Christ Church

Training Up Children

Christ Church on

Want to subscribe to our new podcast feed? Click here or search ‘ChristKirk’ in your podcast app.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

INTRODUCTION

One of the great mistakes of parenting is to get the stages of parenting backwards. When children are young, they need significant guidance and discipline and a very narrow, black and white path. But as children grow older, they need to internalize and love the standards and exercising them for themselves. Another name for this process is discipleship in Christ.

THE TEXT

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).

WHAT IS THE WAY?

The “way” a child should go is the way of obedience to Christ. When he is old, when he goes to college or gets married that is the path we want our children to remain on. How must we obey Christ? We must obey Him right away, all the way, and cheerfully all our days because He loved us first (1 Jn. 4:19, 5:2-3). “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Eph. 6:1). “In the Lord” means to obey your parents because of what the Lord has done and in the same way you would obey Jesus. This is similar to the command given to servants, “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ” (Eph. 6:5). Slow obedience is not obedience. Fussing and complaining obedience is not obedience. Arguing and eye rolling are not compatible with obedience. Partial obedience is not obedience. Having to be told more than once is not obedience. Obedience coerced from counting to various numbers is not obedience. Obedience resulting from threats of discipline is not obedience. This is because obedience is love. Cheerful, prompt, and thorough obedience is not only possible but makes for a very pleasant home.

TRAINING UP

Training is primarily a matter of practice. When a pile of third graders show up for their first football practice in the history of ever, the coaches do not expect the boys to know how to play football. Likewise, parents need to remember that these little people just arrived on this planet, and that is why they act the way they do. They really do need to be taught and reminded a lot, especially when they’re very young. The fact that they need to be taught about everything is a design feature, not a bug. And parents must be obedient to that command – prompt, cheerful, and thorough – in teaching their children: “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Dt. 6:7). Parenting is a full-time job, and it happens all day long, everywhere you go (and sometimes throughout the night, “when thou liest down”). This element of training includes lots of talking and lots of practice. To return to the sports analogy, you do not merely talk about the game and then go to your first game. You talk about it, and then you practice, then correct and talk more, then practice more. So too parents must talk a lot and prepare their kids for the game of life. What will they face today, tomorrow, or next week? What temptations will they face in the grocery store, when friends or cousins come over, at dinner time or bed time or at the birthday party or school? Teach and practice for them all. This is love. Love prepares. Role play lots. If you suddenly require your 3 year old to say hello or thank you to the strange dinner guest, have you prepared them to run that play? Same thing goes for church. Practice obedience regularly, and do everything you can to make practice a joy. Lavish high praise, high fives, and candy.

WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG

When children are young, they do not know the way. There is a sense in which they do not know the difference between good and evil, how to go out or how to come in (e.g. Is. 7:16, 1 Kgs. 3:7). And therefore, they must be taught. While you wouldn’t know it from most Disney movies, the hearts of children are not repositories of wisdom and knowledge. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15). Therefore, the opinions, wishes, and feelings of young children need to be formed and informed, and not really given the time of day. How they feel about bed time, nap time, what’s for dinner, what to wear, who their friends are — are all opinions which need to be given to them. For the first ten or so years of a child’s life, he or she needs to live in a benevolent totalitarian dictatorship. It should be full of love and joy and laughter and hugs and a very a small, well-defined world, full of black and white. Do not ask a five year old how they think that makes you feel. The justly administered spanking is teaching him exactly how he should feel, and besides, your feelings are not the standard.

LEARNING TO RIDE A BIKE

Many parents will probably have the opportunity to help one or more of their kids learn how to ride their first bike. Lessons begin with lots of hovering and holding the bike upright, and you can feel the bike wavering back and forth. But as your child begins to learn how to peddle and balance, you begin loosening your grip, and you need to do that so that they can begin to feel the sensation of the bike’s motion and begin controlling the balance for themselves. Finally, at some point, you begin letting go. Maybe for only a few seconds at a time, but eventually you let go completely. That’s what Christian parenting should be like: lots of hovering in the beginning, then slowly loosening your grip with slight corrections, and by sometime in high school, you really should let go. Another way to describe this same process is internalizing the standard. What you were providing (balance/momentum) in the beginning is what they have to internalize for themselves in order to remain on the path of obedience. The Bible describes this process of internalizing God’s standards as coming to love them. “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart” (Dt. 6:5-6). Far too often parents get this backwards: they give far too much freedom in the early years and then when things start looking wobbly in middle school, they begin trying to clamp down, often resulting in collisions.

CONCLUSION

The Bible teaches that the law of God is sweet (Ps. 19:10). Obedience is like chocolate cake, like milk and cookies, like frosted donuts, like candy. When God gave the Ten Commandments, He prefaced them with, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…” (Ex. 20:1). God’s standards are the standards of freedom. We get to worship God alone, keep Sabbath, honor authorities, defend marriage, etc. We love because He loved us first. Loving little ones means lots of training when they are young, so that when they are old they do not depart from that love.

Read Full Article

The Winker

Christ Church on

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

THE TEXT

A worthless person, a wicked man,
    goes about with crooked speech,
13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet,
    points with his finger,
14 with perverted heart devises evil,
    continually sowing discord;
15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;
    in a moment he will be broken beyond healing (Prov. 6:12-15).

Read Full Article

Cheerful Hearts and Good Words

Christ Church on

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

 

Introduction

We need to begin with the obvious, which is that Scripture teaches that our words affect how we are doing, not to mention those all around us. But this “obvious” truth can, if unattended, deteriorate into the vagaries of generic uplift. When we speak the good word, it must be a word that is truly wise and good.

The Texts

“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken” (Prov. 15:13).

“Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad” (Prov. 12:25).

Summary of the Texts

We begin by juxtaposing two proverbs, asking each of them to illumine the other one. The first tells us that there is a link between the condition of the heart and the condition of the countenance. A merry heart results in a cheerful countenance, just as a man speaks out of the abundance of his heart (Matt. 12:34). The heart is a thermostat, setting the temperature of the rest of your activities. If the heart is sorrowful, the spirit is broken, and if the heart is merry, then the countenance shows it.

So, then, how do we adjust the thermostat? When a man’s heart is heavy, then his heart stoops. He becomes discouraged. He cannot carry the weight that providence is asking him to carry. When someone wants to help, what they need to do is come in order to speak a good word. A good word makes his heart glad.

Timing is Everything

But this is a good word, not just any word, and not any old word that somebody thinks is good. “He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him” (Prov. 27:14).

Suppose your roommate, or your spouse, or somebody in your house, comes staggering out to breakfast, and pours himself a bowl of Grumpy Nuggets, with no sugar. Is that the time to wave your spoon in the air in time with the old gospel song you start to sing in a raucous manner? “Cheer up, ye saints of God, there’s nothing to worry about/Nothing to make you feel afraid, nothing to make you doubt./Remember Jesus loves you so why not stand up and shout?/You’ll be sorry you worried at all tomorrow morning.”

And the word of Scripture is fulfilled; you are reckoned as one who curses.

The words you speak should be true, of course, but they need to be more than true. They must also be relevant, and in addition to being relevant, they must also be timely. As it has been well said, the only difference between salad and garbage is timing.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear” (Prov. 25:11-12). So don’t be like Mary Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, saying true things all day long, in wildly inappropriate ways.

And your words should also be kind. The lock on the door of your mouth should have three keys—is it true? is it kind? is it necessary?

Creaturely Imitation

There is more involved in this than just heeding an exhortation to “be nice,” or to “say nice things.” If we need to do this kind of thing in wisdom, and we do, we need to do it in imitation. What we do, we are to do as children, as imitators or followers of God (Eph. 5:1). We worship God through the Word, and so it is not surprising that we are logocentric, that we are people of words. We serve and worship the God who is love, and so we are to walk in love (Eph. 4:15). And, in the same way, we worship the God who spoke the perfect word, the fitting word, into our hearts, and so we are to do the same to others, by imitation and by analogy. Our words are to be gospel, and our words are to be gospel-like.

Counterintuitive Words

We want to take it apart in order to find out how it works. But we need to begin with the reality that it works. The Bible calls the preaching of the cross “folly” to the worldly-wise. Why should we be surprised when they come up to us and say that what we are doing doesn’t seem relevant to them. Of course it doesn’t. That is a design feature. God defines what a word fitly spoken looks like. God defines what a perfect setting of silver should be.

God defines truth. God defines necessity. God defines kindness.

Need and Grace

We learn how to speak to others, speaking the good word, by observing closely how God speaks to us. And when the gospel comes to us, what is it? We have human need on the one hand and divine grace on the other.

The good word spoken is therefore the intersection between need and grace. The good word that preaching brings is this—it is the declaration of the grace of God, addressed to human need, and the declaration is backed up with the authority of God’s throne.

So when you come to encourage someone, what is it that you are imitating? It is not a hollow appeal that glibly says, “don’t worry, be happy.”

The Declaration of Christ

Christ, then, is to be preached. By that we mean Christ incarnate, Christ crucified, Christ buried, Christ risen, and Christ ascended. When He is declared in this way, the pattern of death, resurrection, and ascension is not put out there to complete an argument in your intellect, although it may do that. Neither is Christ over all to be preached in such a way as to soothe or excite your emotions, although it may do that as well. We are to love God with all our minds, and we cannot do that without the preaching of Christ crucified. We are to love God with all our hearts, and we cannot do that without the preaching of Christ risen and ascended. But something more is necessary.

No, the faithful declaration of this gospel is always aimed at the citadel of the human will. You are not here as spectators, or observers, but rather as worshipers, and this means that you are on the mountain of decision. And when you go down again, into your day-to-day activities, you will be in the valley of decision.

Here you are, and here is the Word declared. What are you going to do?

Read Full Article

Sharing Your Gospel

Christ Church on

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

In this famous section of Proverbs, the father exhorts his son, “forget not mylaw; but let thine heart keep mycommandments” (Prov. 3:1), with the promise of length of days, long life, and peace (Prov. 3:2). How can a human father, a fallen, fallible father say such a thing? We see something perhaps equally puzzling in Paul’s repeated use of the phrase “mygospel” (Rom. 2:16, 16:25, 2 Tim. 2:8). Couldn’t this be confusing? Doesn’t this seem a little arrogant?

The Text

“My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.9 Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Proverbs 3:1-12).

Heart, Neck, Eyes, Barns, and Discipline

The exhortations in our text are to rather abstract virtues (law, mercy, truth, trust, fear, honor), but they are saddled to intensely concrete bodilyitems: days, heart, neck, eyes, bones, barns, and wine (Prov. 3:2-10). This sets up the equation between virtue and practical actions and decisions. Virtue is embodied. We also see that there are five admonitions, and each exhortation is followed by a concrete promise of blessing: do not forget=length of days (Prov. 3:1-2), keep mercy and truth=finding favor (3:3-4), trust in the Lord=straight paths (3:5-6), fear the Lord=good health (3:7-8), honor the Lord=full barn (3:9-10). So without reducing virtue to a mechanical lever, it is still true to say that virtue is embodied and the blessing that follows virtue is also embodied, either now or in the resurrection (Mk. 10:30). And the father reappears at the end of our text, claiming that his discipline is the embodiment of the Lord’s loving discipline (Prov. 3:11-12).

My Law & Commands

While the idea that virtue is embodied is easier to understand, the question is how the father can claim that his discipline is the Lord’s discipline, that his son should keep his law. Shouldn’t the father make it clearer that it isn’t really his law, rather it’s the Lord’s, and his discipline is only as good as it agrees with God’s discipline? Related is also the fact that the father is promising “long life and peace,” which the father may be able to influence but cannot infallibly deliver. Is it really wise for Solomon (or any father) to speak this way? Surely part of the answer is found in the words of Moses: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children…You shall bind them as a sign on your hand…” (Dt. 6:5-9) A faithful father was commanded by God to embrace the law of God and bind it to himself and so teach it diligently to his children. A faithful father believes God’s promise for long life and peace and prosperity for fidelity to His law, and in so far as the father is representing God’s law, the father may relay this as his own possession and sure promise to his children.

Mercy & Truth

But the second admonition suggests that there is even more going on: “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart” (Prov. 3:3). If the first exhortation reminds us of God’s law, this combination seems to be a short hand for the essentials of covenant blessing. In Genesis 24:27, the servant of Abraham blessed God for not forsaking his “mercy and truth” to Abraham by leading him to Rebecca’s family. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies” (Ps. 25:10, cf. 2 Sam. 15:20, Ps. 57:3, 10, 85:10, 89:14, 100:5). But in Prov. 16:6, Solomon says that by “mercy and truth” atonement is provided for sin. The word atonement reminds us of the Most Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant was. The golden lid was called the “mercy seat” and the Ten Commandments were inside it (Ex. 25:21, Heb. 9:3-4). All of this pointed to Jesus and specifically His cross, where the mercy and truth of God have come together even more clearly and emphatically: Jesus is both God’s truth about our sin and His merciful sacrifice for it (Jn. 1:14-17). He is our ark, our mercy seat, our “throne of grace” in a time of need (Heb. 4:16, 10:19ff). And Jesus is the embodiment of mercy and truth. When the father says bind mercy and truth around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart, he is actually saying bind Jesus around your neck and write Jesus on the tablet of your heart.

Embodied Discipleship

But it still seems somewhat puzzling: why does the father point to himself in the first instance and not immediately away to God? Part of the answer is that the father does point to the Lord (3:5, 3:7, 3:9) – so every father should do the same. But the father still feels very comfortable calling the law “my law” and likening his instruction/discipline with the correction/chastening of the Lord (3:1-2, 11-12). The answer is found in God’s determination that discipleship be intensely personal and therefore embodied. Discipleship is teaching virtues such as truth and mercy and obedience and honor, but those virtues must be embodied and imitated. Christian discipleship does look to the Lord, but Jesus sent mento disciple the nations. Therefore, discipleship also simultaneously includes immediate human relationships, like father-son. Jesus embodies this in the first instance as the perfect Son of the perfect Father. The scribes and Pharisees were scandalized by His insistence that He is the embodiment of the Father (Jn. 10:29-30), but we often merely chalk this up to the deity of Christ: Jesus is God, so He can say things like that (which is true).

But Jesus also indicates that what He came to do, as an ambassador of His Father, He intends to pass on to His disciples. He calls the disciples away from their earthly fathers and their fishing boats and nets and says He will likewise make them fishers of men, or we might say fathers of men (Lk. 5:10). And we see this in Paul’s own ministry: “I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore I urge you, imitate me. For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church” (1 Cor. 4:14-17, cf. Phil. 2:22, 1 Thess. 2:11). As Jesus called the first disciples to “follow me,” Paul imitates and says, “follow me,” and presumably he taught Timothy to say the same thing. This is why Paul frequently refers to the gospel as “my gospel” or “our gospel” (Rom. 2:16, 16:25, 2 Cor. 4:3, 1 Thess. 1:5, 2 Thess. 2:14, 2 Tim. 2:8).

Conclusion

Because we have been given the Spirit of the Father and the Son, we have access to the Father and therefore we have the boldness to represent Him to others. In the gift of salvation, the living and eternal God has taken up residence in you. His law has become your law. His mercy and truth are bound around your neck, written on the tablet of your heart. His gospel is now your gospel. If we understand this, we must learn to say with Jesus: Come, follow me, keep my law and commandments. This is my gospel: Jesus Christ was crucified for sinners and raised from the dead for our justification. My son, my daughter, my friend, do not forget my law. This is all a gift, all of grace, but grace gives this authority. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10).

Read Full Article