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

Transcript:

All right. Well, you guys are a blast. It's always fun to be with you. It's a privilege to get to open God's Word and talk about something really important. Look for wisdom in the scriptures to do that.

We've got seven points between these two talks. We covered three of them last night. We talked about the family's a big deal. That's kind of a foundation we're building on, so we talk about the family. It's worthy of the sacrifices and attention and effort that we're going to talk about putting towards it, and impacts society and culture and the kingdom of God.

We talked about don't parent in vain. Don't be a parent that's so passionate in doing everything right and you put your whole heart into it, but you're trying to do it on your own, and you never are daily dependent on God. Because if the laborers build the house without God, they're just laboring in vain. And we don't want to parent in vain that way. So be dependent on God.

And then we talked about parenting with the lights—on that it's important to expose, not just keep our kids from bad, but expose them to bad and also show them what's good. We talked about being parents that…that “stupid” is part of your vocabulary. Like, we're on this safari ride and we show people, just like in the proverbs, like, there's the fool, there's the sluggard, there's the adulterous woman. Like, there's…they're pointing it out to our kids.

And like, you can take an activity, and now you can load your kids up in a minivan and just like, go out into the wild of this culture. And it's like, let's look at frat boys in their natural habitat and be like, hey, that's…don't do that. They’d be good family activities. So we're going to get into some four more points today, and I'm going to get practical this morning.

And where I'm going is I'm going to have a bend towards just being challenging, kind of like pressing in on some things that feel like they need to be pressed in on a little bit. And I understand that maybe a lot of you come to this and you're feeling overwhelmed as a parent, and you're just like, I just want some encouragement. I don't want to…I don't want to be challenged again. I don't want to feel like I'm doing something wrong. I just…I just want encouragement.

And that's an important part that you need in community. I'm not…I'm just going to say this talk isn't that. But I understand where you're at then. And that's an important thing to have—don't parent alone. Look around this room. You're in a church community. Connect with older parents that have done this, that have gone through it. Encourage each other, talk, and get practical in that.

But I get parenting is hard. The one encouragement that I would give you is just keep going, just keep fighting and keep applying God's truth day by day. But I want to press in on some things. And let me give you a disclaimer. I'm going to say some hard, bold things in this talk.

I'm probably going to say them in a way that sounds pretty black and white. I just want to say upfront, not everything that I say that sounds this black and white is probably as black and white as it might be coming across. They're convictions that I have, and I have them because they're conclusions that I think that I've come to because scripture kind of points to those things. So I get that. And you may disagree with some of the things that I'm going to say. That's OK.

I'm going to get them from where I think the Bible's pointing towards them. Now, you may be like, I don't think that's a fair application, or I don't think…I think there's a different application or I don't think what that means that, that…that's OK. I do want you to wrestle with the text. I want you to, “OK, it does say this. What does that mean for me practically now? How do I apply that?”

And it's OK for you to disagree. I may say some things that some of you aren't doing or don't want to do or would choose to do differently. Don't assume that I think you're a bad parent, then. OK?

I just want to get that out in the open. I realize there's a lot of different approaches to parenting. I know that you love your kids. I know that you're trying to do what's best for your kids. But also, I don't want the potential of offending somebody to prevent me from saying things that I think are really important and are rooted in scripture.

So we're going to come at it that way. And my hope is—I realize I don't pastor here, like I'm a guest speaker…it's an honor to be here—but I can come and say a bunch of things and then leave.

But if I could at least start a conversation, that's a win. If I could at least stir up where you go home, and as a husband and wife, a mom and dad together, you're like, “Hey, let's talk about that. Maybe we don't agree with what was said, but this is what scripture says. And how are we applying that? And how are we wrestling that?”

Because that's the authority, not me. And as I try to, like, apply this, I'm going to tell you, like, this is how I'm trying to apply this. But I'm not the authority here. The scripture's the authority. And if I could at least start a conversation. A conversation that maybe you continue with other wise people in this church of like, “Hey, Jake said this. It kind of upset me. How do I wrestle through this? How do I apply this?”

And you may have a conversation with wise people in this church. It's like, “Yeah, I know you said that, but I think you can apply this.” If you guys, like, if I leave here and you're having those conversations, that's a win. OK? If I leave here and you're just…and you don't like me, but you're having those conversations, that's a win. Like, I just like, parenting is a big deal. Raising kids is a big deal. And I want you to have those conversations. And I'm having it. I don't know you as well, but despite what I say or how I say it, just give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm saying it in love. ‘Cause I want what's best. Is that fair? We can go there? OK. One person believes in me.

All right, so we're gonna do four more guiding statements for parenting. And these all fall under kind of the foundation we laid last night of embracing different. Like, we're called to be holy as Christians, set apart from the world. We live differently than the world—which includes, we parent differently than the world.

So some of the things it's like, that sounds crazy to the world, but should it sound crazy to Christians? So this is kind of under those categories. So let's pick up. We start with point number four. Let's get after it.

Point number four: Kids make bad gods. Kids…that's not too controversial. We're starting slow. Kids make bad gods. And you know this. I don't think anyone is, like, praying to their kids or worshiping their kids. Well, it kind of depends maybe how you define worship, but I don't think anybody looks at their kids as “a god.” But we love our kids.

We love our kids so much. Like, we're passionate about our kids, we want what's best for our kids. And there's a temptation to build our lives around kids, to try and give them everything they want or try to never upset them or fear their disapproval or look at our own value through their eyes. And those are all worship-like characteristics that actually undermine our parenting.

And here's what I mean by this: If you need your kid’s approval, then you are not going to be a good parent to them. Like, if you need your kid to like you, you're never going to challenge them or discipline them. If you need your kid to approve of you, then you're never going to say the hard things. Like, if you just need your kid to be happy and your happiness kind of depends on their happiness, that's going to undermine you as a parent in the job that you're called to do in their lives. And we can fall into this thinking that happy kids means good parenting.

Happy kids means good parents. Like, our kids are the ones grading us. Like, we look to our kids and it's like, “Are you happy with me? Like, do you give me four stars today?” Like, they're gonna give an Uber review of you. Like, they're gonna…like, there's some website and kids kind of report on their parents, and you're looking at like, “No. Like, they don't grade us in our parenting.” Listen, parenting is not about pleasing kids. It's about pleasing God.

It's important to remember, parenting is not about pleasing kids. It's about pleasing God. If your kids are never upset with you, you're probably not parenting them. Parenting is not about pleasing kids. It's about pleasing God.

In 1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul's talking about whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. And if it includes eating and drinking, it includes parenting. And we need to parent to the glory of God. Parenting is not about pleasing kids, it's about pleasing God. And to parent kids better, we often need to love them less. And you're like, “Huh? What do you mean by like, what do you mean by that?” To parent kids better, we often need to love them less.

Now, I'm not saying don't love your kids, but I am saying being good parents may require that you love your kids less. And the key to understanding what I mean by that or what I'm getting at is asking, “Less how?” Or maybe more appropriate, “Less than who?” So look at Matthew 10:37—it says this: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me”—who's the me in this? Jesus. “... is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter”—your kids—“more than me is not worthy of me.” Like, Jesus kind of comes right out and says it. You need to love your kids less than Jesus. Right? That should not be controversial. But is that practically what's going on in your heart?

And actually, loving Jesus more than your kids helps you be better for your kids, helps you parent better. But you need to love Jesus more than your kids. In fact, you should go home and try this. As soon as you get home, grab your kids, just by their cheeks, just bend them down and just eye to eye, and look in their cute face, and just be like…like, “I love Jesus more than you.” Just tell them, like, let them know where they stand right away. I mean, give them a hug afterwards, but just, like, get it out there, right?

But seriously, like, there's a sense of where, “I love you, but I don't live for you. I love you, but I don't worship you. I love you, but I don't make it the aim of my life to keep you happy. Like, I'll die for you, but I don't live for you.”

And we need to know that in our own hearts: Love your kids less than Jesus. Or another way to say that is: In your parenting, seek to please Christ over kids. Like, if you're really going to parent, there's going to be days where your kids are not happy with you. And the older they get, they may even express their displeasure to you. “I hate you. How could you?”

Like, they just…and you just need to be able to be, like, “I'm not here to make you happy. I'm here to honor God and what he's called me to do in your life.” When it comes to parenting, seek to please Christ over kids. Now the reason I say that kids make bad gods is because if you place your kids at the top, like, you build your whole life around them, you see your value in them, you're trying to keep them happy—as cute as they are and as much as you love them, they will not be able to deliver. Because you weren't made for your kids. You were made for God. So they're gonna disappoint you.

They're not gonna satisfy your soul. Do they bring pleasure? Are they a joy, a gift from the Lord? Yes, but they are not the Lord. And your soul was not made for kids. Your soul was made for God. And God is the satisfier of your soul. And if you get that out of whack, you will crush your kids with that pressure. You will put so much weight on your kids to make you happy, and they can't deliver, and it'll be crushing to them. Jesus is your satisfier.

But when Christ is in the right place—where he's the satisfier of your soul, where he's the king of your life—that positions us to not need. I don't need you to like me. I don't need you to approve of me. I don't need you to validate me.

And then we're in a position to actually parent, to say brave things, like, “No.”

Practice that together. We're all going to say “no.” And three, one, two, three, “No.”

Yeah. Some of you didn't even say it though. You're like, “I'm not…I'm not there yet.” And some of you are like, “Yes! No, I've been waiting!” It's, like, pent up. “Finally!” You're like, “No!”

And even when they say, “But Timmy’s dad lets him!” You could say it again, “I don't care.” Right? And it's like, “But everyone at school's doing it!” You can say, “But that's stupid.” Right? You can say no.

When it's like, I don't need you to validate me, I don't need you to like me, I don't need you to approve of me, I'm not looking for my value in you—it positions us to actually be a parent and to discipline them…which leads to our next phrase.

Number five: Discipline is biblical. Discipline is biblical. I got a little bone to pick here—or a concern.

I feel like as a pastor, I kind of bump into this sometimes. I feel like there's a lot of talk about just parenting a kid's heart. “We should parent their heart. Just really want to parent their heart.” And you're like, “What do you…what do you mean by that?” And you'll hear some follow up of, like, “Well, I'm not here to just do behavior modification.” Yeah, you are! You're totally here to do behavior modification. That's parenting! You're trying to modify their behavior, trying to help them be well-behaved kids. You totally want to do behavior modification.

Now, we don't want to just do behavior modification, but don't use that as an excuse to do no behavior modification. When you look at your kid, it's like, “You're four. I don't care if your heart's not in it. Pick your toys up.”

Like, you don't have to, like, embrace this, you just need to be obedient. Like, you want to modify behavior. So, yes, we should always seek to connect to the heart, point to Christ in all things. But you can't make your kids a Christian. That's beyond your pay grade. That's a work of the Holy Spirit in their life. Like, you can't make your kids a Christian.

But your kids don't need to be born again to pick up their toys. Right? You can help them obey. You can lead them to being obedient. Sometimes, especially in Christian parents, we can take this approach to discipline of, “I just need to wait ‘til they become a Christian.”

Like, “We're so powerless.” It’s like, “Well, God just needs to change their heart.” Yeah, and that's a God thing, and he does that. And you do need to do that. And he's a Savior; you're not, but you're their parents. And they don't need a transformed heart to be real respectful to Mom and to put their dishes away. Like, you can call your kids to obedience.

So there is behavior modification that you are called to. That is parenting. Or we take an approach to discipline that thinks, “We need to wait until our kids understand. They just don't understand.” He's three—he doesn't know what he's doing. It's like we make these excuses: “They don't get it yet.” Right? Or, “They're really tired.” I'm sure they are tired! He missed a nap. And that contributed. That is a factor in this misbehavior. You know what another factor is? He's a rotten sinner!

Right? He's born with a corrupt heart. Like, they're not just basically good. We're fallen. We're depraved. And we can make these kind of excuses to avoid a responsibility to discipline, like, “Well, they just don't understand.”

They don't need to understand. Or what you're helping them try to understand is to be obedient. There is…there's a new trend called “gentle parenting” that focuses on—and I'm just…I'm reading this because I did some research—that “focuses on empathy, respect and understanding.”

That sounds nice. It's “trying to improve a child's self-awareness and understanding of their behavior—in contrast to ‘traditional parenting’ that focuses on punishment and reward.” One doctor put it this way, “A parent should be more like a coach to their kid rather than a punisher.”

Now, if we were in our safari…right…we loaded up the minivan and we're out in the wild of this world. And we go to Pizza Ranch, and you see a three year old laying on the floor screaming, and the mom lays on the floor with the kid and just like, “Tell me how you feel.” That's when you'd be like, “That's stupid. Don't do that.” That's foolishness. We don't do that.

Like, I want to caution you against that. You are not your kid's coach, you are not your kid's consultant, you are not your kid's therapist. You are their authority. You are their authority.

And authority matters. And one of the things you're trying to help them understand is authority matters. Parenting is training, and training involves punishment and rewards. If you try and get your kids to understand and personally embrace or agree with all obedience, what you are teaching them is that they're the authority and they can obey when they're ready to obey and understand it fully and agree with it. But they're not.

That's not how it works. They don't have to understand. Do you understand everything God has asked you to do? Do you understand all the why’s of what he's called us to? No, but he's God and we're not.

And we need to trust, and we need to respect, and we need to follow. And it's the same thing we're teaching our kids. Authority matters. Training them that, as their parent, what you say matters. And someday when they get in the world, they're going to have a boss and what they say matters. And ultimately they have a God and what he says matters. And we need to respect authority.

And training starts early. So when it's like, “Ah, they don't understand,” you're helping them understand. Training starts early. You wait until they understand—bad habits are already formed. So…so listen: Don't form ungodly habits in your kids, waiting for them to be godly. Don't allow ungodly habits to be formed in your kids while you're waiting for them to be godly. Form godly habits in your kid so when God does save them by his grace, they hit the ground running, like the tracks are laid for that.

In fact, Proverbs 22:6, you're probably familiar with this proverb. It's like, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he's older he won't depart from it.” Like there's this call; that proverb is about the importance of early training for later benefits.

That's the principle of that proverb. You train up a child in the way he should go—when he's a child, when he's young—then when he's older, he won't depart from it. Now, proverbs aren't like, true all the time, but proverbs are, like, a general principle. Like, this general principle is true. Like, if you kind of do your duty when they're young, you're going to benefit when they're older. They're not going to depart from it.

In this proverb, the…the principle is the value of early training for later benefits. Those early years are so formative. When you don't think they understand, they're learning. They need to be trained in those…those early years. And I am a firm believer that the stricter you are when they're young, the more you’ll enjoy them when they're older.

Let me say that again because I think it's really important. The stricter you are when they were young, the more you will enjoy them when they are older. Right? Because it is easier to teach a toddler to respect authority than to try to teach a teenager to respect authority, who has spent all his life thinking he is the authority. Right. If you are stricter when they are younger, you will enjoy them more when they're older.

Now, let me get a little bit more controversial. Let's modify our phrase a little bit. Because the phrase is, “Discipline is biblical.” But let's add to that a little bit. Let me say this: Discipline is biblical, and biblical discipline is physical.

Discipline is biblical, and biblical discipline is physical. Now, every modern guru in parenting might disagree with that statement, hence embracing different, countercultural parenting. And I want to caution us against cultural arrogance. It's this thinking that can work in two ways; one with time and how cultures have changed over time, but also how cultures are different in different places.

So over time, there's this arrogant thinking that, We're better in every way than the previous generations in the past. Like, we have it figured out. We know so much more than what our grandparents and great grandparents and ancient times know. Like, we're just doing it better. We have more information. We're more advanced. We know better than what people used to know. Right?

Or a culture arrogance would be like, Our culture is so much more sophisticated than that culture, and we have so much more information and we're just doing it better because of the research and the study that we kind of have this arrogance. And we can't, like, don't try to be smarter than the Bible. And discipline is biblical, and biblical discipline is physical.

Right? It wasn't that long ago—I remember there's an Andy Griffith show where the whole episode was about this spoiled kid, and Andy Griffith was trying to convince the dad of this kid, like, “You need to deal with your kid. And by deal with him, you need to take him behind the woodshed.” Like, that was the lesson of the episode. You will not see that on any television show today at all. We've come a long ways from that. But in the right direction or not?

We had some friends. They were refugees from Africa. They came over to live in Cedar Rapids. We connected with their family, and their kids were in school where we lived. So after school, they would come and hang out at our house often and just build a good relationship with them. And I remember, like, in their first couple weeks of school, I was asking them how it's going, and their feedback was, “Well, the kids are really disrespectful to the teachers.”

I said, “What do you mean by that?” And they kind of talked about how they talked back, and things that I felt like, That doesn't sound that bad. And I was like, “So, in Africa, they didn't do that?” And they laughed. They literally laughed! When I suggested that somebody in Africa would be disrespectful to a teacher, they literally laughed at that. And I said, “Why do you mean?” It's like, “Oh, because they would take you out and give you the switch. Like, they would take a branch from the stick and beat you. And therefore, kids are better behaved.”

Now we can look at that and be like, “Oh, their culture's so…like, we're so much more advanced.” Are we? Because we're the ones dealing with so many problems in school. And discipline is biblical. And biblical discipline is physical.

Now let me tell you how scripture points to this. I'm going to read some Proverbs to you. This is Proverbs 13. It says, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him”—this is a love, this is about love—“is diligent to discipline him.” Here's another one. Proverbs 22:15: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child.” OK? That's just…our kids are sinful. Our heart's an idol factory. Like, it exists there. Like, nobody's child is exempt from that. How do you counteract that? “... but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” Like it's part of the parent's job. Like, “I know, on your own, you're full of folly. On your own, you're gonna make bad decisions. On your own, you're gonna get yourself in trouble. As a parent, I use discipline, even physical discipline, to drive you far from that.”

Because in the proverbs before, it's connected to loving a child. Here's one more. Proverbs 23:13: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.” I love that. ‘Cause here's the messaging that's going here. Hey, if you spank your kid, if you have a switch and hit your kid, if you discipline your kid physically, here's what that proverb's saying. He's gonna be OK.

They're not gonna die. They're not gonna be mentally scarred and trauma. Like, generations have been doing this, dealing with, like…discipline their kids in love, right, in love to do this. That proverb is saying, like, “They're gonna be OK.” But—in fact, it's even called loving—but the warning is, if you spare it, then you're gonna have problems.

If you spare it, then you're gonna have kids that just talk back to teachers anytime they want. If you spare it, then they're gonna have kids that think they run the show. If you spare it, then you're gonna have kids that make all kinds of bad decisions. If you spare it, then you're gonna have kids that get into all kinds of trouble.

And some parents are like, “I don't want my kids to be afraid of me.” Yeah, you do! Yeah, you do. It's just like the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. We're to have appropriate respect and fear and reverence to the Lord and kids are to have an appropriate respect and fear and reverence of Mom and Dad.

Now, we don't want our kids to have, like, an image of Mom and Dad, like a scary clown with a hatchet, like, that kind of fear. But we want our kids to, like, respect what Mom and Dad says. Be obedient to what Mom and Dad says. Like, follow their directions the first time they hear it. When Mom says do this, you do it. When dad says do that, you do it. Not this, like, yeah, “You got to put your toys away. You got to put your toys away. You got to put your toys away. Hey, I'm going to count to three, and you got to put your toys away. One…two…two and a half…two and three quarters…two and seven eighths…” Like, are you teaching fractions?

What are we doing? Like, we're just teaching, like, delayed obedience is disobedience. And all you're teaching your kids is, “I don't really want to discipline you and I probably won't, and I'm gonna avoid it at all costs,” and you're not doing your kids any favors. And you can mask it in, like, “I'm being loving.” You're not.

According to scripture, you're not. It's our obligation, our responsibility to discipline. Now we don't have time to get in it, ‘cause I'm sure, like, just mentioning this topic brings up all kinds of practical questions like, “How do you do this? And how does it work?”

Connect with older people in your church. Ask about it. “Hey, did you spank? How did you do it? How did you do this? How did you handle it?” Like, talk about this and get practical with it. But if I could just start the conversation, that's a win. So let me say this. Discipline is biblical.

Biblical discipline is physical. And I'd even add this. And wise discipline starts early. Discipline is biblical, biblical discipline is physical, and wise discipline starts early.

All right, number six: Church is helpful. Church is helpful. Now, I totally believe that parents are the primary disciplers of their kids. Don't farm out your kids’ spiritual development, thinking you just kind of check out from that and hope Sunday school does it, hope youth group does it, hope Salt eventually does it. Like, you just kind of give it off to other people. You are the primary discipler of your kids. But primary does not mean no need for secondary. Primary does not mean there's no need for secondary.

There is a reason the Bible uses so much family language. For one, it speaks to what Christ has accomplished. We have been, through the work of Christ, adopted into his family. It speaks of our new standing in Christ. That I could be called a son of God. I'm in that family, which is wonderful news.

But also it reinforces the community that we have and the benefit we are to each other. However, in our individualistic, autonomous culture, we miss this and we think, “Stay out of my business. These are my kids, I'll do it my way. You have no grounds to kind of speak into this.”

And we kind of live isolated from community when it comes to raising kids. But this is about embracing different. And in our culture we kind of have this attitude of, “I'll raise my kids, thank you. Keep your opinions to yourself.” To going inside the church where it's like, “Oh no, I need a family to help me raise my kids. I need wisdom spoken into this situation.” It takes a church to raise a child. It takes a church to raise a child. Listen to me.

You are going to want other adults in your kids' lives. Let me say it a little bit more detailed. You're gonna want other adults in your kids' lives that love your kids and share your values. You're gonna want—like, this is an important part of raising kids that the church uniquely provides—you're gonna want other adults in your kid's life that know your kid's name, that talk to them in the halls on Sunday, that ask them about how their week's going, that's interested in whatever activity they're doing. And they love your kids and they share your values because it reinforces what you're telling them within a whole community.

It's not just Mom and Dad, right? ‘Cause you could be in a church, and it's like, “Oh, yeah, Dad's wanting me to do this.” And he's frustrated, but he's got a relationship with Brian. So he goes to Brian and he's like, “Brian, what do you think of…?” And Brian reinforces what I've been saying. And it's just like, it takes a church to raise a child, to raise a Christian, to point them to Christ consistently. But you're not gonna get that if you're on the fringe of church. You won't.

You got to invest in a local church. You got to be involved in a local church. You got to be at the local church. You got to be in the local church—as part of your parenting. And maybe you've never looked at it that way, but as part of your parenting, the context that you need to provide for your kids is they know other adults that love them and share your values.

It's so crucial in parenting. And sometimes as a pastor, I've heard other pastors talk about kind of the need to protect their kids from the church. And I get it. I mean, there can be some differences when you work at the part of the church and some expectations that are weird. But if church is something you feel like you need to protect your kids from, when they get older, they'll probably take the same posture towards the church.

Church is awesome. You don't need to protect your kids from it; you need to help them love it. You need to show them that it's worth it, that it's valuable and precious. Or I'll hear church members talk about how they can't serve in the nursery, or they can't take this class, because they got a little kid, and they don't want their kid to be at the nursery two hours in a row, and they're just like, what do you think's gonna happen? I mean, there's toys, there's loving adults. They play. They talk about Jesus. You think, like, the second hour, it turns into a sweatshop? Like, “All right, get the yarn out! We gotta pay for this new building.”

Like, you're just gonna, like, what? What do you think's gonna happen? But there's this fear of, like, “I can't. I don't want them to be at church longer than one hour.” And then you see the same family that spent the whole day at the ballpark and didn't have that same attitude.

If the church is important, if it makes a real difference in our lives, if it's God's plan and community for us, then we have to help our kids love the church. We have to help our kids love the church. And today it can seem like parents want their kids to be very experience-rich, but end up being very relationally poor. Let me say that again. It can seem like parents want their kids to be very experience-rich but end up being very relationally poor.

Like, we wanna give our kids as many experiences as possible. Like, you need to try softball and you need to try soccer. You need to be in basketball, and you need to do flag football, and you need to take karate and you need to do this. And you know, like, you got so many experiences. Like, we wanna have as many experiences as possible.

And especially like the—rabbit trail—but we have this kind of hypersports culture. And I'm telling you, like, as an athlete, sport…I love sports. And they're good in development, they teach good lessons, and you should embrace sports. I think they're a wonderful thing, but it's just gotten so out of whack.

Like, we got like third graders traveling across states and paying so much money and weekend tournaments and weekend practices, and it's gonna…so consuming. Like, it's just thrown everything off of balance. But we think that…we take this mindset that good parenting is giving my kids as many experiences as possible. Right? “I wanna help them find their passion, what they're good at. So part of my job as a parent is to give them as many experiences as possible so that I help them find their passion.”

But isn't the passion we're supposed to help our kids find Jesus Christ? That's the passion. So you have these kids where it's like, OK, by the time you got to high school, you've traveled all across the country playing dodgeball or whatever it is you do. Like, you've kind of been in all these activities, you're a purple belt. Like, you got all this, you've had so many experiences, but you're really relationally poor. And church has just been shown as something we really want to do when we can. But if there's ever a tournament, church will lose every time. Like, we teach them that. We teach them that in how we conduct our lives.

And then they're not very connected to the church. And when they're not very connected to their church, they may be very experience-rich, but they're very relationally poor. They don't have other adults in their life that love them and know them and share your values. The adults in their life are their teammates’ parents who know them, care about them, and share different values.

Church is about helping your kids be more relationally rich in the right way. And to do that, you might have to sacrifice some experiences. You might not go to every tournament, you might not do every activity. You make choices to reinforce something that's very important in their development. When it comes to parenting, see church as helpful in what you've been called to do. And it's this, what you've been called to do, that I want to focus on lastly.

Number seven: Parenting is stewardship. Parenting is stewardship. There is a weight to stewardship because stewardship speaks to like, you're not an owner, but you've been given a level of responsibility that you will be held accountable for.

That's stewardship. Like, “Hey, I put you in charge. I'm coming back, I'm going to want to know what you did with what I put you in charge.” And parenting is stewardship. And there's weight to stewardship.

Children are a gift from the Lord. Psalm 127, we talked about that. That's the…verse one is about don't build the house in vain. You get down to verse three and it talks about children are a heritage from the Lord. They're a blessing from the Lord.

It's a gift. Colossians 1:16 talks about all things have been created through Christ and for Christ, which includes your kids! They are for Christ. They're your kids, but they're not your kids. Does that make sense? Like, you made them, but you didn't make them.

They're not ultimately yours. That's a weighty thing to think of. To think that you're raising God's kids. You're raising kids that ultimately belong to God. That's weighty.

It's like long-term babysitting. But Mom and Dad are going to come back and they're going to want to know how you handled their kids. “Did you reinforce my values? Did you raise them in my principles? Did you diligently teach them to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength when you lie down and when you wake up?”

Or did you just take them to a bunch of soccer tournaments? Like, parenting is stewardship. And Jesus expresses a particular passion for kids. This is what he says in Matthew 18: “So whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Can you believe that Jesus said that? Does that sound so un-Christlike? Like, that's pretty graphic there. Like, Jesus is talking, like, “Let me tell you what should happen to this person. Let's tie a millstone around his neck, throw them in the lake.” That sounds so mob boss, right? Jesus says that. Can you imagine Mark up here, like, in preaching, and afterwards, like, “If you mess with one of our kids, we're gonna tie your thumbs to a Chevy and drive you around the parking lot.” Right? You'd be like, I can't believe it.

Nobody's gonna be like, “That's so Christlike.” I mean, Jesus says it, like, there's this particular passion, like, don't mess with my kids. Don't you dare mess with my kids. I put them in your family, but they're not yours. They're mine. You are a steward, and I'm going to come and see how'd you do with my kids. Like, were you diligent in what I called you to be diligent in?

And who would this passage apply more to than parents?

Listen, parenting is a huge responsibility and a huge privilege, and we get some direction about how we're to approach it. So if you go back to Deuteronomy 6, it says, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” It takes diligence.

It takes diligence, like effort, attention, focus, passion to raise kids. And he's talking about every day, all day parenting. Did you see that in the text? “Hey, I want you to talk about it when you eat, when you go on a walk, when you go to bed, when you get up, like, pretty much all the time.” Like, this is an all-the-time type of effort thing.

But in our culture, it seems like in parenting, we've overvalued quality time and undervalued quantity time. And the reason we've overvalued quality time and undervalued quantity time is because we're pulled in so many different directions that when we're finally to be together as a family, we just want to make it epic. And it's got to be special, and it's got to be important, and it's got to be so much so…It's like we're going to try to accomplish everything in this little bit of time. It's got to be really quality because we don't have much of it.

But when it comes to training, you can't beat quantity of time. Like, I'm just with you all the time. We're just talking about it all the time. When we go on walks, when we get up, when we go to bed. Like, there's just a frequency to it.

So I want to close up by talking about the prioritizing of parenting in a world that is giving you a lot of other things to prioritize. And I think women, especially, feel this. I'm going to talk to moms a little bit. I'm going to talk to dads a little bit. Let's start with moms.

I think moms often deal with guilt no matter what. ‘Cause if you take your kid to daycare, there's this guilt of, like, This is my kid I'm dropping off. I want to be with them. I want to develop...like, you feel guilty.

But then if you stay home, it's like, I spent all this time and money on a degree, and I'm not using it, and I feel guilty for this. So it's like anything you choose, like, you're dealing with guilt. And then there's this pressure to have. And if we can make a little bit more money then I can provide more for my kids, and we can get nicer things and we can go on nicer vacations. We can have a nicer house, like, we can do all this. But let me just kind of be an unpopular, caring voice.

And I say it's unpopular because I don't think a lot of people are saying this, but I think it needs to be said. I think it's important. So look at me. I want you to hear this. You can't have it all.

Like, you can't. You're a finite human being. There's only so many hours in a day. Your capacity is only so big. You can't have it all.

And I know the world doesn't tell you that. The world tells you that you can be the greatest boss and have the greatest career and accomplish all your dreams and the greatest mom and the greatest wife and the great, like, you can just have it all. You can't. You cannot have it all. You are going to have to cheat somewhere.

Something's got to give. There will be compromises made somewhere. You have to make some choices. And it's not always a choice between a good thing and a bad thing—that's an easy choice.

Often it's a choice between two good things, two things that aren't necessarily wrong. I can do this, or I can do this, but which one are you going to do? Which one are you going to cheat on? Where are the compromises going to be made? And I think we would all say that we would rather have godly, respectful kids and a tight family than a new Escalade or a nicer vacation or a bigger house.

But our decisions don't always support that attitude.

So when it comes to prioritizing parenting, let me give a challenge to moms and let me give a challenge to dads. I want to challenge moms of young kids to stay home. In those…those early years when they're so formative and it's gone so quickly, I want to challenge young moms to stay home. Now, remember, if I could just start a conversation, you may not agree with that statement, you may not like that statement, but if you could talk as a husband and wife, if you could talk with your pastors, if you could talk with others—if you just begin that conversation, I think it would be helpful and I think it's a conversation worth having. And if you are here and you're not a stay-at-home mom, don't come up to me afterwards and tell me why. I know that there is a lot of kinds of unique decisions; I don't need to know why you made your decisions. I'm sure that you've got your issues and you got your things that have led you to make your choices. And I'm not saying that stay-at-home moms equals good motherhood. You could be crashed out on the couch on Facebook, watching Hallmark movies and putting a screen in front of your kids just the same at home than if you're working a job.

I just want to get practical about prioritizing raising kids and saying, it's worth sacrifice, it's worth focus, it's worth time. So if you're not a stay-at-home mom, don't hear me say that I think you're a bad mom. OK? Don't hear me say that I think you're a bad mom. But do hear me say I think you're a better mom than your daycare provider.

I think that you are.

And those early years are so formative and they're gone so quickly. And everybody can be quick to be like “Proverbs 31 woman—look at all that she did!” And it, like, crushes every woman with, like, Wonder woman in Proverbs 31. But she didn't do all of those things at once. Like, the tense of those verbs looks back, like, over a lifetime. When you look back, all the things that she has done. But there's seasons to life, there's different seasons where you give more attention and focus to different things.

And there's a season of raising kids that's super precious and important.

And for clarity, I'm not saying that a woman's place is in the home, but I would say that a woman's priority is uniquely in the home. And I'm saying that because I think the Bible points to that. Like, if we believe in intentional design, that God made men and women differently on purpose and it's good, then there's a reason that women bear children and can feed children and have a more nurturing nature. There's reasons for that. When Paul is giving instructions to Timothy about taking care of widows in the church, there's certain qualifications to look for if you're going to support a widow in the church.

And one of the qualifications of dignity that he was looking for in women is, did they bring up children? It was an honorable thing that they looked for…for a woman to do in that. Or, probably the most famous passage is in Titus 2.. It says, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and to train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

There's instruction in this. Like, you need to teach women how to be godly women in these particular ways. And one kind of, like, just observation in churches is, like, we can get really into women's Bible studies, which is great. I know you guys do women's Bible study and it's awesome. I love it. Rebecca's an amazing teacher to open up God's Word and to do that. But when you open up God's Word, one of the things is like, hey, when it comes to teaching women, you don't just teach them what the Bible says; you teach them to be godly women in the ways that they're called to be godly women. To be godly wives, to be godly mothers. Like, we can't, like, skip that.

We can't miss that call scripturally to live that out in our lives. And sometimes the question that gets posed is, “Is it wrong for a mom to go back to work after she has kids?” And I'd be like, “Maybe, maybe.” There's a lot of factors to that. There's questions to ask around, like, “Why do you want to? What are you at?” Like, there's all kinds of questions. But yeah, it might. It might be, but I think it's even the wrong question. It's like in dating, for somebody to ask the question in dating, “Hey, how far is too far?” You're just like, “Well, I'm glad you don't want to go too far, but I also don't want you to date my daughter with that question.”

OK, I don't…like, it's just the wrong question. OK, how far is too far? A better question would be like, “OK, I'm dating now. How do I stay pure while I'm dating?” That's a great question.

But this question of, like, “OK, is it wrong for me to go back?” I think it's just the wrong question. A better question was like, “I've been given a kid—how do I do what's best for this kid? How do I put my whole heart and soul in raising this kid?”

That's a better question. My greatest concern with this kind of, “This isn't fair,” this pushback or kind of, “I don't like this situation”—this dialogue is the downvaluing of raising kids. And it's been downvalued in our society where people are just like, “What do you do?” Like the awkward question that anybody asks a woman like, “Well, what do you do?” And they feel like, Well, I'm just a mom.

You're not just a mom! Like, motherhood is so precious and so valued, like, kids are a blessing. And there's no more important work than raising a human being to love God, to follow God. There's no greater impact on society, on the kingdom of God than producing God-fearing kids. And especially in those early years, to be diligent in training them takes presence, and presence takes prioritizing.

But that's not all on the mom. I believe biblically that men are uniquely called to be providers, but not as a pass to be checked out at home. Dads with an attitude of like, Well, I bring home the bacon, I provide the paycheck, and then just kind of check out on the couch doesn't speak to the value of the family, the priority of the family, or what we're called to do whenever we're taught to be diligent in training our kids. There's more to providing than a paycheck. And dads, specifically, are called out in this.

This is Ephesians 6:4. Paul says this, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Like, fathers, you gotta own that, got to be engaged in that. Or when Paul's giving qualifications for elders, one of the qualifications was, “Hey, you need to be able to manage your own household. You need to bring up children who obey.” We need to be engaged. So for a man who has a chance to take a big promotion at work, is that wrong? Maybe, it might be. What's the promotion?

Is it going to mean that you got to travel all the time, that you got to work late nights? Are your kids young? But it's like, Yeah, but if I took this job, we'd be able to go to Hawaii every year and we'd be able to get a bigger house and we'd be able…! Yeah, it's like, OK, your kids don't need Hawaii, they need you! And if this job is, like, gonna take you away from the home all the time, then yeah, it might be wrong to take that promotion in that season.

And you gotta make choices. And look, as Christians, we don't believe in abortion, but that doesn't mean kids aren't getting sacrificed on the altar of career in our homes.

Guys, parenting is not something we do on the side. Having kids should not be seen as an interruption to our dreams or a disruption to the lifestyle we want. Embrace raising kids and embrace being different than our world when it comes to doing it. Because think about it. Can you imagine if more Christian families were willing to set aside worldly ambitions in order to put their whole heart and soul into raising kids? If I was like, I don't need a bigger house, we don't need a nicer car, we don't need nicer vacations. Like, I'm just going to give my all. I'm going to give my all to raising kids. Talk about making a difference. Think about it. More God-fearing, respectful kids in the schools. More God-loving adults running companies and working in the workforce.

More God-fearing, “love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and strength” in government positions leading in our country. Where do you think that comes from? Mom and Dad! Families devoted to that…it's worth it. Kids are such a blessing from the Lord. It calls for a diligence and priority in raising them.

Guys, thanks for having me. If I stirred up the pot, I meant to, and I hope you have good conversations about it that lead to more diligence in parenting. But let me pray for you as we close up here.

Father God, when I look out at this room, I see a bunch of parents who love their kids and they want to do best by them. That's why they're here. And parenting is hard. It's full of challenges and disappointments. I pray that your Spirit, more than anything that I could do or say, that your Spirit would give them comfort and encouragement to press on, to know how precious of a job they've been called to. And I pray that your Spirit, more than anything that I could say, would provide the right conviction in the right directions for them to make decisions for their family.

We pray that ultimately we would be led by you, and we pray for our kids. We know that our kids loving you with their whole heart, mind, and strength is beyond our pay grade. We need you to give them spiritual sight, that they would see the treasure that is Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that they see it in Mom and Dad, that they would see in Mom and Dad that they found a treasure in Christ and they would want that treasure, too.

We pray this in your name. Amen.

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