The Best of 2020 | #3

Hope in Christ and the Blessing of 2020

Over the next three episodes, I'll be sharing the most popular, record-breaking shows from this year, and we'll also discuss three worldwide blessings I believe Christians.

Everywhere have received. Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. Welcome to the best of 2020.

I get it. We've probably all made the joke that 2020 has been so miserable and difficult that any future bad experiences will be so 2020. But I want to take a sober moment and remind ourselves that 2020 has been exactly what God wanted it to be.

That's right. It's been exactly what God wants it to be. Now, it's true that uncomfortable, hard, painful, and even very sad things have happened this year, but that doesn't change who God is and the fact that, because we're all sinners, we all deserve so much worse.

That means, from the eternal perspective anyway, 2020 has been amazing. And if we're being honest, there have been a lot of really amazing things about 2020. And we'd like to count down the top three most amazing things to happen in 2020, at least from Truth.

Love. Parents.' perspective. So, over the next three episodes, I'll be sharing the most popular, record-breaking shows from this year, and I'll also start each show by sharing a worldwide blessing that I believe Christians everywhere have received.

But before I get started, I want to personally invite you to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Parlay, Instagram, and YouTube. I'll likely be pretty active over the holiday season, and I'd love to have you join me there.

Just visit ambruster .com or check out the description of today's episode for all of my social links. As always, our episode notes and transcripts will be available on our blog, takingbackthefamily .com.

Worldwide Blessing Number Three: Hope in Christ

And with that said, here we go. Worldwide blessing number three for 2020. I think all of the ups and downs of this year have done a wonderful job reminding us of the importance of hope in Christ. Too many people this year have been living in fear.

Others have been living in anger. And each of these grows from our innate desire to control our surroundings, or at least to want to control our surroundings. And when we can't control everything we want the way we want, we get angry or afraid or depressed.

But when our hope is in Christ, we don't have to try to control our lives. We don't have to live in fear, and we don't have to be mad or sad when things don't go the way we prefer. Praise the Lord that the circumstances of 2020 have reminded His people how important it is to live in the hope of Christ.

This is an amazing blessing of 2020. Thank you so much, Lord, for giving us that. Now, on the TLP side of things, all of our episodes are downloaded multiple times every year, sometimes every day. But the third most popular episode of 2020 is episode 331, Why Does My Family Argue and How Do We Stop?

I suppose none of you are surprised to hear that this episode was so popular. With all the extra family time, no doubt we laughed more and cuddled more and probably argued more. It's definitely something with which every family struggles.

So, whether you missed it the first time or not, let's learn how God equips our families to stop all the unnecessary arguing. All right, I'm going to reference a familiar passage today, but since this is a standalone episode and not a series, we're going to study it in brief.

That means that there will be still a ton more helpful information buried in this passage that you can mine in your own personal Bible study. James 4, 1 through 12 asks, What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?

That's the question we're asking today too. Number one, why do we argue? James, the half-brother of Jesus, goes on to answer by way of another question. Quote, Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?

Unquote. I love that he asks this as if we should have already known it. And you know what? We should. My dad always taught me that we do what we do because we want to. It's an ugly truth, but it's true nonetheless.

By the way, if you are new to the show, you may enjoy a series we did all about why your kids do what they do. It starts in episode 95 and is called The Merest Christianity. I'll put a link in the description and show notes of this episode.

You can also search all of our podcast episodes at truthloveparent .com to search for any topic that may interest you. So, James has already answered the question for us. Why do your kids argue? Well, why do you and your spouse argue?

You argue because you want to argue. Literally, it pleases you to argue. Now, most people say that they don't like conflict. They would say that arguing is not pleasurable in the slightest. James isn't saying that the process of yelling and hitting and throwing things is pleasurable, though I believe more of us than want to admit it actually do experience a rush from arguing, at least in the moment.

He's saying that it's worth it to argue because we're fighting for something extremely valuable. So, the next logical question is, why do we want to argue? That's number two. James explains, you lust and you do not have, so you commit murder.

You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. We're not just arguing to argue. We're arguing to achieve our pleasure. That's the ticket right there. I want something. I don't get it. That's unacceptable to me.

So, I fight to reclaim what I believe I deserve. James goes so far as to include murder in the list of examples of what we're willing to do to get our way. Consider Cain and Abel. We have no reason to assume they absolutely hated each other, but Cain justified taking his brother's life in order to assuage his own guilty conscience.

That's what he wanted to do. Why do your kids argue? Why do you argue with your spouse? You wanted something and didn't get it. That's it. James explains further when he says, you do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. James is basically saying that we argue because we don't have what we desire, but we don't have what we desire for two main reasons.

A, we simply didn't ask. How many times has a child wanted the toy with which his sibling was playing and instead of asking for it decided to take it from him instead? How many times have we had an unspoken expectation for our spouse that, when not met, we used it to justify our anger?

Sometimes our arguing is simply a product of our own sinful stupidity, but the second reason James gives for unrequited requests is B, we ask for something that's sinful. The Mears Christianity series I referenced earlier uncovers why all people do what they do and it boils down to motives.

Why are you doing what you are doing? Well, here James warns us that even though we shouldn't expect sinful desires to be fulfilled, we still use that as a justification for our anger and quarreling. To recap, we've learned that we get angry because we want to get angry and we argue because we're trying to capture what we believe we deserve.

So the next logical question is, three, why do we believe we deserve something so badly that we're willing to argue and fight and murder to get it? Before I return to the book of James, I want to share another TLP resource with you.

We recently finished a series called Parenting Angry Children. Many of you have called and written in to tell us what a help that series was for your homes. If you haven't heard it before, I strongly encourage you to listen.

It's tied very closely to today's subject. James uses very powerful language to answer why we're so delusional as to think fighting is justifiable to get our way. He says, you adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?

Now, why would James focus in on the sin of adultery? Your kids aren't even married. How could the source of their desires be adultery? Well, all throughout the Bible, God uses the metaphor of infidelity and marriage to illustrate what happens when we sin against God.

Choosing my own desires above God is spiritual adultery. He's the only one who gets to set the trajectory for my life, so when I choose my own path, I'm cheating on God. When I steal that right from Him, I'm being unfaithful to Him.

I'm becoming an adulterer. But not only is my arguing rooted in my cheating on God, but the text reveals that this infidelity makes me a friend of the world and, therefore, an enemy of God. When we follow the example of the world, when we don't give God his rightful place in our lives, when we desire all the wrong things in our own puny self-worship and then choose to persecute anyone who doesn't give us what we want, we are an enemy of God.

Now, you may be wondering how a child of God, a person who has peace with God through the blood of Christ, could possibly be considered his enemy post-conversion. Here's the answer. Though we may not be positionally his enemy, we have definitely chosen to practically be his enemy.

It's the same thing that happens when we cheat on a spouse. Yes, legally, we're still married, but I'm acting like I'm married to someone else. That practical enmity is what's being discussed here. Now, your kids argue because they've cheated on God, placed their own desires on his throne, and ordained themselves chief thunderbolt hurler when their puny masses of your family don't fall in line.

The consequence, though, of their failed coup is that they have made themselves the enemy of God, and if they're born-again believers, they've earned an additional helping of God's righteous jealousy.

Due to some unfortunate translation work, the following verse has caused confusion. Please allow me to clarify with a slightly better rendering. Do you think the scripture speaks in vain? The spirit which he has made to dwell in us lusts with envy.

The scripture hasn't wasted its breath. Numbers 23 .19 tells us in no uncertain terms, God is not man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it?

Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? If you've followed the Disney Plus original series, The Mandalorian, then you probably smiled as I did when the diminutive character of Kuiil proclaimed to the formidable Mandalorian, I have spoken.

Well, my friends, we don't have to worry about an alien moisture farmer with a big attitude. God has spoken. He jealously desires the fidelity of his children. The Bible does not speak in vain, and the very Holy Spirit himself who indwells all believers is vexed that he has to endure such a pathetic attempt to unsee God.

By the way, we have an episode called Five Ways You Take God's Job, and we're working on another satirical one called Teach Your Children to Take God's Job. This is a ridiculous human tendency with which we all struggle.

So here we have a bunch of tiny people arguing and fighting and murdering each other because they've decided that they should get their way. All the while, the God of the universe watches, grieved, cheated upon, and jealous for the love and loyalty and worship due him.

This is what occurs when we argue with our spouses. These are the consequences of our children's tiffs. Could there possibly be a more depressing situation? I don't know about you, but this prompts another question in me.

Grace, Humility, and Repentance in James 4

4. Is there any hope for the situation? And the Lord answers us with the sweetest words in the Bible. He says,. But he gives a greater grace. How marvelous! How precious! How amazing! If a colony of termites were ticked off at each other because they each wanted the best parts of my house and furniture for themselves, I'd laugh them the scorn as I exterminated them.

But God doesn't wipe us out in our self-indulgent violence. He graciously and mercifully sacrificed himself to redeem us and gives us the power to serve him instead of ourselves. But there's an important warning attached to his grace.

It goes on to say, God is not ambivalent toward us. He is either standing against us when we pridefully worship ourselves, or he is gracious to us as we humble ourselves before God. So, this should prompt another question.

5. If humility is the only way to be saved from our constant bickering, how can my family humble ourselves? James gives us the answer. Submit, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt you. Now, there's just too much to unpack and apply in our last few moments. Each of these points could be studied out in much further detail.

This is where I encourage you, in your own Bible study, to dig deeper into what these behaviors look like in your family. A. The first step is to intentionally submit to God. We did a two-part episode called Teach Your Children to Apologize.

This is a necessary phase of submitting to God. B. The first part of submitting to God is fighting our sinful influences. God tells us to resist the devil. We need to equip our kids to recognize demonic attacks and respond accordingly.

Here's a spoiler. Season 14 is going to be all about spiritual warfare, the war that rages in our lives and the lives of our children, right here, right now, today, where we are. I'm really looking forward to that season, and I hope you'll join us.

C. The flip side of resisting the devil is drawing closer to God. True repentance is moving from sin to the Savior. We can't merely stop doing wrong without starting to live righteously. Helping our children move from their sinfulness to righteousness is part of the interpretation stage of parenting.

I encourage you to check out our Parents 5 Jobs series to learn more about the interpretation stage as well as the other four vital parenting responsibilities. Let's recap again. We've learned why we and our kids argue and have discovered that humility is the only way to defuse the constant contention in our homes.

But how do we actually do that? First, we need to submit to God. That requires that we stand against sinful influences and run toward our Savior. But another question arises. How does one practically draw near to God?

D. We must live righteously because we desire righteously. James said, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. The obvious metaphor is one of spiritual scouring to remove the gross from our lives.

What works itself out in our hands starts first in our hearts. It starts with our motivation and moves into our behavior. Instead of wanting our own way, we need to want Jesus' and then live accordingly.

It's more important that I please God by loving my sibling than by wanting to get his toy. It's more important that I want to help my spouse be conformed to the image of Christ than I convince them of my opinion.

But we're talking about rewiring the very basic tendencies of our kids. How does one choose to upend their lives like that? Up until now, we've wanted our own way and murdered when we didn't get it. What's going to stop that now?

Again, James gives the answer. E. In order to stop sinning, we must see our adultery for what it really is and be broken by it. This point is so incredibly important that he goes into more detail on this point than he does the previous points.

In verses 9 and 10, James quotes his brother's Sermon on the Mount. James says, Be miserable, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

In Matthew 5, 3 -5, Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

I've quoted this passage so many times on this show because Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount with the most basic, life-altering truth in the universe. It's required for salvation, and it's required for every step of maturity thereafter.

First, we must honestly recognize ourselves for what we really are. James has been explaining that since the whole book, but specifically since the beginning of chapter 4. That truth is that we are spiritually destitute.

Second, that reality should rock us to our core. Instead of brazenly laughing at our own iniquity, we should be grieved on a cellular level for our high-handed sin against our loving Creator. And that should lead us to meekly, humbly submit to God.

And when we do that, God exalts us. He lifts our heads. He enables us to live in a way that pleases Him. If you have bickering, argumentative children, I would recommend you use the four stages of parenting to teach your kids the truth about their desires and spiritual adultery.

Interpret the situation for them and call them to apologize and repent. Counsel them by showing them a better way and train them by helping them to reinforce on a daily basis what they've learned. This is now the third time I will have encouraged you to listen to the Mirrors Christianity series, and this time I'm going to admonish you to listen to it with your argumentative children.

Sit down as a family, listen to the lessons, discuss the applications. I believe it will provide you a fantastic foundation on which to parent your children through their quarreling in the future. Remember, intentional premeditated parenting takes time.

You wouldn't want your doctor to zip through your surgery as quickly as possible just to get it done. You'd want him to take his time to do it the right way. You are being used by God to help perform surgery on a child.

Don't rush it. Take your time to teach, interpret, counsel, and train your kids. And then I believe the final logical question today we should have after all of this is, number six, what does that kind of life produce?

I believe the question is answered by going back through the passage. If we understand the wickedness of self-worship and tyrannical living, we will be grieved. We will turn to God for help. He'll graciously give us everything we need for life and godliness.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, we won't serve self but instead will faithfully submit to God, desiring what he desires and deriving pleasure from holy living. And we will not be tempted to argue or fight or murder because we will trust the Lord and, as Matthew 5 teaches us, we will be able to rejoice and be glad when people insult and persecute and lie about us, not fight.

We fight because we want to be God, so submission to him is the only way we'll ever find help for our fighting. There's no other formula. So make sure you implement God's cure for your family arguing.

Start today. But also, share this episode on social media so other families can be rescued from their bickering and self-worship too. And if you'd like specialized help for your unique family struggles, please contact us at counselor at truthloveparent .com.

Remember, if we want our children to grow up into Christ, we must parent in truth and love. To that end, please join us next time as we discuss my cousin's recent Facebook post and remind overwhelmed moms everywhere that.

They're not alone. Truth. Love. Parents is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent. Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.