Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / He Escaped Iran in 1979. Now He's Equipping The Underground Church (How To Help Christians in Iran) ft. David Nasser

Transcript

He Escaped Iran in 1979. Now He's Equipping The Underground Church (How To Help Christians in Iran) ft. David Nasser · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  We knew as a family that our lives were in danger and we had to escape. And I actually remember those days. I remember a soldier coming to my school, Jeremy, in our army base, the first few weeks of the revolution, and actually putting a gun in my forehead and threatening to take my life because of who my father was. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to be joined today by David Nassar. David, thanks for jumping on here today.
• 0:27
  Jeremy, it's such a pleasure. I follow you on Instagram and man, it's always so fruitful, the things that God has put on your heart to teach us. So thanks. You've made me a better granddad. You weren't around when I was a dad, but yeah, it's definitely been stuff that I forwarded to my friends. So, so thankful for you.
• 0:46
  Awesome. Oh man, thanks David. Praise God. I'm so excited to talk to you. So David is going to share a little bit of his story and his background in Iran. And so kind of where we're going to take this conversation is I want you guys to hear a little bit about his background, talk a little bit about just the current state of things in Iran. And then I just really want to unpack the observations between like Persian culture, what we can learn from just David's background and modern Western Christianity and how those threads come together. So I want to
• 1:14
  drill into some of that stuff with David. But David, tell everybody a little bit about your story, your background. Yeah. Like you just said, Jeremy, I was originally born in Iran. And in 1979, when the Iranian revolution happened 47 years ago, a lot of people revisiting that moment right now on our television sets. My family and I were forced to escape from Iran and to come to the United States. And so my earliest experience,
• 1:41
  core memories as a family were pretty traumatic days. I mean, first nine years were just years of, when I think about Iran and the first nine years of my life, it was a pretty cosmopolitan world that we lived in. Very different than the images that people see today of Iran. I have memories of
• 1:59
  Family picnics at parks and watching young college couples hold hands and kiss and going to cafes and restaurants and the arts. And Iran was just a very westernized type world of two cultures, the Iranian Persian culture and then the Western world kind of colliding. And and and then the revolution happened.
• 2:17
  And when the Ayatollah Khomeini and his zealots kind of took over, when the monarchy became a theocracy, everything shifted and changed. And my dad at that time, Jeremy, was high-ranked in the military. And so because of that, as they were kind of –
• 2:32
  removing everybody who was anybody we knew as a family that our lives were in danger and we had to escape. And I actually remember those days. I remember a soldier coming to my school, Jeremy, in our army base, the first few weeks of the revolution, and actually putting a gun in my forehead and threatening to take my life because of who my father was. Wow.
• 2:53
  And so when I say traumatic, I mean, I just remember the revolution actually not being something we saw at a distance, but something that was pushing up on our own safety as a family. And of course, the soldier didn't that day take my life. He was just trying to make an example of my family because of who my dad was. And and we knew we had to escape. And so in a pretty dramatic fashion, we kind of conjured up a reason and we paid people off to help us get out of Iran to help us make it believable.
• 3:22
  And we escaped from Iran and we were stuck in Europe for about nine months trying to make it to America while the world was watching Iran go through this revolution. I mean, people were watching Iranians burn the American flag and call America to rape Satan and hold 50 plus Americans hostage in the American embassy in Iran. And so, man, we were from the wrong place at the wrong time trying to make it here. And after nine months.
• 3:49
  God and his sovereignty opened the doors. Now, we didn't know him then. We were Shiite Muslims, but God opened the doors and we came to America. And we are a refugee family. We're legal immigrants who came here looking for the American dream. And when I was 18 years old, the Lord saved me. I was the first in my family to become a Christian, actually. And
• 4:13
  And my parents were never super devout as Muslims. My mom was a bit more than my dad, but the night I became a Christian, they instantly became very devout as Muslims. And so that's the night where things started to get really hard at the house. And a couple of weeks later, when I went to get baptized,
• 4:30
  My parents kicked me out of the home. And, you know, that was a difficult moment for our family because we were very tight knit as a family. And I got kicked out. I moved in with six guys that lived in a one bedroom apartment, Jeremy. And five months after I was a Christian, my sister had come to the Lord. And then five months after that, my mother became a Christian. And then five months after that, my brother, Benjamin. And then two and a half years later, my father became a Christian.
• 4:56
  And so our story is really about the redemptive power of the gospel and how sometimes the children come to Christ first.
• 5:05
  And they become the missionaries that have to be on mission at the home. And so, yeah, God's been so good to us. Oh, man. Yeah. So that, I'm real curious. In your story, as your family was fleeing from Iran, coming to the U.S., what was, and you guys coming from that Shiite Muslim background, what was it about the gospel that initially attracted you and then—
• 5:30
  Are there threads that really impacted your parents in particular? Talk me through how that part of the story went.
• 5:38
  That's a great question. When we left Iran, Jeremy, you know, again, we were Shiite Muslims by heritage. My mom's slightly more more devout than my father. But when we left Iran, I remember just having a real distaste in my mouth for religion. I thought the reason we were leaving Iran was because God was mad at us and he and because of him, because of religion gone wrong, I called it, you know.
• 6:02
  We had to leave everything behind. And so I grew up fairly secular. I had Islam as a heritage. But when I was 18 years old, right after high school, a buddy of mine invited me to his church one night. And I thought, there's no way my parents are going to let me go. But I asked anyway. And this is the heroic part of my story. And instead of my dad saying no,
• 6:29
  He asked the name of the church. This was on a Saturday night. And he asked the name of the church because there were these people, Jeremy, from this church down the road from our home. I had no idea that had been coming to my father's restaurant. My dad had opened up a French restaurant. And about two weeks prior to that Saturday night, when I was asking my dad if I can go to church, this guy named Aubrey Edwards and some other people from this church were eating at my dad's restaurant. And they saw how my dad was shorthanded on waitstaff.
• 6:59
  And instead of complaining about the bad service, they got up, rolled up their sleeves and waited on tables at my dad's restaurant. And then, Jeremy, they went back the next day and did it again. Went back the next day and did it again. I mean, let's just pause right here and just say, how many megachurch, forget even megachurch, how many pastors, you know, that would clear their eye count three days in a row and go lead worship with a mop in their hand?
• 7:22
  To make that, you know, so that's what they did. This guy was a worship leader and he just decided, you know, Muslims are not the enemy. They're the prize of God. And hey, there's a guy that's here who needs help. Let's go serve him and love him. And so for three days, these people had served my dad. And then, Jeremy, they'd invited my dad to choir practice. And because kindness is a superpower, you know, it says in Romans 2, kindness leads to repentance. Because love is magnetic. My dad went to choir practice. Yeah.
• 7:51
  And then people signed up during choir practice at the end of it. They passed around a piece of paper. And people signed up for shifts to serve at my dad's restaurant and help him be busboys and waiters. And these Christians had parachuted in for two weeks and waited on tables in my dad's restaurant. They were on mission. And so fast forward two weeks later, I'm asking my dad if I can go to church. And instead of saying no, he asked me the name of it. And it happened to be the same church. Oh, wow.
• 8:18
  as the people that have been serving him. And so the hero of my story is about a bunch of believers who are believable, a bunch of Christians who are Christ-like. And so I got permission to go to church because a church was hospitable to my father, was kind to my father. And because of that, I get to be on this podcast with you. I get to show up here because they showed up there.
• 8:41
  And so that to answer your question, those were the hints of religion that we saw. We saw really destructive religion.
• 8:50
  Islam and the way that it had destroyed everything we held dear and we had to escape from it. And then all of a sudden we come to America. And when I was 18, we began to see true religion, redemption, gracious people, the people of grace being gracious, graceful. And that's when we began to take our faith seriously. And so that's when I got permission to go to church and...
• 9:13
  Bro, after eight weeks of going, I became a Christian. And so, again, my story is really about having Christians model for us what true faith looked like. Man, so good. Well, I'm curious, how do you see that playing out in Iran today? So there's I know there's a lot is it's hard to get numbers for exactly what's going on in the Iranian church. But.
• 9:41
  How would you describe how God's moving there and what is it that is impacting Iranians for the gospel right now? Yeah. I mean, I think you're asking a really timely question right now in the sense that, Jeremy, there are currently 90 million Iranians.
• 9:56
  in the world. And I would say the overwhelming majority, like obviously you can't speak for all 90 million, but I would say the overwhelming majority of the people in Iran at this point are not devout Muslims. They're just kind of secular in the sense that they have seen the, just the corrosive, destructive power of religion and,
• 10:16
  beating them down for 47 years. And so these religious zealots, these imams who've taken over, have kind of created a gauntlet by which most of the young families in Iran really have a distaste experience.
• 10:33
  for that kind of religion. However, at the same time as Iran is fast becoming more and more on the undercurrent secular, the fastest growing church in the world is the underground church in Iran. Because I think they're done with works-based religion, fear-based religion, but they're more hungry than ever for true redemption.
• 11:00
  grace-driven faith. And so we are watching right now that the underground church in Iran at this moment, not just survive, but thrive. And it is literally the fastest growing church in the world. And so as we come into this moment and like right now, that's why I'm saying your question is so timely. Uh,
• 11:18
  You and I might any day now, Lord willing, maybe see the government overthrown. We might be on the cusp of that. And if that happens, the underground church can come up and no longer have to be underground. And that could be their finest hour. I mean, as much as they've been thriving and growing and so many people coming to Christ, imagine what it would look like if the rebuilding of Iran—
• 11:43
  had the local church help be the greatest side, the greatest arm of his rebuild. Imagine if the church in Iran became the family counseling centers. The church in Iran became where there's heroin addiction right now rampant in Iran, where families could find help there, where marriages could get counseling there, where people could rebuild, where the church could be the main arm by which
• 12:07
  so much of the rebuilding and the trauma counseling could happen. And so I really feel like if they come up from the ground, it could be their finest hour. But I got to tell you, even if they don't come up from the ground, if they continue to be the underground church, I really feel like more than ever, what Iran is going through is raising up the curiosity of the people in Iran to want true salvation.
• 12:31
  And ultimately what we want in Iran is not a democracy. I mean, again, it was a monarchy that now for 47 years has been a theocracy. And yeah, I want a democracy for our people, but ultimately what they don't really need eternally is a democracy. What they really need is a revival. They really need is Christ. And so we're praying for greater things in Iran. And we just hear great news. So about what God is doing through his local church there.
• 12:58
  And by the way, they are family churches. When I say the underground church, we're talking about house churches, people who meet in secret, you know, in homes. And so by nature, we're talking about families coming to meet with other families, you know, behind closed doors. Oh, interesting. Interesting.
• 13:18
  Well, I'm excited to drill into kind of the family culture. Before we go there, I just wanted to ask, what do you feel like people in the Western church in America, what can we do to support what God's doing in Iran? Is there trends or things or messages or, you know, how do we be supportive for what you see God, how he's moving in that country?
• 13:39
  Yeah, thanks for asking. It's a reoccurring question that I'm getting a lot. I mean, this is podcast 17 in the last two weeks for me, and it's just been press and podcast week, you know, and that's the reoccurring question. That's one of the questions, like, how can we, the global church, help the local church in Iran? And I think it's just the selflessness of podcast hosts that are like, hey, we don't want to just preach.
• 14:05
  pray. That's awesome. That is the primary thing we can do. But how can we participate as well? And we've created a website. It's called RevivalIran.com. It has a place where we're equipping the saints to do the work of ministry in Iran. And so we have created a place, a landing spot where people can come in and pray, but they can also become advocates with their voice for the church in Iran. And then they can financially support it and
• 14:33
  Every penny that's raised is going directly to underground church networks in Iran to help them be proactively heroic in the trenches in between Sundays. And so they're going to take that money and do counseling and they're going to take that money and do women empowerment. They're going to take that money and do trauma work. And when they get in there and help people meet momentary needs, that obviously raises the opportunity to have eternal discussions.
• 15:02
  which is how they've been one, two punching it. And so that is one way that people can be a part of it by going to revivaliran.com. But even without that, you know, I think I would say another way that people can really be involved is to see this in light of God's bigger picture.
• 15:26
  You know, I think it's OK to see what's happening right now in Iran across an ocean as something that is affecting the price of gas here in America. No one's discounting that. It's OK to have discussions at the water cooler at work about whether this was, you know, this was...
• 15:44
  something that we needed to do versus not needed to do. If there really was an imminent threat or not, it's okay to have all these conversations, but can we keep all those conversations under the sun? You know, can we keep all those conversations in their proper place? They're fine to have. They're fine to have.
• 16:00
  And I want swift justice. I don't want boots on the ground. I'm an American citizen. I don't want our soldiers in harm's way. So it's okay to have all of those discussions. As long as above the sun, we realize that God is actually up to something really big in this moment. And so can we first and foremost, not exclusively, but primarily see this moment of what God's doing in Iran as a spiritual matter and not a geopolitical matter?
• 16:28
  And so that would be my greatest challenge. And then gather your families and pray for, if you have a nine-year-old at your home, hold the hand of your nine-year-old and say, let's pray for a little nine-year-old boys and girls in Iran. They need the gospel, just like your friends at school do. Let's pray for them. And let's ask God for their revival. Let's ask God for their salvation. Let's ask God for their protection, for their provision. And so I think that's where...
• 16:53
  Carl Barth used to say, you have a newspaper in one hand and the scripture in the other. Hopefully, scripture in your primary hand, your right hand. But as you have that, as your children are watching you as parents, make sure that they're not hearing you talk about them.
• 17:10
  as a group of people that matter less than Americans. Make sure that you're modeling for them, that man, all people matter to God. And what we're praying for right now is first and foremost for the salvation of people from all over the world. Yeah. Particularly our brothers and sisters there who are, we need to have that level of identity for them and just seeing that there is an opportunity for revival to break out and save so many more people and what that could look like for the whole world. There's so much at stake.
• 17:37
  So I really appreciate you, David, jumping on and sharing your perspective. Most Christian parents feel like their homes are stuck in survival mode, rushing, reading, drifting apart. The issue isn't effort. It's the blueprint. Culture says build your family around individuals. Scripture says build a team. That's why we wrote a free course called Five Days to Transform Your Family into a Team.
• 18:02
  Each day gives you one short teaching and one simple step around mission, rhythm, and unity. It's free and takes just a few minutes a day. Start today at familyteams.com slash transform.
• 18:16
  All right. I would love to just kind of get your take on family, because this is a confusion that so many of us in the West have. Our culture is hyper individualistic. We tend to think about our families as a group of individuals and we just want to see them all thrive and launch out. And that's the end. And we reset. Whereas...
• 18:37
  You know, living in the Middle East, as I have as well, there's just a lot more of a multi-generational perspective. And so I'm just curious, like, what have you learned about family? What kinds of lessons from your heritage are you excited to preserve? And what do you think might be missing in the American church with regards to how we think about family?
• 18:56
  Yeah. Jeremy, where'd you live in the Middle East? Mostly in Israel. Yeah. I spent a little time. Yeah. Just keep bopping around a little bit. But yeah, we lived in Jerusalem and I met my wife there back in 97. So good. So, you know, I mean, individualistic is not the Middle Eastern culture. I mean, there's not a whole lot of nursing homes.
• 19:15
  I mean, the family lives with the family and there are not a whole lot of children who graduate out and then tell mom and dad, like, I'll see you in four years. Like the family unit is bonded, seared together. And I hold that.
• 19:33
  as precious as the way that we grew up. I mean, first of all, everyone is incredibly integrated into the life of one another in Iran. Like there was no such thing as my dad had a job. His job was our job. You know what I mean? Like my dad owned a rug shop and I worked the rug shop, you know? And then my dad after that owned a restaurant.
• 19:57
  And on a Saturday night, you know, I wouldn't go on a date, buddy. I was at the restaurant. If I had a date, I'd say, come early and eat, and I'll be a dangerous. And then maybe when it gets slow, I can leave a little bit earlier. And my mom didn't, you know, there wasn't like she cleaned the house and my job was to, like, we had a rule at our home. If you had time to lean, you had time to clean. You know what I mean? And we kind of had this, if I opened up the dishwasher,
• 20:24
  and it happened to be already washed, it was my turn to clean it. I was going to put everything back. If I opened up the dryer and there were some clothes in the dryer, we kind of had this integrated sense of everyone, all hands on deck, donors growing up. And I think, like you said, in the Western culture, some of that is lost.
• 20:50
  But it also meant the shadow side of that, that as you grow older, there is a lack of boundaries. And I'll confess to you that even as an adult in his 40s, my parents really struggled with the reality that we asked them just to knock on the door before they came into our home. My dad was highly offended, I would say. Man, you know, like, you can't just show up on an ounce and just come play with the grandkids. And he was like, what? What do you mean? And I was like, well, dad…
• 21:20
  And then he would go, you are becoming a medic, you know? And he didn't mean that as a compliment, you know? And it was unfair because it wasn't Western or whatever. And so in one sense, that lean in, that co-laboring together is a beautiful thing.
• 21:37
  In another sense, there is that cleaving and leaving side that we see in the Western culture that's actually good. But my one admonition to people who have gotten older a little bit is that there is no deadline on Scripture where it says to honor God.
• 21:55
  your mother and your father. Like, it's not like until you're 19 until you're 18. And so what does continuing honor look like when you're in your forties, when you're in your thirties and you're no longer under their provision, you're no longer necessarily. It looks like continuing honor. Here's the way I would paint it. It,
• 22:14
  When you were a tiny seed, they planted you in the ground. They protected you in the winter. When you were a tender shoot, they warmed you and they watered you. And now you're at a place in your life, maybe hopefully as an adult, where you're a fruitful tree.
• 22:31
  And I think your mom and dad should be able to take some apples off that tree and enjoy it. Yeah. You know, they work hard to put into the, you know, a lot of fertilizer went into that. A lot of watering went into that. And so sometimes I see so many of my Western friends really push their parents aside and eye roll and think. And I think, wow, these are the years where your parents could actually enjoy it.
• 22:58
  So much of the fruit of all the investment that they made into you. That's the part of the Middle Eastern culture that I would bring in. The other thing was my dad was a constant coach. This one story came to mind, I got to tell you. So one time my dad comes in my room, Jeremy, all right?
• 23:19
  And he comes into my bedroom. He sits down on my bed. I'm a junior in high school. Okay? So he comes in my room. He sits down. And I'm like, what is happening right now? So he goes, go get me a Coke. I want to talk to you. And I'm like, oh, no. I'm in trouble. Like, this is not good. So I go downstairs to get a Coke. We don't have a Coke. You know? So I grab. I think we had, like, a Sprite or something. So I grab a Sprite. I come up. I'm just anxious. Like, what's he going to talk to me about? Okay.
• 23:46
  I thought, what teacher has called him? Not if a teacher. I was in trouble at multiple schools. So I come up and give him the Sprite. And he goes, I said, give me a Coke. And I was like, Dad, we don't have any Coke. And he goes, I did not ask you if we have a Coke. I said, go get me a Coke. Okay.
• 24:04
  So, bro, I go downstairs. I get in my car. I drive down to the BP, the gas station. I get a Coke. I come all the way back. You know, I open it up. I come out. He's still sitting in my bedroom. I hand him the Coke and he goes, these are the things I want you to know.
• 24:21
  that just because we don't have a Coke, and he starts in on me on like how he's noticing that it takes very little for me to take self-initiative to solve it, that I need to be proactive. And if there's not a Coke, go get the Coke. Don't just stop short. And I look back and my life was filled with these anecdotal moments, these push and prod moments where my father was so integrated in like,
• 24:50
  constantly pushing me to be better and pushing me, you know, and believing in me and saying like, and I can't tell you how often now I'll have an intern travel with me on the road, you know, and I'll say to a 24 year old.
• 25:09
  Hey, let's go set up the merch table. And then I'll go to the hotel room and I'll come back down and the merch table is not set up. And I'm looking at a 24-year-old. I'm like, what happened? And they're like, oh, we asked and they didn't have any tables. And I want to go. I didn't ask if we have. Like, they don't know how to, like, go beyond the speed bump.
• 25:25
  Yeah. You know, to solve something. And I wonder if they weren't trained up in the way they should go. Yeah. You know, or I see a lack of awareness. And so I don't know if that flows into what you were kind of asking, but in the Middle Eastern culture, you get so much of that. Yeah.
• 25:43
  Well, your parents are in your world. There was no such thing as that's my drawer or that's my laptop. Why are you looking at my emails? They were fully integrated. Some of that's got a bad side to it, a shadow side to it. But some of that had – my parents picked my friends. Hmm.
• 25:59
  You know, I didn't pick my friends. My parents picked my, because they were like, you're not smart enough to pick your own friend. Later, we will, you can maybe, you know. And I know that feels like, wow, who do they think they are? They were like, we are your parents. Yes. You know? And so I look now as a parent, as a grandparent, and I think, wow, you know. And they certainly didn't spare the rod either. I mean, I probably got spanked three times my whole life.
• 26:26
  But I knew there was a healthy fear that my parents wanted me to associate pain with disobedience. And again, they didn't hurt me, hurt me, but they plopped my little bottom when I was good. And I know somebody might be hearing and they're more into gentle parenting and that's fine. But I'm just saying you're asking me about the Middle Eastern culture. And I'm telling you, those were the things that happened as I was growing up and I'm better for it as an adult. Excellent. Excellent.
• 26:56
  Yeah, I think, you know, you were describing kind of that culture of honor. I think that's a mystery. I've talked to some people who don't even know what that means. And one of the ways that you unpack that was to tell the whole story, tell the backstory. Like, you weren't there. You don't remember all the things that your parents did for you.
• 27:12
  Um, and so the fact that they can take some fruit from the tree, like you described, that is kind of the basis of honor. It's to understand that part of what we do is we're not accumulating, you know, like Dave Ramsey, uh, I was kind of interacting with a video he, he shared recently where he was, um, being asked, like, do you owe your parents anything? Um, you know, and, and there were some, there were some parents are being kind of demanding, so I can understand why you're pushing back, but he then made the case that, um,
• 27:38
  there is like a child owes their parents absolutely nothing. I was like, that is a perfect articulation of kind of this Western culture. Like there's a blind spot. And it doesn't just exist in the, in the secular world. It exists in the Christian world as well. We believe that, that we owe our parents nothing. And in the middle East, there is a sense that no, no, no, there, it doesn't mean that you have to obey them. It doesn't mean that you can't have some boundaries, but it does mean that you, there's a deference because there's a lot that they invested in you. I love how you describe that.
• 28:07
  Um, any other ways that you would really try to unpack for a Western audience, for Western Christians, understand the idea of honor, because I think this is just a missing concept. We just really struggle to even understand what that means. I mean, they have made a lot of withdrawals. They have made a lot of, uh, deposits. Right. I mean, I was telling my story just a minute ago and, uh, yesterday I was on a podcast with, uh, Joby Martin. I don't know if you know, he's a pastor at Jacksonville. And he asked me something that no one's ever asked me in all the podcasts I've ever done telling my story. He said, what was that like for your dad to leave Iran?
• 28:37
  And I said, what do you mean? And he said, like, was that easy for him? And I said, you know, it's interesting. You're kind of grasping that because he's very alpha male to ask that question. Because it was incredibly hard for my dad to leave Iran because the easier thing for my dad was...
• 28:54
  was to stay as a soldier and to die. That was the easy one. He would have preferred as he served the king and he was an honorable man and he was alpha and his friends were being killed during the Iranian revolution. And so the much more natural, easy thing for him to do, Jeremy, was to stay and be a martyr, to stand and be killed. But because his family, because his children were in harm's way,
• 29:23
  The more courageous thing, the more humbling thing was to actually tuck tail and run. And so he wasn't preserving himself. He would have rather stayed and died, but he ran for us. Okay. And so I look back at even that and I see that as an investment where my father was making and he was making deposits into us. Yeah. And so you're telling me now he doesn't get to make withdrawals? Hmm.
• 29:47
  He's earned some withdrawals. And so I love Dave Ramsey. I'm doing their Ramsey's Chapel next week. So just so you can say, I love that. And he's right in the one sense that we don't owe anything, but this isn't a we got to, this is a we get to. Right. Yeah, we tend to frame it as like a very, kind of a Western lens is almost like all like transactional, highly like accounted debt debt.
• 30:11
  But relational honor functions a little bit differently. And I think this is where it's hard for us to see. It's not that simple. It's a get-to. It's like all those deposits that you made into the relationship, for me to have the privilege to give back to you creates this unbreakable, amazing, unique bond between father and son, between mother and daughter that occurs, that exists within a culture of honor that I think is just getting disrupted so badly, by the way, that we are so hyper transactional and confused on this point.
• 30:41
  Yeah. And I think it's important to note that we're going to use some banking terms here like they've been making. That is that is good to think about. But but there's one there's a third person in this discussion is actually making the real deposits. Yeah.
• 30:56
  And his name is Christ. You know, like he is the one who's actually fattening the bank account so that the checks won't bounce. And so someone might be listening going, man, sounds like your dad made a lot of deposits and sounds like you're letting him make some withdrawals later in your life. Like you're picking up the tab. He's coming to your beach house and you're paying for it because there were vacations where he took you and it's your turn. But my dad wasn't that way.
• 31:16
  The deposits my dad were more abusive than they were. You know, they were more corruptive than, you know, and the more hurtful than healing and whatever. And I just want someone to hear me in saying this. This isn't because they did good. You get to do it. It's because God is good. You get to, even if your parents weren't,
• 31:36
  Honorable. You get to be honorable. We don't get to check out. When I became a Christian, my parents kicked me out of the home. And they told me, my dad goes, stop being a Christian. And I was like, I don't know how to stop. This is bigger than me. It's not like a cold that I caught and it went away. So the way to honor them was actually...
• 31:57
  to break the curse, the generational curse of Islam in my family. And so honoring sometimes looks actually like disobeying, but it doesn't mean disrespectful. Yes. And as soon as I could, I could have looked at all the things, but I was still willing to step in because someone else had made the deposit. I don't know if we got time, but...
• 32:18
  I have a story to tell about my dad. I was driving, Jeremy, one time to, I was driving down here. I'm on 38 right now. We live in Tennessee, but I'm at the Panhandle of Florida. And so one time I was driving by myself to go to the Panhandle of Florida. And as I was driving, I normally come down this one road called 331.
• 32:41
  to get down here. I don't know if you've ever been down here, but you kind of come down, it's 331, this one road. And there was road construction. And so it rerouted me instead to this other road called 231. And the reason that's important is I never go through this one city called Dothan.
• 32:59
  Alabama. But because I was rerouted, all of a sudden I'm going down to Dothan, Alabama. Well, I come to Dothan and I used to live when I was back in my freshman year in high school, I used to live in a city called Enterprise, Alabama, which is very close to Dothan.
• 33:17
  And as I was driving down 231, I looked to my right in Dothan. And Jeremy, I see this place that instantly I recognized. Like I saw it and it said the name Olympia Tennis and Spa. And instantly I recognized it as a place where we used to go play tournaments when I was in high school. Our tennis team would play tennis tournaments.
• 33:43
  And I thought, oh, I used to go play tennis there. And I never would drive by it because, again, I was always 231. So, man, I drive by it. And about a minute later, two minutes later, Jeremy, I start weeping. And I don't know what's happening to me. I'm just like, why am I? And I see a Wendy's. I'm just crying. And I pull in this Wendy's parking lot. And it dawned on me that when I was in high school,
• 34:10
  I had a tennis tournament one time there at that place. And I had completely blocked it off. I had a tennis tournament there. And in front of my entire tennis team, my dad had come to the tennis tournament and he had slapped me in front of my entire tennis team, including some of the girls on the team. And when he slapped me,
• 34:36
  it just brought so much shame and embarrassment to me in front of my, in front of my classmates and my tennis mates. And so I'm sitting there, man, like two miles away from it. I only have two miles in this Wendy's parking lot. And I just felt like I hadn't thought about that. I'd blocked that thing. And years later, now as a Christian, I wasn't a Christian when my dad slept. I, um,
• 35:01
  I'm going through this like, I'm just kind of revisiting it. So bro, I turn around, I go back up to the place and I find the exact area. It was like the day before. I found the exact same area where my dad and I were and he slapped me in front of the whole Tennessee. And I stood there
• 35:21
  And I remember just saying, you know, I've never talked to my dad about this. I think if I ever even called him and said, I forgive you, he would say, for what? The time you hit me, he'd be like, which one? You know, because he was. And but I just said, God, I forgive him. I forgive him because you've forgiven me. Yeah.
• 35:43
  And that wasn't an exchange. Right. You know what I mean? Because when it comes to redemptive forgiveness, you have to stop and go, what happened to me? Which was like, my dad shamed me, embarrassed me, ridiculed me in front of my friends. And that was a big deal. That wasn't a small. So what happened?
• 36:03
  Then how much did it cost? It cost me a lot through the years. And then once you get the bill, what happened? What was it cost? You ultimately have to take that bill to the foot of the cross and let Jesus pay it. Yes. Because my dad doesn't have the capacity to even pay it.
• 36:21
  And so when we were talking about like he poured into me, my dad poured into me in a good way. Jeremy, I'm sure your dad poured into you in a lot of good ways. But he also probably poured into you some things that were not always constructive but destructive. And so this isn't tit for tat. This isn't for everything good that they did, you got to do something bad. For everything good that they did, you should honor them. But even when they didn't...
• 36:42
  do what they meant and my father would tell you wholeheartedly i was actually that day not trying to hurt you i was trying to train you up to be a bigger boy to make you a man and not a kid but he he shamed me in front of my you know in front of the girl that i thought was pretty you know and i had to bring that bill to the foot of the cross and say jesus you paid it all yeah and so
• 37:08
  I'm not, I, it's not lost on me that someone's listening. And as they're listening today, they're going, man, you guys probably had great childhoods and, uh, it's easier to hang with your parents. You don't understand what's going on. And I'm not telling you to condone their behavior. I'm not telling you if they're abusive to let them back in. Sometimes the most,
• 37:28
  sometimes the most loving thing you can do for somebody who's hurtful is not let them continue to be hurtful. That's right. To let them in. What I'm saying is there has to be no longer a harboring in your heart towards that wound and you have to bring it to the foot of the cross. So well said. I think I can't tell you how many parents currently we hear that,
• 37:49
  have those kinds of wounds from their childhood and don't know how to handle that. And just how the gospel directly reels and applies to those moments. Oh man, that's, thank you so much for sharing that, David. All right. Well, um, yeah, anywhere where people can, so revive iran.com, anywhere, anywhere else they could follow you guys or anything else you direct us to? Uh,
• 38:07
  Thank you. Revival, revival, revival, Iran, revival, Iran dot com is where people can go and support the work of the local church in Iran. My website is just David Nasser dot com. David N.A.S.S.E.R. dot com. But man, again, so grateful for you and the work you're doing. And I know you and Jefferson Bethke are tight as thieves and I love him. We're in the community group together. So when he moved to Franklin, that was a good day for all of us.
• 38:33
  Yes, absolutely. Yeah, he's having a good time there. Yeah, excellent. Well, so glad to meet you, David. Thanks for jumping on here today. And God bless and enjoy your time down seaside. Yeah, man. Blessings, O'Neill. All right, see ya. Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at FamilyTeams.