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Episode Notes
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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome to our 591st episode. I don’t think today’s episode will be as controversial as our last, but . . . there’s still a good chance because this episode is going to strike at the heart of a very stereotypical human failing that manifests itself all too easily in our parenting.
But . . . we shall see. Either way, you can know for sure that the description of this episode will provide you free episode notes, a transcript, and related resources so that you can continue your study of today’s theme as well as the related concepts we discuss. So, let’s dive right in. Topic
There’s a common cliche amongst unbelievers when they express their frustrations about visiting a church. And—to be fair—many professing Christians have tried to justify their lack of church attendance by making the same observation.
Of course, both are right . . . but both are also wrong. What is the objection? The church is full of hypocrites. Now, we’ve discussed the concept of hypocrisy briefly on other episodes. In fact, our 17th episode way back in Season 1 tipped its hat to this idea in point 4 of “The Most Important Thing I Can Say to Parents.” But we need to give the topic a more thorough handling. Thankfully, though, this episode isn’t really going to be about hypocrisy. It’s going to be about the proactive expectations God has for us as biblical parents. No hypocrite will be able to reach the goal we’re setting for ourselves today. But before we go any further, I want to passionately plead with you to become a TLP Friend. TLP Friends are those who give on a regular basis to support this ministry. I’ve been sharing with you over the past 6 months or so that the events of Hurricane Helene added on top of snowballing inflation of the past 5 years, and the incredibly slow process of starting a non-profit during the covid lockdowns has brought us to a place of unsustainability. I and those who already give are abundantly passionate about serving the Lord by opening His Word and helping parents all over the world better understand how to worship Him with their parenting. We have all worked so hard over the past 9 years producing 32 seasons and nearly 600 episodes of free biblical parenting content. I have had the privilege of speaking in a number of churches and look forward to making new friends in Oxford Valley Chapel in Pennsylvania and Redemption Church of Lacombe in Louisiana in the upcoming months. But we genuinely need your help if we are going to be able to continue this ministry and reach our 10 year anniversary in September of 2026. Will you please click the link below and give? We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so all of your gifts are tax-deductible. Whether it’s $5 a month or $500, we will use it to continue equipping families to be unified in Christ and vibrantly growing. If this ministry is going to celebrate it’s 10th anniversary serving the Lord, we’re going to need your help, and we—in faith—look forward to celebrating with you in September of 2026. And now, let’s turn our attention to the example of our Lord. Of course, Jesus is the perfect example of what it is to be human. He does it better than anyone ever has or ever will, but don’t allow that to drive you to making excuses. The Lord declares, “Be holy as I am holy,” and then He gives us the roadmap and the ability to do just that. We mustn’t shy away from His expectations because they’re impossible. We need to trust Him and obey. So, let’s consider the two pronged teaching ministry of Christ. 1. Jesus told. We’re not going to spend a lot of time on this point because it’s not only incredibly obvious to anyone who’s read the Gospels, but it’s something about which we’ve spoken frequently on this podcast. In order to be a Truth.Love.Parent. . . A. You need to speak the truth of God. Psalm 119:160 says that the sum of God’s Word is truth, and we need to be regularly expanding our parenting Bibles as we bring more and more of the Scriptures to bear in our kids’ lives. Everything Jesus said was the Word of God because He is the Word of God, but even then it’s so important for us to realize that much of what Jesus spoke came from the Old Testament Scriptures. The God-Man whose every word was inspired repeatedly found it best to quote from the Law and the Prophets. I find this expressly interesting given the fact that Jesus quoted the Old Testament when tempted by Satan in Matthew 4. How much more should we—we who are not God and who are not inspired and who are not perfect—how much more should we fill our teaching and reproving and correcting and training with the Bible. That’s what Ambassador Parents of God do. We speak His Words how, when, and why He would have us speak them. Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6:4 are unavoidably clear . . . Biblical parenting is rearing our kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, telling to our kids what God has told us from His Word. To learn more about being an Ambassador Parent, I have 4 resources for you in the description that all build on each other. The first is a two-part episode called “The 5th Way to Parent.” The second is a series which grows from The 5th Way to Parent and expands on it. It’s called “A Parent's 5 Jobs.” The third resource expands the previous two even more and is called “Biblical Parenting Essentials.” The 13 episode series collects and systematizes the bulk of the 500 episodes that went before it to give biblical parents a trajectory and goal for their parenting. And the final resource concerning how to be an Ambassador Parent is found on the Evermind App. It’s the Biblical Parenting Essentials Conference which was a video of an in-person conference I did. The Biblical Parenting Essentials Conference usually sells for $50 on the Evermind App, but if you use the link in the description, you can get access to it for only $10. Again, all of those resources exist to help you better understand and submit to God’s expectations for you to be a telling parent. Now, the last point I want to make here before moving on is this: when it came to telling, Jesus always knew exactly what teaching, reproof, correction, or training the individuals before Him most needed. He always knew exactly what needed to be said to accomplish His purposes. That meant that His telling was perfect. Well . . . our’s is not perfect for at least two reasons. The first is that we don’t always speak God’s Word as we should. That was our last point. But the second reason our telling isn’t perfect is that we don’t really know our kids’ greatest needs. In order to be a successful Telling Parent . . . B. You must know what your child most needs to be told. This will require correctly identifying their greatest needs. In the biblical counseling arena, we call this “picking the fruit.” Now, that metaphor is pretty straightforward. You pick the fruit to determine if it’s good or bad. However, I’m sure we all realize that—when dealing with people—it’s not always as easy as it is at an apple orchard. This is why Proverbs 20:5 says, “Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water, But a man of discernment draws it out.” It takes genuine, Holy Spirit empowered discernment to correctly draw out another’s heart. The word translated “discernment” refers to skill in reasoning or skillful understanding. I Thessalonians 5:14 reads, “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” In order to know how best to minster to them, we need to know who they are. Are you skillful when it comes to identifying your children’s greatest spiritual needs? Not what the world says they need, not what your child feels they need, but what God says they need? Picking that fruit will require not only pulling it from the tree and making certain it’s healthy and good on the outside, but also cutting that fruit open, smelling it, tasting it, and even doing testing on it. When I counsel, I work through the levels I taught in the Merest Christianity Series. I identify what they do, say, and feel and compare that to the Scripture’s expectations. That’s like picking the fruit. I then biblically scrutinize how they did it, said it, and felt it. Was it done the way God prescribes? This is cutting the fruit open to see what it looks like under the surface. But I’m not done yet. Then I need to proverbial taste the fruit. This is where I do my best to really draw out their hearts to understand why they did what they did, said what they said, and felt what they felt. From there, if I find any bad fruit in the bunch, we identify the source of the bad fruit. Since we all do what we do, say what we say, and feel what we feel because we want what we want, I then work my counselee to identify what they want, how they want it, and why they want it. James 4:1-3 reveals that our passions motivate our fighting. Galatians 5:16-17 teaches that we need to walk by the Spirit so we don’t fulfill the desires of the flesh. Closely related to our desires is our thoughts, and Proverbs 23:7 tells us, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” But that’s all pretty superficial. In order to truly identity the most seminal need they have, I must recognize that we want what we want because we believe what we believe about God, His Word, and ourselves. Hebrews 11:6 reveals, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” II Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” And Romans 14:23 explains that “whatever is not from faith is sin.” That means that I need to draw out the deepest recesses of their heart to understand what lies they were believing about God, how they were believing those lies, and why they were believing those lies which produced the wrong desires and created the wrong fruit. And . . . guess what . . . that’s what we parents should do as well. Otherwise, we run the very real risk of telling them things that aren’t what they need to hear. Here’s one example, and then we’ll move on. Let’s say your son has repeatedly asked your daughter to let him borrow her crayons, but she has repeatedly refused to relinquish even one of her 300 colors. So, what do you do? You tell her to let her brother borrow a crayon. You may even tell her why it’s a good idea, tell her a plan for sharing the crayons that benefits them both, or tell her that you’re going to give her ice cream if she shares. But none of that is the real issue. Does she need to share? Probably, yeah. But why isn’t she sharing? You could tell her to share and—even if she does it—she only grows in her resentment of her brother and bitterness toward you. She could share, and all the while she’s enjoying her ice cream, she using it as a means of self-worship just like she was not sharing with her brother. You need to identify the desires of her heart, but—more importantly—the lies she’s believing about God and herself that are at the root of her sin. Then, once you have identified her greatest needs of the moment can you open the Scriptures to show her Who God is, who she is, and what God wants from her. But . . . even if you did all of that (something we all fail to do all too frequently), if we stop there, we’re only doing half our job and—potentially—hurting our kids more than helping them. That’s why we need to understand that Jesus did not merely tell . . . 2. Jesus showed. Hypocrisy is not expecting something from others with which you yourself struggle. As long as you are striving in the power of the Holy Spirit to grow in the same areas you’re encouraging your children to grow—and working to grow together—your imperfection is not hypocrisy. I think the world and too many Christians think that hypocrisy is telling people how they should live when you yourself don’t live perfectly. “How dare you tell me I need to change when you obviously need to change too.” But that’s a convenient and pathetic cop out to ignore biblical teaching. And—let’s face it—even if the person telling us biblical truth were actually a hypocrite . . . we’d still be responsible to obey the truth because it doesn’t really come from the teller’s authority, it comes from the Father’s authority. We would need to obey regardless (as long as it’s biblical). But true hypocrisy is expecting of others what I do not expect from myself. It’s when what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. It’s when we parents want our kids to have self-control, but we don’t expect it of ourselves. It’s when we want our kids to tell the truth, but we’re okay lying. It’s when we push them to do their devotions, but make excuses for why we don’t have to do ours. It’s when we yell at our kids to be nice and never acknowledge our sinful anger. And I think you realize I could keep going and going and going with far more personal illustrations that should convict us all. Matthew 23:1-4 says, “Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.’” In fact, the whole of Matthew 23 is a burning rebuke of hypocrisy. And in Matthew 15:7-9 Jesus said, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’" But Jesus didn’t just tell, He showed. He consistently practiced what He preached. He lived the lessons He expected others to learn. He commanded the disciples to love each other after He had perfectly loved them for three years and was about to demonstrate the deepest act of love one can do . . . give up His life for others. This showing is not more important than telling, but it’s equally as important as telling. However, without the showing, our telling becomes perverted and dangerous. Why is that? When we’re hypocrites, we teach our kids to be hypocrites. There’s never been a person who said, “Do as I say, not as I do,” who was ever respected and who ever really taught anyone anything valuable. Sure, many people have learned from them how to not be like them, but their telling is poisoned and impotent because their lives are screaming that they don’t even believe what they’re saying. Patch the Pirate wisely observed “Your talk talks, and your walk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.” When he spoke of your walk, he was referring to your life choices. They always talk much louder than your words. Now, I would be remiss if I told you to do something that was unbiblical. It is true that we should be Showing Parents because we want to help our children truly learn what we’re telling them. As I pointed out in “The Single Most Dangerous Influence in Your Child’s Life,” you are that most dangerous influence. But if our greatest motivation for being a Show and Tell Parent is the influence we’ll have on our kids, then our motivation is imperfect and desperately lacking. I would fail you in my telling today if I didn’t mention that our greatest motivation for showing and telling the truth of God’s Word is that He deserves it. We need to show and tell as an act of worship to God. He expects it from us; it pleases Him, and that needs to be why we do it. I Corinthians 10:31 reads, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” That “whatever you do” refers to your parenting as well. And in order to truly glorify God, you need to parent for His glory . . . not your own, not so you can accomplish what you want, not so you can make your kids what you want them to be. You need to do it because it pleases Him and is the result of you thinking about Him rightly. Yes, the influence God wants us to have on our kids as we parent to His honor and glory is very real, but also very secondary. We may be an amazing Show and Tell Parent, but our kids still reject God. Look at Jesus. He repeatedly said that He was on this earth to do the will of His Father in Heaven. Yes, He was here to seek and save the lost, but the motivation for that glorious pursuit was to submit to and please the Father. And so must be our reasons for showing and telling in our parenting. Conclusion
Are you a Show and Tell Parent? Do you not only teach, reprove, correct, and train your kids in truth, but are you—first and foremost—submitting to that same truth yourself?
Do you struggle knowing how and what and why to tell? Do you struggle knowing the most important truth your child needs in the moment? Do you struggle having the same biblical expectations for yourself that you have for your kids? Well, we would love to help. If you fall into these categories and want to change, but don’t know how, please email us at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (828) 423-0894. And definitely share this episode so that others can learn how to be Show and Tell Parents. Lastly, please remember that we desperately cherish your support as we near our 10th anniversary and continue opening God’s Word to help dads and moms everywhere better worship God with their parenting. Visit TruthLoveParent.com/donate to partner with us and become a TLP Friend. And then join us next time as we consider The Difference between Discipline & Punishment. I’ll see you then.
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