Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] I want to thank Sarah for the remarkable job she did last week.
[00:00:11] I never grow weary of hearing how awesome Jesus Christ is.
[00:00:18] I never grow tired of meditating the meditating on the majesty of our almighty Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Christ.
[00:00:30] The last Sunday in October, we're having Trunk or Treat.
[00:00:36] And it's a way for us to treat our kids special.
[00:00:41] And for it to work, I need you to volunteer.
[00:00:46] Find yourself a costume, decorate the back of your car, and we're going to pass out candy to kids.
[00:00:56] You people who don't like kids to have candy. Just one day. I mean, one day.
[00:01:02] Ah.
[00:01:04] Ah.
[00:01:06] I knew a lady who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and didn't let her kids eat candy.
[00:01:15] Okay, let's make it a beautiful day for the kids. Could we please? Would you sign up and help me make this an awesome day? I want our kids to remember liking to go to church when they grow up. And we can. This is something we can do to help facilitate that.
[00:01:34] I also have good news.
[00:01:36] Last fall, we did or last summer, we did the Adventure of Faith campaign.
[00:01:45] And our goal is to pay off this property before we start making payments on our new building in West.
[00:01:54] And last Sunday, because of your generosity, we are under a million dollars. We only owe $994,000.
[00:02:07] And this whole campus will be paid for. And then we get to start on the new campus.
[00:02:12] So thank you so much for your generosity.
[00:02:15] And if you'd like to join the good people who are making this happen, we'd love to have you on the team.
[00:02:26] Dear Heavenly Father, you are.
[00:02:32] You are the God who invites us to call you Father.
[00:02:39] You are the God of the family of God.
[00:02:43] And so I pray that you would teach us your value for family.
[00:02:49] And I pray that we would live out life in Christ Jesus in our families.
[00:02:56] I pray that our homes would be places of love and kindness and joy.
[00:03:03] I pray that we would encourage and inspire each other.
[00:03:08] I pray that we would share the love of Christ with each other.
[00:03:12] And I pray it would all glorify your name. In Christ's name. Amen.
[00:03:22] My life group is studying through the book of Genesis.
[00:03:27] And we recently reviewed the life of Isaac, the son of Abraham.
[00:03:39] Isaac married his cousin, a woman named Rebecca, and Isaac and Rebecca had hard time conceiving children.
[00:03:50] And so Isaac prayed and the Lord heard his prayer and Rebecca conceived.
[00:03:57] But the prayer was answered more than he expected because she conceived twins.
[00:04:04] And when the twins were born, the first twin, his name was Esau.
[00:04:14] And Moses said that he was red headed and hairy.
[00:04:21] Ah.
[00:04:25] And the second twin was Jacob.
[00:04:29] And Moses said that he had brown hair and that he was smooth.
[00:04:36] So you have hairy and smooth. The twin brothers growing up in the house of Isaac and Rebekah.
[00:04:48] And it turned out these boys were not very much alike at all.
[00:04:54] Esau wanted to be gone.
[00:04:57] He was always going somewhere. He loved to go hunting. And he would do week long hunting trips and he had to be out and about.
[00:05:07] And Moses said that Jacob was the opposite. He liked hanging out in the tent city.
[00:05:15] He wasn't one for going camping. And it turned out he learned to be a pretty good cook. And the boys weren't alike.
[00:05:28] Because Esau was the firstborn, he got what was called the birthright, which meant the family line went through him and. And when his father died, he got 2/3 of everything his father owned.
[00:05:46] Well, that wasn't the kind of life Esau wanted.
[00:05:50] So he despised the birthright. He saw it as an obligation or a duty.
[00:05:56] And one day he came back from a long hunt and he hadn't been successful and he was really hungry and Jacob had just made a tasty smelling stew.
[00:06:13] And Esau said, hey, give me a bowl of that stew.
[00:06:18] Jacob said, I'd love to give you a bowl of that stew. Give me your birthright.
[00:06:24] And Jacob bought the birthright for a couple bowls of Stewart.
[00:06:37] And James in the New Testament is critical of Esau for his lack of good values.
[00:06:49] Well, the boys continue to grow, and if, if Isaac would have done what he's supposed to do. The blessing was to go with the birthright.
[00:07:01] The birthright and the blessing went together, but Isaac favored Esau more than Jacob.
[00:07:10] So he got it in his head he was going to give the blessing to Esau instead of Isaac. I mean, instead of Jacob.
[00:07:20] And he called Esau into his tent and he said, I want you to go hunting and I want you to make that venison dinner that you know I like. And when I eat that venison dinner, I will bless you and your, and, and your kids.
[00:07:38] Well, his wife Rebecca heard the plan and she conspired with Jacob and she knew how to make what he liked and she made it out of goat meat instead of venison.
[00:07:54] Jacob takes it in, deceives his dad and his dad blesses him.
[00:08:02] Well, he hardly gets the dishes cleaned up when Esau shows up and he comes into the tent with a big dinner for his dad.
[00:08:12] And he said, I've made the dinner that you wanted. And he goes, what are you talking about? I already ate your dinner.
[00:08:20] He Said, no, you didn't.
[00:08:22] And then it dawned on both of them that Jacob had deceived them.
[00:08:29] And Esau was so mad, he said, when my father dies, I'm going to kill you, Jacob.
[00:08:40] Ah.
[00:08:44] I'll tell you the rest of the story some other time.
[00:08:48] Esau did not kill Jacob, thank God.
[00:08:52] They spent 40 years apart, and the grudge wore off.
[00:08:56] 20 years apart, and the grudge wore off. All right, I told you this story because even people who love God can screw up their family really bad.
[00:09:13] Just because you love God doesn't guarantee that you're gonna do the right thing in your family.
[00:09:20] Do you hear this?
[00:09:22] Doing the right thing in your family has to be intentional. We have to plan to do the right thing. We have to prepare to do the right thing.
[00:09:34] We have to discipline ourselves to do the right thing.
[00:09:38] Family is God's idea.
[00:09:41] The very first thing that God did after he created humanity is he made them a family.
[00:09:49] Before there was church, there was family.
[00:09:53] Before there was government, there was family.
[00:09:56] The very first human relationship that God created was family. And that tells you how important family is to God.
[00:10:07] Several weeks ago, I started this sermon, and it was so long, I had to cut it in half. So I'm going to give you the second half. Today we're studying through the book of Colossians.
[00:10:19] And today we are at Colossians, chapter 3, verse 22.
[00:10:24] This is a very unusual verse because of our cultural background, but if you give me a minute, I promise I'll explain it to you.
[00:10:34] Paul, in teaching how to have a good family, said servants, obey your lords according to the flesh in all things, not as eye servants or men pleasers, but in generosity of heart respecting the Lord.
[00:10:56] All right.
[00:10:58] Most of us know slavery as chattel slavery. From the south before the Civil War, slavery was a blight on American history.
[00:11:12] But the. The slavery of the south is different than slavery in the Roman Empire.
[00:11:20] The slavery in the south was called chattel slavery.
[00:11:24] That meant that you. You were.
[00:11:29] You were property, like a cow or a horse.
[00:11:36] It robbed you of all your humanity.
[00:11:41] It robbed you of any sense of personal dignity. In the Roman Empire, slavery was very different.
[00:11:48] Often slaves made enough money to buy their own freedom.
[00:11:57] Often slaves were better educated than their masters.
[00:12:04] And slaves, these kind of Roman slaves, they lived in the house right along with the family.
[00:12:13] They took care of kids. They cooked, they cleaned, and they lived in rooms right next to the family.
[00:12:23] So when Paul is teaching on the family, because slavery was so common and it affected almost every household, he said the people who are working for you and living in your house as a Christian, you have to treat them right.
[00:12:43] You cannot treat them the way other people in the city treat their servants.
[00:12:49] All right now, because we don't have slavery anymore, this text seems odd to us, but what if we take Paul's idea about how, how slaves are supposed to serve in a family and how about if we apply those ideas to ourselves?
[00:13:06] In my service, of my family, what should it look like?
[00:13:11] Well, first of all, he said, in my service, I ought to think about when I serve my family, I am obeying God.
[00:13:28] When you serve your family, you are obeying God.
[00:13:34] And when you refuse to serve your family, you're not obeying God.
[00:13:40] So what this really boils down to is every one of us have to look in the mirror and we have to say, am I treating my family the way God wants them to be treated?
[00:13:53] Am I treating my spouse the way God wants them to be treated?
[00:13:57] Or do I have a. Do I permit myself to treat my spouse in a way that, that I know is inconsistent with what God wants?
[00:14:08] Am I treating my kids the way God wants them to be treated?
[00:14:14] Or, or do I have one set of rules for my kids and another set of rules for myself?
[00:14:22] Do you see, when I serve my family, the very first thing I'm and I need to think is this family is beloved. These people are beloved by God.
[00:14:35] And when I serve them the way he wants them to be served, I'm obeying Him.
[00:14:41] The second item is when we're obeying God, we have to deal with our own anger.
[00:14:51] I was reading a marriage book this week and it had a, it had a lengthy chapter on how anger corrupts relationships.
[00:15:05] So there are basically two kinds of anger. There's anger where we get mad and yell at each other in the kitchen. That's one kind of anger.
[00:15:15] Then there is another kind of anger that the author called quiet anger.
[00:15:21] Ah, there isn't there, there's no out loud shouting, there's no arguing, but there is a quiet inner anger that taints the entire relationship.
[00:15:37] And the author said the problem with anger in relationships is we very rarely own it.
[00:15:44] We usually say it's the other person's fault.
[00:15:48] Yes, I'm angry, but I'm angry because you did this.
[00:15:52] Yes, I'm angry, but I'm angry cause you didn't do this.
[00:15:56] And this anger ends up corrupting our relationships. And instead of loving the people in our family the way God wants them to be loved, we carry this low grade anger into everything we do. And it ruins the relationship.
[00:16:16] If you have anger issues, they're yours. Own them. Stop blaming them on each other.
[00:16:25] The blame game does not make your family better.
[00:16:30] The finger pointing doesn't make one day a better day.
[00:16:36] So if I want to treat my family the way God wants them to be treated, I got to, I got to look at my ugly face in the mirror and say, dude, get over yourself.
[00:16:48] Serve this family the way God wants them to be served.
[00:16:53] Forgive and let go.
[00:16:56] Be the man God wants you to be.
[00:17:00] The second thing he says is, don't be eye servants.
[00:17:06] This is the idea.
[00:17:08] Can you serve your family without recognition?
[00:17:11] Or do you have to be recognized for every little thing you do?
[00:17:17] Do you have to remind your family what a good person you are and how lucky they are to have you?
[00:17:23] Do you have to remind them that it wasn't your turn, but you took the garbage out?
[00:17:30] Do you have to remind them at, uh, you vacuumed when it wasn't your turn to vacuum?
[00:17:38] Paul says, when you serve your family, don't insist on being recognized and acknowledged for every little thing.
[00:17:50] Uh, be able to serve your family with a sense of, I don't have to, I don't, I, I'm not doing this to buy their appreciation.
[00:18:05] I'm doing this out of love and, and out of genuine care for them. Doesn't that make sense?
[00:18:12] The third thing he says is, who are you doing it for?
[00:18:18] Not as men pleasers.
[00:18:22] We have to be careful in our relationships that we don't do things in an attempt to manipulate other people in our family to do what we want.
[00:18:35] So, for example, we say, if I do this, then I can get them to do this.
[00:18:44] And it's not service at all. It's manipulation.
[00:18:52] We end up manipulating each other instead of serving each other. And Paul said that's not healthy and it doesn't work with, with generosity of heart.
[00:19:10] What is your motive?
[00:19:12] When you think about serving your family, what is your motive?
[00:19:17] Why do you do that?
[00:19:19] Why do you want to do that? And why do you not want to do that?
[00:19:23] If my motive for serving my family is sincerity and generosity, it's going to create a stronger bond in the family.
[00:19:33] If I have another motive other than sincerity or generosity, it's going to leak through and my family is going to have a sense of, of something hypocritical about me. Something is not genuine here. Do you see?
[00:19:51] So Paul says, check your motives. Why are you doing this?
[00:19:56] Are you serving your family out of a sincere and generous heart, or do you have another motive?
[00:20:05] And then the last thing he said is, out of respect to the Lord.
[00:20:13] Is Christ honored by the way you serve your family?
[00:20:18] If Christ looked at you last week and he saw how you treated your spouse and he saw how you treated your kids, would he say, awesome job, or would he say, you got to up your game?
[00:20:38] That was pretty lame.
[00:20:41] I had hoped for better from you.
[00:20:44] Church.
[00:20:45] When I serve my family, I have to have this idea. If my family works right, God is honored.
[00:20:55] God is glorified.
[00:20:58] You glorify God as much by how you treat your family as by singing your favorite worship song.
[00:21:06] You glorify God as much by how you treat your family as by how well you pray. You glorify God as much by how you treat your family as you do in anything that you call service of God. Do you see?
[00:21:22] If God is glorified in my home, that is the beginning of God being glorified in my life.
[00:21:29] And how can God be glorified in my life if I'm not glorifying him in my own house?
[00:21:36] Church, Peter said the same thing. Listen to what Peter said.
[00:21:43] Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Listen to this.
[00:21:50] Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another.
[00:21:56] Close yourself with humility.
[00:22:00] For God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
[00:22:06] Do you hear this?
[00:22:08] In your treating your family, in your serving your family, God says, be humble if you do. Listen. If you do, God will give you more grace.
[00:22:24] If you start being arrogant in your family and you start having that I'm better than you attitude, God is going to oppose you.
[00:22:33] You, you will bring yourself into opposition to God if you can't humbly serve your family.
[00:22:46] So what keeps us from this kind of service?
[00:22:50] It turns out that disappointment in family life accumulates.
[00:23:12] Think about.
[00:23:15] I remember Sharon and I got married before we went to college, and we went to college together.
[00:23:22] And I remember we'd go to college in the morning. I'd work the afternoon and evening shift. I remembered how much I love to get home to my wife.
[00:23:32] I remember how much I looked forward to it.
[00:23:36] I remember. I remember as newlyweds, how fun it was just to eat a bowl of freaking oatmeal together.
[00:23:47] It was all delightful.
[00:23:50] And then we let this little disappointment accumulate with this little disappointment and this little disappointment and that big disappointment. And over time, these disappointments build up and they create layers in our relationship.
[00:24:11] And it robs us of the delight we ought to have in each other's company.
[00:24:21] These little disappointments complicate the family Life.
[00:24:28] And if we're going to have a healthy Christian family, we have to confront them.
[00:24:35] We have to confront them in our own heart.
[00:24:39] We have to acknowledge that we've let something fester in us that needs a good alcohol bath.
[00:24:51] It needs a good.
[00:24:53] It needs a good.
[00:24:55] What's that stuff you put on? Cuts?
[00:25:01] Yeah, whatever.
[00:25:07] Give.
[00:25:08] Give it a good dose of whatever that stuff is.
[00:25:13] All right?
[00:25:14] Ah.
[00:25:15] Ah.
[00:25:17] Permit yourself.
[00:25:19] Listen, listen. Permit yourself to be free to treat your family in a beautiful and loving way.
[00:25:31] Ah.
[00:25:33] Men, I'm gonna ask you to be my partner, and we're gonna initiate.
[00:25:38] Ladies, you can listen to this if you want, but this is for the boys and I. All right?
[00:25:43] Being a spiritual leader of my family doesn't mean I boss everybody around.
[00:25:48] It means I initiate.
[00:25:51] It means I am willing to. I'm willing to get stuff started.
[00:25:56] I bought this wonderful book 20 years ago, and it's called 1001 Ways to Be Romantic. It's written by Gregory Agodick. I don't have to figure anything out. I open that book, they all. All 1100 are numbered.
[00:26:18] I just.
[00:26:19] I just steal an idea out of that book. All right?
[00:26:24] These five ideas came from that book.
[00:26:28] Brothers, I don't know if this is on the screen or not. Take a picture of this. Write this down.
[00:26:36] I'm doing you a favor. All right?
[00:26:40] All right. How can I initiate a fresh start in my family?
[00:26:47] How can I say, Monday, things are gonna be different than they were Friday?
[00:26:53] All right, here's some ideas. Number one.
[00:26:56] And this goes for your family, spouse and kids. Number one, do something unexpected, Something pleasantly unexpected instead of the same old, same old. Say, I'm going to figure out how to do something pleasantly that my family doesn't expect.
[00:27:19] You can start there, can't you?
[00:27:21] This means yes. This means no.
[00:27:24] 2, do something that is unusual for your character.
[00:27:33] If you never tell a joke, find a joke and tell your family a joke.
[00:27:39] Ah.
[00:27:40] Hey, dad, jokes are the best jokes in the world.
[00:27:45] Ah. All right.
[00:27:49] If you usually don't talk to your family about their feelings, talk to them.
[00:27:55] Do something that is not like the same old boring. You do something interesting. All right? Three, do something encouraging.
[00:28:09] What could you do that would encourage your spouse?
[00:28:13] What could you do that would encourage your kids?
[00:28:16] What could you do that would encourage your grandkids?
[00:28:21] I encouraged two of my grandkids Friday. Pulled out 20s, handed them to them. They were very encouraged.
[00:28:32] Ah.
[00:28:33] All right. Three, four, whatever number I'm on, do something sensitive.
[00:28:43] Do something sensitive.
[00:28:46] It could be as simple as holding your Wife's hand.
[00:28:51] It could be as simple as giving your kid an unexpected hug.
[00:28:57] It could be as simple as showing an unexpected kindness.
[00:29:02] All right, five.
[00:29:05] Do something creative.
[00:29:11] Get your family together and do something creative.
[00:29:14] It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be monumental. We're talking about little initiations that set us free from past patterns and get us on a new path of initiating, doing something beautiful and fresh in our home.
[00:29:33] We can do that, brothers. Can't we, brothers?
[00:29:41] All right. Your heavenly Father is going to be watching. That's all I know.
[00:29:48] All right. Then we get to verse 23.
[00:29:53] Whatever you do, work from the soul as unto the Lord, not to men, knowing that you will receive from the Lord a reward and inheritance.
[00:30:08] You are serving the Lord Christ.
[00:30:12] And I'll say verse 25 for a minute.
[00:30:15] The first thing I take from this is the family is so will work. First and foremost, you start serving your family with. When you start with your soul.
[00:30:28] Serving your family is not a list of activities.
[00:30:32] It is giving your soul away to your family. Can you hear this?
[00:30:39] It is. It is from the inner person that you are, from the reality of your personhood. You start looking at your family and saying, because. Because God has made me the kind of person I am, I'm going to serve my family from the inside out and not just from the outside.
[00:31:03] Your service to your family is an expression of your relationship to Christ.
[00:31:13] To get this, the way you treat your family is an expression of your relationship to Christ.
[00:31:20] Listen what Paul said. Paul said if you are a Christian and you have a spouse who is not a Christian, if, if you.
[00:31:37] If you have. If you start serving your family from the inside out, Paul said it's likely that that family member will become a Christian.
[00:31:49] They will see something of the wonder in Christ of Christ in you. They'll see something of the beauty of Christ in you. There'll see something of the dignity of Christ in you, and they'll be more attracted to God.
[00:32:02] Isn't that interesting?
[00:32:05] So everything I do is an expression of my relationship to Christ.
[00:32:14] Remember, this whole book is built on the poem of Christ.
[00:32:19] And so I want to read it again right here. And while I'm reading it, I want you to be thinking, if this is who Christ is and he's the leader of my life, then how should I be treating my family?
[00:32:34] Would you think that while I read this, Christ is the image of the invisible God, the prototype of all creation.
[00:32:44] For by him all things were created in heaven, on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him. And for him.
[00:32:58] The God that I serve has all the resources I need to do everything he's asking me to do.
[00:33:07] Do you see? And it's just not that everything was created by him and for him. The family exists for God.
[00:33:20] There's something about the family that when it works right, God's eternal purpose becomes clear, evident, and beautiful.
[00:33:30] So, of course, evil wants to do everything it can to ruin your family.
[00:33:35] Evil conspires against your family. All right, the second part of the poem. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together my relationship to Christ. And Christ's relationship to me functions and holds my family together.
[00:33:54] Right?
[00:33:56] Third phrase. He is the head of the body of the church.
[00:34:01] Fourth phrase. He is the beginning, the prototype of life after death.
[00:34:07] That in everything he might be preeminent.
[00:34:11] Do you want Christ to be preeminent in your home?
[00:34:16] Do you want Christ to be preeminent in your family? Do you want Christ to be preeminent with your spouse and your kids?
[00:34:25] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.
[00:34:40] The Christ I serve is a great reconciler. I don't know what's happened in your marriage, and I don't want difficulties you have. But if you need reconciling, the great Christ is the ultimate reconciler.
[00:35:00] Serving your family is soul work.
[00:35:05] Whatever you do, work from your soul.
[00:35:08] What does soul work mean?
[00:35:11] Starts with the way I think.
[00:35:14] Do you have healthy thoughts about your family, or do you permit yourself to have rolling, ugly thoughts about your family, church?
[00:35:27] It matters the way you think about your spouse. Whether you say it out loud or not. It matters the way you think about them.
[00:35:34] And when you're serving from your soul, you check yourself and say, I do not permit myself to think that way about my spouse.
[00:35:46] I do not permit myself to think that way about my kids.
[00:35:50] I check it because I'm serving out of my soul.
[00:35:54] Second of all, healthy family emotions.
[00:35:58] If you put a chart on the wall and you divide it in half and one side said healthy emotions, unhealthy emotions.
[00:36:08] And all week long, every time you did something that was a healthy emotion, you made a little mark. And every time you did something that was an unhealthy emotion, you. You made a little mark. Which side would have the most marks?
[00:36:20] You see, if I'm gonna serve my family the way Christ wants them, to be served. I have to nurture healthy emotions in my life.
[00:36:30] I have to nurture love. I have to nurture kindness. I have to nurture gentleness. I have to nurture encouragement.
[00:36:39] I have to do those things on purpose, Church. I can't just wait around and say, well, if the opportunity comes up, I'll say something kind. I gotta. Look, I got to create an opportunity to say something kind, all right?
[00:36:54] And then healthy family choices. Look, we get to choose how we treat each other. We get to choose how we act.
[00:37:02] We get to choose how to make things right.
[00:37:06] My wife is much easier to get along with than I am. So I have to do more saying I'm sorry in our family than she does.
[00:37:13] But look, if I mess up, I'm going to. I'm going to make the right choice. And I'm saying, babe, I'm sorry. I was an idiot. I'll try to do better.
[00:37:22] It has to be on purpose, Church. I have to think in a healthy way. I have to have healthy emotions, and I have to make healthy choices.
[00:37:35] You say that sounds like a lot of work. Well, who said it was supposed to be easy?
[00:37:39] I mean, where did you get the letter that said, hey, this is easy?
[00:37:44] Ah, it's not supposed to be easy, Church.
[00:37:48] It's supposed to be diligent. It's supposed to matter enough to us that we're willing to put some effort into it. It's supposed to matter enough that we're willing to try. Supposed to matter enough that we can adjust our actions and reframe our thinking. It's supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to be a challenge.
[00:38:12] Ah.
[00:38:13] And if you think your spouse is difficult to live with, you may not be so easy yourself, Church.
[00:38:25] Who.
[00:38:27] Who convinced you that you are any easier to get along with than they?
[00:38:36] All right, I'll let it go there.
[00:38:41] All right.
[00:38:47] All of this requires conversation.
[00:38:51] Healthy families talk, Church.
[00:38:56] Healthy families talk. They talk about life.
[00:39:01] They talk about who does what and when.
[00:39:04] They talk about what matters.
[00:39:08] They share the beauties and the sorrows of life together.
[00:39:14] If you're going to have a healthy relationship, if you're going to have a healthy family, it requires conversation that comes from the soul.
[00:39:26] In this marriage book I read, it said it didn't just talk about these disappointments.
[00:39:33] It says over time, most relationships fall into three traps. One of three traps.
[00:39:46] Fear, mistrust, or ambivalence.
[00:39:51] Fear.
[00:39:53] You're afraid that somebody's going to be angry. You're going to afraid that somebody's going to not do this or somebody's going to do that. The. The second one is mistrust.
[00:40:04] I. You just stop trusting in each other. And the third one is the most insidious ambivalence. You just don't care anymore.
[00:40:16] It just. It isn't worth caring about anymore.
[00:40:19] And this author said, all three of these have to be confronted. You have to deal with them. If things, if you have to have discussions, you have to have the courage to talk about these things in a healthy way.
[00:40:34] And then, then Paul said, you're serving the Lord, not men.
[00:40:40] Your family is a spiritual unit that serves God together. You are a team that serves God together.
[00:40:48] You serve God together in worship.
[00:40:51] I believe families ought to worship.
[00:40:54] When my kids were young and we lived at home, we had a Bible that we kept on the table.
[00:41:02] And because we spilled every meal, this Bible was saturated about 35 times.
[00:41:10] And commonly before supper, we would open the Bible up.
[00:41:15] First kid would read a couple of verses, pass the Bible to the second kid. The second kid would read a couple of verses, pass the Bible. Somebody would start laughing. They couldn't read that. Had to pass the Bible to the next person. And I mean, it didn't take long reading a couple verses.
[00:41:35] But it was part of our family worship. It was. It was. Was something that I thought was helpful for us. All right, what do you do to worship together as a family?
[00:41:47] How are you a worship team together?
[00:41:52] Do you pray together? Do you read scripture together? And do you inspire each other to faith and hope?
[00:41:59] All right, the payoff for all of this is from the Lord, knowing that from the Lord you will receive a reward and inheritance.
[00:42:12] God pays off for people who serve their family the way he wants them to be served.
[00:42:19] It matters to him.
[00:42:21] He has rewards for people who will do this right.
[00:42:27] And then there's a warning.
[00:42:32] The warning is pretty simple.
[00:42:35] You say, I'm not going to do it.
[00:42:39] I don't care what you say, Doc.
[00:42:41] You don't know my family. You don't know what I've been through. I'm not doing it.
[00:42:46] Well, there's a warning. There's not just a promise for a payoff, there's a warning.
[00:42:51] And the warning is verse 25, and it basically says, there is a recompense also for doing wrong.
[00:43:04] There's not just a reward for doing right. There is a recompense for doing wrong.
[00:43:10] God said, if you dig your heels in and you don't, and you refuse to function in the family the way God wants you to do, there is a.
[00:43:21] There is a Discipline for that.
[00:43:25] This matters enough to God that he says, if you do it right, I'll bless you. If you don't do it right, I'm going to discipline you. That's how much it matters to him.
[00:43:41] Galatians 6, 7. Families. I'm almost done. Families. Galatians 6 7.
[00:43:49] Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows the that will he also reap.
[00:43:59] You know what kind of family you're going to have? You're going to have the kind of family you saw.
[00:44:04] You want. You want to know what kind of home you're going to have? You're going to have the kind of home that you saw. You want a beautiful family, Then you have to. You have to be. You have to treat each other in a beautiful way. You want your family to be a place of joy and kindness and warmth and friendship. Then you have to be kind, joy, warm and friendly. We're going to get the kind of families that we create.
[00:44:30] Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians 9:6. The point is this.
[00:44:35] Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
[00:44:45] You're going to get out of your family what you sow into it. Do you hear this?
[00:44:50] If everybody is sowing into the family good, kindness, love, encouragement, inspiration, joy, well being, then the family is going to reap that bountifully. That's the way the family is going to be.
[00:45:07] If you're so into the family, ugliness, selfishness, resentment, anger, all these things, well, that's the crop you're going to produce.
[00:45:19] Listen to me, young parents. Please listen to me with all your heart.
[00:45:24] You're going to teach your kids how to treat each other.
[00:45:29] You're going to sew it into them. It's not you telling them they have to do something. It's you show them the payoff. This is. This is what happens when people treat each other right.
[00:45:40] We treat each other right because it makes life beautiful and we like it.
[00:45:45] All right, this is it. I'm done.
[00:45:49] But this is important.
[00:45:52] Don't settle for a mediocre family because you are a follower of Jesus Christ. Because the poem of Christ said, God has everything you need to make a great family. Stop settling for a mediocre family.
[00:46:10] Work and pray for a great family.
[00:46:14] Our dear Heavenly Father, thank you.
[00:46:18] Thank you for your good idea family.
[00:46:21] Thank you for the teaching of Scripture.
[00:46:23] Now I pray for myself. I pray for everyone who's here and everybody who's watching online.
[00:46:31] I pray that your spirit would just pass by our hearts right now and create in us a new ambition.
[00:46:40] To create families that honor Jesus Christ.
[00:46:44] To create families that are places of faith, hope, and love.
[00:46:49] To create families that encourage and inspire.
[00:46:53] To create families that bring out the best in everyone.
[00:46:57] To create families that are an absolute joy to be around.
[00:47:03] And then I pray that as you work in our hearts this good work, you would be glorified in heaven. Amen.
