In our culture today, it appears that children are increasingly given the free choice to develop as men or women. There's an assumption that personal manhood or womanhood is a choice that will necessarily emerge in the child and in their personal choices. Pastor John, in a young girl developing towards biblical womanhood or in a young boy developing towards biblical manhood, how much of this development should be influenced by godly parents?

All of it. All of it. Children, obey your parents in everything, in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Colossians 3:20. Which, if you just flip that around and ask, "Now what does that imply for parents?" If the Bible says to our children, "Obey your parents in everything." Okay, now parents, what does that imply for you?

That implies you better know your Bible, you better know culture enough so that you can give in everything counsel and guidance to these children so that they can fulfill without sinning the biblical mandate to obey you in everything. Deuteronomy 11, "You shall teach all these words of mine to your children, talking of them when you're sitting in your house and walking by the way and lying down and rising up.

Write them on your doorposts and put them on your gates." That is a description of pervasive, word-saturated guidance and inspiration and encouragement for our children. No thought of laissez-faire, let them grow up and discover what's right and wrong for themselves. They will be influenced by somebody, and God calls parents to love their children enough to shape them.

And I don't know how many parents think of the Great Commission, the latter half of it, with regard to their children, but I have thought of it, where Jesus says, "Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Then he adds, "Teaching them to observe all things." It doesn't say, "Teaching them to know all things." That's implied.

It says, "Observe, do." "Teaching them to observe all things." Now, if that's true for the nations, every unbeliever we lead to Christ among the nations, we're supposed to help them by teaching to do all Jesus commanded. All right, Mom and Dad, are you doing that? All that he commanded, all that Jesus commanded, are you building that into your sons and daughters?

And he said things like, Jesus said things like, when the Pharisees came and said, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" He said, "Haven't you read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?" And said, "Therefore a man shall leave his mother and father and hold his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." So they're no longer two, but one, and what God has joined together, "Don't let man put asunder." How you doing, Dad?

How you doing, Mom? Are you explaining male and female as Jesus meant it to your kids? Are you explaining one flesh in husband and wife? Are you explaining leaving and cleaving? Are you explaining let them not separate? Are you putting all these things into their hearts? So my answer, Tony, is absolutely yes.

Parents are to be involved in shaping the sexuality of our children, and maybe the last thing I should say is that we all know, don't we, this is best done by modeling. What those children see in a mom and in a dad is, I don't know what percent, let's just say 90% of them becoming healthy male and healthy female.

Learning how to be a man in relation to a woman, being a woman in relation to a man. They're watching, they're watching. They'll listen to your devotions and all your teachings, but they're watching all the time. And so the biggest challenge for a mom and a dad is to enact the magnificent drama of Christ and the Church in Ephesians 5:25.

Wives, be subject, taking your cues from the Church, and husbands, love taking your cues from Christ, so that the children are watching Christ love the Church, and the Church love Christ, and seeing that beautiful drama enacted out. That's what will make healthy, sexually healthy kids, I think. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.

Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. You will find thousands of other free resources online from John Piper at DesiringGod.org. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening.