Audio 2014 Session at Word of Truth Conference, Love Versus Sentimentalism
Earlier Posts One and Two
“Childish” is an adjective. It’s not usually applied to children, but adults. What is it when an adult is childish? It’s when the adult is selfish. The adult is behaving in a selfish manner. He’s being self-centered, self-interested, or self-obsessed. On the other hand, when someone behaves in a mature manner, being unselfish is most characteristic of that person. He’s not focused on his own needs, but on the needs of others. A mature person puts others ahead of himself, or even better, God ahead of himself.
As a child matures, he becomes more loving. A common word in the nursery is “mine” and children fighting or crying over not getting their way. Discipline, as seen in Proverbs, is required to drive selfishness or self-will out of a child. If a child is coddled and given too much, he won’t mature as he ought, and so he’ll still be living for himself, deciding for himself, and talking about himself. When he doesn’t get his way, he’ll still be complaining, whining, pouting, or becoming angry in some fashion over himself. Selfish anger is sinful anger. It’s seen in childish adults, who want their way, but are either not getting their way or their own way isn’t being accepted.
Selfish children and adults don’t recognize or acknowledge when something good is done for them. They mainly focus on what they don’t get or what they didn’t get. They aren’t talking about how they can help other people or how thankful they are for what others have done for them, but about what they want, what they’re going to do for themselves, how someone didn’t treat them like they wanted, or blaming their own problems or sin on others.
Children don’t love their parents. They can’t love. They are too immature to love their parents. 1 John 4:16 says,
God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
Until God dwells in them, love doesn’t dwell in them. Parents, who have God dwelling in them, love their children. How do they love their children? John writes in 1 John 5:2,
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
They love their children, when they love God and keep His commandments. In other words, they are not loving their children when they are not loving God or keeping His commandments.
Most of you reading this probably know this already, but many times children, even as they reach college age, don’t recognize or acknowledge what their parents have done for them. They still focus on what they want, what they didn’t get, or what they got that they didn’t like. They aren’t thankful. I did tens of thousands of things for my children as they grew up. Many of you parents reading this understand that. Very rarely did they do anything for my wife and me unless we told them to do it, and on many of those occasions they didn’t want to do it.
As children mature, they don’t do things for their parents because they are told to do it. They do it because they want to. They express love and thanksgiving for what their parents did and do, unless they are immature or selfish and self-centered. If they have God dwelling in them, it’s easy for them to do. They volunteer to do it. They don’t complain about doing it. This is a maturing young person. He regularly calls and tells his parents how much he loves them and thanks them again and again for their sacrifice.
The incessant sacrifices of a believing parent for his children is unconditional love. Their children are doing nothing for them, worse than nothing. They are a regular burden and distraction and hassle. Parents, however, absorb all that and keep giving and giving and giving to their children. I’m saying that I believe in unconditional love.
I titled this post (part one), Love Wars. There is war about love today even among professing Christians. Especially millennials see love essentially as acceptance. They want to do what they want with acceptance or approval. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:9 said that he labored to be accepted of God. Of course, he was already saved, so why was he still laboring for God’s acceptance? Because no one is conformed to the image of Jesus Christ until he reaches a glorified state, which is when he sees God.
Believing parents unconditionally love their children. They don’t accept a lot of what they do. I teach junior highers in our school. There isn’t much that I accept among and about junior highers. I want to accept what they do, but a lot of how they act, I reject. Why? Because I love them. This is what Paul talked about in Hebrews 12 when he wrote (vv. 5-7):
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
The word that I have read to describe this love of God by unscriptural and unloving, yet professing Christians is “trauma.” They call chastisement, trauma. Later in verse 11, same chapter, Paul continues:
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Chastening doesn’t seem joyous, but grievous. Chastening goes against what they consider “core human sensibilities” or what they “may feel is the Holy Spirit’s leading.” Lamentations is the story of God bringing Jerusalem through a horrific siege that He required them to accept, if they were repentant. The apex of that book is “great is thy faithfulness” in chapter 3, where they see the goodness of God in the chastisement God brought upon them.
Some reading here might think that scripture justifies abuse, another loaded word, from abusive parents. Biblical discipline is love. Abuse is something different done by many different parents in every “community” in the entire nation. It’s not acceptable. I don’t know a parent who likes disciplining his children. It is one of the hardest parts of parenting. Children hate it. However, you do it even without the thanks of the children. Your children are not loving you, but you keep loving them.
Even the prodigal son continued being loved by his Father, who happens to be a portrayal of God by Jesus in that parable. The love of the Father was in the hog lot, where the son realized how good he had it at home. This is the sinning soul returning to the Father in repentance.
As a part of the love war, a young man, who was in our church ten plus years ago now, wrote among other things the following for the public to see:
[M]any children in particular communities were made to believe that Jesus’ love, or just love in general, comes at the cost of having to earn an ever elusive reception or acceptance of their abusers. The beauty of Christianity is that someone can’t earn Jesus’ love — it’s unconditional.
It is true according to the Bible that we don’t earn Jesus’ love. We love Him because He first loved us. This is related to the doctrine of salvation. The truth that nothing can separate believers from the love of God (Rom 8:31-36) means that God will never forsake one of His children. He will always do what Jesus did to the churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3, and confront them for their disobedience. That
is love. They don’t earn that love of Jesus Christ. He just gives it to them.
The paragraph above refers to a situation in another church (“community”), that he said was a sister church, that he knows is not a sister church. In methodology it would be a church much closer to churches that pander to unbelievers to lure them into church and then give a false assurance to unrepentant sinners, what the adherents would even call “unconditional love.” I think of a church like that of Andy Stanley down in Georgia, who abuses his people with false teaching and a false sense of security with counterfeit, placebo grace offered to merely intellectual assent to facts. They often become twice the children of Hell they once were. These are the churches of both Jack Hyles and Bill Hybels.
“Abusers” I’m assuming are parents and church leaders in his statements. At least as it applies to our church, it is slanderous. I understand the anger. When he did wrong, he didn’t find acceptance, which he now confuses with not finding love. Cain, the prototypical defector, was displeased that God did not accept his offering, and became angry and killed his brother Abel. He wanted acceptance from God and he didn’t get it. Did God love Cain? Yes. Since God loved Cain, God didn’t accept Cain’s offering. God doesn’t accept false worship. He doesn’t accept sin. He can’t. He won’t. He shouldn’t. And God is love.
I’ve seen the anger of many over the years, who have wanted acceptance or approval. The Apostle Paul didn’t get the approval of the false teachers at Corinth, which is the circumstance for his laboring for acceptance from Christ. Christ though still wouldn’t accept his sin. Paul had to do something to get Christ’s acceptance in Paul’s sanctification. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Hunger and thirst are a condition. God will provide the righteousness, but someone must hunger and thirst for it. That isn’t elusive. Sanctification doesn’t come by faith alone. It requires works. That isn’t to earn it, but it is labor. You don’t get the fruit of the Spirit without being filled with the Spirit. He who humbles himself shall be exalted. That isn’t elusive, but humility is a condition for exaltation. Jesus humbled Himself and God the Father gave Him a name which is above every name. These children, selfish ones, want the name without the self-denial. They want respect without giving respect to their elders. If they don’t get it, they’re angry.
There is an irony to the desire for unconditional love. The ones who want it will never give it without conditions being met. They call these conditions “boundaries.” They set up boundaries that will only be lowered when conditions are met. The conditions, however, are unscriptural conditions. Unless their rock music, immodest dress, and even foul language is accepted, the ever elusive boundary won’t be lifted. The rejection of the behavior is trauma. And the acceptance of the behavior is healing. They are looking for healing, which means acceptance of ungodly behavior, that they apparently believe is acceptable to a holy God.
Most children, yes, adult ones, don’t understand at all the sacrifice of their parents. I remember going to help my son find his first car when he was at West Point. The mid point of the third year, cadets can drive a car off campus. They are also given a low interest loan by the government that they are not required to take in order to buy the car. I didn’t like the car purchase. I didn’t like the loan. He had the liberty to do both and I didn’t forbid either, like I have never prohibited anything that he had the scriptural liberty to do. In other words, I accepted non-scriptural behavior. That’s unconditional love, accepting actions as long as they don’t violate scripture. Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden is light. Why? His love in our hearts motivates us to please Him first, so that His commandments are not burdensome to us.
I flew out, rented a car, picked him up, and we drove all over looking for a car. He drove most of the trip. He drove at or just below the speed limit in the fast lane. A long line of cars were behind him. Some of them honked. I gently suggested that he drive in the right lane and then use the left lane to pass. He heard what I said, and apparently that meant stay in the left lane while cars passed him on the right. Have you ever found yourself behind one of these drivers? I think this is unconditional love. Could I have done more to stop him? Yes, but some lessons are best learned on their own. I would think he’s learned that one by now.
Does love require the acceptance of everything a child does? No. Love requires the rejection of unbiblical actions and beliefs, like drunk driving. It’s not an accident if a young man gets drunk, drives his car over a hundred miles an hour, and then runs it into a tree. He might kill himself and he could kill many others, as so many have. Love rejects drunkenness and drunk driving. Love rejoices not in iniquity, as Paul wrote. When someone doesn’t repent over his sin, that won’t get acceptance either. When he won’t accept reconciliation or mediation based upon scriptural terms, acceptance will still be elusive in that situation as well. Everything I’m describing is love.
I believe in unconditional love, it’s just what is unconditional love. If it is of God, then it is just love. Leave off unconditional. Love is of God.
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