Honoring Parents

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints.

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I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Deere and Andrew Hudson, Chris Kiesler, David Kassin. Tonight we'll be discussing a question that we had sent in to us specifically about the text in Ephesians 6, 1 through 4 and how it expresses strongly that we are to honor our father and mother.

This questioner says, I would like to know how to do that in my situation. My father abandoned us and my mother used the

Bible as an excuse for her neglect. I have finally come to forgive both, but they show no real repentance.

My father has popped into my life a couple of times, but always complains about how terrible he is and then disappears without a word.

My mother is constantly encouraging malicious talk, faking illnesses, and worse, finding ways to try and use the

Bible to justify her behavior. I want to honor them because our God commands it, but I don't really know how.

I especially don't know how to do that while guarding my heart. Any ideas on how to honor your parents who either aren't around or are hostile to your

God and you? Michael? I think there are many brothers and sisters that have similar questions and face similar challenges.

So this is a great question and of course we can definitely sympathize with the difficulties that this brother or sister has when they're thinking about wanting to honor the

Lord and how do you do that needing to honor your father and mother but they're not honorable.

So let's think about a few passages in the Word that will help us.

We of course have that classic passage in Ephesians chapter 6 that says, children obey your parents in the

Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.

So there is an emphasis here from the Apostle Paul reminding his hearers of how important this commandment was, the emphasis of it, the blessing of it.

The emphasis here is for children, these would be children who are in the home, that they are to obey their parents in the

Lord, recognizing that even within the hierarchy in the home, which is right, that the husband is the head of the wife and the father is the head of the home, the mother and the father are the authority over their children, the children are to obey their parents and honor them.

This is to be done in the Lord. A wife's submission to her husband is as unto the

Lord. The husband's leadership in the home is always in recognition of the

Lord ultimately being in charge and remembering even in parenting children that we have a heavenly father.

So the proper mediation of authority in the home is always with an eye unto the

Lord. Now remembering the promise. In the Old Covenant there were many instructions that emphasized that if the children would honor their father and mother as the father mother taught them the truths of God and the ways of God, this would ensure long life in the land.

After all, if the instruction broke down between the generations, then there would be judgment and they would be pushed out of the land.

We see this in the cycles of the judges and the days of the judges where they were pushed to the hilltops and they had to leave the valleys and they lost their cities and their farmlands over and over again because even though they would return to the

Lord after a time of oppression, that it didn't extend but maybe one or two generations.

And there was a promise here that it may be well with you, you may live long on the earth.

A reminder of how important this commandment was and the blessing that comes with it.

So when we're thinking about how children who live in a home, how do they relate to their parents when they're dishonorable?

That the parents themselves aren't doing right, living right. There must be a looking unto the

Lord first and foremost. Say, I am not going to, I'm not going to pattern my behavior according to what

I think my parents deserve, but according to the Lord who has given me to them, given me life through them, given them to me and me to them.

So I'm going to honor the Lord by the way that I obey and honor them. And those are going to be challenging moments and many children have had to walk through that on a kind of a day -to -day thing, but the

Lord is gracious to sustain us. Now a question for someone who is in their own family, they've grown up, they've left the home, they are no longer under the authority of their parents, how do we continue to honor our parents?

Well not as if we belong in their household. When discussing how human society works from the very beginning, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

This is the very basis for all human society. In this we are to remember that as parents, our grown children who belong to their own families are not under our authority.

We used to control them and then we began to coach them and then we began to counsel them and give them advice that they didn't even ask for.

And at a certain point though, we're just a consultant and we just let them know, hey anytime you'd like to talk about any of this stuff going on and I'm praying for you and if you'd like some advice,

I'm available, you only have to ask and I'll make time for you because I love you, right?

But I'm not the one who is, you know, and unless I'm a fellow church member then I might offer you some counsel that you weren't looking for because I am my brother's keeper and we're in this church together, so that may be a little bit different there.

But still you're thinking about the fact that my children at a certain point will no longer be under my authority and I'm no longer under my father's authority.

But there still should be, shouldn't there? There still should be some proper respect, there should be some kind of relationship there of an appropriate kind, one that acknowledges the blessing of parents and children and God's gift of the family and that would be honoring unto the

Lord. However, Jesus said that there would be some times wherein following him and being loyal to him would have to mean breaches with family members.

So he says this in Matthew chapter 10. So in Matthew chapter 10 in this passage where it's, you know, discipleship 101 basically, he talks about that.

He says in verse 34 of Matthew 10, "...do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I do not come to bring peace but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter -in -law against her mother -in -law."

It doesn't mean that Jesus is anti -family, but it's his call for us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.

This loyalty to Christ is going to be a source of conflict because that will challenge others and whether or not their loyalty to Christ is there or not.

Are you saying that your Christian faith is more important than being in affirming relationship with me?

Yes. Verse 36 says, "...a man's enemies will be those of his own household." But Jesus reminds us, "...he

who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me." And that's, you know, that's something that you have to wrestle with and reckon with.

And "...he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.

He who finds his life will lose it. He who loses his life for my sake will find it." Now, in those situations that Jesus is addressing, it's because someone is going to be drawing a line in the sand, okay?

We're gonna have all kinds of interactions with family members as grown children. What happens if our parents say things or do things or draw lines in the sand that we can't agree with because of our loyalty to Christ?

That's sad. There's gonna be loss and there's gonna be grief from that. What happens as parents that our grown children do the same thing to us, right?

All of these things are very possible and they've happened a lot. Now, how do you continue to honor father and mother even when that happens?

Well, you don't have to be disrespectful. They may call it disrespect, but you can respect someone and you can say no and you can draw, you can say, well, you've drawn a line in the sand.

I agree and I'm gonna draw that line of sand with you and I agree that there is no unity here on this matter.

You are correct. And that makes me sad, but that's the way it is. And you can do that respectfully.

You can acknowledge the loss. You're gonna have to deal with the grief, but you can do so in an honorable way.

You don't have to be rude. You don't have to be arrogant. You don't have to be impatient. You can still express love.

You can even hope all things and, you know, it's like, you know, even though this barrier is here, you know,

I trust that it will always be there because I want you to know that I love you. I'm praying for you for God to be at work in your life.

Just know that. And to me, I think this is probably gonna be the most practical thing that we can apply is that if we will pray for our dearly beloved family members that we are in conflict with because of Christ, okay, if we will pray for them and we if we will pray what

God's will for them according to the Scriptures, that is very honorable. God will use that to shape our affections, shape our approach, and also by doing this, we are casting our burdens upon him because he cares for us and we are not going to be anxiously being controlled by unnecessary shame and guilt that I'm not doing enough, calling enough, being around them enough, giving them enough presence, and so on and so forth.

Like, you know, you're not you're not accountable to the demands and expectations of those who have split with you over Christ, right?

Remember that Jesus says, take up your cross. There's things that you can die, there are things that you die to that are painful for you, but there are also things that you die to that are restful for you because you have one master,

Christ, not 200. I'm glad you mentioned that about praying. Dave, why don't you share how you guys and your family pray for close and extended family members?

Well, this was something that my wife had suggested a couple of years ago. We've continued it, something where I'm really appreciative of it, especially when

I'm out of town, depending on when I call, or if I'm home. It depends on the day of the week, but we have a family member that we pray for.

We have members of our family that are brothers and sisters in Christ, and we have members of our family that openly reject, and we love them, so we do that each week.

Like, on Fridays it happens to be my brother and his wife and mother -in -law,

Denia, and our adopted grandmother, Ruth, who was here for graduation.

Sweet, sweet lady, wonderful lady. And we pray for my dad and his wife,

Connie, on Saturdays. So it's an opportunity for us to intercede for them, intercede on their behalf, and it is an acknowledgement that their salvation is not in our hands.

It's not up to us. It puts it squarely in the sovereignty of God, and that sovereign

God commands us to pray for others, and to intercede for others.

And it is God who opens up the heart, but how will they hear unless there is a preacher?

We have to be sent, and we have to spread the seed, and we do have to evangelize, we do have to pray, but it is a reminder that ultimately it's in his hands.

God gives the increase. Yes, sir. So when we think about how to relate to our parents, and of course we recognize this creational family is good, that God has designed for husband and wife to be fruitful, multiply, to bear children.

This is pleasing to God that those made in his image would engage in this as the norm.

We can still please God if we don't get married and have children. There are ways to do that, and it's okay that that's not the normal.

That's okay. But in the norm, I've noticed that everybody has parents.

So even if you don't grow up to have your own family, you have parents, and relating to them is never without challenges.

Even the best parents, there's going to be challenges and some difficulties there, and so thinking through these things helps us.

For example, how am I going to get along with my parents throughout the seasons? And seasons will change, and there'll be different challenges in different seasons.

How do I relate to my parents and get along with them? Well, if things are fairly on the good side of matters, you're still thinking about Christ.

You're still thinking about how to honor them in the Lord, thinking about how to love them in the Lord, thinking about how to forgive them when they wrong you, how to seek peace in the

Lord, and so forth. If things are very bad and there's opposition because of Christ, your attention is still upon the

Lord because you're thinking about, what does he want me to do in this situation? What would be the most righteous, true, good, loving thing to do?

And it sometimes is not discovering what are all these expectations that you have of me that I'm not meeting, and I'm gonna have to jump through all these hoops so you'll stop complaining about me.

It's probably not the best thing to do. It is a surprising thing at certain levels.

Sometimes grown children discover that there's a great deal of immaturity and sin in their parents.

Now what? Well, guess what? There's a lot of immaturity and sin in us as well. A lot of times that can come out in interactions, but my hope is forgiveness and cleansing in Christ.

I want that to be true for them as well. Can we have a table of unity wherein

Christ is being glorified? Can we meet here? And if we can't, and things are very strained or even separated because of it,

I can still pray, I can still reflect on God's goodness, I can still be thankful to God for my parents even if we are estranged.

I can still pray for their good. I can still look at the promises of God and ask according to the will of God good things for my parents that God will turn things around in their life.

And it doesn't mean, now honoring your parents doesn't mean that you have to find ways to make them happy. That's not your job.

That's not your job. They're made in God's image and they're gonna be restless until they rest in Him, and they're never going, if they're looking to you because they want to get some sort of signal from you that they're good enough parents, if they're looking to you to provide them with enough esteem that yes, my life has meaning as they grow older and they wonder if their life is counted for anything, and they're looking to you or to your children,

I mean their grandchildren, to provide this meaning for them and they're trying to latch on to all of this. None of us are strong enough to do that for our parents.

We are all bruised reeds. They need to be resting in Christ and finding their sense of righteousness in Christ, their stability in Christ, not us.

And you've got to help them with that in a variety of ways. Now I will say this, the way that I may speak to a peer of mine, a brother in Christ who needs to be rebuked, it's not the way

I'm going to speak to my father, okay? That's called wisdom, okay? And there are, you are going to interact in ways that are somewhat different, but you might say, well they may say things about me that I'm a bad child or that I, you know,

I'm the reason why they've turned away from Christ. And well, yes, people will say all kinds of things, but you're not to shape your life based around the words of people who are hurting, right?

When you hear stuff like that, those are symptoms like, ah, I hear someone's hurting. I need to pray for them.

They need help, don't they? They need to be blessed. And it's hard to do that when it's your parents because it's so emotionally connected, but we have to remember to die to self, to be crucified with Christ, and we have promises.

Jesus said, you know, anyone who has given up family members for him receive a hundredfold in his kingdom, right?

You may have estranged or isolated relationships with people you grew up knowing and loving because of Christ, but you have received a hundredfold in family.

When Jesus' disciples told him one day, hey, your brothers and your mother are here.

Well, who are my brothers and sisters and my mother, right? Who is my immediate family?

This is interesting. There is a creational family, right? There is a true, we could call it, you could say biological family, but who is the

Christian's immediate family? Interesting question. It seems to me that Jesus begins to shift some of that expectation, right?

Who are we to think of as our immediate family? Who is going to be closest to us, right?

Of course, there's still, Jesus is by no means diminishing the responsibility of parents to raise their children and to bring them up to know that Christ is

King and to bow the knee to Jesus and to know how the world really works. He's not far more pro -marriage than anyone

I've ever met. When you look at how he talked about marriage, so he is not diminishing at all the responsibilities in family life, but also he is saying something about where are we to be looking for those types of relationships.

When we are unified in him, we are brought together in him, we are a brotherhood among families, and we may lose relationships, but how much do we gain in Christ?

Yes, there's genuine grief. Yes, there's genuine loss. Jesus is not saying it won't be hard. He talks about it in terms of crucifixion, so he knows it's, he's saying it's hard, it's difficult, but there are so many blessings in a life together as the saints, as brothers and sisters in Christ, which is why the way that we think about and have and do local church is very, very important.

It sounds like you're saying that there are some times we honor our parents by not continuing to fight with them.

Well, yes, but see, they're made in the image of God, and when you accord them full responsibility before the face of God, you're treating them, you know, as truly accountable and responsible.

Yeah. And you're not, and you don't have to be mad about it or bitter about it, but like look, I can give you what you want.

Right. I can give you what you need. There's that additional pressure in family relationships.

There is. There's a Mark 6, 4, it says, but Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, in his own house.

And I think in the relationship between parents and children, if the parents were not the leaders that they are supposed to be, the prophet that did not teach the children and the child, you are supposed to be that for me.

And so there's a temptation not to afford them honor. And then the reverse, okay,

I'm trying to be a godly son and daughter, and I'm coming to my parent, and the parent says, well,

I know you. I raised you. I know what you're like. And so there's a resistance to hearing anything from the child.

And so going into it knowing, if you're a follower of Christ, knowing that honor is not always earned, there are positions that are deserving of honor, but that doesn't mean carte blanche, you know, you bow down and everything.

There are lines to be had there, but there can be grace in that, knowing that it's difficult sometimes with those family ties.

So we give honor to whom honor is due. Now there is honor due any father at some level, but that doesn't mean that you give all honor, right?

Because if it's not due, then what are you doing? You're lying. And it's interesting, when we think about the particular ways in which we interact with our parents, it's true, it's a sense in which there can be a, you know, familiarity breeds contempt, is the old saying.

And there's a sense in which, you know, children don't want to hear anything from their parents because they remember all the mistakes and all the things that went south and sideways.

And then the parents don't want to hear anything from their kids because it's like, you know, you remember that time when you're like, dad,

I was 10 years old, you know? Yeah, it's called the powdered butt syndrome. Like if you, it's difficult for you to take someone seriously when you've changed their diaper and powdered their behind.

Yeah. You know, I remember my dad at one point, I was, gosh,

I was in my 40s. I have Elizabeth and Amy with me and I'm getting them out to the airport.

At this point, I've traveled around the world. I've led people into combat. I've brought them back safely. I haven't come back with, you know, more holes in me than I left with, you know?

So I felt like I had arrived and my dad pulls me aside and says, hey son, um, do you have enough cash for the trip back?

I'm like, yeah, but if you're handing out money, I'll take it. Sure. You know, but he was just, he was just being dad.

He was just being dad and it didn't matter how old I was. He'll always kind of see me that way. Yeah.

Now I will say for best case scenario, best case scenario for parents and children, what we're wanting to cultivate, obviously we have, we've had negative experiences with, you know, our parents and so on.

So how do we set things up for the future? How do we put things into play that are wise and thinking, you know, the better generations ahead is going to be that as parents at certain, at certain point in time, we are going to need to begin to intentionally practice humility with an idea that one day our children are going to be the one powdering our behinds.

And am I going to insist on my children remaining in orbit around me when they have grown lives and I'm older and they're moving on and they're full of vim and vigor and exciting things and I'm kind of left behind in an empty nest situation.

Am I going to be, well, they, they used to be all in orbit around me. It was this glorious heyday and I was at the center of their lives and now look at them.

They're all just, that's the way it's supposed to be. It's their time now. And if I'm going to be insistent that I remain the center of their attention and you should cater to me, you know, that's, that's very prideful and that's going to cause all manner of friction in the relationship.

I need to be humbling myself before I think I need to, don't we all, but getting ready for the moment where they're going to be in the limelight and I'm going to be in orbit around them.

Again, I'm not the, I'm not in control. I'm not the coach. I'm not even the counselor.

I'm just the consultant around. You can find me in the rocking chair over there in the corner.

I'm not the center and that's okay. At some point I'm going to be there and if the

Lord lets me live that long. How much of this is we've forgotten how to honor at all?

I'm, Heather and I have been discussing, they had prom recently. Heather and I have been discussing things like rites of passage, honoring and honoring young men, young women, honoring older men, older women through certain passages in life and it's depicted as something that seems very wooden, but if you read people's accounts of some of these things like balls or read some accounts of rites of passage for young men, it was more jovial and less wooden and it had in mind a very specific time period in someone's life when they either became a man, became a woman, became a father, became a husband, became a wife.

At weddings anymore, Heather and I have shot a few together. We thank the Lord that many times that we've been at them, the

Lord has been honored, but rarely do we see a honoring of the man who's just become a husband or the woman who's just become a wife and being told what a heavy new responsibility this is, a heavy new place of honor because they naturally, like we said earlier, marriage is you're going to become parents.

That's the normative, right? So you are going to have honor come to you now and I'm just wondering at all these things that should have been rites of passage for all of us, how many times have you guys seen people honored going into new phases of life?

I remember a few times as a kid passing, most of the time it was in athletics, passing from one step to the next and now you're told, congratulations, you now have loads more responsibility, but you're made for it.

We don't have loads of that and I know we're talking specifically about parents in this, but this is something that has to be practiced like kind of all the way up and your parents, parents should be teaching children how to honor, how to dispose honor,

I would think by saying, hey, you now have new responsibilities. You have, you have this weight now added to you and this is, this is like a,

I don't know, it just, it seems like this is something we don't know how to do anymore culturally. Sure. So like the household's not like a child centered place.

That's the first start, right? Like we're not centered around children in the household, just like we're not centered around mom and dad in the household, but rather we're centered around Christ.

Right. So you have to start with the Lord, the Lord, like the, what is the basis for all of these stations in life that we find ourselves?

Yeah. So in, in the way we should posit it is the Lord has now brought you up to this, right?

Like, so as a husband, now it's all up to you and it's whatever you say goes, well, now that you're a husband, how are you to be husbanding?

Right. That, that makes me, I, we say, we talk about the Lord being high and lifted up. I think the higher that he's lifted up, everything else rises with it.

And because he's not high and lifted up in our culture, things become debased. It's not, there's no, there's no honor or glory.

It departs. Well, I mean, but in the kingdom, as he's high and lifted up, you see that stuff being restored and you would, you would think it would be restored, but I like, there's a lot of Christian households that still don't understand this concept culturally of, of showing honor at these different stages of life.

It's like, it's a, it's a forgotten art that we've kind of pulled away from. So, I mean, even like we just don't think in those terms anymore.

And I'm, I'm wondering how much of that has to play into this as well. Sure. So, uh, some of the scenarios

I, there was another brother who was talking about this and this could go to that idea that once you do depart from your father and mother's household, it's, it's your household now, if you're, if you're the husband, right?

So when my father or mother comes into my household as my guest, they don't get to say what

I, what I'm doing in my household. Right? Like, uh, maybe the ground rules are as like, we're, we're believers.

We're subjects to the King while you're here, you're going to be doing what we do in this household. So if someone comes in and says, stop being a light, put this bushel over top of it or stop being salt, become bland.

Like, no, you don't get to tell us that you can, I'm sorry you misunderstand what your station is as a guest in my home.

I'm going to honor you by telling you the truth about who Christ is. And we're going to live like that as loyal subjects of the

King. So I think Dylan, some of what you're pointing to, and this is problem that's widespread, especially where Christ is not lifted up high enough, is that folks in general may demand honor because of how they function, but they have no sense of their role.

So I remember hearing more than once some young person being very rude to authority figures, you know, you can't tell me what to do.

I'm an adult, you know, all 19 years old and, you know, three kids from two different guys.

I've born children. I'm a parent. I'm an adult. You can't tell me what to do. This is an extreme example, but still, just because it's not that extreme.

Well, this is happening all the time, but Hey, because I, because I can function this way, you should respect me and I should have authority because I can function in these ways, but they have a, they're functioning, but they have no idea what their role is.

But they're also honored in the broader culture, like single moms with that much, like,

I'm serious. Like this is, this is something that is lifted up. It's the Madonna of our age, right?

Yeah. It's like a complete distortion and upending of what should be honored culturally in public.

And that's why I'm saying like, we had these public displays of honor and now the public displays of honor are the actual opposite.

Or the criminal, the that's then lifted up as the saint. So in the idea of materialism and the stripping away the demythologizing of all things, which is a myth in and of itself, but you have honoring of functionality rather than the honor being attached to the role.

So a father is now thought of in terms of biology rather than theology, right?

And there's a huge difference in that. And so people today like, well, you should give me all manner of respect and honor just simply because I have biologically succeeded in fathering children.

Well, there's a sense in which, of course, I do want to honor you as somebody who's made in the image of God. And indeed you are my biological father.

However, that's, I mean, when you, when you think about what the honor is to be given as unto the

Lord, there's a role that the father is to live out that has responsibilities, that has a glory to it.

That's not about just functioning in certain ways. And so also with the wife, so also with parents and with children and so on.

So the roles have been forgotten about and all that's left is the function. And because it's just function, well, how do you function?

I function the way I function, you function the way you function. Well, let's just honor all kinds of functionality and don't dare you impose any standards on my functionality, standards that might talk about there being roles for women and men, right?

So there's a lot of dishonorable things happening and we see that there's a lot of demand, not earning of honor, but a lot of demand for honor all over the place.

And it's like, well, I do want to love my, you know, if you have parents that are against the Lord, you have parents that are sinning egregiously and they think that honoring them means that you affirm them with whatever they say, however they say it, whatever they do, whenever they do it, if they think that's what honor is, it's not.

And even if you're unable to explain what real honor is and what, and the truth of the scripture to them, because they changed too many diapers for you and they're not going to listen to you, that's okay.

You can still honor them even if they don't receive it. You know, your honoring of them, the success of that is in God's eyes, not whether or not it seems effective in your relationship with them.

And that needs to be remembered. Returning to the theme that you were talking about, like if you were defining father, brother, mother,

I'm going to return to first Corinthians chapter five. I'll start in verse nine. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetousness or extortioners or with idolaters for then you must needs to go out of the world.

But now I've written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother, so we get a brother, a brother in Christ, if he be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such a one, do not eat.

For what have I to do to judge them that are without? Do ye, do not ye judge them that are within, but them that are without God judgeth, right?

So there are scenarios which we are to honor Christ and if a brother is claiming to be such as another one who is joined with us honoring

Christ but dishonoring him in such a manner as to do these despicable things in which for some brothers they may be your father.

They may be your father -in -law. Well what you're to do is to not even eat with such a one if they claim that name of brother.

But sometimes you won't necessarily know if they're in this category because some of these are not necessarily apparent if you're not in deep connection with them.

Sure. So I have a scenario with my father -in -law. I know for sure that he's in this category.

Well to honor him would be to say okay well if you're saying you're a brother I'm gonna honor that.

I'm not eating it with you. And when we talk about it because it's gonna come up it's gonna be hurtful because there's grandchildren who would love to see you and have a meal with you.

It's just not gonna happen. We're gonna talk about this and you're gonna talk we're gonna talk about why you think

I should not do this. Mm -hmm yeah so there will be many examples like that and of course you're you're thinking through how to honor

Christ and believing what your father -in -law is saying to you that he indeed is a

Christian while also living in these types of sin. And the proper thing to do is to follow through on the severe mercy being described here to say you need to understand how unfitting this is.

And if in God's providence that the deprivation of a fellowship with your daughter and grandchildren leads you to recognize your need for repentance praise be to God.

This is the most loving thing that I can possibly do in obeying the instructions of my

Lord for your spiritual good. If I didn't care about you if I did not love you then

I wouldn't bother you. I would just... Doesn't the Lord himself discipline those he loves? Yes and that's why he didn't do anything to Esau.

Jacob I have loved Esau I hated. He hounded Jacob didn't let Jacob be Jacob. In fact he hounded him until he became

Israel but you know he said to Esau you do you. Yeah well Ian what a testimony in that circumstance you as a father are seeking to honor

Christ and your children have the blessing of having a father that when put in a position between the world and Christ saying as for me in my household we will serve the

Lord. And it's the same thing if that sets an example and lets your children know don't make me choose between Jesus Christ my

Lord and you because you know you're going to lose. I mean this is this is a situation where sometimes parents will keep on affirming and enabling and choosing rebellious children no matter what they do and you know this this unwillingness to stand for Christ sustains relationships that cause falling out all around them.

Oh yes. But they just can't bear the thought of not being in relationship in affirming positive constant relationship with their children so I'm not gonna rock the boat.

It's like well what did Christ call for you to do and what would and are you really being loving to them or are you just being self -centered and saying

I don't want to I don't want to disturb my my my desire to have everybody happy with me.

It kind of leaves it kind of gives a good example to your father -in -law too of what a father should be doing who professes

Christ like it is an example for your children but it's like it's a shining example to everyone around this is how a father is actually supposed to act in these situations and he should know that just based on the text that you're gonna present to him like this is why we're here.

Well I mean yeah the same thing goes with the with children you know like how are how are we supposed to honor

Christ like if you're in this situation where you have an unrepentantly rebellious child if we're talking about what was given to Israel to do in this situation you've been warned and warned and warned you bring them forward you're supposed to be part of those who are stoning them if it came to that it's not time to be like well whatever you say dear right fallout happens everywhere.

Yeah so and I don't know as a pastor I think about the families in the church I don't know

I don't know of a family that hasn't had something like that. Jesus knew what he was talking about and he was shepherding us through his scriptures he knew what we're gonna face so each burden is particularly difficult for each brother and sister dealing with those situations in those in their families and so I'm not saying that everything is exactly the same or of the exact same weight and burden but it is helpful to know you're not the only one having to make these choices and these sacrifices you know.

Well unless anybody has anything to add I think we can wrap that up why don't we move on to what we recommend this week

Michael. I recommend again I'm kind of tracked back to something

I recommended before but it's called the Christian family by Herman Bavinck and he kind of walks through the the biblical basis for family and how we're supposed to think about the good the good of husband and wife parents and children and what

God intends through all of that and and how this is not something that is tossed aside and away with in the new covenant but is in the

Christian context very very honorable and how vital it is if you want to live in a society that is coherent and not disastrous how important that family structure is.

So he was writing about things in in 1912 that sounded like 2012 and that's when this book was republished was in 2012 because it what he was talking about what was happening in Dutch society back then was pretty much what was happening in our world and still is so.

Dutch ahead of their time as always. Yeah. Andrew. I I don't have any recommendations

I have been learning about running my own Bitcoin node so there's there's lots to think about in the world of minding your business and being a discharging the duties of being a father and your household's needs part of that is having to deal with monetary systems being a good business person in that sense and so I do have some links that I'll provide in the show notes about how to run your own

Bitcoin node. All right Chris. I've got a resource put out by ACBC this is called

Drive -By Biblical Counseling I know Todd Friel from Wretched Radio has promoted it it's pretty neat I think there's like 92 lessons yeah 90 yeah 92 and it goes all like all over the place there's like the calling of the

Christian trials and suffering all the way to like schizophrenia eating disorders all kinds of stuff but well it's like an introduction to some of those topics so it's called

Drive -By Biblical Counseling there about 15 minutes each I think each lessons about 15 minutes so Drive -By

Biblical Counseling. Dave. I've been especially in my my travels been listening to a bunch of podcasts and actually going through a

Star Wars book that my daughter had recommended to me is by Timothy Zahn but I'm not quite finished with it yet it's just one of her favorite characters is

Grand Admiral Thrawn and this is Thrawn Alliances it's a lot of fun but I'm starting that this week.

Oh really? No kidding. I literally picked that up so I'm in that trilogy. Oh man it's great.

It's better after the 10th read -through. It's so funny Michael you should mention that my recommendation actually tonight is to go to your shelf and take a book that that you loved and that you want to go back over I am going back over a book that I recommended a couple weeks ago but it's a little bit easier because it's

Kindle and I put highlights in it and notes so it's just easier to do and as going back through these notes and going through the highlights and I can go through it a lot faster and then the material comes back so that repetition actually helps us if it's a book that's that's really instructive to you go back over it some people do not like the mark on their books

I tear mine apart I mark them all up I read with the pencil and the only things I don't do are they really nice hardcovers okay

I might keep those but if I get a paperback I will tear that up and make bunch of notes and then when

I go back it's it's easier the second time that information comes back so there's something on yourself that you would meant a lot to you you thought it was really helpful something you've recommended others in the past take it back off go over your notes and if you don't have it maybe you can start reading reading with a pencil it's helpful all right thanks my recommendation is to try to meditate on and attempt to recover honor in your life many times we're told that honor for roles like husband or father and mother for one day a year right we've got those coming up but in years past those things were honored every day and those things had they carried more weight than they do these days when

I came to fatherhood I was very confused and I mean really confused about what the weightiness of my role actually was

I and I knew I was so I started trying to read as much as I could about fatherhood about what my responsibilities now were how is it gonna look different than the way my dad fathered me or the way his dad fathered him should it look much different and is there are there good things that I could pick up from them are there things that I need to leave behind but I I drive back to my dad's hometown quite often delivering ice cream on those drives

I think about him I think about my grandfather I think about what it is to honor them in the place that they lived and died or my father still alive but in the in the place of my grandfather lived and died in the place where my my father grew up and what made him what they were and how the

Lord did all of those things and he brought them through my great -grandfather through the

Great Depression a man who was dirt poor you know dirt floors but wore a suit every day of his life like these are the type of men that you come from and how would it be best to honor them

I'm hoping it is through being more careful to please the

Lord in my fatherhood then they were and I hope my sons do the same to me

I hope they outdo me and pleasing the Lord amen and this is this is my constant thought and meditation as I'm on the drive down there and I cannot help it so the

Lord's bringing it to me and okay Lord this is what we're gonna think about on this three and a half hour drive and they're sick you know it's actually seven hours around trip so I'm going three and a half down three and a half back in a day and that's what he's causing me to think about but I my recommendation is definitely to think about honor and maybe think about historically what was lost what can be picked up again what did your parents get right what did they not get right and reclaim and recover as much as you possibly can especially in ways that that would look

I think culturally appropriate or even familiar to you and your people because there's ways that I know

I have friends we were talking about the Dutch earlier the Dutch we're gonna they're gonna honor their fathers in much different ways then

I might honor my father especially in a cultural setting so reclaim honor in in any way you can find it with your with your fathers and mothers

Michael what are we thankful for I am thankful for my father he's turning 70 in just a few days and I asked him to tell some stories to his grandkids the other night we hung out and so I was grateful for the faulty car repair that left him stranded on the side of I -44 between Tinker and Tulsa that led to him hitchhiking that led to him having to get a plane ride that led to him being invited to as a very young Christian to Switzerland for a training session where he was called into the ministry and thus he ended up switching from Tulsa University to OBU where he met my mom and went into 40 plus years of ministry and had a big impact on my life being called into ministry so very thankful for bad car repair that leaves you stranded on the side of the road and the problem

I'm thankful for the providence of God oh yeah father's life and the fact that he rejoices in all of that and sees

God's hand in his life amen Andrew I'm thankful for seasons there's lots of ways you can take that word so this season that we're in climatically climate according to the weather the rain has been abundant and everything is green there's blooms everywhere that should bode well for a fruit harvest thank

God for such wonderful weather during this season but I'm also going to be ending my junior year at UCO so that's here soon so I think about like the seasonality of the college cycle and what this summer holds but also this may be the only summer that I have left in such a way to enjoy with my family before I graduate and I go on to continuing to support my family with this knowledge and skills that I've gained so trying to be present in this season so thank

God for this season you know also what we were just talking about like seasons in life but they will not be under my household forever and I need to remember that they will not be under my guidance or having the rod of correction applied to them in my home forever and so not

I I should I should redeem the time while I have them so thank

God for seasons amen Chris we've mentioned rain recently two things kind of in conjunction that I'm thankful for during our move into this house and during this season one of our neighbors has approached me about beekeeping he's older and and not able to do it any longer and so he's kind of tapped me he said you're gonna do the work and I'm gonna tell you how so he took me out to his lane and we set up to beehives by the grace of God we didn't get stung but they're loving the rain this is great all of the all of the flowers

April shower bring me flowers and one of the hives is like going crazy but also

I'm thankful for learning to do the bees but also my wife that lets me she is definitely terrified of insects in general but stinging insects more specifically like bees and wasps she's like bees have a purpose okay fine they make honey but wasps now

I don't know what they're about but she she lets me do beekeeping now so all right so back at the house we pet the bees on our flowers yeah yeah you can you can touch bees man no yes yes you can go that didn't happen to me as a kid okay okay maybe

I think you can let her try to pet a bee I think I stepped on him first I don't think you like that so yeah so I'm grateful for that's a neighbor's you know an elderly never taking me under his wing

I'm thankful for the season that I get to learn it during the season where they're most active and he's teaching me to identify the

Queen and they're going crazy and then my wife for allowing me to be crazy be crazy be crazy nice I think that's really cool and I was deployed with a doctor who like her side job was no kidding beekeeping and she would take hives out to farmers fields to pollinate and make lots of money to do in doing that so I I hope it's very successful for you and I want some of that I've got a couple of empty boxes and this guy's like he's riding around the city on his tricycle identifying bee swarms like there's one on this road there's one on this place and I'm like I guess

I'll go set bee boxes out and try to catch them yeah Wow capture the capture the Queen and put it in the in the beehive

I'm very thankful for my wife's side of the family in particular her aunt

Diane or Diney as she's known Amy's mom my mother -in -law it's it's her sister so Betsy and Betsy and Diney and they're just they're funny to watch together but having all of that family very different religious backgrounds very different political backgrounds having all those people in one place was a little stressful and Amy has a heritage a legacy of faith on her side of the other family and it's it's beautiful to watch and I frankly needed some help on that that Saturday evening just a couple of stressful interactions not knowing what to say afraid

I saw it said the wrong thing you know missing an opportunity to share share the gospel you know and and she just took me aside and talked to me like like a mom because I mean that's that's where she's she's a great mom and she's just a couple of years older than me so kind of spoke to me as a mom or as an older sister an older sister in the in the faith and was incredibly kind and as I like to say kind of talked me down off a ledge because I thought

I'd really messed up and and and she reminded me that I hadn't that's but that's that's her family that's

Amy's Amy's family so and Diney was just a blessing a real blessing to have she stayed with us for a couple of days so I got to know her a lot better and I look forward to seeing her again soon just just a great woman of God former missionary she's does children's ministry now her husband does does ministry in Nicaragua went with them so they're just this wonderful older couple that are doing wonderful things and she took the time out of her day just to minister to me so I'm very thankful for aunt

Diney amen well I think we forgot to mention at the beginning of this episode that this is likely the last episode of this season and I don't know what season this is either we're in season 4 folks and it's the end of season 4 but I'm thinking on behalf of everyone here we are extremely thankful for anyone who listens sends questions in maybe edified by anything that we might say and we're we're thankful that we even get to come here and do this that we were actually thankful that we get to do this for free as well it's not a job obligation we get to show up with brothers with friends grow together in between recordings be told things about dispensationalism that we had no idea like that happens to me every day but I I learned stuff all the time

I don't know how you guys are being in here but I learned stuff all the time I'm are you saying you're edified by this good

I am I am too I I thank God for being able to do this right yeah just just having the opportunity the operating vehicle outside to get here all the equipment

Joel over here like just there's no way that this would happen at all without Joel being able to run that over there and we just be in a room talking to each other which which we might do anyways right we might be okay with that but we get to record it and we get to send it out to people who might be helped by it and I'm so very thankful for that and I know you guys are too and even though this is the last episode we do ask you to continue to send in questions and even if you think we've met we may have been answered it before if it's something close or something that you feel wasn't answered adequately go ahead and add that in the question say hey