(music) A podcast listener named James writes in, "Pastor John, a big question for parents is whether talking about past sins, sins like drug use, sexual immorality, drunkenness, etc., will make our children more or less likely to try out or do these things when they're older. It seems like they might reason like this, 'Well, you turned out alright,' and proceed with entering into the behavior.

Pastor John, what category should parents think through when it comes to communicating past sins with our children now?" Let me establish a crucial parenting principle and practice, which I think is dictated by the Gospel, before I tackle the direct question. And I've got six questions for parents that I think they should ask, kind of diagnostic questions as to whether at this time to this child, this particular sin should be talked about.

But before I go there, let's lay down a principle. The principle is that far more important than the confession of past sins is the regular confession of present sins. And the practice, therefore, is that we model, for our children, in family devotions or other times, a regular pattern, a rhythm of confession to show our children how a follower of Jesus handles sin in his own life.

So a pattern of confession, forgiveness, restoration to fellowship— nothing will have a greater Gospel impact on a child, I think, than to see daddy—that they tend to think are infallible, since they deliver the law. Daddy's infallible. Daddy's flawless. And to hear daddy regularly confessing to mom, confessing to kids, but especially confessing to God, sins, applying the blood of Jesus and experiencing restored joy of fellowship with God will show the child, "Oh, I don't have to be perfect.

There is a way to handle sin." Children are born legalists, and they are born licentious, and those are not contradictory. They believe that the only path to morality is keeping the law— parents' law, school law, babysitter law, traffic law, whatever, law, law, law. Everywhere's law because these kids are just being told what to do.

All the time, from the time they're, you know, nine months old on up. And they don't like those limitations of law on their desires, and so they gravitate towards strategies of getting around the law and somehow squirming away or through the law. And the alternative to this is the Gospel of the glory of Christ, seeing parents who love Christ so much that Christ looks appealing to them, not mainly as a lawgiver, but a soul satisfier, a friend, a guide, a helper, a counselor, and yes, a final absolute authority, which is good news, not bad news, if all those other things are true.

Seeing parents who admit they don't love him perfectly all the time, but sometimes act as though he's not their greatest treasure, that's crucial for a child. Parents who regularly admit to the children, to the spouse, that they don't model Christ and his value perfectly all the time, and so they confess their sins, they're honest about their sins, not hiding their sins, they're modeling for their children.

You don't have to lie about your sins. You don't have to hide your sins. You can be honest about them, and Christ will forgive, and we will forgive, and we can press on with fresh joy. So that's the principle. That's the practice, and I think it might lift some of the burden of, "Well, don't I have to, you know, be honest with my children about these past sins of mine?" And the children will never even enter their mind that you're being dishonest with them, if you set this pattern.

But they did ask, "Okay, so there are these real sins in our pasts. What should we do with them in regard to our children?" And here are my six more or less, I suppose, diagnostic questions to ask. Number one, how old is the child? Capacities to grasp what you're talking about vary with age.

You will not confess to your five-year-old that once, when you were 12, you dabbled in homosexual pornography. You won't say that to your five-year-old child. He doesn't even have the categories to know what that is yet. You might confess this to a 15-year-old whose sexual identity is confused, and he's come to you kind of scared and wondering about some feelings that he has, and you might then go back and pick up some of your own struggles and help.

So the question there is, how old is he? Number two, how spiritually mature is the child? If you're dealing with a hateful and rebellious 16-year-old who would only hang your dirty laundry on Facebook as soon as you say it because he's so down on you, then you might want to wait until there's a more tender, mature season in that kid's life to reveal some things.

The third question is, what's the nature of the sin? Some sin may be of such a nature that if a child heard it, it would frighten them, confuse them, give them a kind of insecurity that just wouldn't be good for them. For example, there might have been in your life a sexual sin against a minor when you were babysitting at age 17 or something like that, and you didn't go to jail, but that would be the kind of thing that would require the greatest care in sharing, if you ever shared it, because of the kind of disorientation it might create in the child's mind.

Number four, what are the circumstances right now as the possibility of divulging a sin presents itself? I'm thinking mainly about privacy here. My guess is that there are some sins that would have a far better effect on a young person if you shared it with the person if they were alone with mom or dad when the sin was shared.

Probably not at Pizza Hut, but taking a walk by the river and not with the brothers and sisters around because kids can feel really awkward around brothers or sisters or another parent when dealing with something heavy and awkward, and they might have questions that they'd be willing to ask mom or dad if they were alone in a safe place.

So the circumstances. Number five, is your spouse okay with your sharing the sin? Get on the same page so that you don't cross wires here in dealing with the kids. It needs to have a unified sense or impact as you go forward. Number six, what is the child struggling with?

One great motive in sharing past sins will be to help the child have realistic expectations about the Christian life. A child that's struggling, say, with lying may be helped by parents' confession of lying, perhaps to illustrate forgiveness or perhaps illustrate the trouble that it got him into as a kid, one way or the other, just kind of warning or comfort, or perhaps to illustrate how God helped the parent stop lying.

So what is the child dealing with at any given time that might trigger which kinds of things you might call up from your past? And the last one I would say is, what's your motive for telling the sin? What's your motive for silence about the sin? Because frankly, I don't think you need to say everything to your child about your past.

There's no rule I'm aware of that says every sin from the past must be known by children in the present. In deciding what is shared and what is not, the motive really matters, and the manner by which you do it that we've been talking about matters. Fear and shame are not good motives for silence, but concern for children and modeling humility and illustration of the gospel and glorification of Christ are motives that are good.

But I want to end by just going back and saying what I did at the beginning that far more crucial, I think, than discerning which, if any, of your significant, heavy, weighty sins of the past are shared in the present is that pattern of ongoing confession and making it a regular feature of family life so that kids learn what the Christian life is by the present, not just the past.

Those are very helpful categories to think through on this issue. Thank you, Pastor John. And thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. If you have a question for John Piper or if you want to listen to recent episodes or if you want to listen to specific episodes in the archive or if you want to see the most played and most popular episodes of all time, you can do all of this at our landing page.

Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. We return tomorrow to talk about getting the tough and tender balance just right in the Christian life. Pastor John will point to a model of this balance in 18th century England. I'm your host Tony Reinhke. We'll see you tomorrow.