“Dad, which one’s the bad guy?”
My 8-year-old daughter was trying to make sense of the news story we were watching. A typical cops-and-robbers tale was unfolding on the screen, and she needed help sorting out which team to root for.
I started to answer her but hesitated. What should I say?
On the one hand, I knew what she was asking: Which person had broken the law? On the other hand, as a Christian, I knew the answer was more complex than simply “The bad guy is the one in the ski mask, pumpkin.” Perhaps this was a moment to take her deeper into how God sees goodness and badness.
As a father of five, I’m increasingly concerned about my kids’ behavior. Not their bad behavior. Their good behavior. Don’t get me wrong; I’d much rather have obedient children than hellions. And thanks be to God, mine are (mostly) the former. But the longer I parent, the more I ask myself this question: What if my children’s biggest obstacle to faith isn’t their badness but their “goodness”?
What if my children’s biggest obstacle to faith isn’t their badness but their ‘goodness’?
My hunch is that if you’re a parent, you probably care that your children don’t grow up to be monsters. You’re likely raising them in an environment you believe will help them flourish into happy, obedient, hopefully Jesus-loving adults. In the process, you might already be enjoying some of the benefits of your parenting decisions: They are largely obedient. They aren’t spray-painting overpasses. If so, congratulations! However, we must be clear-eyed about the unique threat this poses: “Good kids” can easily miss their need for God’s grace.
The Only People Jesus Came For
In Luke 5, Jesus is at a house party thrown by his most recent convert, Levi the tax collector. As it was with tax collectors, the usual riffraff was also in attendance. Seeing this, the Pharisees asked Jesus why he was keeping company with such nasty folks. He stunned them with his answer: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (vv. 31–32).
If I may paraphrase, Jesus just said, “I’ve only come for the bad guys.” This is good news. If you can see you’re a sinner, then you can have Jesus as Savior. But when there’s less visible “bad” to see, there’s new work to be done in our parenting—work that can help expose your child’s need for the Great Physician.
I want to share three lessons my wife and I teach our kids to show them their need for Jesus.
1. Teach your kids the difference between ‘inside bad’ and ‘outside bad.’
We need to teach our children that sin doesn’t always look like we think. In our family, we use the terms “inside bad” and “outside bad” to explain this. “Outside bad” is the sin we can see: hurting people, cheating, lying, stealing . . . nightly news stuff. The apostle Paul tells us as much in his vice list in Galatians 5:20–21. Here’s a selection of behaviors Paul warns will keep us out of God’s kingdom: sorcery, fits of anger, drunkenness, orgies. All obvious, external, and public.
But we often miss that in the same list, sprinkled among those outward sins, are all sorts of inward attitudes that are just as evil: idolatry, envy, jealousy. You can see sorcery. You can’t see jealousy. Jealousy happens in the heart. And it’s that invisible quality that makes this “inside bad” so dangerous.
If we want our kids to run to the cross, we must first teach them that bad doesn’t always look bad. It may look like singing passionately in church while wanting people to be impressed with your voice. It may look like giving a friend a gift but only so you’ll get one back in return. This can play out a thousand ways, and it’s our job to give our children a category to see it.
2. Teach your kids to repent of their bad motives.
If it’s true that good deeds done from a bad heart pose dangers just like bad deeds do, this should change the way we teach our kids to repent. Tim Keller helped me see this in technicolor when he once remarked, “Irreligious people repent of nothing. Religious people repent of their sins. But Christians repent of their righteousness.” Perhaps the most important thing we can do as parents is to expand our children’s view of repentance. We aren’t called to turn away just from our bad actions but also from the bad reasons we do our good actions. If they’re done to make much of ourselves instead of God, our “good” deeds can keep us from him.
A great passage that has helped our kids see this is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9–14. Read it with your children over a meal and ask them a set of simple questions about it: Who did more good things in the story, the Pharisee or the tax collector? Who went home justified? Why do you think God accepted the tax collector but not the pharisee? Did the Pharisee’s “goodness” help him or hurt him before God?
As odd as it sounds, if your child’s “good” behavior is being done from a posture of selfishness, your child still needs to repent. Let’s teach our children this early. It’ll serve them well as they grow.
3. Teach your kids by confessing your ‘inside bad’ and ‘outside bad.’
As good as good instruction is, it’s much more powerful if it’s modeled. What an opportunity you have as a parent not simply to live uprightly before your children but to actively, regularly, and earnestly repent of your failings, especially your “inside” ones.
If we want our kids to run to the cross, we must first teach them that ‘bad’ doesn’t always look bad.
My wife is a gold medalist in this. Countless times, I’ve watched her confess her hidden sin to our kids, even when they were obviously much more at fault, simply because she had the wrong heart posture in her disciplining. Each time she does, she erodes our little ones’ narrative that God cares most about what they do on the outside. And each time, she gets a chance to show them how everyone needs the cross, even the mom who often looks like she has it all together.
It’s true, Jesus only came to save bad guys. Let’s lovingly help our little ones discover that includes them. The sooner they see this, the more willing they’ll be to let the Great Physician do his work.
The Gospel Coalition