(upbeat music) - We're honored to be joined by author and speaker Paul Tripp, and he joins us one last time. Paul, as a parent, I think of parenting as painting. Each day I put one dab of paint on a canvas. I hope it's the right color, I hope it's in the right spot.

But parenting brings with it a lot of uncertainty and insecurity and self-doubt. As a parent with experience, what would you say is the goal of day in and day out parenting? - If I would say, this is big deal of parenting to be two things. The first one is authority.

Children must early understand that they've been born into a world of authority and they're not it. The sooner a child submits to that, the more blessed his life is gonna be. And so my children don't belong to me, they belong to God. He's the ultimate owner and authority. That means that I'm a representative and ambassador of the authority of God.

I'm the tone of God's voice as a parent. I'm the look on his face, I'm the touch of his hand. Now, this will make you weak in your knees. Here's what this means. It means every time I exercise authority in the lives of my children, in all those mundane little circumstances, it must be a beautiful picture of the authority of God.

Because I want the children to see authority as beautiful and giving and serving and loving and compassionate and patient and gracious 'cause that's the authority of God. Because children are born with a natural antipathy toward authority, a natural hatred of authority. And I want to depict authority in its divine beauty so that they will say, "Authority is a good thing.

"Authority is a wise thing. "Authority is a protective thing. "Authority doesn't crush my freedom, it gives me freedom." So that's a big deal. Here's a second thing that I know as a parent, there are mysteries of the universe that if you don't understand these mysteries, you won't be what you're supposed to be and you won't do what you're supposed to do.

The ultimate of that mystery is the mystery of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Christ. But there are many, many mysteries, the mystery of the sovereignty of God, many, many of these mysteries. Well, I want to download those mysteries to my children. So I'm always looking for opportunities to take the mundane moment and unfold one of these mysteries to my children.

They're not in control, life is not about them. Love of neighbor is an important thing. Stewardship of resources is something God calls me to. We live in a world that's not just a world of authority, it's a world of grace. So I'm looking for all these opportunities to unfold the mysteries that have been trusted to me through the ministry of the Spirit, through the word of God to my children so they begin to understand things that become the tracks on which human life that was meant to be lived is lived.

And here's what I need to know, that if my eyes ever see and my ears ever hear the sin, weakness and failure of my children, it's never an accident, it's never an interruption, it's never a hassle, it's always grace. God loves those children, he's put them in a family of faith, he will reveal their need to me as a parent so I can be a tool of his authority and his truth and his wisdom and his grace.

That's the system. And so God will always give you more opportunities, you do the work in little moments, it's always unfinished because change is a process and not an event. You have the wonderful position, this is amazing to me, of being a tool in God's hands for the forming of a human soul.

What could be more exciting than that? - Amen. We are done now but I would love for you to return and talk more about parenting with us in the future and perhaps we can do a whole week on it. But we are done for the week and sadly our time with Paul Tripp is done for now.

Paul is the author of many books, including the one we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks titled "Sex and Money." Be sure to check it out. Well, Monday, John Piper is back in the hot seat answering your tough questions. I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

Have a wonderful weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)