Covenant Presbyterian Church

"Tension" best describes my emotional state as a youth. I knew my parents’ view of the world and expectations were very different from that of most families: no television in the home, Christian education, evening family worship, driving longer distances to find a better church, a certain degree of separation from neighborhood children whose influences were deemed negative at best. Yet with age I increasingly came into contact with the "other side," families and children that did not see things as we did. They watched movies we did not, listened to music my father forbade, and tended to treat their Christian profession in a cavalier fashion - it was there but not quite so life-determining. I felt tension.

The tension I felt was due to my own sinfulness. At a fundamental level, I saw the good in much of what my father was endeavoring to do in our family. But at least one eye was fixed on the other side. I felt I was missing out on something: the fun, the jokes, the parties, and some of the peer acceptance. My heart increasingly rebelled against what I perceived as restrictive. It was never too open or obvious, at least to the watching eyes of the world. My teachers probably felt I was a model student and young person. Yet as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. The tension grew. Dabbling began. Deception lurked. Frustration commenced its embittering work.

Years have passed. During them the Lord has chastened me in a variety of heart-wrenching ways for my sins. Time and again the old adage has proven itself to me: the boy is nothing but the man in miniature. My father died before I able to express much appreciation to him for making decisions that exposed the tension of my own heart. Only now do I understand that the tension I felt as a youth was intentional, that the pursuit of godliness in the Christian home necessarily produces opposition to the world. It was not my father’s decisions that were the problem; it was me. I was unwilling to shoulder the responsibility of living as a man in a fallen world and in a rapidly worsening culture. I wanted it both ways, to live on both sides of the street, to have the God of my father and the god of myself. By God’s grace, covenant has cut the tension, but as long as I am in this world, it will always be beneath the surface - sin wanting to reassert itself, the old idolatry, the love of the world.

It is important for you, parents, to understand that the decisions you make for your home necessarily create tension in the hearts of every family member. The more consistently you endeavor to apply biblical principles, the more the root issues of the heart will be exposed. The world is like bad soil. The human heart revels in it, inclines toward it, craves it. Grace comes along and disturbs the soil, removing the rot and exposing the heart to the heat and light of God’s word. Your temptation and your challenge will be to remove the rotten soil of worldliness without adding an unattractive compost of your own legalism, repressive expectations, and negativity. When you feel pressure from your family to give a little, not to till so deeply, you may feel inclined to give in. You want to be liked. You fear rejection, not just of your authority but of your God. You must trust covenant promise and omnipotent grace, that the tension created by the exertion of godly authority and application of biblical principles is a necessary part of the family’s sanctification. You must see yourself as a gardener, removing the old growth of sin so that the new growth of holiness may appear. It is a long process. The crop does not appear immediately.

You must also understand the tension even godly children feel. It is not manifest in all children to the same degree, but most covenant children will feel it at least some. Honest discussion is the best course. Especially as children grow older and are exposed to the "other side," which is inevitable in our infotainment world, careful, patient, and loving dialogue is essential. Earlier than ever children must understand the stakes of the battle in which we are engaged, that your decisions and practices are not simply personal obtuseness or family weirdness but a necessary part of our spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. When they resist a little, you have yet another opportunity to present Jesus as the way, truth, and life. Be sure to contrast him with the darkness of the other side, with the reason for its attractiveness to our fallen hearts, and with the consequences of compromise. And they must be loved. I mean not simply words, but affection - real, physical, constant affection. You must learn to be interested in legitimate things that interest them, giving them outlets for meaningful activities and work that will wed their hearts to you and encourage them to enlist as good soldiers of Jesus Christ in the full-scale assault against biblical religion that is raging throughout our culture.

Children, you too must honestly face the tension you may be feeling. The world encourages you to retreat into your own thoughts, to sulk unattractively when you do not get your way, to disregard your parents and reject their principles, and to feel that you are not really fitting in if you do not thrash about in the cesspool of immorality. Dear teenager, many thousands of advertisers, educators, and entertainers do little but think up ways to make you feel left out if you do not leave your parents behind. The temptation is very real to isolate yourself in moodiness, music, and aloofness. This is your war! I call upon you to fight the good fight of faith at this most pressing level, while you are young, before you make decisions that will lead to nothing but misery. Most importantly, failure to fight against the tension says in effect, "Jesus is not strong enough. The world is too strong. I am willing to sell my God-given birthright of covenant blessing for a mess of sinful porridge." And talk to your parents about your tension. Let them know those areas in which you are struggling and the temptations you are facing. Your parents face the same things every day, and by God’s grace have experiences and insights of great worth in your struggle. Reject the stupidity of entertainers, celebrities, and peers. Their lives show you the value of their advice: divorce, immorality, drug addiction, illiteracy, and stupidity.

I hope there is tension in your home. It may seem strange to think in this way, but we are called to a fight, and fighting means tension. The issue is whether we are facing that tension clothed with the weapons of our warfare or following the path of least resistance. Granted, it is much easier to give in, to have few standards, to define a successful parent as having children without a drug problem. Yet this is where we are at this stage of history - we have released the tension by surrendering to sin. There is a better way. This is a fight worth waging. God promises to demolish every stronghold raised in opposition to Jesus Christ. He promises to honor his covenant promises. He promises to make the foolish overcome the wise, the weak to defeat the strong. Who is the on the Lord’s side? May our confession be Joshua’s: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."