Retirement Homes and Caring for Aging Parents

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, retirement homes and assisted living

00:00:05.920 | are big issues facing families across the country.

00:00:08.880 | And today's question comes to us anonymously,

00:00:11.040 | as do many of our questions.

00:00:13.440 | Dear Pastor John,

00:00:14.400 | what does the Bible say about retirement homes?

00:00:17.080 | Don't we as children have a responsibility

00:00:19.480 | to directly look after and provide

00:00:22.040 | for our parents in old age?

00:00:24.260 | How do retirement homes fit or not fit

00:00:27.040 | into this calling as children of aging parents?

00:00:32.040 | - Even though the issue of how we care

00:00:35.200 | for our aging parents is not addressed specifically

00:00:40.200 | in the Bible, I think,

00:00:42.620 | that is the details of how to do it are not addressed.

00:00:45.240 | There are enough pointers in God's word

00:00:49.520 | that I think any Christian child with aging parents

00:00:55.840 | who is deeply, any child who's deeply formed

00:00:59.680 | by the scriptures and eager to magnify Christ

00:01:04.680 | by his behavior, and those are two huge assumptions

00:01:08.640 | 'cause there aren't many people like that in the world,

00:01:11.120 | will lean very strongly toward a close

00:01:16.120 | and caring relationship with his parents or her parents.

00:01:20.720 | Close, direct, like this anonymous person

00:01:25.160 | was asking, let me mention some texts

00:01:28.960 | that deal with a couple of,

00:01:31.800 | and then deal with a couple of practical issues.

00:01:35.160 | Philippians 2, three through eight

00:01:37.360 | is one of the most transforming passages in the Bible

00:01:40.240 | if it takes root in our lives.

00:01:41.920 | It stresses becoming a kind of person

00:01:45.360 | who is oriented on what others need,

00:01:48.600 | not just on our private desires.

00:01:51.760 | This is the great issue of life.

00:01:54.480 | Will we be selfish or will we be servants?

00:01:58.320 | The beautiful life, the Christ-honoring, Christ-like life

00:02:02.200 | is the life of serving others,

00:02:04.800 | not ignoring others or using others

00:02:08.000 | while we just go about our self-satisfied way.

00:02:11.320 | So here's the text.

00:02:12.600 | Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,

00:02:15.920 | but in humility, count others.

00:02:19.000 | Now, that would include parents.

00:02:20.480 | Count others more significant than yourselves.

00:02:24.680 | Let each of you look not only to his own interests,

00:02:27.480 | but also to the interests of others, that is aging parents.

00:02:31.880 | Have this mind among yourselves,

00:02:33.920 | which is yours in Christ Jesus,

00:02:36.160 | who though he was in the form of God

00:02:37.720 | did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

00:02:40.680 | but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.

00:02:44.560 | So he stoops from being the king of the universe

00:02:47.520 | to being a servant,

00:02:49.160 | being born in the likeness of man,

00:02:50.800 | being found in human form,

00:02:52.240 | he humbled himself by becoming obedient

00:02:57.240 | to the point of death, even death on the cross.

00:03:01.520 | That is one of the most convicting,

00:03:05.040 | one of the most beautiful,

00:03:06.400 | one of the most transforming texts in the Bible.

00:03:08.640 | So the great mark of the Christian, Paul says,

00:03:12.720 | the adult Christian child,

00:03:14.800 | they look not just to their own interests in midlife

00:03:19.800 | as their careers reach their capstone.

00:03:23.480 | They look towards the interests of others,

00:03:26.720 | including aging parents.

00:03:28.360 | They count others like their parents

00:03:31.400 | as more significant than themselves.

00:03:34.080 | They don't sit atop some pinnacle of privilege,

00:03:39.080 | but like Jesus, they come down to where the need is

00:03:42.000 | and serve even unto death.

00:03:44.240 | So there's a basic principle and a call in it.

00:03:48.600 | Now, Jesus linked that love command with parents

00:03:53.000 | by putting them side by side in Matthew 19, 9.

00:03:56.120 | He said, "Honor your father and mother

00:03:59.040 | and love your neighbor as you love yourself."

00:04:01.840 | So one way of honoring your parents

00:04:05.320 | is to love them as you love yourself.

00:04:08.120 | That is, if you would hope to be helped in your aging need,

00:04:12.440 | then help your parents.

00:04:14.640 | One of the most beautiful examples of this,

00:04:17.680 | and I think it's very inspiring,

00:04:19.240 | so I'll mention it, is John 19, 26.

00:04:22.880 | In spite of Jesus' unspeakable sufferings on the cross,

00:04:27.880 | he did exactly what Paul said,

00:04:31.040 | namely, he looked not to his own interests or his own pain.

00:04:36.040 | He looked to his mother's.

00:04:38.520 | He was the eldest son of Mary,

00:04:42.120 | and Joseph evidently was gone now.

00:04:44.560 | He never shows up

00:04:46.000 | after his initial appearance in the Gospels.

00:04:48.640 | And custom would dictate that the firstborn

00:04:52.880 | take special responsibility for his mom in her old age.

00:04:56.760 | And so he looks down from the cross,

00:04:59.560 | and it says, "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple

00:05:03.080 | whom he loved, John, standing nearby,

00:05:06.200 | he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son.'

00:05:10.040 | And then he said to his disciple, 'Behold your mother.'

00:05:15.760 | And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home."

00:05:20.760 | Sometimes ministry, like dying for Jesus,

00:05:27.040 | or for God in this case, in Jesus' case,

00:05:29.720 | sometimes ministry will keep us

00:05:32.840 | from being as closely involved with their parents

00:05:35.480 | as we might like,

00:05:37.280 | but we will be very diligent not to neglect them,

00:05:42.200 | but make sure they're cared for.

00:05:44.000 | 1 Timothy 5, 4 is probably the most to the point text

00:05:50.000 | in the Bible.

00:05:51.440 | It says, "If a widow has children or grandchildren,

00:05:56.440 | let them first learn to show godliness

00:06:00.320 | to their own household,

00:06:02.440 | and to make some return to their parents

00:06:05.920 | for this pleasing in the sight of God."

00:06:08.320 | Now, the context is whether the church

00:06:10.760 | or the family should care for widows.

00:06:12.560 | And Paul says that the church should care for real widows,

00:06:15.960 | that is, those who don't have a family,

00:06:18.440 | implying that the first and foremost responsibility

00:06:22.080 | is for the families to care for widows.

00:06:25.360 | And then he gives three motives.

00:06:28.000 | Let me just mention them.

00:06:28.840 | Number one, he says, "Show godliness."

00:06:32.800 | In other words, caring for the parent is a Godward act.

00:06:37.800 | It's not just social welfare.

00:06:40.720 | This is part of what God is working in his people.

00:06:44.520 | Number two, "To make some return to their parents."

00:06:48.400 | In other words, it's right and good for children

00:06:51.080 | to look back on all the years

00:06:53.160 | of what their parents gave to them.

00:06:54.800 | 10,000 needs were met in their early years

00:06:58.800 | by the parents and feel some sense of indebtedness to them.

00:07:02.480 | And number three, "For this is pleasing in the sight of God."

00:07:06.800 | So we're told plainly, God delights,

00:07:09.000 | he's pleased when children care for their aging parents.

00:07:14.000 | So the main issue is, is the heart of the children

00:07:19.640 | a selfish heart or a servant heart?

00:07:22.480 | Are we ready to make sacrifices for our parents

00:07:26.600 | or are we resentful that they are becoming a burden?

00:07:30.240 | That's the real test.

00:07:31.960 | All of this may or may not mean

00:07:35.440 | that the parents come to live with us or near us.

00:07:39.960 | There are innumerable variables

00:07:43.000 | that make one situation right for one family

00:07:46.360 | and another situation right for another.

00:07:48.480 | Here's just one tiny illustration.

00:07:50.320 | My father finally needed more care

00:07:54.760 | than he could get living by himself.

00:07:56.600 | Both, he had been married to my mother,

00:07:58.640 | then she died and then he was married another 25 years

00:08:02.000 | and she died and now he's a widower

00:08:04.800 | and now he can't live alone anymore.

00:08:07.720 | He's too forgetful,

00:08:08.680 | he can't find his way home in the car anymore.

00:08:11.960 | Now I'm a thousand miles away.

00:08:13.720 | He was in Greenville, South Carolina,

00:08:15.360 | I'm here in Minneapolis.

00:08:16.680 | I have a sister nearby, none of us is right there.

00:08:20.880 | Noelle and I discussed what it would mean

00:08:23.600 | to have him live with us.

00:08:25.200 | We looked where the bathroom is on the first floor,

00:08:28.520 | we saw the room we used for a study

00:08:31.200 | and we thought, now that could be made a bedroom,

00:08:33.480 | it has immediate access to the bathroom,

00:08:35.720 | he wouldn't have to climb any steps.

00:08:37.920 | Are we willing?

00:08:38.800 | We are willing.

00:08:39.640 | So I said to my father,

00:08:40.960 | "Daddy, we would be happy for you

00:08:44.400 | "to spend your last days with us."

00:08:47.160 | And he wouldn't do it.

00:08:48.920 | He didn't wanna leave the South,

00:08:51.160 | he didn't like the weather,

00:08:52.440 | he didn't wanna leave his friends,

00:08:54.400 | he thought Beverly, my sister, was nearby.

00:08:57.760 | There was a nursing home that was operated

00:09:00.040 | by the university that he graduated from,

00:09:02.200 | he had all these reasons why it was not a good idea

00:09:05.040 | to come live with his son.

00:09:06.200 | And I thought, "Well, okay."

00:09:09.000 | And that's the way he was.

00:09:10.280 | I mean, he was not that closely tied

00:09:14.840 | and so he spent his last years in a nursing home,

00:09:19.160 | Beverly visited him often

00:09:21.040 | and I got down there as often as I could

00:09:24.120 | and as his memory faded away,

00:09:26.400 | he seemed quite happy in that place.

00:09:28.960 | So again, the main issue for the Christian child

00:09:33.400 | of aging parents is not the precise circumstances,

00:09:37.640 | the main issue is, are we servants or are we selfish?

00:09:41.760 | Are we ready to sacrifice and trust God

00:09:45.840 | with the joy to meet every need?

00:09:49.440 | Those are some very important and helpful categories

00:09:51.680 | to think through.

00:09:52.520 | Thank you, Pastor John, for those.

00:09:54.240 | And thanks for listening to this podcast.

00:09:56.480 | We publish three times a week

00:09:58.560 | and you can subscribe to our audio feeds

00:10:00.440 | and search our episode archive.

00:10:01.800 | You can reach us by email with a difficult question

00:10:03.600 | you may be facing in life.

00:10:05.040 | Do all of that through our online home

00:10:07.160 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:10:12.080 | Well, Christ is free, gloriously free.

00:10:16.760 | And Christ will cost you everything that you have.

00:10:20.280 | So which is it?

00:10:21.400 | Is he free or does he cost us everything?

00:10:24.400 | Or are both of those things true?

00:10:26.720 | That's tomorrow's question from a young leader

00:10:28.640 | who listens to the podcast

00:10:29.960 | and wants to be faithful to both truths

00:10:32.120 | and to preach them well.

00:10:34.320 | And he'll ask Pastor John how to balance that.

00:10:37.520 | Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:39.480 | We'll see you on Friday.

00:10:40.680 | (upbeat music)

00:10:43.280 | (upbeat music)

00:10:45.880 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Retirement Homes and Caring for Aging Parents

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