Dealing with Our Awakened Children, Part 2

Recap: Defining Awakened Children and Parental Fears

0:04 This Adult Sunday School class was held on February 22, 1987, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. For the sake particularly of any who may be visiting with us, I haven't had time to look out and scrutinize the complexion of the class, but generally there are visitors among us, and for your sake especially, a word of explanation is in order. In the providence of God, it seemed wise that I should take the class for a Lord's Day or two, and now it appears for three Lord's Day mornings, in order to address a very vital and delicate subject which is very near and dear, and in many ways a very agitated subject in the hearts of not a few of you, namely, the subject of how to deal with our spiritually awakened children. In our initial study last Lord's Day morning, I sought to describe what I meant by the words spiritually awakened children, and in brief, that description was one in which I tried to indicate that when children, surrounded by the privilege and pressures of spiritual and biblical realities,

1:21 begin to indicate that those pressures and privileges are starting to haunt them, with a holy perception, and they begin to experience what I would call indigenous mental preoccupation. That is, when you're not there putting the pressure, something inwardly has taken hold and begins to occupy their minds with regard to God, and sin, and heaven, and hell, and Christ, and a new heart. And I use terms sometimes you haven't heard before, not to try to show off with words, but to try to implant it. And I use them to describe in your minds concepts that can't gather baggage from other sources.

2:04 And so when I use the term indigenous mental preoccupation, I use them to describe what we mean by an awakened child. Well, after setting out the field of our concern, I then raise the question in your presence, when we attempt to counsel our spiritually awakened children, what are our greatest fears? And I had written down the two that I have observed again and again in dealing with parents, and also in our own parental experience, and I thought we might have to fish for a while to get these two major ones, but you hit them right on the money. The first two you mentioned were, we fear that we should encourage false hope and a presumption in our children, and then we fear with equal dread that we should create a climate of discouragement, or despair, which could have tragic spiritual as well as emotional consequences. Then I raise the second question. When giving counsel to our spiritually awakened children, what things are of greatest importance in the heart and mind of the parent? In other words, pivotal to giving any wise counsel is the understanding, judgment, spiritual and emotional.

3:29 This is the emotional condition of the parent. And so I raise the question, what things are of greatest importance in the minds and hearts of the parents who attempt to give counsel to their spiritually awakened children? So we must start with what is present here in the minds and in the hearts of the parents. And in so doing, we move really into the realm of the things that must be present in the thinking and hearts and actions of parents, whether or not the children are at any given time spiritually awakened. In other words, and I did not make this explicit. Most of you, I think, caught it. Some raised the question, and here I want to qualify and amplify.

Theology of Parental Counsel: Children's Condition and God's Provisions

4:26 The things that must be present in our hearts, in our hearts and minds as parents, if we are to give wise counsel to our spiritually awakened children, are things that need to be present at all times, whether or not the children show anything of spiritual awakening. In other words, our duties with regard to our thinking and feeling and actions to our children in their spiritually awakened condition are predicated upon, these abiding, these standing, these non-changeable, non-negotiable perspectives and responsibilities and categories of truth. And so in addressing that second question, what things must be present in the minds and hearts of parents if they would give wise counsel to spiritually awakened children, we started by saying that there must be an accurate Bible-based, a theology of the vital issues directly involved in such counsel. When we attempt to give counsel to spiritually awakened children, it must be out of the matrix, out of the context of a situation

5:48 in which we have as parents an accurate Bible-based theology of the vital issues directly involved in this activity. And we looked at two of them, and we're just coming to the third when time more than ran out. We must first of all have a Bible-based theology of the natural condition or position of our children. What is their position or condition both before God and us?

6:23 And we looked at their condition or position in two aspects, first, spiritual and spiritual. Second, spiritual and spiritual. And we looked at their condition or position in two aspects, spiritual and spiritual. They are both guilty and depraved.

6:33 They need a new heart and a new record. And domestically, they are placed under our authority by divine commandment and by sovereign choice. The fifth commandment, the commandment, children, obey your parents, is not a matter concerning which either they or we have any choice. God has put them in that position, and we must also have a Bible-based theology concerning the sovereign, gracious provisions of God for our children.

7:13 And what are those provisions? Number one, the blessings provided for sinners and offered in the gospel. God has made provisions and offers those provisions for sinners in the gospel. He offers them indisputably.

7:29 Indiscriminately and sincerely. And we must understand that. We cannot give proper counsel to our spiritually awakened children unless we first of all understand that God in the gospel has made provision for all sinners, awakened or unawakened, in the gospel, and that those privileges are offered to all men indiscriminately, awakened or unawakened. That God's provisions and offers in the gospel rest only in the largeness of his own heart and in the provision made in the person of his Son.

8:09 But then we must also understand that another category of provision made for our children is the blessings provided in Christian nurture. And we must have a Bible-based understanding of what that nurture is. It's summarized in Ephesians 6.4.

8:28 Fathers nurture. Fathers nurture them in the chastening and the admonition of the Lord. We are under divine warrant to impose. And when I use the word impose, I know it can bring negative connotations of someone being narrow-hearted and tight-fisted and negative.

8:48 But I don't mean that. To impose means to place upon with authority or with enforcement. And I say we are under solemn obligation, obligations in the blessings of Christian nurture to impose upon our children, to enforce upon our children both the duties of the law and of the gospel. Whether they are awakened or not, our children are under solemn obligation to have no other gods before them but the true God.

9:20 Whether awakened or not, they're under solemn obligation not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to lie. Those obligations are under solemn obligation to have no reference to whether they're awakened or unawakened. Likewise, the duties of the gospel. They are under solemn obligation to repent of their sin, whether they're awakened or not, for God commands all men everywhere to repent because he's appointed a day in which he'll judge the world.

9:49 Acts 17. And the framework of Christian nurture is one in which we impose upon our children the duties not only of the law, telling them right and wrong, and enforcing right, but the duties of the gospel. That is, to repent of their sin and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 3.22 This is his commandment that we should believe on the name of the Lord Jesus. So when our children sin, we do not simply say, if you are inclined, say sorry to God and ask Jesus to forgive you. We make them say sorry to God. We can't put the, the disposition of repentance in their hearts, but we enforce the concept and even the words and where necessary, even the deeds of repentance.

10:39 You go to your sister and say, I'm sorry I hit you. I don't feel it. You go to your sister and say, I'm sorry. So they go and say, I'm sorry.

10:49 No, that's not what we mean. You're just grudgingly saying, you say sweetly to sister, I'm sorry. You see what we're doing? We are imposing in so far as we, we can by divine mandate and we have a mandate.

The Ordinary Method of Grace in Christian Nurture

11:04 We are imposing the duties and as far as possible, even the dispositions of the gospel when we command them, urge them, guide them into the language and actions of repentance and faith. Then when time ran out, we were coming to the third and what I regard to be as perhaps the most crucial element of a, a sound or accurate biblical theology of what's involved in any counsel we give to our spiritually awakened children and it is this. We must understand that the ordinary method of grace in the salvation of children is one that takes place in the context of Christian nurture. We must understand the ordinary method of grace, not the only, but the ordinary, the ordinary method of grace in the salvation of children in the context of Christian nurture. And I want to say three things about that method. We just touched on these very quickly, the first two and I want to review them and then go into the third.

12:15 It will be a method in which the framework of Christian nurture becomes the conduit of saving grace. The ordinary method of God's grace, when God purposes to put grace into the hearts of children in the framework of Christian nurture, His ordinary method is to use that very nurture as the conduit of His grace. The nurture coming from the home, the family, and in many cases from the school. Where God places means, most often He ordains ends.

12:58 And the God, who ordains ends, wisely chooses means appropriate to those ends. So it is most likely that under most ordinary conditions, children brought to saving grace in a context of consistent full-orbed Christian nurture will look back and see that that framework of nurture became the conduit of God's special and saving grace. And then the second thing we need to understand under this third heading of a biblical theology of what is involved is this. It is a method, that is, the method God will ordinarily use in the context of Christian nurture. It is a method in which the precise time when the nurture becomes implanted saving grace will most likely be unknown by the parent or by the child. It is a method in which the precise time when the nurture became implanted saving grace will most likely be unknown by the parent or by the child. It is a fact of the experience of children raised in Christian nurture that when they look back to the first dawning

14:28 of spiritual awakening that there are periods when that awakening rises to heights may be sustained and then sloughs off sometimes seems to be almost completely out of the picture and then something happens and it is reintroduced and it may gradually grow then it may take a sharp dip here at the point say of adolescence as a fellow or a girl gets his first romantic interest and it is with someone who is totally outside the pale of nurture and everything they know they know they have no right to have an interest in that person so what do they do? They are so infatuated they throw over all they can of everything they have learned from their Christian nurture they try to shut out God, Christ, the Bible all those verses about unequal yoke what fellowship with light, with darkness and they may go through a period when there isn't any indication of spiritual awakening. So there are these peaks and if they come to post-puberty adolescent-pre-adult or young-adult patterns that indicate that they are truly in a state of grace they will generally be at a loss to know where did the nurture become implanted grace? Was it here? Was it here?

15:52 Was it way back here? And was this all arrested grace and backsliding? And in most cases they won't know nor will you know. And we need to face that reality.

Awaiting Fixed Dispositions of Grace and Commitment

16:07 And what I would say is this as we come now you remember my illustration about the jet engine and the reciprocal engine and that seemed to help many of you that when the jet engine is being started by an external force and the turbine is being turned at some point it fires and begins to operate under its own internal energy but we can't mark the place when we're sitting there in the place in the plane but when it's cruising at 30,000 we know that somewhere along the line it flamed unless there's been a flame out whereas the old piston reciprocal gas fired engine the moment one of those pistons fired by a spark plug causing an explosion and if you've ever seen the size of the pistons in an old DC-7 they're like this they're like canisters and no wonder when one of those things exploded and it was driven down with tremendous force and then the direction arrested and up again when you think of it the reciprocal engine is a horribly inefficient way to use energy but that's neither here nor there I'll leave that to the engineers but you knew the moment that engine fired whereas with the turbine turning spinning at ever increasing speed you don't know when the external energy that was turning it and the internal energy released by the firing of that jet fuel took over and so it will be in most cases where children are

17:37 converted in a context of Christian nurture now we come to the third aspect of this biblical theology pertaining to the issue of what we say to our spiritually awakened children and it is this the method that God will generally employ it is a method which demands of us that we are able to do this that is of us as parents that we cautiously hopefully and prayerfully await the emergence of a fixed disposition of Christian graces and commitment now it's a pretty long sentence but I've labored over every word it is a method which demands of us you see what are we talking about what must be in us as parents as we work with our children now in the context of nurture if the ordinary method of grace is one in which the nurture will become the conduit of grace in which most cases neither we

19:06 nor they will be able to point to a precise time when they pass from death unto life though from God's standpoint and in their hearts we know there was a time when they passed from death to life then here's the bottom line Christian parents God's method in this context is one which demands of us as Christian parents and we're the key here that we cautiously hopefully await the emergence of a fixed disposition of Christian graces and commitment what are we looking for as the evidence is that God by means of the nurture of home and church and school has implanted grace in our children we are not looking to see if we and they can remember when they prayed an earnest prayer with tears that's decisionism nor are we waiting and looking for a time when they come running to us saying mommy

20:31 I know I am a Christian and seem to have a ton of assurance and we take their word for it and say the wonderful Mike he knows he's saying it now no it is a method which demands that we cautiously hold hopefully await the emergence of a fixed disposition of Christian graces and commitment and what do I mean by fixed disposition I do not mean a perfect disposition that is complete in all its parts a mature disposition advanced in its degree but a general pattern of repenting believing and obeying out of love to Christ a general pattern of willingness to make restitution when wrongs have been done a general pattern of hunger to pray to read to talk about the Lord Jesus without having to be pressured all the time from us a fixed disposition of Christian

22:00 graces is a pattern of real though not perfect genuine though not mature graces which speak to the reality of regeneration of repentance and faith in anyone young or old you see that's what I'm driving at what we are doing is patiently cautiously hopefully prayerfully awaiting the emergence of a fixed disposition of Christian graces and of Christian commitment now what do I mean by that of some degree of intelligent understanding with some measure of independent identity and both intellectually emotionally and psychologically from mom and dad so we can safely say at least post puberty and probably more safely generally not until mid adolescence and even more safely to that line between adolescence merging into young manhood and womanhood when we see a what a pattern a disposition of Christian commitment

23:28 that is Jesus Christ has been received as the unrivaled affection of the heart more than mother father brother sister and even peers you see isn't that the great test little kids under Christian nurture seem to be the loveliest little Christians oh they had their ups and downs but they were obedient to mommy and daddy they read their bibles they prayed blah blah blah blah but when the awareness that I'm to be either accepted or rejected by my peers began to be a big issue somewhere in early middle late adolescence what happened they chucked all of that stuff out the window and down the drain and one thing mattered I'm going to be accepted by my buddies their attachment obviously was not to Christ you see so what do we do when we see all of this do we look at it cynically no no I said we do what cautiously hopefully and prayerfully say oh God I pray that what seems to be the emergence of the disposition of repentance of faith of attachment to Christ when put to the real test here will show itself

24:57 to be the real thing again not perfectly but we but surely there's a difference between this and that and then finding comfort ten years down here because up till thirteen he was a marvel little Christian and he must be saved I remember his sweet prayers I remember his tears he's living like hell and peer pressure sexual drives the world all became real he's chosen all but but he's saved you want to help damn your kids then in order to go to bed at night feeling good you believe that God you may deceive yourself into a peaceful night's sleep but you'll help cause your children to sleep the death of agony and hell forever dear Christian parents we will be satisfied with nothing less and fixed dispositions of Christian graces and Christian commitment do you see that

Dispelling Misconceptions and the Example of Timothy

26:22 and all along the way knowing that even in adults Matthew 13 some receive the word with joy but for a while endure Hebrews 6 they taste the good word of God the powers of the world to come if adults can go through experiences and speak of things in such a way that they are so close to the real that only time will sort it out how much more children who in the plastic plier will stay impressionable state of soul and psyche and mind and spirit and infancy are surrounded with the realities of the powers of the world to come you see that and so it is vital for us as parents to understand in this third category of a sound theology of what's going on in all of this that God's ordinary method with our children is to is one which demands of us that we cautiously hopefully and prayerfully await the emergence of a fixed disposition of Christian races and Christian commitment now it has been reported as Paul said but not

27:51 by the house of Chloe but by several telephone calls and several personal calls that we at Trinity believe no one whose profession of faith is made before the age of 18 or 21 should be considered a Christian a candidate for baptism or received into membership that is not true no one here has ever said that that is not the policy of your elders if you hear someone say they do not receive into membership and therefore they do not baptize children in pre-puberty you may say that that is our policy if you hear it said that not too many people in their mid or late teens are baptized and received into membership that is an accurate statement of fact but the theology that lies behind it is simply this we are awaiting for what we can regard in the judgment of charity as the emergence of a fixed disposition of Christian graces and commitment in a mind and a soul and a psyche which in the judgment of charity we believe is mature enough to say I now can separate myself enough from mom and dad to say I choose Christ over them I can separate

29:21 my views of life from mom and dad enough to know that should they deny them I will still pursue them because they grow out of my attachment to Jesus Christ the Lord you see that so to recapitulate and summarize the question we've been answering is when giving counsel to awaken children what things are of greatest importance in the heart and mind of the parent and my first answer was a big long one started last week at 10 after 10 went to 20 to 11 and it's been going on now for about 30 no 22 minutes it is this an accurate bible based theology of the vital issues directly involved in giving counsel to our awakened children and what are those things the natural condition of the children spiritually and domestically the sovereign provisions of grace for those children in the gospel and in Christian nurture and the ordinary method of grace in bringing salvation to children under that nurture but there is a second thing that's got to be in our hearts and minds as parents I've already inferred it but I want to highlight it as a separate point and it's this we must have a sanctified restraint

30:49 upon the natural desire to know as soon as possible our children are safe from the wrath of God and the wrath of God and the wrath of God and the wrath of God carefully we must have a sanctified restraint upon I didn't say the evil desire or devilish desire or carnal desire I said we must have a sanctified restraint upon the natural desire natural in terms of natural affection natural in terms of grace brethren my heart's desire and prayer to God for my fellow kinsmen is that they may be saved it's a natural desire to know as soon as we can or as soon as we have sufficient evidence that our children are safe from the wrath of God is it wrong to want to know your children are safe from the wrath of God surely if birds by instinct are willing to chew up worms and vomit them up to feed their little ones and God has put it into the heart quotation mark of brute beast to care for their young is there anything wrong that we should naturally long for the best interest of our children of course not to not to is to be as the Bible says without natural affection well when grace

32:19 comes and we know that their greatest need is to be safe from the wrath of God their greatest need is to be regenerated and have the image of God restored in them by implanted grace that desire burns within us and it ought to burn within us God help us if it doesn't burn within us and all I'm saying is we must have a sanctified restraint upon that natural desire to know that our children are safe from the wrath of God it is not it is a natural desire in nature and in grace but God must work in us by the spirit a willingness to be patient for his working one sows another waters but God gives the increase 1 Corinthians 3 6 and here I would commend to you though we don't have time to go into it in detail just take your concordance and look up the references to Timothy and Timothy is as far as I can see in the Bible the best paradigm or model or the pattern of this kind of a situation Timothy had a mother and a grandmother who were godly all it says about his father is he was a Greek so he was probably

33:48 not believing he certainly was not a proselyte because he didn't have Timothy Timothy was not circumcised as an infant so I Paul took him and had him circumcised before he took him out as a missionary lest it should be a stumbling block to Jews and it clearly says in 2nd Timothy 1 5 that he had a godly grandmother and a godly mother furthermore it says in 2nd Timothy 3 14 and 15 that from a brephos from a babe on the breast from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise through faith wise unto salvation through faith it is in Christ Jesus but the first time we meet him as an adult all we read about him in Acts 16 1 and 2 is that Paul found him in a place called Lystra and when he found him he already had a good well established reputation among the brethren the same was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium no account of when he passed from death unto life all we know is godly grandmother godly mother from a babe he knew the scriptures in his mature manhood he is a man of earned reputation in the church as a believer and a servant of Christ worthy of being chosen by Paul to become his companion furthermore

35:16 we read that he came to great eminence Paul said of him in Philippians 2 I have no man like minded who will naturally care for your state they all seek their own not the things that are Christ Jesus there is no indication of any record of a crisis experience by which he could point to when he passed from death unto life but it is interesting two crises that he could always remember are mentioned in his life and you know what they are his open confession and his ordination his open confession and his ordination in 1st Philippians 6 12 Paul reminds him of that first spiritual crisis when he says this fight the good fight of faith lay hold on the eternal life eternal where unto you were called and did confess a good confession in the sight of many witnesses there was a time when Timothy made a good confession in the sight of many witnesses and I think most responsible commentators would agree unless they had some kind of axe to grind on the precise subjects of the ordinances that this would have been at his open public confession of faith at his baptism now he knew when that happened but there's no account of how and when he passed from death unto life now I know we don't

36:45 argue from silence but we can simply note the fact that the Bible is silent but it's not silent on the crisis of his public confession before many witnesses you could call the people together who say on such and such a day Timothy made the good confession of faith in Christ and then his ordination to the ministry 2nd Timothy 1 in verse 6 I put you in remembrance to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands and whether that was a laying on of Paul's hands to impart some special charisma some special grace of ministry or whether Paul was present when he was ordained with the other presbyters and is parallel to chapter 4 in verse 14 of the first letter 1st Timothy 4 14 do not neglect the gift that is in you which was given you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery Timothy knew when he made the good confession and he knew when hands were laid upon him recognizing him as a gift of Christ to serve in his church and there doesn't seem to be a smidgen of evidence that he was ever disturbed that he may not have known the quote day of his conversion no indication that grandma and his mother lay awake and I'd say something must be defected in Timothy's experience we don't know when he passed no indication

Cultivating a Dispositional Mentality

38:14 of that preoccupation now what does that tell us well what it tells us is this dear people is that we must by the grace of God seek to cultivate what I'm calling a dispositional or process mentality with our children as opposed to the decisional or crisis mentality of the that prevails in the evangelical church today does that terminology click we must cultivate a dispositional or process mentality as opposed to the decisional or crisis mentality because you see as we in the context of Christian nurture enforce the duties of the church of the law and of the gospel what we enforce though the manner in which we do it and some of what I would call the secondary elements of the motives with which we do it may differ the substance of what we do with our children does not change whether they are awakened or unawakened when the child seems to be

39:42 dead as a dodo to the claims of the law and of the gospel are you still under obligation to impose those claims upon your children huh suppose someday the kid is six years old and looks up you've given him an order and he says you know mummy I used to like it when you gave me orders I don't like it anymore because I have no heart to obey the fifth commandment I'm not going to do it what would you do oh dear I wouldn't want to bend your poor little psyche I wouldn't want to make you bitter to God in religion but of course my dear I won't make you do a thing you tell me dear sweetie pie when you want to obey mummy again then mummy will give you some orders is that what you do God help if you do you take a little sweetie in the face and say now it's nothing you don't want to obey but that doesn't make a bit of difference God has told mummy and daddy to make you obey now it will be in your best interest to do what I tell you or it's going to be enforced in a place where God put lots of nerve endings and lots of subcutaneous fat and I'm about to bring some external force to bear upon your little will now get on with it bug old buster you had it alright now what about the gospel

41:10 so and so has gone in and in cold blood wrenched the toy out of his sister's hand and runs off to his own room slams the door and when she comes back she says oh my god she tries to come in he squashes her fingers in the door and she comes down bloody free I mean it's a mess and you sit them down and say now look son you sinned you took that toy from sister you had no right to do that that was selfish that was putting what you want ahead of her you sinned and you've got to say sorry to God and sorry to your sister don't want to or is that so you've got to anyway I'm not going to oh you're not we'll see about that now I'm giving you one more time one more chance you say sorry to sister before daddy takes you in and we talk to God about it sits there and sets his lip well the issue's clear you take whatever instrument of reasonable appropriate punishment you have whether it's a paddle your hand a belt one and you go to work until that kid fulfills the duty of repentance and you keep at it until it has affected something of the spirit of repentance if you don't believe that's biblical then you read the book of Romans the book of Proverbs says thou shalt beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from what from hell why because the rod becomes the conduit of implanting the grace of repentance you see

42:39 so whether the kid's awakened or not dead as a goat or the spirit you still impose the duties of the law and of the gospel and you say now you must ask God to forgive you ask the Lord Jesus to wash that sin away and you guide him into his prayer you see when you have the dispositional mentality you carry right on with your duty whether they're awakened or not awakened now if they show an awakening and even say well mommy I believe I am a Christian I've asked the Lord to forgive me and I continue to ask him to forgive me and I do repent of my sins and I do ask brother or sister then you say well honey if you are a Christian then you continue to repent and you continue to seek forgiveness from the Lord Jesus you nurture what may be a disposition of grace or may be just another stirring of God's prevenient grace through your nurture but see then you're not all on hold do I treat them as a Christian do I treat them as a non-Christian parents did all in the tizzy because they've got the decisional as opposed to the dispositional mentality you see that you see that contrast I feel like when it's absolutely crucial in the decisional or crisis mentality realizing that regeneration

44:07 is an act of God in time that has a beginning and that it immediately begins to issue in repentance and faith which from being a truly spiritual complex of exercises has a beginning everything focuses on the question with the child have you believed have you repented have you repented have you quote accepted Christ you see the fatal area is if they are truly regenerate and if they have truly been brought to faith and repentance the only evidence of that for anyone young or old is that the act becomes the disposition and the momentary exercise becomes a continuous process and a pattern so the decisional or crisis mentality has got to go whereas with the dispositional mentality where we are in the posture to carry on consistently prayerfully lovingly patiently hopefully and cautiously the work God has called us to do now I've laid out my thesis and I had hoped today to then get into a number of the specific practical counsels that you will then find yourself giving with your children

Practical Counsel: Responding to Professions and Discipline

45:35 but since the hour is almost gone I think I'll quit here and now I know what we need to do next week we'll take up the specific practical counsels then in dealing with awakened children so we took the question we digressed into the framework within which alone it can be responsibly contemplated now then we'll come to some of the specific counsels and in the remaining few minutes we'll talk about and we'll entertain questions alright if they are not only awakened but they make some kind of at least tentative profession then you say well honey if you are a Christian and love the Lord Jesus then doesn't it grieve you to think that when you snatch sister's toy that that grieved the Lord that ugly broke his law but that grieves him when we do not yes I'm so sorry and you see what seems to be a tenderness at the very thought of grieving the Lord Jesus you can bring additional motivations take them at their word that they believe they are saying I'm prepared to be motivated by distinctively gospel motives alright take them at their word don't say ah you can't be a Christian see that comes into some of the counsel no take them at their word you're not saying and absorbing them and pronouncing them Christians you're saying sweetie if you really do believe that you love the Lord Jesus and that you are his child then you are surely you're grieved not only because you broke God's law

47:04 but in a sense you treated lightly what Jesus did when he died on the cross for sinners like you and you bring some more distinctly gospel motives into a climate in which they appear to be susceptible to those more distinctively gospel motives alright the same way it's the duty of every husband to lead his wife but Paul can say to Christian husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church he can bring distinctively gospel motives into the orbit of a generic duty am I making sense by that alright just like with ourselves is there not a place to pray in the spirit of the Lord's prayer certainly when the Lord said after this manner pray ye he does not think that at the beginning of each day or only at the end of each day do we say and forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us but there is a sense in which we do pray catch all prayers throughout the day if we've been conscious we spoke a sharp word to our wives or to our work associates we lift our hearts up to the Lord and say Lord forgive me if it actually broke out into words that caused a tense altercation might have to stop and patch it up but even doing that and keeping short accounts we still come to the end of the day and say Lord and for the sins that are in us I was too sinful to even be aware

48:33 that I had sinned forgive me and wash me in the blood of your son so part of the training of our children is to teach them at the end of every day to ask God's forgiveness for all the sins of the day in a general sense as well as pressing the particular more evident critical issues that come to focus along the way otherwise you'd be doing nothing from morning till night if you went around hounding for every little aberration alright yes is that answer satisfactory yes yes and then this will have to be the last question our time has gone from us there's no fixed answer because sometimes the little human heart is so deceitful they'll go through the motions of repentance but they've got an agenda and after they've gone through all the motions do I have to have a bang in see they're trying to con you see ah clever little boogers yeah that's right see so you've got to make sure you aren't being conned there may be times when to show to show that repentance averts God's direct punishment there may be on the other hand if every time there's repentance there's no punishment you can begin to teach a terrible theology that sin can go unpunished if only it's acknowledged that's bad theology we're forgiven because somebody was punished

50:03 for our sins we're forgiven and so that becomes a wonderful opportunity to teach the gospel principle but there's no hard fast rule in every little case each person each parent must give himself to knowing his child knowing his patterns and over the long haul you've got all the strands of biblical doctrine you're trying to teach there are times when you're trying to teach that grace gives us the opposite of what we deserve and the kid knows he's just been you know he's just been out of sorts and kind of just going on and on around with a chip on his shoulder not the kind of thing any one manifestation of which that would demand a severe confrontation but he knows if ever there was a time when he didn't deserve anything extra it's then and you step right in and you do something very special for him and the kid says daddy why'd you do this I know I have to you say you mean you don't think you deserve this no I don't if I deserve anything I need a gentle spanking say in other words you realize what money and daddy are giving you you don't deserve that's what grace is giving you just the opposite of what you deserve and there are times as parents you look for opportunities to teach what grace is you see as well as to teach that the wages of sin is death that breaking God's law has consequences so we've got the whole spectrum that's why people say when you a lot of you young mothers know I've got on my soapbox when you've said oh I'm just a housewife just a housewife you've got to be a theologian

Theological Parenting and Concluding Prayer

51:30 to deal with your kids right you don't even know the technical words of theology but you better see the full spectrum of what you are to reflect of God and of his ways and of his gospel in your home same thing of you fathers and so in the whole ongoing work of being good parents these are some of the dynamics that enter into it and God willing obviously these specifics are anticipating what we'll deal with next week and I want to come then to some of the specific guidelines and then hopefully out of that there will be more questions and interaction well let's pray and thank the Lord for his help this morning our Father we're so thankful that we have your word as a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway and when we think of the awesome trust of precious lives entrusted to us and that we stand in your place to nurture them to mold their thinking about reality about life about you and your law and your gospel and duty and responsibility and human relationships Lord surely every one of us as a parent cries out who is sufficient for these things but we thank you that you've given us your word which is able thoroughly to furnish us unto every good work

53:00 of parental duty O God make us a people who lay hold of these biblical perspectives that we may be able to be delivered from the tyranny of the decisional mentality and may know both the joy and liberty of having that mentality of seeking and praying and hoping and longing to see dispositions of grace implanted in our precious children hear our prayer receive our thanks for your presence with us we ask in Jesus name Amen