How to Raise Your Parents- Week 1

Hey everyone! Happy New Year! I am so excited to see what God will do this year. Today we begin a 2 week series on How to Raise your Parents. The idea behind the series is simple relationships are two-sided. You may not believe this but your parents/guardians are sinful/flawed people… but guess what… so are you…

Sometimes we put a lot of effort in our relationships with our friends and extended family but forget that your relationship with your parents also requires a great deal of intentionality. Today we will talk about trust- since every relationship requires trust to work smoothly.

So let me start off by acknowledging that every family is different. For some of you have great parents and get generally get along pretty well. For others of you that isn’t the case. Perhaps your parents aren’t even in your life at the moment, or the thought of them makes you angry. Either way – SOMEONE in your life is parenting you and even more, at one point in your life you may get the blessing to parent someone. That’s the person and the relationship we want to focus on in this series.

I hope I can help you learn how to correct some mistakes of the past, fix the drama in the present and live at peace with your parents.

Let’s do a quick anonymous poll. Everyone close your eyes. Don’t cheat. Help me see where we’re starting from in this series. POLL: How would you rate your relationship with your parents right now? (1-5, 1 = sucks, 5=perfect)

Again, I acknowledge that relationships are hard, especially with those you see, talk and interact daily. I just watched Home Alone for the first time and I’m happy to know that my family was nothing like Kevin’s- but yours may be.

However, there are scriptures that speak to the sons & daughters such as:

Exodus 20:12 “12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

Proverbs 23:22 “22 Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.”

Ephesians 6:1–3 “1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.””

“Honor your parents”…what does that even mean? Well it basically means respect them. You might not agree with them all the time but the Bible tells us to respect our parents, to follow their decisions. The key in that passage is, “for this is right” (circle that). You honor and obey your parents because you are God’s son or daughter. You obey THEM because you obey HIM. Take their advice, listen to them. I’m not saying you should follow them blindly or never have an opinion but to talk with respect, tell them your opinion with respect and accept their decision if they don’t agree.

Like I mentioned, I want to talk about trust because one way to honor your parents is to be a trustworthy individual:

“Trust is the most important ingredient in any relationship, but it can be very fragile. It takes time to build yet can be destroyed in an instant. It is, however, the glue of any meaningful connection with another person. Trust is always a two-way street: it involves being vulnerable to another person yet also being trustworthy so that the other person has good reason to extend his trust.”

Tim Clinton- Christian Counselor & Author

Trust is simply defined as: To place confidence in something or someone.

Does your parents trust you? Have you done anything to earn or loose their trust?

Some of you know Mocha- this beautiful dog is a hound from hell- jk not that much- but he has definitely done things that make me not trust him, there are too many stories but here is the most recent

Trash Story

Just like Mocha- I want you to consider. Have you maybe……

Scenario 1: Maybe you have a curfew and the hangout is running a little late. Your parents are probably sleeping anyhow (you justify it, saying you wouldn’t want to wake them), so you ignore the thoughts in your head to give them a call and hope you can sneak in unnoticed at 2am. You mom is waiting up for you, and things don’t go well.

Scenario 2: You tell your mom that you’re going upstairs to work on your homework, but instead you pull up your phone or play games.

Scenario 3: Your friends tell you to do something you know your parents have strictly prohibited, but you rather be part of the group than to honor your parents- maybe they wont find out- but if/when they do……

Scenario 4: You tell you parents a lie to avoid getting in trouble but they realized you it was a lie or you have to come up with more lies to cover the first one until one day you cannot remember your first lie, so…

I bet you probably will get punished somehow and lose some privileges, but one thing you may have not consider is that you also lose trustworthiness. You may not think it’s a big deal but in God’s eyes it is because you are not honoring your parents.

A few key learnings you might want to write down so far:

Principle #1: Trust is built or destroyed with every decision you make.

Proverbs 13:1 “1 A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not respond to rebukes.”

Proverbs 10:1 “1 The proverbs of Solomon: A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother.”

Principle #2: Trust takes time to build and seconds to lose.

Proverbs 7:1–3 “1 My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. 2 Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. 3 Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”

There is nothing more powerful than the truth. You don’t have to keep your stories straight, you just tell the truth. You accept the punishment, and get back to pouring trust again. If you want to be trusted, you have to be trustworthy… “worthy of trust”. Lying is such a huge trustbuster! If you are caught lying it is so difficult to rebuild that trust because you can’t always prove that you’re telling the truth. Once you plant that seed of doubt in someone’s mind about your truthfulness, it’s so difficult to get rid of it. They could think back to that lie and wonder if you’re telling the truth now.

Have you ever had food poisoning? It’s terrible! Stomach cramps, up all night, throwing up, sweating, diarrhea…in fact I have a picture of when I got food poisoning from Café Rio [just kidding - not really]. Well if you’ve ever had food poisoning you‘ll know that even when you’ve recovered, the thought of eating that same food again turns your stomach. You’ve been betrayed by something that promised to be so good. I have a friend who will never eat at Arby’s again. She got sick there once after eating their food, and forever it is stuck in her memory – avoid that place. Well, lying is the same, it’s difficult to shake the memory and trust again.

Principle #3: Trust builds a reservoir over time.

Proverbs 1:8–9 “8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. 9 They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.”

Communicate One of the best ways to build trust with you parents is to communicate with them. Now, I realize that this is pretty much the exact opposite to everything you’re feeling right now as a teenager, but I promise you, this will pay off.

Your parents have been down this road before. I know it is hard to believe, but your parents haven’t always been…old…they were once teenagers. They’re trying to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes they made. They’re trying to protect you from the dangers of the road.

Communicating isn’t easy, but it is essential for building trust with your parents.

What adult in your life do you need to build trust with? Here’s what I want for you: I want you to love your parents. I want your parents to love you. I want you to make it – even thrive in these last few years until you head out of the house. Trust is the foundation that will help you raise your parents.

Now, throughout this whole sermon you may have been thinking- but Costa you do not know what my parents are like, you don’t know what they have said, done or even the fact that they lost my trust- after all it is a two way street but the problem is that I am talking to you and not your parents.

Humans have a tendency to want to change everyone around them before they change themselves but you can only work on yourself. So maybe your relationship with your parents is rocky, but you have an opportunity to become trustworthy, even if its not reciprocated right away.

Good parents …

…are made to protect you.

…will always worry.

…want to trust you.