Broken Hearted Child

Episode Transcript

Ethan (00:00):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture
In 2021, Eric Clapton and RobinManatti wrote a song called
Heart of the Child.
It was released to express theirconcerns about the COVID Vax for

(00:21):
kids.
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
The essence of this song wasdon't break the heart of your
child by letting the fears ofthe world get into you.
It seems to deal with thephysical as well as emotional.
And it's at Touchy subjectbecause it takes us to the heart

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of parental anxiety and theconnection between trust and
fear.
See Clapton and Menotti did nottrust the institutions telling
us vaccines were safe for kids.
And of course, those vaccinatingtheir children, they didn't
trust those who didn't trust theinstitutions.

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You see, this song helps us seethe relationship between trust
and fear, but It leaves us inthis nowhere land in which
confidence can be bestunderstood.
By what you cannot trust, we endup in these kinds of

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conversations, willing only totrust ourselves.
And this generates this strangemix, pride and anxiety and
uncertainty.
And it's not how we want tofocus the eye of our child's
heart to only trustingthemselves.

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Man, I'm not trustingpharmaceuticals or not trusting
those that don't trust thepharmaceuticals.
It gets down to really the heartand go back to this arguments on
both sides.
See, one side would say it'sself evident.
Look.
Kids aren't getting sick fromthis.
They're not dying from it.
And of course the other sidewould say, look at the death

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count and look at this example.
It's self evident.
And this is where you get caughtup in a mess.
We tend to forget.
We tend to be like the world andforget that the child that God
has given us comes with a brokenheart.
And it's going to require adifferent kind of attention,

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prioritization of getting ourkids to the great heart
physician, the Lord Jesus, whocame to replace our hearts.
As the prophet says, he willwrite his law on it.
He'll put his passions andpurpose and joy, fill it with
grace, live within it, fill itwith all truth and courage and
how love works.

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See, the heart of the child isultimately.
To build trust and it's to buildtrust that is not based on what
is self evident But what isfaithful and trusting the
promise of God.
This is what is so difficultabout doing it One of the good
parts is is that our childrenare Like Jesus says, you have to

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come like a child to trust him.
And they are willing to trust.
And so I think one of the wayswe get to this ultimate issue
with our kids is we have to tellthe Bible stories.
The word faith commits byhearing and one of the ways we
can do it is by telling thestories and telling them in a
complete and fulfilling way.

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I have an example recently.
I had again the 5th and 6thgraders.
I've been in and out of thisclass as a sub.
We were on the story of theBattle of Jericho.
It's normally told to childrenwith, they marched around the
city for six days and on the 7thday they blew their horns and
yelled and shouted and the wallscame down just as God has

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promised.
But the part about the sacreditems.
The sin of Achan, theinstruction of God not to take
the sacred items of gold andsilver and bronze to say that
they belong to the temple ofGod.
Do not keep them.
And Achan ignored theinstruction.
See we find out in this chapter.

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Who did it and why?
Because before Joshua finds outabout the stealing of these
temple items that they weren'tsupposed to do, he has sent his
armies up to battle a placecalled Ai or Ai.
And instead of the hearts of theenemy melting like water, which
had been done over and over,this time their hearts melt like

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water.
And the Israelites get routed.
And many are even killed.
And Joshua is in, he's, he'sjust distraught.
Why, God, did you bring usacross the Jordan?
Why did you let this happen tous?
And God says to him, get up.
Someone disobeyed.

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Someone took the sacred itemsand so the next day they line
everyone up.
And they consecrate themselvesand 8chan comes forward and
admits it.
I coveted.
I sinned against God.
And he ends up in his family andhis clan because they were
complicit.
being destroyed.

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The wages of sin is death.
And they were, they became dead.
They were killed.
And the reason this story isimportant and the way that we
did it.
So we set up a little set ofdominoes.
We took out the 10 commandments.
We had, someone was the lawyer.
Someone was the judge.
Someone was a jury.
And we went through and said,did he break this one?

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Did he break number two?
Did he, and we went through andwe read them and by the end we
concluded, yes, yes.
In our little courtroom, HN hadbroken them all.
And so the penalty and the wagesfor, for sin is death.
And we, and we said, this is, doyou know what self evident is?
No, I don't.
Well, can you count?
Yeah.
One, two, three.

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Yeah.
Count to 10.
Yeah.
All 10 of them.
And we went back through some ofthe words.
You see, it was a self evident,right?
That's what the law is.
And then we pointed to thegospel, which is how we tell
these stories, law and gospel.
What that sin, that that eightchan couldn't resolve it in his
nature.

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He could not affect God's wrath.
So God has to solve it for us.
And God sent Jesus to take ourwrath that we deserved on the
cross and gave us hisrighteousness.
That's how the story was told.
And then we went back and lookedat some of the other stories
it's not self evident that ifyou took some lamb's blood and

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spread it over your doorpost,that the angel of death wouldn't
have taken your firstborn.
It's not self evident.
That when God says, cross thisRed Sea and you're looking at
this wall of water and you'rewalking beside it, trusting in
God's promise, that's not selfevident.
That's faith.
When you go to the Jordan Riverand it's in flood stage and God

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parts it with the Ark of theCovenant, that's not self
evident that you're going to beable to get across it.
In fact, the walls coming downis not self evident.
Why would they come down justbecause you marched around six
days and blew a horn?
Because it's the promise of God.
And we were instructing them andencouraging them to see, Ah,
learn to trust in what God hasdone.

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Learn to trust in what God hasdone, and then discover the
treasures that are in yourheart.
Then discover how your heartascends because it's a new
heart.
See, the world's constantlycoming at us and coming at our
kids with all kinds of weirdadvice about the heart.
Follow your heart.
Follow your dreams.

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Find people that you want to belike and let your heart imitate
them.
Oh, we get this sort of badinstruction.
No, we need a new heart.
One of the things, we're at theend of football season.
One of the things I see thatleaks into our instruction,
becoming behavior managementpeople instead of people of
faith, is we did kind of whatTexas A& M did a while ago.

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They hired Jimbo Fisher.
They give him a mock up.
A fake copy of the nationalchampionship and they say, see
this now, now you go do this.
And it's this self evident kindof you go do it now you go win
it.
And that kind of leaks in.
God declares he's won it.

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It's not mocked up.
He's given you a new heart.
He's promised you this.
His proclamation of being achild of God.
Now go play in the kingdom withthe Holy Spirit inside you and
God's power walking with you.
And trust as you're in thatgarden what Jesus has promised
you.
Trust Jesus and recognize thatsin weakens that trust.

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Learn to repent from it quicklyand receive the forgiveness
quickly.
Secondly, you got to teach yourkids this, this, this treasure
in the heart is really largelyabout forgiveness.
God forgives us.
That's how we're able to forgiveothers.
That's the Lord's prayer.
Don't get the order wrong.
We don't forgive in order to getforgiven.
We are forgiven.

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Therefore, we can forgive.
That's part of our prayer lifeand part of our practice.
And then if we can get thewarning from Luke 14, as we've
talked about in the past, yougotta watch that life doesn't
get so busy that when you'reinvited to the banquet that the
Lord is throwing, that you missit because of activities and

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business activities and familyissues and whatever else
prevents you from going there.
Tell the stories, learn theprayer life, and be cautious
about this thing of what is selfevident.
Sure.
There are things that help uscope through the world and
they're rational and, and, andlogical and all those things.

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And they help us get throughlife.
But man, understand faithdoesn't work just on rational
ideas.
Perhaps the best way isunderstanding it the way Eli
said to Samuel.
Pray that God speaks to theheart of my child.
Teach your children, God, speakinto my heart that I'm in the

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grace that you have given me.
Show me the grace.
Give me a grateful heart.
Help me discover the treasuresthat you have hidden in my new
heart, as well as the courage totrust you in doing and using
what you have given.
And above all, Lord, help me.

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Guard my heart.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the

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Kingdom of Heaven.