How Can I Forgive My Parents for Childhood Abuse?

00:00:00.000 | Hello again, and thank you for listening to Ask Pastor John with longtime pastor and author

00:00:07.560 | John Piper.

00:00:08.560 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:00:10.820 | By God's grace, this is a podcast that's heard around the world by a lot of different people,

00:00:14.800 | and that means when we dive into the most sensitive fears and the most painful wounds

00:00:19.320 | of a life, we're only doing so at a very principled level.

00:00:23.540 | We offer scriptural pointers.

00:00:25.280 | We're trying to point you into your Bible.

00:00:27.600 | We're never trying to replace the necessary pastors and counselors and Christian friends

00:00:31.580 | that God has put in your life that you need for face-to-face care.

00:00:34.820 | That's irreplaceable.

00:00:35.820 | And with that said, a really painful email has arrived from a man in England who writes

00:00:41.960 | this, "Pastor John, how can I forgive my parents?

00:00:46.440 | I've been a Christian for 17 years but struggle with forgiveness of my parents for my abusive

00:00:50.320 | childhood.

00:00:51.320 | I know that the Lord teaches forgiveness as does the Bible in many passages.

00:00:55.440 | I am able to forgive others' injustices and wrongs, but I really struggle with memories

00:00:59.460 | of my childhood and it brings resentment to mind.

00:01:02.960 | Not only forgiveness is taught in the Bible, but also it says I should honor my parents.

00:01:07.960 | I feel like a failure as a Christian.

00:01:10.080 | I am 47 years old with a family of my own and I feel such resentment, even hate and

00:01:14.160 | rage sometimes at my parents for the physical and mental abuse I suffered at their hands.

00:01:19.320 | Please help me to understand how I can get peace over this matter and try to forgive

00:01:22.800 | them, a forgiveness that lasts for all time, not just until another memory surfaces."

00:01:29.960 | Pastor John, what would you say to this listener?

00:01:32.440 | I have three practical suggestions based on Scripture, but first, let me say how utterly

00:01:39.280 | crucial I think this issue is, and I'm glad, so glad that it's been asked.

00:01:45.000 | Jesus teaches that an unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart.

00:01:52.400 | Let me say that again.

00:01:54.280 | Jesus teaches that an unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart.

00:02:02.840 | Here's what he says.

00:02:04.320 | "Father, forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors."

00:02:11.320 | Make it correspond.

00:02:13.080 | He follows up with this, "If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father

00:02:18.520 | will forgive you.

00:02:19.880 | If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

00:02:26.000 | That's Matthew 6, 14 and 15.

00:02:28.960 | Then in Matthew 18, you remember, he tells the parable of the unforgiving servant, and

00:02:34.200 | that makes the same point.

00:02:35.640 | So all that just to say this is serious.

00:02:39.800 | Here are my three suggestions.

00:02:40.800 | Number one, Colossians 3, 13, "Forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you

00:02:47.560 | also must forgive."

00:02:50.320 | In other words, being able and willing to forgive grows out from the root of being forgiven.

00:03:01.440 | How amazing, how precious, how humbling does being forgiven make you feel?

00:03:10.560 | If you're forgiven, how amazed are you that you are forgiven?

00:03:13.880 | Let me use a picture.

00:03:17.160 | Picture that you are a traitor to a gracious and good king.

00:03:20.720 | You're a traitor.

00:03:21.840 | And in your evil, you are planning to kill the king.

00:03:25.040 | He's a good king.

00:03:26.040 | He hasn't done anything to bring this on.

00:03:28.000 | You still want to submit.

00:03:30.240 | You dig a tunnel under the castle and begin to stock it with dynamite.

00:03:36.340 | He finds out about your treachery.

00:03:39.040 | And on the day you plan to blow it up, blow the king up and kill him, he follows you into

00:03:45.800 | the tunnel.

00:03:47.080 | You light the fuse to the dynamite.

00:03:50.120 | But as you're running out to get out so that you won't be blown up, you fall and gash an

00:03:56.240 | artery in your leg.

00:03:58.560 | The bleeding is so bad as you try to limp your way out, you become faint and collapse.

00:04:05.440 | He sees you.

00:04:06.440 | And instead of running out himself to save his life, he picks you up and carries you

00:04:13.280 | towards safety.

00:04:14.480 | And just before you reach safety, the explosion loses a beam, which falls on the king and

00:04:21.320 | kills him as he pushes you to safety.

00:04:24.160 | So there you are standing free and your leg with a tourniquet on it and the king dead

00:04:34.160 | having saved your life.

00:04:37.600 | And a sense of exhilaration at being alive comes over you, a sense of shame at what you

00:04:42.960 | have done comes over you.

00:04:44.320 | And my question is, in that moment of life, I'm alive, what a horrible thing I have done.

00:04:53.000 | In that moment, how would you feel about your parents?

00:04:59.560 | My own experience is that in the moments of worship, when I feel most guilty at the horror

00:05:09.600 | of my own sin against God, against Jesus, and when I feel most amazed at my own forgiveness

00:05:20.240 | and most stunned at the magnitude of what it cost in Jesus' suffering, I am least likely

00:05:28.520 | to be angry at those moments with those who have wronged me.

00:05:33.440 | It just doesn't fit.

00:05:34.440 | It just doesn't fit.

00:05:36.080 | I can't do it.

00:05:38.040 | I can't seethe with revenge and celebrate being forgiven.

00:05:45.360 | I can't.

00:05:46.360 | It won't work.

00:05:48.360 | So my suggestion is linger long and deep over the cost and the hope, the preciousness, the

00:05:56.840 | amazing wonder of being forgiven at the cost of Christ.

00:06:02.400 | That's my first suggestion.

00:06:04.280 | Second suggestion.

00:06:06.780 | This comes from my devotions yesterday morning.

00:06:10.440 | This very question was on my mind when I read this.

00:06:14.640 | This is the trial of Jesus.

00:06:16.400 | The high priest asked Jesus, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?"

00:06:20.960 | And Jesus said, "I am."

00:06:23.880 | And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power and coming in

00:06:27.920 | the clouds of heaven.

00:06:29.200 | And the high priest tore his garments and said, "What further need do we have of witnesses?

00:06:33.600 | You have heard what he said.

00:06:35.800 | Blasphemy.

00:06:36.900 | What is your decision?"

00:06:38.080 | And they all condemned him as deserving death.

00:06:42.040 | And then these words, "And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and strike him,

00:06:51.640 | to put a hood over his face and then struck him, saying, 'Prophesy.'

00:06:57.320 | And the guards received him with blows."

00:06:59.800 | And I just paused and I was on the brink of tears.

00:07:03.240 | This doesn't usually happen to me when I'm all by myself, but on the brink of tears.

00:07:07.360 | And I said, "How could he not strike back?

00:07:11.600 | How could he not strike back?

00:07:13.280 | I get so angry when people do bad things to me that I want to strike back so quickly.

00:07:18.720 | How could he not?"

00:07:20.920 | And the answer—I mean, it was a real question in the early church, how he could not.

00:07:26.480 | And Peter gave one of the answers.

00:07:29.800 | It goes like this in 1 Peter 2.21, "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that

00:07:36.340 | you might follow in his steps.

00:07:38.340 | He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

00:07:42.280 | When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

00:07:48.580 | When he suffered, he did not threaten."

00:07:51.400 | Here's what he did.

00:07:53.200 | "But he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly."

00:07:59.720 | In other words, even when your own judicial sentiment rises up and demands that there

00:08:06.720 | be justice because of the wrong that's done to you, you can roll that over onto the judge

00:08:15.920 | who judges justly, and you don't have to bear the awful weight of being the judge and

00:08:23.120 | the avenger yourself.

00:08:25.240 | You can trust that justice will be done.

00:08:29.300 | Punishment will happen in hell or will have happened on the cross.

00:08:34.760 | Sinners will bear it, or Christ will bear it.

00:08:37.080 | You cannot improve upon the justice of God in Christ's crucifixion or in hell.

00:08:45.500 | So you can let it go.

00:08:47.560 | Let it go.

00:08:48.560 | Vengeance is mine.

00:08:49.560 | I will repay, says the Lord.

00:08:52.560 | And here's my third suggestion.

00:08:55.160 | Ponder that an unforgiving spirit hurts you more than anyone.

00:09:00.980 | It does no good.

00:09:01.980 | In fact, it does a lot of harm to you and not to others.

00:09:06.280 | You might say, "Oh, that kind of argument.

00:09:08.360 | I've heard that kind of argument before.

00:09:10.100 | It just has no power.

00:09:11.440 | It's a powerless argument just to tell me that my emotions that are rising up within

00:09:15.640 | me do me no good.

00:09:16.640 | That's a useless argument, Piper."

00:09:19.040 | And my response to that is, "Jesus didn't think it was useless, and you better be careful."

00:09:26.320 | Because he used that very argument against the sin of anxiety, which has the same power

00:09:33.560 | rising up within us as resentment does.

00:09:36.060 | He said in Matthew 6, 27, "Which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to

00:09:42.900 | his span of life?"

00:09:45.560 | In other words, it doesn't do any good to be anxious.

00:09:48.380 | It's not going to do you any good.

00:09:51.260 | And if you respond to Jesus by saying, "That's a useless argument," woe to you.

00:09:56.780 | Don't talk to Jesus like that.

00:09:58.540 | He knows what he's doing.

00:09:59.740 | It's a useful argument.

00:10:01.820 | Don't blow it off.

00:10:03.940 | Ask the Lord to make it powerful.

00:10:05.940 | This is doing me no good.

00:10:07.680 | This is hurting me.

00:10:09.620 | God, use that insight to take the power of this resentment away from me.

00:10:15.980 | So those are my three strategies that God has given you to overcome the destructive

00:10:23.620 | effects of resentment and bitterness.

00:10:25.860 | Number one, be amazed at your own forgiveness, the magnitude of it, and what it costs.

00:10:32.260 | Two, let the all-wise judge settle accounts for you so you don't have to bear that awful

00:10:38.220 | load.

00:10:39.220 | Three, ponder deeply that an unforgiving spirit hurts you more than anyone.

00:10:45.140 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:47.300 | We get a lot of very personal emails, as you can imagine.

00:10:50.620 | We obviously cannot plunge into the details with you of your life and your story like

00:10:55.820 | a pastor can.

00:10:56.820 | We do our best to stay at the principal level, and that's what this podcast does best.

00:11:01.280 | Thank you for listening.

00:11:02.540 | To search or browse our past episodes or to send us a new question of your own, you can

00:11:05.780 | go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:11:11.540 | Well Jesus was never ashamed to tell his disciples or his potential disciples to liquidate all

00:11:16.540 | of their assets and to give away all of their cash first.

00:11:20.700 | So is that same expectation put to disciples today?

00:11:23.380 | It's a really, really good question, and I think every serious Bible reader and every

00:11:28.180 | serious follower of Jesus has to wrestle with that question.

00:11:31.820 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:11:33.180 | We'll see you back here next time on Friday.

00:11:35.620 | Amen.

00:11:36.620 | Amen.

00:11:41.620 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Can I Forgive My Parents for Childhood Abuse?

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