On Sibling Rivalries

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Sibling rivalries, that's our theme today.

00:00:07.320 | Welcome back to the podcast.

00:00:09.200 | We've talked about siblings on the podcast

00:00:11.360 | in a couple of different contexts.

00:00:13.040 | We addressed the prodigal son

00:00:15.080 | and his older brother in APJ 1059.

00:00:19.080 | And we looked at how Jesus is our perfect elder brother

00:00:23.240 | in APJ 934.

00:00:24.880 | I love that episode.

00:00:25.960 | The fact that Jesus is our brother.

00:00:27.560 | He calls us brothers.

00:00:29.960 | But today we get a question

00:00:31.440 | about sibling rivalries in the home.

00:00:33.920 | Something we have not yet addressed on the podcast.

00:00:36.360 | And here's the question today for you, Pastor John,

00:00:38.360 | who once again joins us remotely over Zoom.

00:00:42.380 | The question is from Stephanie.

00:00:44.440 | Pastor John and Tony, thank you for all the work

00:00:46.720 | and thoughtfulness you put into APJ.

00:00:48.880 | I have listened for years,

00:00:50.760 | always encouraged by hearing brothers and sisters

00:00:53.440 | ask questions I would never even think to ask myself.

00:00:57.560 | Your careful responses exemplify 1 Peter 3.15.

00:01:01.120 | Always to be prepared to give an answer

00:01:03.040 | to everyone who asks you to give the reason

00:01:05.920 | for the hope that you have with gentleness and respect.

00:01:10.360 | My question for you is about sibling rivalry.

00:01:14.560 | In Genesis, it seems that every family dynamic

00:01:17.520 | was affected by jealousy or envy between siblings.

00:01:21.000 | Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah,

00:01:25.320 | Joseph and his brothers.

00:01:26.880 | Just to name a few.

00:01:28.680 | What are gospel implications of this reoccurring plot theme

00:01:31.800 | in the Bible and seeing that many

00:01:34.280 | of these broken relationships are the result

00:01:35.960 | of favoritism or passivity by parents?

00:01:39.420 | What lessons can we learn as fathers and mothers today?

00:01:43.440 | - Wow, what a good question.

00:01:44.760 | - It is.

00:01:45.600 | - That caused me to do some serious thinking

00:01:49.480 | on things I haven't quite posed in that way.

00:01:53.880 | So let's start at the beginning.

00:01:55.600 | God creates man, male and female,

00:01:58.840 | and designs that by becoming one flesh in marriage,

00:02:03.840 | they would have children who are called

00:02:08.640 | in their relationship to each other, brothers and sisters.

00:02:12.600 | So this is a universally understood relationship.

00:02:15.720 | It's amazing.

00:02:16.540 | Brothers and sisters, all over the world.

00:02:18.000 | Everybody knows what that is.

00:02:20.200 | Every culture understands what brothers and sisters are

00:02:24.160 | together with marriage.

00:02:25.960 | This relationship is primal.

00:02:28.480 | It's really basic.

00:02:30.080 | Brothers and sisters ordinarily grow up

00:02:32.880 | under the care of parents and are helped

00:02:37.040 | to be productive adults in the family structure

00:02:40.220 | all over the world.

00:02:41.200 | Now, sin enters the world

00:02:45.880 | and its first devastating effect is on the married couple.

00:02:50.460 | Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent.

00:02:54.820 | Their innocence is over.

00:02:56.860 | Shame and guilt come into their relationship

00:03:00.420 | and wreak havoc.

00:03:02.440 | And the next relationship that we read about

00:03:04.860 | as contaminated and ruined by sin

00:03:06.900 | is Cain killing his brother, Apel.

00:03:11.020 | So the basic family structure is brought into being by God

00:03:17.380 | and then sin moves out through that family structure

00:03:21.780 | to destroy all the relationships.

00:03:24.660 | Simultaneously though, God's grace enters into the world

00:03:29.660 | and begins to do its redemptive work.

00:03:33.500 | And what we are to see is that in these very broken

00:03:37.660 | and sin ruined relationships of brother and brother

00:03:41.460 | and sister and sister, God nevertheless has worked

00:03:45.820 | redemptively, savingly.

00:03:47.740 | We see it in God's relationship with Isaac and Ishmael.

00:03:50.980 | We see it in his relationship to Jacob and Esau.

00:03:55.260 | We see it in Egypt where Moses said to two Israelites,

00:04:00.260 | why are you fighting?

00:04:01.600 | Are you not brothers?

00:04:03.260 | And in that very context of brother against brother,

00:04:07.180 | God is saving his people.

00:04:10.620 | When Jesus enters the world,

00:04:12.660 | two dramatic things happen in the way Jesus defines

00:04:16.740 | the relationship between himself and his followers

00:04:20.180 | and then the way those followers understand

00:04:22.980 | their relationship with each other.

00:04:24.380 | First, he defines his relationship with those who follow him

00:04:28.860 | as brothers to himself,

00:04:32.780 | whether there's any physical family relationship or not.

00:04:35.780 | For example, he says in Mark 2, 32 to 35,

00:04:41.780 | a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him,

00:04:46.380 | your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.

00:04:50.900 | And he answered them, who are my mother and my brothers?

00:04:55.700 | And looking around at those who sat at his feet,

00:05:00.420 | he said, here are my mother and my brothers.

00:05:05.420 | For whoever does the will of God,

00:05:08.220 | he is my brother and sister and mother.

00:05:12.860 | And in the picture of the final judgment,

00:05:17.740 | when the disciples ask the king when they served him,

00:05:22.740 | it says the king will answer them,

00:05:27.620 | truly I say to you,

00:05:29.300 | as you did it unto one of the least of these my brothers,

00:05:34.300 | you did it to me.

00:05:36.780 | So the followers of Jesus who love like Jesus

00:05:41.180 | are brothers of the king of the universe.

00:05:44.060 | This dramatic act of identifying as brother

00:05:50.660 | to his followers had a huge implication

00:05:55.220 | for how they understood their relationship to each other

00:05:59.660 | and how the apostles later

00:06:02.140 | taught about the nature of the church.

00:06:05.100 | For example, Jesus said to his disciples,

00:06:07.900 | you are not to be called rabbi,

00:06:10.180 | for you have one teacher and you are all brothers.

00:06:15.540 | They weren't physical brothers,

00:06:17.820 | they were a new kind of brother.

00:06:19.780 | So to each other, brother to each other,

00:06:22.860 | not just brother to him.

00:06:24.700 | And then when we turn to the apostle Paul

00:06:27.740 | and ask how he understood the relationship

00:06:30.220 | among believers in the church,

00:06:32.460 | we find an amazing fact.

00:06:34.980 | Just to give you a sense of proportion,

00:06:36.940 | this was a surprise to me.

00:06:39.420 | I've made a big deal out of Paul's favorite name

00:06:44.180 | for Christians being saints, right?

00:06:47.540 | He loves to call Christian saint.

00:06:50.420 | 40 times he calls Christians saints.

00:06:54.220 | But when you ask, well, what about brother?

00:06:59.180 | What was his real favorite?

00:07:01.540 | He refers to Christians as brothers over 130 times.

00:07:06.540 | So Paul picked up on Jesus' reference

00:07:11.580 | to himself as brother, as well as to each other.

00:07:15.580 | He says in Romans 8, 29,

00:07:17.780 | those whom God foreknew,

00:07:21.900 | he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son

00:07:25.420 | in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

00:07:30.940 | So God predestined us to be the brothers of the son of God

00:07:35.940 | and for him to be preeminent.

00:07:40.700 | So the link is finally made with God, God explicitly,

00:07:44.620 | son of God, Jesus Christ is the preeminent firstborn

00:07:49.220 | among many brothers,

00:07:51.380 | meaning that the whole church are the children of God

00:07:56.380 | and part of a divine family

00:07:59.140 | through the redemptive work of Christ.

00:08:01.180 | This is breathtaking if you just let it sink in.

00:08:06.180 | God's original creation order of husband and wife

00:08:12.260 | and then brother and brother

00:08:14.180 | become the two dominant ways of thinking about Christ

00:08:18.260 | and his church.

00:08:20.220 | He's the elder brother to brothers and sisters in the church

00:08:23.780 | and he is the husband to his bride, the church.

00:08:27.700 | God's original design finds its fulfillment,

00:08:32.700 | not mainly in the redeemed earthly nuclear families,

00:08:37.900 | but mainly in the divine family with the son of God

00:08:42.660 | as preeminent brother over his brothers and sisters

00:08:46.500 | and as the husband over his bride.

00:08:50.220 | Now, what about the second part of Stephanie's question?

00:08:54.660 | What can we do as fathers and mothers to foster peace,

00:08:59.660 | minimize rivalry between our children?

00:09:04.220 | And I think the little survey that we just did sheds light

00:09:09.220 | and I think I've got four things here quickly

00:09:12.460 | just to mention.

00:09:13.780 | So what should I do as a parent?

00:09:16.300 | I've got old kids now, the oldest is 50

00:09:20.220 | and many of our listeners have tiny kids.

00:09:24.540 | So what can we do to help minimize

00:09:29.020 | a sinful sibling rivalry?

00:09:32.700 | Number one, don't make the mistake of Adam and Eve.

00:09:35.420 | They rejected God as an all wise, all providing father

00:09:40.420 | and replaced him with their own private preferences

00:09:43.840 | and the result was a destroyed family.

00:09:46.980 | So turn that around and make God in Christ

00:09:50.740 | the supreme treasure of your life

00:09:52.700 | and trust his word and his care implicitly.

00:09:56.580 | Let the children see you do that.

00:09:59.500 | Mom and dad trust and treasure God.

00:10:03.020 | Mom and dad have a heavenly father

00:10:06.620 | and they trust him to take care of them and us.

00:10:10.080 | Number two, teach the children that this natural family

00:10:14.380 | that they're part of is not ultimate.

00:10:17.700 | Belonging to God's family is ultimate.

00:10:21.380 | Humans, boys and girls, teenagers need something great

00:10:26.380 | to live for, something much greater

00:10:30.580 | than the natural physical family they're a part of.

00:10:34.660 | If you idolize that family, it will not suffice

00:10:38.100 | for the human soul.

00:10:39.680 | If they can be captured by something glorious

00:10:43.780 | that is greater than the family, namely the global family

00:10:47.420 | from all the nations, they will have resources

00:10:50.860 | to love their natural family better.

00:10:54.380 | Number three, teach them that squabbling

00:10:58.500 | over which is the greatest puts them in the category

00:11:02.860 | of those who do not understand Jesus.

00:11:06.140 | When the disciples did that, who's the greater among you?

00:11:09.580 | Jesus said, who is the greater?

00:11:11.580 | One who reclines at table or one who serves?

00:11:16.140 | Is it not the one who reclines at table?

00:11:18.820 | And yet, I am among you as the one who serves.

00:11:23.500 | In other words, if you follow Jesus,

00:11:26.300 | then being a servant is true greatness.

00:11:30.620 | So if you want to try to be greater than your brother

00:11:33.320 | or your sister, be a greater servant.

00:11:37.980 | Finally, number four, when you think about

00:11:41.420 | the different gifts that your children have,

00:11:44.260 | don't demean or discount any of them.

00:11:48.060 | Take your cue from Paul's teaching

00:11:51.460 | in 1 Corinthians 12, 24 and 25.

00:11:55.020 | He said, God has so composed the body,

00:11:58.740 | giving greater honor to the part that lacked it.

00:12:01.820 | That there may be no division in the body,

00:12:05.500 | but that the members may have the same care for one another.

00:12:10.100 | There's no point in pretending that your children

00:12:14.260 | are all equal in every way.

00:12:16.340 | They know they're not, you know they're not.

00:12:18.540 | Some are better at one thing, some at another.

00:12:24.540 | The key is teaching them the humility

00:12:28.460 | of viewing everyone as precious and useful

00:12:33.060 | in God's sight as they are.

00:12:35.420 | Nobody is wasted.

00:12:36.760 | God doesn't waste his creation.

00:12:38.820 | Nobody's pointless.

00:12:40.100 | Everyone has a design in God's mind

00:12:45.020 | and they're called, they're called to something significant.

00:12:49.980 | So, Stephanie, thank you for a very provocative

00:12:54.860 | and helpful question for me.

00:12:56.860 | It was good for me to think about this.

00:13:00.100 | May God help us to love being God's children,

00:13:05.100 | Christ's brothers and sisters,

00:13:08.100 | and may God make us good examples to our children.

00:13:12.540 | Yes, a very provocative and helpful question and response.

00:13:17.020 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:13:18.020 | This is our first episode on sibling rivalries in the home.

00:13:20.900 | What else needs to be addressed in this topic?

00:13:22.640 | Tell us, email your question to us

00:13:25.260 | at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:13:28.600 | And speaking of sibling rivalries

00:13:32.120 | and tensions inside the home,

00:13:33.740 | tensions in the family can bubble over

00:13:36.340 | into months long and years long

00:13:39.880 | and even decades long feuds.

00:13:43.120 | So how do we learn to forgive family?

00:13:48.220 | An important question.

00:13:50.100 | And it's the question up next.

00:13:51.280 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:13:52.620 | We'll see you back here on Monday.

00:13:54.740 | Thanks for listening.

00:13:55.780 | (upbeat music)

00:13:58.360 | (upbeat music)

00:14:00.940 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

On Sibling Rivalries

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