Will Your Kids Discover You Are a Hypocrite?

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Episode Summary

Preaching truth and living in contradiction to that truth is devastatingly common in today’s culture. Hypocrisy creates strife and a lack of respect in kids. Join our conversation as we share indications of hypocrisy and how to cure it.

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Today the topic of discussion is

Will Your Kids Discover You Are a Hypocrite?

  1. They Need a Good Experience With Authority

  2. Live What You Teach

  3. Share Your Struggles

  4. No records of Being a Hypocrite

 

A while ago we did a podcast on not raising modern-day Pharisees and this one will be a more introspective podcast on the topic of hypocrisy in the role of the parent.

Our kids will oftentimes become like us as they grow up. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!

Two messages go with that saying. When you are not intentional and introspective about how you were raised as a child you may end up mimicking the way you were raised with your children. 

When your kids sin and sometimes you feel angry and wronged by your children, oftentimes its because you are looking right into a mirror and you may not realize it but your kid’s actions are a reflection of you and your leadership. 

We do not want to raise modern-day Pharisees and we do not want to raise hypocrites, therefore, we should not be those things. 

We want our kids to understand that authority is good, especially in a culture where children and even adults are resisting authority left and right and a lot of people are beginning to believe that authority is bad. 

The reason is that there are so many horrible examples of authority in our culture and they are being amplified through the power of the internet. 

A lot of people don’t realize that this starts when their kids are really young and if they don’t keep their word and their word is not as good as gold and they make a promise to their child but don’t follow through then they break trust with the child and then when you are for example leading a parenting group or giving parenting advice your kids will be listening and be like “well you just failed me” and from there you become a hypocrite in their mind. 

We as parents need to be conscious about how the devil is going to spin things in our kids minds and whisper lies to them and we need to be careful. 

John 3:30 is how to prevent ourselves from being hypocrites, it says “He must increase, but I must decrease”

The more that we are walking in the spirit, the more that we are abiding in Christ and the more that God is in our lives the less we will be tempted to walk in the flesh which is what is happening when we are being hypocrites.

people are starving for what is real, there is a reason that reality tv is so successful. People want what is real.

1. They Need a Good Experience With Authority

  • Children need to experience good authority while they are being raised and guess who the example of good authority needs to be. YOU. 
  • This is more important than ever! If they can’t obey their own parents and they don’t have a good experience of your authority over them then how are they going to obey God later and submit to his authority when they are on their own and more in dependant?
  • Matthew 5:37 it says “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”
  • So if you make a promise to your kids then you had better follow through! Otherwise, it is from the evil one. 
  • No parent is perfect. We are not perfect. If you have made a promise to your kids and you don’t follow through then we encourage you to confess that to them and tell them how you are not perfect. If you just set it aside and brush over the fact that you broke a promise a bitter root could grow in your child’s heart. 
  • Here is a tip! Don’t make promises! We don’t make promises to our kids and if we do it is very rare. The only promise we make to our kids is that we will love them no matter what. Now, of course, we get asked for things daily, we have eight kids! But what we do is we say “I hear your request, thank you for asking, we will see.” and we explain to them why it may not work out and that there are no promises. 
  • Now let’s talk about love for a bit because our culture tends to get this wrong. God is love and love is relational, love is warmth, love is caring, love is wanting what is best for people, but you know what is best for people sometimes? Boundaries, justice, truth, accountability, and sometimes discipline. 
  • You are the God-given authority in your child’s life and you have been given a task, many tasks, and many responsibilities. One of those tasks is to love your children and it is an honor. Part of loving your kids is listening, you can’t know your kids if you don’t listen. 
  • We need to ask our kids questions and be able to listen to their answers. If you are in a relationship with someone and all you do is talk about yourself and you have a hard time listening then that means you are self-focused and probably don’t love them. 
  • If you are self-focused then you are leaving a self-focused legacy. Your kids will mimic you. 
  • If you want to leave a legacy where your kids are going to have strong relationships, a legacy where your kids are going to be secure in their identity in Christ and they know that their parents love them it starts with this, asking questions and being able to listen. 
  • If your kids don’t experience all aspects of love from you then how are they going to be able to handle all aspects of Gods love? There is now a lot of false doctrines out there that only take parts of Gods love and they don’t look at all the attributes of God and his authority in their lives.
  • Everything that we are doing as parents is going to be potentially mimicked when our kids are parents also, and if they don’t feel loved by you then they are more likely to become critical of you as a hypocrite. 
  • Do you feel like your parents know you? A lot of kids today will say “my parents don’t know me” and the process of knowing your kids starts when they are a baby. 
  • If you don’t know them they will call you a hypocrite even if it’s not true. 

2. Live What You Teach

  • If you are preaching something other than what you are living, watch out because your kids can sniff out hypocrisy. 
  • It’s hard to influence where you haven’t been. If you want to influence your kids in an area that you are not living out, it’ll be hard to talk about, and it’ll be hard to hold your kids accountable when you are struggling with the same thing.
  • Not only is this true in family government, but it is also true in church government. We see church leaders struggling to hold the flocks accountable because they are struggling with the very same thing, and this leads to corruption, it is corrupt leadership.
  • Our kids must see us live in victory over sin. And we must be humble and able to share with our kids the things that we have struggled with, and how we have overcome them and that they can have victory as well. 
  • If you want your kids to be different than most kids then you need to parent them different than most parents.  
  • If you want your kids to have integrity when no one else is looking then you better have integrity when no one else is looking. 
  • James 1:22 says “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

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3. Share Your Struggles

  • Part of being humble is sharing your struggles.
  • The more humble you are the less likely you will be labeled as a hypocrite. 
  • We encourage you to study scripture on humbleness. Psalms and Proverbs are loaded with scripture on humility. We have learned over the years that the only way to stay truly humble is to constantly keep our eyes on Jesus and we are aware of how we fall short compared to Jesus and the life he lived and that is what brings us to a humble position.
  • 1 Peter 5:6-7 says “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”
  • Being a biblical parent is hard, but oftentimes the harder path yields better fruit and that is definitely what we have experienced over the years. 
  • You may be wondering how we know all this stuff well let us remind you, we have been married twenty years and have eight kids! We don’t say this to toot our horn but because this is proof that we have made the mistakes and have experienced the hard times!
  • You need to be humble to your children. You need to be able to apologize to your children!
  • Even if its two-year-old little Johnny, you need to be able to admit when you make mistakes. That is how you build trust and respect with your kids. 
  • If you think that you need to know it all then you are probably raising know it alls. 
  • If you feel like you always need to have an answer then some of your answers are going to be wrong and if you are giving false doctrine on important topics then you are going to be held accountable. 
  • It is important to know that we don’t have to know everything, and that is a blessing. 
  • Matthew 7:21-23 says “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
  • Your kids just want an authentic relationship with you. 
  • There are eternal ramifications for raising hypocrites and for being a hypocrite. 

4. No Records of Being a Hypocrite

  • We live in a digital world and you are leaving footprints and leaving records of everything you do online more than you think. 
  • If you are sharing scripture or teaching as biblical truth then it better be accurate, we do not want to be false teachers. 
  • Even if you are teaching biblical truth you are falsifying it if you are not living according to what you are teaching. 
  • 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
  • This scripture is a perfect representation of the world we are living in right now and if you don’t want your kids to have itching ears and turn towards fables and false doctrine and books that share half-truths about God that lead to destruction then they need to trust your authority and they need to be yielded to God’s authority.
  • The best way for children to learn these principles is to watch you! And if you are not walking in these truths then how can you expect them to do the same. 

Thank you for joining us today, we hope that this was fruitful for you.

See you next time!

 

Scripture In This Episode:

John 3:30 – “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Matthew 5:37 –But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”

James 1:22 –But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

1 Peter 5:6-7 –Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

2 Timothy 4:3-4 –For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”

Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

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Written By Angie Tolpin
Angie has been married to Isaac for 19 years and together they have eight children, whom she homeschools. She is the Founder of CourageousMom.com, a doula, the author of the best-selling book Redeeming Childbirth, and the creator of the first ever Christian Postpartum Course. Angie loves ministering to Women and has created a few online Bible Studies on Biblical Friendship and Motherhood.

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