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All right, I'm a sinner and I tell my kids not to sin.
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Does that make me a hypocrite?
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Now, obviously, that's generally true for every single person.
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Uh, every single person without exception is a sinner.
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Every single father who loves Christ is trying to teach his kids not to sin.
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And so, on the one hand, everybody is looks like a hypocrite, but that's actually not really what a hypocrite is.
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Hypocrite comes from the Greek word, which means actor or to wear a mask or to put something on.
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It's basically being a pretender.
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So you're only a hypocrite if you say, I'm not a sinner when you are.
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It's not a hypocrite, it's not hypocritical to say, I sin and I shouldn't, and also you shouldn't.
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That's not hypocritical.
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And so sometimes we can feel like our guilty conscience gets in the way of our capacity to parent.
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Maybe as a dad, you've already ruined your previous marriage because you had committed adultery.
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Maybe as a dad, you've already lashed out in anger in ways that they've noticed.
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And you're going to tell them don't be angry.
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Maybe as a dad, you're terrible with your technology, and you tell them be good with your technology.
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Maybe as a dad, you tell them don't cheat in school, but you cheated in school.
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Maybe as a dad, you tell them be the same person everywhere.
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Don't be have two versions of yourself, but you go to work and you're one way and you go to church you're one way and you go with your buddies, you're another way.
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And so there's all this incongruity or lack of integrity.
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So integration is being the same person everywhere that we have to look in the face as a father, because under no circumstances will you not sin against your wife and kids.
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But also under no circumstances should you not help your wife and kids not sin.
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And so what you have to do is you have to be honest with your kids in age-appropriate ways about your sin.
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Right.
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So uh there's times where I've lashed out at my son, and then I have to circle back with him and repair that and say, like, hey, the way dad yelled, that was not right.
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Please forgive me.
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I should have done it like this instead of like that.
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And so then when I tell him, when he
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lashes out in anger against his sister, Jay, don't lash out against Olivia.
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I'm not telling him, do as I say, not as I do, but I'm telling him, he remember how dad's not the way he's supposed to be.
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Yeah.
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And we talked about it.
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And Jesus loves us even though we're not the way we're supposed to be.
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Yeah.
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And that God is forgiving us and calling us to be different and better.
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Yeah, it's the same for you.
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So I'm holding you the same standard I'm holding myself.
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And so the standard that I hold myself to and I model, which is sinner needing grace and in a repentance journey, is the same standard I'm giving to my kids.
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I'm a sinner needing grace on a repentance journey.
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The only time when your kids will grow up and say, my dad was a hypocrite, is if you gaslight them about dad's not a sinner, dad's doing fine, and you flinch the defensive and you go, dad doesn't lose his temper, and they know dad certainly loses temper.
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And they say, Dad doesn't struggle with sexual sin.
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Well, dad definitely struggles with sexual sin because I found the internet history.
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Or dad isn't greedy and he tells, but you they when they have this conflicting data about who dad says he is versus who dad is, they ogre up and learn that Christians are hypocrites, dad's a hypocrite, and they're all liars.
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But when you're able with appropriate or age-appropriate vulnerability to tell them, here is my sin, here is why I hate it, here's why I'm thankful that Jesus is saving me from it and has saved me from it.
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And here's where I'm being called to walk in repentance and to change my mind and change my behavior to conform to the will of God, when I can cast myself as a person on a journey and tell them they also need to be on a journey, and that journey is toward intimacy and fidelity with Christ, then they're not going to see me as a hypocrite, and I actually won't be a hypocrite.
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The hypocrite is a pretender, not a confessor.
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So if you're worried about hypocrisy, the answer is more confession, more repentance, more modeling of the inner life.
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The older your kids get, the more important that is.
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But under no circumstances does your sin invalidate your authority to parent.
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Now, obviously, there's certain sins which do really cut you off at the knees, right?
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You're physically abusive to your wife.
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You uh you hit your kids in a way that's absolutely inappropriate, you scream and yell.
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There will be these ruptures, these trust gaps that are created that take a long time to repair, right?
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You don't get to hit their mom and then continue to parent as though nothing happened.
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And you don't get just to confess your sin and that's all better.
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No, there's certain types of sin.
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So it's important to understand, not all sins are equally damaging, but it's all equally damning.
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So God hates all sin equally, it all sends you to hell, but it's not all equally damaging.
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So raising your voice of your wife versus hitting your wife, same damning, different damaging.
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And the more damaging it is, the longer the trust building process takes.
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So you may be like, for example, someone may be violent to their wife, which leads to their marriage ending, and you and that, and that that person and their wife may never reconcile because of the physical abuse.
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The possibility then of you having a lane to speak into your kids, it's a really, really long road where you're having to own it, own it, own it, walk through and model repentance over probably years, maybe even longer than that.
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Um, but that doesn't invalidate your ability to speak into your kids' life, period, ever, because you are saying, yes, if you are actually owning and naming the impact and severity of your sin, and you're not minimizing it or justifying it or rationalizing it, but you're going, like, yeah, that was horrendous.
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Uh, Lord, have mercy on me.
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Jesus died for that sin.
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And so, my son, don't be like I was.
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Be different, be better than me.
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Like you're now parenting and speaking into your son by using yourself as a negative example and using Christ as the great example.
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And so uh you're never fully off the table as a dad, even if you've completely train wrecked uh so many things at home.
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Just that process and the earning the right to speak into a child's life may be a really long one.
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And so anytime you sin against your child, small way, you have to rebuild trust to repair.
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The bigger that sin, the bigger that trust repair process looks like.
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But it's gonna play out over time.
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But if you kind of insecurity decide that you don't have the right to parent your kids because of your sin, you're gonna kind of hang it up, mail it in, and be an abdicator rather than an engaged, loving father who's doing what God has called him to do.
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Now, my guess is most of the people listening to this podcast haven't already exploded or destroyed the household through their level 10 sinful behavior.
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But it's more these small ways that insecurity gets in.
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And I do think that's one of the things Satan uses is he's called the accuser of the brethren, the one who reminds you of your guilt, who reminds you of your sin, says you're not good enough, you're not worthy, and is teaching you or trying to get you to believe that the grace of God is insufficient for your calling as a father.
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And you have to rebuke that in the name of Jesus Christ and say, I was dead in my trespass and sin, but I'm made alive by the grace of Jesus Christ.
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And the Spirit is now working on me to do what he's called me to do.
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And so rather than kind of withdrawing into shame, which is what Satan wants hiding, covering, withdrawing, you want to cling to Christ, the sufficiency of his death, and then engage graciously and lovingly, not as a pretender, but as a clear conscience before the Lord, confessor and modeler of faith and repentance.