1 Corinthians 10:6-12
I’m the youngest of 5 boys and a girl. There’s something good about being the youngest: you get to learn from everyone else’s mistakes. And my youngest brother, Ken, made some!
Now, Ken turned out just fine. He’s brilliant, my good friend, and a faithful preacher of the gospel. But while we were younger. I learned from Ken’s mistakes –
• Don’t stick a finger in the hot caramel of those caramel rolls when they 1st come out of the oven
• Make sure you come home within the time that Dad says to be home
• Keep both hands on the electric hedge trimmers when you’re operating them
• Never, never, never smart off to Mom.
I learned a lot, just by standing back and watching what happened when my older brother made a mistake. Maybe it made me less adventurous – but it also made me much wiser with less pain! Learning from mistakes is just a part of life, but if you can watch someone else’s mistakes and learn from that, it’s much easier.
As it turns out, much of the Bible is that way. Paul says that much of Israel’s history is a chance for us to learn from someone else’s mistakes:
1 Corinthians 10:6-12
Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry." We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did--and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did--and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did--and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us,
I want to echo those words of Paul today. I want us to look mostly at case studies where we can learn from the mistakes of other families and hopefully save our own from some pain.
The Bible has a lot of stories of successful families – where there are people of nobility and character who do things well and they end up being in homes that produce godly children who pass along that heritage. But it seems there are just as often stories about major foul ups that people make in their homes – mistakes that ruin families.
1st, there are the obvious things like:
• vowing to sacrifice your daughter as a burnt offering
• giving your handmade to your husband to father a child
• pretending to be your sister and marrying the man she was supposed to marry
• selling your brother as a slave to a group of traveling Ishmaelites
• having 700 wives and 300 concubines
• getting your father drunk to get him to father your child
• marrying a woman whose name is Jezebel
• failing to put your dirty socks in the hamper (I just threw that last one in there!)
These are things that caused a lot of problems in homes. But they’re also mistakes that seem very far removed from us. Most of us don’t need to be convinced not to sell our brother or sacrifice our daughter.
But there are others too – more subtle mistakes that either strain or totally disasterize a home. And they’re the kinds of things that are not only part of the story in Bible families, but part of the story in many of our own homes today.
Have you done your homework?
Once again today, I’m going to address family issues, and many of these are going to apply to spouses and parents and children, but they also are going to make sense for grandparents, people who are no longer married, people who haven’t married yet, and people who never did or will.
I’m sure these are ways to ruin your home, because they come straight from Scripture. We’ll look at them together – it’ll be fun! But what’s more important is that every person here this morning also looks at their own home and makes sure that these problems are either not present or on their way out. Make it a checklist, and take it with you today.
Here they are – 10 surefire ways to ruin your family…
1. Allow Jealousy to Direct the Way We Treat Each Other
It shouldn’t surprise us that jealousy is a way to ruin your family. It’s a guaranteed way to ruin any relationship. The first proof of that is Cain and Abel, history’s first brothers. They both brought an offering to God, but God wasn’t pleased with Cain’s. So Cain was jealous of his brother. He invited him out for a walk, and killed him.
1 John 3:12
Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.
Joseph’s dad favored him above his other brothers. Jacob treated him better. Maybe some of the fault lies there, but the fact is, Joseph’s brothers had had it up to here with “pretty boy.” They were jealous enough to sell him and fake his death to their father.
When God describes the way that love acts in I Co. 13, included in the list is the fact that love is not jealous – love isn’t jealous of what someone else gets and I don’t. In fact, Paul lists jealousy in Gal 5:20 among the deeds of the flesh and then says, “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” He says to the Corinthians (I Co 3) “since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?”
There’s no room for jealousy in a family. There’s no room for a husband or wife to be jealous against his or her spouse. There’s no room for it between brothers and sisters, and there’s no room for it from a single person toward other people. For that matter, there’s no room for it in the family of God.
If you want to ruin your home, allow jealousy to direct the way you treat each other. Otherwise, make sure you’re happy when someone else does well, or is blessed in some way.
2. Allow Materialism to Direct Our Priorities
Jacob and Esau were twin brothers, but that’s where their similarities stop. Esau was a rough, hairy, outdoor type. Jacob was a stay-at-home Mama’s boy. Once again, parents made the mistake of playing favorites. But Esau made the mistake of allowing his priorities to be driven by his desires. He came in from hunting, and Jacob happened to have fixed a pot of red lintel stew. “How about a bowl of that stuff? I’m starving!” But Jacob wouldn’t hand it over without pay. “Give me the rights of the firstborn that belong to you, and it’s yours.” Thinking with his stomach, Esau decided that eating was more important at that time than his rights and responsibilities as firstborn. And in this way, the Scriptures say, he despised his birthright.
Hebrews 12:16
See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.
You don’t sell your birthright for a bowl of chili – even if they throw in rolls.
Another example comes from the story of Solomon. Solomon started out well, but later on he messed up:
1 Kings 3:1
Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter.
1 Kings 11:1-4
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter--Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
Why all these marriages? Pretty simple – Solomon was seeking pleasure and contentment in the wrong places. Read the book of Ecclesiastes sometime, where Solomon tells about the futility of his search for happiness in life through stuff.
If you want to ruin your home, allow materialism to direct your priorities. Otherwise, determine ahead of time what’s going to drive your decisions – decide you’re going to seek to please God ahead of yourself.
3. Practice Deceit
Jacob’s name means “deceiver.” It turned out to be somewhat prophetic in nature. He and his mother put together a scam to steal the paternal blessing that should have fallen on Esau. As soon as Esau realized his brother had cheated him, he was ready to kill him. So, Jacob ran away from home. He continued to run from his brother and live in fear of him for some time. Deceit tore up the family.
What goes around comes around, because it was Jacob who was tricked later by his uncle in a deal for a wife. He ended up marrying Rachel’s big-nosed sister and didn’t find it out until it was too late. Just the same, he stayed and continued to work for his uncle. It wasn’t a happy relationship. Uncle Laban was cheating Jacob. Jacob was taking advantage of the situation. Things got tense, so Jacob and all that was his sneaked away without saying goodbye. All of them became victims of deceit.
1 Peter 2:1
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy…
John 8:44b
[the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
So, what language is being spoken in your home?
Homes can’t thrive where there’s deceit between spouses or between parents and children. Try to have a thriving marriage when trust has been dashed on the rocks. Try to have a healthy parent/child relationship where neither trusts the other’s word.
Deceit is a surefire way to ruin your home. Or, instead, you can stubbornly be truthful, even when that’s hard to do, and you’ll not ruin your home by deceit.
4. Treat Impurity Casually
For all we remember about David, we’ll always remember his failure to be pure. His adultery with a woman named Bathsheba started with idleness and then lust, and it culminated in lying and murder to try to cover it all up. It had started with lust – that sounds a whole lot easier, a lot less risky than adultery, but it’s still offensive to God. Jesus said,
Matthew 5:27-28
You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Ill - In the last hours of his life, Ted Bundy gave an interview with James Dobson. It’s on a video called “Fatal Addiction.” There, hours before he was executed, Bundy tells how his decline began with the impurity of pornography and it grew and grew until he was a mass murderer.
Bundy’s an extreme example, but there’s a long trail of victims destroyed by impurity.
It can’t be treated casually. It’s commonness around us doesn’t make it acceptable. Impurity ruins homes. It ruins marriages before they even begin, and it destroys marriages that have begun.
There was a man in the church in Corinth who was living in an impure situation,
1 Corinthians 5:2-5
And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?…hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
Jesus said,
Matthew 5:29-30
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
If you want to ruin your home, treat impurity casually. Otherwise, see how seriously the Lord takes it, and make sure you take it seriously.
5. Make Anger a Regular Part of Our Lives
As Paul lists the works of the flesh in Gal 5, he includes “…hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage…”
Ephesians 4:31
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
James 1:19-20
Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
If only King Saul had remembered this. His son was best friends with David, but Saul hated David. It put quite a strain on home, to say the least. Saul’s rage led him into all kinds of sin.
Hollis Whitrock contends that anger is the single most destructive factor in Christian homes today. Go ahead and list your excuses for anger: “I’m too tired. I’m under a lot of stress. No one listens to me unless I get angry first” – the fact is, to be angry is always a personal choice, and when anger is a regular part of our lives, it ruins homes.
Proverbs 16:32
Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.
You want to take your home for Jesus? Get rid of the angry thoughts, the angry reactions, the angry words. Wrestle with the best, and win.
6. Fail to Take Responsibility for Our Own Actions
Adam and Eve both sinned. They both ate of the fruit that God had forbidden. But when God called them on the carpet for it, whose fault was it? Adam blamed Eve – “She gave it to me.” No, wait, Adam tried to blame God! “The woman You gave me, she gave it to me.” Eve tried to blame the serpent. No one was ready to accept responsibility for their actions that day.
Not a lot has changed, has it?
Ill - I remember the cartoon strip “Family Circus” showing several small disasters around the house, and each time the mother asked who had done it, the kids would reply “Not me.” Then, if you looked, there was this little, almost invisible gremlin named “Not me” running around doing them. Seems like “Not me” does a lot of things, doesn’t he?
Kids who are never called on that grow up to become adults who say, “I can’t be held responsible for my actions. I had bad parents. I had a mean teacher. I lived in the wrong part of town.”
Try that on Judgment Day. When you stand before the throne of God and try to explain to God how every time you acted against Him it was actually someone else’s fault.
Homes where no one’s responsible for his actions are homes where kids can’t be disciplined; where parents aren’t accountable to each other or anyone else. It’s a surefire way to ruin your home. Instead, you could say those 3 magic words: I was wrong. Take responsibility for what you say and do.
7. Instead of Guiding the Family to Obedience to God, Encourage Each Other to Wrong Living
There are several times in Scripture where someone should have been leading the home into obedience, and instead they did the opposite.
9 plagues past, one more remained. The head of each Jewish household was to take the blood of the Passover lamb and mark the doorposts of their home. If they didn’t, the 1st-born of the family would die. Imagine, a hesitant son, questioning if they really had to kill the little lamb. “Can’t we just skip that part?” But a godly father would have said to his family, “No, this is what God said to do. We have to do it.”
There was one father who we know refused. Pharaoh had hardened his heart every other plague. This time was no different. He could have humbled himself and saved the life of his son, but he didn’t.
-Today there are some hard-hearted dads out there who need to see that wrath is coming and they need to be busy making sure their home is covered by the blood of the Perfect Lamb named Jesus!
Adam and Eve are another example of this. They should have been a help to each other. They should have encouraged each other to do what’s right. Instead, they did just the opposite. Eve apparently brought the fruit to Adam and said, “You gotta try this!”
Early in church history there was a couple named Ananias and Sapphira. They sold some land and were going to give the money to the church. Their plan was to keep some of the profit - which was fine – and then tell that the amount they were giving was the whole profit – which was a lie. They planned it together. Instead of sitting at the kitchen table encouraging each other to do what’s right, they planned together to lie, and the Lord struck them both dead.
So, to ruin your home, dare each other, turn a blind eye to each other, set a lousy example for each other. Rather than urging each other to godliness, encourage each other to wrong living. Or, instead, you can do what the Scriptures tell us all to do – to encourage one another to love and good works.
8. Treat Marriage Vows As a Trivial Thing (Malachi, teaching of Jesus, NT epistles)
We live in an age when the power of marital vows has been trivialized. The media makes fun of the idea. The efforts to normalize homosexuality belittle marriage. The prevalence of premarital sex, rampant divorce, the government encouragement of co-habitation by penalizing marriage through taxes, the courts ruling in ways that degrade the sanctity of marriage – they’re all ways of saying that the vows of marriage are really no big deal.
God says they are. God says the covenant vows of marriage are a very big deal. He compares the relationship of marriage to the relationship of Jesus with the Church in Eph 5. And Malachi 2 is another place where God is comparing His relationship with His people to marriage:
Malachi 2:15-16
Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.
Jesus said,
Matthew 19:9
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.
If you want to ruin your home, treat the vows of marriage as a trivial thing. Make them take a back seat to other family issues. Live like you’ve made them before you do. Keep the option of breaking them always in your mind. Soon enough, you’ll ruin your home. Or, you can choose to treat the covenant relationship of marriage as the most serious human relationship in life; you can uphold it and do your part to make others regard it too.
9. Fail To Instruct Children Wholeheartedly, Or At All
For a Bible story about this one, let’s look at Eli the priest.
1 Samuel 2:12
Eli's sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the LORD.
1 Samuel 2:17
This sin of the young men was very great in the Lord's sight, for they were treating the Lord's offering with contempt.
1 Samuel 2:22-25
Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. So he said to them, "Why do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours. No, my sons; it is not a good report that I hear spreading among the Lord's people. If a man sins against another man, God may mediate for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?" His sons, however, did not listen to their father's rebuke, for it was the Lord's will to put them to death.
What we have here is a case of a father who apparently isn’t putting his heart into instructing his sons. Eli had the power to put an end to their behavior. From what we have recorded, Eli could have put a whole lot more effort into rebuking and correcting them. Instead, Hophni and Phineas ended up dead.
It may take a village to raise a child, but unless there’s a home doing it first, that child won’t make much of a village to raise the next generation of kids, will he?
We live in an age of specialization. People study certain disciplines and whenever we need something, we just hire a specialist. Unfortunately, many have thrown their roles of parenting into that mix. After all, parenting is hard work, and I don’t know anyone in the middle of it who thinks he or she is a pro.
So, it’s left up to the teacher, the youth minister, a counselor, a coach, a scout leader, you name it. They’re the professionals.
Let someone else rear the kids. Someone will. That’s another way to ruin your home. Or, instead, parents, you can determine that you’ll accept the task of parenting wholeheartedly, and not turn it over to someone else.
10. Fail To Listen to Parental Instruction
This last point falls on the kids. I know that one day you’ll be on your own and your parents’ authority will cease to be as important as your own choices. But even then your parents’ wisdom will be needed. And until that time, there’s something your home needs.
Proverbs 1:8-9
Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.
Proverbs 4:10
Listen, my son, accept what I say, and the years of your life will be many.
Proverbs 4:20-22
My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body.
Do you want freedom? Security? Growing responsibilities? Follow the instruction of your parents.
But if you want to ruin your home – the one where you’re growing up right now, and the one that will be your own some day – then fail to listen to your parents’ instruction. Ignore it, fight it, question it, work around it, cross the line as often as you can.
Failing to listen to your parents’ instruction is a surefire way to ruin your home. Or, you can choose instead to honor your father and mother, and the promise of Scripture is that it will go well with you and you’ll live a better, longer life.
Conclusion:
Now, I admit this has been a different sort of sermon. I’ve just listed 10 ways to do something that none of us would say we want to do – ruin our homes. What you should do about it is obvious.
Right now, where you are, whether you’re a home of 1 or of 21, you need to look down that list and see if you’re doing anything that threatens to ruin your home.
This business of being a home is full of hazards. Satan knows that if he can ruin us on the home level, he’ll weaken us on the church level. He’s out to ruin both. So, if you want to do a good thing for the Lord, do something good for your home.
The first and best thing you can do for your home is to commit your life to Jesus…
