How to Love them Well – August 30

“What’s it like being a pastor’s kid?” This was, by far, the most common question I got asked growing up.

If you don’t know, my dad was the founding senior pastor of Grace Church, which started when I was in 3rd grade. And he was a youth pastor all my years before that. So yeah, being a pastor’s kid was a rather large part of my identity.

And so people always wondered, “What’s it like?”

As I got a bit older, I used to respond, “Well, we spend two to three hours in prayer together every morning, and I’m not allowed to listen to the radio, but otherwise it’s pretty normal.”

Their eyes would always get really big and I’d say, “I’m joking. It was totally normal.”

I think because I turned out ok, never went off the deep end (as pastor’s kids have a reputation for doing), and because I held onto my faith into adulthood, people assumed that my parents must have had some kind of secret technique for raising godly children.

What most people didn’t realize was that a lot of the super intentional stuff you’re “supposed” to do totally fell flat for our family.

For example, there were multiple times where we tried to do family devotions together. We’d get some kind of book or Bible study and try to study it as a family, but it never, ever worked.

It was so ineffective, in fact, that we developed an inside joke as a family. Anytime someone would bring up family devotions, another one of us would say, “Duh duh, DUHHHHHH!” Because it was doomed from the start.

All the one-size-fits Christian child-rearing strategies just never worked for us when I was little. And yet my sister and I turned out great. We’ve both held on to our faith. Our family still loves each other. My parents must have been doing something right.

Well, I believe they absolutely were. And today we’re going to talk about what it was. Not just about my parents, but about what I believe is the key to all great parenting.

SERIES SETUP

Welcome to “How to love them well,” a four-week series about Christlike parenting at different stages.

Today we’re going to talk about parenting children in general, especially younger children. Next week we’ll explore parenting teens. Week three is all about parenting adult children.

Our final week will be a bit different, because it’ll be about parenting aging parents, the often complicated time when the caretaker becomes the one needing care.

I’m doing this week, but other members of our teaching team will do the rest of them.

Now let’s start by stating the obvious. I don’t have any kids.

So you might be wondering what I’m doing teaching a sermon about parenting, at all. Well, I don’t have kids, but I do have potbelly pigs. Give them a bowl of food in the morning and the evening, give them belly rubs, and they’re good. How much harder could raising human children possibly be?

I’m kidding, obviously. No, I don’t have kids. And to some degree I can’t know what it’s like being a parent.

However, here’s what I do have: decades of experience walking with friends, family, and congregants as they navigate the challenges of parenting at all life stages.

I’ve also done a lot of reading and study about human development and childhood psychology, and I’m a student of Scripture, which still has a lot to teach us about raising the next generation.

Finally, I watched how my parents raised me, and I think they did a really good job.

So if you’ll allow me, I’d like to show you what I believe the Bible is calling us to be and to do as parents to love our children well.

Oh, and let me talk to those of you who, like me, don’t have kids. I know it might seem like this series is one you might just want to skip. “What does this have to do with me?”

I encourage you not to. Stay in the room. And here’s why. Two reasons:

First, the parents in our midst need our help. Raising children was never meant to be done in isolation. “It takes a village to raise a child,” right? Well, we’re the village.

And if we want this spiritual community to be healthy and thriving in 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, it matters how we all invest in the next generation now.

Second, this series isn’t about practical parenting tips which have no relevance to you. No. It’s about how the love of Christ works through us to touch the lives of others.

If you pay attention, I guarantee you’ll also have something to learn, no matter what the word “family” means to you.

Let me pray for us, then we’ll dive in.

THE PROBLEM

Let’s start by identifying the problem. Why is parenting well so difficult these days?

Proverbs 22:6 in the old King James Version of the Bible says this (maybe you’ve heard this before),

Proverbs 22:6 (KJV)

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Seems pretty cut and dried to me. Just train your children in the right way and you’re good, right?

If only it were that simple.

If only children weren’t moral free agents who can choose to wander and rebel no matter how good your intentions are.

If only our world wasn’t broken, filled with sinful people to lead your kids astray, powerful algorithms to capture their attention, and traumatic events that are outside of your control.

If only real life played by the rules.

But so often it doesn’t, and parents are left struggling to figure things out, awash with child-rearing books and TikTok parenting influencers and cereal commercials which all sure make it seem like you’re the only family who isn’t getting it right.

Or, like my parents, you try all the “correct” techniques to raise godly children, like doing family devotions, playing worship music in the car, teaching your kids all the right behaviors, but it all seems to fall flat and fail. “Duh duh, DUHHHHHH!”

It really makes me wonder. What if we’re looking at this all wrong? What if the most important aspect of parenting has nothing to do with techniques at all?

Today, if you’re feeling the angst of all of this, I want to introduce you to a biblical concept that I think can radically transform your parenting journey. And it comes from a passage that isn’t directly about raising children.

Turn with me please to Colossians 3:12

CLOTHE YOURSELVES

A quick bit of context before we read. Colossians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in a city called Colossae, in what is today Western Turkey.

The church there was getting muddled up with non-Christian influences, so Paul is writing to help them understand what it really looks like to follow Jesus.

In Chapter 3, Paul is describing the new life that Christ makes possible, and how that new life plays out in community.

First, he talks about ridding our lives of the stuff that so easily corrupts us. Lust, greed, rage, slander, lies… You can’t have a healthy community if you’re letting sin run rampant. It affects others; not just yourself.

But he doesn’t just leave it there. Next, he talks about how the Colossian Church should be living. Let’s read.

Colossians 3:12-14

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

Now, there’s a lot of concepts here - mercy, forgiveness, love, etc. And there’s plenty we could apply to parenting. But the key idea I want to focus on today is the verb Paul uses in verse 12: “clothe yourselves.” In Greek, it’s the word

ἐνδύω - endyō - to put on, clothe one’s self, be clothed

I think it’s a really helpful metaphor, because two things are true about clothing yourself.

First, the clothing you choose has a big effect on how others see you. If I was wearing a tuxedo today, you’d see me differently than if I were wearing Jedi robes or a hazmat suit.

In Christian community we clothe ourselves with love so that others will experience love when they encounter us. Our clothing choice affects how people see us.

Second, this image is great because clothing yourself is something you have to do every single day. It’s not a one-time thing. Every day before you leave home you choose what you’re going to wear.

In the same way, you don’t just try being kind or patient once and then it’s permanent. It’s an ongoing, daily choice to be kind. To be patient.

My point in bringing this up is that it is so easy to focus on the techniques of Christian living. How exactly to be gentle or forgiving. What love is supposed to look like, practically.

But what really matters - more than any technique - is the daily choice to dress ourselves like Jesus in the first place. To choose who we are going to be as we encounter our world. Paul goes on in verse 16.

Colossians 3:16-17

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

Again, what do we usually focus on? Which songs to sing, what exactly we’re supposed to teach one another, how to be grateful. The techniques. And those are important, but that’s not where it starts.

It starts, verse 16, by letting the message about Christ fill your life. Verse 17. By seeing your identity - at your core - as a representative of Jesus in the world. It starts with the choice to leave home dressed like him.

And here’s what so cool about this. By making this choice day after day, you are inviting God’s Spirit to transform you. To change and press and mold you into the likeness of Christ.

The longer you wear Jesus’ clothes, the better they’re going to fit. You start to become like him in the way you think. When that happens, the techniques of Christian living are just the natural outcome.

To paraphrase Paul: Choose to clothe yourself with the love of Jesus every day and you will represent him well to a broken world.

A world, may I remind you, that is watching.

PAYING ATTENTION

So let’s bring this back to parenting. Perhaps you can already see where I’m going with this.

So much parenting advice is focused on the techniques - the tips and tricks and parenting hacks - which are supposedly guaranteed to give you healthy, well-rounded children as a result.

But when I think about the best parents I’ve encountered in my life, the thing they all have in common is not the strategies they use to raise their kids. Baby-led weaning; sleep schedules; screen time… They all do it really differently.

No. The thing these parents have in common is their deep commitment to developing their own faith and Christlikeness. They are devoted to dressing themselves like Jesus every day.

And this has an effect. Why? Because their kids are watching.

My parents are a perfect example. They never did figure out how to do family devotions “Duh duh, DUHHHHHH!” And guess what? They felt a bit like they were failing!

But guess what? I don’t think they were failing at all. Why? Because they were both devoted to dressing themselves with the love of Jesus, and I was paying attention.

• I watched my mom treat everyone in the service industry with incredible compassion and dignity.

• I watched my dad model the love of Jesus to the youth group he led. One of my core memories is of dad shaving his mustache for some student ministries event. He would do anything to show those kids that they mattered.

• I woke up in the mornings to find my mom reading her Bible in the living room and praying for the people on her heart.

• I watched dad set convenience aside to be home for family dinner every single night, even if he had to go back to work for a meeting afterwards.

• One time my sister and I had to stay with family friends for a week because mom and dad were going on a mission trip to Pakistan. The development of their own faith and their concern for the marginalized was that important.

• I watched my dad apologize. Often.

• I watched my mom have hard conversations with people in her love for them.

• I watched them both surrender to God’s will whenever they were making big decisions.

If you asked my parents today, they’d tell you that they had very little about parenting figured out. They’ve since apologized to me for some of the techniques they tried that they later regretted.

But I can tell you with certainty that they focused on developing their own faith. They worked hard every day to clothe themselves with the love of Jesus. And I was paying attention.

Proverbs 22:6 (KJV)

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

What I now understand is that training a child is not about knowledge transfer. It’s not about bashing them over the head with do’s and don’ts.

It’s about growing in your own Christlikeness so that your children have a model to follow. Demonstrate the way your child should go so as they grow they can follow the path you charted. Or, to use the language from Colossians 3, before anything else:

Dress yourself in love because your kids are paying attention.

GETTING PRACTICAL

Now, I realize that some of you are disappointed because you were hoping for some more practical parenting tips. Well, that’s what the Parenting Mini-Conference is for on September 26. We’re going to get very practical there.

Today I just wanted us to focus on building the right foundation. However, I do want to leave you with just a few practical ideas to consider as the series continues.

So here we go. Three things to remember. First, to use the metaphor of dressing yourself again: Parents,

Check the mirror before you act.

Before you speak, before you discipline, before you react, take a quick peek in your mental mirror and ask yourself, “What am I dressed as right now?”

Am I wearing battle fatigues? Am I dressed as a prisoner of my own shame? Or am I wearing the love and mercy and patience of Christ? Am I at least trying to dress like Jesus, even though the robe is still a bit uncomfortable?

Again, start with yourself because your kids are paying attention. Second, and related to this:

Work on your faith. Let your children work on theirs.

This seems counterintuitive. So much parenting advice is about teaching them. Shaping them. And what’s the first thing that goes out the window? Working on your own faith and Christlikeness. Who’s got time for that?

Here’s the hard pill to swallow: Your child is in God’s hands. Ultimately their identity, their future, is not up to you. It’s up to them.

If you want them to follow hard after Christ into adulthood - if you want them to be good people - then focus on your own faith first and give them a gleaming example to follow.

I did make that choice, because my parents focused on their own faith, and I was paying attention.

I didn’t devote my life to Christ because that’s what pastor’s kids are supposed to do. I didn’t make my faith my own because we did family devotions. I did it because I wanted to be like my mom and dad, who put Christ above all and looked like it.

So, check the mirror before you act. Work on your faith; let your children work on theirs. Finally,

Remember the village.

Parenting was never meant to be done alone. Why? Because there will be days when you fail to dress like Jesus.

Which is why it is so important that your children have a network of others who are demonstrating Christ’s love to them, even when you fail.

This is why Grace Kids and Student Ministries is vital. It is not about knowledge acquisition. It’s not about checking some spiritual box. It’s about giving your children access to other adults who can model Christlikeness for them. Who can show them the path to follow.

Your kids are paying attention. You don’t have a choice about that. But you do have a choice of which influences they’re paying attention to.

Colossians 3:14

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

Christlikeness is a team sport. So remember the village, because we all have a role to play in modeling the love of Jesus to your children.