listen to me. Parenting is not a math equation. It's not like, if you do this and you do this, it'll equal that, like, every time. If you do this and you do that, it'll equal that. Like, it doesn't work that way.

It's not this math equation. Hear me. Parenting takes God. Now, in one sense, you get, like, hyperspace… Everything takes God. The whole creation is held together. Like, yes, I know, but, like, practically, day in and day out, it's called for this dependence on God in our parenting. And you can put all your effort into it and try to be the best parent you can. But if you're kind of doing that absent of a dependence on God, then you're parenting in vain. And I think you see this in Psalm 127, and the first verse in Psalm 127 is, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain.”

And it's interesting that he talks about building a house. Now, who lives in a house? A family. And in fact, later on in that psalm, he points out how children are a blessing or a heritage from the Lord. So that psalm starts out saying, “Hey, if you're going to build a home, if you're going to build a house, if you're going to have a family—don't build that in vain. Unless the Lord builds that, all your efforts don't matter.”

Like, we need to be dependent on God in our parenting. Parenting in vain is trying to do it all on your own, in your own strength, thinking, if I just do this and if I just do this, then it's all going to work out and I'm going to save my kids. And it's like, no, no, you can't do that. That is beyond your pay grade. The most important but often overlooked aspect of parenting is prayer. The most important but often overlooked aspect of parenting is prayer.

Now, in one sense, all parents pray. Even if you don't even believe in God, most parents are… I mean, because you have this heart that just is bent towards your kids, and you worry about them and you want the best for them. So it's like, the day they get their license and the first time they're driving on their own and you drove with them and you're like, “I don't know if they're ready for that.” But like, you're praying, right? Or the first time they're a little late for curfew, you're praying, or when they're sick, you're praying. Like, there's this concern and care. Like parents pray.

But I'm not talking about, like, crisis-moment prayers or worrisome reactive prayers. I'm talking about a routine of prayer for our kids, like a daily rhythm that I just always pray for my kids, like this kind of ongoing dependence of prayer. And you can't convince me that one of the reasons we've been fortunate—I mean, time will tell…you don't know how it plays out—but up to this far, I feel like our kids are following Jesus. Praise God. We've seen that in our family and our extended family.

It's just a blessing of the Lord. My wife's grandpa—Holly's my sister-in-law, and Eric's brother—Grandpa Chef, he would pray for everybody and their kids by name every day. Like that…that has generational impact, right? Sometimes, like, Grandma would have to remind him of the names. Eric got forgotten a lot.

But, like, a faithfulness of prayer makes a difference, right? And now he's gone and I'm like, “Okay, all right. If he's not praying for my kids every day, who is? Like, do I carry that weight of like, I believe in God, I believe in prayer, I believe that matters?”

Does it show in our parenting? Do we have, like, a built-in, daily—not reactionary prayers, not like, oh, no, something's wrong…prayers like those will come—I'm talking about daily, built into your rhythm. “I'm coming to God in full dependence. I need you. I don't want to build this house in vain. I need you to show up. I need your power in this.”

Because in… the picture we get in Psalm 127 is of the building of the house. Building is an ongoing work of the Lord or the ongoing work of construction. It's, it's… It's the daily dependence. Everyone is going to pray if the house is on fire, but he's not talking about that.

He's talking about the ongoing dependence in constructing it, in building it. The daily routine of it. That ought to be built in. Don't try to do parenting day in and day out, in your own strength. Be a parent full of prayer. Pray daily for your kids. If you don't have daily times of prayer for your kids, build it into your schedule.

Something maybe you can talk with your spouse about. “Hey, should we pray for our kids together? Do you pray for our kids? Here's what I'm praying for my kids. What are we praying for our kids about?”

When Paul talks about “pray without ceasing” … Don't make this too complicated, right? When you drop them off at school, say a quick prayer for them. You're changing a diaper, say a prayer for them. When you're doing the laundry or folding, putting their clothes away, say a prayer for them.

Just kind of built in. Like, I'm building this house. Like, nail by nail, board by board. I'm not doing it on my own. I'm fully aware of my need for God. And I'm crying out for God like, “You gotta move. You gotta open his heart. You gotta change your attitude. You gotta develop them. You gotta give him spiritual sight. Like, I'm here as a vessel. But I show my dependence on God in parenting through prayer.” So don't parent in vain. The family's a big deal. And don't parent in vain.

Number three: parent with the lights on. Parent with the lights on. Now, this is really important to get, and I think it is a game-changer in parenting. In fact, if you only heard or remembered one of the seven things that I'm going to talk about between tonight and tomorrow, I want you to remember this one. Parent with the lights on.

Now, you may not have made your kids with the lights on, but you need to raise them with the lights on. Light exposes or reveals things. Like, when John talks about “walk in the light,” you bring your sin into the light as a confession, it gets dealt with. So one service that the light does is it brings things to light or it exposes things.

Another thing that light does is it spots lights, it spotlights something, it highlights it, it shows it. So parenting with lights on is to actively expose the wrong and highlight the good. All right. To parent with the lights on is to actively expose the wrong and to highlight the good. And both of those are needed.

Like, doing both of those are extremely important. Sometimes, sometimes parenting, in my opinion, gets reduced down to, “I have to keep my kids from bad and tell them what is good.” Don't do that. Like, I know it sounds good.

Like, what's wrong with that? I want to keep my kids from bad and I want to tell them what's good. It's like, but it kind of stops short from really what we're called to do. Like, there's more to it than that.

And I'm not talking about disciplining really young kids. And we'll get into that tomorrow… They're like two. They don't know. You gotta keep ‘em from what's bad. You gotta tell ‘em what’s bad. Like, that is definitely part of it.

But the older kids get, the more your parenting has to be more than just trying to keep them from what's bad and telling them what's good. If your parenting just comes down to trying to keep them from what's bad and just telling them what's good, here's what happens. Trying to keep kids from what is bad and just telling them what is good creates kids who are curious about what is bad and confused about what is good.

Are you tracking with me when I say that? If that's all that you're trying to do, like, “I just wanna keep you from what's bad and I just wanna tell you what's good,” then you're gonna create kids that are curious about what is bad and confused about what is good. They're curious about what is bad because there's this forbidden fruit thing. Like, “You're just trying to keep me from it and I don't know about it and I'm curious and I wanna find out about it and I'm kind of confused about what is good because you're telling it to me. But I don't know if I quite understand it. And you haven't really shown it to me.”

Like, there's more to just trying to keep kids from what's bad and just telling kids from what's good. Instead, we need to expose what is bad and show what is good. Okay, so yes, to keep kids from bad, and yes to telling them what's good, but don't stop there. Too many parents stop there.

We need to expose what is bad and show what is good. And that's a little paradigm shift that I want you to get. And those are two approaches that are very different. And sadly, I think a lot of parents, well-intended parents, function in that first paradigm. “I just need to keep my kids from bad. I just need to protect them, keep them away from everything that's bad. And I just need to tell them what's good.” But if you didn't expose what's bad and show them what's good, I think you're missing something. You're missing something really powerful. There is a better way.

When parenting gets reduced down to just forbidding the bad—”Don't do it. Don't go there. Don't watch that, don't engage with that,” not exposing the bad—the bad just becomes tempting. Tempting. In fact, the Proverbs, which is a book on parenting advice—I read the Proverbs often and frequently—in the Proverbs, it points out the fool a lot. I think it's like 71 times in the book of Proverbs, like 31 chapters, it talks about the fool.

Like, there's a lot of name-calling in Proverbs. Like, the author’s probably like, “That's a fool, right? Idiot. Idiot. That's what's happening.”

You don't read it that way, but that's what's happening. It's like, “I'm trying to help. You know what wisdom is. It ain't that. It ain't him, right? It ain't her.” Like, that's what's being exposed in the Proverbs. There's a lot of name-calling and we missed that. But it's parenting. And in parenting, we can't just tell our kids what's bad.

We have to help them see the foolishness behind what's bad. So, for example, like with our kids, we've played a game for a long time. Whether it's a commercial on TV or something we read or watched or listened to on the radio or whatever, we'll just say, “What's the lie? Where's the lie? Let's find the lie,” right?

‘Cause it's like, “I don't think they're really selling a car right there, right? Like, what are they really selling, right?” And they’re like, well, they're selling like, “You'll be happy if you drive a Nissan.” It's like, really?

Well, one: It's a Nissan. I mean, come on. Like, but it's like, no. Like, that's not where happiness comes from. So it's like, constantly, like, “Okay, that commercial just lied to you. That TV show just lied to you. They made this look sexy and glamorous. That's not real. That just lied to you.”

Like, you have to show them that's the lie. So we play a game with our kids, like, “Find the lie.” Like, we'll pause it, “Find the lie…”, constantly.

Or we'll watch a show, and it's like, our kids know it's like, “Yeah, that happened. We're gonna pause it. We're gonna talk about that. Is that real? Is that right? Is that godly?” And just kind of expose it to them. Or let's say, for example, we're driving in the car, and a song comes on the radio, and it's a bad song. I could, A, as a parent, quickly shut that song off and be like, “That's a bad song. We don't listen to that.” And my kids are gonna be like, “Why is it bad? What's it say? Pull up Spotify. Like, I'm gonna put my headphones on.” Like, this is gonna create this, like, temptation to…”Why is it bad?”

Or B, I could just say, like, “Hey.” And they're like, “Oh, that's a popular song. All right, let's listen. What is he saying?”

And then you hear it, and it's like, “Do you hear how he talks about women? That's an idiot. That's a fool. Do you think that's true? Do you know how they're made in the image of God? What does scripture say about this?” And you expose that. So forbidden fruit is shown to be rotten fruit. But if you don't show forbidden fruit to be rotten fruit, forbidden fruit's just attractive fruit. And part of a parent's job is to show forbidden fruit is rotten fruit.

So we have to expose that. Don't just keep your kids from what is bad. Help them see how stupid it is so that when they're on their own, they won't want it. And let me just tell you, that phrase, “That's stupid”, should be a part of your parenting.

It should! It should be a part of your parenting. Like, we need to, we need to point that out. Parents need to be like tour guides for their kids in a fallen world. Pointing out stupid things, helping them see it.

Like, in our last couple days in Zambia, we took one of those safari Jeep rides out into the bush and seeing all the animals. We had a guide. He was like, taking us through the bush, like, “There's this animal, there's that.” Like, we were like five feet from an elephant. It was awesome.

And he's, like, talking about the elephant. “Yeah, that elephant—if he wanted to—he could just flip this Jeep.” That's good to know. I'm not gonna try to pet him now. How about we keep moving? Right? Like, they just know about things and they're like, you need that guy to get that information.

I went to Alaska when I was a freshman in high school. We were staying with a family, and they came and woke us up really early and they said, “Hey, there's a moose in our yard. There's a moose.” … And what's a baby moose? I don't know, a little moose whatever…in our backyard. ‘Cause I said, “Oh, I hope I get to see a moose!”

Well, I was so excited… in my pajamas, run right out of the house trying to get this moose. I'm chasing this moose. Like, somebody trying to get a picture. I get down in like a three-point stance like, like 10 feet from the moose. You know, I'm all, “This is awesome.”

And he's just kind of standing back, and afterwards, I come up to him like, “That was so cool.” He's like, “Yeah, you were getting too close. Last week, a moose killed a man.” I'm like, “Why didn't you say something?” Like, I'm just like, I'm from Iowa! I'm like, it's a deer, it’s just gonna run away. It's like he's watching me, thinking, This kid could die, you know? I was like, “But is that the way you parent your kid? Like, oh, I've seen, I've seen this go bad. Let's just see how it goes.”

No, like, you need to be a tour guide! You need to be a guide to your kid going through this fallen world. Being like, “That's stupid. That's bad. That's foolish. That's Proverbs. That's the Proverbs. That's an adulterous woman. That's a fool. That's a sluggard.”

Like, you see that, like, as a parent, you need to point it out. Like, “You see how that person acted? He's always talking about himself. Where's that coming from? You see how she's dressing? Why do you think she does that? Where's that coming from? Don't do that. You see what they're talking about?” Like, you gotta constantly kind of point this out to your kids.

We need to shine a light on foolishness so they know the emptiness of it. Otherwise, it's just seen as attractive. You gotta expose foolishness to your kids. But also, parenting in the light…or parenting with the lights on, is not just exposing the bad, but also highlighting the good. When parenting gets reduced down to just forbidding the bad but not displaying the good, nobody's drawn to that.

They might…they might know, “Okay, I don't want that. You've helped me learn that. That's foolishness. But what do I want? Where should I go and how should I live?”

We also have to expose the good. Forbidden fruit is tempting. And when we help our kids, we show them that forbidden fruit is really rotten fruit, but we can't leave them there. We also have to shine a light on the goodness of Christ.

It's not just, “Don't eat that, it's rotten.” It's also, “Partake of this. This is good. It's sweet, it's satisfying.” We have to show that to our kids.

In fact, look at Matthew 5. This is on the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking. He says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in…” The what? “...house.” “In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven.”

Now, if you look at this analogy, who are the others? Or put it this way, who's in the house? Your family! Your kids! Parents! Like we, we have to let our light shine before our kids. Like, our kids have to see our love for God.

Like, in your house, don't cover it up over a basket. Who has, who's ever in your house? Your kids gotta see your love for Christ.

And then this kind of amazing connection flows from that. “... that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” He's connecting, like, people seeing your love for Christ, and it's leading to their love for Christ. And where else is that more displayed than in your house with your kids? That they would see you and your passion for God, your love for Jesus, and it would lead to their love for Jesus.

I believe more important than any parenting strategy or method is that our kids need to see our love for God and the good works that come from our love for God. More than any parenting book you'll ever read, more than any helpful, practical strategy. Just, they see your light, it shines, and you're never “off” with them. Like, you can project on social media, you can kind of put a face on at work, you can come to church and look all together. But your kids see you all the time.

They're watching you. What do they see? Do they see something real? Do they see something they want? Is your light shining before them?

Because that's who you're trying to raise. That's who's most important.

So more important than any parenting strategy or method is our kids need to see our love for God and the good works that come from love for God. So let me ask you, do your kids ever see you read the Bible? I know we got a lot of young kids in here. It's like, they don't know what they're looking at. But as they get older, like, you got—you got an opportunity from the beginning to show them something. Do your kids ever see you read your Bible? When you come to church and your kids kind of glance to their left or their right and they see you, do they see you singing? Do they see you worshiping? Does Dad sing?

Like, could they see just, “Oh, my parent, my mom and dad loves Jesus, is passionate about Jesus.” They see you worship. Do your kids see the joy of your salvation?

Do your kids see in you the peace of God that transcends all understanding? Do your kids see in you your service and love to others? Like, if all that they knew about a relationship with God is what they saw in you, would they want one? Would they look at Mom or Dad and be like, “I want that. I want to know God like Mom knows God. I want to know God like Dad knows God. I want to love God like my parents love God. Whatever peace they have, I want it. Whatever joy they have, I want it.”

Do you think your kids would say they want a marriage like yours?

Do they ever see you be flirtatious in the kitchen, hug, fight and forgive, make up? Like, do they want what they see in you? Do you think your kids would want to be a part of a church like you're a part of a church? Do they see you love the local church? Do they see you serve it?

Do they see you sacrifice for it? Not begrudgingly, but it's like you see the value of it. Kids are watching. Like, are they going to want what you have? Like, does it look to your kids like you found a treasure in Jesus Christ?

Because they'll want a treasure. Everybody wants treasure. And if they look at you and you claim Jesus Christ, but it doesn't look like you found a treasure, they'll go look for a treasure somewhere else. Do you show them that Christ is the treasure? He's the satisfier of your soul?

Parents, we have to let our light shine before our kids. We have to. When we think of parenting, we often think of, like, bedtime techniques and discipline and, you know, how you should handle this situation, and schooling and, like, how do I keep this kid alive and healthy, and sports involvement and all these things. But we never tend to think of our own Bible reading, our own worship, our own love for Christ.

That is such an important part of raising kids. I think maybe the most important part of raising kids that you had never put in the parent category, but it makes so much difference. Mark often talks about we need to…we need to minister out of the overflow. You need to parent out of the overflow.

Out of the overflow of your own heart for your love for Christ, you overflow to your kids. In your house, let your light shine before your kids, that they may see the good works in you, see the satisfaction you found in Christ. And they look at you and be like, “I want that too. I want that too.”

You know, we're so worried—and understandably so, ‘cause we love our kids. We want what's best for the kids. We don't want them tripped up and entangled by the deceitfulness of sin. And we're often worried about what's out there in the world.

Right? Bad friends are gonna influence them. You know, Disney shows are gonna, like, creep in their minds. And I'm not saying those aren't legitimate concerns, but it can tend to be like, we think this, this dangerous threat out there, but what if the greatest threat is in your own home? What if the greatest threat is you, like, you have the most influence over your kids. What if it's not a very good influence? What if what they see in you, they don't really want? You know, there's a study that was done that really took me off guard. It says, “We often think that college is going to wreck our kids’ faith.” And as a parent that has a kid in college here in Iowa, sometimes I hear the things that professors have said. I'm like, “What? That was, like, that's being taught?” Like, you can understand the concern there. And we have this concern that we're gonna send our kids to college and they're just gonna have their faith undermined and wrecked, and college is where you kind of go as a Christian and you fall away in college.

But studies have shown that most of the students who check out on God do so more in high school than college. And the conclusion that could be made from that is you could say a more dangerous threat to your kids is not liberal professors, but lukewarm parents.

Like, you have more influence over your kids than some liberal professor.

And I'm not saying that if you have, like, kids that have walked away from Christ, it's because you were a lukewarm parent. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying you gotta let your light shine to your kids. Like, they gotta see, “Mom and Dad found a treasure,” right? And, “I don't know what this professor's talking about, but I know my mom and dad are happy in the Lord and they got peace, and I want what they have.” Like, we gotta let our light shine before our kids.

Parents, parent with the lights on at home. Don't put it under a basket. Don't let your kids grow up and they never saw you read the Bible on your own. Don't grow up and your kids never watched you with your hands up in church worshiping King Jesus. Don't let them grow up and see that you never sacrificed and loved the local church.

Don't let them grow up thinking you were devoted to Jesus, but you never delighted in him. Don't let them grow up thinking you were committed to doing the right thing, but you weren't very happy about it. Like, they gotta see that you found a treasure. More important than any other strategy, any other method, any other kind of practical thing, is that you parent with the lights on and you show your kids that you found a treasure in Jesus Christ, and that you want them to want what you have. So we got three guiding phrases tonight to hold onto.

The family's a big deal. Don't parent in vain. And parents, parent with the lights on. And we'll look at four others tomorrow and we'll get a little bit more practical. But it's built on this foundation: You need to embrace different. You need to be willing to take the narrow road as a parent. And that might mean or will mean you're in the minority. Not everybody parents that way. Not everybody does it that way.

In fact, you're different, and it's harder. But just like that narrow gate and that narrow road leads to life, even though it's hard, God's truth applied to your family is what's best for your kids. And I want you to lean into that tomorrow. Let's pray.

Father, we're thankful for your Word. I pray for these parents that you would help them be the best tour guides to their kids through this fallen world. That they would point out everything that's foolish in this world and expose forbidden fruit as rotten fruit. And they would also, with enthusiasm and excitement, point to you with just the treasure that you are, that they would look and want what these parents have found in you. We pray this in your name.

Amen.

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