What If I Ruin My Kids?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Pfeiffer.
00:00:02.340 | We begin the new week with a question from a young woman named Kate.
00:00:06.440 | Dear Pastor John, thank you so much for what your ministry has done
00:00:09.180 | for my faith and relationship with God.
00:00:10.840 | I can't fully express how much your words have changed my walk with Christ forever.
00:00:15.580 | I was very encouraged by your words in episode 908 about fatherhood
00:00:19.520 | directed to the husband of a wife who wanted children.
00:00:22.520 | In the episode, you said there are glories of motherhood, too,
00:00:26.000 | but that is for another time.
00:00:28.760 | I would like to hear about this glory and any other encouragement you would have
00:00:31.940 | for me. I have never taken it lightly to have children.
00:00:34.540 | It seems overwhelmingly weighty to me to be responsible
00:00:37.780 | for forming another person's character for 18 years and beyond.
00:00:41.640 | It has absolutely terrified me in the past, and for a time I decided not to have kids.
00:00:46.740 | As I found my identity in Christ, I have also found strength to agree
00:00:51.220 | to willingly have children and obey God's call on my life.
00:00:54.520 | But I am still so afraid of perpetuating my own dysfunction and sins into them.
00:01:00.160 | Of course, I'm afraid of childbirth, but even more, I'm afraid of ruining their hearts.
00:01:05.200 | I would love to hear your advice that you would have for me.
00:01:07.860 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:01:08.740 | There are indeed glories in motherhood
00:01:13.840 | that every woman should think about and embrace and rejoice in
00:01:19.440 | as God calls them to motherhood.
00:01:24.080 | And when I say glories, I don't necessarily mean things that are easy,
00:01:29.720 | but things that are profoundly significant
00:01:33.720 | and beautiful and precious in God's sight and essential
00:01:38.820 | for his purposes in the world.
00:01:40.860 | So that's what I want to focus on.
00:01:43.600 | So much more could be said about all those other issues she raised,
00:01:46.940 | but she asked me to say, what are some of those glories
00:01:51.140 | that you said were for another time?
00:01:53.600 | So I'll mention a few, maybe five.
00:01:56.920 | One, it is a glorious thing
00:01:59.920 | that human life originates in the womb of a woman
00:02:05.480 | and is sustained for nine months by the woman's own body
00:02:10.720 | and in most cultures is sustained at her breast for another year or two.
00:02:16.460 | Both Moses and Paul in the Bible
00:02:21.160 | saw this as a glorious thing,
00:02:24.240 | a great wonder of the world that a mother should be continually amazed at.
00:02:30.180 | To be sure, all the glories of this life are fallen glories,
00:02:36.820 | imperfect glories, corrupted glories,
00:02:40.680 | because both our souls and all of nature
00:02:43.420 | has fallen into the judgment of God because of sin.
00:02:47.060 | But the glories still shine through.
00:02:50.800 | And in Christ, we are meant to embrace them and free them
00:02:55.360 | as much as we can from the contamination of the fall.
00:02:59.080 | Immediately following the words of God's judgment
00:03:05.080 | on the serpent and the woman and the man in Genesis
00:03:09.680 | and immediately before God's merciful clothing of the man
00:03:16.060 | and the woman with animal skins, right in that little place,
00:03:19.400 | Moses records this.
00:03:21.320 | The man called his wife's name Eve
00:03:25.600 | because she was the mother of all the living.
00:03:30.260 | Now, it seems clear to me that God intends this
00:03:35.580 | right where it comes after the curse, before the mercy of those skins.
00:03:39.640 | God intends this to be seen as a gift of unspeakable grace.
00:03:46.660 | Both Adam and Eve were warned that the day they eat of this fruit,
00:03:52.000 | they will die.
00:03:54.260 | In one sense, they did.
00:03:55.800 | But instead of only death, not only did they live,
00:04:00.700 | but Eve becomes the source of all human life.
00:04:07.100 | He could have done it another way.
00:04:09.640 | The mother of all the living and every woman after her.
00:04:13.280 | And then Paul tries to show how significant this is in 1 Corinthians 11,
00:04:18.180 | 11 and 12, where he says, Nevertheless, in the Lord,
00:04:21.820 | woman is not independent of man nor man of woman.
00:04:25.820 | For as woman was made for man, so man is now born of woman.
00:04:33.220 | And all things are from God.
00:04:36.760 | In other words, every man that has ever lived,
00:04:42.040 | however small or great, owes his life to a woman, his mother.
00:04:47.420 | Number two, then the Psalms multiply the glory and the wonder
00:04:53.620 | of all of life originating in the woman by saying explicitly
00:04:59.260 | that her womb is no mere natural cocoon,
00:05:03.960 | but the sacred place of God's
00:05:08.160 | own personal handiwork himself.
00:05:11.700 | Psalm 139. 13.
00:05:13.760 | You formed me in my inward parts.
00:05:16.960 | You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
00:05:20.900 | I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
00:05:24.980 | Wonderful are your works.
00:05:27.180 | My soul knows it very well.
00:05:28.920 | God is at work in the womb of every mother
00:05:33.980 | and his hands are forming an everlasting human being
00:05:39.520 | just as closely as if he were using his fingers and knitting needles.
00:05:45.120 | And that is a great glory.
00:05:47.900 | Three, then the Bible describes the glorious ongoing shaping
00:05:52.800 | of every human by the influence and teaching of his mother.
00:05:56.140 | Proverbs 1 8.
00:05:58.140 | Hear my son, your father's instruction and forsake
00:06:01.500 | not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland
00:06:08.240 | for your head and pendants for your neck.
00:06:11.660 | She she has given her sons and daughters life.
00:06:16.680 | And now by her teaching, she gives them garlands and pendants for their neck.
00:06:22.860 | These are intended to be signs of glorious ministry.
00:06:28.940 | In my opinion, the most influential people in the world are mothers.
00:06:34.700 | Thousands of of men may rise up to positions of power
00:06:40.020 | all over the world or women.
00:06:42.860 | All of them come from the womb and the influence of mothers.
00:06:48.260 | Even kings and presidents, it says in this is amazing.
00:06:52.600 | It says in Proverbs 31 1, the words of King Lemuel.
00:06:58.900 | An oracle that his mother taught him.
00:07:03.240 | So not only do you have scripture, but you have.
00:07:07.640 | I mean, I should say it the other way around, I suppose.
00:07:09.840 | Not only do you have the words of a king, but you have scripture
00:07:13.080 | as the oracle of his mother that she taught him.
00:07:17.180 | For God's design in all of this is that a mother should be duly honored.
00:07:25.420 | Or you could say appropriately glorified for her gifts
00:07:29.900 | and her sacrifices to her children. Ephesians.
00:07:32.260 | Ephesians 6 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
00:07:38.180 | Honor your father and your mother.
00:07:42.380 | Children are to honor their mothers
00:07:45.940 | because their mothers have done an honorable and glorious thing
00:07:52.080 | in all that they've birthed and influenced.
00:07:55.320 | Five. Lastly, the sorrows
00:07:59.360 | that every mother will experience in giving birth and raising her children
00:08:04.440 | will be glorious sorrows. And.
00:08:07.860 | What I mean is that when a mother sorrows,
00:08:14.200 | even over the forsaking of God,
00:08:17.440 | the forsaking of the family by a child, when a mother's sorrows
00:08:22.680 | it's a glorious sorrow because it is a partaking in the very sorrows
00:08:28.020 | that Jesus himself experienced at the one point
00:08:32.580 | where he compared himself to mothering.
00:08:35.220 | Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets
00:08:40.520 | and stones those who are sent to it.
00:08:42.760 | How often would I have gathered you,
00:08:45.540 | your children together as a hen, as a hen, as a mother hen.
00:08:51.800 | Gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing.
00:08:56.480 | So here we have Jesus comparing himself to a hen, a mother longing and aching
00:09:01.880 | and crying and praying out for the wayward children in Jerusalem.
00:09:07.320 | And they're not coming.
00:09:09.120 | And he's weeping over Jerusalem.
00:09:11.060 | Your sorrows as a mother are glorious sorrows
00:09:14.820 | because they share in the very sorrows of the son of man
00:09:18.900 | when he compared himself to motherhood.
00:09:21.740 | And Kate, the list could go on.
00:09:24.200 | So take heart.
00:09:26.540 | Of course, you and every woman and man bring brokenness.
00:09:31.420 | That's what you emphasize.
00:09:32.840 | You bring brokenness as well as faith to the challenge of parenthood.
00:09:38.780 | But remember these promises.
00:09:40.960 | I'll just give you two.
00:09:41.980 | They are daily precious to me.
00:09:44.460 | My God will supply all your needs
00:09:47.660 | according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
00:09:50.440 | Philippians 4, 9, that's mothering needs as well as others.
00:09:54.200 | And Second Corinthians 9, 8, God is able to make all grace abound to you
00:09:58.880 | so that having all mothering sufficiency in all things relating to mothering
00:10:03.980 | at all times in your mothering, you may abound in every mothering good deeds.
00:10:10.460 | Amen. Thank you, Pastor John, for that hope filled counsel.
00:10:14.420 | And Kate, thank you for the very open and honest
00:10:16.920 | self-disclosing question that you send in to us.
00:10:19.600 | These are the kinds of questions we are always looking for in the inbox,
00:10:22.500 | questions that get into our heart tension, that you're feeling in your life
00:10:27.040 | and you're seeking biblical counsel to address it.
00:10:29.480 | If you have a question like that, email it to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:34.580 | And of course, everything you need to know about this podcast
00:10:37.180 | can be found at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:10:41.220 | And we are going to return on Wednesday.
00:10:43.420 | A listener wants to know if any of the New Testament writers were self-conscious
00:10:46.760 | that they were writing down the very words of God.
00:10:49.660 | Were any of the New Testament writers aware that they were inspired
00:10:53.460 | in the moment that they were writing?
00:10:55.600 | And if so, where is the evidence?
00:10:57.600 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:10:59.680 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.
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