How can we teach our children about repentance?
Joel Beeke explains in this video that when a child says that they're sorry for doing something and there is no fruit to repentance, you as a parent should encourage your children to not merely say words but to ask God to help them truly repent and pray for repentance.
We need to tell them that God alone can give true repentance. You as a parent ought to show your children what repentance looks like. It should be easy for a parent to come to a child and repent to your children. We as parents need to humble ourselves and be able to confess our sin to our children.
Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV) - "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
So sometimes when you're rearing children, at least in my opinion, parents can differ here, my opinion is you accept a repentance, a confessed repentance that you yourself are not convinced that your child is all that sincere in. But you see, you accept it for the moment, and then when the fruits don't reveal themselves, and the child goes back to the same behavior, Then you pull the child aside and say, now wait a minute, you said you repented of this and repentance bears fruit. So now you need to repent again, but now we're going to probe your heart deeper. Don't just say the words, you need God to help you. Let's get down on our knees, son, and let's pray for repentance." And of course, God alone can give true repentance.
But you keep training the heart. You keep disappointing the heart. You keep motivating the heart. You shepherd the heart of your children. And so you're casting the bread of the gospel on the waters, as Ecclesiastes 11 one says, trusting you will find the fruit of it after many days.
And you're molding your children, showing them what repentance looks like, what it feels like, what it's shaped like, so as they get older they keep examining their own heart more and more. That's a very important thing. So it also should be easy for a parent to come to a child and say, son, would you please forgive me? I got a little angry at you and I shouldn't have what you did was wrong but what I did was wrong because I showed irritation in my voice or I even showed anger in my voice. And that is not a proper response.
Even when I discipline you, I should not have anger in my voice. Would you