Advice to Teens About Their Parents

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Matthew, a teenage listener of the podcast,

00:00:07.720 | writes on to ask this.

00:00:09.420 | Dear Pastor John, when I hang out with my dad,

00:00:12.060 | I feel discouraged in my Christian walk

00:00:14.420 | because he gives me the feeling that God is a God

00:00:16.640 | who is full of rules of what I can and cannot do.

00:00:20.280 | Whereas, when I hang out with my friends,

00:00:22.180 | they encourage me by talking about the joys we have

00:00:24.640 | in Christ and how awesome Christ is.

00:00:27.360 | I'm only 15 years old, and I feel as if this

00:00:29.840 | is driving a wedge between me and my dad.

00:00:33.000 | How can I overcome this feeling?

00:00:35.040 | Am I in the wrong?

00:00:36.860 | What would you say to Matthew, Pastor John?

00:00:38.960 | - I don't know enough about Matthew or his dad

00:00:44.920 | or his friends to pronounce on whether he's in the wrong.

00:00:48.880 | But I do have things I wanna say to Matthew.

00:00:53.520 | And there's three of 'em, and here they are.

00:00:56.100 | First, Matthew, never lose sight

00:00:58.720 | of the biblical command to honor your mother

00:01:00.520 | and your father.

00:01:01.520 | Here's what the Bible says.

00:01:02.560 | You know this, just a reminder.

00:01:04.960 | Honor your father and mother.

00:01:06.980 | This is the first commandment with promise,

00:01:09.180 | that it may go well with you,

00:01:10.800 | and that you may live long in the land.

00:01:12.840 | One way to honor your father is to empathize

00:01:17.000 | with the long, hard challenge of raising children.

00:01:21.220 | Seems to me that your dad has put in 15 years

00:01:25.980 | into this job, if not more,

00:01:27.680 | if you've got brothers and sisters.

00:01:29.280 | One of the things that makes it so hard to be a parent,

00:01:34.280 | and I have been one five times over for now 42 years.

00:01:40.380 | One of the things that makes it so hard

00:01:45.160 | is the unusual responsibility for children

00:01:48.880 | that parents feel that friends don't feel.

00:01:52.760 | Parents long for their children to make wise decisions

00:01:56.000 | that don't ruin their lives, or ruin

00:01:58.480 | their Christ-exalting influence in the world.

00:02:01.120 | So for all those years, 15 for you,

00:02:05.880 | your dad has had to balance do's and don'ts,

00:02:10.200 | which are absolutely necessary to raise kids,

00:02:13.360 | with the blessings of forgiveness,

00:02:15.640 | and the wonders of grace.

00:02:17.980 | This is not easy, and I would encourage you

00:02:20.840 | to honor your dad by empathizing

00:02:24.760 | with this enormous difficulty of getting the balance right.

00:02:28.220 | You're gonna do it yourself someday, perhaps,

00:02:30.840 | and you will want your kid to be patient with you.

00:02:34.300 | I would also encourage you, Matthew,

00:02:39.020 | to honor your dad by admitting

00:02:41.360 | that some of the feelings you have

00:02:44.360 | when you hang out with your dad,

00:02:45.940 | you say, "When I hang out with dad,

00:02:48.360 | "I feel discouraged in my Christian walk."

00:02:51.440 | Some of those feelings may be owing

00:02:55.120 | to some things that are in you

00:02:59.480 | that cause you to overreact to your dad,

00:03:04.120 | rather than being a problem that's only in your dad.

00:03:06.920 | There might be some issues in you

00:03:08.640 | that make you respond in a discouraged way that way.

00:03:12.240 | A lot of children feel oppressed by their parents

00:03:18.260 | when it's not all the parents' fault.

00:03:21.860 | It's just the way a young person feels.

00:03:24.420 | I'll give you an illustration, Matthew.

00:03:25.780 | When I was 13, I can remember this day.

00:03:28.460 | It's not a proud day to me.

00:03:30.380 | One day, my mother asked me to take out the garbage,

00:03:35.380 | and I remember, I can see the place where I was standing.

00:03:38.520 | I can see the white, round-topped garbage can

00:03:42.020 | that she had to lift off.

00:03:43.020 | I could just see it like it was yesterday,

00:03:44.580 | and I almost screamed at her,

00:03:46.780 | "Doo, doo, doo!

00:03:48.740 | All I ever hear around this place is doo!"

00:03:53.020 | Now, that was not true.

00:03:56.620 | It wasn't true.

00:03:59.100 | My mother was a servant of no small proportion.

00:04:04.100 | So what was going on?

00:04:08.760 | There was something in my 13-year-old frustrated soul

00:04:13.940 | that was all out of whack on that afternoon.

00:04:17.980 | I was dead wrong to talk to her that way.

00:04:21.400 | I was factually wrong to talk to her that way,

00:04:25.140 | but something was going on in me.

00:04:28.060 | She was not responsible at that moment for my anger.

00:04:32.500 | I was, and so I just want to suggest, Matthew,

00:04:35.460 | that you be careful, be careful,

00:04:38.340 | that some of your frustration that may be building up

00:04:42.260 | might be coming from stuff in you,

00:04:44.860 | not just from stuff in your dad.

00:04:47.500 | That's my first suggestion.

00:04:49.100 | Honor your dad in those ways.

00:04:51.100 | Second, I would suggest that you use this season

00:04:56.100 | of life and growth, this season of frustration, in a sense,

00:05:01.540 | to make sure that you have a balanced and biblical view

00:05:07.420 | of how gospel joy and gospel rules,

00:05:12.420 | or dos and don'ts, relate to each other,

00:05:15.540 | how they fit together.

00:05:17.060 | Because right now, you feel like dad is all rule-focused

00:05:22.060 | and my friends are all joy-focused and Christ-focused,

00:05:27.380 | which raises the question, and this is just a question,

00:05:31.340 | do you have a biblical understanding

00:05:34.000 | of how the two fit together?

00:05:35.900 | Be careful that you don't just go

00:05:38.180 | with what makes you feel good.

00:05:40.280 | Like, it may be that biblical rules and biblical joy

00:05:45.260 | fit together in a way that's different than your experience

00:05:49.860 | and that you need to adjust your experience some

00:05:53.740 | in order to live in accord with the way the Bible talks

00:05:57.260 | about the relationship between biblical rules

00:06:00.540 | and biblical joy.

00:06:01.580 | Don't make the mistake that Martin Luther made.

00:06:05.260 | Have you heard of Martin Luther, the reformer?

00:06:07.900 | Martin Luther read the book of James,

00:06:12.160 | filled with rules and imperatives and commands.

00:06:14.980 | He read the book of James and he felt the same way

00:06:19.380 | about the book of James that you feel about your dad.

00:06:22.540 | He felt rules, rules, rules.

00:06:25.180 | Where's the joy of the gospel in this book?

00:06:27.660 | And he's talking about the book of the Bible.

00:06:30.540 | He was wrong.

00:06:31.740 | He called it an epistle of straw

00:06:34.240 | because he didn't have it sorted out properly yet.

00:06:37.600 | Well, you might possibly make the same mistake

00:06:41.440 | Martin Luther made in regard to your dad,

00:06:44.320 | like he made in regard to the book of James.

00:06:46.180 | Just be careful.

00:06:47.860 | I don't want to defend your dad here

00:06:49.080 | because I don't know whether he is lopsided

00:06:53.200 | in his understanding.

00:06:54.300 | I just want to make sure that you take this season

00:06:56.820 | as an opportunity to grow in your own balanced understanding

00:06:59.800 | of how gospel joy and gospel rules relate to each other.

00:07:03.100 | Here's the last thing.

00:07:03.940 | Here's the last thing I would say, Matthew.

00:07:06.300 | At this stage in life,

00:07:08.300 | imagine something that may be almost impossible.

00:07:11.640 | Namely, you may be at a position of growth and maturity

00:07:15.040 | where you can actually minister to your dad

00:07:17.400 | and not just focus on his failures to minister to you.

00:07:21.820 | A lot of kids never get to this place.

00:07:25.180 | I mean, think about this, Matthew.

00:07:26.180 | You're 15 and you're discerning some things very well.

00:07:30.220 | Here's one thing I want you to ask the Lord to do.

00:07:33.920 | Pray like this, "God, give me the grace, even at 15,

00:07:38.760 | without being presumptuous, without being proud,

00:07:41.360 | without being disrespectful, to be a lover,

00:07:44.840 | a blesser, a minister to my dad.

00:07:49.500 | My dad seems to be hung up on some stuff.

00:07:52.680 | I wish he had more joy."

00:07:54.960 | Well, instead of going to bed at night,

00:07:56.680 | angry at your dad, frustrated with your dad,

00:07:58.640 | disappointed in your dad,

00:08:00.160 | how about going to bed at night, praying for your dad,

00:08:03.280 | longing that some things that the Lord is teaching you

00:08:06.260 | could become a blessing to your dad?

00:08:10.320 | Matthew, believe it or not,

00:08:11.680 | there are kids that in their 30s, 40s, 50s,

00:08:16.680 | never have learned to do this.

00:08:20.300 | They never have.

00:08:21.640 | They're still angry at dad.

00:08:23.920 | They're still angry at mom.

00:08:26.180 | They still, all they think about is what they didn't get,

00:08:30.300 | rather than how they might minister now to a broken dad,

00:08:35.300 | a broken mom, who never got it quite right.

00:08:38.380 | So what a gift of maturity that would be for you at age 15.

00:08:43.380 | So those are my three suggestions.

00:08:46.800 | Matthew, honor your dad with empathy and understanding.

00:08:50.460 | Number two, grow in your grasp of how Bible joy

00:08:55.340 | and Bible rules fit together.

00:08:57.380 | Care as much about how to minister

00:09:00.180 | to your dad's discouragement or your dad's encouragement

00:09:04.340 | as you care about his ministering to you.

00:09:09.100 | - Thank you, Pastor John.

00:09:09.980 | And thank you, Matthew, for your excellent question.

00:09:12.100 | We really appreciate getting questions from teens.

00:09:15.100 | So thank you, Matthew.

00:09:16.140 | And on our website, we have a series of letters

00:09:18.020 | Pastor John has written to teenagers,

00:09:19.900 | including a letter to an incomplete, insecure teenager,

00:09:24.020 | which has proven to be very popular.

00:09:26.420 | Also popular is one titled,

00:09:28.140 | A Letter to a 13-Year-Old

00:09:29.820 | Asking How to Go Deeper in Bible Study.

00:09:32.640 | Also see the article that Pastor John wrote

00:09:34.340 | called Teenage Resolutions.

00:09:36.820 | Teens and parents of teens,

00:09:38.460 | you can find those three resources right now at our site,

00:09:41.540 | DesiringGod.org.

00:09:43.260 | Search for the titles.

00:09:44.660 | A Letter to an Incomplete, Insecure Teenager,

00:09:47.980 | and A Letter to a 13-Year-Old

00:09:49.940 | Asking How to Go Deeper in Bible Study.

00:09:52.500 | And an article titled, Teenage Resolutions.

00:09:55.920 | We return tomorrow.

00:09:57.060 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.

00:09:58.220 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:10:00.880 | (upbeat music)

00:10:03.460 | (upbeat music)

00:10:06.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Advice to Teens About Their Parents

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