Our Goal As Parents

Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?(Isaiah 5:1-4)

 

I think as a Parent I can relate to this song. We all love our children. We would do anything for them,even die for them. And in a thousand little ways,  most parents  have died for their children the death of countless sacrifices, concerns and self giving. We think nothing of it because we love them..

Like many of our peers, we (my wife and I) have striven to raise our children in a God centered way.For example we made every effort to train them “in the way that they should go…”,  to be loving, polite, respectful, and obedient, for we wanted them  to be a real credit to us and most importantly to God. No Dr. Phil or Dr. Spock for us, the Bible was and is our text for child rearing.

When it came time to educate them, we home schooled. There would be no public school, humanistic indoctrination for our kids,for we have seen the education of our children as a religious duty. We would make the effort and sacrifice,supervise the curriculum, and take responsibility for the shaping of their minds.

When people would ask us how our children would get by without being “socialized” in the Government schools, we would laugh out loud! Such “socialization” is one of the major things we sought to save them from.After all between family, church, and organised sports, our children have a life!

There have been other protections and separations as well ; we have always discouraged our children from the whole “teen dating”scene, we didn’t just let them go to every movie that came along, nor have we allowed them the almost unlimited freedoms that some of their peers were afforded.

We read and were much helped by the books of people like Mary Pride, Paul Tripp and Joshua Harris, and many others, all true counter cultural christian warriors.One needs quite a bit if re-inforcement to go against the cultural current.It didn’t concern us as to how we were made to look or feel, for we are Christians, inwardly guided by conviction and not mere preference.

In short our goal was both positive and negative, to fully educate and train our children from a God centered, Judeo Christian perspective on all of life. And negatively, to separate them from the godlessness, the defiling, degraded and unbelieving aspects of our world for as long as possible. We want our children to be fully christian.

Of course we haven’t done it all perfectly, there are many things I wish I could do over again, we have not always been consistent in our discipline, or example, I realise that. But we have tried to make a study of how to raise children as christians, and to implement it.

But in spite of all of that there is one thing that those things cannot change; that is the fact that every one of my children was born a sinner. Therefore in spite of those protections and guidances that we have raised them up in,  after all that they can still come of age and do stupid, sinful, destructive things because they are sinners.

Homeschooling is good and I believe almost essential, so is child discipline, training in manners and morals, obedience and being raised in church. All of these are good things, absolute blessings, and those who sacrifice to offer these things for their children have got it right.But they are no substitute for Christian conversion.

The real goal of all of it is not Better behaviour, nor  is advanced intellect,(we have nothing to prove to the public schools).  The true goal of Christian parents is that their children be converted to Christ, that they see that they are sinners, in need of grace and that very sinfulness drives them to the Cross of Jesus, who paid the price of our sins.

What if the Proverbs disciplined children that we have raised ,  really did learn to act prudently in all situations, and truly did treat the opposite sex with the dignity and honor we have instilled in them, yet they grew up as really “good” people who know how to act and yet are unsaved? Would that not be the ultimate disaster?

Paul teaches us that not even God’s Law can save us. Neither does Homeschooling, nor spanking for disobedience, nor does having a higher grade point average than the public school kids.These things are good and excellent in themselves and in many cases can even predispose a kid to becoming a christian, but they are not to be confused with conversion to Jesus.

New birth is the goal, not good and respectable behavior. The point is not ‘looking good” but being good, and being truly good can only come through the gospel. “Ye must be born again”. Every failure, and fall from the good that our children experience  , should become a teaching point, to underscore the truth of original sin and the need for the saving Love of Jesus.

Lets preach the gospel to our children, “Son, You did that ,in spite of our teaching, because you are a sinner, you need to be saved by believing upon Jesus who died for you.””Daughter , I know you know better but you did it anyway, that is because sin is within us and we need to be saved from it , only Jesus can free us from it through the gospel.”We especially need to evangelize our older children.

The teaching is right, true and good, just like God’s Law, but it can only serve to aggravate the innate sinfulness of our children unless the gospel is applied .The conversion of our children to the gospel of Jesus is the real goal of christian parent.