HopeUC Secunderabad
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HopeUC Secunderabad
How to Keep Peace with Our Parents
“Honor your father and mother” has no exceptions. This command calls us to value imperfect parents, appreciate their sacrifices, and care for them with love. Honoring begins with us, not waiting for them to change. As parents, we reflect God by listening, showing consistent love, and being fully present. Strong families are built through forgiveness, presence, and honor.
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This topic that we have today is session six. Okay, how to keep peace with our parents. Every Mother's Day, every Children's Day, I get to preach, so I preach on the same lines, and what a coincidence that this topic had to come to me. I was like God when I first looked at it. I was like, oh, it's again on parents, on, you know, teaching about parenting. Okay, but even as I kept listening to Pastor J John's teaching, I was so blessed myself and I just hope that I'll be able to do justice to what he taught us.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the theme for this commandment is nothing but to honor our parents, honoring our parents, based on the fifth commandment. So if you see the slide in front of you, it says Exodus, chapter 20, verse 12 says honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you. A very simple, straightforward commandment which says honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you. Pastor J John talked about a very nice he shared a joke. Okay, he said a classroom teacher was trying to explain about magnets to the class and she says I start with an M and I pick up things and a little boy goes you're a mother, okay. And then to explain who is a father, he says a father is the one who has a wallet and he has a picture of his wife in the wallet, where the money used to be earlier. Caught the joke, did you catch the joke? That means wife has spent all the money. Only the picture is remaining, anyway. So that was a little boy's understanding of what a father and the mother is. Okay. How difficult is it to honor our own father and mother? Have you seen little children? Yes, okay, healthy families build healthy societies. What happens when our relationship with our parents is strained? As we tend to get older, we form our own opinions and sometimes our opinions do not align with the opinions of our parents. Most of the times. Most of the times.
Speaker 1:Okay, it could be the way you want to dress. It could be your hairstyle. Any young boys who have grown hairs and had a ponytail when you were young, I'm sure your mom and dad wouldn't have approved of it. Yes, your hairstyle is criticized. Your friends are criticized. Why are you hanging out with this bunch of losers? Have you heard this? Yes, friends are criticized, your career choice is criticized.
Speaker 1:Why are we taking this subject? You won't get a job. This won't land you in a government job won't pay you well. These are some of the things that parents tend to talk about. Oh, come on, we're going to talk about partners, choosing your life partner. Didn't you get a better boy? Didn't you get a better girl? Didn't you find somebody better? These are some of the things that we tend to hear from our parents.
Speaker 1:But what does God demand of us? The honor, the commandment still stands the same to honor them. But let's be honest, is it doable in this day and age where the family is in a mess and the children tend to say oh, mom and dad really don't understand me. There's a lot of generation gap. Yes, I don't know. What do you call the youngsters? Do they call themselves the millennials? What is it? My kids tell me all this time that you are this generation and we are this generation. Yes, lot of generation gap.
Speaker 1:So Pastor Jay John divides this topic into two topics. Okay, the part one is where we are mending our relationship with our parents, and the second topic talks about how to mend our relation with our children. Okay, so four biblical principles that help us to honor our parents. Okay, principle number one is honor our parents by accepting them. Yes, they may not be perfect, but we need to accept them. Okay, proverbs, chapter 23, verse 22, says Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old. Acceptance does not mean Pretending that they are perfect. It means you are recognizing their position and showing them dignity, even when they have flaws, only because you do not agree upon something. That disrespect should not turn into hate. My friends, many times, when we disagree on something and the disagreement tends to continue for a period of time, we develop these feelings of hate and animosity. And that's the enemy's plan, my friend to break families, and we should not let that happen. Okay, so accepting your parents is the first step. Yes, listening to them when they say something yes. The second step is honor them by appreciating them.
Speaker 1:How many of you would agree with me if I say having kids is a costly affair with me if I say having kids is a costly affair? I was just talking to Kirtana, you know, just before service was starting, and we were talking about how expensive schools are. Imagine sending your school. You're spending about, say, 1.5 to 2 lakhs per annum. I did my master's in less than 50,000. That was years ago. We are spending a fortune on our children's education.
Speaker 1:So parenting is a costly affair. Is it time consuming? Yes. Do you have to sacrifice your sleep? Yes, imagine the days when the child is a month's baby. How many hours of sleep the mother and the father sacrifice? Okay. So acceptance says I accept you despite the flaws, but appreciation says I value the good in you. Yes, there is some good in your parents, my friends. Let us not, you know, turn our eye away from it. Even difficult parents make sacrifices. It is demanding, it is time consuming and it is costly. Therefore, a simple thank you can go a long way. Okay, I wish I heard this sermon when my parents were still alive. Sadly, I don't have that opportunity. Okay, but I'm sure the ones who have the opportunity today will be able to learn and will be able to apply these principles in your lives.
Speaker 1:Okay, the third point that we will talk about is honor them by affirming them Okay, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to act. Proverbs 3.27. Okay, affirm what they have done right. Yes, while they are still alive. My friends, many wait until funerals to honor their parents. Yes, when they're alive, we don't want to talk to them, we don't want to pick up the phone and call them, we don't want to have anything to do with them, okay. But when they are gone, we want to honor them. That's very, very sad and that's not how it should be. So, honor your parents by affirming them.
Speaker 1:The fourth principle that we see is honoring our parents by not abandoning them. Yes, supporting aging parents can be challenging. When you have your own job, when you have your own family and you have your own set of problems to deal with, supporting your aging parents can be challenging. But honor means showing practical care, not just feelings. Help in whatever small or significant ways you can. Respect is shown through action. You can. Respect is shown through action, yes.
Speaker 1:Pastor J John shared a very funny story on the same lines and I'll share the same with you. So there was this lady who lived on a farm with her husband and she was just living in one room, okay. And then the husband's parents were very old and had fallen ill and they had to move in with the son and the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law was not very happy because it was only one room and they had to share this space. Okay, so this daughter-in-law goes to a very wise man in her city and asks him you know, this situation has cropped up, what should I do? And this wise man goes and says do you know this situation has cropped up, what should I do? And this wise man goes and says do you have a cow? She says yes, I do. So he said bring the cow into the room. And she is surprised. But she obeys the words of this wise man and she brings the cow into the room. So it's now her, her husband, the in-laws and a cow in the room.
Speaker 1:Okay, one week goes by, okay, and then she goes back to the wise man and she's the wise man asked her how was it? She says it's horrible. And then he says do you have chicken? He says she said yes. Then she said bring the chickens into the room as well. And she is like is it really a wise decision to go to this wise man? So she goes back and she obeys and she brings a chicken into the room as well. And a week goes by and she goes back and she says it's unbearable, I'm not able to bear this. Then the wise man says, okay, take the cow and the chicken out and then come back again after a week and see me. And then she does that. And after a week she comes back and the wise man asks her how is it now? And she said it's heaven. So the same in-laws you know, which were probably like a trouble or she thought, thought invaded her privacy, was bearable now because she had seen the worst.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can laugh about it, but at this moment I also want to say that, you know, having healthy boundaries is also very important when you're a situation you and you're living with your parents or your in-laws as well. Many times in our society, young women face a lot of challenges when they have to live with their in-laws. Okay, because most of the times the mother-in-laws feel very insecure, let's face it. You know, they feel very insecure of the wife that has come in and they feel, you know, oh, I need to take my position as the mother and therefore they tend to do things which they are not supposed to do. Can we love the woman your son loves? Can you think about it for a minute? Why make your son's life difficult. Why? By giving challenges. Sometimes we don't like to talk about these things because we feel we are stepping on very sensitive ground. But, my friends, church is the place we will learn how to treat and how relationships must be respected. If you are able to establish healthy boundaries, then we will respect each other and there will be love as well. Okay, so honor your parents by not abandoning them.
Speaker 1:I'm going to share a story of Sarah Okay and her relationship with her father. Sarah had always had a rocky relationship with her father. Growing up, he was hard to please critical of her clothes, her friends and especially her choice of becoming a teacher instead of taking over the family business. As she got older, the distance between them grew. She would call her mother but rarely spoke to her father, and when her own children came along, she hesitated to let them get close to their grandfather.
Speaker 1:One day, during a church Bible study, they were discussing the fifth commandment honor your father and mother. The group leader asked who in your life are you finding hard to honor? Sarah's heart sank. She knew the answer. Later that week she called her father, not out of obligation but with a desire to rebuild. The call started awkwardly, but instead of waiting for him to affirm her, sarah chose to affirm him. She said, dad, I want to thank you for working so hard for us for all those long nights and early mornings. I know we had our differences, but I appreciate everything you have done. This is affirmation, my friends, affirming what your parents have done for you, the sacrifices that they have done, they have made for you. There was silence. Then her father, usually stoic, choked up. You don't know what that means to me, he said quietly. That call led to regular conversations. She started visiting with her kids. He softened. He even apologized for being too hard on her.
Speaker 1:Months later, sarah shared in her church. Honoring my father didn't start with him changing. It started with me changing and it healed more than I expected. Amen. Such a beautiful story, a very simple but a profound story. What can we learn from Sarah's story? Acceptance isn't about agreement. It is about choosing dignity. Okay, you need not agree on everything, but you do not have a right to, you know, disrespect them. Give them the dignity that they deserve. Appreciation can soften even hardened hearts. Yes, affirmation is a powerful gift we shouldn't wait to give, not only in a relationship between a parent and a child. In any relationship, my friends, affirmation is a powerful gift that we shouldn't wait to give.
Speaker 1:An action like a phone call often opens the door to healing. Remember what I shared last week kindness is a door that opens the door to healing. And that's exactly what Sarah did with that phone call. But many times, what comes in between this phone call and us is our big fat ego. Yes, why should I do it? Why should I take the first step, is it not, my friends? Do only I feel that way? No, our mind keeps telling you oh, you know he also can call me. Why only I should do it If we can put aside our ego and pick up that call, pick up that phone to make that call. Whatever, it is, my friends, that you need to do, you know what you need to do in order to restore that relationship. Pastor J John says Think about it, my friends still alive, consider your relationship with them. Is there anything that you can do to make amends? Think about it, my friends. Pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you, to give you the courage, to give you the right strategy in order to be able to make that move.
Speaker 1:We move on to our next part, which is mending our relationship with our children. One of the best ways to correct children is to correct the example that we are setting for them. Okay, and who is that example? We ourselves, we ourselves, are those examples. Who is our model parent? Who is our model parent? God is our model parent. You and me are not perfect in any sense whatsoever, but our heavenly father is and we can learn from his ways.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the first point for mending our relationship with our children is we need to listen to our children. God listens, yes. Psalms 145, verse 18, says the Lord is near to all who call on him. We honor God by listening to our children. Not just hearing them, but understanding their hearts. Okay, when you're able to sit and listen to your children, you can actually understand what is going on in their lives. So take that time, my friends, to sit and listen to your children, yes. The second point is God understands. Yes, a house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense. That's what Proverbs, chapter 24, verse 3, says Understanding shows in patience.
Speaker 1:Kids often say my parents don't understand me, but to be like God, we must be patient listeners, even before the child completes the sentence. We want to give them a solution. Many times, my friends, children are not looking for the solution, but they're actually looking for somebody to listen to them, because there is something going on and they want to pour out their hearts to you. But even before they complete, you know we jump to giving solutions. Solutions is not what they need at the moment. They want you to listen to them, to be listeners good listeners, okay and then wise them wisely, guide them.
Speaker 1:God demonstrates love, god is love. Yes, john 3.16,. God gave his only son because he loves us so much. Okay, the Bible is full of examples of God's love for his children. We can express our love for our children through affection. We can express our love for our children through affection.
Speaker 1:How many of you give your children a hug? Yes, as the children tend to get a little older, we're trying to push them away a little right, especially girls and dads. Have you seen that Culturally, somehow this is ingrained into our brains that you know, once a child becomes a little older, you push them away? No, my friends, show them your love through affection. Yes, warm expressions, a pat on their back, you know. Tell them that you are there for them. Yes, affirmation, spoken, encouragement, encourage them, speak to them If they have a test, you know, if they have something important that they're doing, tell them. Give them that confidence that they need. If you and me as parents, if we will not do it, who will do it? My friends, you can't expect a random guy walking on the street to come encourage your kid. You don't expect the teachers to do that. It is your responsibility and my responsibility as parents to encourage and affirm our kids.
Speaker 1:Yes, and also attention. Our kids need our attention. I'm guilty of this. Attention is focused, of this. Attention is focused, undistracted presence. Many times we are there but we are not there. We are there but we are scrolling on our phone. We are there but our mind is filled with so many other things. Undistracted attention is what our kids need. Surveys have shown that many parents spend less than 15 minutes a week in meaningful conversation with their children. Let's change that, my friends. It says it's easier to build strong children than to mend broken adults. Everybody is very quiet. Either the subject is very quiet, either the the the subject is very dense, or I'm hitting nails on your head. No, my objective is not to hit nails on your head.
Speaker 1:My objective is to encourage you, my friends, from the word of God that if we are lacking in any of these areas, the word is our guide. The word of God that if we are lacking in any of these areas, the word is our guide. The word is what will lead us To do what is correct for our children. Amen. God disciplines in love. Yes, the Lord disciplines those he loves Hebrews 12.6. And those who love their children Care enough to discipline them. That's what Proverbs 13, 24 says. If you do not love your child, you will not discipline the child. You will let the child do as they want to do. You will allow them to go where they want to go and the child will ultimately fall into bad things because you're not able to discipline your child, because you don't love your child that much. That's the exact meaning of this verse. It says the Lord disciplines those he loves and likewise, those who love their children care enough to discipline them. Okay. So discipline is a way to show a love, but don't show your frustration on kids. Okay, using the rod, you know saying spare the rod, spoil the child. Don't take out all your vent and anger on the kids. That's not the right way to do it. Yes. Discipline, the child in love. Discipline is a structure that the kids need until they develop their own inner moral compass.
Speaker 1:What is a moral compass? A compass is what shows the direction right. Earlier times, when people were on the ship, they did not know which was north, south, east, west. So the compass showed them the direction. So what is a moral compass? A moral compass is nothing but your conscience which is telling you this is right, this is wrong. Yes. How many of our moral compasses are still working? They're working right.
Speaker 1:Every time we are about to do something we are not supposed to do, that still small voice comes up and says hey, that's not where you should be going. You know you're going on the wrong track. Come back. Yes, and until children develop that, you should be able to do that for your kids. But don't make rules that you are not prepared to enforce. You make the rules, the rules are there, but there's no enforcement and there's no meaning. Yes, if there is a rule that you have to wear your helmet while you are driving and if the traffic police is not enforcing that rule, how many of us will follow it? If there is no fine that is imposed if you break the rule, then how many of us are willing to comply to it? It's the same with our children. My friends, you should be willing to enforce these rules, and discipline begins with the parent. Okay, I'll share a story about a teenager and how a mother was able to bring about a change in her son's life. The title of the story is the Turning Point in Jason's Room.
Speaker 1:Maria was a single mother of two. Her teenage son, jason, had once been cheerful, a talkative little boy, but in the recent years he had become distant. He had become moody, shut in and short-tempered. They argued constantly about everything about school, about chores, video games, even his friends. Maria often found herself saying things like why can't you be more like your sister? All I do is work for you and you don't care. You're going to throw your life away. Jason would storm into his room and slam the door One evening.
Speaker 1:Maria was cleaning up after another argument when she noticed her Bible was open on the kitchen table. She had been studying about the character of God as a parent and she had underlined this verse which says in Psalms 145, verse 8, the Lord is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. She paused and she said to herself, was she parenting like that, slow to anger, rich in love? That night, maria gently knocked on Jason's door. For once, she did not lecture, she simply said I've been harsh, I've made you feel like you're always wrong. I'm sorry, I want to do better and I want to listen, not just correct. Jason didn't say much, but he did not shut the door either.
Speaker 1:The next week, maria started doing something new. She began spending 10 to 15 minutes a night sitting on the edge of his bed just talking or listening. She didn't bring up school unless he did. She praised the small things Thanks for taking out the trash. Oh, I like how you helped your sister today. She didn't bring up school unless he did. She praised the small things. Thanks for taking out the trash. Oh, I like how you helped your sister today. She prayed for him silently and occasionally with him. Three months later, jason wrote her a note for Mother's Day. Thanks for not giving up on me. I know I don't say much, but I see what you're doing. And that's how Jason appreciates his mother. And he said the key lessons that we can learn from Maria and Jason's story is that listening builds bridges. Was there a way for Maria to be able to actually talk to this child to find out what is happening. It was difficult, but what was the strategy that the Holy Spirit encouraged her to pursue was to listen, and that listening to what that son had to say built bridges.
Speaker 1:Amen and grace. When you show grace to your children, it disarms rebellion. Yes, there is rebellion in every heart of the child, okay, and when you show grace, you are actually stripping off rebellion of its power. Affirmation isn't weakness, it's strength in love, and discipline is most effective when it is rooted in a relationship of trust. Okay, this was a way whereby Maria was able to conquer her son Jason back, just by listening, and that relationship was restored.
Speaker 1:My friends, I don't know what the challenge you are facing today, if it is a rebellious child, or if it is a child who doesn't want to have any conversation with you, or if it is a parent who has been very hard on you. Whatever may be the challenge, or whatever may be the situation, my friend, the Holy Spirit is here to give you that strategy in order to restore your relationship with your loved ones. Amen. God is a perfect parent and he heals brokenness, he fills the voids and he welcomes us into his eternal family. Okay, romans, chapter 12, verse 18, says if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live with peace with everyone. Okay, this is a instruction from God, and if you carry wounds from your family, whether as a child or as a parent, begin the journey of healing.
Speaker 1:There are three things that we can do today, my friends, after listening to the sermon, I know it's not easy and things will not change overnight, because these are some of the things that we have been struggling for years. But can we ask Holy Spirit to give us that strength, you know, to shed light on our situations and help us to overcome them? The first thing that you can do, my friends, is to forgive your parents. Okay, it's just three words, I've said it, but I know it requires a lot of strength, because if you feel there has been injustice done, it's not easy to forgive. But God's word says live peaceably with everyone. And, like I told you last week, when you forgive, it will free you of all the bitterness and it will make your life more meaningful, my friends. So forgive your parents and also receive God's forgiveness if you've harbored that bitterness in your heart, and forgive yourself.