Passage: Genesis 18:19

The Big Idea

Parenting is ministry. God chose your children for you and gave them to you so you could serve Him by raising them to know Him. Most of us were never trained for it, and every stage brings new frustration. But God invented the family, and He hasn’t left us without guidance. His purposes in our parenting aren’t what we usually think: first, to change us; then to glorify Himself, to love our children and to train them. That holds for every family, including single-parent and blended families.

What This Class Is About

Parenting: serving God, not finding a plan that works for everything.
Loving communication: that’s how we do it.
Discipleship: because our kids won’t be discipled by anyone if not by us.
Changing: because we need to change.

Kids are different, and parenting is frustrating at every stage: babies, toddlers, young children, school years, adolescence and leaving home.

Did your parents do a good job? Who taught you to be a parent?
Did you and your spouse have the same upbringing?
Is what we’re doing affecting our kids the right way?
Many of us think, “If I do better than my parents, they’ll be fine.” But the only true roadmap is God’s Word.

God invented the family in Genesis. It would be a dirty trick for Him to put us here and not give us clear guidelines. And He has a lot to say about parenting!

Teenagers spend many hours training before they can drive. How many hours were you trained to be a parent? Yet most of a child’s influence comes from home: not school, not the world, but us. When things aren’t right, it strains our marriage and our home.

Your Children Are Your Ministry

God said of Abraham, “I have known him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, doing righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18:19).

Your children were given and chosen by God specifically for you.
Part of why God has moved in your life is that He loves your children and wants them to know Him too. And He wants to use you to show them.

Jesus is our best example: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

A parent is a servant. Not a waiter (who feels like a waiter?). A servant is different.
We’re not serving our children’s wishes, but God’s will for us and for them.
Our expectations need adjusting. When we don’t see the results we think we should, we get angry.
But when we see God’s purposes in parenting and trust Him, we can do it with joy and peace.
Husbands and wives often have different goals in parenting. God’s purposes can unite us.

God’s Four Purposes

1. To change us

Whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him (1 John 2:5).

God uses our kids to reveal what’s in us.
“You made me act this way!” isn’t biblical. It was already in you.
God wants to change us into Christlikeness. When you get angry, God is bringing up what’s in your heart so He can deal with it.
He is the Potter, and you are the clay (Isaiah 29:16). When we lose it with our kids, God is working on our change.
It’s hard to serve when our kids don’t give back. Give, give, give. But how many people thanked Jesus? Ministry can be a thankless job.
God has a purpose in it, and it’s for us. Our eyes need to be on Christ. When they’re not, we’re in the flesh, and the flesh brings death.

2. To glorify God

You were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and spirit (1 Corinthians 6:20). Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

Do our kids see Mom and Dad give God glory?
Remember Moses striking the rock (Numbers 20:7-12). He was angry at the people, but God wasn’t. Moses misrepresented God to Israel. He forgot whom he was serving and let his frustration speak for God.
When we put selfish expectations ahead of God’s work, our kids can conclude God is angry with them. Many teenagers walk away from the Lord for reasons like this.
I need to be even more concerned with glorifying God inside my home than outside it.

3. To love our children

Children are a gift of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward (Psalm 127:3).

God tells us how valuable our kids are, regardless of personality or behavior.

4. To train our children

Fathers, don’t provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

For Every Family

None of this changes because you’re a single parent or a blended family. God’s ways always work.

Single-parent families have been around since the beginning. Timothy was raised in the faith by his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5).
It is difficult, but it can still flourish as God blesses you.
God mentions the fatherless and the widow again and again. He cares deeply about single-parent families. You are the helper of the fatherless (Psalm 10:14).

Grace Takeaway

You weren’t trained for this, and you don’t have to have it all figured out. God chose your children for you, and He’s using them to change you as much as you’re shaping them. When parenting exposes what’s in your heart, don’t despair; bring it to Jesus. “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

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Parenting 1: God’s Purposes in Parenting