Teaching Children To Love EP 26

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Episode Transcript

Ethan (00:00):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture.
If we were to ask, what is themost significant thing our kids
need to know and learn, Ibelieve our God, our Bible, and
every teacher in our faith wouldanswer in one word, love.

(00:23):
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
Jesus taught there are only twocommandments.

Paul (00:31):
Love God and love your neighbor in Paul's famous letter
to the Corinthians chapter 13verse 13 He says we have faith
hope and love but the greatestis love JC Ryle said we needed
to teach our children lovebecause of faith of knowledge
and Without love is useless.

(00:52):
Jonathan Edwards said that loveis the sum of all virtue.
And Thomas Aquinas said that allhuman actions should be
conformed to the standard oflove.
Our faith clearly tells us thatthe greatest thing we need to
teach our kids is love, and itis the hardest thing to teach.
So much of Christian teaching isbaked in proverbs or guidelines

(01:15):
for living.
And the worst of it sometimesemphasizes rule keeping over
love.
And then of course our faithlesssociety makes matters worse.
It tries to go the oppositedirection and teach about the
vice of hatred.
Society speaks about hatred moreand more.
Interesting, there are 16 majorHolocaust museums in America and

(01:38):
more of them around the world.
And yet, last year, we saw arapid rise in anti Semitism.
Our society posts signs.
It speaks about hatred over andover.
It's in NFL end zones and ontheir helmets.
Yet, it seems to have littleimpact.
The absence of knowing God meansnot grasping love.

(02:00):
And it's really why the world isangry.
And until we learn to love,we're vulnerable to envy, and
that leads to outbursts of angerand all sorts of hatred.
We tend to get stuck in theAristotle definition.
He said that love was just thegreat quid pro quo.
We give love to what gives ussomething in return.

(02:23):
And when we stop gettingsomething, Our love sours.
At best, we become indifferent.
And at worst, that old envy andhatred problem boils up.
Our kids will not learn love asan independent study.
Hopefully, they'll gain someunderstanding of love from us as

(02:43):
parents.
But we certainly can't count onschools and our culture to help.
First, I think it's importantthat we cannot know true
biblical love without knowingGod, who is love.
Two of the greatest preachersand teachers of our faith, I
think, bring some wisdom andclarity.

(03:04):
Martin Luther.
Luther said it this way.
The love of God does not FINDbut creates that which is
pleasing to it.
The love of man comes into beingthrough that which is pleasing
to it.
Explain this a little bit.
We tend to love what is pleasingto us.
That's the human definition thatAristotle gave.

(03:27):
We're passive when it comes tolove.
We're only active when it comesto receiving.
We come at love in what wereceive, the feelings we get.
And the best we can really hopefor is a reasonable exchange
between parties.
This kind of love,unfortunately, has a high
failure rate.
God, rather than seeking his owngood, God lets his love flow

(03:52):
forth and he creates good.
God delights in loving thesinner, the unlovable, creating
love in us, and that's whattransforms us from a taker to a
giver.
How can we love properly withoutfirst learning to love God?
who creates love.
This is what Luther is pointingout.

(04:13):
Luther agrees.
Look, the world on a human levelof love is based on an exchange,
but godly love is above us.
It comes from God.
It's the real standard of lovebecause it teaches us that God
loves us not out of compulsion,not because we're lovable, Not
because he gets something fromit, but because God is love and

(04:33):
he simply loves us because he'slove.
Now, none of us lives up to thisstandard.
We can't even grasp it withoutthe gospel.
But without the love of God inour heart, we're not going to be
able to love in a biblicalframework.
The person who does notunderstand God or love, for
example, would believe that thesoulmate is something that they

(04:54):
find.
The person who knows Godunderstands their soulmate is
given to them by the God whocreated.
the soulmate.
God creates love.
We simply are on a human leveltrying to find it.
This past week, Carol Stone, uh,have featured an article in the
London Times.

(05:14):
She said, I'm 81 and I have 55,000 people in my contact list.
It should be easy to find a man,love is classic.
What would make her feel good?
What would remove herloneliness?
It's an exchange ofcompanionship.
It's human love at a humanlevel.
We have to learn to love on ahigher level.

(05:35):
That is to say, to add biblicallove on top of our human recipe
for love.
St.
Augustine brings a little moreperspective.
He said, you know, to live thisgodly life, to live this joyful
life.
We have to be able of beingcapable to evaluate things to
love.
That is to say, in the rightorder.

(05:56):
So we don't love what we shouldnot love.
Or fail to love what we ought tolove.
And we have to have a greaterlove for what should be loved
the greatest.
And the least love for thosethings that should be loved
least.
And once we understand love.
And that God is love, then we'reonly capable to start to

(06:18):
understand what Augustine isdescribing.
We learn to prioritize our loveby understanding God's
priorities of love.
And this, I believe, helps usemphasize The positive in
Christianity rather than simplyemphasizing the negative.
Don't love this, love that.
We have to start with what doesGod love and what does God not

(06:41):
love.
And this of course is going toinclude correction because we
have to care enough and loveenough to confront.
But we have to also teach thepositive side of love.
So how do we do this?
Well, I think we have to startwith our Bible stories, and we
must emphasize God's love inthose stories and explanations

(07:02):
of the Biblical story.
So the story of David andGoliath, for example, has to
include how much God lovedDavid.
And David loved God, that hegave David the victory.
Secondly, I believe we have tokind of practice what it means
to love.
If love involves giving our timeand our talents to those who
cannot pay us back orreciprocate, then we have to

(07:25):
include that in the raising ofour joyful children.
It's the time to visit a nursinghome, the blanket drive, the
food bank.
These are part of the ways thatwe learn to love.
And then the family unit iswhere this really gets put to
the test.
Sibling rivalry should bereplaced with sibling

(07:45):
supportiveness.
Learning to be happy for ourbrothers and sisters successes.
And this is a lesson.
We have to learn over and overand over, but on the positive
side, we can teach it bycelebrating the successes of the
family members in our home.
Let me say again, it's a longprocess, but this is part of the

(08:08):
way we learn to love.
The way God wants us to love.
And lastly, our view of God.
Our understanding of the way Godworks.
That God is sovereign.
In other words, God does notlive up to our standards of
fairness.
We don't all start off in lifeequally.
We don't all get the sametalents.

(08:30):
God doesn't care about that.
He cares about what we do withthe talents that we get and how
we react to the talents he givesto others.
We went into very long detailabout this in the podcast on
talents.
I bring this up, however, todaybecause I believe the culture is
in many ways teaching childrento hate, to be envious and angry

(08:54):
and unloving.
The current philosophy behinddiversity Equity and inclusion
is filled with oxymorons andcircular logic.
It is a contradiction.
The teaching fuels guilt andenvy.
It does not stop hatred.
It creates it and is largelybehind, I believe, the spirit of

(09:17):
condemnation that has infectedso much of American culture.
See, the world tries to say,yes, we need diversity of
talent, but at the same time,Everyone should be given the
same resources so that all areincluded.
But it's doublespeak.
It's contradictory.
It's why, frankly, I found thebook.

(09:39):
Just because, written byMcConaughey, it's foolish.
It's a destructive set ofbeliefs.
The idea that we are different,but must be made the same,
cannot be done.
And when people realize it, itcauses anger and strife.
And we fool ourselves inpretending it can work.

(10:00):
All of nature and the universetestifies that the world is
diverse and therefore cannotstart with the same resources
because the resources are partof the diversity.
We can't make the land oftropical fruit equal to the
plains of grain or salt water tofresh.

(10:20):
Trying to do so just ends updestroying the world and we lose
the benefits of the diversity ofresources that the universe and
the God who created it gives us.
If the sea had the same amountof water as rivers.
We'd go into a drought, and ifthe rivers had the same volume
of water as the ocean, we wouldbe in a flood.

(10:44):
The same holds true in humantalent.
Teaching children to love ishard.
It goes against our humanconception of love, and it goes
against our foolish societaldefinitions of what is fair.
There are two things that weneed to know.
God and his word that instructsus and informs us on how to

(11:07):
practice love in our home.
And secondly, we must understandthat our children cannot drink
the advice of this world on loveand escape its anger.
We have to teach them to feed onthe word of God, the sacraments
that the Lord has given us.
And recognize that Christianityhas an exclusive claim to

(11:30):
teaching love because onlyChristianity says that our God
gave his only son for us becausehe loved us.
Let me close with this, Psalm100, for the Lord is good, His
steadfast love endures forever,and His faithfulness is to all

(11:51):
generations.
You want to pass down a joyfulfamily and your children pass
down a joyful family to theirKids, it all comes down to
understanding the steadfast loveof God that it lasts forever and
the gift is to you and yourchildren and your children's
children.

(12:12):
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
Kingdom of Heaven.