Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate, we are two long term friends doing life and ministry together. I got tired of the same ole answers when I started looking for help when it came to my walk with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help Navigate your Christian walk with you
Navigate Podcast
Parenting and Children: Commandment #5
TJBHpodcast@gmail.com
Our chat shines a spotlight on the pivotal role parents play in imparting the Ten Commandments and biblical principles to their children. We discuss the importance of teaching values like honesty, respect, and love for God at home, and the potential societal pitfalls when this guidance is absent. Through personal stories, we navigate the challenges of honoring one's parents, acknowledging the growth that comes from these experiences. Our dialogue underscores the need for strong family values to maintain societal coherence and harmony, while reflecting on the broader implications for our communities.
Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate. I'm with Justin, I'm here, dude, that's such a habit. Now I'm trying to break that habit, you know what, tim, I really am.
Speaker 2:People still love you. They love your voice, they love your deep. I don't know, I don't think you can call it a brogue. Brogue is like an accent. You just got a deep like a baritone thing going on, welcome to Navigate.
Speaker 1:I've never heard that before. Yeah, it sounds nice. I'm doing it on purpose. It's calming.
Speaker 2:It's calming. The bigger your beard gets, the deeper your voice goes.
Speaker 1:Dude, you were the first one to notice my beard, Thank you.
Speaker 2:No, everybody notices I was going to shave it the moment somebody said something what? I want you to cut that thing and give yourself the. What do they call it?
Speaker 3:A goatee or what?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, you know, you leave the sideburns and the mustache and you just cut the chin?
Speaker 1:It's not. You should do that, the Wolverine.
Speaker 2:It's killing me, mutton chops, mutton chops.
Speaker 1:Mutton chops.
Speaker 2:That's what I was like for Reformation Month next year.
Speaker 3:Did you not have a beard at some point Me? No, like I can't think of you not having a beard, oh no he's just growing it out. Yeah, yeah, it's. Just See how it's growing on the sides and like not.
Speaker 1:But you always have.
Speaker 3:Nobody on this podcast right now knows what Facial hair though you always have some facial hair right, I've never seen you clean shaven.
Speaker 2:By the way, guys AJ is here notice.
Speaker 3:He's the third voice. I'm confusing him, I know I had to break in at some point because I was like wait a minute.
Speaker 2:If we're bringing up mutton chops.
Speaker 3:I am entering. I thought you guys were going to try to convince me, like he's never had a beard, and I thought, no, I saw this episode of Star Trek and they tried to make the guy.
Speaker 2:Some people have been listening to the podcast forever, never seen Tim. They're like Tim has a beard, Tim has a beard. With that voice he absolutely has a beard and he's the best looking one here. So you guys don't know, it's true. I'm quite the catch but you probably already knew that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you could have seen with the voice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's nice, it's nice, thank, right, yes, number five.
Speaker 1:Continuing into the Ten Commandments, we are in number five. Hot dog it's going to be fantastic. Last week we talked to one with Josiah was with us about the Sabbath. Yes, that's the fourth one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was good. I enjoyed talking about that. I've since been a little bit more. I'll tell you what going through these commandments has made me more reflective in general about the value of these in society. Like everyone should apply these in their life, you would legitimately just be a better Christian and more Christ-like if you took the 10 commandments more seriously and thought about the implications that they have in life and society in general. There's just a life and, let's say, heritage I mean we'll get into some of this even today but just there are implications of living out the Ten Commandments in a greater way. I know it sounds cliche, but I don't even think people could quote what the Ten Commandments are anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we know there's Ten Commandments.
Speaker 2:They're supposed to be really important. Why? But like Jesus, though, right.
Speaker 1:It's a Sunday school thing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like that's how we think about it. We the Ten Commandments that's how you define biblical love, that's what it's supposed to look like Define Christian culture. The Ten Commandments that's how you define Christian culture, and each one of these commandments has subcategories of how we would spell that out in different given situations. These are it's the bedrock of Christianity.
Speaker 1:And I just I don't even think we think about it that way. Those are principles I've already put into practice, believe it or not, from the Sabbath one.
Speaker 2:We did. What did you start?
Speaker 1:doing bro.
Speaker 2:Just the idea of rest and giving things to God. Deepening my voice.
Speaker 1:Mutton chops. God gave it to me, I signed for it. Listen, listen.
Speaker 2:If one of you people who are listening to the podcast, if you send in a picture of you shaving your face into mutton chops, I'll give you a shout out.
Speaker 3:I will, they should have one of those navigate hoodies, exactly we should.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can get you a navigate hoodie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we should hook somebody up with that If somebody sends a picture they're going to make navigate hoodies.
Speaker 2:We'll put a picture of your face on the navigate hoodie. That is not true. Well, maybe Depends how good looking you are.
Speaker 1:The fifth commandment is honor your parents. Honor your father and mother. Yeah, um, I think that's why we had aj come back, because every time we talk family parenting you always seem to be the guy we think of.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you guys.
Speaker 1:I don't know why yet.
Speaker 3:But no, I'm just kidding I've got a lot of kids I I wish I could say, man, I'm really good at, uh, raising kids or being a son, and'm I'm still growing in both quite a bit yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it would be weird if you started that off with like I've arrived and this is my. I'm going to give everybody parenting advice.
Speaker 3:If my kids all turn out really really good, I think I'll say you should really listen to me. I raised all my kids and they're all serving the Lord, but I'm like I don't want to start talking like I know.
Speaker 2:And then my kids go off. Serving so far, but the thing is the reputation of your children precede you, Right, they do. They go before you. That's the whole point of like the Psalm 127. You having arrows in the hand of a warrior, you getting to stand in the gate with your kids is're kind of this, this, you know army of people behind you. So when you would say something, there would be a greater thrust of like me in this army behind me.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So I don't even think you have to say that if you do it right, your reputation as a family goes ahead of you and you don't have to.
Speaker 1:So what about honoring your parents? Has to do with parenting. You know it sounds like a commandment for the child not for the parents.
Speaker 2:Let me. Okay, so I love that you said that. Can we start there for a second? Okay, because there's two sides of this and I almost want to like can I frame this conversation for a second Like?
Speaker 2:This is important because we're starting the second table of the law, all right, so we have the first table, which is the first four commandments about how we worship God, and then we have the next set of commandments which are telling us functionally how that plays out in the life that we live with the people around us. We talked about the first set, the first four being loving God, the last six being loving your neighbor. We've entered into loving your neighbor, or, let's say, family relationships or, let's you know, external relationships that we have, not apart from God, but because of our relationship with God. So you have the first commandment, which is basically loving the Lord, your God, right, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, which is a big deal. And starting out with this is where everything begins.
Speaker 2:And the first commandment, let's say the second table of the law, starts at home. This is important because what it's saying is before any other relationship, you got to get the home right, you got to get relationship with your family. Right, because if it does not start at home, nothing else works, does not start at home nothing else works.
Speaker 2:And what sucks about this, tim? I think secular leftists, marxist people understand this better than the church does. Like Marx and I'm trying to think of the guy that I want to say, hegel, but I could be wrong His whole point was if you undermine the family, you will undermine the church, so you need to do that. His whole idea was if we destroy the family, we'll destroy religion itself. Religion is based on this idea of the family. So if you hijack the family, you hijack everything else and unfortunately, I think in a lot of ways there's been a huge success with disconnecting family relationships.
Speaker 2:How many people hate their parents? How many people talk about broken homes? How many people have no honor for their father or mother at all, like in any way? It's just, it's not a thing. Or if you love your parents, it's for all the wrong reasons. Everybody's got baggage and it's been incentivized by a culture that's taught you to break away from your family. Thank you, disney. I was talking to my daughter about this, watching disney films, and I was like, how come every? It was uh. Last one I watched was moana tim. Okay, and you have the overbearing family who's like. You can never leave the whole beginning of that song is like and no one leaves. It's like creepers, um. And they set it up like you have to break away from your family and separate and be something else.
Speaker 2:Sociologists even came up with this term teenager to create this idea that, oh, when kids turn into teenagers, they obviously become nightmares and have to create their own path and do their own thing. That's not a biblical teaching. Okay, nowhere in the Bible is like and when they become teenagers, they become crazy. Just get just so you're ready. That's going to happen. That is a Marxist idea that has worked its way into our culture in such a strong way that it has been breaking up families for a very long time. And now we have government officials let's say talking about they're not your kids, they're our kids, right, national, you know, it's a national family and we'll tell you how to raise your kids.
Speaker 2:If you undermine the family, you undermine everything, and God set up in the 10 commandments. The first is you have to love me. I need to be at the center of everything, that is, your relationship with me and with regard to everything else. And then, secondly, when it comes to everyone else, it starts with the family and how the family affects everything else around you. So when we set this up and we talk about honoring your father and your mother, as the Lord God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you in the land which the Lord, your God, gives you, I want you guys to see the beginning of how he's saying revival truth. You. I want you guys to see the beginning of how he's saying revival truth. Blessing. All of this starts at home. Revival starts at home.
Speaker 2:Hope, joy, longevity these things start at home, and I think we have a whole culture that's set on undermining that and telling you that that's actually, that's actually the wrong way to do things. And, tim, I think we grew up talking about how we didn't want to get married because, oh, every marriage we saw was miserable and everything was like. We had this idea of it that I don't think was accurate because of people that we knew. I think it was accurate because of the culture that we lived in. You pick up on it. Marriage isn't honored anymore. Nobody cares if you're married. In fact, if somebody said I've been married for 20 years, it's kind of this trite clap or I'm supposed to celebrate this, but nobody really you know what I mean Actually wants to be married for 20 years. Right, you know.
Speaker 2:Find somebody, better, find somebody. You know, I saw some. I saw some ad dude. It was wild. Somebody took a picture of this. It was this it was the same girl who wrote both articles. One was like how cheating on my husband made me a better mother, and then, two years later, an article that was like why do I feel so inferior with other women that aren't divorced? It's like this is the lady who's influencing our culture and writing this stuff. But that's the kind of autonomous. It's me. I'm not part of anything else. I have to make my own way.
Speaker 2:I have to be my own person. It's actually kind of killing us yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean talking about honor in the family is just make sure everybody's getting along, make sure there's less arguments, make sure everybody's happy when they come home, because this is a home. What are you talking about when you say honor in the family?
Speaker 2:Well, let me bring it back even a step farther. I think the way that we tend to view laws is human-centric. So let me start by saying this we think to ourselves if I read something in the Bible and that sounds like it's something that actually would benefit me, then I must agree with it. But if I read something and it doesn't seem to immediately benefit me, I don't really want to do that and we would ask the question why? What's the point? We don't have a. God has commanded this. You should do this. Mentality. We have a. If this benefits me and I can see how it benefits me, then I'll do it. Mentality.
Speaker 2:And so I would start by saying honor in the family starts from a place of what has God told me? How am I supposed to treat my family around me? Not necessarily well, what's pragmatic and what doesn't work. So even when you just talked about this like what does that really get along in the family? And this, you're already thinking pragmatic terms of how does this benefit me, not what has God told me to do, that will actually produce you know what he worship? And more praise for his name and elevating him and and man. I want to touch on something else real quick too. I feel like I'm I didn't realize I had this much I wanted to say.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:This commandment is in here for children and adults. We I tend to think about this only for adults, because I was raised in a more of a let's say, a baptistic home which thinks that kids can't be Christians until they've accepted Christ as their savior at 22 or 23, after they've sowed wild oats and been an idiot and actually got regenerate. This commandment is in here because it's expecting you to talk to your children and tell them honor your father and mother, like they're supposed to know who God is, and understand these commandments and walk in them in a way that's honoring to him. That's a big deal. That means God is expecting you to raise your kids like Christians and he's expecting them to live in covenant families and be able to understand the Ten Commandments along with the rest of the family.
Speaker 2:You should teach your kids these things, yes, so I think that's a big deal, because a lot of people think, oh, the Ten Commandments are for adult Christians who already get it. No, the Ten Commandments are rules for life. Even before your kid totally has, let's say, a moment with God where he totally gets wrecked and it's awesome. They should know these things, get them and be able to walk in them, and the Bible is expecting you to to get that. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think it's such a. The burden falls on the parents to teach their kids the 10 commandments and teach them the word of God. And so if a kid's like I don't know how to honor my parents, it's like, well, taught them to not lie, steal, kill. And so when we teach our children the word of God and we say this is what it says, and you are going to honor me, you're gonna respect me and you're gonna love God. This is the way we do things in our house. If a kid doesn't know how to do any of those things and then they go wayward and the parent's like, well, they're just in God's hands and God's like I put them in your hands.
Speaker 3:You were supposed to teach them these things. That's why I'm constantly telling you like, teach them this, say these things.
Speaker 2:When you lie down, when you rise up, put them on your forehead, on your house, on your wrist, when you go to sleep. You should be teaching these things. And to your point, Tim. It says do these things right, Honor your father and mother. And if you're asking how do I honor my father and mother? You just said it you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's house or all these things. You're teaching them principles from everything the 10 commandments have given. So, look, your kid may not be like well, I don't think my small child is going to murder anybody. Are you teaching them about hatred? Are you teaching them about where those things start and where they go? Hey, how you're treating your brother right now is murderous. I'm going to take you to the story of Cain and Abel.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you a little bit about this. Let me tell you where comparison goes and how this starts in your heart, where it's going to take you if you don't get this right. What am I teaching them? How to do, how to love, how to love God and how to express that love for God in the relationships around. Okay, second table of the law. This is basic, fundamental thinking. And where does where do we learn the rest of how these commandments fall out in society? At home, first, with your family, and how to express these things.
Speaker 2:So I I don't mean to hijack this and make it just about family at first, because I do think we need to talk about specifically how do I honor my father and mother and what does that mean? I really wanted to get people to understand the implications and how important this actually is, because it's the framework by which everything else is going to happen, because if you have families teaching kids the right things across an entire society, literally everything gets better. Everyone becomes on the same page. I'm not saying everything. All the problems disappear. I'm saying they all at least were at least now in the same framework, where we know what is right and what is wrong and we're not arguing about whether or not our son is a daughter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know what I mean. It's not even in the same. You hit on it about destroying the family and it's just like, why wouldn't you go after, like let's just try to make murder, okay. And it's like, just destroy the family that way. It's like, and we'll teach the kids the rest of the rules, we'll teach them about lying and stuff like that, but when you destroy the family and it's like there's no morals, there's no such thing as right or wrong. It's your truth.
Speaker 2:Yes it Well. We bastardized education. Yeah, if the family is not the place where you learn truth and you learn about God and you learn how to express those things, and you hand it over to the state to tell them those things and the state is going to give it its secular worldview or I would say pagan worldview at this point, and is going to teach them for you. We've talked about the public school system a little bit and some of these different things. And look, I could talk about where the church has failed, where families have failed. I think really, what I would just like to communicate is the bedrock of the family and how honoring your father and mother is a big deal.
Speaker 2:And I will be the first to say, tim, I suck at this. I've been borderline dreading talking about this particular commandment, because I don't think I have done a great job at this commandment in general. I just haven't. I love my dad, I love my mom. Very difficult for me to figure out how to do this. Well, I guess in the recent years I've been getting better at it and trying to figure out how to make more sense. Like I can sit down with my dad and talk about theology forever. We get along. We love each other. I love my mom. We get along. We can talk, trying to figure out how to let's say how to express that honor to him in my family or in unique ways that don't feel superficial or like I just came over for a holiday. You know what I mean. How do you actually develop that?
Speaker 2:And I think the life that you live in light of what your parents taught you is probably the greatest way to honor your father and mother. If they taught you to love the Lord, raise godly kids, pour into them, make a difference in society, grow you know, pour into your church, grow the kingdom. If you're doing those things, you're probably honoring your parents. But I think maybe the difference between what like, maybe a key piece of that that I would tell people is that means inviting your parents into that too. Not just doing that unilaterally, but actually having them be a part of that process.
Speaker 2:Are your parents seeing what's going on with your kids? Are you asking them for wisdom about particular circumstances? Are you celebrating wins with them? Are you sharing losses and prayer requests with them? I think we're supposed to do that, and I'll be the first to say I suck at it. Um. It's been hard for me, and I think part of that is because I was raised in a generation that does not value family or parents and sees the greatest, um, the greatest sense of becoming an adult is actually abandoning your family and not continuing your family's legacy. Those are two very different things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's uh, I mean I don't know who does it perfectly honoring their dad, but it's, and it's one of those things that you know we're honoring imperfect people too, and we're and I think people think, if I would honor him for the things he did good, for things he did right, but not all these things. And it's like if we, if we'll just take it as the commandment, God saying to do this, and it's like I will do it, and as we do that and we start searching for things, and it's like I want to give my dad honor, and they might, he might like there's times where I've tried to give my dad honor and he's just, it's like, rejected it and that was hurtful.
Speaker 2:He doesn't know how to take it.
Speaker 3:It's like, ah, but it's just like, the more we do it, this is like the more that I think that for for my dad, the more that he believes like I really am bringing this as a as a as a offering of like I am, I'm trying to, I'm trying to honor you, I'm doing that.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 3:I think that that helps restore the relationship and I'm thinking that's what I want my kids to do, is just like I just want you to know, dad, even if I don't listen to your advice, I really I really do respect you, or like I'm thankful for the things you've given me and so like being able to just like be thankful for what they did give and not Britain throwing all their their face.
Speaker 3:You know, here's where you messed up and man, my, my parents actually like apologized to me a few years ago for some of the stuff they like as a team, and I was like you guys don't owe me anything Like like I felt guilty, like you know, for the years, thinking I wish they would just realize. And then, when they did, I was like actually, you guys have given me so much, and I think people usually they come to that place when their parents die and then they're like they did so great and it's like all you did was complain about them for all this time. Why didn't you just bring them some of that stuff, that honor, and be like thank you for doing your best, and I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're touching on something that's important here. Tim, aj, sorry, the reality is, throughout Scripture we see this principle you choose what you want to elevate and amplify. Okay, when they talked about the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, did you know those people, right? Okay, not great individuals. A lot of mistakes. A lot of big problems, like very big problems. You want to talk about David? Okay, we're going mistakes. A lot of big problems, like very big problems. You want to talk about David. You want to talk about some of the issues in the family. There's a ton of father wounds, father problems, mother wounds, mother problems in.
Speaker 2:Scripture, there's a lot of things that did not go right and people who did not do the right things. The Bible doesn't elevate their sin as much as it elevates how God used them despite those things. And I think our goal, let's say, is adult children and man. I could talk about some of the how this applies to kids and this how this applies to adult kids too but is choosing how you want to talk about your parents and telling the story in a way that does give honor and show what they did really well, and making that the thing that you want to carry on. Because if you elevate the lessons and the good things that they actually did and what they were able to provide, then what you're handing down is an honor and a heritage of the good things that God did, but if you're constantly elevating the things that went wrong, you're not really teaching lessons as much as you're growing bitterness and a desire for people to break off from that and not be a part of those people and what they did, and we do this historically.
Speaker 2:So this starts in the family, with how we view things, and here's what my dad did and then it turns into history.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't listen to this person because they had this going on in their life and it becomes a witch hunt throughout history.
Speaker 2:If you're what the founding fathers and what everybody else did totally wrong and we can't listen to them because this happened, okay, well, what you just did is you showed me that the way that you interpret life is through the lens of what everyone else did wrong and how you're going to be better and do it different or at least I won't be that person.
Speaker 2:Not look at the heritage of all the good things that happened, despite those difficult things that went down, and how God used them. That's how the Bible tends to talk about history not through the lens of what everyone did wrong, but how God blessed and used them despite those things, and how they ended up having a heritage of blessing and a heritage of godliness, despite maybe not making all the right choices along the way, if they did love the Lord and want to continue to pursue him. And I think that's you're teaching your kids how to interpret life is like that and we have a bunch of victims and bitter people because we've taught everyone to focus on the things that have gone wrong instead of telling the story in a way that elevates God and elevates those people, despite some of the mistakes that they made.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is a big deal.
Speaker 3:For all the moms and dads out there. I think it's important the way that you talked about your kids' grandkids or their grandparents, and like the way that they're going to talk about us. You know our kids are going to talk about us and we think I'm doing great, or you know I'm doing that it's like you know they could. It's easy to find dirt on anybody Just wait right, but the more that we're like, and it's not deifying them either.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:I think sometimes we think I can't honor my parents, they're not Jesus. It's like, no, they're not, they're not going to like. It's okay to to admit the their faults, but maybe not be focused on that and and being able to to honor those things, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'm look, if you're a parent out there too and you, like you, got kids, you know, like man, I don't feel like my kid. They're disrespectful, they're this and that, especially if you're in some kind of phase where you're just you're walking through some difficulty, one of the best ways to get your kids to honor you and be obedient to you is for them to see you honor God and be obedient to God, and I think you're supposed to model what that looks like. And oftentimes you go to war against your family instead of go to war for your relationship with God when things get difficult. Family instead of go to war for your relationship with God when things get difficult. And I would say look, your kids are not your enemy. You know what I mean. Your wife is not your enemy, your husband's not your enemy. In fact, when things get difficult, focus on the first four, do that really well, work really hard at that and watch the fifth commandment, you know, and the implications of the fifth start to get better. I don't mean immediately, but I am saying these are functional promises. God is saying if you do these things, good things will happen.
Speaker 2:And it is worth noting, tim, that this particular commandment is a positive commandment. Most of them are don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. This is the first one that's like do this, which tells me that these other commandments are things that naturally you tend to do. This commandment is something naturally you tend to not do. It comes naturally to you to not honor your father and mother or not do the family thing as well as you should, and we should realize that, especially as men, I think our tendency is to not want to carry on the name identity, respect. You know the posterity of my family. You know what I mean. We don't think that way. It's actually natural for us to, let's say, become more degenerate, become prodigals, run the opposite direction, get bitter instead of continuing to honor and do the right thing. This is a positive requirement God is giving us with positive blessing. So this is something we tend to omit. It's not commission, this is omission.
Speaker 1:Well, I've always been curious about this question. I kind of want to get your opinions on it. But let's say you have a dishonored child who's just constantly going against the grain that you're trying to teach. Is his behaviors just a way of showing, hey, you failed me as a parent? Is their behavior the cause? From the parent's sin, basically, or not teaching them the right thing? So is it the parent's fault for a kid's behavior?
Speaker 3:Yeah, many times that can be the case, but a child's rebellion is going to still be on them. And so you have, you know, in all the years working with teenagers, we worked with lots of parents who were totally dishonorable, like they were not necessarily worthy of honor. And to teach those kids, yeah, your dad is a jerk is not helpful to him. And so it's like when I see when there was parents that actually wanted help and we'd be like, read the Bible with your kids, like talk about spiritual things, do here's some good practices, you know, get into church yourself, you know that would give the kid less ammo. Or just to you know they, then they couldn't say, as much, my, my dad's just a hypocrite. And you know when, when, as much, my, my dad's just a hypocrite.
Speaker 3:And, um, you know when, when there's hypocrisy, I'm like, yeah, that's never going to be good for for for the kid. But a parent, can you know, a parent can change that. They can they. They can, you know, start honoring God with that. But the, you know, I don't know a teen's rebellion, even at the end of the day, even if their parents are hypocrites or whatever, it's like, you've got to still own up to your own, your own life. And yeah, because the commandment doesn't say honor your parents, as long as they.
Speaker 2:They were great people and you have great stories to tell about them, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah so it's true, right, like you. And this again goes back to like this story, how you perceive and how you would want to tell the story of your family, what you would want to elevate, what you would want to mitigate. But, tim, I do think there's a reality here to to AJ's point, where there's there's responsibility on both sides of things. And I would say, if you, if you're a crappy parent, you know what I mean, you might need to take some responsible for some things, but really, what it boils down to is defined success is apparent, no-transcript, and I would say a lot of people are trying to measure the outcome and not what they actually did. Like pragmatically, like here's what I mean If I do these six things, my kids will always come out perfect. Oh, okay, false, right, Not true, all right.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite examples of this and this is something I learned from my dad I was asking about it to the kid. I was like, hey, what happened? Because it seemed like it got wild there for a little bit with this you know, siblings and different things. And he said, you know, he said for a long time I wore it personally. I was like what did I do? I should have done this differently. And then he said and then I realized you know, god was the best father ever and his kids still blew the world up. You know what I mean? And I was like man, if you can't breathe out after hearing that, you don't get it. You know like the picture really is. God is calling us to cultivate an environment and set our kids up, equip them with what they would actually need to succeed, them with what they would actually need to succeed and to, let's say, call them into that path.
Speaker 2:But you cannot make someone do the right things beyond a certain reason. The first, second table of the law is a little bit easier to enforce. Okay, don't murder anybody. Yeah, societally, we can put stuff in place. Don't commit adultery. There's some things that are statuary we can put in place. Don't steal yeah, we can defend that. Hey, do I have idols? A little harder to defend, a little harder to figure that out. You can talk to people about how we grow in these areas, how we make it better. You got to model those things, but ultimately it is not on you mom, dad, whether they are elect or not. You don't get to make that decision. However, I do think there is a unique blessing and a unique longevity that God promises for those who will do these things and I would say nine times out of 10, if dads and moms will stay together, work through the difficulty and continue on despite what's going on with their kids, oftentimes, even if there's a rough patch, you'll see those kids come back and thank their parents later, whether on this side of the grave or the other side of the grave.
Speaker 2:I think about Francis Schaeffer's son. Francis Schaeffer was this great kind of cultural apologist, if you want to call him that way, looking at history and how God works through history and how culture degenerates and this kind of stuff happens. And his son was like an atheist. And then his dad died and eventually his mom died and his son was their son, was not a good individual, he hated God. And then, after his mom died, he wrote something like for some paper or something. He basically said OK, mom, you win. And everybody is like, ok, what does that mean? Is he saying, okay, now I believe in God, you did it? And it seems like that was the connotation of what he was writing.
Speaker 2:There's something very powerful about you living the life that you're, the way that you're supposed to equipping your children the way that you're supposed to and then letting God do the portion that you can't do on your own. And I'll be honest, the most stressful and frustrating thing about parenting is not being able to change your children's hearts the way that you want to. You can only try to shape and mold. You can direct, you can equip, but ultimately God is the father and you have to trust your kids to God, the father. But but I do think there's a, there's an anointing and a blessing that God puts on individuals who will do these things.
Speaker 2:First, if you talk badly about your own parents, if you don't honor your own parents, if you don't care about them, what in the world makes you think your kids are going to, are going to love you and continue to do the same stuff with you? And I was talking to my wife about this the other day because, like I was talking about my relationship with my own family man, I figured this out and I honor them, but I got to figure out how to have them more involved in this and that and I was like because of my son is as distant from you talking to my wife is I am from my own mom. I feel like I'm not going to be okay with that. I got to start now and make that better. Because of my son doesn't love and spend time with my wife, I'm going to kill that kid. You know what I mean. I'm kidding, obviously but, like, but.
Speaker 3:That would be the most heartbreaking thing to you.
Speaker 2:Yes and I'm like, but I'm, I'm not. Uh, am I orienting my life in such a way that that's going to be the case, or am I expecting something that I wasn't willing to give? And I think that should be something that we all ponder. Am I living out the thing that I want them to do, or am I not doing that thing and then it just expecting them to figure it out along the way? And that's, that's omission. I'm not being intentional about this, I'm just expecting it to work itself out. That won't happen. A family doesn't happen naturally. A family degenerates naturally and we have to actually work hard to be intentional to make it something special. And I think biblically here, what it's saying is the root of this, the foundation of this. In the same way that you would honor Father God in the household, the first place this shows up is honoring your parents, who are the local, let's say, authority that God has given in your life that you're supposed to honor, respect and think through how you live your life after.
Speaker 1:What if you had some crappy parents, though?
Speaker 3:I think that it's on the Christian. Let's say you're listening and you didn't have good parents and you're raising kids and it's not as easy as you thought it'd be, you know. Then it's time to repent and be like okay, what do I need to change my mind about and is there something I need to go honor my dad for? And if you could find those things I'm like, I think there could be healing in those places. And I think that's where you start to change your mind about how you viewed him.
Speaker 2:Or simple like hey, honor your parents doesn't mean man, I just talked this dude up all the time, even though he was not great at all. I think it means elevating the things that went well and then, like the Bible, teaching some lessons about how things should have gone if they had gone the right way. I mean, I've said it before, I think my dad took, you know, a step out of the darkness so I could take two, right, I think that's the goal. That's a good way of saying hey, I don't think you got all the way there in every area. I think you got farther away from the darkness so that I could get even farther from that.
Speaker 2:There's a progressive sanctification that should happen in families and you see some of this in scripture, where you had a decent guy and then his son was able to do even more because he did a little bit to get him out of the hole. Now, sometimes you see that go the opposite direction too, and then you can look at some of the parenting principles and you're like, yeah, it was kind of a terrible dad. It makes sense. That was the case, right? I do think it's important to your point Tim, measure success and where there was success. Celebrate that when there was not. Teach from it. But I don't think honor ever means talk trash about. And but I don't think honor ever means talk trash about, and I've been guilty of that in my life.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think, offering forgiveness too, where, like the times that I know I was damaged in my heart and that it was that it was the Lord was requiring of me to change and I was like, but I'm not the one that did the hurtful stuff, but it's like well, when you start to forgive and you start to even tell your you know the things my parents didn't do so well on, instead of saying I'm going to do better than my dad did with you, as it's like I forgive my dad for not doing that the Lord actually had to show me this, and where he brought good men into my life to show me some of these things.
Speaker 3:And now I want to teach you and like yeah, of course, like, because your, your grand, your grandpa wasn't perfect. They might've missed this, I think offering like just lots of mercy towards that and and and being like don't hold it against them. I'm not, I'm not holding this against my dad, so you can't hold it against you know, grandpa, or something, and the more we do that, that that's an honoring way to talk about a person, and so if it's like well, I guess I had to learn everything from God it's like great, then you can offer mercy towards them. God loves that man so much and he didn't.
Speaker 2:He just didn't know better, and so this goes into Tim too, like the idea that the Bible has about the significance of a name and how you are supposed to own who you are and who your father was in a unique way that we don't do today in society. My last name is significant. It came from somewhere. It means something. I should care about that. I should want to extend the identity, the values and the significance that my family name has bestowed on me by way of birth. God chose the family that I'm in. He picked who my parents would be. He's given me the name that I have and I'm supposed to carry that with weight.
Speaker 2:Like in the Old Testament, you had these different tribes. What tribe are you a part of? Who are your people? What are the significant things that we know about these different tribes and what they carried and why it mattered, and the victories that they had and the significant special things? Now, this tribe did that and these people did this, and these people did that to the point where if somebody was, you know, born into a family and let's say you're, you know your husband died or you know whatever you know the brother of this family had to go ahead and take this woman on as a wife to make sure that he was able to have offspring and continue to maintain this land and his stuff and his name, and why it was significant. We don't think in those categories today, but the Bible is saying, man, your family, your name, where you're born, who you're born to, has significance and you're supposed to own that and God is actually expecting you to do that.
Speaker 2:You see this degeneracy, even in our culture, where people are like I don't want to be called an American. Well, god put you here in this nation, in this place at this time. It does have significance, it does mean something and you're supposed to carry that and own that. And in the same way, you see people dishonoring their fathers and you see them dishonoring their cultures and their pastors and whatever else. They also hate their own nation because they've learned to interpret life in this kind of rebellious way that we don't always think about. This is why the Bible calls rebellion is the sin of witchcraft, because the ultimate sin was Satan rebelling against Father, god and doing his own thing. And how we see this in the family is children rebelling against their godly parents and doing his own thing. And how we see this in the family is children rebelling against their godly parents and doing their own thing, and this whole. I don't like my family, I don't like my name, I don't like my father, I don't like my nation, I don't like what I'm a part of. All of that is demonic to its core. It's satanic. It's this belief that what I was born into and who I am, and life and all this stuff that, to me, is the essence of witchcraft and it's taking you a totally different direction. The identity of what your name represents and what you're supposed to carry on is a big deal in families and it stems from this. If I had a bad dad, you know what I mean. And again, I'm going to do what I always do. I'm going to take it back to the garden.
Speaker 2:He says did God really say? He's assaulting God's character. He's saying God's not really good, he's holding out on you, he's not giving you what he should give you. So you should doubt what he says because you don't believe he's good, which are the two axiomatic principles that every deconstructionist has. If I can find something I perceive to be a problem, then I can discredit everything that this person has done that is good, that is not grace and that is not mercy, which was at the heart of what you're saying, pastor AJ, this idea that, like no, we should give grace, we should give mercy. We should forget why. Because those are biblical principles about how we handle things, not burn it down because I found something I dislike.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you're saying this thing about the sin of witchcraft and it's like does it ever like, when people have this deconstructionist view about their life or about their nation you know their parents it's like does it ever yield good fruit? Can you think of I mean, I can't think of one example where it's like man, they really dishonored either the church they grew up in, their parents, their nation.
Speaker 2:It really went well for them, and things were like God really blessed that.
Speaker 3:It's like it always ends up in more hurt and just more depravity. And it's like it's okay to acknowledge I love America. It doesn't mean I'm celebrating slavery. It's okay to acknowledge yeah, that wasn't right. But look at all the things that were right and look at the wrong things being made right.
Speaker 3:Isn't that like the point of if my parents were the first ones to be born again? They're first generation believers and so I'm second generation and I'm like man. I want my kids, who are third generation, to go way further than I went and their kids to be super man, they really love God, way further than I went. Yeah, and their kids to be super. You know, man, they really love God, and it like. But if anyone stops and they say everything was stupid, everything that my grandpa, when he got saved, that was stupid. Yeah, it's like that, like you were destroyed, and then you see lines cut off, yeah, like what? What happened? It's like, like, so you see the wayward kids and it's like that's sad because it's not just them but it's the future generations that are in jeopardy, and it's like oh, come back to the Lord.
Speaker 1:That's funny Cause I was just thinking generationally when you guys were talking about a lot of this. It's like I take some qualities from my parents when I was being raised by them that I'm finding myself doing to my kids now, which I like where that come from, you know kind of scares you a little bit, good or bad, I guess.
Speaker 2:But but I think that's the thing that the Bible is saying is good is you were to carry on the values, the principles, the identity and actually carry that name with your shoulders back and your head high, like it means something.
Speaker 2:And if you're only ever wearing the problems and not the good things that came from it, if you don't like your last name, if you don't want to be associated with your family, the Bible is telling you hey, there's actually a riff in the way that you perceive your relationship with God and how that is supposed to affect your relationship with everyone else.
Speaker 2:And so hear me when I say this church is winning the hearts of the children back to the father, which is the whole idea of the kingdom and what that's supposed to mean and how God you know when Jesus came back is uniting the hearts of the you know, the children back to the fathers is this idea that if you begin to do that, there's kingdom work being done that is going to pay dividends in the longterm when it comes to the reign of Christ and how that plays out throughout time. So churches need to focus on winning the hearts of children back to their fathers. Kids carrying their name like it means something, families being the root of how the commandments get a hold in people so that they would live differently. And when we do that, you change everything. It's critical.
Speaker 3:It's critical. That's so beautiful. Come on, man. Awesome. That's probably it for time. I don't know if you guys have anything else.
Speaker 1:it's critical that's so beautiful. Come on, man. That's it for time. I hope this was convicting.
Speaker 2:I hope this was encouraging for you as a parent. Get after it as always, write in any questions and if you want some books, I'll send some recommendations your way cool.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me on guys.
Speaker 2:Thanks for being on bro it's always a pleasure have a great week everybody.
