Home Work - Pt. 3 - Working Families Series

Home Work

Pt. 3 – Working Families

Over the last two week’s we have been handing out home work at church! The first week I gave the home work to the dads. Fight apathy, help your families make good decisions, set priorities, and establish godly boundaries or guardrails. We continue to have men sign up for Covenant Eyes! We dealt with Ephesians 5 which called men to love their women all out!

Then last week we challenged the women to fight misalignment. To learn that submit isn’t a bad concept, but one that brings the miraculous to bear. Told our women to understand their men, themselves and to offer support! Then we went into to Proverbs 31 to what traits a godly woman processes.

So today I want us to look at working families. Let’s get everyone involved in the home work. Dads, moms, children, cousins, aunts, uncles, and the black sheep. Every family has one right?

I want us to examine a couple of concepts here that we must understand as families.

The family unit was God’s idea. He constantly dealt with the Israelites by family units and tribes. When Achan hid the stolen loot in his tent you will remember that the solution was that each tribe and each family in the tribe was examined to discover who had sinned. God sees each of us individually. He sees you so clearly that He knows the number of hairs on your head. However, God also sees us from a family perspective too. He sees you as part of a unit of people. Your family matters to God. He is aware of it. He is concerned about it. So when we talk about your home although it is made up as individuals God also see your home as one. That is why Joshua could make the declaration that as for me and my house, even though I am speaking for more than myself, we as one unit are going to serve the Lord.

This speaks to our connectedness. You have heard me say this before, but it bears repeating no man is an island. You are not in this alone. Your life impacts and has bearing on so many others. That is why it is so important for dads, moms, kids, uncles, aunts, and grandparents to understand that everything you do impacts and affects the rest of the family unit. God connected us. What you do impacts the family. The choices you make or don’t make have dramatic impact on the rest of the unit!

So out of that connectedness God speaks to the Israelites and gives them some key instruction about their homes.

Text: Duet. 6:1-2, 5-9

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. (by the way as a side note – I know in the NT kids obedience is directly linked to long life, but notice here long life is a foregone conclusion, but being able to enjoy it is linked to keeping God’s commands. You can have long life and not enjoy it!)

5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

(Message) 6-9 Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.

I believe this set of instructions given to the Children of Israel immediately after Moses has come off the mountain to share the 10 Commandments with the nation are still supremely significant and applicable to our families today!

1. The family’s #1 enemy is nearsightedness!

I think we get so wrapped up in what is happening now that we become very nearsighted and God’s view of family is farsighted. Take stock of the now in light of the tomorrow. Some of you are allowing things to go on in your home right now that you have decided aren’t that big of deal and they may not seem to be now. But you need to back out a little and ask about later. If you continue to allow this now what happens 10 years from now? What you put up with, make room for, make concession for now will only become exaggerated in their home later.