When Apostasy Has Taken Place - Discipleship for Dads

In this follow-up to last week's program about navigating spritual crises of faith, the dads talk about what to do when your child has already abandoned the faith. They discuss how this is one of the most painful trials a Christian can face...what loving the apostate child looks like...and why a father's trust in God may speak louder than anything else.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome friends to Generations Kevin Swanson with you today. Uh Todd Strosser and Danny Craig join me on a segment of Discipleship Dads. And so today we want to come back to a very actually relevant topic to where we are today, and that is uh what do you do as as dads when apostasy has taken place with uh your children or a child in your home? That's probably one of the, if not the most painful thing that happens uh in a Christian family. Now we're assuming a Christian family here, we're assuming that you've got a mom and dad who profess faith in Jesus, they go to church, uh, the rest of the family is a is a Christian family. I have some situations you have a spouse that's not a believer, uh, other kids not a believer. But uh let's just take the situation where you've got a Christian family, and uh you've got the black sheep of the family just wandering astray uh and and and and participated in the faith for a period of time, perhaps a member of the Christian church, yeah, and but now off the tracks, off the reservation. Uh how do we respond uh to to this? Obviously, very, very painful, probably the most painful thing that can happen to a family. First thing we want to say from the outset is we need hope. We need we need to be hoping. Uh, I think grateful for what God has already done. That that God would save me. I think to start there for a moment, we don't want to be you know self-centered about this or anything like that. But brothers, I think just to I come back to this on a regular basis, that God would have mercy on me is is really something that uh should blow us away. I mean, we should be starting out with wow, God has already been merciful to me. Secondly, that God is is going to do great things, and and uh we have great expectations that eye has not seen, ear has not heard the great things that God is doing for those who wait on him. And this is where we ended the program last time when we talked about this issue. But today I want to focus specifically on the situation where um a family has lost a uh a child, the the the sheep has wandered away and is not coming home. The prodigal is still sitting with the pigs somewhere. Um tough situation. What does a dad do? Todd?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Thoughts on this? Well, you know, I think like a lot of things, there's there's two ditches, and one can be to uh just say everything's okay, sort of pretend the situation's not there and you're hoping that they're gonna come back based on your your love and compassion. The other one is to completely ignore and sort of give up on them.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Kind of write them off.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, write them off. And so I think I think Luke 15, I think, I think the parable of the prodigal son's helpful, right? We have some instruction there about the father that kept the door open, that that was waiting, that was trusting in God. You even can sense that that father was not just completely, you know, weeping and grieving all the time. He was he was trusting God, he was expecting God to do a work.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

He was he saw the boy a long way off. A long way off, right. That's right, yeah, as I call it.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, yeah. So he was watching, he was anticipating a good work of God.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

And the context of that parable, too, again, is that the tax collectors and sinners were at Jesus' table with him, and that's really what got the Pharisees and scribes all upset. This man receives sinners and eats with them.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

So right there, right.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

So Jesus is making the telling that story to illustrate the heart of a father for his lost sheep. And there's some fellowship and interaction with those sinful people to minister to them.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Well, the big question is how do we maintain ongoing relationships? Right. I I I I do think we want to uh we want to continue to love these these children. The obvious thing is to pray for them. Yes. Are we praying for them? Um I think you would need to consider the effect that the children, the the the the lost sheep would have upon the rest of the children in the home. Sometimes the child is living in the home still, but refuses to go to church or is bringing prostitutes into the home, or pornography, or drugs, or what have you. Uh so there's these sort of situations. What I would say initially is that the parents should have some pretty firm rules as to what happens in the home. No prostitutes, no drugs. Something like that. I mean, there might be a few other rules as well. Uh, but if if they insist upon uh living this particular lifestyle, then you're just gonna have to separate. You're gonna have to say, you know, we can't do this in our home. And uh so lay that out. And I usually say uh that you should lay it out objectively, you know, not in some kind of emotional way, but just lay it out. Uh, you might even ask for a pastor or a counselor to join you in the conversation, but just to simply say, you know, this is our home. These are our rules and our expectations in the home. And uh if you if if you are bringing prostitutes into the home, if you're bringing drugs into the home, if you refuse to participate in family worship, these are examples, uh, or to attend church with us, simply cannot live in this home with us. So I think it's appropriate to lay that out in objective terms, just write it all out. And if they say, you know, we we just don't think we can abide by these rules, then you're going to have to, you know, find another place.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Not only is it appropriate, but if you look at the life of Eli, he became culpable uh to a certain extent for his son's sins because he failed to restrain them.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

And and I think the reason is because we are called to love them, yeah. And we have to love them. And first Corinthians 13 says, we rejoice in the truth. And so we we can't be like, oh, everything's okay, your new life is okay. We have to we have to stand for the truth and and live that out. And that kind of stability of trusting God, I think actually is an amazing witness to the child that's left.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

You mentioned the rich young ruler and how Jesus interacted with him, and it's it I think that's a off-air, but but that's an example of of what we need to be doing. And that is Jesus agape, the man, he loved the man. Uh the no question, he loved the man, he wanted the best for the man. He he wanted to present the best and and to challenge the man to the best, and that was to uh to to repent of his covetousness and to find a good walking stick and uh and come and follow Jesus. I had the walking stick then, but but he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to do that. He had his idol, he was content for the idol, and he went away sorrowful. Right. Uh which means that you may have a situation in which a son or a daughter walks away sorrowful. That's right. That may happen. Um now, I again, I think you need to consider the effect that this would have on the rest of the family, especially if if he's, you know, there's some desire to come back into the home. Would you invite a homosexual son with his quote unquote lover or a daughter who insists on bringing her boyfriend with whom she's fornicating to the home over Christmas, say Christmas Eve into Christmas and the day after, and they're just staying there in the home with you. Would you invite them into the home if they're flaunting their sin? Now, the the difficulty, of course, is they're selling something. They're they're selling their sin. Now, two things. One is we're concerned for the leaven, right? The influence they might have on the rest of the family. Sure. And so we think of the first Corinthians 5 passage, where it does appear that the leaven of this guy who's living in sexual sin is affecting the rest of the church. The whole church, yeah. So so I think that's number one. But number two is do we want to approve of their sin? I think there's this pressing on us oftentimes to approve of sin, especially with the uh homosexuality. It seems like homosexuality is the one sin that if everybody isn't waving flags and celebrating and saying, yay, yay, you go girl or you go guy, um, that's somehow, you know, you're you're like not participating and not uh joining in with uh the preferred sin of the day. And and this is a food offer to idols thing. The question is whether or not somebody should attend a homosexual wedding. Um, this is where Alistair Begg fell down, it's where Amy Grant fell down. Um you know, uh sadly, this is happening. I think it's because of the ignoring of the principle of food offer to idols. And so that that is the biblical principle that speaks directly to this issue. We are not to participate in the celebration in which there's idolatry or you know, uh a celebration of sexual sin happening in the uh heathen ritual. Uh, we are not to participate in this kind of thing. Now, if the food happens to be, or the party happens to be disconnected from the heathen ceremony itself, it's okay. You can you can buy the meat in the shambles in the marketplace, you're not to participate in the idolatrous sacrifice itself. Yeah. And uh so this is this is the thing that Christians cannot do. We cannot attend homosexual weddings, we can't give tacit approval uh to uh sinful, wicked exercises. And uh and Christian families need to stand up to this, stand for righteousness, and not compromise on this. We're to love God more than we love our children.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

And I think that's tough for some people. Jesus said actually, at some points you're gonna have to hate your son, your daughter, your husband, your wife to follow Jesus, which means which means effectively we're to love God more than. I think that's the best way to translate that passage. Thoughts, thoughts on this, brothers. Danny, you were gonna jump in on this.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Todd, what would you do? What would you advise if you had a child come to you and say, Dad, I'm coming out, or whatever it might be. How should a dad respond in that moment?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah. And and that's where I think there there's there's both that we have to uphold. We have to maintain the relationship. So we have to be able to maintain that relationship. There can't be a complete I'm not talking to you anymore, you know, that kind of sort of disavowing or something. But also you have to stand up for the truth. We have to explain righteousness and what that is. And there should be like a steadiness in that for the dad. Right? It can't be all of a sudden the dad wasn't a very godly man and all of a sudden he's becoming Mr. Truth and saying that's not gonna work. That's hypocrisy. So there has to be that steadiness continued. But obviously, you're gonna have to maintain the relationship, you're gonna have to stand for truth like Jesus did with the rich young ruler, but also, I mean, in in we're told in 1 Corinthians 5, uh 1 Thessalonians 5 to bear with patience, with gentleness, but to warn, to clearly warn and and and to send that out. I think typically this scenario is there's a family with some children, and and and we're seeing one or maybe two apostas. So there's still a family there. And one of the things that I think happens sometimes is it's very grievous. I mean, this is very sad, it's very hard. Yeah. For particularly moms and dads, we're probably talking to it, pouring their lives into these children for 20 years or something, and then to have this happen. Well, I think what's really important for dads, since we're talking to dads, is dad, don't just go into a depression. I mean, you don't lose hope, don't fall off the cliff. Be hoping in God. Be like the the father of the prodigal son. You we have to maintain a steady trust in God and a faithfulness in God. I think that is gonna speak loudly to that child. That you're you're just gonna say, wow, dad is trusting God. Like you're saying, even above what I'm doing and all these changes I'm making and that kind of steadiness, uh, steadfastness in the Lord is is gonna speak loudly.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

In the practical sense, what's difficult for us is uh neither you nor I have gone through this experience. Yes, I know. Yeah, and your children are under 10 years of age. So um but I think um uh you you you you do need to, and this I think is a practical application for for every family. We've already talked about this somewhat when we talk about in-laws and our married children. There's got to be some engineered distance um with people with whom we have relationships. Right. And this applies to everything in life. Yeah we we you know we don't crawl into people's homes and just I'm here to live with you, right? You know, with other people. We don't do this. We have our own homes and we have our own lives, and and there's differing kinds of relationships we maintain with everybody in our lives. Um so I think to to say there needs to be some engineered distance is okay. I mean, just simply saying, how are we gonna navigate this relationship? Right. And that's okay.

unknown 13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Um trusting God, praying to God, God is sovereign over all of this, by the way. I don't know if we've said that so far. We do need to submit to God's sovereign will and his purpose because the ultimate cause for all everything, you know, that our child is not regenerated, right? Is is is a work of the Holy Spirit. It's the the work of God in their lives hasn't happened yet. Right. Submitting to the will of God, praying, hoping in God for our children. All of that's important. But we we do need to maintain that engineered distance. And we we just have to ask ourselves, how are we doing this? Uh are we going to meet them in restaurants on a regular basis, once a month? Um, during Christmas time, we'll we'll go ahead and and have a Christmas Eve get together on, you know, over at Applebee's or you know, whatever. I I mean I think we we have to think through this. You know, you send them gifts, you can still communicate the gospel message to them. Um I think as you meet with them, you do want to um bring God into it. The idea of being embarrassed about speaking the things of God or even to call them on something. I think I think we can still do this. We can speak a testimony as to what God is doing in my life, um and you know, myself submitting to the will of God and and uh and hoping in God uh for uh the things that we're praying for. Um we can say these sorts of things. It's appropriate to do that. Um you're planting seeds, and you're still planting seeds. It's not what we're doing as as parents. We plant seeds, we water the seeds, and we wait for God to bring forth the increase. Let's keep doing that kind of thing. I think practically speaking, I would recommend things like that.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

What I'm hearing though is uh planting seeds, but maybe not a 15-minute lecture on their sinful lifestyle every time you get together.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Yeah, you're not gonna be able to accomplish that. Yeah, because that's probably gonna close down the meeting. You know, you're you're gonna sense there's going to be so much you can say or do in the conversation. But uh but I still think you should say something. Yeah, I think you should plan out what you will say and or or just pray out what you will say, right? The Holy Spirit will give it to you in the time that you are going to do this. So oftentimes when I get together in a difficult meeting, I actually don't do it a ton of preparation. I actually pray that the Holy Spirit will give me the thing to say in the moment. Yeah. And I think that's uh that's something that but uh other thoughts, Todd, in terms in terms of the practical elements of dealing with uh people who may be difficult and and maybe at at a distance with the family.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah, I mean, I think you're you're you're gonna have to determine the distance. Some some families are concerned about protecting other children that might be in the home. And uh I think you need to be honest with them, you know, age appropriate about what's going on. Don't don't hide or conceal that fact. Um but but yeah, just if you if you're a a father, a a godly man that speaks about the Lord, like you're saying, and all of a sudden you interact with that this child that's that's left, don't change. Don't you know, just keep speaking about the Lord and keep speaking about those things. That again, that I think that steadiness is gonna go um a long way. But yeah, we we also need to trust what what God is in control. We can't force this, we can't manufacture this. We're we're praying for God to do a mighty work.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

What is the role of the church in a situation like this? I think you brothers have as pastors have dealt with situations in which families in our church have experienced this, um, and maybe different families have different approaches, but there there have even been excommunications and yeah, we've probably had three or four over 25 years, so it hasn't been a lot, but there have been instances in which we've had to uh exercise uh the church discipline that is laid out in 1 Corinthians 5.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Any faithful church has to do this. Yeah, we can't just shove everything under the carpet and just let people sort of fade away or whatever. Uh we we have to be careful to to engage in in church discipline. And yeah, I think we we we have we work with the family in the process, we're we're speaking to the family, they understand what we're doing at every stage, and um and we're praying with the family, and we continue to pray with the family over these lost children. Um, you know, maybe once a month or something, seems like in the congregational prayer, the prodigals uh comes up into the prayers that we would see the prodigals come back down the driveway and we'll stand by the mailbox and wait. So, so that kind of thing is something that we encourage a lot. Um, yeah, I mean, almost every Sunday I'm probably speaking to some parent about where their child is. And uh and what's interesting is they do come back. And I think as as you minister over a period of you know, 25, what has it been, 30 years I've been an elder, uh wow, they do come back. And that's that's an encouragement. Um so stay by the mailbox and uh and pray and wait. In fact, you had the interesting example of Angela Yuan. Um and maybe maybe just refer to that, Danny.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah, it's a powerful story of uh Christopher Yuan, who is a godly Bible teacher today, but was living a very ungodly lifestyle as a homosexual. And during that period, uh the news of his homosexuality actually is part of what brought his mother to faith. That she was just broken and devastated over this. And so she committed to praying. Uh she uh prayed for years and years. Little did Angela know uh that little did Christopher know that Angela had been praying for years. She had been earnestly pleading with God to save her son. She had converted an unused shower in the home to a prayer room and spent so many hours praying and studying her Bible each morning that her knees became hard and calloused. She committed every Monday to prayer and fasting, and once even fasted for 39 straight days. She enlisted hundreds of friends to join her in interceding for her son. While Christopher was partying, she was praying. In particular, Angela prayed that in some way and for some reason, Christopher's friends would desert him and that God would do whatever it took to humble him. And then one day the DEA showed up. Uh, he went to prison, he found a Bible in a trash can, he saw a verse scribbled. Jeremiah, one one thing he saw in one of his bunks was a verse scribbled underneath his bed that said, If you're bored, read Jeremiah 29 and 11. And in the midst of his despair over his sin in jail, he realized that God had a future and a hope for him, and he came to saving faith. Well, a powerful story. Great story, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

And get a little more, read those stories, read more of those stories. Read about John Newton.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

It's a great little book, devoted.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Read about Adonaiam Judson. Exactly. Adonaiam Judson had the same situation. He wandered away from his parents' faith. Yeah. And um, you remember he was next door to a guy who was dying in a inn or hotel, and uh heard him, you know, just moaning and crying, and uh, you know, as he was approaching the gates of hell. And um turned out he was a close friend, the friend who actually led him astray when he was attending college. Wow. So the Adam M. Judson story is really powerful, yeah. As is the John Newton story. And by the way, uh, I would encourage uh Heaven Struck as another book that could be helpful because we tell those stories in Heavenstruck.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

And and I just want to encourage parents, you know, sometimes when this happens, a lot will go, oh, you know, I spent all that time, I took this child to church, we memorized verses with this child, we read the Bible to this child, and it was just all for naught. And this child's but you know what? There's there's so many testimonies. And I met a woman um in 2002, and it was an amazing testimony of she she had this situation. I mean, they raised their children faithfully, and this went off to a homosexual lifestyle. And uh, but she was praying, she was committing, really praying the Lord. And and uh this man eventually, like like you just read, turned from that, was just brokenhearted, turned, and he said his his testimony after that was these verses just kept coming to my mind because they had memorized so much scripture. And and it and what's interesting, you talk to the mom, and her prayer was like, let those scriptures just bang in his head over and over and over again. And sure enough, that's what happened. He's like, I just they're just in my, they keep coming up. And you know, so our labor in the Lord is not in vain. You know, we we we have to trust God. We we we are faithful, we just and we we we trust in him to do these things because we never know what the results are gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

John Newton's story is similar when he was in the storm. Oh, yeah, you know, in the ship, yeah. He says the the verses his mother taught him kept coming back, right? Especially the hard ones. Yeah, especially the hard ones. So so Yeah. Don't don't get the idea any seeds planted are are wasted at all. Um the other thing as as I I began this thing with um you know be grateful for everything God is doing already. I come back to this, this is sort of like baseline every day is okay, what do I deserve and what has God given me? Okay. Okay, if you start there, what do I deserve and what has God given me? Um wow, it is amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saves a wretch like me already for me. And so start there every day. And then secondly, understand God's love for you as a dad or as a mom. God loves us and God cares for us. And you know what? Some of these trials, in fact, can we say all of these trials are meant for our good? Yes. Can we say that?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

We can therefore, therefore, therefore, we need to be asking ourselves, what is God teaching me in this? Again, don't blame yourself. We talked about this already. We don't blame ourselves. We are not the ultimate cause for the blindness of the sun or the apostasy of the sun or what have you. It's not our fault, per se, as as though we have caused this. So be careful you don't fall into that trap as a father or mother. But secondly, just be asking yourself, you know, God, God cares about me. He's doing something in my life. And now this is separate, you know. So maybe he's doing something in my life first, and then he's going to do something in the life of my son or my daughter. So I've thought of this as well. As my children have gone through some pretty tough situations. I've always asked myself, what is God teaching me in this? Yeah. Um, and and and it turns out God is teaching me some things. Um, you know, uh, is my faith or my love for God sort of lukewarm? Maybe my love for God is lukewarm. Uh have there been relational breakdowns in my family between myself and my children or my wife? Uh, you know, what what is God teaching me in this? I think that's super important.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah, and I think I think it's it's a good time to examine what God is teaching me, but not be crushed in guilt. We can't we can't do that. We we'd have to it's a good time to examine, but but but really just yeah, what what is God showing me and revealing in my life, right? And what ways have I possibly provoked my children to wrath?

SPEAKER_02 25:01

It's legit to be asking those questions, sure. But but to understand, yeah, that uh okay. As the Holy Spirit uh conveys these things to us, and he does it in a gentle way, but he presses us, nudges us, pushes on our elbow and say, Hey, hey, something over here, then we confess those sins. And he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to send cleanse us from all that unrighteousness. And that's a good thing. That's a that's a good process to be going through.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

And that may be uh an important step if you have a situation and the Lord convicts you to actually bring some repentance and some confession to that wayward son or child, uh to say, Hey, I I I messed up here and uh I made it difficult for you. And you know, I'd like to Jesus forgives me for this, but I want to ask you to forgive me, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Forgive me. And that could restore the relationship, the relational part of this. Um now, uh, one of the questions that was attached to this list uh as as we entered the program was uh should a father or an elder step down in such a situation? It's a great question. It's very question. I think it ties into this question of what is God teaching me in this. Uh my recommendation, because the the the bottom line here is that um the qualification for an elder in 1 Timothy 3 is that he rule his own household well. His children are not accused of riot or unruly. Uh that is uh they are submitting to the rules of the home. Uh they are faithful children. Um I believe there's a measure of faith there. But when children go sideways on those things, what should an elder or a pastor do? My recommendation is they pull back, at least for a time and and and consider what God is teaching them over a period of time. Might be a year, might be two years, might be five years. But I think just an elder or a pastor stepping back for just a while would be a good thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah, and I also think it's an important time, like if you have multiple pastors and godly men in the church, to ask them, you know, for for what that would look like. What does that stepping back look like? Really get get counsel from because it's gonna be hard. You're gonna be in a situation where it's gonna be hard to know exactly what to do, but you know, and and and kind of submit to really to the church in that way about what the best approach is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Okay. Well, friends, that uh that's it. Any other final comments, Danny? Any I obviously want to render hope. I mean, this is not over yet. God is still doing some work here, and it's a good thing for a man to wait and to patiently hope in the salvation of the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Galatians 6, 1 and 2 comes to mind. It's probably a good uh directive passage for the kind of attitude that should characterize us. Brethren, if a man has overtaken any trespass, perhaps even your own son or daughter, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted, bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. But may God give us that spirit of gentleness and hope and humility as we consider our own uh propensity towards sin. And like you said, as we started, yeah, God has done the impossible in saving me, and that's proof. One one one sample of proof he can do the impossible and do it again.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

It is it is a time uh to be praying without ceasing. It is a time to be interceding, and but to also not fall into a constant state of downcasted discouragement. It's you're hoping in the Lord, you're trusting in the Lord, expecting, anticipating uh the work of the Lord and praying specifically uh for those things, trusting in the sovereignty of God. He's he's the one that's going to resurrect, to bring back to life, to do those changes. But we it seems, dads, we have a per an opportunity to pursue this child, pursue the child, rejoice in the truth, don't dismiss uh the truth in that time, uh, but continue to hug them and love them as God gives you opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

And I would recommend the book by Andrew Murray, Waiting on God, probably one of the most encouraging uh devotionals ever, ever written. And we just produced this as a part of our devotional series. We're identifying what we believe to be the most powerful, the most influential devotionals ever written in the last 2,000 years. And we're putting it into a small series, actually, just very short books. Um, but Waiting on God by Andre Murray is absolutely phenomenal. Just released, I think we just got a palette of 2,000, available at generations.org. If anybody's going through crisis, anybody going through challenge, uh spiritual trial, uh, something as significant as what we've been talking about in this edition of the program, I'd recommend Waiting on God by Andrew Murray, available at generations.org. And uh, this is Kevin Swanson, Todd Strasser, and Danny Craig. And we want to invite you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org slash media.