How Do I Trust God with the Eternal Destiny of My Child?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast. Today's question is not uncommon. We very often hear from Christians
00:00:10.140 | who came to embrace Reformed theology in college or shortly thereafter, and those same believers
00:00:15.280 | are now having children of their own, and they're now building a family with children,
00:00:20.360 | children that may or may not be elect in Jesus Christ. And that reality raises huge questions
00:00:26.020 | for young Christian parents, like a young mom named Alex. She writes in, "Pastor John,
00:00:30.600 | my life has been different ever since I first heard you speak at Passion as a college student.
00:00:35.140 | I'm so thankful for your life and ministry, and I'm getting emotional as I write this.
00:00:40.240 | By God's grace and through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, your teaching and
00:00:43.380 | the resources at Desiring God have made such a huge eternal impact in my life. Thank you."
00:00:48.820 | My question to you is this. My son is not even two months old, and he has significant
00:00:53.340 | health concerns. We've known about the issues for about six months, and during this time,
00:00:58.860 | God has been working something wonderful in my heart as I've submerged myself in Scripture
00:01:02.980 | like never before. However, I find myself consistently discouraged by this fact. I know
00:01:08.860 | that Scripture does not guarantee my son's physical healing, and it also does not guarantee
00:01:12.900 | my son's salvation. I know that because I have been saved by grace, I have a glorious
00:01:17.500 | hope, and these trials that I am facing are temporary. So that gives me comfort for myself.
00:01:23.540 | But what about my son? I find myself grasping for some sort of truth to give me hope for
00:01:27.900 | him, but I can't seem to find any. I know that God will accomplish His purpose for an
00:01:32.940 | overall good, but He doesn't guarantee my son's eternal good. I know it isn't sinful
00:01:37.380 | to feel this way, but I can't seem to be satisfied with God accomplishing His ultimate good purpose
00:01:42.700 | knowing that it may come with the cost of my son's life. Is this just something that
00:01:48.620 | I need to accept?
00:01:50.820 | Let's take that last sentence of Alex, "I can't seem to be satisfied with God accomplishing
00:01:58.900 | His ultimate good purpose knowing that it may come with the cost of my son's life."
00:02:08.380 | I wonder if it might be helpful to point out to Alex and to the rest of us that in this
00:02:17.140 | world we're not supposed to be "satisfied" with sickness and death and lostness the way
00:02:30.580 | we will be in the age to come when all of history is complete and every thread of the
00:02:40.260 | tapestry of providence is woven into its place and we have been completely perfected so that
00:02:49.820 | we no longer see through a glass darkly. I wonder. In other words, maybe Alex is asking
00:02:57.860 | for more now than the New Testament says we can have or should have. Now, why would I
00:03:05.420 | say that? Let me give some reasons. I'll sum up these three reasons with the words
00:03:10.540 | "tears, prayers, and deeds." Tears, prayers, and deeds. And all three of these show that
00:03:19.060 | God intends for us to experience a kind of holy dissatisfaction with this world the way
00:03:29.060 | it is until He comes. So first, tears. Listen to Paul talk about his own effort to deal
00:03:39.460 | with the lostness of his kinsmen. This would be like Alex thinking about her son, I think.
00:03:47.340 | Romans 9, 1-3. "I am speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience
00:03:53.260 | bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have a great sorrow and unceasing anguish
00:04:01.940 | in my heart." Let that sink in. It's great and it's unceasing. That's just almost
00:04:08.740 | unthinkable for the man who said, "Rejoice in the Lord," and again I say rejoice.
00:04:14.180 | And rejoice in all things. Rejoice at all times. So he's got joy while this is happening.
00:04:19.340 | And this is happening while he's got joy. "I have great sorrow and unceasing,"
00:04:23.620 | mark it, "unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed
00:04:29.480 | and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh."
00:04:33.660 | In other words, they're cut off from Christ. They're perishing. That's the reason he's
00:04:38.260 | in great sorrow and unceasing anguish. And listen as he describes his ministry with
00:04:44.660 | those who reject Christ. And even with the strugglers who believe. He says in Philippians
00:04:51.740 | 3, 18, "For many of whom I've told you often and now tell you with tears, walk as
00:04:58.140 | enemies of the cross of Christ." He's weeping over these enemies. And Acts 20, 31, "Therefore
00:05:04.740 | be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone
00:05:11.380 | with tears." Or Romans 12, 15, "Listen, weep with those who weep."
00:05:19.540 | It seems to me that all of this is Paul's way of saying history has not yet arrived
00:05:27.220 | at a point, and we have not yet been sanctified to a point where it would be fitting for anguish
00:05:36.460 | and tears to go out of our lives over the pain and lostness of others, especially our
00:05:44.980 | own families. It is possible to weep, to be in anguish without questioning God's wisdom
00:05:53.420 | and goodness and power. Yes, it is. Let me say that again because I think she's feeling
00:05:58.260 | a tension that she feels may be impossible. It's not impossible. It is possible to weep
00:06:05.300 | without questioning God's wisdom and goodness and power.
00:06:09.660 | Second, prayers. I said tears, prayers, deeds. So prayers. We are supposed to have a holy
00:06:17.180 | dissatisfaction with the world as it is because God tells us to pray that things would be
00:06:26.660 | different. That's the whole point of prayer. Ask God to do things to make things different.
00:06:34.780 | Not praying that everything stay exactly the same. There's no point in praying. James
00:06:38.860 | said, "You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you
00:06:44.100 | ask wrongly to spend it on your passions." In other words, things would be different
00:06:47.620 | if we prayed. Then he teaches us in the next chapter, "Confess your sins to one another
00:06:53.180 | and pray for one another that you may be healed." It's not wrong to pray for healing as though
00:06:59.820 | it were calling God into question, which means we should not be satisfied with sickness in
00:07:07.780 | a way that rules out prayer for healing. And Paul says in Romans 10, "Brothers, my heart's
00:07:15.380 | desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved," which means we should
00:07:20.000 | not be satisfied with anyone's unbelief in such a way that it keeps us from praying earnestly
00:07:27.340 | for their conversion. So prayer itself is a witness that God intends for us to have
00:07:34.900 | a holy dissatisfaction with the way things are.
00:07:39.580 | Number three, deeds. Deeds. We should have a holy dissatisfaction with the world as it
00:07:46.460 | is because God tells us to do deeds that make it different. Not just tears over it, not
00:07:54.180 | just prayers for it, but deeds to change it. "Let your light so shine before men that
00:07:59.820 | they may see your good deeds and give glory to your Father who's in heaven." Every
00:08:05.900 | commandment in the Bible is a commandment that unleashes changes in the world. The world
00:08:13.860 | becomes different every time someone prays and acts.
00:08:20.660 | So here's the upshot for Alex. Not only is it inevitable and right that her heart
00:08:30.820 | should ache for her son's healing and salvation, but I think she should be encouraged that
00:08:41.020 | until God gives her some comforting evidence that his purposes are otherwise—like Paul
00:08:49.740 | gets, for example, in 2 Corinthians 12, 7 and 9 about the thorn in the flesh, he stopped
00:08:54.060 | praying that this thorn would be removed because God gave him evidence that he had other plans.
00:09:00.340 | But until we can have some kind of comforting evidence, she should take heart that the persistence
00:09:08.100 | of her prayers are good evidence that God has not decided against her request. I think
00:09:17.060 | that's the point of Jesus' parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18. He told
00:09:22.740 | them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart, Luke 18,
00:09:30.060 | 1. So Alex, that's my prayer for you, and I will pray as soon as we're done here.
00:09:35.780 | That's my prayer for you. Don't lose heart. Push against the darkness with tears and prayers
00:09:43.500 | and deeds, but don't push against God. Trust God. He's with you in this world-changing
00:09:52.420 | battle. He's not against you. Why don't we, before we go, just pray for Alex here.
00:09:58.980 | Father, we just for a moment here pause and ask that you would touch her son and grant
00:10:06.940 | him healing, and that you touch her heart, help her to know and make the distinction
00:10:11.100 | between pushing against darkness, pushing against unbelief, pushing against sickness,
00:10:15.060 | pushing against sin, and pushing against you. It's not an easy distinction for people
00:10:20.620 | to make, and we ask for her and for others that they would discern that. And so make
00:10:25.300 | this helpful for her, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
00:10:28.140 | Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you for the question, Alex. This is sobering. Thank
00:10:32.180 | you for inviting us into your life, into your struggles, and into your pain, and into your
00:10:37.020 | prayers and your longings. It is sobering to be brought inside of your lives. And if
00:10:42.620 | you have a question for Pastor John, you can send it in to us. Go to our online home at
00:10:45.780 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn and click on the box that says "Submit a Question."
00:10:51.900 | Send us your thoughts and struggles and questions via email. Thank you for sending those along.
00:10:56.100 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Friday.
00:10:59.460 | [END]
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