Our mission as Christian parents is to raise a generation of Christian parents who hope in God as a witness to the world for the pleasure of the Lord. We talked last time about how to give our kids a taste of Christian life, a taste of joyful Christian parenting. We’re not giving them the recipe, measuring ingredients, and telling them to make something. We’re giving them a taste. God will take that taste, make our kids hungry, and a long time from now, they’ll start to pick up how to do it themselves.

I hope that was encouraging, providing a renewed in vision and purpose in parenting. Christian parents witness to the glory of Christ for generations. This is a grand mission and I hope you are caught up in the greatness of your calling.

Because parenting is hard. :) Parenting, especially younger kids, is such a daily grind that the grand mission often becomes muddy. Even tonight, as you prepared to come to church, some of you had a rough time. Kids were cranky or they didn’t nap much, maybe because you were out late at lunch, maybe even because you were fellowshipping with other families. They are hungry and you forgot that you were out of milk, so they got dry cereal for breakfast. They need you to change their diaper because they left something special for you. They need you to find them clothes, but you’ve been too busy to do laundry so they are wearing dirty shirts again. They need you to tie their shoes for the third time. And maybe you’ve got more than one of these need machines.

These are the parenting trenches and they are messy. It’s great to know that happy families build a platform for the gospel, but all we need right now is a pair of matching socks. We need perspective, not only of the end goal, but what its supposed to look like here and now at this step.

I love that I have something to say about this because I may have been the worst parent of young kids in the history of the world. God has been very gracious to help me grow and learn and become a much happier parent when we’re already 10 minutes late because one of the kids needed some extra time with the rod only to find out that another kid has mashed up french fries in his car seat that’s going to get all over his pants and his pants were the only thing clean.

On one hand, what we desperately need is to be better Christians in those moments. That’s true, but telling me that I should be patient doesn’t actually help me be patient. My goal in this message is not to tell you what brand of wet wipes cleans old fries and dirty faces, but to build some frames for your perspective in the trenches.

First, God loves growth.

I cannot overemphasize how crucial it is to develop your theology proper, that is, your study of God’s Himself, God’s person. The best parenting theology requires knowing God and one observation we must make is that God loves growth.

This world is His. He created it one way, not another, according to His good pleasure. The earth spins clockwise because that’s how He wanted it to spin. Blood is red because He decided it so. And His creation is full of growing, developing things, including humans.

No child is born at 35. For that matter, even when we count a child as one day old, that doesn’t take into account the nine months of baking in his mother’s belly. Every person who has ever lived—after Adam and Eve—has gone through this process? Why? This isn’t a natural law or a physical requirement that some celestial physician’s board came up with. This is God’s idea and He loves it. For approximately 6000 years He hasn’t grown tired of babies and toddlers and kids.

That He loves growth is illustrated annually with the seasons. Year after year, new seed is sown and crops grow to harvest. Perhaps an even more helpful illustration is the Christian life. When God causes someone to be born again, their new spiritual life starts as babes.

[Y]ou have been born again…[so], Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— (1 Peter 1:23, 2:2, ESV)

He could save us into immediate and absolute maturity. We were dead; it already took a supernatural work to give us life anyway. Why not add maturity to it? He could take us to heaven immediately after professing faith. Instead, He regenerates us and then begins to grow us.

This is part of the reason why impatience is ungodly. Part of the problem with impatience is a failure on our part to submit to God’s sovereignty. We believe God controls everything, including the timing, so we rebel when we complain. But it isn’t only that we fail to submit to His timing, impatience with immaturity in our kids argues against His delights. He does what He pleases, and what pleases Him is growth from immaturity.

We are made in God’s image. We were made to reflect Him. When we get annoyed and angry because the seed isn’t bearing fruit on the second day after we planted it, we show our own immaturity.

Of all the beings in the universe, who is most concerned about maturity? God is. And yet the Trinity isn’t freaking out that we’re not now where we will be then. Growth is part of the process.

I’ve said it before, but for sake of illustration, in the church, we ought to be thrilled to have a bunch of immature people. Why? It isn’t thrilling if they’ve been around but not grown, but if a steady stream of newborn Christians come by His grace, then they are going to have issues that come with their new life. That’s great! As parents, it doesn’t take too long before the excitement of the baby’s birth wears off because dad, and especially mom, are exhausted from getting up in the 2am trenches because the baby is hungry again.

What you need at that moment is…coffee, and…perspective. The cry is a sign of life. Spaghetti sauce all over your floor means your daughter is alive and home and healthy enough for food. She’s growing. God loves that.

We need patience in the trenches, which comes from knowing that God dug the trenches and has glorious plans for us to be there for a while.

Second, Immaturity is not (necessarily) rebellion.

Immaturity from someone who should be mature is rebellion. Many times, though, parents take their two year old’s coloring on the walls as disobedience. They desperately need the discernment to know the difference.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. (1 Corinthians 13:11, ESV)

One of the most well-used parent verses assumes that a child does not know the way he should go, that it takes training, and that it takes time.

Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.
(Proverbs 22:6, ESV)

One of the best illustrations I’ve heard is that children are like concrete; they don’t set right away. We’ve got to keep working to shape them by grace until the concrete is hard. They are easier to work with at the start, so start early.

Coloring on the walls isn’t okay. We’re not allowed to do that, ever. However, kids need to be trained. They apparently don’t come out knowing the difference between dog food and people food. They may not be out to control you or run the house. They may be acting like kids.

Running around and being loud is childish. It’s okay for children to do it. We can help them by showing them where a better place for it is. And if we’ve cooped them up for a few hours (like at church), we ought to find a place for them.

We should not get angry with a five year old who doesn’t know how to frame a house. It is not a compromise to give him a little construction set and let him practice.

It’s so easy to take it personally, to take it as an attack on our authority. Again, there are times when we need to discipline disobedience. A one year old can rebel, and more so as they get older. But the point is that many of the things that frustrate us are parts of what it means to be a kid. We need perspective to know which is which. The grandparents, and other more mature parents, can help us younger parents by calmly working through a case and encouraging patient discernment.

Third, Cleanliness is next to godliness; messiness may be closer.

Certainly, most of you have heard the phrase before: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” We say God likes certain things, but is it possible that we’re missing a lot of what He’s actually doing?

Some of the mess we can blame on Adam’s fall and as a consequence of sin being in the world. But what about before Genesis 3? Consider that God assigned Adam to tend the garden before God cursed the ground. God added thistles and sweat to the work, but He didn’t add dirt, dirt was already there. Adam’s hands would have gotten dirty. Adam was made of dirt to work in the dirt (Genesis 2:7, 15). That’s messy.

Consider, since the majority of us are parents in the room, what sex would have been like before the fall. Sex is great, that’s how we get to be parents in the first place. God made it for reproductive and pleasure purposes, but it is somewhat messy. It’s one of Hollywood’s cheapest tricks, to make it seem like there’s no clean up.

The point is, at its best, life is messy. We live in one of the cleanest parts of the world with some of the highest cultural standards and with a ridiculous amount of science and technology applied to give us disposable wipes and Swiffers and electronic dishwashers and indoor plumbing—hot or cold water, whatever you like. But even for us, life is messy.

So, most of the time, our kids are just living. They aren’t doing anything that needs punishment per se because they get grass on their knees. God gave them knees and the gift to use them, He supplied enough water to cause the grass to be green, and money to buy the pants to cover their knees in the cold. We’ve got 1000 more things to be thankful for than reasons to complain or get angry because it’s messy.

This is more than a physical need for growth, it is also a spiritual need. Kids come out with sinful hearts. How we respond to their messy hearts shouldn’t be sinful.

Blowing up at your children because they were squabbling is jumping into the river to get out of the rain. (Doug Wilson tweet)

We won’t win our kids to joyful obedience by being disobediently angry ourselves.

I am not saying to leave your house a pig pen. I’m not saying to bathe your kids only once a month because they’re just going to get dirty again. I am saying that the trenches are messy, so jump in and clean up. That’s what godly parents do.

• As a side note, godly parents don’t take the same approach outside the home, especially in someone else’s home. Parents shouldn’t spring their theology of mess on other people. Talk ahead of time with your kids; make the expectations clear. If you have a kid who needs extra attention, keep them with you, by your side, on your lap.

Also, I’m definitely not saying to let disobedience go. I’m saying it shouldn’t be surprising. It is the opportunity to train them, especially to teach them about the gospel, and we should be examples of joy in the clean-up.

As usual, there are ditches on both sides of the road. One ditch is all “grace” and no requirement of obedience, the other ditch is never being happy with obedience because it isn’t perfect. Grace doesn’t lower the expectations of the law, it makes getting there joyful. But obedience is never optional.

Laziness is not mercy. Just as you scrub the floor, pursue whole-hearted obedience with joy. We know a friend who has her kids sing a fun song after spanking to see if their hearts are right. Don’t allow excuses. Teach quick and honest confession. Don’t allow laziness.

When it’s messy, that means life is happening. That’s how God likes it.

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
(Proverbs 14:4, ESV)

Fourth, Life always grows from death.

This brings us to the good news, that is, the really good news of the gospel. One of the principles that fills the world we live in is that death brings life.

As Christians, we know this most clearly because we got life from Christ’s death and resurrection. God gave His only begotten Son to die in our place so that we could have eternal life. He died so that we could live. That’s the gospel. It is also our calling. We are to give our life so that others may live.

Unlike Christ’s death, our dying cannot redeem anyone. We have our own sin so we can’t be a substitute for them. But we can be a reflection for them. Paul referred to his dying to bring life in 2 Corinthians 4:10-12

[We are] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:10–12, ESV)

In ministry, our calling is to die, and not for Paul that this wasn’t a one time deal; it wasn’t his physical martyrdom, otherwise he could be “always carrying about” or say that “death works in us.” His dying was serving, giving himself in suffering to embrace their mess.

This is exactly what Paul instructs husbands to do for their wives in Ephesians 5:25.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (Ephesians 5:25, ESV)

Christ gave Himself for His bride, a husband must give himself for his wife. Husbands are to be like Christ, dying to self for another.

The principle is: my life for yours. That’s the gospel on display. That is the need of the hour for Christian parents: to illustrate the serving sacrifice of Christ, to die so that others may live. It starts at home.

I’m not kidding when I say that parenting is a daily grind. It requires daily, hourly dying. Someone needs something when is not convenient, and usually their needs always correspond to the times when we are already most exhausted. It is at those moments when we need to think: what would Jesus do? It is at those moments in the trenches when we need to laugh. God is. It’s a glorious hassle, and it is life.

Conclusion

God doesn’t mind taking His time to make a point. He’s happy with babies crying and toddlers falling and little girls giggling and little men building birdhouses. He’s happy with our progressive sanctification and with spiritual battle that has not been finished yet. He’s growing us. He promised to conform us to the image of Christ. It’s messy, and He’s taking His time.

Parenting is a glorious hassle. It requires our daily deaths.

If parents wait to be finished before they’re happy, they will never be happy.