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Series:  Family For Dummies
2.  Parenting:  Love Comes First
DM - 2.11.7

             JN 14:15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command.

…21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

            JN 14:22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"

            JN 14:23 Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

             There’s a profound truth in these words.  You see it in v. 15 – “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  And in v. 23 – “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”  Jesus said that.  And notice that he didn’t say:

            “If you love me, you had BETTER obey my teaching.”
            “If you obey my teaching long enough, then I will finally believe that you love me.”             

These two statements summarize how I have often thought of God.  “Obey or ELSE!”  Or “prove your love” by obedience.

What Jesus said was a beautifully accurate statement of heart condition.  He looked inside us and saw what was in us and said:  “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  That’s what love for Jesus produces. 

Today we move along in this series called Family For Dummies to talk about parenting.  Our theme:  No One Left Behind.  With regard to marriage and family, this means “No one left behind to fight alone against the enemies of marriage and family.”  MHCC needs to be a place where you have friends who will reliably give you the help you need from God’s Word for your family…

Parenting is of course the subject where I open myself (more than any other) to the charge that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  (But let me tell you…parenting isn’t the ONLY thing I’m ignorant about!)  Actually, as I planned this series, John and I kidded about having different people preach on the topics they knew the least about.  Me on parenting, John on being a Christian grandparent and Dave on teaching technology to toddlers. J  The kernel of a good idea in there was that sometimes in teaching and preaching, we tend to rely too much on our own wisdom and experience and too little on God’s Word, which is our authority and has to be allowed to correct our experience and tradition.  In the end, it’s just me preaching this series, and for this subject, parenting, I want to draw on God’s Word as our authority, and also my experience not as a parent but as a child of Christian parents who (I discovered years later) did many things right.  I might even draw in some worthy lessons I have learned from many of you.  I’m also drawing in some good ideas from a guy named Steve May, who opened my eyes to the importance of Jesus’ words in John 14.

But we’re going to start with God’s Word, and especially this nugget of wisdom from Jesus:  “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  And “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” 

There is a life-changing idea here and the idea is:  Love comes first.  This is the heart of the Christian faith, isn’t it?  Remember Romans 5:6-8?  RO 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Remember 1 John 4:10?  10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

And that song we sing:  “You did not wait for me to draw near to you, but you clothed yourself with frail humanity.  You did not wait for me to cry out to you, but you let me hear YOUR voice calling me.”

The heart of Christianity isn’t me trying to earn God’s love though my goodness, or trying to develop and prove my love for him by doing good things.  Love comes first.  If I love him, my heart wants to obey.  “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” 

            Jesus’ meaning here can be illustrated in many different areas, and Steve May has a good one:  When I was in my early twenties I had a job I didn't really enjoy. It was not a "career" job; I was doing it just to make money. One day, when I showed up late for the third time in a week, my boss called me into his office. He said, "Steve, it's obvious you don't care anything about me, my business, or your job."

            I said, "That's not true. I love this job." (My fingers were crossed when I said it.)

            My boss replied, "I'm sorry, but I know that you don't. If you loved this job you would show up on time." I didn't realize at the time just how wise my boss was. Most employers would have attacked my "lack of character" and would have told me I was lazy and undisciplined. Not this guy. He just said, "Anything you love you will give yourself to 100%." We then spent a few minutes talking about the job, and I began to realize some things I hadn't considered before. It really was a good job. I was earning good money (for a college student), I enjoyed the people I worked with, and I really did like my boss. In fact, suddenly I realized that this was a great job, and I was lucky to have it. Just as quickly as my attitude changed, my work habits changed. I began showing up on time, and I began approaching my work more enthusiastically. In the process, I learned that love comes first. The key to growing in obedience is growing in love.

            Love comes first.  Let’s apply that to parenting.  As I think through all the lessons I could draw from my own parents, one stands out.  I’m holding the lid to an old-style percolator coffee pot.  It has concentric circles stamped on it.  When I was 4 or 5 and my older brother was 5 or 6, my dad was playing on the floor with us, and we must have had one of these in with our toys (or maybe we had stolen it from the kitchen) and spontaneously he took it and said:  “Do you see these circles?  They never come to an end, do they?  That’s how my love is for you guys.”

            Now you need to know that my dad isn’t a mushy guy. He’s an electrical engineer, pretty scientific-minded.  He grew up in the fifties so he was too old for the flower-power peace-and-love generation of the sixties and he has some strong negative opinions about the excesses of that generation.  All of this is to say that he didn’t just throw flowery words around.  AND this was three or four years before he became a Christian, and we weren’t going to church at all during this time.  Nevertheless, there was this foundation of love in my dad and my mom as well that was just there and had to be expressed.  And even though I was very young, I remember my reaction was that I was a little embarrassed.  Why?  I KNEW he loved me.  He didn’t really have to say it.  The foundation was already there.

            Now, fast-forward to when I’m 16 years old, and I have my drivers’ license and I can go out with my friends or on dates, and my parents set a curfew – midnight sometimes, or 1a.  Now I WANT to be back by curfew, and it isn’t just to avoid consequences (in fact, if my mom and dad ever told me what the consequences would be, I don’t remember it).  I want to be back on time because I know they love me, and throughout my life I have NEVER doubted that any boundary they have set was intended for my benefit (I might have disagreed with the boundary, but I never doubted the love behind it) and because I have received such active love from them, I have learned to love them in return, and I don’t want to step on that love my disobeying.

Love comes first.  Jesus said:  “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”  I found that to be true with my mom and dad too.

A little detour:  On Wednesday nights in the K-5 class, we’re talking about the Ten Commandments (and they’re doing the same in Jr. Church and on Sunday night).  This past Wednesday, it was:  “Honor your father and mother.”  Christina P. and I did a role-play skit where I was the dad and she was the daughter and I told her:  “You be back from your date by 11:30 tonight”, and she sassed back and said “But all my friends get to stay out late”.  And then we asked the kids how you honor your parents in that situation. 

And then to try to give them the father’s perspective, I asked:  “Why would the dad insist that his daughter be home by 11:30?”  We heard some good answers like “She might get into trouble” and “He might worry about her” and “she needs to get a good night’s sleep”.  And then Sarah C. came up with a great answer that I hadn’t thought of at all:  “Maybe he just wants to spend time with his daughter before the day is over”. 

I’ll bet that in Sarah’s house, she knows that her parents love her and even enjoy spending time with her, and that perspective has the power to change everything with the whole obedience issue. 

Now, a couple of qualifiers:  First, love isn’t a magic bullet that shoots down every discipline problem, every issue of responsibility and maturity, etc.  From what I can see, parenting is a lot of hard work, and love makes it harder (because if you didn’t love your kids as much as you do, you could throw it into neutral more often).  It would be a terrible mistake, not to mention an unbiblical practice, to say (with the Beatles) “all you need is love” and decide to not set any boundaries or practice any discipline or teach any responsibility.  After all, Hebrews 12:5-6 -  

  "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
    and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

            My dad did the same!  Mom and Dad insisted that I do my homework and eat my vegetables, and they made me get out of bed in the morning and they made me finish my chores, they set curfews and they had a say in how I managed my allowance and sometimes my dad expressed his love with some loving, non-abusive corporal punishment.  I often disagreed with that punishment at the time and I often expressed extreme displeasure at the limits they placed on me.  But I look back now and realize that I NEVER doubted their love, never questioned that they had my best interests at heart, and I never felt like I had to rebel to look out for myself.  So for them, love wasn’t a magic bullet that erased the hard work of parenting.  It was the foundation upon which the hard work was built. 

            Another qualifier:  I can see how someone might take these words of Jesus - “If you love me, you will obey what I command” – and use them to manipulate with guilt.  “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t ask to stay out late; you would listen to what I say; you’d come home over Thanksgiving.  So I guess you don’t love me.”  I suppose that guilt produces results in a certain kind of kid for a certain length of time.  But it doesn’t communicate love and it doesn’t inspire love in return.  Jesus certainly wasn’t trying to manipulate our obedience.  He was assessing our hearts.  “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  I have found that to be true.

            Now let’s spend a few minutes talking about how you put down that foundation of love in your family life.  Now I’m convinced that most parents don’t have to be commanded to love their children.  I’ve heard enough of you talk about how love for them overwhelmed you when they arrived, that in fact you fear that you may love them too much for their own good.  Most of you love your children dearly.  And kids usually don’t have to be commanded to love their parents, especially at the beginning of life.  They NEED parents to love, and indeed it is remarkable what abuse kids will go though and still love the parents who do it.  (Now I understand that at the Marriage Retreat last week, the speakers made the excellent point that your kids cannot love you in the same way that you love them).  But if all it takes is that mysterious set of feelings and instincts called “love”, most of you probably have it for your kids and/or your parents.

            But the problem is that is often doesn’t come through, or it gets misshapen into all sorts of harmful practices that make some homes the most unloving places someone can be.  Now if your home has serious dysfunction in it – if there is a lot of yelling and name-calling, or if drugs or the abuse of alcohol is part of the picture, or if (when you’re honest) abuse is the name for what goes on, I don’t have quick-and-easy solutions for you.  In your home, love means admitting the truth, turning things completely over to God AND getting some outside help.  Have the courage to talk to one of us and find out what is available.

            If that’s where you are, don’t be ashamed.  God’s love is definitely for you and so is his healing power.  Many of you are not there.  It isn’t serious dysfunction, but garden-variety sin and selfishness that hold you back (and these are trouble enough).  So what does love look like?  I speak from my experience in my parents’ home, and from the good things I have seen in you.

            Love is…treating each other well.  Absolutely insist on this.  Allow no unkind words to stand.  Don't allow yourselves to take the others in your house for granted.  Respect personal space, express appreciation, keep promises to one another, and regularly stop to say “I love you”.

            Love is…doing things together.  We had an advantage in our family – distance.  Not from each other, from everything else!  We lived on a farm far away from, well, everything.  We weren't the Waltons exactly, but because we were way out in the country, we stayed home a lot, and because it was a farm, we worked together a lot.  I didn't appreciate these facts when I was young, but the thing that was happening was that we were learning how much we loved each other by doing things together.  Today there are many more competing activities, and I guess we can't change that, but if we try, we can choose to do more things together.   I'm always glad when I see the C's pull into the campground each year at our camp out with their daughters and a load of their friends. 

            Love is…finding ways to express it.  I already said to say “I love you”, but what I'm talking about here is finding ways to practically say it in action, and teaching your kids to do the same.  Take your kids shopping for Mom's birthday and tell them, “Now Mom does so much for us that we really want to put some thought into getting something she'd like”.  Or:  “Let's clean up the kitchen while Mom is out just to show her how much we love her.” 

Love is…?  Ask your family to answer this. 

            Love is so central to the Christian faith that St. Augustine summed up the life of obedience in this way: "Love God, and do whatever you want." He meant that if you love God, your behavior will take care of itself. If you love God you won't want to sin against him. If you love God, you will obey him. Jesus said the same thing: "If you love me, you will obey me." It works at home, too.

            Love comes first.  So put love first.

            Comments?