A Prayer for When Our Children Sin

Do you remember when you first learned you would have a child? You likely prayed over your little one day after day. Even though you'd never met him or her in person, you loved your child more than anything. You waited for months--and if you were an adoptive parent, sometimes years--anticipating the amazing moment when you would hold that precious gift of God in your arms.

As new parents, it can be hard to think of our sweet baby as a sinner--unless he or she cries all night, then we are convinced of it! It isn't until our precious little one starts to move around, gets into things, and even starts to talk back that the evidence of their sinfulness hits us. That first time they reach out to touch something right after we told them not to, or the first time they yelled "No!" in response to an instruction we give, the truth that we knew in our mind about their sinful state is fully realized. The doctrine of sin we learned in church hits us square in the face: our children inherited the same sinful state we all inherit from Adam (1 Cor. 15:22, Ps. 51:5).

Despite this theological knowledge, sometimes it's shocking to see our children's sin on full display: angry outbursts, lying, stealing, idolatry, bullying, defiance, to name a few. And all this can happen before a child enters kindergarten! As our children grow into their teen years, they will face greater temptations to sin. More than shocking, it's often disheartening to watch our children sin. It can break our heart when our children make choices that lead them farther and farther off the path of life. Many a parent has wept over a child's sinfulness.

Preach, Point, and Pray the Gospel

When we see our children sin, whether as a young toddler touching breakables on the shelf or as a first grader lying about a school assignment or as a teen watching a movie they were forbidden to watch, we need to remember the gospel. When we despair over our children's choices, we need to remember the gospel. When we fear the path our children are headed down, we need to remember the gospel…

To read the rest of this post, visit Reformation 21 where I am sharing a piece based on my forthcoming book, Sufficient Hope: Gospel Meditations and Prayers for Moms.

No Such Thing as Little Sin

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I was preparing dinner one night and heard the kitchen faucet dripping. I fiddled with the handle and it stopped. It did it again the next day and I did the same thing.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Over the next few days, the faucet’s drip continued to increase. It took more and more “fiddling” with the handle before it finally stopped.

And then one morning my son heard the sound of dripping, not in the kitchen, but in the basement. He found the ceiling tiles saturated with water and a stream of water running down the walls onto the carpet below.

That little drip became a big shower which rained down and caused a huge problem.

Isn’t that a lot like sin?

We often see what we think are little sins in our life and brush them off. Overlook them. Manage them. Pretend they aren’t there. But there’s no such thing as a little sin and soon what seems like a little thing becomes a big thing in our hearts.

A little problem with binge watching a show every night might reveal a big problem with the idol of comfort.

A little sarcastic remark might hide a deeper problem of bitterness or envy or pride.

A little overspending might hide a deeper problem with materialism.

A little overworking may reflect a deeply rooted idol of success or approval.

A little comparison grows into envy and discontentment.

A little gossip grows into discord and disunity.

A little frustration grows into anger.

You get the picture.

In the eyes of God, there is no such thing as little sin. First of all, sin is sin. God is holy and righteous and nothing that is not holy and righteous can stand before him. One sin is enough to keep us from him. And when you consider the fact that we sin more than just once, but countless times a day, our problem with sin is no little thing at all. As R.C. Sproul wrote in The Holiness of God, “Sin is cosmic treason. Sin is treason against a perfectly pure Sovereign. It is an act of supreme ingratitude toward the One to whom we owe everything, to the One who has given us life itself….The slightest sin is an act of defiance against cosmic authority… It is an insult to His holiness.” (pp. 115,116)

Secondly, sin never stays little. Like a weed, it grows. It spreads and multiplies. “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?“ (1 Corinthians 5:6). It produces offspring of other sins. Like an invasive vine, it twists itself around our heart, choking out our life. And like a vine covered forest, it blocks us from the light of life. Sin left unattended or ignored destroys everything in its path.

Thankfully, we were home that day when it started raining in the basement. Had we not been, the damage would have been worse. Leaks in a house are serious, even small ones. Likewise, in our lives, there is no such thing as a small sin. As the Puritan preacher John Owen warned, “be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

The Apostle Paul referred to killing sin as “putting off” sin. He instructed the Colossian church, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:1-3). Through faith in Christ we are justified. We are united to him in his perfect life, death, and resurrection. This means we died with Christ to our old life and have risen to new life in him. We are new creations. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Therefore, we are to put off the old self; we are to put to death our sin. Paul then lists some of those sins we need to “put off” or put to death (Colossians 3:5-9).

Elsewhere, Paul tells us how to put sin to death: through the Spirit (Romans 8:13). It is the Spirit who brings our dead hearts to life, giving us a heart of flesh. He works in us to put sin to death and to produce in us the fruit of righteousness. He convicts us of our sin, draws us to repentance, trains us in obedience, and teaches us to depend upon God’s grace. His weapon of choice in slaying our sin is the word of God. It is alive and active as it discerns the thoughts and intentions of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12). As we read and study the word, it sanctifies us (John 17:17). As John Owen wrote, “The Holy Spirit is our only sufficiency for the work of mortification. He is the only great power behind it and he works in us as he pleases…Those who seek to keep down sin without the aid of the Spirit, labor in vain.”

Perhaps if I had realized the significance of the little drip at my sink, I wouldn’t now have damage in my basement. How much more true is that of sin! There is no such thing as a little sin. We can’t overlook it or underestimate its destructive power in our lives. By God’s grace, we are not left to fight it on our own. May we seek the Spirit’s help to recognize sin in our life and put it to death.

Because Jesus Was Tempted

What does it mean to you that Jesus faced temptation? The fact that Jesus experienced temptations is important for our salvation as well as for our own daily battles with temptation. The writer of Hebrews captured the significance of this vital aspect of Christ's ministry when he wrote: “For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Consider all that the Scriptures teach us about this:

In the Wilderness

In Matthew 4, after He was baptized by the Spirit and honored by the Father, Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness where He faced off with Satan. What a drastic change to go from a baptism to temptation! For forty days Jesus was without food and water. Satan found Him there and tempted Him to sin.

Matthew records three specific temptations Jesus endured..to read the rest of this post, visit The Christward Collective. 

From the Ashes

This past summer we went hiking in northern California. The pine trees were as tall as a city building. We stood like tiny ants beside ancient trunks which have reigned over the forest for hundreds of years. I couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to be standing in those woods on the Last Day. The words of Psalm 96:12 were on my mind as we hiked, "Let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth."

During our trek along the trails, I noticed the charred remains of trees interspersed among the Giant Sequoias. We learned from a guide that there are some pine trees that can only reproduce through fire. Their cones only open to scatter their seeds from the heat of a forest fire. They need what would normally be a terrible thing, fire, in order to produce new life. If there hasn't been a natural fire, sometimes the park service will start a controlled fire so that the pines will scatter their seeds.

This irony in the natural world is also at work in our lives as well. The upside down story of Christianity is that life comes from death; ours from Christ's. And as his adopted children, we are called to die to ourselves so that we might live for him.

"Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25).

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness." (1 Peter 2:24).

"Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:11).

To grow in faith and bear fruit as a believer, we need to walk through the refiner's fire. We need to be stripped of our sin. We need all those things that keep us from living for Christ removed. We need to then be molded and reshaped into the image and likeness of Christ.

Paul describes in Colossians 3 the things that must die in us: "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (vs. 5-10).

As these things die, new life emerges from the ashes. Paul continues, "Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful." (Colossians 3:12-15).

Paul Tripp writes in New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional:

"In asking you to die, Jesus is giving you eternal life the only way it can be given. He has to call you to die because you are in the way of you having life. It is our pride, our rebellion, our independence, our foolishness, and our denial that stand in the way of his offer of life. We tell ourselves that we are okay. We act as if we're smarter than God. We like our little kingdoms more than we love his. We think our rules are better than his. We tell ourselves that present pleasure is better than eternal gain. If someone doesn't rescue us from our delusions about our lives, we will lose our lives. Yes, we must die if we are ever going to live. So grace is out to kill us. But in presiding over our deaths, grace gives us life--real, abundant, and eternal  life. Don't fight the death of your old life; instead, celebrate the new life that is yours by grace and grace alone. And remember that your Savior will continue to call you to die; it is the way of life." (October 19th meditation)

Death seems like the end of things. But like the Giant Sequoia, the death of our old life paves the way for new life. A resurrected life. A fruit bearing life. A life that reflects the One who died and rose again for us. 

Have you seen new life rise from the death of your old life?

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I Hate the Fall

In our house, I discourage my children from using the word "hate." I don’t want to hear “I hate green beans” or “I hate emptying the dishwasher” or “I hate Spelling.” I tell them that it is a serious and heavy word and they need to reserve it for referring to things like sin and evil. 

Today, I feel compelled to talk about what I hate.

I hate the Fall of Man.

I hate watching my once strong, sure, and active grandfather slowly deteriorate from cancer, have a massive stroke, and then pass away.

I hate seeing dear friends divorce.

I hate the brokenness friends endure from past abuse. I hate the memories that haunt them. I hate how it has marked and changed their life.

I hate how I constantly fall back into old sinful habits of relating, of thinking, of speaking.

I hate how the Body is often fractured, bruised, and stunted by miscommunication, false teachers, bad theology, the desire to look more like the world, and by those whose palate has never moved beyond the taste of milk.

I hate how suffering enters our lives and hits us completely by surprise, like our friend's whose son was poisoned and now has brain damage.

I hate how precious lives are taken from the womb before they can draw their first breath.

I hate how my heart forgets God’s grace and is so easily prone to self-righteousness, self-reliance, and self-exaltation.

I hate how we all fail to honor God and give him the glory he is due.

I hate….

The only thing that comforts me in the midst of this dark and fallen world is the fact that God hates sin and evil even more than I (see Isaiah 61:8, Psalm 5:4, Proverbs 6, Zechariah 8:17). That's because sin and evil is an affront to our perfect, holy, and righteous God. In fact, he had every reason to put an end to the entire human race. But instead, he entered the misery of this world, took on frail human flesh, and lived among us.  He faced the horrors, sorrows, and temptations of this world yet never sinned once. He lived the life we could not live. And on the cross, he was made sin so that we could be made righteous. As Tim Keller wrote "God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself." (Reason for God p. 30).

This truth gives me great comfort. It gives me hope when I encounter all the things on my list above. Because I can’t imagine facing a single one of the above circumstances without an understanding of God’s redemptive story. I can’t imagine going through a trial without the knowledge that God is not at work in it. I can’t imagine seeing abuse, disease, and death without the hope that God’s story is not over. I can’t imagine living in this fallen world without the knowledge and presence of God. I can't imagine enduring suffering without the assurance of salvation and the hope of eternity.

Dear friend, we all should hate sin and evil. We should hate the Fall. But even as we hate it, we have hope. God has answered the problem of evil by crushing his own Son. And one day, the Son will return to restore this world and make all things new. On that day, the word "hate" will cease to exist from our vocabulary altogether.