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The Debrief Podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown. Author and lead pastor of Sandals Church, Matt Brown debriefs current issues shaping our culture from a spiritual perspective.
Welcome to the debrief podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown. On this show, pastor Matt sits down with his friends to answer your questions about life, Jesus, and the Bible. Let's get into the episode.
Tammy Brown:Hey, and welcome back to the debrief podcast with Matthew Steven Brown. And we're gonna jump right into this question because I think this question resonates so much for us because we have known these seasons. We have adult kids, which is what we're gonna talk about now. Michelle from Riverside, California asked this. We attend church every Sunday, but I feel for my adult child that it ends there.
Tammy Brown:They live at home, but they don't regard our advice or have worrisome behavior. How can we set and maintain healthy boundaries, help them understand our Christian values, and guide them toward a safer Christ led path, all while managing our emotional responses and respecting their independence into adulthood.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Michelle, man, thank you so much for this question, and my heart goes out to you. And, you know, Tammy and I have raised Such a tricky net, to we have raised adult children, and so let me kind of walk through this and just kind of unpack your question. And again, a podcast isn't a pastor, I would encourage you to connect at your local campus talk to somebody at Soul Care, or a pastor so they can get all the nuances of this, but I'm going do the best that I can. of all, let me say that we love you and we love your kids and we're praying for You said, But they don't regard our advice.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Michelle, part of that is the natural thing that's happening genetically in our children so that they will pull away. The more they think they need us, the longer they'll stay. Now, you may want them to stay now, I don't think you would feel that way when they're 40. So part of this is them learning how to disagree and disconnect and see themselves as their own person. And part of this is how you disconnect to see themselves as their own person, an adult.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That process is ugly, that process is hard, and they won't do it right, and you won't do it So the thing I would say is sit down and say, Look, I'm not handling this right. You know, this is breaking my heart, but I want to affirm your independence, your journey, and your life. I don't know what worrisome behavior is, but I can imagine there's some things that you're concerned about. So there's a bunch of stuff here. So let me skip boundaries.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Let me jump to help them to understand our Christian values, okay? So I think it's important that you articulate what you believe and why you believe it. And so, you need to know that, hey, here's what your dad and I believe, here's what we hope that you will believe, but you have to affirm their identity. You have to affirm that they're growing up, but you get to make your own choices. What we need to do is we need to make a huge, clear dividing path between your concern for Christian values, right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's on the right, and following Jesus. And I'm going put that on the left, okay? And I'm not speaking left or right politically, I'm just saying those are two very different issues. So when I go to like a Republican gathering, there's a lot of people that are concerned about Christian values. That's what they talk about.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's why they're there. We're getting away from Jesus. They are not followers of Jesus. They are in love with a version of America that they miss, okay? There are some things about that that I agree with, that I think are important.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I think it's important that we affirm, you know, marriage being between a man and a woman. I think it's important that we affirm that this country was based upon Judeo Christian values. I think those are important, but a lot of these people are not saved. They don't go to church. They're never going to church.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They are not interested in Jesus at all. So we have to know that sometimes we can agree with our culture, but that doesn't mean that they're following Jesus. So we have to divide that. And oftentimes what I see with young kids, and I say kids, adults is that when we marry following Jesus and a political set of values, they marry following Jesus and a political values, and they think they got to throw out Jesus with those values. We got to be really, really careful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was in Chicago last week. People that love Jesus, black preachers, passionate preachers. I preached in the church that launched Barack Obama, okay? I have very different opinions on America and how it should be run as Barack Obama, but these people, listen to me, love Jesus. They probably vote very differently than I do, and they see the world very differently than I do, but they believe they're seeing it through Christian values.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's why it's so important because we all interpret Jesus through our culture and through our situation. And in the South Side Of Chicago, there are some issues that we agree on, but there's issues that we don't agree on, but we all love Jesus. So that's why we got to be so careful with that word Christian values. Here's the thing that I tell my kids, and I had to have this conversation one day with our son. I asked Tammy not to be there.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We had to have a man to man conversation with our son. I said, look, obviously I want you to love and follow Jesus. But I said, I love you as my son no matter what. I'm going to love you whether you follow Jesus or not, you're my son, you're the child God gave to me and nothing will ever make me not love you. I just said, I need you to decide who you are.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Make a decision. And here's the thing, Michelle, I asked him to criticize this conversation at the end. I said, I want you to know, I want you to tell me at the end how I did, which I got to tell you, I was a little nervous. But he actually said to me the best conversation we ever had. Now, Michelle, that wasn't our conversation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So I don't want you to think I got this right the time. I was deeply frustrated, deeply concerned. He's in his twenties, I'm sure right where you are. And he's just figuring out life. He wasn't doing, you know, and I told him, you're not doing anything terrible.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You're doing what a normal, healthy American young man would want to do. But I said, I'm not asking you, do you want to be like everybody else? I said, I'm asking you, has God called you to be different? And pray about that. And so that's what I always try to challenge him because, and all of our kids, because there's just what young people do and the ways that young people think and Tam and I were that way.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And we got to make sure that we don't judge that because we thought that way too. What we have to figure out is how do we ask where is Jesus in all of this? You know, Matt Brown preaching today is very different than a sermon that Matt Brown would have taught in his twenties. The word of God hasn't changed, but my perspective has changed. So we need to have grace for our kids as they interpret this and they figure this out.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So what I would just say is, you know, talk to me, Michelle. I would say talk to me about your relationship with Jesus. Can you and your husband articulate the gospel? What is the gospel? Because a lot of parents think the gospel is being a good person.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's not the gospel. The gospel is no one's truly good but Jesus. Mhmm. The gospel is we're all sinners. And the gospel is we're all set separated from God because of our sin.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The good news is Jesus died for us on the cross, and if we ask him to forgive us and we believe in him, we believe that he died and rose from the dead for our sins, we can be saved and we can live a new life. And that new life, Michelle, is our potential. And that's what I think we want to see our kids live up to, is their God given And I would share that with her and just say how much you love them. So you said to guide them toward a safer Christ led path. Here's what I would just say.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The teachings of the Bible are true and your child can discover that by reading the word of God and believing it or experiencing it themselves. Experiencing it themselves and the consequences of sin is extraordinarily painful. But again, they're a young adult and you have to say, I hope you don't have to learn this on your own. I had to learn some things on my own, Michelle, and they were very painful. My parents raised me right, taught me right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I didn't live right. I had to learn, I had to learn these things for myself. So I would encourage them. You know, you can just throw me under the bus. Pastor Matt learned this way.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I hope you don't have to learn this way. Okay? All the while by managing our emotional responses. Amen, sister, I am with you there. I have two concerns when our kids are confessing, what they're sharing and how she's reacting.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm just like, oh my gosh. I got to keep myself from killing them and I got to keep mom from killing them. It is really, really hard because, you know, think about this when we hold West, right? This little, beautiful, innocent baby. You raised them, you sacrificed them for them.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You got up in the middle of the night, you fed them. You said no, no, no, no, no to yourself so you could say yes, yes, yes, yes to them. And that's how parents experience how God feels. And then you got that kid going, you don't know me, you don't love me, that I know better and you know they don't. I mean, are some things about technology where they know better.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But I would just say, you just got to admit, I'm not going to be able to manage this well because I love you so much. When love's involved, you know, it's why a marriage counselor can counsel people all day long, come home and get divorced. Because when you really love somebody, it is managing a minefield. But then you said, and respecting her independence into childhood. What I would just say is, hey, we're at a crossroads.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:At some point, you're going to go your own way. You're probably not ready to do that financially. So here's what I need you to do. While you're figuring out, you know, what you believe about God, what you think about your life, what you think about your morals, here's what I need you to do in our house. I need you to honor what we do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's what I told our son. This is our house. These are my rules. You're allowed when you're under your house to make your own rules and I'm going to love you no matter what. I hope that you choose wisely, but it's your choice.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But under our house, here's what I'd like to ask you to do. Do you think you could honor us and honor these things that we're asking you to do? As an adult, adult's adult. Because that's what adults do. Remember when we had, don't want to say, but one of our kids, you know, they didn't like
Tammy Brown:They appreciate you not saying something.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah, they didn't Whatever you're about
Tammy Brown:to say,
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't even even appreciate having to let us know when they were coming home. And I just said, I let your mom know when I'm coming home because that's what a respectful adult does.
Tammy Brown:Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's what a respectful adult does. I don't just say, I'm 53. Can come home at three a. M. If I want.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Come home when I want. And you know what? If that disturbs your sleep, if that wakes you up in the middle of the night, then you're a jerk. No, no, no. I'm the jerk.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Adults respond and respect each other. And it's no longer they are texting or checking in because they have to, it's because they should want to, because they're growing up and they're respecting you. And it's your house. You went to work, you're paying the bills. Even if they pay rent, you're carrying the lion's share.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And you just say that and just say, look, you know what, honey? You can fly the coop the you want to and let's see how far your little wings will take you. And the truth is, in today's economy, not very far. So they need to But here's the thing, eventually we're headed towards this anyways. And if you're listening, I'm separating my hands.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There's a crossroads there and that's good. But in order for us to be able to live together, and you know, our son is living with us, he just graduated college, we have to figure this out because we're roommates. Who does the dishes? Who takes out the trash? Who cleans up?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, we don't have, what do you call it, a person that lives in our house to clean up after us. What's that called? Rich people have it. A maid. We don't have that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We don't have No, no, you know, like in Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Tammy Brown:A butler?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:A butler, there we go. Yeah. We don't have a butler. I just dated myself, but that's the only show I watched as a kid that had a butler. You know, don't have a butler that runs around and picks up stuff.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's you or it's me. We have an aging dog. These are the things that we talk about. There's expectations. And so I lay that out to our son who's an adult.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He's 22 years old. Know, Tammy Tammy had our daughter at 22. So we have to honor But they also have to honor us. It has to go both ways.
Tammy Brown:That's what I was gonna say. It's like him living at home Yeah. He's like, don't treat me like a kid. He didn't really say that. I'm saying kids that way, but but it's like, well then, you wanna you wanna be at the the grown up level?
Tammy Brown:Here's what we do. We communicate. We share the load. We share the burden. It's like, wait, but I want the kid perks here but not here.
Tammy Brown:I want the adult perks here. And one of the things that you always do in our family that I think is better, of all, let's address me, you managing me. So true. I tend to, in the past
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mama bear don't like sin.
Tammy Brown:Just be you know, I'm an enneagram six. I struggle with fear and that's the lens that I that's the hoop I typically jump through
Scott Schutte:Yeah.
Tammy Brown:And so if you have been like me in the past, when you just when you freak out at what you do is you communicate I'm not a safe place to be real with.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah.
Tammy Brown:Yeah. And I've had to overcome that with our kids where they're just like, if I tell you, you're not gonna hear a thing I say, you're just gonna lose your mind on me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Hear you tend to hear what you're afraid of. Yeah. Which is always worse than what's being shared. Now sometimes, that's not true. Sometimes it's pretty bad.
Tammy Brown:Yeah. Exactly. And I've had to go to the kids and say like, I wanna circle back on that. You got my fear. You got the worst version of me.
Tammy Brown:Like, if I could go back, here's what I want here's here's how I actually feel when I'm in a better place in my mind. Mhmm. And so I I've had to do a lot of circle backs Yeah. And and just tell the kids, I know that that came off like I didn't trust you. I'm I'm afraid for you because I love you.
Tammy Brown:Here's where that's rooted, and I'm sorry. And the you know, part of part of this is, and you're better at this than I am when it comes to the kids, is you always remind me, do you remember, like, young Tammy or young Matt? Because I tend to not. I I come at the kids. I come at the kids
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:As a 50 year old.
Tammy Brown:As a 50 year old with this perspective and this life experience, and this maturity that I certainly didn't have then. And I'm holding them responsible for the decision making skills, the perspective, and the maturity that took me twenty five years plus from where they are to get. And so that's what I would say is that, you know, if they don't regard the advice and and some of the behavior, to remember back to where you were at that time. And that's why with Ethan, you had said to him, how did I do in this conversation? Because you want to have a voice in his life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Tammy Brown:And you we're we're all learning how in this season, you and I are learning how to grandparent in real time Mhmm. And adult parent in real time. And so just to to remember that to Michelle, the perspective that you're coming at this with is from whatever age you are now. It's probably not the perspective then. And part of why you have the perspective that you have now is because you've been through some things.
Tammy Brown:Mhmm. Because you've learned the hard way Yeah. Because you've learned that the gospel is true, some from doing it right, some from doing it wrong. And as unfortunate as it is, we have to let our adult kids decide what they believe for themselves to to stand so strong on that we know the gospel is true whether they believe it or not, and they'll experience that, and and pray. I feel like this is the season we've been in.
Tammy Brown:Pray every day that that the lessons they have to learn, they can come back from.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah.
Tammy Brown:Yeah. Because but without the lessons, I mean, unfortunately, at our ages, when you're the eight whatever age that is, whatever age you're at that you can have adult kids, At our age, we know some things now that we didn't know then. Then everybody in the planet could have told us. We'd be like, not for me. Oh, turns out it's for me.
Tammy Brown:You just have a different perspective. And some of the the reasons that you and I are where we're at today is because we made some bad choices. Yeah. Had to learn from them, had to experience the pain of them Mhmm. And found wisdom on the other side.
Tammy Brown:And I that's my prayer for our kids that I I don't pray that they'll have no problems.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm.
Tammy Brown:I don't pray anymore that they will just be spared from every kind of trial in life. Mhmm. Because without any of that, they have no wisdom, and wisdom will be their greatest commodity. And so I I just I just want to to just add that in there about, you know, remember the perspective of them. They're gonna make some stupid choices.
Tammy Brown:Pray that the choices aren't so stupid they can't come back from them. Amen. But stupid enough that they'll go, oh, this is why the bible says this. This is why God wants that or doesn't want this. It's because he loves me and wanted better for me.
Tammy Brown:And but there's people could tell young adults all kinds of things. I think we have a young adult generation right now that does want truth. I think it's incredible that she's attending church with you every Sunday as
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:a adult. Say yeah. I think that's the one thing as I was re rereading the question, Michelle, is one of the things I think you need to say to your kid is thanks for honoring us and coming to church. I mean, some young adults won't even do that. So thank you so much.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Let me tell you how much that means to me. I appreciate that so much. But like Tammy said, at the end of the day, they have to choose it for themselves. And so what I wish is I wish I could sit every parent down in the world, and I wish I could share this with them if they're managing a young adult or an older teenager. Everything that you say from their perspective is overly restrictive.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's all they hear. You're overreacting. You're uncool. You don't know. Nothing bad is ever going to happen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You are restricting their freedom. That's all they hear. And no matter what you say, your advice always sounds overly restrictive. That's how they hear it. And then what you have to understand is your own place is your fear is that if they make a bad decision, it's going to be overly destructive.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So your fear is they're going to do something in their naivete, in their friends, with their friends' stupidity, right? We've all been there. You know, every time I, you know, I watch on TikTok young men just jumping off things, doing things, I'm like, you guys are so stupid. And then I remember me jumping off a bridge, Tammy's yelling at me in anger, you know, you're such a fool. And I knew she was right the I stepped off the bridge.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever done. But, and thank God I lived to tell about it, and I'm not paralyzed or handicapped. You know, I don't have any kind of disability, because it could have ended badly. But our fear is right, so it's going to be overly destructive. They're not going to come back from this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They're going to go to jail. And I mean, things do happen. Know, I had to pray with a family in our church a couple years ago, where their son was intoxicated playing with a gun and the gun went off and it killed I'm in I'm in that living room. I'm there. And you know, the parents are like, thing about this whole life, this boy they've loved and prayed over and raised, and you know, he didn't mean it to happen, but it happened.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And you know, so I get an up, I think here's our problem. We get upfront row seats to death, destruction, and disability. Like I have seen kids break their necks, their backs. Like I've, we've seen it all. Nobody calls us, parents don't call us, everything went great on Friday night.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They call us when, you know, six teens died, you know, ten teens died. I mean, that's the calls that we get. But our kids, right, they don't know that. They think we're overly restrictive. And so just understand your perspective and try to see yourself.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We have this vision of Sandals Church that I think we all struggle living and it's real with self. Try to see yourself in the process because what you can be overwhelmed with, Michelle, is what you see in your kid. What you see in your son. What you see in your daughter. Mhmm.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And what you need to see is yourself in that process.
Tammy Brown:I have something just as a mom like Michelle that I am finding, you know, it's different. It it's been a little nuanced with the girls than it is with Ethan. Ethan tends to appreciate some of the harder conversations with you because I can't tell him how to be a man. What I can speak into Ethan's life is here's what a woman Yeah. Wants from a man or needs from a man.
Tammy Brown:But what you and I are both working on, you know, it says in here healthy boundaries. The boundaries you and I are working on are actually, I think, boundaries for ourself about how much do I need to know, want to know, How much do I trust in the Lord? Also, for me as a mom, I can go longer than you. You just know this. Like, I wanna talk for Jesus
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:comes. Yeah.
Tammy Brown:I was just like, let's wrap it up.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:No. I wanna get in. I'm a surgeon. Cut it out. Go home.
Tammy Brown:I know. And I'm like, let's talk for ten hours. We're getting to the bottom of this. But what I have found is that when I am criticizing every single thing the kids do, every choice they make, giving my 2¢ about it, I lose my voice in everything they do. And so I'm trying to be super mindful about what I wanna speak into and then when I wanna speak into it.
Tammy Brown:And because I do, I have fifty one years of advice. I just would love to tell them what to do Yeah. All the time. And so I'm really practicing right now with my adult kids asking their permission to speak into their life. Neither of our girls live with us, our son lives with us, but I'll say or sometimes they'll they wanna vent to me and I'm like, do you need me to just be a good listener right now, or do you want to hear Yeah.
Tammy Brown:What I'm gonna say? And sometimes they're like, I just need you to be a good listener. I'm like, okay. That actually seems to drive them crazy. Like, what are you gonna say?
Tammy Brown:Yeah. But I I'm trying to keep my voice in their life, and when all they ever hear is my voice, nagging everything and, you know, I find I have found that that's when I lose my voice. And so I'm having to say, what do I want and what do I want most? What I want most is to have a voice that my kids want to listen to. And so when I am strategic when I use it, careful when I use it, it tends to be heard differently and better.
Tammy Brown:But at the end of the day, they wanna know that we're gonna love them regardless even if they're flawed. And what our kids have tended to feel like is that they can't have any flaws ever. Mhmm. And so I you and I I know a lot. Talk to them about, like, you're human.
Tammy Brown:You're that's why we need Jesus because we're human, and we're flawed, and we make mistakes. And so the adult parent, the adult child and kid thing is a very nuanced place to go because especially for moms, it's like, I'm responsible for you for the last eighteen years, and all of a sudden I have no say. We you and I use the term adult ish for a while, like, as long as we're still supporting you, you're like adult ish. Yeah. You get some say in your life, but not all the say in your life.
Tammy Brown:But it is tricky to navigate, but, you know, what do you want most? It sounds like what you want most is that you want your daughter to know the saving grace and love of Jesus. Mhmm. And they need to hear that from you and, and probably need a little bit of room to figure out what they believe versus what you believe. And they may they may be a little wobbly in that as they figure that out.
Tammy Brown:But, they need the space to do that because them them pretending or just like obeying and being like a follower of Jesus on your behalf is not them actually being a follower of Jesus. And so even though it's painful and messy, it's just the way it's the way it is.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah.
Tammy Brown:We're with you, Michelle. We're we're we're with you in that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:With one thirty minute question. That was good.
Tammy Brown:Sorry, everybody. But, hopefully, a lot of parents with adult kids, they just know. We get we get asked about that a lot. Okay. Anonymous again.
Tammy Brown:Here's it just says situation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes.
Tammy Brown:Okay. Next question from anonymous. Says, situation. This feels very official. Situation.
Tammy Brown:My daughter married a believer a year ago, but now it's come out. He's into marijuana, porn, and is supposed to be on meds for anxiety and bipolar type issues, but he is refusing to take them. He's also been emotionally cheating on my daughter with a coworker. He's become borderline verbally abusive and said really hurtful things. I'm trying to be there for my daughter and trying to put my own negative feelings about this guy aside while also trying to help this young man get better and turn from his decisions.
Tammy Brown:But he isn't listening or responding to me or the pastors at the church. Question. At what point is it okay for me to advise my daughter on divorcing this man?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So let's not jump to divorce. What I would do is Mhmm. I would advise separation. That's the thing I would do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm. Especially if there's no kid involved. The last thing that we want to do is make a baby. That's like, so because here's the thing, man, your daughter can recover. A child has to deal with this guy as a dad for the rest of their life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so
Tammy Brown:Well, and the broken home.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah, the broken home. And so, you know, my advice would change maybe a little if I knew there was a child involved. But what I would say is, you know, I'm assuming anonymous that what you're saying about this young man is true. I don't have, The Lord's not giving me a revelation here as to the situation, so I'm trusting you that what you're saying is true. They've only been married a year.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:This sounds to me like a mistake. That's what I would say is they've been married a year, he's doing drugs, he's looking at porn, he was not honest, or your daughter was not honest that he has a psychological condition that drugs to make his brain operate correctly. See what I'm saying? I mean, is a major thing. Bipolar is not something to just say, Oh, that's a minor condition.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I mean, it's very, very destructive. It can become violent to themselves and others. And a person who is rejecting medication can do great harm to themselves and others. And so what I would encourage is separation. And you know, again, I think you can love your daughter and protect her and pray for this young man and try to get him help.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I think that those, you know, I don't think that you have to do one or the other, you can do I would advise your daughter to separate immediately. I hate it when I hear these words, a guy is having an emotional affair. I tell Tammy all the time, I need an emotional affair like I need cancer. There's no way I want to listen to another woman's problems, feelings, hopes, dreams,
Tammy Brown:This is getting so weird.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Literature that she's reading and shows that she's watching if we are not having sex. I cannot live in a world where I'm like, now
Tammy Brown:maybe I
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:would do that so that eventually we could have sex, right? So my end game would be sexual, but I just, I don't get this at all. I just don't understand that.
Tammy Brown:He's not lying.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So what I would say is I just, Okay, I've been doing counseling for thirty years, I've been lied to, I can't tell you how many times. So I'm jaded on this. I cannot tell you how many times I've been told emotional affair. Now, if it was a woman, okay, absolutely. She wants a buddy that they can talk about and hold hands and touch hearts and all that stuff.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I get that, I get that. But the guy that she's having an emotional affair with, he's hoping it becomes physical. I'm just saying, that's just not the way it works. So just, again, I don't know this young man, I don't know this situation. All I have is my experience to rely on.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And what I would say is, I would say, Honey, it's okay to tell God you made a mistake. We make mistakes. And it is possible to fall in love with and marry someone that lied to you. It just is. If she didn't know he had this condition, if this was withheld, I mean, there's just major stuff here, and this young man needs a wake up call, and so I would encourage her to separate.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And then what I would say is he needs to get in counseling, and she needs to get in counseling. She needs to get in codependency counseling, and she needs to figure out how in the heck did you fall in love with this guy? Because I can't imagine all of these things manifested themselves Yeah,
Tammy Brown:of nowhere.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Out of nowhere. So a lot of women fall in love with potential, and they are blind to the problem. So she needs to figure that out, because it's real easy to hit a replay button and do this all over again- Yep. If you don't get fixed in your own heart and experience healing for wounding. It's okay to make mistakes, we all make them.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I am really blessed that Tammy turned out to be as amazing as she is, because I had two categories, hot and hot. That was it, and she met both of those. You know what I'm saying? I can't say that, you know, as a young man, I really prayed about and sought God's will. I just, the Lord in his infinite mercy decided to bless me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So it's not like I did good in dating, I was blessed. God just anointed me there, so. And a lot of people don't experience that. And Tammy and I fought hard, repented quickly, and sought the Lord. And so that's why we have the marriage that we have today.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If this young man is willing to repent, here's the thing that you need to hear me. If someone is on bipolar medication, that is most likely lifelong. As Christians, we got to be careful that we don't pray and influence people to get off those drugs. Their brains operate better, and I've seen Christians think God did healing, and what it is, is the medicine is working. Please go and read my book, Everyday a Miracle, chapters ten, eleven, and 12.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I walk through that specifically. Sometimes people's brains are broken, and if I have a broken arm, so let's say right now I trip and fall and I break my arm, we can all gather, let's all pray, let's ask God to heal my broken arm, and if it heals, praise God. If it's broken, what do I need you guys to do? Take me to the Yeah. Brains are the same way.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:If they're broken and they're not working correctly, and so here's the difference. Here's why we have to have compassion for people with brains that are broken. And I know that's harsh language. I'm not meaning to put down, but here's the thing. If my arm is broken, my brain says, You have a problem, we need to fix this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But if it's my brain that's not working, it is an extraordinary difficult thing to fix, because the brain often says, I'm not the problem, you are, and they are, and those people over there. And it goes into this whole paranoia thing, and it's just really hard to treat. And it's why we have so many homeless people, because in our state, we believe that people should be able to seek treatment or not. And the problem is when your brain doesn't work, you're more likely to not seek treatment than you are to seek treatment. And so what you're seeing, here's what I'm trying to say anonymous, what you're seeing is what I see over and over and over again.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because when it involves the brain, it is really hard to convince somebody they have a problem. It's really hard to convince somebody that they need a solution. And then even when it works, it's so hard to get them to continually take their medicine. Because I can't tell you how many times it starts working and you know what they think? I don't need this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Okay. They stop, they have a relapse, and it's very, very difficult. Now having said that, can this young man get better? Absolutely, absolutely. And there's a couple things that need to happen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Is number one, he needs to repent, okay? Having anxiety and bipolar issues doesn't give you permission to be a liar. That's not, you don't get out of jail free card because you have those issues. He needs to admit if he lied. He needs to own that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He will never get better unless he can be truthful. Man, there's no hope for liars. It just doesn't work. Jesus said the truth will set you free, lies will keep you in prison. So he has to tell the truth that he lied.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Then he has to make a commitment to try to get better. So the good news is you can test for marijuana. Man, your hair records everything you ever smoke. So your hair is like a calendar of what you've done. So it records it in the follicles, and it's an amazing way to check and see if he's been clean.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You can do drug testing, you can do all kinds of stuff. By the way, I was talking with, for any parents who have kids that have bipolar disorder, all kinds of issues, and they struggle taking their medication, I used to work in a group home, and I was talking about this with our friend who found out their daughter has not been taking their medication for like fifty days. Here's the little secret we did. You want to know how you know to make sure kids swallow their medication? It's you put it in jello.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You can hide a pill, you cannot hide a shot of jello. And so you put it in the jello, and it goes down or it didn't. And that's how you know that they're doing it
Tammy Brown:because Basically you have to take, make pill jello shots for your Let
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:me tell you, every single kid is a magician when it comes to pills. They can figure out a way to hide that thing. And I don't know why they do it, even kids that love their mom and dads, they want to get well, tuck those things and spit them out. And it's a part of the paranoia, like you in it for me. And it's just a weird way the brain works.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's kind of a self, it's a broken way of self protecting, and they just, they don't take their medication. And so for anybody out there that's got kids, and you struggle, jello shooters man, and it works. And you know, I was telling a parent that, they were like, why didn't we think of that? I was like, I don't know why doctors don't teach that. And so I know you get a little more sugar, but
Tammy Brown:You can do sugar
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:for me. You love Jell Yeah. You do sugar for I
Tammy Brown:feel weird they love Jell O.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. You Tammy literally would order Jell O at a restaurant. It's the most embarrassing thing. So okay. So that's my advice to you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And again, I value marriage. Think divorce is wrong. I think it should be avoided at all costs. In a situation like this where there's so much upfront, I would say, let's separate, give it a year, both seek counseling. If there's improvement on both sides, not just his side, her side, and so find out the codependence mechanisms that she has here, the excuse making, or whatever it is, the things that she was willing to overlook that are real problems now.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And then the other thing is, you know, to the parent, what's so sad for me here is all you can do is advise. She's married, it's her choice. And if they have little babies, then that complicates life and makes things hard for grandparents. And we've seen that. It is really, really hard.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And as grandparents, you don't have the rights that you think you have. So I'll be praying that you can have a conversation with your daughter. I pray that you give her good advice. I pray that she listens. And my hope is that there's repentance, there's a miracle, there's treatment, there's healing, and the marriage can be that's true.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. But here's the thing. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we just do. And you said that he's not, he's become borderline verbally abusive, so I know what that means.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He said really hurtful things. I've said hurtful things to Tammy. You know, divorce, you can't get divorced because you said mean hurtful things. That's not a biblical reason. The word that Jesus uses that gives us permission for divorce is infidelity, and certainly the porn issue and the emotional relationship would fall in that category.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But here's the thing. One of the hardest things as a Christian is just because God said you can get divorced, doesn't mean he's calling you to divorce. And so you really have to seek the Lord's will in that process. And in most cases, for everybody who's abhorred at my advice, in most cases, I recommend reconciliation and work towards the marriage. It's just in this case, it's so quick.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He spiraled so fast. I have deep concerns for the safety of this young lady, and I hope that that's the Holy Spirit leading me for that. But please don't send things in that I don't know about divorce. Tammy and I have walked through heart wrenching divorces our and we have, I think, almost always counseled against it. Because God hates divorce, and God hates it not just because it's wrong, he hates it because of what it does.
Tammy Brown:Yeah. It destroys And you think it ends something, but it it just creates something new.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Creates a new problem.
Tammy Brown:Yeah. So Well, these are heavy questions this week. Thank you so much to everybody that send these questions in. And like I always say, if you know someone in a similar situation or who might have a similar question, please share this with them. And, you know, another point for this podcast together is to debrief the weekend services.
Tammy Brown:So if you're not already, I wanna invite you to watch sandalschurch.com, and then or come to any of our campuses live for a weekend service. And if you have questions there, then you send it to sandalschurch.com/debrief where we will do our best. I will just, like, give little, like, anecdotes to it, but Matt will do his best to answer that. So until then, we'll see you next time.
Scott Schutte:Thanks for checking out this episode. If you'd like to support this podcast, you can donate at sandalschurch.com/support. This podcast is a way for pastor Matt Brown to answer your questions about topics like the Bible, God, relationships, and culture. Like pastor Matt often says on the show, a podcast is not a pastor. If you'd like prayer or need to speak with someone about a specific situation you were going through, you can email us at help@sandalschurch.com.
Scott Schutte:If you enjoy this podcast, please like, comment, and subscribe. Thanks for being a debrief listener.