Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ethan (00:00):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture.
Paul (00:08):
So I wanted to talk a little bit about the teen years
of driving, and I'll get intothis a little bit more, because
I think it reveals that some ofthe bickering and the arguments
that take place in the home Theycontinue, I want to talk about
sibling rivalry and how thatjust changes, but doesn't really
change as kids get older so Iinvited my daughter to give an
(00:29):
example So, uh, Michelle, uh,you were sharing a couple of
stories and wanted to hear thoseone more time.
Yeah, so my sisters and I, wecommuted to school every morning
together.
My oldest sister, when she wasable to drive, she drove us,,
each and every morning.
And something that I think isnotable is my oldest sister and
(00:51):
I are late people, meaning wehave a very high tendency to be
late.
By default, one of us was goingto be late every single morning.
My middle sister is an on timeperson.
She loves to be on time.
She actually wants to be early.
She's a rule follower to a T.
And so, this particular morning,my oldest sister was making us
(01:13):
late.
She probably got in the car 15minutes before her school
started, but they still had todrop me off at my school.
And my middle sister was upset.
And so, they're arguing in thecar, they're bickering back and
forth, choice words are beingused, and then Fight Club just
ultimately breaks out.
(01:34):
Just goes nuts.
Yeah.
I mean, there is, we'll justsay, words just did not seem to
be enough, and physical, thephysical was brought in.
And so, You know, you could sithere and say that it's not safe,
that, I mean, it wasn't safe,but, um, I mean, that ended up
happening, and so we, thiswasn't the only time in the car
(01:58):
that incidents happened.
I think another time, my sisterand I were arguing, we were
bickering back and forth, and Ijust pulled the e brake on her
in our little Honda Civic andtailspin down the middle of our
neighborhood.
And so, I mean, the car is kindof a funny place in a sense,
because, So much arguinghappened over that car, because
(02:18):
we all shared it, we all usedit, and we all needed it to have
some level of independence, aswell as my parents had
expectations of how my sisterswere going to use that car,
especially when they wereneeding help with me or my other
sister.
And so all this to say is,arguments happened a lot, but
also a lot of bonding happened.
My sisters and I.
(02:39):
We picked up easily at somepoint in time eight different
people just to go to high schoolAnd we were going in a Honda
Civic crammed in as many peopleas possible to get to school We
had dance parties.
My oldest sister would take usteepeeing in the middle of the
night to different people'shomes and Overall, we had a lot
(03:00):
of great times in the car, butdefinitely a lot of conflict as
well.
Right, and so now I have tolearn how to use the proper car
seat materials to the nthdegree.
Yeah, car safety is no joke.
Once you have two children, youenter into a new world of
raising children.
(03:22):
And while the Proverbs tell usthat a brother is given in times
of need, you may be wondering attimes what was needed because
the fighting and the argumentsthat have to be policed and
dealt with And, and thescriptures give us several
stories and more than these, butthere's Cain and Abel, right?
(03:42):
There's envy with denial.
There's Joseph in his coat ofmany colors in which his
brothers are so envious and, andthey, you know, screw up his
life and it ends up with himbeing forgiving them, not
denying what they did, butforgiving them.
And then of course the prodigalson, the envy of the older
brother, because the youngerbrother is forgiven.
(04:03):
I want to go to Cain and Abelbecause I think this story
explains a lot about siblings inthe first family.
This is a story thatunfortunately is often explained
by focusing on the sacrificialsystem and the whole explanation
sometimes will center aroundAbel's offering and the kind of
(04:24):
offering he had.
And the kind of offering thatCain presented and like grain
versus livestock, the firstbornlamb versus whatever he
harvested, like it's a process.
I think we missed the heart ofthe story when we look at it
that way, instead of seeing,well, what was the heart
(04:46):
condition, what's actuallyhappening here?
Because what's happening is, ifyou're not familiar with the
story, Cain makes a grainoffering and Abel makes a
livestock offering.
God accepts Abel's offering.
He rejects Cain.
Cain, in his envy, which meansto be so upset that he, that
Abel got something that hedidn't get.
(05:08):
He then decides to kill.
He murders his brother, Abel.
But this is the root of envy.
One of the seven deadly sins.
And instead of, I think,focusing on grain versus the,
the livestock or even theprocess of it, Augustine gives a
really interesting explanation.
This, he says, the reason whyGod did not honor Cain's gift is
(05:31):
that it was wrongly divided inthe sense that although he gave
something of his own to God, Hegave it to himself, and this is
precisely what is done by thosewho follow their own will rather
than God's.
That is, who live in theperversity of heart rather than
the righteousness of heart, andyet still offer gifts to God.
(05:52):
They suppose that by the meansof these gifts, they are buying
God's help.
You see here, now we're gettinginto the motive.
Not in healing their debaseddesires.
In other words, not coming andasking God for forgiveness.
But rather in fulfilling themand and this is where he really
gets kind of clear about this Hesays for the good make use of
(06:13):
the world in order to enjoy GodBut the evil in contrast want to
make use of God in order toenjoy the world It's an attitude
that he comes with the gift.
It is unrepentant He's notdealing with his heart.
Luther even goes into this alittle deeper.
(06:35):
He says something along thelines of, you know, that Cain
could have brought the emptyshell of a nut, but he had, he
come with a repentant spirit.
Had he come realizing his sinfulcondition.
And he refers to Hebrews chapter11, verse four, uh, regarding
(06:59):
Abel's sacrifice, it says Abelby faith offered it to God, a
more acceptable, a moreacceptable gift to God, right?
He, Abel's sacrifice wasaccepted because he offered it.
In a trusting way and by faith,right?
So the Corinthians tells us welive by faith, not by sight.
(07:21):
Ephesians says we are saved bygrace through faith.
In other words, we're trustingthe grace of God and our need
for it.
And so Cain's coming with theexact opposite.
He's coming living by sight, notby faith.
He's focused on his brother'sgift.
So you see what we're getting athere is that Cain is not living
(07:42):
by faith.
Instead, he is living forhimself.
He delivers a lot of rebellion.
You can hear it in questions.
When God says, where's yourbrother?
And this is of course, after hehas killed him.
And he says, am I my brother'skeeper?
You see, what, what are youasking me a question for kind of
that sort of response,completely disrespectful of God
(08:02):
who has asked the question.
And of course, God already knowsthe answer.
A God also says, well, why areyou angry?
In other words, why is thecountenance on your face?
Why do you look this way?
God knows the answer.
And then God gives him theanswer.
God tells him, well, you've letsin have dominion.
In other words, sovereignlygoverning you.
(08:25):
Instead.
You have to have dominion oversin, and that's the thing that
comes from God.
That's why we've got to go toGod, not necessarily with some,
you know, super sacrificialperfect gift, but coming with
the idea that the gift of givingsomething opens us up to receive
(08:47):
and understand and become moredependent upon God.
The story ends up with Cainbeing made to wonder the earth
for having killed his brotherand Refusing to repent and come
to God the the issue of siblingrivalry Is going to contain some
sorts of correction there's somesort of parental justice system,
(09:09):
but the part of That thatinvolves the heart is going to
take more than parental justice,the parental court system.
Now, this came to my attentionthis week.
I was reading this book onparenting and the author made
this sound like, you know, ifyou have the right leadership
technique, in other words, youset the right expectations and
(09:33):
then you enforce them.
Through the parental justicesystem, where you can avoid all
these, these things, theseslices of life that cause us
problems.
And it was almost like missingthe fallen nature of our kids
that Jesus died to restore thesin issue of having a small view
(09:54):
of God, the sin issue of nottrusting your parents, the, that
living for yourself, living inthe moment and we are given a
responsibility of the.
To work out this in nature whileour kids are under our roof.
And if you notice the way Godhandles it differently than,
(10:16):
than just the justice system, heasked Cain, why, where is your
brother?
And why do you look the way youlook?
And then he advises him.
Well, the reason your, yourcountenance looks the way it
looks is because the sin in yourheart.
And this is what we're strivingfor and why we need faith to be
(10:38):
added to Our parental courts., Iwant to say that these arguments
and these disputes and asdifficult and sometimes as
annoying as they are, right?
We just like, I just want peace.
Everybody get to your neutralcorner, get your gifts that you
were given and just go play withyour own stuff, right?
We, we tend to see that that wayand we, you know, we're, we get
(10:59):
fed up with it, but they'reactually opportunities to come
to terms with a sinful nature.
This is part of our priestlyduties within our home and our
priestly responsibility yes,each child has some things under
their domain and learns torespect other domains.
And that's important.
I'm not saying it isn't.
(11:20):
But we also have to use thesetimes.
That's why I wanted to introducea few of these stories because
the thing I want people torealize as we're talking about
this, is these, fighting andthese little arguments that
start in the young years, Theyactually get more complicated
and more fierce at times in theteen years.
(11:42):
And then you throw in thehormones, right?
Because you can't rationalizewith hormones.
The agendas of each of us as wemove into adolescence and young
adulthood.
They get, they become moreprolific.
We've all got now schedules thathave to be prioritized.
We have transportation systems,who's going to get to go to prom
and who's going to get to go totheir sports event and how do we
(12:04):
manage all that?
And so what I want to want totalk and conclude with is
ultimately in these challengesis we got to help our children
be set free from their ownsinful nature and we got to
learn to recognize.
I want them to recognize thatthis battle that happened is
(12:26):
actually something you need tosee so that you understand your
need for the Savior, the powerof the Holy Spirit.
And some of our kids are goingto get this faster and quicker
than others.
But getting it at all is thequestion we have to try and run
the best system of justice,equal opportunities as possible.
(12:47):
But while explaining there's nosuch thing as totally equality,
not the way the world's tryingto describe it, the world's
always trying to come up withthese explanations that
everything can be fair and thatthe only way to suppress our
anger is to accept and trust Godand his plan and his ways of
what is fair and equitable.
(13:09):
And because that seems to be theway that God works.
So, what are we going to do?
Well, we're going to use thescripture.
And trust me, you're going tothink that it's not going to
work.
You're going to get exhausted inthe patience of it.
You're going to wonder if any ofthis is catching on because this
is a long term, repeated andover and over scenario.
(13:30):
And because that seems to be theway that God works.
Sibling rivalry.
Is because our homes are thetraining ground for learning to
live with others, to deal withthe power of sin and practice
our faith.
We cannot do what needs to bedone apart from God, and we hope
by the time they leave our home,they've started on that journey
(13:54):
of trusting God and letting Godin his Holy Spirit empower them
to have power over sin.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
(14:14):
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture.
Paul (00:08):
So I wanted to talk a little bit about the teen years
of driving, and I'll get intothis a little bit more, because
I think it reveals that some ofthe bickering and the arguments
that take place in the home Theycontinue, I want to talk about
sibling rivalry and how thatjust changes, but doesn't really
change as kids get older so Iinvited my daughter to give an
(00:29):
example So, uh, Michelle, uh,you were sharing a couple of
stories and wanted to hear thoseone more time.
Yeah, so my sisters and I, wecommuted to school every morning
together.
My oldest sister, when she wasable to drive, she drove us,,
each and every morning.
And something that I think isnotable is my oldest sister and
(00:51):
I are late people, meaning wehave a very high tendency to be
late.
By default, one of us was goingto be late every single morning.
My middle sister is an on timeperson.
She loves to be on time.
She actually wants to be early.
She's a rule follower to a T.
And so, this particular morning,my oldest sister was making us
(01:13):
late.
She probably got in the car 15minutes before her school
started, but they still had todrop me off at my school.
And my middle sister was upset.
And so, they're arguing in thecar, they're bickering back and
forth, choice words are beingused, and then Fight Club just
ultimately breaks out.
(01:34):
Just goes nuts.
Yeah.
I mean, there is, we'll justsay, words just did not seem to
be enough, and physical, thephysical was brought in.
And so, You know, you could sithere and say that it's not safe,
that, I mean, it wasn't safe,but, um, I mean, that ended up
happening, and so we, thiswasn't the only time in the car
(01:58):
that incidents happened.
I think another time, my sisterand I were arguing, we were
bickering back and forth, and Ijust pulled the e brake on her
in our little Honda Civic andtailspin down the middle of our
neighborhood.
And so, I mean, the car is kindof a funny place in a sense,
because, So much arguinghappened over that car, because
(02:18):
we all shared it, we all usedit, and we all needed it to have
some level of independence, aswell as my parents had
expectations of how my sisterswere going to use that car,
especially when they wereneeding help with me or my other
sister.
And so all this to say is,arguments happened a lot, but
also a lot of bonding happened.
My sisters and I.
(02:39):
We picked up easily at somepoint in time eight different
people just to go to high schoolAnd we were going in a Honda
Civic crammed in as many peopleas possible to get to school We
had dance parties.
My oldest sister would take usteepeeing in the middle of the
night to different people'shomes and Overall, we had a lot
(03:00):
of great times in the car, butdefinitely a lot of conflict as
well.
Right, and so now I have tolearn how to use the proper car
seat materials to the nthdegree.
Yeah, car safety is no joke.
Once you have two children, youenter into a new world of
raising children.
(03:22):
And while the Proverbs tell usthat a brother is given in times
of need, you may be wondering attimes what was needed because
the fighting and the argumentsthat have to be policed and
dealt with And, and thescriptures give us several
stories and more than these, butthere's Cain and Abel, right?
(03:42):
There's envy with denial.
There's Joseph in his coat ofmany colors in which his
brothers are so envious and, andthey, you know, screw up his
life and it ends up with himbeing forgiving them, not
denying what they did, butforgiving them.
And then of course the prodigalson, the envy of the older
brother, because the youngerbrother is forgiven.
(04:03):
I want to go to Cain and Abelbecause I think this story
explains a lot about siblings inthe first family.
This is a story thatunfortunately is often explained
by focusing on the sacrificialsystem and the whole explanation
sometimes will center aroundAbel's offering and the kind of
(04:24):
offering he had.
And the kind of offering thatCain presented and like grain
versus livestock, the firstbornlamb versus whatever he
harvested, like it's a process.
I think we missed the heart ofthe story when we look at it
that way, instead of seeing,well, what was the heart
(04:46):
condition, what's actuallyhappening here?
Because what's happening is, ifyou're not familiar with the
story, Cain makes a grainoffering and Abel makes a
livestock offering.
God accepts Abel's offering.
He rejects Cain.
Cain, in his envy, which meansto be so upset that he, that
Abel got something that hedidn't get.
(05:08):
He then decides to kill.
He murders his brother, Abel.
But this is the root of envy.
One of the seven deadly sins.
And instead of, I think,focusing on grain versus the,
the livestock or even theprocess of it, Augustine gives a
really interesting explanation.
This, he says, the reason whyGod did not honor Cain's gift is
(05:31):
that it was wrongly divided inthe sense that although he gave
something of his own to God, Hegave it to himself, and this is
precisely what is done by thosewho follow their own will rather
than God's.
That is, who live in theperversity of heart rather than
the righteousness of heart, andyet still offer gifts to God.
(05:52):
They suppose that by the meansof these gifts, they are buying
God's help.
You see here, now we're gettinginto the motive.
Not in healing their debaseddesires.
In other words, not coming andasking God for forgiveness.
But rather in fulfilling themand and this is where he really
gets kind of clear about this Hesays for the good make use of
(06:13):
the world in order to enjoy GodBut the evil in contrast want to
make use of God in order toenjoy the world It's an attitude
that he comes with the gift.
It is unrepentant He's notdealing with his heart.
Luther even goes into this alittle deeper.
(06:35):
He says something along thelines of, you know, that Cain
could have brought the emptyshell of a nut, but he had, he
come with a repentant spirit.
Had he come realizing his sinfulcondition.
And he refers to Hebrews chapter11, verse four, uh, regarding
(06:59):
Abel's sacrifice, it says Abelby faith offered it to God, a
more acceptable, a moreacceptable gift to God, right?
He, Abel's sacrifice wasaccepted because he offered it.
In a trusting way and by faith,right?
So the Corinthians tells us welive by faith, not by sight.
(07:21):
Ephesians says we are saved bygrace through faith.
In other words, we're trustingthe grace of God and our need
for it.
And so Cain's coming with theexact opposite.
He's coming living by sight, notby faith.
He's focused on his brother'sgift.
So you see what we're getting athere is that Cain is not living
(07:42):
by faith.
Instead, he is living forhimself.
He delivers a lot of rebellion.
You can hear it in questions.
When God says, where's yourbrother?
And this is of course, after hehas killed him.
And he says, am I my brother'skeeper?
You see, what, what are youasking me a question for kind of
that sort of response,completely disrespectful of God
(08:02):
who has asked the question.
And of course, God already knowsthe answer.
A God also says, well, why areyou angry?
In other words, why is thecountenance on your face?
Why do you look this way?
God knows the answer.
And then God gives him theanswer.
God tells him, well, you've letsin have dominion.
In other words, sovereignlygoverning you.
(08:25):
Instead.
You have to have dominion oversin, and that's the thing that
comes from God.
That's why we've got to go toGod, not necessarily with some,
you know, super sacrificialperfect gift, but coming with
the idea that the gift of givingsomething opens us up to receive
(08:47):
and understand and become moredependent upon God.
The story ends up with Cainbeing made to wonder the earth
for having killed his brotherand Refusing to repent and come
to God the the issue of siblingrivalry Is going to contain some
sorts of correction there's somesort of parental justice system,
(09:09):
but the part of That thatinvolves the heart is going to
take more than parental justice,the parental court system.
Now, this came to my attentionthis week.
I was reading this book onparenting and the author made
this sound like, you know, ifyou have the right leadership
technique, in other words, youset the right expectations and
(09:33):
then you enforce them.
Through the parental justicesystem, where you can avoid all
these, these things, theseslices of life that cause us
problems.
And it was almost like missingthe fallen nature of our kids
that Jesus died to restore thesin issue of having a small view
(09:54):
of God, the sin issue of nottrusting your parents, the, that
living for yourself, living inthe moment and we are given a
responsibility of the.
To work out this in nature whileour kids are under our roof.
And if you notice the way Godhandles it differently than,
(10:16):
than just the justice system, heasked Cain, why, where is your
brother?
And why do you look the way youlook?
And then he advises him.
Well, the reason your, yourcountenance looks the way it
looks is because the sin in yourheart.
And this is what we're strivingfor and why we need faith to be
(10:38):
added to Our parental courts., Iwant to say that these arguments
and these disputes and asdifficult and sometimes as
annoying as they are, right?
We just like, I just want peace.
Everybody get to your neutralcorner, get your gifts that you
were given and just go play withyour own stuff, right?
We, we tend to see that that wayand we, you know, we're, we get
(10:59):
fed up with it, but they'reactually opportunities to come
to terms with a sinful nature.
This is part of our priestlyduties within our home and our
priestly responsibility yes,each child has some things under
their domain and learns torespect other domains.
And that's important.
I'm not saying it isn't.
(11:20):
But we also have to use thesetimes.
That's why I wanted to introducea few of these stories because
the thing I want people torealize as we're talking about
this, is these, fighting andthese little arguments that
start in the young years, Theyactually get more complicated
and more fierce at times in theteen years.
(11:42):
And then you throw in thehormones, right?
Because you can't rationalizewith hormones.
The agendas of each of us as wemove into adolescence and young
adulthood.
They get, they become moreprolific.
We've all got now schedules thathave to be prioritized.
We have transportation systems,who's going to get to go to prom
and who's going to get to go totheir sports event and how do we
(12:04):
manage all that?
And so what I want to want totalk and conclude with is
ultimately in these challengesis we got to help our children
be set free from their ownsinful nature and we got to
learn to recognize.
I want them to recognize thatthis battle that happened is
(12:26):
actually something you need tosee so that you understand your
need for the Savior, the powerof the Holy Spirit.
And some of our kids are goingto get this faster and quicker
than others.
But getting it at all is thequestion we have to try and run
the best system of justice,equal opportunities as possible.
(12:47):
But while explaining there's nosuch thing as totally equality,
not the way the world's tryingto describe it, the world's
always trying to come up withthese explanations that
everything can be fair and thatthe only way to suppress our
anger is to accept and trust Godand his plan and his ways of
what is fair and equitable.
(13:09):
And because that seems to be theway that God works.
So, what are we going to do?
Well, we're going to use thescripture.
And trust me, you're going tothink that it's not going to
work.
You're going to get exhausted inthe patience of it.
You're going to wonder if any ofthis is catching on because this
is a long term, repeated andover and over scenario.
(13:30):
And because that seems to be theway that God works.
Sibling rivalry.
Is because our homes are thetraining ground for learning to
live with others, to deal withthe power of sin and practice
our faith.
We cannot do what needs to bedone apart from God, and we hope
by the time they leave our home,they've started on that journey
(13:54):
of trusting God and letting Godin his Holy Spirit empower them
to have power over sin.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
(14:14):
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.