Your normal life is brimming with opportunities to teach your kids about God, his creation, and our purpose—truths that will help them walk in biblical sexuality. They do need to know these truths. But more than knowing them, your children need to believe them.

In “Teach Your Kids to Be Truly Sex Positive,” I argued that Christian doctrine lays the groundwork for genuinely positive sexuality and that parents need to teach their kids that we are creatures, we are embodied, and we have intrinsic purpose. But how do we teach our children these truths that are so central to biblical sexuality? This article aims to be practical. (For a deeper dive, check out Harvest USA’s two free online courses: Raising Sexually Faithful Kids and Parenting Boys and Girls in a Gender-Confused World.)

First, you don’t need anything fancy or “extra.” Believer, you’re united to Christ! You have the Holy Spirit illuminating your mind according to God’s Word. Set your gaze on your Savior—he is your righteousness. I hope this article ignites your imagination and sparks ideas for teaching your kids biblical sexuality right in the middle of the tumultuous, holy ordinariness of family life.

God Uses Ordinary Things

I’ve spent much of my motherhood reading books to find the fail-proof method for Christian parenting success. Alas, there is no “fail-proof method.” And while my personality inclines me toward theoretical principles, parenting insists on being practical.

Doctrine takes shape in our mundane rhythms and practices because, as Colin Buchanan put it, “what we believe about God comes out in what we do.”^[1] In the Lord’s economy, your boring days are eternally significant. God uses everyday disciplines, known as the ordinary means of grace, to work out his purposes in us. These include being part of a local church, reading the Bible, praying, and singing together (the singing may feel weird at first, but you’ll grow to love it!).

But prayer is our foundation. John Bunyan said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”^[2] When we believe that we depend wholly on Jesus—he saves us, he sanctifies us, he keeps us, he fills our lungs with each oxygen-giving breath—we will pray.

So, with that groundwork, here are some ideas for practically applying theological truth in your family’s day-to-day life as you shepherd your children in biblical sexuality.

Biblical Sexuality and Our Creatureliness

The key idea: God is the Creator and we are his finite creatures; he has the right to direct our lives.

Biblical sexuality depends on believing that our Creator is good and knows us better than we know ourselves. His direction is for our good, even when we don’t understand or like it. This brings clarity about all kinds of sexual struggles, maybe particularly transgenderism. Knowing our creatureliness also helps us work and rest well. It humbles us. Unlike God, we are finite, limited. We can’t provide everything we need for ourselves, and we’re not supposed to try.

For younger children, learning to obey parents is the foundation that supports everything else. When children know that their parents who love and protect them are in charge, they know safety. They learn to submit to appropriate authority, and they get to taste the happiness of living within God’s good boundaries (see Eph. 6:1–4).

Prompt older children to see that trying to take care of ourselves is part of sexual sin—defining our own identity and turning to masturbation, fantasy, or porn happens when we don’t believe God has provided what we need. But in Christ, we get to lean on the everlasting arms of our Creator and Savior for help, soul-satisfaction, and protection.

Here are some ideas for communicating our creatureliness:

• Capitalize on daily routines to chat about how people need bedtime, baths, food, playtime. . . but God doesn’t need anything!

• Foster curiosity about science—the whole world is God’s handiwork.

• During play, point out that things (and our lives) work better when they do what they’re designed to do. You can ask, “What would happen if you tried to float your toy car on a lake?” or “Would a balloon stay stacked on top of these blocks? Why not?”

• Have regular, age-appropriate sex talks. Nothing’s off the table; talk about masturbation and other sexual struggles. Regularly ask your teen how they’re doing and pray with them, pointing them to their Maker who forgives their sin, provides a way of escape amid temptation, and has the power to change their heart’s desires.

• Introduce and help older kids consider the communicable and non-communicable attributes of God; what does it mean to be made in God’s image?

• As a family, accept your limits and resist overcommitment; gratefully receive times of rest.

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