The Shepherd Press Blog

Sin - Empty Promise, Bitter Fruit

2008-08-26T23:56:44-04:00

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Genesis 3:6
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. Ephesians 4:17-19

Dan raised an interesting question in his comment about the posts on lying. He asked, “How do we understand the "lies of sin," and how do we help our children see they have been lied to?” Dan, thank you for this insightful question. I want to take at least two posts to answer this.

We are all familiar with Adam and Eve and the Fall. What drove Eve to taste the fruit is the same temptation that drives your children to see sin as a good option. As Dan states, sin at its core is deceptive.

This deception takes at least two forms.

The first is that a particular sin will be satisfying and will do no harm. Sin, however, is never satisfying, as Ephesians 4 teaches. And as Eve painfully realized, sin does great harm.

The second form is that we believe that sin offers a shortcut to getting what we want. Translated, this means that we think we know better than God what is good for us.

Your child’s struggles with sin are tightly connected to these two points. And—as I am sure that many of you are also concluding—so are your own sins. Give this some thought. Think about the biblical narratives and find some examples of the deceptiveness of sin. We will delve more deeply into this topic in the next post. Dan, thanks again!

Olympic Thoughts

2008-08-22T13:40:25-04:00

Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, "Surely the LORD's anointed stands here before the LORD."

7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

The Olympics are winding down this weekend. There have been many successes and many disappointments. Michael Phelps grabbed the attention of the world by winning 8 gold medals and setting 7 world records. Usain Bolt was equally impressive, setting three world records by winning the 100 and 200 meter dashes and the 4x100 men’s relay. The U.S. Volleyball teams are playing for gold after a tragic start to the games. But there are heartaches as well. The images of those who lost are as haunting as those of the winners are jubilant. The U.S.4x100 relay team efforts were forever defined by the video footage of a dropped baton rolling aimlessly across the lanes of the track.

This fascination with athletic success is a human thing. Tedd Tripp puts it this way in Instructing a Child’s Heart:

That is why we enjoy watching sports on TV. We love to marvel at amazing feats that ordinary mortals cannot accomplish. Whether football, basketball, ice skating or skiing, we love to be dazzled by athleticism.This is uniquely human. There are no diving competitions for penguins in the Antarctic. They dive from massive ice floes, barely breaking the water, and yet no one scores them. At the end of the day there is no award ceremony. A brown bear grabs a salmon from the raging Columbia River. No bears line the shores applauding. Little bears don’t idolize Big Brown. They don’t hang posters of him in their dens.

Humans are driven to obsession by symbolic images, such as Olympic medals. As you listen to the biographies of the various athletes in these games, this obsession is sketched out in real life. Families willingly separate so that their children can have the training that will result in gold medals. In China, three–year-old children are selected in pre-school to train for gymnastics. They are taken from their homes and brought to specialized training facilities. They will see their parents once a year—all this for the pursuit of image and the praise of man. It is indeed a fallen world.

Parents, it is possible for you to be just as taken with the importance of outward appearance as are these parents of Olympic children. While you might not be building your lives around the pursuit of a gold medal, it is still possible to communicate to your children that the symbolic images of the world are the most valuable things in life. In our modern culture children are displayed, not protected. Their value is often tied to how they make others feel about them. Parents live for their children and children live for themselves. Teaching children the hope of the Gospel to address the difficulties of life—shepherding children to live as followers of Christ—should be the highest priority of parenting; instead, well-meaning parents often invest more seriously in their children’s accomplishment and performance.

The commitment to a child’s accomplishments is often really a search for parental redemption through the lives of their children. This is a poor substitute for the true redemptive power of the gospel; sadly, such priorities will encourage children to think that personal success is based upon meeting performance goals. This temptation can be subtle. For example, is your goal for obedience related to your children’s performance at church? Or is your goal to teach them that we love to obey God because he has been so good to us in Christ?

Last week I referenced Tim Challies’ son receiving a sportsmanship award. This young man was demonstrating things that have to do with treasure that will not be lost, stolen or rust. Medals are things of this world. Investing in the prize of the Gospel—riches that will endure forever—transcend this world (see Luke 12). Why not take a moment to consider what goals and accomplishments are important to you? Are you as thrilled when you see the fruit of the Spirit in your child as you are with a good report card? I realize that a good report may reflect godly character, but what are you the most focused upon? What do your children think is the most important to you? Are you urging your children towards symbolic gold medals that ultimately please you and the world? Or are you leading your children towards the cross, where treasure awaits that is greater than anything this world has to offer?

Samuel looked at the outward appearance of Jesse’s sons and assumed that this meant inward value as well. God has a different standard. May he give us grace to embrace that standard. May we invest our time in helping our children to guard their hearts rather than mere performance.

What to do about lying

2008-08-20T08:48:46-04:00

Even from birth the wicked go astray;
from the womb they are wayward and speak lies. Psalm 58:3

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience —among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1-3

Don Fields’ comment and questions about lying have been on my heart during these posts on lying. Children’s lies are a harsh reminder of the nature of sin. To fully appreciate the immense power and value of the cross in our lives, we must have a profound sense of the ugliness of sin. This awareness must extend to your children as well. My children and your children come into this world as natural enemies of God. They would rather lie than tell the truth. They seek first and foremost to gratify their own passions and desires, even if it means that others will be harmed. They are by nature children of wrath. That is where you must start.

The reality of sin must dominate your parenting. Your children are accountable to God. This thought does not sit well with the world, particularly the world as it pertains to the nature of children. John Dewey, arguably the most influential voice in American education, had this to say about accountability to God:

Faith in the prayer-hearing God is an unproved and outmoded faith. There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes.” [John Dewey, “Soul-Searching,” Teacher Magazine, Sept. 1933, p. 33. emphasis added]

No, you will not find support from the world around you for the idea that children are objects of wrath. But that doesn’t change reality. Recognizing the true nature of a baby is one of the great tests of faith. I have never been so blown away as I was when seeing each of my five children for the first time. Babies outwardly evoke hope and joy at the promise of a new life. But the reality is that these precious children are in fact children of wrath. Their hope, even though they don’t recognize it at the moment of birth, is that faithful parents will proclaim to them the glorious gospel of God’s grace which alone can transform them into children of the King.

So, in a sense you should not be shocked when children lie. You must not be falsely romantic and think that somehow your child is immune to the ugliness of sin. In reality, your child was born to lie, as Psalm 58 says. So, what do you do to confront the lies that your children will tell?

First, understand that your child is not made happy by his lie. As we have seen in the previous posts, there are particular reasons for lies that children tell. Sin, at its core, is deceptive. Lying builds distrust of others. A child who lies is a child that is hurting. He is a child who will become self-focused and insecure about his relationship with others, especially his parents. He is a child who is not able to trust others. Parent, your first step in dealing with lies is to have compassion for your child. The most profound way to demonstrate that compassion is to lovingly bring the word of God to bear upon those lies.

Following the model in Shepherding a Child’s Heart about the way to engage children at various age levels is important. With young children you want to firmly establish the authority of God and his directives not to lie. This is the time to establish that lying is wrong because God says it is. Lying is not serving God, and life will not go well for the liar. This is not a time for extensive reasoning and deep introspection. God hates lying, and it must be rejected. Swift, direct and loving discipline is appropriate. Lying is not a stage that will be naturally left behind. If not biblically addressed, lying will become a way of life.

With children in the second age category (ages 5-12), you must begin to appeal to the conscience. Don Fields’ child would fit in this category. Tedd Tripp points out that Nathan the prophet appealed to the conscience of David with the story of the man who had had his lamb taken from him. David responded in anger at this outrage. But his outrage was turned to broken repentance as Nathan told him that he was the man. This sort of appeal takes wisdom and understanding of your children. Nathan carefully selected an illustration that would have the greatest impact upon King David. You must choose your illustrations with understanding of what will impact your own children. Help them to see that their lie will not bring true peace. If a child in this age range lies, something is troubling him. Find out what that is. Do not focus only on the actual lie. What is it that drives this child to believe that a lie will best serve him? Perhaps he is afraid that he will be treated harshly. Perhaps he will say he doesn’t care what his parents think, when in reality he cares so deeply what they think that he is afraid for them to know that. Whatever the issue is, take the time to work this out with your child. The lie is often a symptom of a deeper underlying problem, possibly a broken relationship that you have overlooked.

For teenagers, lying is often about keeping parents out of their lives. Consequences may be feared. There may be embarrassment or fear that parents will find out secret sins such as pornography. There may be the fear that parents will not allow teenagers to do what they want if they tell the truth. For teenagers, the gospel must be internalized. If a teenager who is a Christian lies, he has lost sight of the power of the gospel to bring healing. If the teenager is not a Christian, then whatever it takes to make the gospel central must be embraced. Again, take the time to know your teenager. I know that it is possible that your teenager may not appear to be interested in being known. However, you must make this a priority. Your child needs to know Christ.

For all ages, prayer with and for your children about lying is essential. Direct your prayers to the mercy of God to change hearts to love truth. For all ages, the gospel is the answer, but it is presented according to the child’s growing awareness of himself in relationship to God. Pray for understanding regarding your children and how you can bring wise counsel to them.

These answers are but brief outlines. If you have specific comments or questions please share them with us. Lying is something that we cannot run from and we must see it for the sin that it is. However, we must also rejoice in the power of Christ to conquer sin and bring truth to the liar.

Lying to God

2008-08-18T12:18:27-04:00

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.

Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." Acts 5:1-4

In one sense all lies are lies to God. However, as this passage in Acts shows, there is a particular type of lie that qualifies specifically as lying to God. I think of this as “lying on steroids.” Often, this lie is not about hiding things that are wicked, but about misrepresenting things that appear to be good, even righteous. This is where the greatest danger lies for children raised in Christian homes. That is why your parenting must go beyond addressing behavior.

Each day you challenge your children to obey God. In each home this challenge comes with the promise of some kind of negative consequence for not obeying. Even when you neglect to follow through with the consequences, the specter of accountability hangs in the air. Given their sinful nature, the tendency of children is to find ways to avoid these consequences. At the same time, there is also the promise of reward attached to requests for obedience. So again, even when the reward is not consistent (or even not biblical), human nature desires the reward, whether it is deserved or not.

For example, one sibling sees that his sister is rewarded for cleaning. So, he is careful to mention that he too, helped, even if he did not actually do anything. This child realizes that he can achieve what he wants if his parents perceive that he is doing good things. Thus, he might participate by appearing to be busy only when mom is looking. Internally, he may be resentful of having to do something he doesn’t want to, but he is motivated by the reward or praise he thinks he will receive. He may even agree that God helped him to obey because he knows that is what his parents want to hear. This deceptive, self-serving attitude may eventually lead to the kind of deception that Ananias and Sapphira practiced. They were seeking praise and status without the sacrificial spirit of truly loving Christ. It was in this way that they lied to God.

As parents, you must not become complacent when your children give only outward compliance to your directions. If you put up with a grumbling, complaining spirit as the price for your children following your directions, you open the door to lying to God. God desires obedience from the heart, not the outward form of ritual sacrifice. (Amos 5:21-23; Isaiah 29:13) So, the mindset that says, “At least he took the garbage out, even though he moaned and groaned about it,” totally misses the point of loving God. This child is not being shepherded. Rather he is being encouraged to believe that God will be satisfied with mere outward compliance to his commands.

Ananias and Sapphira believed that they could trade the appearance of obedience for spiritual status—for recognition from others that they were devoted to the church. But God is not mocked. He cannot be deceived. Lying expresses the hypocrisy of the human heart. This is why the Lord detests lying lips. As lies progress beyond mere self-protection to the point of lying to achieve personal desires, the danger of lying directly to God increases. Ananias and Sapphira tried to manipulate the appearance of doing good. The fatal mistake they made was thinking they could deceive God as well as people.

Lying is not something to ignore; deal with lying whenever you discover it. Don’t allow the busy routine of life to cover patterns of outward compliance. But we must address this sin carefully and wisely. This requires a substantial investment of time and biblical wisdom. We will look at this in the next post.