The Gospel is Not Just for Reciting

As parents, we want our children to understand the Gospel, not just be proficient at reciting it.

I remember one morning at church when I was a young child. The pastor began his sermon by asking the congregation a question, “When you die and stand before God, what will you say to him? What can you say that will allow you to enter into His heaven?” I was terrified because I had no idea what I was supposed to say. I think I was probably 10 years old, and to this point in my life, no sermon had captured my attention like this one. As the sermon ended, without me understanding much of anything he had said, I waited intently for him to tell me the answer. What do I tell God when I stand before him? How do I get in?

As the sermon ended, he told us. He said, here is what you say, “I am saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.” I vividly remember immediately asking my dad for his pen, and he handed me his heavy, twist-mechanism executive pen. I wrote the answer on my bulletin (remember those?), ripped off that part of the paper, and stuffed it in my pocket. I kept that paper in a safe place for years, going back to it. I wanted to remember what to say when I died.

Our pastor was a faithful man of God. He meant well, and I don’t think he did anything wrong. I just didn’t have the intellectual capacity to focus on the content between the question and the answer portion of his sermon. All I wanted was to acquire the answer to the big test question so I could recite it on the day of the test.

I fear that maybe this can happen to our children too.

It is vital to understand the gospel as a Christian, this isn’t debatable. You cannot believe in something you do not understand. So naturally, we as believers desire that those we love and minister to would truly understand the gospel. That desire usually leads us to ask the simple question, “What is the Gospel?” We ask our children before they can be baptized, we ask prospective church members, and we as parents probably ask our children this question regularly.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the question. There is tremendous value in being able to succinctly explain the Gospel message when asked. If we understand it, this shouldn’t be very difficult for us to do.

However, I think the question is worth careful consideration when we are using it as parents. I have been noticing that this question can lead our children to see the Gospel as something they need to learn to recite, like the Pledge of Allegiance.

I have noticed that recently when I have asked my kids this question, they get test anxiety face. You know, that face you get when you get asked a question you know is super important, but you have no idea how to answer it correctly? One of my sons used to always just answer, “eternal life?” He has heard the gospel, both at home and in church, but the question freaked him out. When he responded with the same answer recently, it convicted me. I don’t want my asking of that question to inadvertently push my children toward making the Gospel something they recite.

So what do we do?

The answer is not to stop asking the question altogether. Again, the question has value. But like the sermon I heard when I was 10 years old, there is content between the question and the answer. We can’t just pose our children the ultimate question and then only worry about how they answer. The in-between is the key. In between the question and the answer lies understanding. My desire as a parent isn’t to give them the answer to recite so they can get baptized and pass their membership interview. I want them to truly understand the Gospel. When they do, they will know the answer.

Rather than simply asking them, “What is the Gospel?” there are two main opportunities my wife and I like to take advantage of as we are trying to help them understand the Gospel:

When They Mess Up

When they sin or get into trouble, we like to ask them about their sin. The other day my daughter got herself into big trouble with her mouth. When she was cooling down, I asked her if she thought she sinned against anyone with her actions. She was able to correctly say that she sinned against her sister, her parents, and against God. I followed up and asked what the wages of sin were. She correctly said death (Romans 6:23). Then I asked, so where does this leave you? She said well, I would be in deep trouble, but thankfully Jesus died for my sins. She understood. So I asked, so now what? She said she didn’t know, so I explained that now she needed to ask for forgiveness from those she sinned against.

In each of those questions, an “I don’t know” provides an opportunity to teach Gospel truths to our children.

When We Mess Up

When we sin against one of our children or one another, we try to discuss it as a family. Often this happens at the dinner table. When we mess up with language or get too angry about something and cause our children or one another hurt, we want to confess that sin and ask the children for forgiveness. It is also powerful to remind the kids that just because we are older, doesn’t mean we stop sinning, and that we need Jesus just as much as they do.

Additionally, there are a ton of questions we can ask along the way as we are doing life with our children. We don’t always get this right, but we try to find everyday moments that allow us to talk about the Gospel. They can be as simple as asking our 3-year-old who made the beautiful sunset she is looking at, to helping our son see that winning the video game is not more important than his relationship with his brother. Sometimes success provides just as much of an opportunity to talk about the Gospel as failure.

As we do this, we can continually work to fill in the gap between question and answer and help them truly understand the Gospel. Then when they are asked what it is, they can recite what they truly understand, not what they have simply memorized.

Our responsibility as parents is to help them understand the Gospel and pray that God will open their hearts to believe it. We plant and water, but God gives the growth.

And we don’t ever stop praying for them, no matter how old they are.

If you have found yourself asking, “So what is the Gospel?” start by watching this cool video with your kids tonight before bed.