How do we hand down our faith to our kids? We teach them to read, play sports, learn languages and music, but faith is a different deal. The promise of salvation is to you and your family, today we discuss how we pass the promise.
How do we hand down our faith to our kids? We teach them to read, play sports, learn languages and music, but faith is a different deal. The promise of salvation is to you and your family, today we discuss how we pass the promise.
I live in anxiety concerning my children, who in this harder, crueler, and more mocking world into which I have survived, must suffer more assaults than I have. But I'm one who came out of Egypt, and pray God, none of my seed shall return tither, writes J. R. R. Tolkien in a letter to his son in 1963.
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Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture.
This is raising joyful children in an angry world. I'm your host, Paul Osborne. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, considered by many the father of fantasy literature. But you may not be aware, he lost his father and mother at a very young age when he was raised in an orphanage. He faced the ravages of world war. was traumatized by it, yet he sees the world for his children harder and crueler. He recognized that he was rescued as a slave in Egypt, yet as a parent being freed by Christ, he prays to God is that his children do not return to Egypt. He prays that his children don't fall for what Israel did, though they were warned by Jeremiah in chapter 42, 15. If you would turn your face to Egypt, the very sword of which you are afraid will reach you there. Prophecy came true when Babylon invaded Egypt, today, Egypt would be the technocratic world, our society stripped of mystery, romance, and God. Eugene Peterson calls it the predictable place that looks safe, but ensnares us and strips our life of meaning. And we pray our kids don't fall for The greatest concern parents have is how to successfully pass down their faith to their kids. Tolkien recognizes the inheritance lies not in our skills, but in the hands of God, which is the safest place for our concerns. How do we hand down our faith as we look at the angry culture in America? It causes us anxiety. This past week, a couple of stories took place in my family that most likely have happened in your family. But they demonstrate the challenge of passing down the faith. I believe they also help demonstrate What is necessary and what we do, by what we offer. Now one of my grandkids attends a school that if you don't have a behavior infraction, you get to pick something from the teacher's treasure chest. Rather than the humiliation of wearing a dunce cap, your good works get you a reward. My granddaughter missed being able to get to her treasure due to her first infraction. Oh, she was upset. And it called to my memory a time when her mom turned a card. That was the way her school did these behavior infractions. And she was upset. This type of behavior management is necessary. Decisions have consequences, good and bad. But behavior management is not the gospel. It's not grace. But it does lead us to the need for grace. In fact, it can lead us at the youngest of age To either just regret the consequences for the behavior without really seeking forgiveness, or it can drive us to seek forgiveness and restoration for the offense. But you see, part of the challenge, if you're a parent, you're going to take a phone call. It might come from the teacher, your kid gets in a fight at school, or there's some behavioral thing that happens. And our tendency is to rush into behavioral management and try to get it corrected. and miss the opportunity for the gospel. The second challenge I want to say though, is the pride that starts in us at a very young age. My grandkids love stories, and I usually make them up. And so, a couple of days ago, my two grandkids were staying here, and they asked for a story, and so I had created one that kind of mixed a little of Narnia with the Garden of Eden. It was a story about a village that all the grandkids had visited. With lots of fun things and great things to eat and do. And the dodger of the village, he's like the governor, said there was one rule and that was not to visit Farmer Winky. A man he called Stinky Winky because Farmer Winky put people under a spell of working on his farm and never paying them. Of course the kids get tricked by old Stinky Winky and they have to be rescued. And when they come to the Dodgers study after being rescued, they're expecting, as one child said, Ooh, are they going to get a whooping? But no, instead they're led through confession, repentance, and forgiveness. The story, however, required one of the older grandkids to be the first to get fooled by Winky's promises and sort of lead the others to see the farm. Well, when my granddaughter asked me to tell this story the second time and I used her, she said, Hey! Why do I have to be the one that got tricked? Why can't it be my cousin? See, oh, the pride of self righteousness that's in us at the very youngest of age. I don't falter for the request, but I saw the pride. I'm a good kid. I'm the elder brother. I'm not the prodigal. And this is the two folded challenge. We have behavior management. It instructs us that we get what we deserve. If we forget to offer, though, absolution for sin, it can lead to pride. Yet, we have to enforce the rules. Right? We're in a world that's trying to undo the rules. And so we, we of course have to have rules and responsibility and personal responsibility. But also, we have to have forgiveness of sins. The second thing that happens, though, when we disconnect it is, We start to build pride and then resistance to seeing ourselves as being capable of the one that took the bait. Nobody wants to be like Edmund in Narnia who betrays his friends as he's fooled by the White Witch with some candy called Turkish Delight. But in truth We all have Edmund, a tipping point that's in us, and need, like he did, the gospel. The rule keeping sometimes can lead to our pride, and it all teaches us to think, Oh, we're good, and it can sometimes make us recalcitrant to repenting. We can't stop enforcing behavior, but we can't overlook the pride it can create. And so what we have to practice then is a time for confession of sin. Parents have to extend absolution to their kids for their sins. Preferably this exercise should be led by the father, but it has to be done without compromising the standards of the home. We have to teach it. And we have to offer it. Now, the term absolution of sins means the power to forgive sins. And some parts of Christianity believe this power is something that belongs to priests or clergy, but not laymen. However, God created the office of mother and father before that of priest and clergy. And the power that parents have. is not just forgiveness, but it is extending the power of the gospel to absolve the sins of their children, to bury it at the sea. It's a pardon. Parents are the church at home, and they reflect the grace of God to their kids. Your infraction is forgiven. You're absolved of the consequences of the act. Go and sin no more. Sure, we can't drive back to school and get our hands into the treasure that we were denied because of our actions. But we can absolve our kids of the sin. Forgive them so that when next week comes, they have a clean slate to get the treasure. When I first moved to Texas, We had trouble finding a church. And one of my kids wanted to go to a youth group at a, what I call a big box, mega church, and so we agreed. She came home one night and informed us that she was the only kid that knew the Ten Commandments. Now, I'm not saying this boastfully because this was just part of the church that we were in before we moved to Texas and was common of churches to teach the Ten Commandments and even recite them usually once or twice a year in the worship service. So, the kids knew this. In the mega church, in the big box church, very few of them teach it. The catechisms, the Book of Common Prayer, they were created for parents to teach the Law of God at home. And when parents teach the Law of God, it gives them the opportunity to forgive their kids as their kids see the need for forgiveness. Teaching the law then allows you to practice the absolution of sin. You become the priest of your home, and sometimes that forgiveness removes the sin, but not necessarily the circumstances it caused, but it always absolves the sin. In leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, the painting captures the faces of the disciples when Jesus tells them that one of them has betrayed him. They look shocked. Peter, you can see him with a knife in his hand, kind of holding it behind his back. Others are grouped together trying to figure out who it is. Some ask, is it me? Not even understanding it. There's a little bit of pride, though, and reluctance. And then, as the night ends and you move further into this week, these same disciples, not betrayers, but more of abandoners. They kind of leave the scene. They fall asleep when he's asked them to stay up in prayer. And yet, later in the gospel, Jesus comes back to his disciples. He absolves them of their sins. To hand down our faith, we must offer the gospel, so that our kids taste forgiveness. And then that taste, that appetizer for forgiveness, drives a desire for greater forgiveness that comes from God alone. The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong. Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.