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TranscriptIntroduction
It’s great to be meeting with you again! I pray your family is doing well. I hope you’re relying on God’s Word and His power as you pursue His glory.
Of course, even when we’re doing that, we’re not going to do it perfectly. There absolutely is no such thing as a perfect family. We’re all sinners, and—as we discussed in our Biblical Families study from I John—though the trajectory needs to be less habitual, less egregious sin, we’ll never be able to fully escape it this side of heaven. So, your family may not be bottoming out right now, but that doesn’t mean you’re not working through some issues. And others of you might be saying, “Listen, Aaron, I wish we were growing even a little, but we’re not. We’re a dumpster fire of pain and destruction!” Regardless of the state of your family today, these observations from God’s Word should help to equip you to identify the main root of the problem(s). As always, today’s show comes with free episode notes, a transcript, and related resources so that if you want to take your study deeper or you have questions about today’s material, you’ll be able to find the answers. So, let’s begin. Topic
It’s been said that the problem is rarely the problem. In biblical counseling we refer to the “presenting problems,” but we always know that behind and beneath the pretending problems are the real issues. And the Scriptures identify a number of these root issues. Now, each of the 5 things we’re going to discuss today do overlap and connect. In fact, the last one on the list is the most seminal and is also part of all of the others, and the subtle overlaps are part of the escalating problem.
So, I want to start with an illustration of a common problem in most homes. This may not be the presenting problem in your home, but this example of a surface-level issue is not the point. It’s merely being presented as an example of how to work past the freckle-level issue and start addressing the real issues. But before I set forth the illustration, I’d like to take a short moment to invite you to become a monthly donor of Truth.Love.Family. We’re a small ministry that has a global reach. This show is regularly consumed on 6 continents—even though we still haven’t picked up any listeners in Antarctica. Oh, well. And our mission is to equip dads and moms to better glorify God with their parenting. But we need your help. We average about $20,000 a year from our donors, and though we’re always humbled by their sacrificial giving, we need about 5 times that much to meet our operating expenses. So, as we approach our 10th anniversary, will you please partner with us by becoming a monthly donor and helping us raise the $100,000 we need to become sustainable? Just visit TruthLoveParent.com/donate to learn more about our non-profit and how you can help. Alright, let’s get started. Here’s just one illustration of a presenting problem. Remember, this doesn’t have to describe your biggest issue in order for the episode to have value. But, let’s say that your child is unkind. Whether playing with their siblings or friends, whether eating dinner or talking with their teacher, whether doing chores or on vacation, your child is sassy, nasty, rude, disrespectful, mean, angry, ornery, or whatever word you use to describe it. Most parents approach these situations from a behavioral standpoint. As long as we can get the child to stop being nasty, it’s a win. Such approaches involve threats, punishment, lectures, shock and awe—really, whatever is necessary to shut down the unkind behavior. But though the child may zip-the-lip or say he’s sorry, all we’ve really accomplished is a short term cessation of the problem. We haven’t actually fixed anything, and the more we deal with the presenting problems in this way, the worse the real issue will become over time. “But,” you may ask, “isn’t my daughter’s unkindness the problem?” Well, it’s a problem. Yes, Ephesians 4:32, II Timothy 2:24, and Titus 2:5 all command that we “be kind.” But imagine that I said to you, show me the difference between a side thrust kick and a side roundhouse kick. Of course, some of you may recognize what I’m talking about, but most of my listeners are likely incapable of demonstrating the precise difference in those martial arts kicks. Why is that? Well, the issue is not merely that you aren’t kicking correctly, the issue is that you don’t have the necessary foundational lessons and abilities in place to actually do the kicks correctly. What I’m saying is that your child may be incapable of truly understanding what it is to be kind, or they may lack the ability to be kind. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. Kindness is not an arbitrary concept. It doesn’t mean whatever we want it to mean. It means what God wants is to mean, and it requires a foundational understanding and adherence to other biblical principles and commands for a person to even be able to start being biblically kind. Therefore, the reason behind the unkindness (or whatever the presenting problem may be) will have to be determined in order to parent the child toward biblical change. So, where do we start? 1. Ignorance If you’re visiting a foreign country, how could you know that the run-of-the-mill hand gesture you use every day will be offensive to the locals? You can’t know unless someone tells you. You have to be taught whether something is good or bad. We assume a lot as a parent. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve assumed my kids knew things they didn’t know or could make connections between truths I’ve taught them that they absolutely could not, or could apply truth correctly that their lives revealed they couldn’t. I also want to include forgetfulness in this category. Whether they should have forgotten or not, whether they shouldn’t have been ignorant, they still are. They forgot. They don’t remember. They functionally don’t know even though the information had washed over their ears in the past. Perhaps your unkind child doesn’t realize that the familial joking that happens at home isn’t appropriate in most contexts outside the home. Perhaps you’ve actually never sat your child down and taught them God’s expectations for their behavior. Maybe your child has been shown by the world that certain behavior is admirable and acceptable, but they don’t know what God has to say about that behavior. Is it possible they know they’re supposed to be kind, but they have no real idea what that requires for their speech? If your child is very young, ignorance is definitely part of the problem, but—let’s be honest—none of us have a puritan or Berean understanding of the Scripture that we should have. We’re all woefully ignorant of God’s expectations. So, regardless of the age of your child, their knowledge needs to be investigated, not assumed. In Hosea 4:6 we read, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Isaiah 5:13 reveals, “Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; And their honorable men are famished, And their multitude is parched with thirst.” We talk about the Hard-Hearted Child in our Four Children series. That child’s main issue is ignorance. And Ephesians 4:17-18 tells us, “Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” We need to identify whether the child truly knows and understands that his behavior is sinful. He may learn that it’s wrong and may never do it again. But—before we move on—please recognize that this teaching needs to be rooted in Scripture. It doesn’t matter if you think something is unkind, if God says that it’s not. And it doesn’t matter if you think something is appropriate, if God says it’s a sin. Our family needs to be unified around biblical truth. But quite often, ignorance isn’t the problem. 2. Discontentment If what’s happening to me is wrong, unjust, and unfair, I’ll be tempted to believe that my harsh response is warranted. How often do we parents respond with inappropriate harshness for the same reason? It’s possible your child is being unkind to his sibling because of what the sibling just did to him. Now, that doesn’t make it right, but the temptation is very real. Discontentment is at the root of all unkindness, complaining, anger, fear, and a panoply of other responses. And each of those sinful behaviors feels vindicated because discontentment causes us to see ourselves as victims. We need to investigate our child’s heart to understand why they believe their behavior is appropriate. As we ask questions, we need to look for language that reveals an ungrateful heart. If we find it, they will likely need to be taught about biblical contentment. You may have never shown them from the Scriptures how peace can only grow from gratitude that can only grow from joy which can only grow from contentment. Philippians 4 is a great place to go for that, and I have a couple other resources linked in the description that address complaining, joy, peace, and gratitude. As your child talks through their own justification for their unkindness, cheating, stealing, lying, disrespect, anger, or any other number of sins, you may likely find that they’re entirely discontent with the state of things and are justifying their behavior because of it. Don’t just shut down the behavior. In a case of discontentment, your child—who believes their behavior is completely justifiable—will likely only view you as being part of the problem because you’re being unfair as well. They will need to be confronted by the truths of God in His Word. We must pray that the Holy Spirit will shine the light of conviction deep into their hearts. We aren’t allowed to be discontent in this life, but when we lie to ourselves and embrace ingratitude and discontentment, that will create so many of the presenting issues that hurt us and those around us. But discontentment grows from another more heinous root. 3. Hatred I’ve linked our Family Love series in the description because it’s desperately important that we and our family members have a biblical understanding of love. None of the World’s definitions are good enough. They all fail in one or many ways. True love is the polar opposite of hatred, but even that idea of hatred will confuse your kids if they don’t understand what biblical hatred is. I can’t go into all the details here, but for now I’ll lay out the most basic definitions, and then you can listen to the Family Love series with your kids to better understand it. Love is wanting and working toward God’s best interest in someone’s life whether they appear to deserve it or want it. Therefore, hatred is not working toward God’s best interest in the person’s life. This hatred can be unkind and harsh, but it can also be friendly. Your child’s best friend who encourages your child to lie to you about what happened at the sleepover is acting like a hateful enemy even though they think they’re being a good friend. In the same way, powerful truth that convicts our hearts is likely the most loving thing we needed to hear. All of the presenting problems in your homes boils down to self-love and hatred of others. The individual wants what they want. They don’t care about God’s will for your life or their own. They will hurt you and pursue hurtful goals in their own lives because they don’t want what God wants. One of the most startling questions I ask rebellious teenagers is “Why do you hate your parents?” Despite the fact that they’ve sinned against their parens in awful ways and done terrible things, most of them will respond that they don’t hate their parents. Sometimes it’s due to the fact they don’t want the truth getting out, but more often it’s because often the child has feelings of affection for her family (or what she gets from them). In an emergency, the child likely doesn’t want to see his family hurt. But that doesn’t change the fact that any time we sin against someone, we’re doing it because we hate that person—we don’t want God’s best for their lives. Proverbs 10:12 says, “Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions.” There’s isn’t any strife in your home that isn’t rooted in hatred. And why do we pursue our own comfort at the expense of others? 4. Pride Humility is not considering my own desires and needs. Humility pursues God’s glory and others’ good before my own. Pride, on the other hand, considers my own desires and needs first. It absolutely does not make God’s desires and others’ needs my top priorities. Jesus told us that the two greatest commands were to love God and love others. Romans 12:10 tells us to be “devoted to one another in brotherly love, giving preference to one another in honor.” You cannot truly love someone without prioritizing him or her above yourself. Philippians 2 reveals that Jesus did everything He did in obedience to the Father and for the good of His people because He didn’t pridefully pursue what He deserved. Pride is one of the most seminal roots of sin. Every presenting problem in your home ties back to pride in one way or another. We need to teach our kids this, help them see it in their own lives, model humility, and reprove them when they give in to it. Pride is the most natural expression of human depravity. It’s a daily battle that I, you, and your kids will forever fight. But we need to be fighting it, not superficially squashing the behavior that grows from the pride without ever addressing it. James 4 starts by reveling the most seminal root of the strife in your home. That’s our final point. But when James starts teaching us how to fix the problem, he includes this admonition, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” We all need God’s grace to resist the devil, cleanse our sinful hands, purity our stained hearts, and stop being double-minded. And we will only ever access this grace by humbly putting God and others first. But why don’t your kids do this? Why don’t we as parents pursue humility as we should? Well, if you’ve been with us for any length of time, then you know the answer is pretty simple. We don’t believe we have to. We don’t believe it’s best. And that’s the 5th and final root we’re going to discuss today. 5. Unbelief The Four Children Series shows how each of the three bad soils have the same thing in common, they don’t truly believe the full truth God gives them. They either don’t believe any of it, or they only believe part of it. Sometimes that unbelief goes all the way to the core of their being—your child is mean or lazy or angry or disobedient because they’re unsaved. They don’t have the animating power of God to actually do what He says, the way He says, for the reasons He says. In cases such as these, we need to engage in daily Evangelism Parenting. I’ll link those resources for you in the description. However, it’s also possible that your children—by the grace of God—have been saved by faith. They are born again and have new life in Christ. But each of our sins is a result of a momentary lack of faith. This doesn’t mean we lose our salvation, but it does mean that we didn’t trust that God’s way was best in that moment. Yes, we know God wants us to turn the other cheek, not be sinfully angry, and be kind and loving, but in this moment, I believe the best thing is to hit my sister. Yes, I know what God and my parents say about stealing, but I really want to because I believe it’s better for me. All sin grows from unbelief. Pride grows from unbelief. Hatred grows from unbelief. Discontentment grows from unbelief. And sometimes even ignorance can grow from it. If I don’t believe what I’ve been taught is important enough to work really hard to remember, I’ll easily forget it. So, whether our kids are saved or unsaved, when they have presenting problems in their lives, we can know for sure that in that moment they weren’t believing what they were commanded by God to believe about Him, His Word, and their lives. Romans 14:23 tells us that everything that grows from unbelief is sin. Right before launching into the Hall of Faith—practical examples of men and women whose outside choices grew from their trust in God—the author of Hebrews says this, “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who draws near to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” All the way back to the first sin in Genesis 3, we see that a lack of faith was at the root of the sin. Satan planted doubt in Eve’s mind when he asked, “Did God really say . . . ?” Conclusion
There are going to be a lot of presenting problems in your home. Complaining, lying, fear, laziness, gluttony, bad attitudes, unkindness, bitterness, selfishness, stealing, and a host of other fruits are going to grow up in the branches of your family. And you can try to pull them off the tree all day long, but if you don’t address the actual roots, you’re never going to strengthen the tree so that it can grow good fruit.
If there were only one additional resource from the list below you pursued, I would plead with you to work through The Merest Christianity. That series teaches you from the Scriptures how to help your children genuinely and truly change to the glory of God. What you believe about God, His Word, and yourself will set the trajectory for your life, and the same is true for your kids. As always, please share this episode with your friends and family. People are far more willing to consider listening to a podcast when a trusted individual shares it with them. Also, if you’re in the midst of family trouble you don’t know how to navigate, please email us at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (828) 423-0894. Our biblical counselors would love to open God’s Word and help you find the answers you need for life’s questions. And join us next time as we talk about “How to Convince Your Kids.” I’ll see you then.
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