When Faith & Family Collide

0:00Welcome to Dine to Live, a weekly podcast where we discuss theology, culture and what it means to do life together. So let's get going with today's episode. Welcome to another edition of the Dine to Live podcast, always exciting, always educational, always updating and quite often entertaining as well. So with this bunch we've got now, they've just had a previous recording and they unformed. So we have great expectations. So welcome to my co-host, Nadine. I'm Wayne Turner. You still Wayne Turner. I should hope so. Yeah, it's great to be with you in studio again, Wayne. And yeah, a great topic that we have today with some great guests. Let's start with a guest. I mean, somebody's back in studio after a lot of absence, too long in absence. Just hold on.

1:00No, not that one. I mean, we added sound effects. Yeah, it's been a while, Dean. Yeah, it sounds like we're having the book in studio today. Lollie is as good as the box to us. Yeah, book for sports. Now Lollie, very welcome to you. I mean, so Lollie is Johan and Lollie lead the congregation, Josh and congregation in Fuster and Lollie is also the academic dean at Sets. So Lollie, welcome. Great to have you back on again. I mean, say we wouldn't welcome Dr. Lollie. So we're not welcoming Dr. Lollie. That sounds like a name of a DJ. That's fantastic. Most sound effects, please. And then I'm not newbies at all. Ian and Kurt Junker, welcome back guys. Thank you, Nadine. The four people who are new to the podcast now, they are an older couple in Josh T. Mullington and they also oversee the kids' ministry in all 60 plus congregations, which is a massive job. Yeah, man, man, you lead us. Man, you lead us. You know, you're leading me now.

2:00I thought we were always leading you. Bring some order, please. Okay. So the topic that we are speaking to today is something that can be tricky, but it's also a deepening personal. And what we're going to speak about today is honoring parents and unbelieving family, because the battle does tell us to honor our parents, to love our family, to love all people and to live at peace with everyone. But sometimes that is not such an easy thing to do when the people that we share may be a house with or just people in close relationship to us don't share the same beliefs, convictions, values that we do. And so we do want to have a look at that today. How do we honor parents and unbelieving family, particularly when you still may be living under the roof? And how does it change when you become an adult? Does it change? And so, yeah, trusting that it's going to be an informative conversation, but also quite testimonial in some sense.

3:01I'm sure all of us have walked some of these journeys. So, yeah, so I kind of jump straight in. And the first question I want to ask is, does becoming a Christian change the way we relate to unbelieving family? So I don't know who's brave enough to... Ian, do you want to jump in? Yeah, you can. You remember that. As the elder in this studio. So I... Trying to work through this question in terms of, yes, it does. And know it shouldn't, if you can put it both ways, because like you said, it's a very personal situation. So it very much depends on the season you're in, the journey you're on in terms of that change and what that looks like. And also what your pre-existing relationship with your family is or was. So it's definitely something that you need to be mindful of, that there's a very massive life change that's happening.

4:01Your eternity is changing. And with that, your behavior and your mannerisms and your priorities are all going to change as well. And you're then living with these people that have known you all your life and suddenly they've got a stranger in their home. And so on the one side, you want to honor God and live this exciting honeymoon phase of meeting Jesus and your life being completely changed. But think be mindful of there are people with a front row seat wondering what just happened and is it good? Like are you in a cult or is this really, does God exist or why are you going to that kind of a church? You should have parsing phase and you've had. Yeah. And it's interesting that you say that because when I got saved, that was one of the comments that was made. In my pre-salvation years, I tend to go through a one year to 18 month cycle of different fads and phases and hairstyles. And so when I got saved, there was a question, oh no, it's just in going through another phase.

5:02And then 20 years later, oh maybe it's not a phase. So yes, it is going to impact the way that we interact, but it shouldn't change the love that we have. In fact, it should enhance the love. So the love that we've had for our families before meeting Jesus should only grow or not had or not had. Yes, they could be broken relationships. But I suppose it'll be different for different families because you might come from a family that's got amazing family values, moral system. You get saved, they encourage you. Wow, that's good. Go for it. We're on the others. And it might come from a criminal or a broken family where it's quite different. So again, the journey is going to be different for different people. 100%. Yeah. Do you want to add to that, Lully? Yeah, I think from outside, of course, as Ian said, our attitudes should change if it wasn't proper towards them and not knowing Christ. You can love your family, but you don't love them in the way that God loves the world,

6:06necessarily where when you become a believer, you start to become more like Christ. And what was Christ's love like for the world? He gave himself for her to see her redeemed. So there is a different type of love. There's an eternal weight to how we interact with parents, unsafe family, etc. But then there's also the dynamic that sure there are certain ways in which our conduct changes. But inevitably, with some and Wayne pointed to this, they will be a change in their conduct towards you. So Paul writes about the aroma of Christ that we are to the Philippians, but for some, it's an aroma on to death. And so they will inevitably come some form of clash or difference of opinion. Sometimes it's mild, it's an undercurrent. It's absolutely an explosion of two kingdoms meeting. And I think that's what Jesus is referring to in Luke 12, when he says that I've not come to bring peace, I've come to bring a sword.

7:07There's an allegiance that needs to be made to the kingdom. And that will bring tension in the most intimate of relationships. So there will also be a difference in the way your family perhaps relates to you. And I think we need to equip ourselves in order to deal with that in a gospel-centered lens and a godly way. So understanding a grace and even a compassion for that is absolutely. Absolutely. I think with the mistake we made, and we can get into that a bit later as well, is we expect the unsaved to act like the saved. You are not always saying, the world will, world. So when you become a believer to want more for them, of course, in terms of wanting them to be set free and get saved. But on the other side, to understand that they are not believers and to have a robust faith for those interactions. And maybe we can talk about it later.

8:07It's not as easy as a stranger that's not saved because the interactions, especially with parents, it knocks on your identity. There's a deep connection there and it's quite painful for some as well. And then you start this new journey and you start learning new things and all of a sudden you realize that this unsaved, broken family needs to start bringing the word honor in, honoring. And now I think that's where the ball game changes because how do you honor someone who's dishonor? What's the other side? Who doesn't deserve honor? So how do you process that? You know, so let's look a bit at that because this is scripture. I just want to ground in scripture. Scripture says, honor your father and mother. That is Exodus 20 first 12, but also in the New Testament Ephesians 6 to 3. So it doesn't say honor your saved father and mother. Honor your father and your mother. So what does that mean in the context of unbelieving parents? And does it include parents in law?

9:09But you're asking for a friend. Also your parents, right? What is biblical honor and does it apply towards the saved and the unsaved alike? Big theological question. Yeah, I'm going to leave it to the theologian. Okay, Lily, you need us. Put your doctor hat on this one. Yeah, hopefully my doctor hat, not my DJ hat. Yeah, so when we look at honor, maybe a picture I can use that will help us understand is it has the connotation of weighing someone and finding them heavy. If that makes sense. So weighing a person or a relationship and feeling that it's got weight, it's got value. And so often honor is is conferred to people based on a certain position. So Peter even writing to honor the emperor, honor your parents, etc. So there's a certain position of authority that we honor by virtue of them having that position. But it's also a heart attitude that we can esteem someone heavy.

10:12The scripture that says that we are do one another in showing honor. It's not just our doing or showing honor to the rich person in the church. It's saying my brother has more weight than I do in this situation. And therefore I'm going to esteem honor. But of course we know that there is a special category of honoring parents. And maybe if we can take the analogy of the husband, wife relationship that we're not going to get into today. But Peter writes to believing wives who are married to unbelieving husbands, encouraging them to still submit to their husband. So there's that fundamental way in which one relates in this relationship that doesn't fall away when someone is opted out of the faith because you are still a believer. So you adhere to what is required of a believing child. So they don't earn honor. You don't honor because they've earned it. There seems to be something more than that. How does it work? Yeah, so there's never a condition on to them if they're being honorable.

11:13I think of it and this might be a bit of a strange example, but I think of Noah getting drunk in his tent and I think of his sons. Two of them entering with their backs face to him and covering his nakedness. He didn't deserve that. He's paused out drunk. But what do they do? How do they respond? And I think that's where the challenge comes for us as believers. So they're just going back to that. They're on at the position. They go for weight to the position. Yeah. And then there's the curse on Ham's descendants for Ham not doing that. So there's a seriousness to it. There's a weight to it. Because you see that in the military I've referred to before, when you honor an officer who's dishonorable, who's a drunk and his personal life, when you salute that guy, it's the state presence commission. So is there something with when God says honoring, you actually honoring God's command to you rather than that person's integrity? The authority that has been put up here. You are best at in that. Yeah.

12:14So is that the same as obeying? Can we use these words interchangeably or not really? I think it's an element, but we're grown-ups now. So the way that we obey and on our parents is different to when we were children. And I think for the sake of time in the podcast, if we can stick to growing our relationships, adult children with adult parents, it makes the topic a bit more manageable. So my situation is a little bit different because I grew up with parents who are saved. And so my first experience with honoring family that I'm not saved was when I got married. And honor for me was a very simple sentence in my head. No matter what happens, are the am I giving them an experience of Jesus or am I giving them

13:15an experience of myself? And I'm not perfect and I didn't always perfectly give them an experience of Jesus in every interaction, especially the difficult ones, but there is reconciliation and conversations that can happen. And at the end of the day, that is how I honor any unsaved person in my life because God's standard on me is actually higher because there's an opportunity for my life to shine Jesus to someone who doesn't know him yet. And for me, that is very, very important. That testimony and that representation is gold to me. And I feel terrible when I misrepresent that. And so with unsaved family, with unsaved in laws, my heart was always to show them a reflection of Jesus. One time, like Lolli said, that reflection became a division, but then at least I'm honoring

14:19the Lord and I'm honoring them. And that's fine. We can probably be going to talk about what happens when our beliefs in our based intentions representing God will cause division anyway. So Lolli, can we jump in there? And you actually made my reference to this scripture. Is it Matthew 10, verse 34 to 36, which Jesus said he can't bring a sword between family members. And sometimes people say, well, I am the sword. I'm bringing the sword. Is that the intention, the meaning of the scripture? Oh, can you hop this a little bit there? I think the chuckles around the table are really indicative that that's not where Jesus was going with this discourse. So of course, we have to look at the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. They expected earthly ruler to come and unite Israel again under one leader, well, being that leader. And so there was this expectation of Jesus bringing this earthly peace.

15:20And the whole, so I'm taking from Luke 12, the whole context of Luke 12 is being ready, being ready for the end, being prepared. And so Jesus is talking about his kingdom that is descending on the earth and correcting the wrong belief that this is a kingdom that's going to unite all Israel under one king. This is actually not what this kingdom is going to be. This kingdom brings a sword because you cannot be one foot in one foot out. You cannot be half Christian, half aligned with Jesus. It's an absolute yes for the kingdom of God or yes for the kingdom of the world. And they don't, they don't work together well. Light and darkness don't mix again. They don't mix well. And what this means is so Jesus uses the most intimate, well, not the most. I mean, he didn't use husband and wife, but he uses very intimate relationships to illustrate

16:21how drastic this division between light and darkness is, that father will turn against son or mother and daughter, et cetera. And so it's not Jesus saying that we are the ones who ought to turn against our parents. Once we become Christian, we are the ones who ought to bring division. How on earth would we love the world if we turn our backs on them the moment we step into the light? No, we love the world as far as it depends on us live at peace with everyone. But inevitably, there will become, there will be spaces where sometimes there's a bit of a division. And I think at the core of it, it's also just a comment, a comment on the irreconcilability of the kingdom that God brings to the kingdom of the world and that they will be tensions. So we're going to see these clashes of the kingdom. So we've got to understand that the clash is a clash of kingdoms and not a clash of personalities or family members. It's that kingdom will, as you said, Kate, you're the clash with the kingdom that was representing

17:27something that wasn't Jesus. So Ian, how do we deal with these tensions? We let the big question for you. We don't. The scripture isn't a method for us how to combat dealing with it, but that might be the effect of that there's a sword, that there's a division, that comes, that there's a tension that we can expect. But how do we deal with those tensions? Do we just roll over and accept it for what it is? Do we respond to it? What do we do with it? And I think I love the question. And I actually, yeah, we enjoy this. But the one thing I think, and it's what I think everybody said it already, but this is a choice. Honoring is a choice. And I loved when or do you were sharing about the military because there's also a hierarchy within the kingdom in terms of honor. So when God talks about honor, there's different levels of it and different ways we treat different people. But ultimately, it's a choice.

18:28And we need to choose what Jesus chooses. And so when you're saying, how do we navigate that? The two scriptures that came to mind for me was, the one was, and it's both about Jesus and his mom. And so on the one side, there's Jesus talking to a crowd and somebody comes and says, hey, your mom and your brothers are here. And he doesn't go, oh, wait, it's my mom. I better honor her. Let's drop everything. This is the woman I will turn water into wine for. Let me quickly, sorry guys, just give me five minutes. He's like, but who is my mother? Who is my brother? Who is my sister? And he goes on to say, it's those that do the will of the father. And so at that point, it's like a bit of a dissing of his mother. Yeah. And then you stop reading your Bible at that point because you kind of offended and you don't like this Jesus anymore. You would assume that he's dishonoring now. And that's not actually true because then if we keep on going, Jesus is at the cross. And he turns to the apostle John. And he turns to his mom.

19:28And he says, John, here is your mother. And to his mother, he says, here is your son. And that sense of he never stopped loving her. He never stopped honoring her. And in that moment, he needed to bring clarity that we ultimately are seeking the will of the father. And in so doing, there are moments when we are going to honor our parents in a way that they will enjoy. And there are some moments we're going to honor our parents in a way that they're not going to necessarily agree with. That's a very good one. But ultimately, our heart is for them and for them to experience God and to be found in his kingdom. And I think that was an example that one example that Jesus set for us of it is complicated. He thinks it's complicated. And the relationship. The face will never have it right. This way it would be. He just complicated. And it is complicated. Chapter and verse. Yeah. But ultimately, our hearts as Christians are, how are we giving, I think Kate said it?

20:31Are we giving people an experience of Jesus? And are we ultimately pointing them towards the King in a hope and a belief that they will when they meet him and be with him? So what you are saying is, giving people an experience of Jesus, I want to make it quite practical. And I mean, they aren't techniques for these things. But if we can try and get something of the heart across, sometimes giving people an experience of Jesus would be turning the other cheek. Yes. And other times, giving people an experience of Jesus would be to speak truth even if it's uncomfortable. Or ask for forgiveness. Yeah. Yeah. Like example that we've navigated many times is when there's a time conflict between a family event and a church event. Or a sports event and a church event. Or a sports event and a family event. And having to navigate each of those, and there isn't a rule, it's not like this one takes president over that one. There is a bend in us in terms of where we will default to.

21:33But ultimately, it's to go, okay, God, what do you want me to do in this situation? This feels really awkward. I want to love this person, but this is going to hurt them if I don't show up for this thing. So let's run with that example. Yeah. Now the load says to you, I want you to rather go to gathering or a conference or even just a Sunday service or whatever it might be. And maybe that means you miss out on a waiting or something even of a family member, which can be very hard. How do you actually have that conversation with people who would not understand why kingdom should take priority? How does one have that conversation? Gently. So I think you're getting the hard questions. The first thing for me is to acknowledge the fact that this is going to sound weird to you. Okay. To acknowledge the fact to say, hey, listen, I'm feeling that I need to make a decision to do this thing, to go to this meeting and not be able to come to this family function. And I know for you that this is going to seem strange.

22:36And my heart is not to hurt you. Or even I'm loving. Yes. And it's not to hurt you or you might start to worry about my sanity in my life choices. So it's to bring across, for me, it's to kind of offer the bridge, to offer the olive branch of, I know that this isn't what you want to hear. And then to as best as you can, and depending again on the bridge, every, every, every relationship is different, but to then articulate, because scripture says you need to be able to give a case for why you do what you do or why you believe what you believe. So to share, why is this thing important? Not to just say, hey, I can't make it. I've got something better. And to come across harsh, but to say, I want to be there, everything in me wants to be there, but unfortunately I've got, and I've got a pre-existing arrangement or I've got something else that I need to attend to. This is why it's important to me. But then you see the reverse of that. And so often, although we're encouraged, the importance of red flag events or gatherings, whatever it might be, sometimes God is going to say, I really want you to be at that

23:39wedding. You need to go to your leaders. I think you brought up in a previous podcast as well. And go to leaders, I really feel God wants me to go to this family event. Yes. And while this is family event, you don't go to church, but you've got to balance this from the... So where's the line? So... That's the big question for you now. On that one. On that one, as far as possible, we stick to our word and we honour our first commitment. So generally, if it's a wedding, those dates can be set very far in advance and it usually is the first thing that pops into your calendar. And we know sometimes our church meetings, our big one, where we all gather together, can be spontaneously put into calendar. Or short denotes. Yeah. And a wedding, especially if it's a close family member, can be a very important thing to stick to your word to honour the family. It's a life event. It's a life event. To honour the family bonded, only happens once in a lifetime, hopefully. I'm like, great money. It's a qualification. It's a qualification. It's a big deal.

24:40On that day. Yes. Expensive. And so in those situations, we have... Yeah. And then, as far as gone to our leaders and said, listen, this is the story. This is when it was booked in. This is how we're feeling about it. This is what we feel God is saying to us about the situation. Would you release us from that event? Yeah, hard to still get the interest. But we feel we need to. Yes. And... And, you know, most of the time, it's absolutely fine. Unless we're getting prayed into leader congregation or prayed on as elders or something that's a little bit of a prayer. But I think it's important to stick to your first commitment and to honour your word as best as you can. But it all boils down to what does God want me to do. And I think that's come through in a couple of podcasts. When I'm going to make a decision, what does God want me to do with my children? What does God want me to do with the event? And if you are sure that that's where he wants you to go, that's what you need to do. I want to make it quite practical, because I think these are the... They're the real love situations. So my parents... My parents living Paul, it's not too far away.

25:42But it does mean that sometimes on a Sunday, I go there for a Sunday lunch and if I only drive off to church, it's a really short time. So the hour times we... I would maybe ask my leader, Elder, you know, to that, or I want to spend the whole weekend with my family, whatever. But when does that... And I do that because I love them. And I want to honour them. Yes. But kingdom is my priority. But when does... When do we tip over the line? Where we start saying, you're now families becoming too much of a... Yeah. And I'm like, I'm a priority. What does... You get my question. I do. A practical example I had is I had a situation where a family member said, I expect to see you and it wasn't I would like to. It wasn't I expect to see you this many times a month. And I looked at it and it wasn't a year, it was a month. And I remember hearing that and I kind of was caught off guard and I was like, I don't think we even saw each other that much living together.

26:45And so it was a question of, okay, but what is the lifestyle guard has called me to? Like let's get practical. Like realistically I've got a job, I've got children, I've got ministry, like demands and obligations. And so I looked at that and I said, I want to commit to something but I want my yes to be my yes and my no to be my no. I don't want to say, yes, of course we can do that, but they never do it because there's just never time. So I think the first question is, is this a realistic requirement or request and does it fit into the wider picture of what God is calling me to in the season because obviously life also changes? And so too as much as it fits in and I can see it's still honoring God because that for me it's and for everybody it is going to be different. But is my first priority and my first goal, the King and his kingdom and can I add this in as a part of my lifestyle or do I feel if I say yes to this thing, it is going to pull my world's intention in a way where I'm regularly going to be questioning and feeling

27:50stressed out because I don't think these things should drive us to anxiety. So as soon as it is going to anxiety. I wonder if it doesn't come back to Lolli's point about white. Yeah. If you have to put these things almost on the scales, where does the bigger picture, the overall picture, where does the white line, does the white of it lie with family commitments unsaved family or does the weight of my time, my priority lie with kingdom, priority? Or maybe if we can go to Philippians 2, don't have the verse on me right now, but there's this beautiful passage where is it Philippians? No, it might be 1 Peter 2. Let me maybe I should go there. Yeah, it's 1 Peter 2 was 17 where he talks about honoring all people and then the brothers or the brothers and sisters, you must love God, you must fear. And then of course honoring the Emperor, the State Authority.

28:52And there's this higher level of fearing God. The God does take ultimate priority. And so I think it again gets back to, we need to be preewal and discerning in every single visit situation event, to know where does God want me to lean. And I think also it's not either or. So if the Lord is asking you to attend a church event and maybe miss a family member's birthday and we literally had this two weeks ago, you're honoured, I had this situation. And it was difficult, it felt quite heavy. Our response is then, firstly, postorally to have that conversation, but also to ask the Lord, okay, I'm missing this birthday event. Are there other ways in which I can love or honor or show key on this day, the day before? What do I do? Excuse me, what do I do? It's not just limited to that birthday party. So for us, we felt convicted to make a little video the morning, you know, the kids got tired, but we got them aside.

29:53It was at one of our gatherings, but just getting them aside, making a little birthday video, making sure to call. It's little things, but it's not just saying, I chose the church and now this is going to be... Communicate. I still love Ikea, I'm interested in... Yeah, so I mean, if you've got ten minutes to go to the bathroom, maybe ten minutes to make a call. So you don't have to neglect, but you can say, oh, I wish I could be there, have a beautiful day, you know, I love you that type of, you can still show that you care. You didn't just try and get out of the event. It's a different scenario. One which is sometimes tricky for me being around maybe unbelieving family is when maybe there's swearing involved in conversation, particularly when the red beads are on or when people watch, I'm trying to think of different kinds of scenarios. Say, when they have to watch different kind of content, what I would want to expose myself to whether it's violence, whether it's content of a sexual nature, what about... How do we respond in those kind of situations that again communicates, I respect you, I love

30:59you, but I can't go along with... How do we do that? Genely arts. With ethical team. With some practical and I know in every scenario it will be different, but have you find some things that have worked better than others that... What not to do? I think at the end of the day, if you do something because you feel this is the way that God is asking you to do it, then the chips can fall and whatever happens happens. So we've had so many situations like that where we can't take our children to a bribe because of what happens at that bribe. We can't actually do that for our children, not at the age and phase of life that they're at. And it has separated us from certain family and friends and caused confusion, caused

32:03separation. But at the end of the day, we know that God has asked us to stew it our family well for this season where they're little and they shouldn't be exposed to certain things. And so very kindly, we will just decline. There have been times where we've had to explain this in this scenario is unhelpful for our family because of this and this. And then we just let it fall as it falls. So again, it's future focused. You're looking at the situation, although they part of your world, your family's future, they're not going to be in that situation when you've got to face your kids when they're adults, the previous podcast we talked about, that preparation. So you kind of allow family events, family demands to impinge on your families, the kids growing up and presenting them as adult believers to God.

33:05Yeah. So there are times when division is unavoidable and certain types of conflict is unavoidable. But I love what Lolli said about loving in other ways. Are there things that you can do in your home where the values and the environment is a bit more controlled? When you go for walks where food and drinks and all of that is not a thing because you're just walking and chatting, conversation is a hard one because there will always be conversation. But there are other ways to love them that makes it easier for our conscience and for how God is asking us to live. It's not an either or it's a both end as Lolli was saying, you've got to, it is where you've got a time-committant problem. It's going to make it even more because your existing event plus time to do something as an alternative. Yes. I think the time one is probably the hardest one to navigate because our heart is to love

34:07and honor. Our heart is to spend time with and our heart is for our families to know. We love them and we put weight on honoring them in our time. That for me is a huge struggle in my heart. And even with our saved family who are in the same church as us, does that mean they have a golden ticket now? They have a golden ticket because they're both blood family and spiritual family. So they are then entitled to all of our time and all of our capacity because it's kingdom which is not the truth. So you don't win other way. And it is really hard and it can cause a real pull in your heart and it's very difficult. It's not easy. And there isn't ideal formula on how to go about it. And some weeks are just hectic. Some weeks are just we've got to honor this thing and this event and see this and stretch ourselves and it is what it is sometimes. Lolli, could you just go back to the whole honoring thing?

35:08We talked about honoring God in our what we're doing, the events that we've got. But just to clarify by honoring your unsafe family, are you saying that is part of your honoring God because he's put that in this word that you need to do? So when you do that, you're not just doing it for the sake of them. You're honoring God in your actions in your... Sure. And if you look at the, it's more obey your parents' scriptures in the New Testament, two of them. One in Colossians and the other one... Is it? Like it's in Peter. No, it was Fusion 6, you're right. Thank you, way. First time I've ever corrected it, doctor. And it speaks of... In the Lord, speaks of this is pleasing to the Lord. So there is something of... It's not an obey scripture, but there is something that is pleasing to the Lord. But I think that also becomes the qualifier. Is this thing pleasing to the Lord? So that's a great way to discern, am I honoring my parents in a way that's pleasing to

36:11the Lord or am I compromising? Yeah. I can't say this is pleasing to the Lord. Yes. That's very good. Maybe that's a good key for me to know. And I love what Kate said. It's not... There's no clear recipe. I think this is coming out in our conversation today. We can't sit here and tell you this is what you have to do in that situation. It's always about discerning, but it's about taking ourselves out of the equation and putting God into the equation. And even with the example of children, it really is... You have to be so discerning because it can go both ways. It can go in the way where you expose your children perhaps to watching things they shouldn't or, you know, experiences that we don't want our children to have, but it can also go in the extreme way where we guard our children against the world and you don't teach them to love the world. Jesus loved the world. And so there's this thing called therapy culture that's a term used to describe sort of

37:13pop therapy. So you grab a term and you stick it onto someone or a relationship or a condition and that gives you the way out. You primarily see something through these therapeutic glasses instead of gospel glasses. And how many times... And I know there are legitimate diagnoses as well, but how many times have you heard someone say, I had to write off my mum because she's a narcissist or she's toxic. This is toxic. So we take therapeutic language and I'm not trying to discount. You sometimes have really abusive people that hear you talk about. Absolutely. But I've found that in today's age we rather err to the side of doing it too much than non-ignolaging it. And what that does is it creates a top lens for looking at people which is pop therapeutic language as opposed to biblical language. And they're saying, you know what, when I visit my father, they'd say, he swears a bit, struggles with alcohol maybe, I don't know, but those could be extreme examples. Maybe he's just crumpy, he doesn't understand my way of believing that environment is so toxic

38:18that I can never put myself into it. And again, I'm saying this with the tension that sometimes you have to. But sometimes you have to ask yourself, is this really so toxic or is this hard? Yeah. And to use it as an excuse not to engage. Because it is hard. I'm going to use an example. It might sound like it's pulled from here and doesn't relate to the point. But about two months after our son passed away, my husband walked into a person who visited our church for a while and then got offended and left. So he met him on the street and this guy said to my husband, point blank, he said, you're a false teacher and that's why the Lord killed your son and then walked away. And now that is a heavy thing to hear. But my husband sat with that for probably an hour and then forgot about it. Because where's this guy coming from? It's not the truth. If my father or father in law had called you home and said something lighter like, you

39:19guys should have been more careful. That's why he drowned. Something like that. That would still have been on his heart. That would have been so terrible to hear. And that shows us that there's a different relationship. It's completely different. It's not a stranger out there. It's someone who affects your identity in a way that I don't think will ever understand on this earth. How a parent can so deeply influence you by things they say or do. So it is hard. We have to acknowledge it's hard. It's easy to go into a situation where there are unsaved people and preach Christ and love them and serve them. Then you get into your own home and it's your own dad and it's just so hard. And I think the John 316 helps us because it describes God's love for this broken world that he gave his son. It's a sacrificial love. And so I think for us the question is when should I protect not myself? When should I protect because God wants me to protect something that's sacred? When should I lay myself down?

40:20Do the difficult thing? And though I might cry a little. It might be hard. And try to trust for this spirit of grace that is available to do the hard thing. Yes. And ask God to give me a heart for this is a lost person. This is an unbeliever. Where's my heart for this person? So it's a battle and it will be a battle every time you visit. It goes back to your comment about waitingness. How much the waitingness of the honor you'd give to a family member is supposed to the guy who you met in the street. And maybe that's a bit of a way you can judge it. I give weight to that said, will impact me more. But again, you talk about toxic people need to be saved as well. I'm so happy. Guys, I want to jump in on that one. So very practical example where we had a newly saved person come into the church. And after a while, I wanted to get baptized. And the parents said, if you get baptized, we'll kick you out the house. So that's where I wanted to go. If you still live under the parents group.

41:22And that was a very difficult situation because on one side, we need to honor our parents, but we need to fear the Lord. And if we understand scripture well, baptism is something we do as Christians. And so he came to the leadership, which I thought was a really amazing and mature approach, because he could have also just said, well, whatever, I found my real family, I'm out. And stormed us. And fortunately, he didn't. And so he came to leadership and he said, I've got the situation I want to get baptized, because we'd been asking for a while, like when are you going to get baptized? And the eventually was this moment. And then it was like, what do I do now? And what we felt to do from a leadership perspective is, can we move towards these parents? Can we find out more? Are they in church? Is this a church versus church thing? What is their understanding? What do they think is going to happen?

42:24What is the history of this person's life that they would think that this is a big problem? And so we reached out and it took a bit of time. And so what we said was, there is grace and there is love to be shown here. So while we could need your react and say, well, this is a thing of the Lord, so you have to do it and get it done today. And we said, no, the Lord knew this was going to happen. This is the Lord's thing. And we want to do it in a way that shows love towards God and also as a demonstration to the world. And so moving towards it, it took a bit of time and it took a bit of back and forth and eventually got to a place because initially the parents didn't want to speak. They were like, we've made a call and this is the call we made. And it came down to, okay, we sat down, had a conversation. And as soon as it became relational, there was then a bridge to talk about why this was important. What was it? We're talking about an adult child. An adult child. An adult child. This is not a 12 year old or a ten year old.

43:25This is an adult child living at home. And what was beautiful for us actually was in approaching the parents, we got to learn more about the child in terms of their experience and some of their concerns and some of it was valid to the point of, we're not sure what's going on here, but it also gave them an opportunity to be drawn into what it is to be loved by people in the kingdom. And it resulted in, it took a bit of time, but it resulted in them saying, we will allow it, in a sense allow it. But they were like it's okay. If this is really a conviction, we understand it now and we see where you're coming from. But you came in the opposite spirit to what was expected. Yes. Now when I ask you guys, also in your capacity as those who oversee kid's church in Josh Jean, what apart all the children still living with their parents who want to go to youth on a Friday night or want to go to church on a Sunday and their parents are maybe saying, no, we're not going to allow that. We don't believe there is a God or you know for whatever reason.

44:27There are many, many examples of that, you know, where they want to, maybe it's all the children who are really working and they want it tight, but you know, some of their money school comes from all money comes from parents wanting to go on our teachers, you can think of multiple scenarios, but that's a norm of way in a sense they stole the payments on the parents. Yeah. How does the honor, honor God versus honor parents, how do they think those things come together? Yeah, sure. That's a very difficult one, especially for minor children that are still minor and still reliant on their parents for lifts and all that kind of thing. Sure. I have never had a situation where any of my kids friends have said you're not allowed to go. Normally their parents aren't keen to come themselves, but very happy for me to do all the lifting and carrying.

45:27And there are times where that is an option for another parents to chat to the parents and say, hey, I'm willing to, our kids on the same school, I'm willing to take your child to youth with mine or to church with mine, would then be okay with you. This is the environment. This is what it's like. I don't know of any situations where parents have outright said, don't want you to go. I don't, I don't want that. I don't want that. We have a friend who's family is Muslim and when she got say, she pretty much had to wait it out until she was a grown-up. And then once she was a grown-up, she could make her decision and initially her family cut her off, but then warmed to it over time and she still has them in her life today. And I suppose that is the closest example that I have of really desiring to be saved, to be amongst a family of believers, but just being unable to because you are young and

46:32you are under your parents' roof and having to wait it out until you can make your own decisions. I don't know, producer. Just to add to that, and I think you mentioned the one situation was going to a youth who are coming to church on a Sunday. And I think where we've got to be careful from a church perspective is that we cannot take over the parental role and the authority. And so we can love and we can come alongside. And we even have situations where kids will come in and they're unsupervised. So they're coming into an event or a meeting and there are no parents in sight and we would assume either their parents know and have said yes or their parents don't mind and they roam the streets. But we've had parents, we've had children come in and we've come to the point where we've realized when that happens we need to make an effort to then reach out to those parents and say, listen, are you aware that your child is joining us in this thing?

47:32Because we want to do it in a way where we're drawing them in their authority, their God-given authority. Because Scripture also says every authority given on this earth is given by God. So even parental authority and that's not Christian parents, that's all parents and that's where we will one day understand from God how that works. But there is a sense that they carry an authority that we cannot carry and if we try it's not, it's a... Can you sip it? Yeah, it's illegitimate authority. It's illegitimate authority, that's the word I was looking for. Thanks. Yeah, so we've got to be mindful that we can come in our authority but not step into something that is not asked to carry. And so, in a sense, try to come alongside the parents as best as we can. And there are situations where that happens and the parents will say, we're not interested, they can do whatever they want. And then we can say from our side, well, at least we've tried and maybe we'll try again over time. But we need to be careful then also in that we don't get over familiar with this child because this is a minor that we're dealing with.

48:36And then I liked what you said notionally where let's say a child is a minor but an older child is really born again and has a real conviction about do not forsake the gathering of the science and getting difficulty from the parents then for the leadership as you cite to maybe initial discussions and move towards maybe a wisdom. And that happens probably more often than we realise in the church is having these situations where as the leaders we need to come alongside and go do a home visit and meet them where they're at and love them where they're at. And this is not an opportunity to bash them with anything or correct them with anything but just to love them where they're at. Sure, big topic. Good intro. And again, I think like so many of these conversations, there isn't a one size fits all. And when we put the, it's good speaking about the practical scenario so that we have an understanding of where we can come up against these challenges. But ultimately it's in every scenario I think I'm so way to die with the different conversations

49:39we're having a thing of just early spirit. What do you want me to do? Yes, I'm ready. What do you want me to do in every scenario? And maybe what he said yesterday is not the same as what he's saying today. So yeah, Lolli, I'm going to ask you, would you provide for us? I'm sure many of us, if not all of us watching this have a family. I remember that we're still praying for trusting for, but in the meanwhile, there can be situations that are tricky and for us to really love like Jesus, represent Jesus well and to have the grace to do that. Sure. It's praying. Thank you Lord, that as Paul says, this is a trustworthy saying that Christ Jesus came to save sinners. Yeah. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you. When we were your enemies, you loved us. When we were in the world, you reached out to us, you pursued us. Lord, I pray for all of us who have family members. I believe most people listening, if not all, have family members who have either turned

50:43their backs on you or never shown interest. And I pray, Lord, for grace. I pray for capacity to love. I pray for gospel-centered eyes that we may see them as you see them. I pray that we will, as Paul writes, be wise in our interaction with outsiders, make use of every opportunity. Lord, give us opportunities. I pray for, for sore hearts, Lord. I think of broken relationships with parents, with siblings, even with children, unsaved adult children, Lord. I think of broken relationships. And, Lord, I pray that you will do something restorative, something supernatural, Lord. And where we've missed it, where we've written someone often, you haven't, Lord, I pray that you'll give us the grace to rebuild those relationships, Lord. Not for our benefit, but for the sake of the gospel, where our hearts have grown hardened.

51:44I pray that you'll soften it, Lord. And we pray that we will hear many testimonies of family members coming to Christ, Lord, because of endurance, but ultimately because of your work, that it's you who pulls people unto yourself. Thank you for this conversation, Lord, strengthen us and encourage us, Lord, that we may love and serve you in the way we interact with our families. Pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen. That's it then for this edition of the Dying to Live podcast. Tune in again every week at www.joshjen.co.z forward slash Dying to Live. We're also on Apple Podcasts Google Play, Tune in Radio, Spotify, I Heart Radio and many other podcast sites. So wherever you're listening to this podcast, please subscribe, leave comments and click on the like button. Until next time then, from the team, it's goodbye and God bless.