Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: When we made that transfer from being lost and dead in sin to crossing the line and new life in Jesus Christ, we changed masters. We were under the master of sin. Now we're under the master of Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled All About Jesus. Let's listen in as JP gives us part two of Parenting in Christ.

JP Jones: Several years ago, when my youngest daughter was maybe about seven years old, we went on a little date. We're sitting at the restaurant, and she had a legal pad and she's drawing away. I said, "What are you drawing there?" She turns around and shows me. It was a heart. I said, "That's so sweet. Tell me," and I'm now thinking, "I'm going to use this as a little teachable moment." "What's in your heart?"

She took her crayon and she wrote in the heart, "Jesus." I said, "Sweetheart, that is great. Jesus is in your heart." I now started talking a little bit about that, and while I'm talking, she wrote something else. I said, "Oh, what else did you write?" She turned around and I read, "And a little bit of Satan."

That's good theology, because there's a little bit of Satan in all of us. We all have a sin problem. But here's the good news: God's grace is greater than our sin. It says in Romans chapter five that where the transgression increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Bible says, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." There is not a problem any of us will ever face that God's grace and God's truth won't overcome, solve, and resolve for us. As parents, there's not an issue that our children will ever face that will not be resolved through grace and truth.

What we need to draw upon richly, abundantly, regularly, and consistently are the tools of grace and truth to parent our kids, to love our kids, and to develop our kids to become godly, mature, healthy, Christ-like adults. We need to parent with grace and truth over and over and over again.

It's awesome when you use grace and truth. They work in tandem with each other because some situations you just make a judgment call: grace. Other situations: truth. But when you use grace and truth, you can't go wrong.

Here's a fifth observation: practice age-appropriate discipline. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 7 to 11 says this, "Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined, and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons."

"However, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for good that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

Here the writer of the Hebrews is talking about God's discipline. He's talking about why God prunes our lives and uses trials, difficult circumstances, and the reproofs of people to shape our character. The logic behind the spiritual implication is this: God gave us parents to do that for us because that's the way we grow up. When parents do their job and do it in the right way, they discipline their kids and they discipline in the right way so that kids develop character and grow up and are mature.

In the same way, God uses discipline to grow us up spiritually. But the point is, even though it's talking about the spiritual discipline of God, the natural context that Paul uses to prove his point is the healthy discipline of parents to children. Don't allow the cases of abuse or the inappropriate use of discipline to shape a positive biblical theology of discipline. We're talking about appropriate, loving, healthy, Christ-like discipline.

We raise godly kids as parents when we use age-appropriate discipline. I was talking with my daughters recently, and we were talking about the fact that I'm going to be doing this talk on parenting. I said, "What would you recommend? I'm speaking on parenting to everybody. Tell me something that I and your mom did that was good or something that we did that was bad that we could use to pass on."

I know you should be very careful when you ask those kind of questions of your kids. Don't ask a question that you don't want the answer. As a dad, you don't say to your daughter, "Do you think I'm stupid?" "Yeah, Dad, I really think you're stupid." No, you just throw that question out. Both of them, this was interesting, both of them immediately said the same thing and then they talked about it with us.

They said to my wife and me, "Here's something, because we used to think this was so stupid when you used to do this. You did it all the time. Now it's like we totally understand why you did it, and we're so glad that you did, and it's what we're going to do when we become parents." I said, "What's that?"

"When we were little and we disobeyed the rules and did something wrong and you were going to give us a spanking, you would take us up to the room and you'd sit down with us, and then you would say that you loved us, and then you would explain what we did and why we're going to get a spanking, and then you would spank us. Then you'd hug us and tell us that you loved us, and then you would pray for us. We used to think it was stupid."

"But now we look back and go, 'That really made sense because we always knew that you loved us. But we also knew that we needed to obey or we'd get a spanking.'" There's age-appropriate obedience. Toddlers don't need the same thing that elementary school-age children need, and that's not the same thing that teens need.

Toddlers need very quick reinforcement, almost behavior modification-type positive and negative because they need to know there are certain rules and they need to know that when Mom and Dad speak, they need to give instant obedience, first-time obedience. In fact, we used to do with our kids, it was crazy.

We would go out in a front yard, and this was more to help them learn, like, "Okay, if you're playing out in the street or playing in the yard and cars come, you may not see them, but if we see them and we say, 'Get out of the street right now,' you can't just sit there and have a debate with us as to why we're asking you to do that. You just need to instantly obey."

So we played this game where we would run and I would say, "Stop!" and to see who could stop immediately and not keep running. But the whole point of the game was to learn if I said stop, you stop right away. In fact, my wife and I made up these stories, these little stories that we used to tell the kids. We told all three of the kids about Tortilla the Mouse.

We just made them up, and there was a story I used to say to all three kids all the time. Tortilla the Mouse. Tortilla's playing out in the backyard, having so much fun. Tortilla's daddy, Japenie, he's watching him. I'm not creative; I'm just making this up. So happy to see Tortilla playing out there, but what Tortilla didn't see but Tortilla's dad saw was a big cat that jumped up on the fence.

The cat was looking at Tortilla, licking its chops because it was his next meal. Tortilla's playing, having so much fun, when Tortilla's dad saw the cat, he shouted at Tortilla, "Tortilla, run back here right now!" Well, Tortilla didn't want to run back. He's playing out in the yard. But you know what Tortilla learned? When his dad said something, he obeyed right away.

So Tortilla ran back to his dad right away, and just then the cat jumped off the fence and just got a mouthful of dirt. But Tortilla listened to his daddy and Tortilla was safe. I used to say that story or other stories like that. We did them all the time because we're trying to help our very little kids understand the importance of instant, first-time obedience.

Elementary-age kids, now is more a time where you can explain the reasons why. But you still have clear expectations and clear follow-through and first-time obedience and consequences that they understand. You coach them up afterwards because you're helping to build character and an understanding, not just "I obey because I obey," but there are reasons and there's a context and there's an understanding for doing these things. You can't do that with toddlers; you do that with elementary school-age kids.

Then they get to their teen years, and God bless you. Teenagers are a whole new ballpark. But what you do with teenagers is you get them more involved in the process because teenagers naturally, psychologically in their development, are developing this autonomy and independence. You want to understand that's a reality, so you include them in the process.

Include them in the process of clarifying the rules. Personally, I don't think there should be a whole lot of rules. I think there should be a very minimum amount, and the rules ought to really reflect your values, but you ought to keep them and you ought to keep them all the time consistently. But you help your kids talk it through with them, and you help them participate in what the rule's actually going to be and what the consequences are going to be if they break the rule.

You even role-play. "So here's a situation: we know that you're supposed to be home, curfew's 12 at night. You're at a party, you're having a good time. So-and-so's supposed to pick you up, and they're not picking you up and they don't want to come home so they didn't call their parents to come pick you up. What are you going to do? You're just going to stay there or you going to give us a call? Let's talk about that."

"Or you're at a party and we've talked about you don't want to be at parties where there's drinking going on, and we've agreed to that, and you get there and now there's drinking going on." We've said to our kids, and say to our teenage daughters right now, "Let us be the bad guy anytime. If you're ever worried about being embarrassed or feeling bad, make us out to be the bad guys. My parents wouldn't let me, I have to leave. It is okay. Make us out to be the bad guys."

But you talk that through and you involve them more in the process, and then you pray like crazy. That's what you do when you have teenagers. The point is age-appropriate discipline.

One last thing: teach your children to love God. That's what it's all about. There is no greater privilege than to teach your children to love Jesus, to follow Jesus, and to see your children grow up to be healthy, mature, godly adults who want to live for Christ and who want to pass on to their kids what they got from you.

Teach your kids to love God. In fact, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul's talking about his ministry of evangelism and discipleship. He planted this church, and he led these people to the Lord and he discipled them and he's writing back to them about their spiritual process and spiritual growth.

He's kind of describing how God used him in their life. You know what example he uses to talk about the spiritual formation process in their lives? Parenting. The role of a mom and dad. He says this, "We ministered to you like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God's good news, but our own lives, too."

"Don't you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We preached God's good news to you. You yourselves are witnesses, and so is God, how we were devout and honest and faultless in our example toward you believers. And you know that we treated you as a father treats his children. We pleaded with you, we encouraged you, we urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy."

Paul's talking about how he spiritually parented these people and discipled them and taught them to love God, and the example that he uses of how to do that and how he did it is the way parents disciple and raise their kids to love God. That's our role. That is our primary objective as followers of Jesus Christ in passing on to this next generation a spiritual legacy, a love for God. All of us can do that with neighbors and friends. Parents, we get to in a special way do that with our children. It's our personal example and our proactive teaching and taking advantage of those teachable moments and praying consistently for our kids.

Let me tell you about the first time I remember disciplining my son and the last time I remember having to give him a spanking. The first time, he was about 18 months old. He was a toddler. He's roaming all around, getting into stuff. We had a fireplace. He wanted to get into the fireplace, and it had all the ashes in there.

So I said, "Taylor, don't go into the fireplace. Daddy does not want you to get into that fireplace." And he was standing in front of me and he started walking over to the fireplace. He turned around and looked at me, and I said, "Don't get into the fireplace." He walked up to the fireplace. Now he's close. I said, "Don't get into the fireplace or Daddy's going to slap your hand." Well, I'd never slapped his hand before.

So he looked at me, he looked at the fireplace, and he reached over and put his hand right in the ashes. I walked over and got him, and I slapped his hand. He started crying. I started crying. I welled up with tears. I said, "Taylor, Daddy does not want you to get in that fireplace. Gets ashes all over you. Don't get in the fireplace." I pulled him away physically, brought him back to where I was, sat him down in front of me.

He started walking over to the fireplace. About halfway, he looked back. I said, "Taylor, do not get in the fireplace. I'll slap your hand." He walked up to the fireplace again. He looked at me, and I said, "Taylor, do not put your hand in the fireplace." He looked at me, and he reached his hand into the fireplace. I walked over to him, I grabbed his hand, I slapped it harder. He cried more. Tears in my eyes. "Taylor, Daddy does not want you to put your hand in the fireplace. Do not play in the fireplace." Pulled him back over to where I was sitting on the couch, put him there in front of me.

He looked at me. He looked at the fireplace. He started walking over to the fireplace. I said, "Taylor, Daddy says no. I will slap your hand if you get in the fireplace." He looked at the fireplace. He looked at me. He looked at his hand. He looked back at me, got a big smile on his face, and ran into my arms. A little sinner. Okay, that's the first time.

Here's the last time I ever gave my son a spanking. By the way, I'm not advocating, trying to teach, trying to enforce, trying to say you have to spank your kids. Discipline, consistent discipline, that's the key. About 11 years old, we just put in landscaping in our house and the hardscaping, and we put on our driveway a section of concrete that was painted concrete, a colored section of concrete. It was about six feet wide.

So the guys that had put it all in, they loaded up the truck, they'd just left. So we're standing out there with all the kids. The girls were little; Taylor's 11 years old. I said, "Okay, kids, you got to stay off the concrete. This thing has to dry for a while, so no stepping on it, getting in it. Just stay completely away from it, okay? Okay." So we walked inside.

I haven't been inside five minutes. Taylor comes walking in the house. "Dad," he's kind of breathing heavy, got this panicked look on his face. I said, "Yeah?" And he goes, "Dad, you got to come out." I said, "What?" I walked outside, and there in the concrete were two tennis shoe footprints. Boom, just like right at the edge. I said, "Taylor, what happened?" He said, "Dad, I was looking at that concrete and I thought, 'I think I can jump across that concrete.'"

Unfortunately, my son had white man's disease and didn't have good hops. So he jumped and his feet were just that short of making it, so there were two footprints, boom, right in the concrete. So I got down and I tried to smooth it out, and it already hardened enough where I couldn't budge it.

So I'm looking at that, and quite honestly, I'm laughing on the inside because I'm thinking, "If I was a kid, I'd do the same thing. I really would." And I'm also thinking, "Okay, these tennis shoe footprints one day will be precious memories. I mean, this is a story, right?" But I also realized there's something going on here, not just the fact that my son can't jump very far, because I told him stay away from the concrete.

So I said, "Okay, Taylor, I want you to go upstairs." So he went upstairs and I talked it over with Donna and I said, "Okay, I need to follow through on this because this is significant." So we walk upstairs, I walk upstairs, I shut the door. He's sitting on his bed.

I said, "Taylor, tell me what you were thinking." And he says, "Dad, I saw that, I thought I could jump across it." I said, "Well, you found out you couldn't, right? Right." And I'm talking just like this, like I am to you now. I said, "There's going to come a time where we will look back on that and it'll be funny. And in fact, seeing your footprints in there will be pretty special. I have no doubt about that."

"But, Taylor, there's something going on here bigger than that, and that is this: I told you to stay away from the concrete, and you disobeyed me." And he goes, "I know, Dad," hung his head. I said, "Taylor, I love you so much. You know how much I love you." He said, "I do." I said, "My biggest role as a dad is to help you love God. And part of loving God is obeying His commandments."

"I have to obey God's commandments. You're going to be a man someday; you've got to obey God's commandments. And you will never learn to obey God's commandments if you don't learn to obey me." He goes, "I know, Dad." I said, "So Taylor, this is the last time I ever want to spank you. I want you to remember this because I want to help you understand that obeying God is the most important thing, and you learn to obey God by obeying me." He goes, "I know, Dad." So I spanked him, I hugged him, I told him I loved him, I prayed for him.

Teaching our children to love God is the greatest challenge and the greatest joy we'll ever have as parents. That's true for those of us who don't have physical children but we can bless the next generation by being spiritual parents. That's true for us as parents who have kids, whether they're 2 or 20 or older. Because when we teach our kids to love God as parents, we fulfill our God-ordained role and we reflect what we have: new life in Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just five dollars. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250.

For your gift of 25 dollars or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9 or 11 a.m. at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com.

We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.