The other day I saw an online advertisement titled, ‘The seven deadly sins of marketing’. Intrigued I started to think what connotations the author was trying to conjure up in prospective customers. Thoughts of Victorian antiquation come to mind…’you’re so old school that you are ruining your business with those tactics’ or perhaps even ‘you’re breaking the golden rules to making your business prosper’. Either way, I guess it works!  

Now when Christians use the word ‘sin’ we are either embarrassed by it, call it something else or in some cases avoid mention of it altogether preferring to focus on more positive aspects of the truth: Jesus loves you. God offers you new life, eternal life. Just don’t mention the‘s’ word. Why are we so squeamish about ‘sin’?

Folks it’s Easter and Good Friday is almost upon us. Good Friday is good because it dealt with our bad. Sin got a right kicking. Only it wasn’t us that got kicked along with our sin, it was God’s Son, Jesus. So in this post I want to take time out on what has become a bit of a taboo topic. Man, I even got one of my videos labeled as harmful to kids by a Face book group that was trying to shut down school Scripture lessons in Australia. In that video we taught a memory verse from Luke 19:10 ‘Jesus came to seek and to save …sinners’. Public speech…free speech…say what you want, only don’t mention the truth. Don’t restate a verse from Jesus’ mouth.

Is there any place for talking or thinking about sin when raising your kids?

Well I reckon one deadly sin of parenting has got to be not factoring into your parenting that your kids sin.

You might wonder some days why your kids fight so much; why it’s such hard work trying to stick to your guns and keep saying ‘no’. Unrepentant, stubborn, willful, proud, resentfulness? Friends, it’s called sin. The struggle against loving order; the fight for an autonomy that we believe will allow us to flourish but turns out to be a lie; self rule despite its harmful consequences. Yep, that'd be sin.

Frustration and anger in our parenting can often come from unrealistic expectations of our kids. Expectations they’ll always do what is right or that they won’t behave badly are unrealistic.

We’ve got to expect them to be law breakers. We should anticipate they’ll buck our authority. We can expect to feel disappointed when they breach our trust or make us feel miserable when they sulk and complain that we don’t love them.

By the same token, we need to model humility. We parents are also sinners; forgiven and restored by Jesus death on the cross, but sinners just the same. So there’s no place for high and mighty self righteousness, as though we aren’t capable or guilty of the same things. We are just as undeserving of God’s mercy as our kids.

No country for old men
In the movie ‘No Country for Old Men’ by the Cohen brothers, Tommy Lee Jones plays the role of a retiring Texan sheriff. Faced with the overwhelming chaos of drug land killings he struggles to keep up with the pace of criminal activities. Pondering the immeasurable darkness of the killings he reflects on the book of John and says…‘the truth has gotta be so simple even a child can understand it’.

What is that truth that even a child can understand?
The light has come into the world and the darkness has not overcome it. (See John 1:1-14)

The world in John’s gospel is portrayed in one word…darkness. Darkness refers not to the good world God made but the souls of mankind that have turned aside and shrugged off God’s right and loving rule. Enter the heart of darkness in all of us. The good news? Just as in the beginning God said to the darkness ‘let there be light’ (Genesis 1:1-2), so His Light has entered our world and not been overcome by the darkness. Instead, Jesus, dying on the cross overcame the world and its darkness. He rendered our justified condemnation null and void.

The Biggest

This is what I focus on in Anton’s Antics’ live show ‘The Biggest’. I’ve even cut a short, fun and FREE Easter video for the small screen that you can watch with your kids that shows you how I deal with this taboo topic in a child friendly, engaging but no punches pulled kind of way.

Get it here for your Easter: Anton's Biggest Easte (Home) Video

Everyone can agree on the darkness out there…disease, natural disasters, war criminals, genocide, Paris, Brussels…but as the gospel of John shows us, it’s right in the heart of us all, and nothing we do can remove it. We need Jesus to scrub it out and rebuild us.

Easter not just about sin
Now the whole ‘The Biggest’ live show that Anton’s Antics does using three characters doesn’t just focus on sin.  Those who see the show live in schools over the next week and over in Perth after Easter will also see and learn about the joy and transformative, life giving power of Peter’s discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb.

To get Anton’s Biggest Easter video click here: Anton's Biggest Easte (Home) Video
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