Struggles of Faith and Family

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This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective.

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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

Today is December 17th, 2020, and we're continuing on with our Christmas-themed shows.

And today I have joining me my wife, Jennifer, and we're going to be talking about a very serious subject.

Say hello, Jennifer.

Hello, Keith.

All right.

We're going to be actually responding to a listener question today.

And even though it's not necessarily Christmas-themed, it is Christmas-related in this.

Christmas is often a time where we have difficulty with our extended families.

And I had a very important question that was sent in by a listener, and listener, you know who you are, and I want to thank you for listening to the program.

I want to thank you for engaging with the program and sharing with me your dilemma.

And the reason why I've invited my wife into the program today is because she has somewhat of a unique situation in her own life where she has unbelieving family members that can sometimes be a little antagonistic toward the faith.

And let me begin by sort of explaining the situation and the question.

The listener who sent the question in mentioned that she is a grandmother, and she is a person who came to faith after she was an adult.

And even though she tried to raise her children in the faith, her children are now no longer believers, or were never believers.

And she has grandchildren, young grandchildren, and she's asking how she can be a positive influence for the gospel with them since her children are antagonistic to the faith.

Jennifer, is that fairly accurate? We both read the email.

Yes, it is.

Okay.

And you have a situation that is, again, somewhat similar in one way, in that you were raised in a non-Christian home, but you had a believing grandmother.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Yes.

My grandmother lived with us throughout most of my childhood, and I have very fond memories of myself and my younger sister sitting in her room and listening to her read the Bible to us.

And I remember that made an impression on me.

But your parents didn't take you to church, right? Even though both of them were raised in church, your mom and dad, but they didn't take you to church.

And so your grandmother's influence was really the primary Christian influence on you as a young person.

That's right.

I learned my childhood, I mean, what I believed was as a result of my grandmother's teaching or friends, but I didn't grow up in a Christian home, so no, I didn't learn anything about the gospel from my parents.

Okay.

And again, what makes me bring up that situation with you is because the listener that we're dealing with is kind of in a similar situation as your grandmother.

She loves the gospel.

She loves her children.

She loves her grandchildren, is dealing with essentially a generation in between, a generation that doesn't have a desire for the gospel, doesn't have a desire for, and in her case, she mentioned, is even antagonistic to the gospel.

And the question is, what can she do to be a light to these young people? And I thought a lot about this question, and again, listener, I told you I was going to put some thought into this and respond on the program.

And the first thing I want to mention is that your unbelieving children, they are the parents to the next generation of children, and they do have rights and responsibilities to their children that have to be respected, and at least there has to be some care given to how you address their children.

And the analogy that my wife and I were talking about when we were discussing this program was the analogy of, let's say my parents were Muslims, and my parents wanted to teach my children their Muslim faith.

I would not allow that because I don't believe in Islam.

And so in a way, that's sort of where the, and again, I'm not comparing Christianity and Islam.

I'm just saying from the perspective of the unbelieving children, they are seeing your faith as something they don't believe in, and so they're going to be, they're not going to want you interjecting that into their children's lives.

And so, Jennifer, you mentioned on the, when we were thinking about this, talking about this, you mentioned the first thing was prayer, right? Right, right.

That's something that your unbelieving grandchildren, I mean, your unbelieving children and your son-in-law, and your daughters and your son-in-laws, they can't prevent you from doing that.

I mean, we have access to the Father, straight to the Father, and He hears us, and His Word, you know, tells us that, you know, He's near to us.

So I would begin there.

I would begin on my knees, praying for opportunities, especially as your grandchildren grow, to have that influence.

I've had times now, although my parents are not believers, that they've told me, you know, to pray for relatives or different health problems that people have had, or, you know, within the family.

Yeah, it's interesting to hear an unbelieving family member ask for prayer, because they know you pray.

And so it kind of shows that even the person who is an unbeliever, maybe antagonistic toward the faith, understands that there's more to this life than just this life, and they understand that God exists, and so it goes back to the Romans 1 principle of all men knowing that God does exist.

So I think prayer is a great example of a first thing that you can do, and I know that may sound simple, but let me say this, it's not simple.

It's the most important thing that we do, and oftentimes we get moving on projects, we get moving on things that we want to do, moving on things that motivate our hearts, and we forget to pray.

And two things to think about for that.

One, in regards to the importance of prayer, when we look at the life of Christ, prayer marked everything that he did.

Sometimes he would get up in the morning early and go and pray.

Sometimes he'd pray all night long, and if the Lord of glory, the one who created the very heavens and earth that we exist within, needed to pray, then how much more do we need to pray? And I'm also reminded of the reformer Martin Luther.

Martin Luther made a tremendous statement one time.

He said that, I have so much to accomplish today, I'm going to have to spend at least three hours in prayer just to get it all accomplished.

And that statement has kind of stuck with me, because as far as Luther was concerned, he wasn't going to accomplish anything without prayer.

And so first and foremost, I agree with you, Jennifer, prayer is a number one concern.

A second thing that I have been considering when considering how to answer this is going to the parents.

And I understand, I read the email a couple of times, and I understand there's some antagonism towards the faith, and there's some antagonism towards organized religion, and feeling like the church is full of hypocrites.

People will say that.

People will say, well, the church is full of hypocrites.

But the big issue here, though, is the question of whether or not you are being a hypocrite.

And I don't know you, listener, I know what I've read, I appreciate what you've written, and I can assume that you're not living a hypocritical life.

And therefore, going to your children and saying, look, you know, whatever you may think of the church, whatever you may think of the people who go to church, church is important to me, the Bible is important to me, and I believe that God exists.

And this is a legacy that I want to share with my grandchildren.

This is an important part of my life, and I'm not trying to steal your children, I'm not trying to indoctrinate your children.

I'm simply wanting to share something that is important in my life with my grandchildren.

Something that I believe in.

You know, if you had, I know this may sound like a strange analogy, but hear me out.

If you had fought in World War II, let's say you were a grandfather who had fought in World War II, and that was important to you, you would want to share that with your grandchildren.

And I think your children would respect that.

And I know this is a much different scenario, and I hope, does that make sense? Does the analogy, Jen? Yeah, that makes sense.

You get what I'm saying? Okay, because this is difficult.

I hope it makes sense, because I understand faith in Jesus Christ is not the same as fighting in World War II.

What I'm saying, though, is this is important to you, and you share that with your children.

You say, listen, I know you don't believe it, I know you don't agree, but this is important to me, and this is something that is valuable, and this is something that I believe is true.

And therefore, I want to be able to share this.

Can I read the Bible to them when they come to my house? Can I tell them about what I believe and answer their questions as how I understand it? Also, I didn't catch this in the letter, but if you're local to where your grandchildren are, your children are, I mean, maybe you have an event at your church.

Maybe you have an awana or a vacation Bible school program, or some kind of something that you can invite them to.

Yeah, and again, oftentimes, I know this as a parent, oftentimes the opportunity to have our children be watched, if you were, to be babysitted for a few hours.

If there is an event like that, like Jennifer said, that might be a way to at least point them in the right direction.

Just a couple things to consider.

One, bathe this in prayer, and we're going to pray for you.

My wife and I are going to pray for you.

We have your name, we have your email, and we're going to pray for you.

But on top of that, we want to encourage you to be in prayer and understand this, that even though some people may advise you to go behind the backs of your children to get to your grandchildren, some people may advise that.

I'm not going to advise you to do that, because as a parent, that's not how I would want my children to be handled.

And I understand this is the truth, and you do what you have to do to get the truth.

But you do have to trust God in this, and you have to understand that God is sovereign in this.

And again, we're Reformed.

You told me in your letter, you believe in Reformed theology, and so there is a sense in which we have to trust the Lord in this, and we can't simply say, well, my efforts are going to make all the difference.

No, what makes all the difference is God's ability to save His people.

And don't give up on your children who seem to be far from God.

Don't give up on what this might be an opportunity in their life to be changed.

So be in prayer for them, be in prayer for your grandchildren, and I would say, take every opportunity you can with respect and soft words to try to encourage your children to allow you to engage your grandchildren with the gospel in whatever way that looks like, whether it's Awanas or whatever.

And by doing that, you're also being able not only to reach your grandchildren, but also your children and their spouses.

Being able to always be ready to give a defense for the hope that's within you.

Why are they so harsh? What about the hypocrites? With different family members, I've heard, well, this church has all this money, and I've had to relate that back and say, well, no, that's not the local church.

That's not my church.

The churches on TBN do not represent Christianity.

I've had to answer specific objections to the faith that an unbeliever has in their mind that usually doesn't make sense.

So you'll have an opportunity to engage not only for your grandchildren, but also your children.

Absolutely.

And that's good advice for everybody, especially here at Christmastime, where we're going to be engaging with family members that we might not see all year long.

We're going to be seeing them.

We're going to be hearing their thoughts about the church.

I can't tell you how many people want to tell me, because they know I'm a pastor, they want to tell me all about their thoughts about the church and how the church once did them wrong, and they're full of hypocrites and all kinds of things.

And so it is good to have defenses for those things, but at the same time to rest on the truth that Christ is building his church, and Christ is sovereign over the body, and the church is imperfect in the world, but it is in a perfect Savior.

And so the imperfections that we have to deal with, the hypocrisies and all of these things, don't change what the church is.

Christ said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

The Bible says Christ laid down his life for his bride.

The bride of Christ is the church.

And so the people who hate the church, they're just wrong.

And sometimes knowing that in your heart is the most important thing.

Just know that they are incorrect in their thoughts about the church, and they may not understand it, they may not know it, but just be confident and stand firm.

But again, when I said earlier, and I know some people may challenge me because I said be respectful, because some people say, well, I've heard people say, well, unbelievers don't deserve respect.

Well, here's my thought on that.

When it comes to dealing with parents and grandchildren, you've got to show some respect, show some deference to the parents, and try your best to engage with the grandchildren at the respectful permission of the parents.

You don't want the child going back home and saying, Grandma told me about this man who rose from the dead, and that makes a huge deal.

At least if you tell them, when I'm with the children or when I see the children, I want to tell them about my faith, at least you have that.

And if they say no, then I want to appeal to at least one last scripture.

There's a passage in the New Testament, I'm going to look it up real quick, it refers to wives of unbelieving husbands, and it talks about the, I think it's in, hold on, do you remember, Jen, I'm looking it up now, the wives of unbelieving husbands, winning them without a word? Give me just a second as I look this up.

I believe it's in 2 Peter.

Okay, 1 Peter 3, verses 1-6, and I know this isn't the same situation, but let's look at 1 Peter 3, 1-6 very quickly, and I'll show you what I'm referring to here.

It says in 1 Peter 3, "...wives, be subject to your own husband, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct." Hear that again, "...wives, be subject to your husband, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct." So basically what this is saying is, if you're an unbelieving wife, or if you're a believing wife and you have an unbelieving husband, you may not be able to preach the gospel to him because he may not hear it from you.

He may not want to hear it from you.

He may tell you to shut your mouth, and how are you going to present the gospel to him? It says here, "...by your conduct." How you conduct yourself as a faithful person, as a person who, you know what, the church may be full of hypocrites, but you're not one of them.

You know what, the church may be full of people who are awful sinners and who are treating each other, mistreating each other, but you love the Lord, and they're going to see that in you.

And so my encouragement to you would, as best as you can, be an example to the gospel, to your family.

If they tell you you can't tell them children about Jesus, well, you're going to have to deal with how you handle that, but ultimately be an example to them as best you can.

And if the question, when the question arises, Grandma, why are you acting this way? Why do you behave this way? It's because I love Jesus Christ.

That's the answer, and that's the best answer you can give.

And I hope that this has been helpful.

You know, my wife and I have thought a lot about this, and I hope that the answer to the question has been one that has been an encouragement to you.

Jen, do you have anything that you'd like to share before we close? No, just pray without ceasing, and just continue to just go to God in prayer, and just ask Him for the right words and the right—just to give you the clarity of mind and of what to say.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Well, again, listener, you know who you are, but I hope this has been an encouragement to other listeners.

How can we deal with our difficult family members? First and foremost, pray.

Second, when we deal with them, deal respectfully with them.

As the Bible says, we are to—when we give a defense for the hope that is within us, we do it with gentleness and respect or reverence.

We are to do it that way.

And most of all, though, we pray for them, and we trust them, and we live for the gospel before them.

Well, thank you all for listening today to this special listener-encouraged episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey.

I've been joined by Jennifer Foskey today, and together we have been your Calvinists.

May God bless you.

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As you go about your day, remember this—Jesus Christ came to save sinners.

All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior.

He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

May God be with you.