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A Primer on the Family (Troy)

Grace Sensing on April 28, 2024

THE TEXT:

Genesis 1:26–31; 2:15–25

INTRODUCTION

The title of my sermon today is “A Primer on the Family.” By this, I mean a theological or biblical introduction to a right understanding of the family as it exists from God and for his purposes in the world.

But before we dive in, I want to note here at the start that there are going to be a few temptations present as we consider these things. For many of you, you’ve heard these sorts of things for years, and the temptation for you this morning might be to confuse hearing these things with the assurance that you’ve actually been internalizing them and are currently seeking to live them out—that you’re actually taking these things to heart and you’re actually working to order your homes and fulfill your duties as God would have you do them. Now, many of you have been faithfully laboring for years and decades, and I’m not undermining that or saying that your labors are in vain. Our labors bear fruit. Look at your fruit. But remember that James warns us about making sure we are doers of the word and not hearers only. It is easy to confuse hearing the Word, and agreeing with it, affirming that it is good, and right, and true in principle, and actually internalizing and doing it, actually putting it into practice. So my encouragement to you is to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only. And remember Paul’s word to the Philippians, that to repeat things they needed to hear was good for them. So I encourage you to take these things to heart as if you’re hearing them for the first time, put them into practice, and I assure you that God’s Word will not return void in your life. 

Another temptation is for those of you who are single, or divorced, or are currently having a difficult time in your family—or maybe you came from a very broken family. When you hear about the inherent goodness of Christian family—the glory of the family when it is rightly ordered and seeking to fulfill God’s purposes in the world, when you hear about domestic happiness and the fulfillment and satisfaction and joy that is offered in Christian marriages—its easy to let a critical spirit well up within you when you don’t find that to be true for yourself. Its easy for covetousness to rise within you. And from there you can start to think “That’s an idealistic view.” OR “If its so good, why is God withholding it from me?” “I would love to have a happy marriage but my spouse was or is so unreasonable and doesn’t want to work at it with me.” As the glory and harmony of Christian marriage is presented to you, you can choose to react with disgust and disdain or you can choose to affirm what God’s word says about these things, and continue to ask God to fulfill the desire of your heart, and seek to be faithful in everything, even this current affliction, that he’s given to you. “God, You say this is good. I want this for myself. I trust that you have good for me.” And remember that this isn’t a zero sum game. Other people’s happiness does not detract from your own happiness—or at least it doesn’t need to. If you frame your life around the idea that because others have, I cannot have, you will be miserable. The solution isn’t to say, “God, its really unfair of you to give them so much and to give me so little.” It’s to say, “I worship a God who gives abundantly, like he’s done for them over there.” 

Don’t try to minimize in your own mind the goodness of the household, or the goodness of marriage, or the goodness of parenting to appease any discontentment in yourself. Don’t try to convince yourself that you don’t really need a spouse if the Lord has in fact impressed upon you a desire to be married. The way to fight discontentment is not by trying to minimize the value or glory of a good thing that you don’t have; but rather by affirming and exalting the goodness of that thing while recognizing that God gives abundantly more than we could ever think or ask. 

As we dive in, I have two basic questions we’re going to ask and answer today as an introduction to or primer on the Family. 

  1. What is a family?
  2. What is the family for?

WHAT IS A FAMILY?

The State of the Family – Individualism

The first question is simply, What is a family? We may think its almost silly to ask such a basic question. But definitions matter. The fight over the family is a fight over the dictionary. The modern definition of the family is almost entirely antithetical to the Biblical vision. Moderns think of the family as consisting of virtually any amalgam of people agreeing to live together. This can be two men, two women, a married couple with a third sexual partner, a couple of college students and their cat, anything you can imagine. 

This comes from an understanding that as individuals, we get to define ourselves and determine for ourselves what life means for us. Nobody gets to determine what I am or what I’m about or what my purpose in life is. This is what Carl Trueman calls “expressive individualism.” The idea that the most fundamental thing about me, my identity, is unrelated to my connections to other people, whether biological or social. The fundamental thing about me is my own individuality. My own self-definition and self-expression. Nothing outside of me gets to impose its will or obligations or relations on me.

And if thats the case for us as individuals, if that’s the kind of beings we are, then of course the same goes for those same individuals when they form any kind of group. The social group does not cohere because of any transcendent reality, imposed from outside determining what the group is, but rather the community exists only as an expression of the individual’s desire for companionship. They can’t escape that. Its hardwired into us to want to be part of a community, to be in fellowship with others, to be part of a family. But what that community is, according to the world, is something self-defined, self-determined, and self-named. If the two men living together want to call themselves a family, if they want to call that marriage, who are we to say otherwise? They get to determine that for themselves, according to modern thinking. 

And as soon as an individual within the group no longer feels that they are capable of rightly or fully expressing themselves, then they are free to go with absolutely no consequences. You’re free to enter into this community, into this arrangement, whenever you want and you are free to go whenever you want—whenever you feel your not living up to your full potential, whenever you feel the others are holding you back, whenever your just not in love anymore.

So if we start with this individualistic, self-centered view of the kind of beings we are, then of course we will end up thinking that the family is a mere expression of that individuality that is only useful or meaningful as long as it serves the individual’s own purposes. 

The State of the Family – Feminism

More than merely advocating for this alternative view of the family, we live in a culture that has been Hell-bent on destroying the biblical understanding of family for quite some time. They have not only changed the definition of what a family is, but they’ve attempted to destroy the Christian view of family. 

This has been the agenda in our country for decades. Now, the attempts to destroy the family go back to the garden when Satan sought to undermine the family by subverting Adam’s authority, by empowering Eve to make her own decisions. Let her wield the fate of the family. But now, we are living in the wake of a massive satanic revolt on the family that has been moving in earnest in our country for over 100 years. And many of us, if we haven’t been brought up with an alternative positive biblical vision for the family, we don’t realize just how affected by these ideas we really are. These ideas are largely baked into our collective consciousness as a society. No hierarchy, no order. 

And as Christians, seeking to live faithfully to God, we need to battle these assumption in our own lives as if our lives and the lives of our children and the lives of our children’s children depend on it. Because they do. That is what’s at stake here. The lives of our children and our children’s children. The purposes of God in the world to fill the earth with his image-bearers, that the knowledge of his glory might cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. That is what’s at stake in defining what the family is. Now, of course we know how that ends, but it doesn’t end without us living out our lives faithfully according to God’s word and conforming our own families according to his great and glorious vision for them. So for the sake of our progeny, for the sake of our country, for the sake of the glory of God, we need to return to the Scriptures in order to define what the family is. 

Divinely Ordained

Returning to our question, What is a family?

Doug Wilson in his book Why Children Matter offers a helpful definition: “The family is a divinely ordained community. The institution of the family—consisting of one man, one woman, and their children—was created by God, not by people. It is not an arbitrary collection of individuals, and it is not something that mere creatures get to define.” (Why Children Matter, 3)

We see this in our passages we read earlier. Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Now you might point out that that passage never mentions “family.” But we have to understand that marriage—the coming together of a single man and woman—is at the center of the family. New families start with new marriages. I’ve heard a lot of young married couples talk about when they want to start a family. By this, they mean, when they want to start having children. That’s not when the family starts. The family starts at the wedding, when a man and woman are pronounced husband and wife. That is the moment that establishes, that creates, a new entity. Before that moment, July 3rd, 2016, the Wilke’s did not exist and after that moment, they do exist. There’s this new thing called “the Wilke household.” A new household, a new family, has come into existence. 

Now, as Pastor Wilson points out, children are part of the family too, but that’s exactly what they are, they are additions to what is already an established household. Marriage is at the center of the family. And the family is at the center of the household. (I might get into that in a future sermon, Lord-willing).

And who created the family, who establishes it, who defines it, ordains it? Its not the officiant. Its not the couple. Its not the parents. Its God. This is what Jesus reiterates in the Gospels, What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. It is God who created the institution with Adam and Eve. He’s the one who ordains and gives this institution its purpose. AND he is the one who establishes every subsequent family stemming from our first parents. 

In Ephesians 3:14–15, Paul describes God the Father as the one from whom every family in heaven and earth is named. We often think of referring to God as our Father as an analogy of our earthly fathers. God is like my earthly father and so its a fitting title for him. No. Its the exact opposite. God is the archetypical Father. He is the Father of fathers. And all fatherhood, every family on earth, is derived from his fatherhood. 

Covenant Union

So a family is a divinely created, ordained, defined, and named community consisting of husband, wife, and children. But exactly what KIND of community is it? We have lots of different kinds of communities, right? The local Kiwanis club is a community. Your coworkers at the office is a community. Your bowling team is a community. What kind of community is the family? It is a covenantal community. This isn’t just 2 people agreeing to live together for a time as a form of self-expression or simply because of their sexual attraction and mutual affection. No, this community is established by covenant. 

That’s a popular word in our circle, and sometimes we can let it gloss over us. But Pastor Wilson defines covenant as “A solemn bond, sovereignly administered, with attendant blessings and curses.”

A marriage is a covenant union, a bond, established by the taking of vows before God and human witnesses. These are vows of commitment to seek one another’s good, to fulfill one’s duties, to bestow mutual affection and love, and preserve sexual fidelity and exclusivity. Wives vow to respect and obey their husbands. Husbands vow to love and cherish their wives. And these vows are taken in the sight of God. He witnesses these vows, he ratifies them. Those words you say to your spouse on your wedding day, they matter. God holds you to them. They are binding realities. You are responsible to uphold your end of the bargain, your end of the covenant. And whether or not you uphold your end of the covenant, determines whether or not you will receive covenant blessings or curses. 

Covenant Blessings

What are the blessings of marriage? Of course, they are many. The blessing of mutual love and affection in sexual companionship, the delight of bearing and raising children as the fruit of this affection, the pleasure of imaging the Gospel of our Lord in how a husband loves his wife and how a wife respects and obeys her husband. The puritans felt perfectly comfortable summing up the blessings of marriage as simply domestic happiness. By this they didn’t mean a short-lived burst of dopamine—the way we sometimes use the word (happiness as a lesser version of joy)—but rather what the greek philosophers would call eudemonia. The happiness of living life to the fullest. When a man and woman join together in this union, there is potential for joy inexpressible, full satisfaction and delight in what the Lord has to offer in this covenant union.

These blessings are not the result of mere works—nor does God dispense them like a cosmic vending machine—put the prayer in, out pops the blessing. These blessings are covenantal blessings bestowed on faithful men and women by the Father of lights from whom all good and perfect gifts come. Like a good father, God the Father delights in blessing his children. He blesses according to his good pleasure. He delights in his children’s obedience and like a good father, he delights in blessing his children as a reward for their obedience. 

This isn’t some prosperity Gospel, where God is the great vending machine in the sky who dispenses blessings when you put a dollar in the tithe bucket. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the blessings of a good father who delights in blessing his children when they seek to obey him—when they seek to fulfill the duties he requires of them in this covenant union. 

So often we think that pursuing blessing, working for a reward makes us less godly, or less holy. We think, “if I was truly holy, I would fulfill my duties for their own sake, not because I wanted anything out of it.” Is that what Jesus does? Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus endured the cross, why? “For the joy that was set before him.” Jesus didn’t go to the cross expecting to get nothing in return. No he went to the cross because he knew joy was on the other side. He endured the shame because he knew there was a reward for him on the other side. He knew the promise of Psalm 2. He knew that the Father was going to give him all the nations as is heritage if he endured. Jesus wanted blessing. Jesus wanted happiness. And that drove him to be faithful no matter what his spouse did.

Are you doing that in your marriage? It doesn’t matter what your spouse is doing. It doesn’t matter what the kids are doing. It doesn’t matter if they’re failing in their duties. You’re going for the reward! You’re going after the blessing that comes from being faithful to your vows. I’m sure you didn’t add any contingencies to your vows. “To death do us part…if you’re nice to me.” No! You vowed to be faithful no matter what. So do it. Be like Jesus. Go after the blessing of domestic happiness. Be faithful to your duties—what the Lord has called you to do—no matter what. 

Covenant Curses

The covenant of marriage also contains covenant curses. If fulfilling the covenant duties of marriage results in great domestic happiness, what results from the failure to fulfill these duties? Domestic unhappiness, marital strife, bitterness and resentment, broken relationships, burned bridges, children that won’t talk to you, a cold and distant wife, an angry and abdicating husband. Failure to do family the way God tells us to results in the family’s own death and destruction. Sin only begets more sin. 

Have you considered this? If you’re unhappy in your marriage, most likely you’re the problem. Does that mean your at fault for everything? No. Does that mean your spouse is perfect? No. There are plenty of situations in which a spouse or a child can make things extremely difficult for you: addiction to pornography, alcoholism, physical and verbal abuse, refusing sexual or emotional intimacy. There are plenty of sins that your spouse might be doing. But what you need to understand is that your happiness is your responsibility. Are you fulfilling the duties that God has given to you? Are you respecting  and obeying and submitting to your husband whether or not he is respectable? Are you loving and cherishing and leading your wife whether or not she is full of bitterness and resentment? Are you doing these things even when you don’t feel like it in the moment? Did Jesus feel like going to the cross? O course not! He asked God to take the cup from him. Did he go anyway? You bet. For the joy that was set before him. 

Those situations I mentioned are trials. They are extremely difficult trials to work through and to remain faithful in. But what does James tell us? “Count it all joy when you face trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect that you might be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.” Your happiness, your joy, in the midst of trials is your responsibility. Are you going to commit yourself to fulfill your covenantal duties no matter what? Jesus did this. He counted his trial as joy. He endured the greatest trial any human has ever endured and he did it with joy. Was his spouse a bit of a basket case? Yup. Was his spouse deserving of it? Absolutely not. And yet, he did it anyway. For the joy that was set before him. Because of the promised reward of blessing that the Father would give him. 

Most severely, failure to fulfill the duties of marriage and family results in death and damnation. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9 that adulterers, those who break their marriage vow to sexual fidelity with their spouse, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Think about that, apart from Christ, apart from repentance of sin, breaking your marriage vows can send you to Hell. God takes these things seriously.

Now, in our current state, this isn’t the case, but in a godly society with a godly civil government that sought to order its laws according to the wisdom of God’s Word, the civil magistrate would exercise its God-given right to put adulterers to death. That is a legitimate power that God gives the civil magistrate (Leviticus 20:10). God thinks that’s a good idea. 

Our current leaders don’t wield that power, because they don’t value the covenant of marriage, they don’t value sexual fidelity. As we said before, you can just marry and divorce whoever and whenever you feel like it. This is wicked. Think about this, in our current situation, according to the laws on the books right now in the United States, you can be put to death for treason against the government, but if you commit treason against your own family, by committing adultery, there are absolutely no consequences. That shows you where our priorities are as a people. We don’t value what God values. We don’t value preserving the structure and integrity and stability of families. We’re not thinking about the massive, world altering ramifications that come upon families torn apart but infidelity. 

If you think that’s extreme that the government should exercise the power to put adulterers to death, keep in mind, God’s going to do a lot worse than simply putting them to death. And consider just how much we’ve lost the value of family. God says this community is so important, so valuable to human flourishing and to fulfilling his purposes in the world that an attempt to undermine its stability for temporary pleasure is deserving of death and damnation. God values the structure and stability of the family far more than we do. 

There’s a lot to unpack there that we don’t have time for today. But I want you to see that the duties God calls you to in marriage and family aren’t arbitrary. They’re not just a good idea. They are at the heart of what God designed marriage and family to be. 

What is a family? A family is a divinely created, ordained, defined, and named covenant community consisting of a husband, a wife, and their children. 

WHAT IS FAMILY FOR?

OR, put another way, What is the chief end of the family? As a community of image-bearers of God, the chief end of the family is the same as the chief end of man: As the Westminster Confession of Faith says, To glorify God and enjoy him forever. That is what the family is aimed at. That is what the family is ultimately for: the glory of God. This purpose is to guide and direct all activity the family sets itself to. If any activity of the family is not in line with this primary end, this primary purpose, then it is sin and vanity. 

From there, the Westminster Confession of Faith gives us other purposes for the family in the chapter on Marriage. 

WCF 24.2 Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife (GEN 2:18), for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed (MAL 2:15); and for preventing of uncleanness (1 COR 7:2).

You’ll notice that there are 3 purposes here for marriage specifically. The final purpose being the provision of a lawful sexual relationship. Now, because I’m focusing on the family generally, not marriage specifically, we’re going to focus in on the first two purposes and lord-willing, I’ll get an opportunity to address that third purpose of marriage at another time. 

1. For the mutual help of husband and wife (GEN 2:18) 

Genesis 2:18 And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

The question we have to ask is, help for what? What task was Eve to help Adam accomplish? The answer is in 1:26–28 that we read earlier. Adam was to exercise dominion over all of creation. He was to take every part, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, every creeping thing, even the earth itself and he was to impose his will on it. He was to order it, structure it, subdue it, and bring it under his rule. He wasn’t meant to do this as a brute. He’s meant to image the Creator. Just as God created the world and created the sea and divided it and filled it and put animals on the land, Adam was to be like God. He is a subcreator. He’s to take what God created ex-nihilo (out of nothing) and “create” new things. And what’s the constant refrain in God’s work of creation? “God saw that it was good.” God delighted in his creation. As God orders and subdues, he does it with joy and he is pleased with the outcome. So too is Adam’s work of dominion to be a work of joy, of delight, relishing in the glory of his task and that which his work produces. And Eve is to help him in this task of dominion. She was to be by his side as a co-laborer in this work. 

This task, this calling of dominion, has rightly been understood as the “cultural mandate.” Adam was to build a culture. Now, in its infancy, culture is pretty limited to tilling the soil, to planting trees, to guarding and tending the garden (2:15). But culture building over centuries, over millennia, looks like Bach’s concertos, cathedrals, cities, nations, wine, nuclear power plants, iPhones, Christian schools, sports, sourdough bread, and on and on we could go. Could Adam have done that all on his own? Of course not. Not only did he need a co-laborer to help him in his current task of guarding and tending the garden, but all those other things that come out of culture take a lot of time and a lot of people. There’s no way this culture could develop over time without the ability to multiply people. Adam needed Eve’s help in the work of dominion because without her, he remains one man. He cannot take dominion over the whole earth without offspring spreading both geographically across the earth and temporally into the future. Which brings us to the next purpose of marriage, of the family.

2. For the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed (MAL 2:15). 

But did He not make them one,
Having a remnant of the Spirit?
And why one?
He seeks godly offspring.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

The second purpose is that the human race would grow, that husband and wife would be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But notice the purpose is not merely that it would grow. In other words, growth itself is not virtuous, growth itself is not the goal. Growth alone is not enough. As Malachi says, God desires a godly offspring, a holy seed. Its not enough that you have a bunch of kids made in the image of God, you need to bear offspring that image God rightly. God doesn’t want a subdued earth full of pagans. That’s not what he’s after. The prophets regularly repeat this theme, that one day, the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. How covered are the seas with water? How wet is the ocean? That is how thoroughly God intends to expand the knowledge of his glory across the earth. 

And the knowledge piece is important here. God’s glory will be known by creatures. Its not enough for his glory to exist, but that his glory would be set forth and beheld by his creatures. That they would see him and glorify him and delight themselves in him and the work he’s called them to. God seeks godly offspring. He intends to fill the earth with his image-bearers—men and women who rightly and properly reflect his image, his glory, to the ends of the earth. 

Now we might ask the question. But what about sin? Didn’t sin mess all that up. When Adam fell the image of God in mankind shattered. Though still present, it was marred and tainted by sin. Because of sin mankind cannot rightly and properly reflect God’s image no matter how much he multiplies. Which is why Jesus came not only to restore individuals. Jesus came to restore families. You see, the family is at the very heart of God’s purposes in the world. He intends families to be both the driving engine and the building block of his new creation. Apart from families, there is no godly offspring, there is no holy seed. Apart from families, there is no knowledge of God’s of glory spread to the ends of the earth—there are no image-bearers rightly reflecting his glory. 

And so Christ came to restore the family. And now every marriage of redeemed sinners is a walking picture of the glory and delight and joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the bride for whom he died. Every redeemed Father can look on his wife and children and display rightly, accurately to them the smile of God the Father. Every redeemed wife can look on her husband and her children and display the beauty and majesty of God’s redeemed people who are washed clean by the blood of Christ. Every child of the covenant can teach us through simple faith to draw near to Jesus that we might know him and cherish him more and more.

Are you living that way? Are you fulfilling your duties with joy, that you might reflect the smile of God to your spouse and to your children? Are you caring for the needs of your family without whining and complaining? Are you leaning on Christ to give you strength that you might endure with joy, the many trials that fallen and sinful families go through? 

The magnitude of these acts of simple faith for your family cannot be measured. You have no idea how great of an impact these things will have on the hundreds and thousands of people that come from your marriage over hundreds of years into future. You cannot quantify what it means on future nations when you choose to reflect the smile and joy and glory of God to your family.

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Empathy and the Clowns (Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #3)

Grace Sensing on April 21, 2024

INTRODUCTION

Many Christian parents are aware of the fact that the outside world is hostile to our faith, and as a consequence is hostile to the approach we must take in bringing our children up in that faith. We are usually aware of the fact of the hostility, but we are frequently unaware of the root of that hostility. What it is that is necessitating such a radical clash? Why is it that everything seems to have come unstuck?

THE TEXT

“Therefore be imitators of God as dear children” (Ephesians 5:1, NKJV). 

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13–14). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

One of the central ways that children learn is through imitation. This is natural and is built into the very fabric of the created order. Because God has adopted us as His children, we have been brought into the family and household of God (John 1:13; Eph. 2:19). In our first text (Eph. 5:1), we are told to imitate God as His dearly beloved children. Now we know that, in the very nature of the case, we can never duplicate what God is and does. But we are nevertheless commanded to imitate it. Our imitation of Him should naturally carry over into how we care for our own children. He has children, and we should imitate Him in how He treats them. 

Our second text provides us with one point where such imitation will be most fruitful (Ps. 103:13-14). A good father pities his children, and God is just like this also. He too pities His children, showing tender care to those who fear Him. He knows and understands our frame. He is fully aware of our frailty. He remembers that we are but dust. And in just the same way, good and godly parents are sympathetically aware of their children’s frame. Godly parents have sympathy. 

SYMPATHY & EMPATHY

So I used the word sympathy just now, and we must begin distinguishing it from the therapeutic uses of empathy. The word sympathy is of ancient use, and it means to “feel together with.” We have a sympathetic high priest in the Lord Jesus, for example. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling [sympatheo] of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). And we as Christians are commanded to be sympathetic: “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion [sympathes] one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous” (1 Peter 3:8). 

But the word empathy is of relatively recent coinage, and it is used in two ways. One is the man-in-the-street approach, which simply uses empathy as a synonym for sympathy. That’s okay, no bones were broken, and we shouldn’t freak out about it. 

However the other use of empathy is the use that is currently destroying Western Civilization, and is filled with toxic hatred of all that is good. As you are bringing your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, this is the central threat that your children will face. This is what you must protect them from. It is the central danger.

This is empathy as it is being employed by the therapeutic professionals, and their use has worked its way into our laws, our customs, our HR departments, the media, and our courts. Empathy demands that we feel with others without making any judgments about them or their behavior whatever. Their feelings are to be considered paramount, and no questions asked. And if you do not provide this unconditional empathy, on demand, it must be because you are a hater. 

Here is how we may distinguish the two concepts. If a man is drowning in the river, and as he floats by, you throw him a rope, while remaining firmly on the bank yourself, that’s sympathy. If a man is drowning in the river, and as he floats by, you take a header in alongside him so that you might drown together with him, that’s empathy. The difference lies in this—with sympathy, there is an objective solution outside of, and independent of, the person’s feelings. With empathy, those feelings are the only reality that may be considered.  

WHAT THE TRUE DANGER IS

For the sake of clarity, let us call this sort of toxic empathy untethered empathy. But this raises a question. The pathos, the feeling that the person has, is untethered from what? The answer comes at us forcefully, and with the hard and bitter logic of the outer darkness. Feelings, in this understanding, are untethered from absolutely everything else.

This therapeutic heresy, which has insisted on this radical emotional autonomy, has resulted in absolutely incoherent phrases like “my truth.” The demand to untether this way has been a demand, in effect, to “make reality optional.” And it was not long after that when the focus of that coercion shifted and became “make such denials of reality mandatory.” This is the foundation that the pronoun madness rests upon. This is the cornerstone of all the transgender confusion. Take this disordered empathy away, and clown world disappears. Remove the fuel and the fire goes out.  

GRACIOUS TETHERING

What clown world in its lusts is seeking to detach us from—the fixed nature of absolutes—we as believers must be doggedly intent on embracing. “I cling to Your testimonies; O Lord, do not put me to shame!” (Psalm 119:31). The key word there is cling. All the things the worldlings are jettisoning, we must tether ourselves to. And what is that? Perhaps the word tether is too weak. How about weld?

God is the immutable one. God is a rock and His works are perfect (Dt. 32:4). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Second, His Word reflects the constancy of His character. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: But the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8). And third, the objective world reflects the character of God as well. “You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever” (Psalm 104:5). God created nature such that it has a nature. 

And this is why your child’s feelings must be taught to obey God, to obey His Word, and to obey His world. This is why we must obey our chromosomes. This is why we must disobey the pronoun madness.

If you are distraught in the course of bringing up children in this bedlam, and you have come to see empathy as a ravening monster, which it is, take heart. Your rescuer, your savior, your deliverer from this monster is sympathy. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with [sympathy for] our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Always remember you have Christ.

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Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #2

Grace Sensing on April 14, 2024

INTRODUCTION

In order to work through a series of messages on parenting, it is necessary to pay some attention to the parents. The parents are the ones doing the work, and the quality of the participle (parenting) is going to be dependent on the quality of the source. If the parent is foolish, so will the parenting be. If the parent is dictatorial, so will the parenting be. If the parent is wise, so will the parenting be. So rather than turning immediately to the interactions between parent and child, it is necessary to look first at the relationship between parent and God. 

THE TEXT

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:1–3). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Every Christian, regardless of their station, needs to present their bodies (and whatever their bodies do) as a living sacrifice to God. Your bed is an altar, your car is an altar, your chair at the dinner table is an altar, and from that place, all day long, you present your body and whatever your body is doing as a sacrifice to God (v. 1). This would include speaking to your children, and disciplining them. What you do here needs to be acceptable to God, and a reasonable act of worship. We are created as conforming creatures, and so it is not a matter of whether we will conform to a pattern, but rather which pattern we will conform to. Paul says here that it is not to be the pattern assigned by the world (v. 2), but rather that we be transformed through the renewal of the mind, conforming to the entire goodness of the will of God (v. 2). And then we come to the place where we see how it all plays out. It plays out in what we think of ourselves. Do not think of yourself more highly than you should (v. 3), but rather to think of yourselves in a God-given and sensible (sophroneo) way (v. 3).

THREE KINDS OF PARENTS

Parents are assigned the rule of their children. Children are instructed, for example, to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1). They are told that they must honor their parents (Eph. 6:2). They are told that their responsibilities to their parents do change over time, but some sort of responsibility is always there (Mark 7:10-11). We can see if we put all this together that parents are assigned the rule of their children as they grow. This being the case, we can divide parents into the three broad categories of rulers that we find in Scripture. 

A ruler can be foolish and indulgent (Prov. 25:5). A ruler can be foolish and dictatorial (Ecc. 4:13). And a ruler can be wise and prudent (Prov. 20:26). Bringing this down into the micro-kingdom of the home, parents can be indulgent, parents can be tyrannical, and parents can be authoritative. In the nature of the case, the wise parents will be humble, and therefore not that sure about how wise they are being. The dictatorial parent thinks he is simply being firm, and the indulgent parent thinks she is simply being kind. But no one should think of themselves more highly than they should. 

And remember our propensity to guard against the sin we are least likely to fall into. The indulgent parent is all on his guard against tyranny, and the tyrannical father is being very careful to not be too soft. Remember this observation from Screwtape: “The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”

WHY NOT ASK?

At this point it is easy to throw up your hands in mock despair, and lament the fact that this is so hard to figure out. But perhaps the problem is not that it is too hard to figure out, but rather that we are too hard to want to figure it out. Lewis again:

“It is no good passing this over with some vague, general · admission such as ‘Of course, I know I have my faults.’ It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you . . . But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t ‘take it’ . . . And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully. You say, ‘I admit I lost my temper last night’; but the others know that you’re always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person” (The Trouble With X). 

Why not ask? First, ask God to reveal where you actually are on this map. Are you indulgent? Are you harsh? Are you kind and wise? “Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24). And then, having humbled yourself this way, ask one further thing from God. Ask Him to speak to through your family and friends. Then go to them and tell them to please be straight with you. If they are critical, you promise not to get angry or to go weird on them. “Would you describe me as an indulgent parent, a harsh parent, or a wise and kind parent?” Do not do this with one person and then go put their opinion in the bank. Ask 5 to 10 people, and see if you start to notice a pattern. 

LOVE IS

As you evaluate the “parenting” that is going on in your home, do not attempt to tinker with the fruit. All the attention should be given to the tree.

“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17–18). 

And if the examination brings you to a point of humiliation and regret, take it as God’s kindness to you. “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: And let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head” (Psalm 141:5). Do not despair, and do not drop your name into that glorious passage in 1 Cor. 13, in order to overwhelm yourself with a sense of your sinfulness. No . . . put Christ’s name in there, and use that passage to look to Him. 

“Christ suffereth long, and is kind; Christ envieth not; Christ vaunteth not Himself, is not puffed up, doth not behave Himself unseemly, seeketh not His own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4–7). 

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Reformational Family (What is “Reformed” Anyway? #5) (King’s Cross)

Grace Sensing on March 3, 2024

INTRODUCTION

We live in a world that says you can be anything you want, anything at all – the more bizarre and perverse the better, just don’t be an ordinary, faithful man who marries an ordinary faithful woman, and have a pile of happy, ordinary kids and love and serve the Lord together. Anything but that. And the mischievous Tom Sawyer inside you should grin and say, “Well, now I’m going to normal even harder.”

A significant part of the Protestant Reformation was a recovering of the Bible’s teaching concerning the goodness and power of marriage, children, and family. Celibacy had come to be seen as the “higher calling,” and the duties and responsibilities of family as therefore lower and menial. The devil has always sought to lure people away from the glory of marriage and family precisely because when God’s blessing is upon it, it is such potent goodness. 

The Text: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him…” (Gen. 2:18-25)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In a striking contrast to all the “good” that God has made/seen before, God says it is “not good” for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). This is not merely a statement about bachelors, it is also a statement about the goodness of family and community. The process of naming the animals was educational: Adam was naming their attributes and learning about how God made the world, concluding in part that other creatures had mates, which he lacked (Gen. 2:19-20). So God put Adam in a coma, removed a rib, and constructed the woman from the rib and brought her to Adam (Gen. 2:21-22). Using a Hebrew superlative, Adam spoke the first recorded poem, calling her the best version of his flesh and bones (Gen. 2:23). He also names the woman “eeshah” which is related to the word for “fire,” suggesting glory, and he simultaneously renames himself “eesh,” a glorified-man. For this reason, a man leaves his father and mother and becomes one flesh with his wife, and this union has no shame (Gen. 2:24-25). 

NUCLEAR MARRIAGE

It is perilously easy to take some ordinary things for granted. But one of the ways God tries to get our attention is through death penalties. Modern Christians are sometimes tempted to be embarrassed of the death penalties in Scripture for rebellious sons, adultery, or homosexuality, but even Jesus cited the death penalty for a certain high-handed dishonor of parents (Mk. 7). If you met the CEO of a nuclear power plant, and he told you they just “wing it,” you would be understandably concerned. If your neighbors announced one day that they bought some uranium and plutonium off the internet and they were going to be doing some experiments in their basement, you would be very concerned. And it should not give you any pause, when they ask why you care so much about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home. 

We are living in the nuclear fallout of the sexual revolution. Skyrocketing crime, mass incarceration, substance abuse, suicide, sexual abuse, and 65 million dead babies and counting is our Chernobyl. It is not whether there will be death penalties. The only question is who will be executed. We have not actually repudiated capital punishment; we have simply reassigned it to the most innocent. While the death penalty is only mandatory for murder, other crimes do approach that harm to the image of God and therefore allow for death as a possible maximum sentence. And many of those crimes center on the destruction of marriage and family because that is where people are being made: immortal souls, images of God, that will live forever. 

REFORMED MARRIAGE

A reformed view of marriage understands the gift of marriage to be a great “good,” not an accommodation to human sin or weakness (Gen. 1-2). Sin certainly adds many difficulties, but marriage, sexual intimacy, and the fruitfulness of children were gifts given before the Fall. A reformed view of marriage also affirms the creational good of the original structure of marriage: the woman was made from the man and for the man, and she is therefore, the glory of man (1 Cor. 11:1-12). Closely related is the sacrificial leadership of the husband and the respectful submission of the wife to her own husband (cf. Eph. 5:22-25). All of this is bound by a covenant, enacted by public vows and sealed with sexual union, recognized by God and blessed by Him (Gen. 1:28, Mal. 2:14). This is why a man must love his wife as his own body. God really does make the two into one covenant body, and therefore what a husband/father does impacts everything. The covenant is a multiplier for good or evil. While each member certainly is responsible before God individually, the head is also responsible for the whole body. 

APPLICATIONS

One of the “doctrines of devils” is “forbidding to marry” (1 Tim. 4:3). And sometimes this happens through a kind of hardening that simply rejects the natural use of men/women (Rom. 1:26-27). Therefore, beware of celibacy movements. Nevertheless, encourage singles in chastity and faithfulness even as they bear this hardship. Related, generally aim for earlier marriage, but don’t overshoot. Just because early 20s is good, doesn’t mean that 17 is better. It is not buying into worldly feminism to want your sons and daughters actually prepared for marriage. 

To the married: do not deprive one another sexually (1 Cor. 7:3). There are relatively few warnings about Satan’s attacks, but regular intimacy is one way to guard against them (1 Cor. 7:5). The marriage bed is honorable and undefiled (Heb. 13:4). The Song of Songs is in the Bible.

Children are reinforcements (Ps. 127). Welcome and celebrate children. But a man with five kids and a wife who has had three miscarriages in a row is not necessarily becoming worldly to decide (humanly speaking) to be done having kids. But this is a private decision. So mind your own business, and husbands love your wives as you consider your resources (Lk. 14:31).

Every covenant brings with it blessings and curses. The central thing that God blesses is faith, but this faith is alive and it obeys. And therefore the instructions to family members are not arbitrary. Husbands love and lead like Christ. Wives respect and obey in the Lord. Parents teach and discipline. Children obey. The stakes are very high, but the blessings are very rich. 

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Christian Conversation (Troy)

Grace Sensing on February 18, 2024

SERMON TEXT

Proverbs 12:18

INTRODUCTION

As human beings there are many things that differentiate us from the animals. First and foremost, we are made in the image of god. Our penchant for creativity and our desire to invent is derived from this. We make things, design things, prototype things, tweak, bend, and reassess. And we end up with something on our work bench or computer screen or cast iron skillet that didn’t exist the day before. We have flesh like the animals, but we also have a soul. We have been given a conscience, and an innate sense of our place in the universe. And I also think that most men are aware that our purpose in this life has something to do with each other. 

PART I – NEGATIVE TENDENCIES IN CONVERSATION

  1. Complaining

Whether you go to school, work in a corporate environment, own your own business, or you’re a stay at home wife, you can always find common ground in a conversation by complaining about something or someone. Relating to one another is fundamental to relationships. We want people to celebrate our successes, empathize with our struggles, and feel sorry for our losses. But we as human beings are inclined to focus on the negative. 

  1. Corrupt Speech

Ephesians 4:29 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths.” I don’t think we as Christians have much difficulty discerning what is wholesome and what is unwholesome in our speech. The difficulty is restraining the tongue in the first place. For most people the latency between saying something stupid and realizing it was stupid is low. How we all wish we had the ability to instantly retract a statement said in haste. In many cases, saying nothing at all would be an improvement. 

  1. Gossip

Proverbs 20:19 says, “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.” The ESV puts it this way, “Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.” Walter Winchell once said, “Gossip is the art of saying nothing, in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.” Again, there is subtlety here. God isn’t placing a cap on the amount of words we can use in a single day. Some people talk more, some people talk less. And talking about a person when they are not there is not inherently sinful either. The content of what we say is the issue. Does the information spread stop with you? Or, are you ground zero?

PART II – POSITIVE INTERSPERSIONS 

  1. Listen and Build Up

We are to say only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. If our tongue has a tendency to be divisive, cutting, disrespectful, or full of lies, then getting it to do the opposite, encourage, complement, assist, inspire, teach. This is going to be an enormous undertaking, that will require discipline, hard work, rigor, restraint and most of all prayer. As much as we would like to saddle a wild horse and ride into the sunset, the reality is, it’s not going to co-operate until we take the time to break the horse.

  1. Season with Salt

Matthew Henry said, “We are to make our conversation savory and palatable to others, so that it may be profitable to them.” We’ve all known the argumentative person who uses browbeating as a conversational cudgel. We know what it’s like to speak to someone who has no patience or is forceful. And if we don’t like it, what makes us think that the unbeliever will be attracted to it? We must be kind and gentle and loving.

  1. Slow to Speak, Quick to Listen

Ecclesiastes 5 says, “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” And from Proverbs 10, “Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.” And from James 1, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Whatever your opinions are about Elon Musk, It cannot be denied that he is a dynamic figure on the world stage. One thing that I’ve noticed about him, is that when he is questioned in an interview, he often will not respond right away. Sometimes the pause is so long that it’s a bit awkward. But the silence communicates a few things. It says, “I’m thinking about your question. I’m thinking about the best way to phrase my answer, I’m thinking about the implications of my answer, and I’m more concerned about giving your question the attention it deserves than I am about not appearing socially awkward.

  1. Address Each Other with Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

I commend to you the practice of memorizing scripture, but I am also quite happy to say the obvious, some verses we should prioritize. I’m not saying don’t memorize Nehemiah, it’s the word of God too, but Paul specifically says, “Address one another with these songs.”

  1. Be Gentle

Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” If you were to ask a Christian, “Who do you love the most?” The answer would be, “My wife, husband, my children, my parents.” And yet, the most vitriolic statements of anger and rage are often reserved for these relationships, the people you love the most.

CONCLUSION

As we draw to a close, I’d like to encourage you in one more aspect of Christian conversation. And that is, to initiate a conversation. There are families that are new to the area. Let’s reach out and make them feel welcome. Some of them have no family nearby. There was a time when we first moved here to Troy, there was no one out here and we went through periods of loneliness. We had no family and didn’t know anyone. If we went through it, maybe somebody else is going through it. If we see a new face on Sunday morning, let’s be sure to greet them. Send texts to your friends. Ask them how they’re doing. Let them know you’re praying for them. Call your mother. Facetime your sister. If you say you’re going to call someone back, do it. If you say you’ll text someone later, keep your word.

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