Parenting is God's Ministry

Dr. Paul David Tripp
22-08-2018

Without the truth of the gospel, it is very easy to reduce parenting down to what you want to get from your children and what you want to see in your children. Parenting is not about that.

Parenting is about what God knows you need and what He alone is able to do in the lives of my children.

Parenting is about being an ambassador. I am God's representative.


Every child is a philosopher. Every child is a theologian. Every child is an archeologist who will dig through the mountain of existence to make sense out of lives. I want to be part of that formation that God has designed for every child.

I am also parenting a worshiper. That's your child's identity, and not his activity. Something will always rule the heart of that child. He will either worship some kind of idol or he will worship God. The idol of idols is the idol of self. The most natural thing that a child worships is himself. "I am the centre of my universe. I want the world to serve me. I want to rule my own life. And frankly I don't really need you to parent me because I know what I want and I don't like you either way."

So God's called me to be part of that formative struggle in the heart of a child.

If your eyes ever see or your ears ever hear the same weakness and failure of your children, it's never an accident, it's never a hassle; it's always grace. God loves children. He's put them in a family of faith. And He will reveal their needs to you so you can be a tool of rescue, restoration and transformation. You should never, ever get upset because you are seeing the weaknesses or failures of your children.

Parents, your children don't know why they do the things they do because they don't know who they are. That's your job.

"Mommy didn't yell at you. Mommy didn't call you bad names. Mommy didn't ask you to do something wrong. When you are yelling at mommy, you are trying to be the the mommy of mommies. If you are trying to be the mommy of mommies, you have no mommy." 

Don't just manage behavior, go after the heart.

Represent God's grace and be a part of what He's going to do in the lives of your children. 

What a child needs, you have no ability whatsoever as a parent to produce. You have no ability whatsoever to change your child.

Change is not your job. Your job is to be a tool in the hands of the One who can change your children. You're just a tool in God's toolbox.

God makes His invisible grace visible by sending parents the grace to give grace to children who need grace.

God would never ever call you to a task without enabling you to do it. He would not send you without going with you.

The genius of parenting is that it is repetitive. By the work on the cross, He provides a way to accept us into His family. But we're in a bit of a mess. So for the rest of our Christian lives, He progressively works to change us. It is a process.

If I am the change maker, then the only option is to win. And losing is deeply personal.

If you make this about you and your change agenda for your child, these four things will happen.

First, you'll turn moments of ministry into moments of anger. You personalise what is not personal. You make it about you. Eg. I can't believe you'd do this to me. I can't believe this is happening again.

You get in the way of what God is doing. You can't have a win mentality. You gotta have a process mentality where each conversation is another step in the process. There won't be ultimate winning till Jesus returns.

If I am a completely successful parent, when my child leaves the home, he'll still need God's process of change in his life.

Parenting will not just expose the heart of my child. It will also expose my heart. The more I confess my need of grace, the easier it is for me to give grace. Nobody gives grace easier than the person who needed it himself.

Jesus carried every ounce of my sin and every piece of my rejection. In my most painful moments, I pray that I would not ever want to see the back of God's head. The most painful moment for Christ on the cross was not physical, it was relational. It was God turning His back on His Son and Jesus crying out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" Jesus took my forsaking so that I would receive acceptance. It is not based on what I do but based on what He's done.

That frees me to run to the One who accepts me even though I am dirty, stained, weak and failing. It allows me to confess those favours to my children.

The gospel is preached so powerfully in that moment of weakness and failure. I am not promoting my righteousness to my children. 

And it's not just getting my children saved. It is about being used by God to help produce disciples who will continue to say this is the most valuable thing in my life and continue to be open for the change that God wants to work in my life.

So eventhough when they leave my home, they always see themselves in a spiritual sense as children in need of parenting of the Heavenly Father.

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