Parents and Children

Really glad that you're here. Grateful to be continuing on in this series that we call "Family Matters." Today I am gonna be talking about parents and children. Let me ask you a question. How many of you that are here, how many of you're parents? Just put your hands up in the air. I wanna see those hands. That's fantastic. There's a bunch of parents in the room. Parenting is an incredibly important job, a foundational job, in fact, in terms of what God has given to the world. And thank you for the way that you are doing that. But some of you may be thinking to yourself, "Well, I'm not a parent and I didn't get to raise my hand. And so as a result of that, is this message that you're about to preach, is it going to be relevant for me, or am I just gonna be kind of listening in on what you're telling to parents?" Well, it is gonna be relevant for you, I promise. But let see if I can turn that question around just for a moment and maybe, let's see if you would also respond with a show of hands how many in here have parents or have had parents? Raise your hand. Yep, so you see, the reason that you're laughing is 'cause you realize that that's everybody, right, everybody, everybody, everybody. And that's why today you are the target audience. Every single one of you is the target audience. In fact, what I wanna do is I wanna share with you really just one verse of scripture from the Old Testament in the Book of Exodus. And in doing that, I'm going to just take that passage of scripture and I'm gonna help us to see it hopefully in kind of a handful of different lights maybe that we can look at it. But it's very simple and it's very straightforward. Here's what it says in Exodus 20:12. "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." Honor your father and your mother. You guys know that this is one of the Ten Commandments, and the Ten Commandments are actually given to Moses on behalf of the people of Israel. But they're addressed actually an interesting way, kind of a particular way. If you read through the Ten Commandments, you find that they're actually addressed specifically to men, specifically married men, specifically married men with children and married men with children who actually have the capacity to own some stuff. That's actually the specific nature of who it's addressed to. But the application is for everyone. So it's specifically addressed, like if you continue to read along, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Well, that's addressed to married men at that point, right? But the implication is for the wives that they're not to covet, right, their neighbor's husband. So those are all in there. The reason that I bring this up is because the Ten Commandments are actually addressed to adults with application for children. In other words, the adults have a responsibility to kind of help in the application of what this means for those children. But specifically, the Ten Commandments are actually addressed to the adults in Israel. Now, why do I even bring that up? Because it helps us to see the command that we just saw in the proper light. Honor your father and mother is not solely about the idea of obedience, which we most of the time think about when we think about this, but in fact is actually addressed to adults. And if it's addressed to adults, that means it's talking about aging parents, most specifically, right? Honor your father and mother is most specifically talking about aging parents and care for them. I appreciated the work of Charlie Trimm who is one of the associate professors at Wheaton University who has written extensively on the nature of this and how basically you can read this as understanding that honor your father and mother was particularly applicable to an aging population of parents. Now, what is honor? We have to figure that out. If we're seeing this passage, say, honor your father and mother, what does honor actually mean? Well, in the Hebrew, it actually means weight or gravity. That's the idea behind the word honor. It means a weight or gravity. So in other words, what it means is that the command is saying that we should give to our parents the weight and the gravity that their role as a parent deserves. That's functionally what this command is teaching us, honor your father and mother. And this command is actually about the structure of life itself. Think about this. This command is part of the bedrock of order that God has established in the world, that starts in the home, and that extends out into every nook and cranny of society. It's actually about the structure of life that God wants to use to be able to reveal His heart, His character, His glory in all of the world through His particular people, Israel. And it's a command, if you paid attention to the Ten Commandments, right, it's a command that's centrally located. Let me tell you what I mean. This is the fifth one. Everything that comes before this command is about relationship to God. Everything that comes after this command is about relationship to people. And right here in the center, which is a primacy of place when you've got a list, right here in the center what you have is you've got a command to honor your father and mother. Why is that? Because when you do that, you are honoring the God who is Father of all. And when you are doing that, you are honoring people, in this particular case, parents. So there's a reason actually that God gave this in the order that He did and placed this command right at the very center. It's also a command that comes with a promise, right? That promise was that you'll live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. This was very specific to Israel, this promise that He's given. And He basically said this, "If you will honor your father and mother, you will get to dwell in this land from generation to generation to generation. But if you don't, no promises." That's basically what it says, because we find other places where God has given commands to His people, Israel. And He says, "If you don't embrace these, then I've got no obligation to allow you to live in the land." And in fact, as we read in the Hebrew scriptures, that's exactly what transpired for the nation of Israel. But here's what we can know about this particular command in Exodus chapter 20:12 about honoring your father and mother. Here's what we can know. Honor of father and mother is an unqualified command for every one of us. Honor of father and mother is an unqualified command for every one of us. What do I mean by unqualified command? It means it has no qualifiers. There's no excuses, there's no outs, there's no, oh, but you don't know, oh, but this, oh, but that. There's none of that. This is an unqualified command. And it is for every single one of us, no matter who you are. Now, some of us, when we hear an unqualified command, a command that's just applicable to everybody, that doesn't have any outs or excuses or, you know, escape hatches or any of those kinds of things, sometimes what we have a tendency to do is we bristle at that. And the reason that we bristle at that a little bit is because either it's just the culture that we're in or it's the rebellious nature, you know, kind of rising up in us and we just kind of bristle at that. And I can already hear some of, some of the things that are going on in some of your heads. Sometimes it's a giveaway because there's smoke leaking out. But generally speaking, I can see sometimes what is happening inside of your heads. "Yeah, but Pastor Jerry, you just do not know about my parents. You don't have any idea about my parents." And I don't. Or you might say, "Pastor Jerry, I didn't even know my parents. I'm not really sure. Or I didn't know my dad, or I didn't know my mom," or whatever. I hear ya. Or, "Pastor Jerry, my parents actually aren't even alive anymore. So this really isn't relevant for me." It actually is because this is an unqualified command for every single person. So there's nobody in any particular situation that has an out clause or an exception or an excuse. Every single person is under the command to honor our parents, and it applies to us all. Now, let me pause. I'm sensitive to the fact and sympathetic, in fact, to those who came up with parents who were less than honorable. I realize that some people have experienced deep emotional hurts in the family that they came up in. I realize that there are some parents that actually abandoned them, maybe one or maybe multiple abandoned the kids. I realize that there are all sorts of other kinds of things. There can be manipulation that's occurred. Or God forbid, that you grew up in a home where there was abuse of any type. I realize that these things can be true and that they are true in the lives of anyone. But I wanna remind you of something. This is an unqualified command. And so for those of us who come to know God through Jesus Christ, what our response should be is not what can I do to avoid this, this isn't relevant for me, but instead, I would pose to you maybe asking a different question, and it's this. How do I honor dishonorable parents? How do I honor dishonorable parents? Now, the message is not all about that today because sometimes we get so busy looking at some of the different ways that we look at a command and we forget to look at it at its face in terms of what it's actually teaching us and what it's saying to us. But here's how I would answer that question if that's a question going on in your head. How do I honor dishonorable parents? "I know you don't know my scenario, Jerry. I know you don't know the background that I've come from and all that stuff, but I didn't really have very honorable parents. How do I honor dishonorable parents?" Here is how you do that, listen carefully, by being honorable yourselves. That's how you do it, by being honorable yourselves. What does that mean? That means that you, if you're a child of God, that you are someone who initiates and grants forgiveness, even if there's no response on the other side, that you grant forgiveness. You're like, "But they did." I know, but listen carefully to me. Forgiveness is not an option for believers in Jesus. Do you remember how Jesus taught us to pray? Forgive us as we forgive others, right? This really isn't an option for us. Now, listen carefully to me. I want you not to miss this. Forgiveness doesn't mean trust. You may have come up in a place where there was abuse or those kinds of things and it's unrepentant and it's all over the board and all that stuff. Forgiveness is not an option. Forgiving from our heart and trusting them to the Lord and leaving our bitterness with the Lord and casting our cares on the Lord and leaving that with Him, forgiveness is not an option. But that doesn't mean that you can't still have some boundaries. It doesn't mean you eliminate all of those things. Everybody clear on that? But this is a part of how we honor our parents. We extend forgiveness even when forgiveness is something that they're not even gonna be interested in, even though they should be the ones that are asking for forgiveness. But we still extend it and we don't sit on that bitterness. Or maybe, maybe we learn to honor our parents by respecting the role of parent, even if the person inhabiting the role is not so respectable. That happens to us all the time. We can do this, by the way. Some of us have done that in our lives with governmental officials or presidents. Through the course of my life, there have been people that have inhabited the office of president that in my mind are less than honorable. But I still have an honor for the role because I'm called to pray for, right? This is what I'm called to do, so I honor the role that God has designed. God is the one who has designed government. So I honor the role, even if the person themselves is not particularly honorable. We can do that as well when it comes to our parents because the role of parent is an honorable role, even if the person fulfilling it has not fulfilled it honorably. Or it may be surprising them with initiating love in some way that is surprising and unexpected, even if you think to themselves they don't deserve it, they haven't done anything for it, but you reflect back on the gospel and you remember that you were living a life that was undeserving, and yet God in His infinite love still stepped out and loved you and died for you. This is the response. This is how we honor dishonorable parents by being honorable people ourselves. So you'll have to pray about how God may apply that in your own heart and your own life and then maybe read some things that can be helpful. I know Jan Frank, who's a licensed marriage and family therapist, who's also a Christian, who came from an awful, awful home, wrote a book called "Honoring Dishonorable Parents." And there can be some helps in there for you if that's something that would help you. But could I just speak a quick word of life and encouragement into you? If you had a really bad scenario with parents in your life and it was terrible and it was awful, could I just echo the words of Psalm 27 into your life? "Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me." The Lord will receive me. Why? Because you've got a good, good Father. You've got a good Father. Now, given that I just talked about that and I'm sensitive to that, I still wanna make sure that I don't look past the face of what actually this command is teaching us that we need to embrace and obey. So how do we do that? How do we honor our parents? Let me tell you three ways that the New Testament actually reaffirms this command. And here's the first. We honor our parents by obeying them. Okay, this one you probably are going, "Okay, yeah, I figured that one out, I know that one." Well, Ephesians chapter six is probably where your mind goes to. It says this, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother,' which is the first commandment with a promise, 'so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.'" Listen very carefully to me. This is something, it's interesting 'cause what Paul does when he is writing to the church at Ephesus, he addresses very specific audience directly. He talks to husbands, he talks to wives, and then he actually addresses children. Says, "Children, here's something that you need to embrace. Obey your parents in the Lord. Because in doing that, you're gonna be fulfilling the command of honoring father and mother." I want you to, if you may be here... Listen, if you're a kid or a teenager, I want you to look at me right now. You're a kid or you're a teenager in this room, I want you to look at me right now. Here's what God has said to you. What God has said to you is this. "If you wanna honor me and you wanna honor your parents, then you obey them in the Lord, because God has designated this home for you, and you obey them in the Lord." This is a part of what it means. By the way, when you obey your parents in the Lord, God has told us that blessing comes with that. It's not a promise that you're gonna live to 80 or 90 years old. Jesus was perfect. He honored His parents and His life ended at 33. So this isn't a promise about you are promised to live to 80 or 90 years old. You have to take the whole council of God in for that. But what it is a promise of is that there will be blessing associated with your obedience. Now, if you read the Old Testament, you find out that there was significant consequence associated with non-obedience. But we live under grace. We're not under the law. But still, I would remind you, you wanna please the Lord, you wanna honor your mom and dad? Here's what it looks like, being obedient to them in the Lord. But do you know what's interesting about this particular command? Is this command from Exodus chapter number 20, the command is not obey your mother and father, the command is honor your mother and father. Why is that? Because our obedience ends at a point. I don't obey my mother and father right now. I'm a grown man, right? I've got kids and they've got kids, right? So there's a point where you get married, you leave the house, you become an adult, and all that stuff. You're not now under that authority of obedience to your parents. Obedience, the reason the command is not obey your mother and father, but to honor your mother and father, here's why. Because obedience ends, honor never does.

- [Congregation Member] Amen. Amen.

- Honor never ends. Obedience does come to a conclusion. By the way, there's also the possibility, if somebody who's 17, 18 years old comes to faith in Jesus Christ, but their family does not, and then their parents are telling them to do things that are in direct opposition to God or to relinquish their faith in God or any of those things, they are not subject to obeying them. They obey the Lord. Because the command does not obey your mother and father, it is honor your mother and father. And you know how you honor your mother and father? By helping them not to sin and helping them to see the glory of who God is. So obedience does end at a time, but honor never does. So one way we honor our parents is by obeying them. And when we're kids, when we're still living in the home, the manner in which we honor our father and mother is obedience in the Lord, okay? Second reason that we honor our parents is by speaking respectfully with them or speaking respectfully of them, right? I'm gonna show this to you in a passage that maybe you're kind of going, "Wait, what? This isn't a direct quote from the command." You're right, but it undergirds the whole chapter. When Paul is writing to Timothy, Paul is a brilliant mind and always has going on in his mind the whole narrative of scripture. And when Paul is teaching Timothy to teach the church at Ephesus how they're supposed to interact with one another, how they're supposed to treat one another, he actually uses the foundation of the idea of honor of father and mother to jump from that to teach them how they're supposed to talk to one another and how they're supposed to interact with one another. Watch what he says in 1 Timothy 5:1. "Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father." You see, what Paul's doing here is he's appealing to the fact that honor your father and mother is the bedrock of who we are to be, right? This is the starting place of what we are supposed to do. And he says, "When you see older people, you don't talk to them with disrespect. You talk to them like you would talk to your father, which is honorable, right, which is honorable. You don't talk to them with disrespect, these older women. You talk to them like your mother, and you are supposed to talk to them honorably and respectfully." This is what Paul is getting at. Why? Because he is building on the foundational bedrock of honor your father and mother. Do you know why? Because from that bedrock in the home comes the way in which we deal with everybody in our lives and in our society. In fact, Peter the Apostle picked up on this idea because he knew this is exactly how this is supposed to go. And Peter said this in 1 Peter chapter two, "Show proper respect to everyone," not just your parents, everyone, "love the family of believers, fear God," and watch this, "honor the emperor." By the way, when Peter wrote this, the emperor that was in power, not honorable. Yet, he says, "This is coming from the bedrock foundation of what it means to honor father and mother. And from that should flow all of these honorable relationships." So let me ask you a question. How do you speak about your parents? How do you speak with your parents? You're saying, "Well, my parents have already passed." Let me ask this question. How do you speak of them even though they're gone? Your parents may still be here. How do you speak of them in their absence? Along with how do you speak of them in their presence? You see what all of this is, it goes back to a heartbeat and a culture of honor. And what we should be doing as the people of Jesus is setting an example for our kids and our grandkids about what a culture of honor and people who embrace this teaching actually live out. So how do we honor our parents? By obeying them, by speaking respectfully or honorably with them or speaking of them with honor or respect, but let me give you a third truth that the New Testament reaffirms, by caring for or providing for them. This is also how we honor our parents, by caring for or providing for them. You see, I think that this truth that we'll see in the New Testament, I think this is what gets to the heart of the command in its original context. That when God gave this to Moses for Israel, He was teaching adults that were there about what honor of father and mother actually looks like. And it probably had a whole lot to do with when they are elderly, when they are older, when they are vulnerable, and how we are to treat them with honor and care for them and provide for them. The reason that I tell you that this is reaffirmed in the New Testament is because Jesus actually references this command, honor your father and mother, when He's having an interchange with the Pharisees. Jesus had a handful of interchanges with the Pharisees. You know what I mean? The Pharisees sometimes thought they knew everything there is to know about God and they'd created all these, you know, additional laws because they were so holy and awesome and Jesus is like, "Guys, we need to talk." And so this is one of those interchanges that Jesus has is in Mark chapter seven, and it says this, "So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, 'Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?'" Notice they didn't say, "Why don't your disciples obey the scripture?" They said, "Why don't your disciples do what we do in the tradition of the elders? Why don't they wash their hands before they eat?" And Jesus replied, I think he probably took a deep breath, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites." How's this conversation about to go? Right? "As it is written, '"These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teachings are merely human rules." You've let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.' And he continued. 'You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions. For Moses said, "Honor your father and mother," and in a different place, he said, "Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death." But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban, that's just a word that means devoted to God, set aside for God, then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the Word of God by your traditions that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.'" You see, Jesus took them right where they were and said, "Let me just show you something. There's a command that every single person should be embracing and every single person should be applying. And it's about honoring father and mother. And you guys have created, with your traditions, you've created a workaround of this command. So now what you think you can do is you, instead of helping your mother and father in their time of need and caring for them in their time of need, you're saying, 'Well, I've designated this as Corban devoted to God,'" when in truth Jesus knows the heart anyway and He knows they're probably just gonna consume that on themselves. It's probably not even really devoted to God. It's probably just gonna be useful for them. But you've worked around the idea of actually caring for your parents, and thus you nullify the Word of God by your own manmade stuff. Jesus is trying to help them understand this is not how this should be. 

This is one of those interchanges that Jesus has is in Mark chapter seven, and it says this, "So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, 'Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?'" Notice they didn't say, "Why don't your disciples obey the scripture?" They said, "Why don't your disciples do what we do in the tradition of the elders? Why don't they wash their hands before they eat?" And Jesus replied, I think he probably took a deep breath, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites." How's this conversation about to go? Right? "As it is written, '"These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teachings are merely human rules." You've let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.' And he continued. 'You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions. For Moses said, "Honor your father and mother," and in a different place, he said, "Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death." But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban, that's just a word that means devoted to God, set aside for God, then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the Word of God by your traditions that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.'" You see, Jesus took them right where they were and said, "Let me just show you something. There's a command that every single person should be embracing and every single person should be applying. And it's about honoring father and mother. And you guys have created, with your traditions, you've created a workaround of this command. So now what you think you can do is you, instead of helping your mother and father in their time of need and caring for them in their time of need, you're saying, 'Well, I've designated this as Corban devoted to God,'" when in truth Jesus knows the heart anyway and He knows they're probably just gonna consume that on themselves. It's probably not even really devoted to God. It's probably just gonna be useful for them. But you've worked around the idea of actually caring for your parents, and thus you nullify the Word of God by your own manmade stuff. Jesus is trying to help them understand this is not how this should be. And if anyone knows what it means to care for and provide for their own mother, Jesus does. On the cross, He made provision for His mom. You remember that? It's in John chapter 19. "Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene," a lot of Marys. "When Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved, that's John standing nearby, he said to his mother, 'Woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, 'Here's your mother.' And from that time on, this disciple took her into his home." Jesus was the oldest son and He had a responsibility for His mom, His mom whose husband was now already gone. And now Jesus is on a cross to die. And she's probably thinking, "This is an awful scenario for me." And what does He do from the cross with nails in His hands and in His feet? He provides for His mom. He honors His mother. What a startling example of beauty and obedience. And Paul, Paul reaffirms this idea of caring and providing for in the New Testament as well. In fact, in that same chapter we were looking at a moment ago in 1 Timothy chapter five, where the undergirding thought there is honor father and mother. Paul actually now highlights, watch this, he highlights mothers who've lost their husbands. Some of you, so often we're just reading that, we're going, "He's talking about widows." Yes, but think of it this way, mothers who've lost their husbands. And here's what he says. "Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice." What's he referring to? Honor your father and mother. "By caring for their own family and so repaying their parents." Now, he's not just talking about women, he's talking about parents, plural, "and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. Anyone who doesn't provide for their relatives and especially for their own household has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." I mean, this is a startling example that Paul gives us. And here's the thing. What some of you realize is that what it means to honor father and mother is to care for them or make provision for them in their time of need. I know some of you and I know some of your stories. You've taken on parents and taking them into your house, and you've been the primary caregiver. You've offered to do that. Some of you whose parents maybe live elsewhere and maybe they live near one of your siblings. And what you've done is you've helped financially in some of that, and you've gone as you can to be able to participate in helping because you know that you have a responsibility to honor father and mother. And this gets at the heart of this command. You see, there's a number of ways to honor father and mother. But here's what we have to remember about this command, which I said at the very beginning, that it's not optional. It's not optional for any of us. As I told you at the very beginning, honor of father and mother is an unqualified command for all of us. So here's what I'd like you to do. We're not done. We're just gonna pause. 'Cause I wanna do two things right now. The first is I wanna give you 45 seconds or so to ask the Holy Spirit how this applies to you in this season of your life. Your parents may be gone already. Your parents may be nearby. You may have had a good upbringing, a bad upbringing. I've covered all of those bases today. I want you to just ask the Holy Spirit, what does your obedience to this look like right now to honor father and mother? And then after I give you just a few moments to do that, I wanna follow that up with a real life illustration of what this can look like. So take just a moment right now and ask the Holy Spirit what that looks like in your own life. Okay, as you're doing that, I know the Lord will continue to speak to you and you can do that business with Him. But let me ask you a question. Show of hands, how many believe that this command applies to you? Show of hands. Okay, it's everybody. Let me ask you a second question. How many of you believe that this command applies to me? You are correct on both counts. And let me tell you how Edie and I have been taking seriously, God teaching us in this regard. You may know that Edie's mom, who's still with us. We thank the Lord. She lost her father about 23 years ago. We were able to lead him along with another pastor. We were able to lead him to faith in Jesus before the end of his life with an 11 year brain tumor. But her mother, who is still with us, is 85. And my parents who are both still with us are a little bit younger than that. And they live about 15 minutes from one another. We grew up together, Edie and I. Like, I've been watching this girl since sixth grade, right? I was just like, "That girl can run, and that's impressive." You know, she's great. She needed a hamburger. She was about that big around. I was like, "Somebody give her a steak." And... But I've had my eye on her the whole time. So we grew up together, same area. And our parents still live, you know, 15 minutes from one another. And our siblings, you know, I've got a brother and a sister and Edie's got a sister and then there's me and Edie. And we're the oldest. All of the children on both sides, no one is there, no one at all. And so the easy response of obedience for us is after talking with our siblings and finding out how the Lord's leading, the easy response of obedience for us is in August of this year, Edie and I are going to be relocating to that area so that we can move to one place and we can be accessible for both sets of our parents because we love them and we are going to honor them.

- [Congregation Member] Amen. That's right.

- Now, thank you. Most of you clapped. Some of you're still trying to work through, listen carefully, I say this in love, you're trying to work through your own selfish desire.

- [Congregation Member] Yeah, as if you can hear it, yep.

- I say that in love and you'll have to mature through that. But I want you not to miss what I'm about to tell you. What I just said to you is not bad news. And I'm gonna give you two reasons why it's not bad news. Here's the first reason. Because obedience to Jesus is never bad news, ever. You do understand that, right? It's what we do. The response of a disciple of Jesus is to obey Him. Jesus said, how we show our love for Him, "If you love me, you will-"

- Obey.

- "obey my commands." That's what Jesus said, right? And that's what we do. That's the responsibility of every disciple of Jesus. And do you know what the responsibility of spiritual leaders are? To model for the people of God obedience to Jesus. That's the job, right? That is what we're designed to do. Now, this is not a knee jerk reaction, okay? Edie and I have been praying very dutifully about this for two years. God independently, both with she and I, confirmed this in our hearts. And when we had a conversation that this was what the Lord was leading us toward, we were like, "Wait, what?" And then we've given ourselves to a long period of prayer and seeking the Lord. Our board of overseers who've been awesome, they've been in on this for a year and a half, and walking with us, praying with us, providing counsel. Campus pastors have been in the loop. I've had godly counsel outside of this. We've had conversations with our siblings to see what God may be doing in their lives, like, for instance, you know what that might look like. But here's the bottom line. The Lord has tapped Edie and I on the shoulder. All of our siblings, they still have grade school kids. We've got grown men. We are empty nesters. We are the oldest. And the Lord has tapped us on the shoulder and said, "This is what I'm asking." And we are willing to surrender and say yes no matter what, because that's what disciples do. And I'm grateful to have a wife who has that heart as much or more than I do. Now, anytime a disciple says yes to Jesus and obeys Him, it's not bad news. Those of you who are leaving, you're gonna miss the best part. Listen carefully to me. Listen. Second reason that this is not bad news is because as we're praying about this and walking through this, over the course of a long period of time, we were absolutely convinced on what the Lord's asked us to do to relocate, to be accessible to both sets of parents. That's a non-negotiable. We're gonna do that. But I also sense that God hadn't released me from The Chapel. Yeah, I know. Put that one in your lunchbox and eat it. I was trying to figure that one out. Edie and I are kind of like, "Yeah, what does that mean?" So we take it before our board of overseers, our executive pastors, we just kind of, you know, we're just kind of, "Hey, this is where we're at. This is what we sense. Would you guys pray with us? Help us think through whatever?" And as we did over a long period of time, as we did do that, we came to a place where we believed it was good to the Spirit and to us that we would come to a place where I would still change my address, but maintain my role. So in other words, we'll be moving, but I'm not leaving. How's that? I know. You're clapping. I'm not sure if I am yet 'cause I'm like, you know... Here's the bottom line. You're like, "What? My head is exploding. What does this mean? What does this look like?" Well, let me just pause for a second and tell you, to the degree that I know this, here's what it looks like. That I'll be here in Buffalo about a third of the month. So about 10 days a month, I'm gonna be here present. I'm still going to be... I'll be still preaching more than any single person will be preaching on our team. So right now, you guys have probably figured it out. By the way, we've just got an incredible team of preachers, like, at our church. We're just so blessed. Like, we've never been deeper with wonderful communicators of the Word of God. And that's a part of the job, by the way. The job of leaders is not just the exercise of our own gifts, it's the equipping of the saints to do the work. It's to see the full flourishing of what God wants to do. And sometimes leaders can stand in the way of that and be a bottleneck because they're all about just their own stuff. That's not what our heart is here. And God has greatly blessed us all over the place. But you guys have figured out over the last year plus, I preach 60% of the time. So six out of 10 Sundays I speak, and I can show you that, like I've done the math, like that's literally the amount of time I speak. I'm gonna go to 50 from 60. You know what that equates to? About five less Sundays a year that I'm gonna be speaking. But you know what? Fine. We're gonna have people that are gonna be preaching better messages than me anyway. And that's what you want. That's what parents hope for in their kids, right? That's what we hope for what we wanna see. So I'm still gonna be, like, you're still gonna be dealing with my messages, like, plenty, all right? So suck it up, buttercup. I'm still coming for ya, all right? And I'll be here, I'll be here when I'm doing it. I'm also going to still be giving attention to raising up, developing, coaching, training leaders among us. Some that will serve us here, some that will be sending out for the work of the kingdom, I'm still gonna be doing that. I'm still going to be giving attention to the overall vision and direction of who we are as The Chapel. That's my job, and I'm still gonna be doing that job. I'm still going to be helping run point on what we're doing in Western New York and giving a sense for that. I was just meeting a couple of days ago with 25 pastors from Western New York. I'm gonna still be doing that work. I'm still going to be doing what I'm doing nationally in our Christ Together Network for how we're extending the mission of our church into other cities across the United States. And I'm still going to be engaged in what we're doing globally, like I was just recently when I was in the Middle East. I'm still going to be, in other words, doing my job. Now, here's the interesting thing. What we're doing, moving but not leaving. I'm not trying to set a model for anybody. We're just taking the next step of obedience, because the whole reason for the move is obedience to Jesus, to honor our father and mother. There's no other reason. There's not greener pastures in Atlanta. If my mom and dad and her mom live 15 minutes from one another in Maine or in wherever, that's where we'd be going. It's not about the place, it's about the people. I'm not looking for a job there. I don't have a job lined up. This is not a sneak out. I'm taking the next step of obedience. Edie and I are saying yes to what God has asked us to do. And we've got a board of overseers who are willing to think creatively about how we can do all of this, and for that, I'm grateful. So I'll still be doing the role that I have, but it'll be a little bit unique, but here's the thing. Bottom line is, I don't think our church is going to experience this much differently than you do today. The level of disruption to our church is going to be very minimal. The level of disruption to our staff is also going to be as minimal as it can be in this circumstance. The lion's share of complexity and disruption is going to be on Edie and I, and we are glad to do it 'cause we love you and we love our parents. So we're just glad to do it. So... So you'll hear in just a moment some other arenas where you can get some more information about what we know to this point, right? You're gonna hear about that in just a moment. But what I'm gonna ask us to do right now is to take a moment where you are, where you're seated, and listen to this, reflect on what the Lord's saying to you. This isn't a message, by the way, this isn't a message just about me, but it does include me, but it includes you. And it's about what does the Spirit wanna say to you? What do you need to surrender in obedience? Maybe directly related to this message, or maybe the Spirit wants to say something different to you about your own obedience to him. So as our team comes out and they're gonna take a moment and they're gonna sing over us or sing with you, however you'd like to do that, why don't you reflect on that? And then after that, we're gonna have a couple people that are gonna come out before you're dismissed and gonna share one or two things with you before you're gone, okay? Father, I pray that you would write these words on our hearts about what it means to honor father and mother, because that's what we want to embrace and obey. It doesn't matter who we are, where we come from, that's what we wanna do. So we offer ourselves to you, we surrender to you, and we ask you to do your good work by your spirit in our lives in Jesus name. Amen.