Childless Cat Lady & Family Values

Episode Transcript

Ethan (00:00):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture
The Childless Cat Lady andFamily Values.
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
J.
D.
Vance earlier in the politicalseason talked about childless

(00:21):
cat ladies trying to run thecountry and our families.
And it got huge attention in thepolitical season.
And then Taylor Swift endorsedhis opponent as a childless cat
lady.
I mention this not to support orcondemn Senator Vance, but a
reminder of the ridiculousnessof the political playbook and

(00:44):
thinking somehow these peopleare going to help you teach your
children about morals and ethicsthat are always being debated in
this political world.
In the Lord of the RingsTreebeard, he's asked about
which side are you going to beon?
And he says, I'm not altogetheron anybody's side because nobody

(01:08):
is altogether on my side.
I think the first step inteaching kids about morality is
for parents to get away from thepolitical sides as it relates to
ethics in these debates and turnyour attention to what God has
to say.
Who is totally committed to yourside.

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It is a challenge for theChristian parent to teach right
and wrong, particularly inholding onto the gospel.
So the kids don't becomejudgmental or legalistic or even
worse rebel against it allbecause they don't have the
power of the gospel and to dothis in a society that is
deeply.

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Deeply into personal choice whenit comes to ethics or even
morality and the morality of Godin this society is supposedly a
private matter.
So I think we have to start thisunderstanding, well, what are
ethics and what are morals?

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And one way to think of ethicsis that's what's defined by
people as to what people thinkwe ought to do according to the
societal norms.
And it's why we need to teachmorals to our kids, the moral
law of God, because society'sstandards of what's normal is
always changing.

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And in our society, if youlisten to most of the arguments,
frankly, sadly on both sides,they're always based on
pragmatic outcome.
And we're going to find ourstandards changing because
outcomes change.
And this fluid ethics that isproduced an abundance of

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confusion.
About everything moral,including sexuality, and life,
and rights, and liberties, andfreedom.
And, I think as a parent, youhave to take this seriously
because to not do so, you'regoing to find your kids getting
swallowed up into thissituational ethics.

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Self driven virtue.
Moral ambiguity.
And probably joining a side, aside of many who have debased
and confused ideas about what isright and what is wrong.
I think first principle, andwe've got to kind of work our
way backwards, is that right andwrong is not based on outcome,

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not what is based on pragmatic.
It is based on what thetranscendent God who made you
and the world.
Has stated and our principle iswe do this on principle if I can
use that redundancy, but you dothe right thing, regardless of
what you think is going tohappen, you admit if you've told

(04:00):
a lie, regardless if it meansdamage to your reputation or
whatever consequences might comefrom telling the truth.
The first principle is notdependent on, by the way,
parents having followed thisadvice when they were young
people.
One of the reasons that I hear alot of people don't kind of get
into this is because they don'twant to be a hypocrite.

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You know, when I was a littlekid, I did this, or when I was a
teenager, I did this.
No, no, no, that's your pride.
Don't let it stop you fromcommunicating what you are told
to do by God.
You know, start with the, thefear of God is the beginning of
wisdom.
And so lying is, is wrong,regardless if I lied.

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And it doesn't matter what Idid.
I don't owe an account to mykids about what I did as a
child.
I owe that account to myparents.
That's how this hierarchy works.
So first principle is, we dowhat's right regardless of
outcome.
Secondly, we are informed thatwhat is right and what is wrong,

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the moral law of God, comes fromGod, comes from the Bible, the
wisdom literature, the words ofJesus.
And while we can recognizenatural law, the philosophies of
men in this regard, but only inthe sense in which natural
understanding of what is rightand wrong aligns with God's word

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in this second principle.
I would say it this way, theright things are not ours to
decide.
So be careful about giving yourkids too many choices in which
you start to think, well, as achild, I get to choose
everything, including what'sright and wrong.
That has to be the secondprinciple.
We do the right thing regardlessof outcome.

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Principle one, the right thingis not ours to decide.
Principle two.
And then thirdly, as we've oftensaid, it's law and gospel.
So the third thing you have toteach in doing this is that the
human condition is not capableof being moral apart from the

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work of Christ via the HolySpirit in our life.
So, so, you know, turn down thethings where we say, Oh, just,
just say you're sorry.
Amen.
Slow down the, I'm sorry, andthen that's the end of it.
And start teaching to confessthe sin that you did, asking God
for the forgiveness of that sin,and then asking God to help you

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stop doing the sin.
Third principle, we need God todo the right thing.
So we do the right thingregardless of outcome.
The right thing is not ours tochoose and we do the right thing
via grace and power ofChristianity and of what the
Lord has done for us.

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We have to teach also that We'renot appeasing God in, in, in the
keeping of the law, that we'remaking some sort of sacrifice to
satisfy his wrath, that this issomehow earning our way to
heaven because that too becomesa violation of the law.
It becomes idolatry.

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Our kids need to know That sin,the breaking of God's law,
results in God's wrath.
That is clearly stated in thebook of Romans.
And that God's wrath is afearful thing, which is why we
have to trust God forforgiveness and why the gift of
forgiveness and the satisfactionof God's wrath is such a

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blessing.
You can have two kind of, uh,Camps in Christianity that'll
get this confused.
One is a fancy word calledantinominalism.
It means no law.
So everything is grace.
Everything's good, all good.
And there's never anycondemnation about the law.
That's not helpful.

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We have to understand.
What is the, you know, what issin and what does it mean to
have sinned against a holy Godand what it means to be restored
and forgiven.
Christianity can also get intodeal making where we get into
the old sacrificial system.
Well, I'm going to do this tosatisfy God's, God's wrath, or I

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do this to make God happy.
And again, you're, you'remissing the gospel.
We can't just teach moral lawwithout bringing in the gospel.
And these two mistakenapproaches, what they fail to
deliver, the big thing that theyfail to deliver is certainty.
Instead, they provide anxiety.

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Christianity has to beproclamational.
In other words, repent, confess,and now you're forgiven.
And now ask God that you don'tsin going forward, even though
we know we're going to have togo through this again.
That's proclamation of thegospel.
And when you don't get thateither in the fluid, self

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generated virtues of the currentsociety, Or you get it in trying
to totally keep the law as ameans of salvation, or you
believe in a sacrificial systemof the law, you're going to
produce anxiety, you're notgoing to produce certainty and
this mental health crisis thatyou read about if you, if you

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follow any of the significantpapers in Western society, the
London times, the New Yorktimes, the wall street journal,
this is a continual problem thisweek.
The Times reported in King'sCollege that the number of
students who were selfdiagnosing and reporting mental

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health difficulties had tripledfrom 2016 17 calendar year to
the 22 23.
Rising from 6 percent to 16%.
Professors were talking aboutstudents, leaving messages.
I can't come to class becauseI'm too anxious about it.
I can't take the test because Ihave anxiety.

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And we see evidence of thisanxiety throughout America in a
mental health crisis thatcontinues to try to dish out
antidepressants and, and, andcounseling without the power and
the proclamation of law andgospel.
And lastly, I want to get intois, is we've got to teach our

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kids what a sin is.
Don't assume that your childfully understands what a lie is.
Use the Bible stories to talkabout lies, the commandments and
the Proverbs about this.
Use the wisdom literature toteach them and explain to them
what a lie is, why it's wrong.

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how it offends God, theconsequences that lying leads
to, and what we must do when welie in regards to confession,
repentance, restoration, andtransformation by the Holy
Spirit.
We have to proclaim forgivenessto our kids when they make the
confession that the full grasp,the weight of sin has been

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removed.
We got to teach the positiveside also of morality.
Which is to speak the truth inlove, to love our neighbor, to
preserve life, to livefaithfully in our family, to
experience the freedom that thegospel gives us, to honor our
parents, to worship God, all ofthe positive things that we need

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in terms of teaching morality.
It's not just a bunch of thoushall nots, but we've got to
also include the thou shalls andthe benefits that God gives us
and the love that is in the law.
I want to close because thereality of the childless cat
lady, Jay Gresham Maycomb, whowas a very politically active

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theologian he made observationsthat a society of people bound
up living under and in thebondage of sin who do not have
the gospel cannot be transformedwithout the saving power of the
gospel.
And all of our rationalapproaches and all of our
outcomes regarding ethics andmorality in the political

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structures are ineffective.
Because the sin nature.
That Luther describes in thebondage of the will that
Augustine talked about in hisdebate with Pelagius cannot be
set free merely by rationalunderstanding.
The focus of ourtransformational goals ought to
be in our homes and our familiesin which we teach our children

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the law of God.
The morality of the Creator, thereality of our condition, and
the spiritual practices in whichour God, in the power of the
Holy Spirit, transforms us intothe people who trust the promise
and follow Christ.
We have to certainly pray forour neighbors and come to this

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understanding that we shouldshare the gospel.
But our main responsibility whenour kids are in our homes
involves their souls and givingthem the wisdom to live that is
provided in the proclamation oflaw and gospel.
This week, the highest court inthe United Kingdom is going to

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decide the legal status of whatit means to be a woman.
Not a man, by the way, but awoman.
Christian parents, we cannotcount on societal ethics and
even of the most learned in thelaw.
For the most learned lost thelaw, the law of God, a long time

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ago.
Turn your focus to the souls inyour own home.
Preach the law and the gospel,sin, forgiveness, and mercy.
And transformation.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to

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believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.