(upbeat music) - Well, retirement homes and assisted living are big issues facing families across the country. And today's question comes to us anonymously, as do many of our questions. Dear Pastor John, what does the Bible say about retirement homes? Don't we as children have a responsibility to directly look after and provide for our parents in old age?

How do retirement homes fit or not fit into this calling as children of aging parents? - Even though the issue of how we care for our aging parents is not addressed specifically in the Bible, I think, that is the details of how to do it are not addressed. There are enough pointers in God's word that I think any Christian child with aging parents who is deeply, any child who's deeply formed by the scriptures and eager to magnify Christ by his behavior, and those are two huge assumptions 'cause there aren't many people like that in the world, will lean very strongly toward a close and caring relationship with his parents or her parents.

Close, direct, like this anonymous person was asking, let me mention some texts that deal with a couple of, and then deal with a couple of practical issues. Philippians 2, three through eight is one of the most transforming passages in the Bible if it takes root in our lives. It stresses becoming a kind of person who is oriented on what others need, not just on our private desires.

This is the great issue of life. Will we be selfish or will we be servants? The beautiful life, the Christ-honoring, Christ-like life is the life of serving others, not ignoring others or using others while we just go about our self-satisfied way. So here's the text. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others.

Now, that would include parents. Count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others, that is aging parents. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.

So he stoops from being the king of the universe to being a servant, being born in the likeness of man, being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. That is one of the most convicting, one of the most beautiful, one of the most transforming texts in the Bible.

So the great mark of the Christian, Paul says, the adult Christian child, they look not just to their own interests in midlife as their careers reach their capstone. They look towards the interests of others, including aging parents. They count others like their parents as more significant than themselves. They don't sit atop some pinnacle of privilege, but like Jesus, they come down to where the need is and serve even unto death.

So there's a basic principle and a call in it. Now, Jesus linked that love command with parents by putting them side by side in Matthew 19, 9. He said, "Honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as you love yourself." So one way of honoring your parents is to love them as you love yourself.

That is, if you would hope to be helped in your aging need, then help your parents. One of the most beautiful examples of this, and I think it's very inspiring, so I'll mention it, is John 19, 26. In spite of Jesus' unspeakable sufferings on the cross, he did exactly what Paul said, namely, he looked not to his own interests or his own pain.

He looked to his mother's. He was the eldest son of Mary, and Joseph evidently was gone now. He never shows up after his initial appearance in the Gospels. And custom would dictate that the firstborn take special responsibility for his mom in her old age. And so he looks down from the cross, and it says, "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, John, standing nearby, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son.' And then he said to his disciple, 'Behold your mother.' And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home." Sometimes ministry, like dying for Jesus, or for God in this case, in Jesus' case, sometimes ministry will keep us from being as closely involved with their parents as we might like, but we will be very diligent not to neglect them, but make sure they're cared for.

1 Timothy 5, 4 is probably the most to the point text in the Bible. It says, "If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household, and to make some return to their parents for this pleasing in the sight of God." Now, the context is whether the church or the family should care for widows.

And Paul says that the church should care for real widows, that is, those who don't have a family, implying that the first and foremost responsibility is for the families to care for widows. And then he gives three motives. Let me just mention them. Number one, he says, "Show godliness." In other words, caring for the parent is a Godward act.

It's not just social welfare. This is part of what God is working in his people. Number two, "To make some return to their parents." In other words, it's right and good for children to look back on all the years of what their parents gave to them. 10,000 needs were met in their early years by the parents and feel some sense of indebtedness to them.

And number three, "For this is pleasing in the sight of God." So we're told plainly, God delights, he's pleased when children care for their aging parents. So the main issue is, is the heart of the children a selfish heart or a servant heart? Are we ready to make sacrifices for our parents or are we resentful that they are becoming a burden?

That's the real test. All of this may or may not mean that the parents come to live with us or near us. There are innumerable variables that make one situation right for one family and another situation right for another. Here's just one tiny illustration. My father finally needed more care than he could get living by himself.

Both, he had been married to my mother, then she died and then he was married another 25 years and she died and now he's a widower and now he can't live alone anymore. He's too forgetful, he can't find his way home in the car anymore. Now I'm a thousand miles away.

He was in Greenville, South Carolina, I'm here in Minneapolis. I have a sister nearby, none of us is right there. Noelle and I discussed what it would mean to have him live with us. We looked where the bathroom is on the first floor, we saw the room we used for a study and we thought, now that could be made a bedroom, it has immediate access to the bathroom, he wouldn't have to climb any steps.

Are we willing? We are willing. So I said to my father, "Daddy, we would be happy for you "to spend your last days with us." And he wouldn't do it. He didn't wanna leave the South, he didn't like the weather, he didn't wanna leave his friends, he thought Beverly, my sister, was nearby.

There was a nursing home that was operated by the university that he graduated from, he had all these reasons why it was not a good idea to come live with his son. And I thought, "Well, okay." And that's the way he was. I mean, he was not that closely tied and so he spent his last years in a nursing home, Beverly visited him often and I got down there as often as I could and as his memory faded away, he seemed quite happy in that place.

So again, the main issue for the Christian child of aging parents is not the precise circumstances, the main issue is, are we servants or are we selfish? Are we ready to sacrifice and trust God with the joy to meet every need? Those are some very important and helpful categories to think through.

Thank you, Pastor John, for those. And thanks for listening to this podcast. We publish three times a week and you can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our episode archive. You can reach us by email with a difficult question you may be facing in life. Do all of that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

Well, Christ is free, gloriously free. And Christ will cost you everything that you have. So which is it? Is he free or does he cost us everything? Or are both of those things true? That's tomorrow's question from a young leader who listens to the podcast and wants to be faithful to both truths and to preach them well.

And he'll ask Pastor John how to balance that. Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you on Friday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)