How God Parents Us |05.12.24| Being Mom & Dad pt.1
Galatians 3:19-26
Pastor Erik Anderson
Well, good morning, everyone. It is good to see you and happy Mother’s Day to all of you women here this morning. You know, Mother’s Day is a great day to celebrate moms and grandmothers and great grandmothers, but it’s also a great day to celebrate all women because sometimes Mother’s Day can be painful for women who have lost a child or who are unable to conceive but desperately want to or maybe have never had a child. And so we recognize that this morning. And we also recognize that Mother’s Day is not only a day to celebrate those who biologically can have or have children, but also all those women who take on a motherly role in all the different relationships in their lives by being a mentor, by being a friend, by serving some way in the community. We know that women are made in the image of God. We’re told in Genesis 1 that God made male and female in the image of God. And so it does not matter if biologically you are able or unable to have a child. If you are a woman, you are in the image of God despite that. So we celebrate all women today in the influence that you have. Thank you so much. I hope that you feel loved and valued today. We are beginning a new series called Being Mom and Dad Today. We’re going to take three weeks to explore parenting from a biblical perspective. And we thought Mother’s Day was a great day to get that started. And so we’re going to do this sermon series the next three weeks. But I want to let you know that even if you don’t have biological kids or adoptive kids or a foster, if you’re not a foster parent,(…) being a mom and dad is not just going to focus on biological parents, but it’s actually going to focus on the relationships that we have and we can be to those who are younger than us or those who are older than us. So if you are even a mentor or if you’re somebody in the community who pours in to people who are younger than you, this sermon series is for you also. This is for all of us to think about how we can be mothers or fathers in both the parenting sense, but also even just in the mentorship sense. So we’re going to be looking at it from that lens. But let us open up our scriptures together. We’re going to be in Galatians chapter three. You can grab the seat back Bible in front of you, the black one that’s underneath that little compartment underneath the seat in front of you. We’re going to be in Galatians chapter three. It’s page 145
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in the New Testament. So you’re going to be almost toward the end of the Bible here. This is a letter that Paul wrote to the church in Galatia. We’re going to be in chapter three beginning in verse 19.(…) Why then the law?(…) It was added because of transgressions until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made and it was ordained through angels by a mediator. Now a mediator involves more than one party, but God is one. Is the law then opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed come through the law. But the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.(…) Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore, the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith. This is the word of the Lord.(…) Thanks be to God. Well, Mother’s Day is a great way for us to talk about this passage in particular because we see in our world how important mothers are and not just mothers, but actually all parents are super, super important. We can even expand that out to see that not only are parents important, but adult relationships in children’s lives are necessary,(…) significantly important.(…) Children who grew up in a home without present and loving parents have worse outcomes in almost every single area of their life. And even if you take one parent out of the equation, for whatever reason, we see those outcomes statistically are worse for those children, even if they are in a single family home.(…) And we can see how having both parents or even just one loving parent brings a greater sociability and adaptability in social situations. It brings better grades, better graduation rates, better economic outcomes, and lower rates of teenage pregnancy. That even having one parent who’s loving and is available to the children, we see greater rates of these. We see better outcomes totally. But the amazing thing is, is that even if you have a single parent, if that child has one other adult in their life, a mentor that can also help parent to them, if it doesn’t have to be biological, it can be just as a friend, the amazing thing is that we see the levels of the statistics even out. We actually see that the sociability and adaptability in social situations, grades improve, graduation rates improve, better economic outcomes over a lifetime, lower rates of teenage pregnancy happen even when a mentor steps in and helps a single parent raise children.(…) The relationships that we have with our children or with the children in our community are supremely important. And we see how these loving parental relationships have a positive impact on kids.(…) Parenting is key to living a good, full, and abundant life. Parenting is key. It’s actually probably the best indicator of the outcome of the individual of a child might be. And the scriptures tell us that God is our parent. And so we’re going to explore today how God parents us. We’re going to reflect on that. We’re going to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. And then we’re going to reflect on how that might impact how we ourselves parent.(…) So we’re here in this passage, the Galatians chapter three, and there are two words that keep coming up in this passage. One word is law and one word is promise. Or sometimes we hear it as faith. We hear these two different words, law and faith or law and promise. Another way kind of historically that we talk about this, especially in the Lutheran tradition, we say law and gospel are these two words that we hear. And what we see in this passage and in many other passages is that God parents us through these two things, through the law or command and through promise, through faith. And so if we jump into verse 19,
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and this is what we see,(…) why then is the law? Paul’s asking the question, what’s the purpose of the law? Paul tells us that it was added because of transgressions until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made and it was ordained through angels by a mediator. So why does the command of God, and specifically when Paul talks about the commands of God, he’s referencing the Old Testament and especially the first five books of the Old Testament that give all these kinds of laws. The Ten Commandments are in there. And Paul asks the question, why are all these rules here? Why are all these commands that God gives us about not lying, not cheating, not stealing, not murdering, all these commands, why are they given? Well, they were given because of our sin. They were given because of our transgressions, because people in our world, they do these things. They lie and cheat and steal and murder. And so the law was given. God gave a command. Don’t do these things because they are in our world. But specifically Paul says God gave them until the offspring who would come to whom the promise had been made, that’s Jesus, and it was ordained through angels by a mediator, that’s Moses. Moses wrote much of the first five books of the Old Testament and specifically the laws. God gave the laws through Moses. That’s what that’s talking about. If we jump down to verse 22, this is what Paul says. “But the scripture,” those first five books, “the law has imprisoned all things under the power of sin so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”(…) The law, the commands, especially the Old Testament specifically, was given so that all things might be imprisoned under the power of sin so that what was promised through faith might be given. And so the purpose of the law here, as we see Paul kind of unpacking and using lots of kind of repeats himself several times like a preacher tends to do, but he repeats himself several times. But here we see that the law was given so that all of us, all things, our entire world might be shown to be under sin. Because even if we just look at the Ten Commandments, let alone the 613 rules that God gives in the first five books of the Bible, we see things like don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t covet your neighbor’s house or spouse.(…) And we think to ourselves, well, I certainly have done those things. At least one time in my life, even at least a little bit, well, I’ve kind of been pretty(…) envious of my neighbor’s truck because it’s really nice.(…) You know, even that little bit, it imprisons it under sin so that now I have to say, you know what, I get it wrong too.(…) I also sin.
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And the point of imprisoning all of us under these rules was to show us that the rules are not the end, but we actually need Jesus. That I can’t earn God’s love. I can’t earn righteousness or being good. I need it from God. I need to get it from him. And so we are imprisoned under sin until Jesus comes to show us what the promise is. That the good news might be given to us, to all those who believe. And this is repeated again in verse 24. “Therefore the law was our disciplinarian.(…) It was there to discipline us until Jesus came.”(…) So that we might be justified by faith. Faith is just another word for trust. That we may be made right by trusting Jesus rather than by our own works. And this promise, as Paul unpacks here in verse 25, “But now that faith has come,(…) now that Jesus is here and we can trust in him, we are no longer subject to the disciplinarian.” The discipline and the commands of God are no longer over us and imprisoning us. For in Christ Jesus, you all are children of God through faith. So we see here that the whole point of the commands of God, of the rules that he gives us, of the law, is that we can understand that we get it wrong and that it gets us to Jesus.
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And Jesus is the one who says, “You are a child of God.” The rules don’t tell us that we’re a child of God.(…) Jesus does that. And Jesus does that by dying for our sins, by being resurrected again, by telling us that our sins are forgiven.(…) That even though, yes, we go about our lives and we do all kinds of things that are wrong. We make mistakes, we lie, cheat, and steal.(…) But Jesus makes us right with God and that he forgives us and that this forgiveness is not contingent on us not making any more mistakes down the road.(…) Because we are going to make mistakes down the road, but the forgiveness is not based on that. The forgiveness is simply a gift.(…) And we are invited to trust in that gift, that God loves us and that we are his children. And we get to say, “Yes and Amen.” God has given me this gift. I am his child. I am no longer under the fear of the disciplinarian.(…) And this is counterintuitive because we think that we have to earn everything. We think that we get what we deserve. We think that those who are happy and wealthy and all these kinds of things, that they’ve earned their way there. And if something bad happens to you, surely God is punishing you for something that you’ve done. Surely you’ve made this mistake and so now you’re reaping the rewards of your mistake. It’s counterintuitive for us to hear, “No, God loves you and he forgives you full stop.” That there is no expectation. There is no contingency that you have to stop sinning entirely forever. God knows that you’re going to make mistakes. God does not expect you to not make any more mistakes. You are his child now and you are safe.(…) And the law exists to show us that we can’t do it ourselves. So that we must trust in Jesus. So that we can learn about his love for us. So we can learn about our safety with him.(…) And there’s only one way for us to be free from guilt and shame and that’s that God has to tell us that we’re free. Because you and I go about our lives wondering, “Am I good enough? Do I make enough? Am I doing enough? Am I good enough parent or worker or business owner?” Whatever it might be, we are trapped by guilt and shame. And what this passage tells us is that God doesn’t use guilt and shame to make us better.(…) Shame is not the point of the law.(…) The law, God’s commands are not there to make you feel ashamed of yourself.
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The law is there to help you see that you need help.(…) And that help comes from the Lord and he is quick to give you that help. That he is slow to anger and abounding instead of fast love. That is the only way that we can be free from guilt and shame is realizing that the Lord is good and that he loves us as his children no matter what. No matter what we do or what happens, shame is not the point. Trust is the point. In fact, we’re told in scripture that shame is from the devil.(…) That the devil uses shame to try to make us feel guilty, to make us question whether or not we’re loved. The law is powerful, but it cannot give us life and it cannot give us freedom from guilt and shame.(…) Compassion or, sorry, comparison, guilt and shame is not a good life.(…) And Jesus wants to give you life and life to the full. You cannot flourish with shame, but Jesus wants you to flourish. An overflowing life, a full, good and abundant life comes from trusting in the foundation of our life. It’s kind of like the tetherball. Did you play tetherball in recess?
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That that volleyball is attached to the pole with a string? We need to be attached to something to keep us from going too far away.(…) The law cannot attach us to God, only his love for us can. And if we don’t have God, if we don’t believe or if we don’t trust that we are children of God, we’re not tethered to anything and we’re tossed to and fro by the wind and we’re tossed to and fro by our own shame and our own guilt. But overflowing life comes from being tethered to God, from trusting this foundation in our life.(…) And that needs to come from outside of us because we cannot trust in ourselves because we’ll always be asking the question, am I doing it right? Am I doing it right?(…) But instead, God invites us to say, I am good because God calls me good(…) because God is my parent. We have the law, the commands of God that drive us to trust in Jesus. And we have the promise of Jesus, you are a child of God, full stop.(…) You are deeply loved and you are valuable because he has gone to great lengths to have you as his child.
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So when we approach our children,(…) we experience this law and this promise in our parenting. And oftentimes the law, the command, sometimes comes from scripture, but oftentimes it comes from outside of scripture, it comes from our society and we feel the sting and the shame that comes from this. And sometimes parenting law sounds like this, your kids should be well behaved all the time. And if not, you are a bad parent.(…) I’m sure every single one of us, I have three kids, I’m sure every single one of us who has children has been in the grocery store sometime with like a total meltdown. You know what I’m talking about? Like laying in the middle of the aisle screaming and you’re thinking, everyone is judging me right now. Everyone thinks I’m a horrible parent and you might even be thinking, I have a horrible kid. Like you may even be thinking that they’re so good. Usually why are they like this?(…) And unfortunately, maybe there are some people in the grocery store who are judging you, but that’s the parenting law. My kids should be well behaved all the time. And if not, then it reflects poorly on me. Another parenting law is that your kids should excel at school or be near the top of their class. Otherwise they’ll be behind and how can they get a good job if they don’t go to a good college and college is so hard to get into now. It’s so expensive.(…) And so we want our kids to excel at school and we compare them with other kids.(…) Or maybe the parenting law is that your kids should be good at sports. They should be playing multiple sports and they need to make sure they have the best cleats and the baseball gloves and the new bat and the new bag and all these kinds of things. Because look, their friends all have those things too.(…) And I want to make sure that my kid is good at this sport because we need that scholarship. If they’re going to go to a good college, they need to get that scholarship.
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Oftentimes the parenting law comes in forms of you should, your kids should, you need to, and these kinds of things. But these kinds of expectations actually kill our spirit,
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comparison and shame and guilt. They create these things and they create a reality that we feel stuck in, imprisoned under. We feel like we’re slaves to it.(…) The parenting gospel though(…) sounds a lot more like this.(…) No matter what you do as a parent and no matter how your kids act,
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Jesus is sufficient for you.(…) Jesus is good enough for you even when you don’t feel good enough for your kid.(…) Jesus gives you everything you need to parent your child.
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The parenting promise, the parenting gospel sounds like Jesus is good for your kid and he wants good to your kid even when we fail as a parent.(…) Parenting gospel sounds like you are not your kids mistakes.(…) No matter how young or old they are, your kids mistakes do not reflect how God feels about you.(…) You are a child of God.(…) You are loved by him. You are made in his image and you are not your child’s sin.(…) That’s the promise.(…) That’s the foundation built on Jesus Christ that transcends even the parenting law that sometimes traps us,(…) imprisons us under guilt and shame.(…) And what I think that we’re invited to as Christians is to see that parenting is not about perfection.(…) It’s not about getting it right all the time because you’re not going to get it right all the time. Remember that your forgiveness is not contingent on you never making another mistake. You’re going to make mistakes as a parent or as a mentor or whatever relationship you might have with a younger person. You are going to make mistakes, but good parenting comes from an honest brokenness and an honest goodness.(…) And so as parents, we’re invited to embrace the kind of messy brokenness of parenting that your kids will get it wrong. More often than not probably and especially at home, they’re going to push boundaries. They’re going to disobey rules. They’re going to be obstinate. Your kids are going to get it wrong. But if God teaches us anything, it’s that shame does not produce transformation.(…) You might be able to manage your kids behavior by shame, but it is not going to tether them to the love of God.(…) Shame does not bring about transformation. So when our kids get it wrong, we have to resist the temptation to shame them. Why are you acting like this right now? Oh, you know better than that.(…) Those are shameful kinds of phrases. And oftentimes we use these without meaning to. We ourselves are just responding out of our own brokenness and responding out of our own fear.(…) So as parents, we know we have to know that our kids are going to get it wrong and we have to resist the temptation to use shame. And we have to fully embrace when our kids make mistakes, when they get it wrong, and we need to help them confess when they’ve done something wrong.(…) And that doesn’t mean in a shameful way, but it means to simply say, yes, this is what I did.(…) And you’ll notice this even parents who are really good at this, who are like, hey, if you tell me the truth, you will never get in trouble. And they mean it. And it’s true. If their kids tell them what they’ve done, they don’t punish their kid. But even if a parent is really good at that, that kid still doesn’t want to confess.(…) The kid is still feeling shame and guilt. The law is still working on him.(…) And so we need to embrace our kids mistakes and help them confess it. And then we need to offer forgiveness.(…) Hey, I forgive you. You’re a good kid and you’re having a hard time right now, but you’re good. You’re good in sight. So we offer forgiveness to them. I forgive you for this.(…) And what we see is that there’s this kind of like cycle that happens in parenting where the relationship is broken somehow because of either the kid gets something wrong or we overreact as a parent and we break the relationship. But then there’s this kind of repair that happens when we confess our sins and get forgiveness. Also, as a parent, you should confess to your child too. Hey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. That wasn’t okay. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me? You should confess to your child when you get it wrong too.(…) And what we see is that there’s this cycle where a relationship is dysregulated. Something happens to break it and then it’s reregulated and repaired. And this actually helps our children understand how God operates on them too because they’re going to sin against our Lord and you’re going to help them see that there is safety in God, that there is safety with you. In fact, there’s this great book that my wife and I highly recommend called No Bad Kids by this guy, this gal named Janet Lansbury. And she looks at parenting from a child psychology perspective. As far as I know, Janet Lansbury is not a Christian.(…) Maybe she is, but definitely her books don’t betray that at all.(…) But Janet Lansbury talks from a child psychology perspective where she talks about this dysregulation, this breaking of relationship, and then this healing of relationship. That this breaking and healing is actually central. It is necessary in a child’s development. It’s healthy for them to have a relationship broken by a mistake and then be repaired through forgiveness.(…) And she essentially throughout this book talks about law, having boundaries, and promise, making sure that when your kids cross those boundaries or break those boundaries, that you are the safe place for them to receive forgiveness.(…) And I remember reading this, it was when Sarah and I, it was after our second child and Sarah and I read it. And I just remember(…) just being so surprised that I had never heard anybody talk about parenting in this way. Because wouldn’t you know it, the way that God designed us to confess our sins, to hear of his forgiveness, to have our relationship broken and restored kind of over and over and over again, it works on us on a psychological level. Like our bodies are designed to have this kind of cycle of breaking and renewing and breaking and repairing. It’s built into who we are and it’s necessary for our kids to have this.(…) Wouldn’t you know the Lord knows what he’s doing.(…) Exactly how we’re invited to interact with God, to follow him, to obey his rules. He has given us the boundary. He has given us the law. And when we break the law, we return to him and we confess our sins. And he says, you’re my child and I love you. Even though you broke the rules, you’re my child and I love you.(…) This is what we need. We need to experience this tethering safety from the promises of God, from the gospel.(…) We don’t grow by guilt or shame and our kids don’t ever. By the way, in the scriptures, there’s never a connection between shame and transformation. People never get better in the scriptures by shame. Ever. It never happens.(…) We all need to try to be able to do what we can as we follow God and also make mistakes. We have to embrace those mistakes, knowing that it’s going to happen. And we need to know that we are not under condemnation, that there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Jesus Christ. But we are safe in the arms of God and somebody has to tell us this. That’s why we get together in life groups. That’s why we get together here is to remind each other of God’s goodness as he parents us.(…) So first, my encouragement to you is let this change you.(…) You are forgiven.(…) You are free.(…) You are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live life with Jesus Christ, to live a new creation kind of life. That is the gift that you have been given. You have not earned it. It does not matter what you have done and it does not matter what you will do in the future. God has given that to you. You are forgiven.(…) And we all, every single one of us, we get to participate in raising young people into followers of Jesus who have this full, abundant life.(…) We get to proclaim both the law and the gospel to young people. We get to set the boundaries and when those boundaries are broken, instead of condemning them, instead of shaming them, we get to offer them forgiveness. And it’s this strange, audacious, counterintuitive acceptance of our children, of young people that brings them closer to the Lord and brings them closer to us.(…) We get to provide others with the gospel so that they may be transformed. You get to participate in this. You get to participate in young people following Jesus and living a full, good and abundant life.(…) Find someone. Maybe it’s your child. Maybe it’s your biological child, but maybe it’s somebody in the community who’s younger than you. Find someone to love and support them. Proclaim the law to them and proclaim the gospel to them. Proclaim the promise to them and give the freedom of Jesus Christ to them. Amen.