What Parents Owe Their Children
A Lifestyle of Love – part one
Do you ever remember this game? You’d just met and spent some time with a very special person of the other gender. The gleam in their eyes, the smile on their lips… you can’t stop thinking about them. When they’re around, you feel completely at ease, and all knotted up inside too. So you’re out walking around trying to figure out what’s going on with you. You see a flower, and you play this little game: “She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me.”
Who invented this game? Who decided that flowers have some kind of mystical capabilities to inform us about the emotional tendencies of someone else? Did Sir Isaac Newton sit under a flower once, see his future bride and suddenly a petal fall from a flower? Was Shakespeare sitting in a flower bed pulling petals off a rose when one of his famous sonnets came to him? Did the Apostle Paul decide to remain single because of the decision of the infamous flower-they-love-me-not assessment?
What a terrible way to examine someone else’s love.
Of course I’m being facetious. But I’m on to something. How many of us have wrestled with ourselves all night wondering if someone that we loved, loved us in return? How many of us have worried ourselves sick, afraid that our love will be unrequited by a gentle stranger we met just a few days ago.
How many of us have wondered about how true the love of a good friend actually is? How often have we engaged the doubts sneaking around in the back of our mind about the genuineness of the love we sense from a friend, a neighbor, a parent… a spouse?
We all want and need to know that we are genuinely loved. This is a fundamental and rather significant need of each individual and all of humanity. And it is a need we begin to face rather early in our lives, isn’t it. Children have a very real need to know about love – not just to hear about love through stories, through games, through church. They need to know love, firsthand.
Children need to see someone else practicing love on a daily basis, in the carefree moments of the morning, in the festival of recreation we call the weekend, in the daily grind of going to and coming home from work, in the nightly ritual called bedtime. In the middle of our worst days, in the heights of our most strenuous moments, in the center of the arguments in our marriages, children need to see love practiced, alive, and thriving.
This is no easy task, because love, while very much a part of our eternal design, tends to elude us. It is a far more selfless practice than we’d like to admit. It requires more energy and effort than often we’d like to commit. But love is the highest and holiest of human endeavors. Love draws us toward Heaven, grows us toward God and shapes us like Christ like nothing else we do as people.
And as daunting and difficult as this may be, it is a goal towards which we must climb. Too many children, too many toddlers, too many teenagers grow up in a world where the only definitions of love they see are the ones presented by the media. Too many children in our schools never see the selfless nature of love in their daily lives. Too many children in our neighborhoods never know the kind of giving and generous love of our faith. Too many children in our own homes grow up, on one hand knowing they are loved, and on the other, never being entirely sure about this Agape love we keep talking about.
And that, parents, is our job description. We as believers in Jesus must live a life that demonstrates, for all to see, especially our own children, the love that God has given us, and that we are to give so freely to one another.
So this morning, let’s talk about this lofty goal – Living a Life that demonstrates love so that the children around us can discover love firsthand. What do parents owe their children? Parents who want to point their children to the God of Creation, owe them a lifestyle of love.
[prayer]
So where do we begin? Who do you know that has done a fabulous job living a life that demonstrates love? Who do you know that has done a perfect job of living a lifestyle that demonstrates love?
Well, how about Jesus? Does not the God-man Jesus live a life that demonstrates love? At a time in human history when it seems that no one understood the nature and make-up of God, Jesus comes and lives among us for a time. And as he does, he lives a life of love – selfless, sacrificial, generous love. All the while he is saying – this is Father’s heart. This is how God is – love. Jesus lived for us and for all of humanity a lifestyle of love.
I want to look at a story of Jesus, three stories from our gospels that describe Jesus encountering the people. And in each story I think we’ll discover one of the ways Jesus lived a lifestyle of love. In each story, notice the little things that Jesus does. This isn’t a look at the over-arching theological purposes of the narrative, we’re not diving into the metaphysical aspects of God’s grand plan. Instead, look at the details. Look at what Jesus actually did and what that communicates about His heart and His love.
We begin in John 11.
In John chapter 11 we read about Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, being very ill. In fact, Lazarus is so ill, that very quickly, the illness will take his life. The family of Lazarus, knowing Jesus and His love for them, sends word. “Lord, the one you love is sick." (John 11:3) But when Jesus hears of the illness, he waits.
After a few days, then he heads to Bethany. But as he travels, Lazarus dies. He dies and is buried. And many people come to comfort his sisters Mary and Martha. And as Jesus approaches town, Martha runs to him and in her grief sobs and sorrows, “…if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:21)
She leads Jesus to the tomb where Lazarus has been laid. And yes, I know you know the rest of the story. Jesus says a prayer, says “Lazarus, come out!” (vs 43) and the dead man is alive again.
But don’t miss the diamond hidden in this story. Look with me in the middle of the story. We’ll pick it up in verse 28.
28…she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
Notice how quickly Mary moves when she hears that Jesus is on the scene. Clearly this is a close relationship between Jesus and this family: Mary, Martha and Lazarus. How easily, we hear their names frequently in the gospel stories and never see their faces – faces that were obviously precious to Jesus, not only as human beings as part of his mission, but also as people he loved.
Continue reading with me.
32When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
Now you did hear that didn’t you… The text could just move on with the story. But John wants to make sure we know something about what’s going on inside of Jesus, “…he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Jesus isn’t upset about the legalism of the Pharisees, he’s not frustrated with the faithlessness of the people, he’s not grieved by the lack of commitment of the followers… this is a personal troubling.
34"Where have you laid him?" he asked.
"Come and see, Lord," they replied.
35Jesus wept.
36Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" John 11:28-36 (NIV)
Now I know that John 11:35 is an all time favorite memory verse for all little children forced to find some verse from the Bible they can quote quickly and get a little sticker. But in two words, in the shortest verse in scripture, John, via the Holy Spirit, lets us in on a gigantic secret. God has feelings. And not only does God have feelings, God can be touched by the pain of our lives.
A couple of years ago some good friends of ours asked me to speak at a funeral for them. I sensed that my friend was in a great deal of pain, with many still unresolved issues around this loss. So in a small funeral home in a small town in West Texas, during the funeral service I turned to this text.
Isn’t this incredible? Jesus, the performer of incredible miracles, the Lamb who will take away the sins of the world… He who was with God at the beginning of time in all creation, He who will stand before God at the end of all time as Judge… The one who walks on water, turns water to wine, opens the eyes of the blind, opens the ears of the deaf; the one who will in 60 seconds raise Lazarus from the dead – This Jesus walks into Bethany, sees the immense pain of people he loves and is moved to tears.
Jesus, who has all the power of Heaven itself at his fingertips, is tender to the feelings, the pains, hurts and the grief of this family. There are no defenses protecting Jesus from their hurt. There’s no stoic savior, rising above the petty, immature emotions of humanity here. Jesus allows their pain to penetrate his heart. Not only does it get into Jesus, this hurt gets to Jesus. It touches him and it shows up on his face.
Don’t confuse Jesus and his motives with modern day politicians: “Oh there’s a camera, I’m at a funeral, I’d better squeeze out a tear…”
This is a genuine moment of shared suffering. This is the suffering servant, suffering this moment the pains of the people he loves.
And if Jesus is this tender, how then should we live?
“Kyle, are you telling us we should wear our hearts on our sleeves?”
No, I’m telling you that we need to start tearing down some of the armor we’ve picked up over the years to shield ourselves from the feelings of others. I’m telling you that we’ve got to get beyond this foolish idea that being a grown-up means never feeling or expression emotion in front of others.
When you sit down with a friend and they tell you about how terrible their Thanksgiving really was, do you think to yourself, “Thank God, I’m not him…” Or instead, do you allow the pain of their life to touch and show in yours? When a friend is walking you through the anxiety and pressure her life is under right now, can she tell that you’re touched by her struggle?
When your mate comes home from work wearing the day on their face do they find compassion and empathy on yours? When you come home from work and your spouse has dealt with 8 hours of the children at their loudest, whiny-est and most exhausting effort, can your spouse tell that you are touched by their strain?
When your child is just sure the world is coming to an end because their best friend told a secret they never should have told, or when they’ve been summarily rejected by the newest love of their life, or when their favorite doll just lost an arm… Do your children find in you a tenderness, a transparency, not just an ear listening, but a heart engaged with them?
What do parents owe their children? A lifestyle demonstrating love in tenderness.
What does this look like in real life? There’s a commercial that’s been airing lately, advertising TIVO, the digital recording device that “lets you pause live TV.” I managed to snag this commercial off the air. Take a look:
[P.E.V.R. commercial]
Now I play that commercial for a couple reasons. One, its funny. Two, it speaks to what we’ve just talked about – we need to display tenderness. Third, it actually pokes fun at a nasty habit we have. We have this habit of wanting to find easy ways to take a quick brush at showing people we care, without having to really give up anything or get too emotionally involved.
That won’t work here. There’s no technology that replaces a tender heart. And we need to be people who live a lifestyle that demonstrates tenderness. While your children are young and at home, be tender to the moments of their lives. Do you want them to be honest with you? Honest about the frustrations, the fears, the passions, the temptations, the hurts of their life as they grow up? When they’re so in love they think they’ll die? When they feel so alone, they don’t want to live? Want them to be open and transparent then? They you need to be tender now. You need to let your heart be touched and be seen now. Or when they grow up, they’ll follow your example. And when the trials of their life come, they’ll be quite sure that being mature means keeping it to yourself and facing it alone. And trust me… you won’t know what they’re going through.
That is not how it’s supposed to work
Do what it takes to live a lifestyle that demonstrates love through being tender – to friends, to your spouse and to your children.
