Family Secrets
Deut. 6:4-9
Introduction:
HOW TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE READY TO HAVE KIDS:
MESS TEST
Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.
TOY TEST
Obtain a 55 gallon box of Legos (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.
GROCERY STORE TEST
Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight & pay for anything they eat or damage.
DRESSING TEST
Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.
FEEDING TEST
Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.
NIGHT TEST
Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag & fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it in water. At 3:00pm begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00p.m. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00pm.Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00a.m. Set alarm for 5:00. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
AUTOMOBILE TEST
Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
PHYSICAL TEST (Women)
Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans. And try not to notice your closet full of clothes. You won’t be wearing them for a while.
PHYSICAL TEST (Men)
Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a
newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.
FINAL ASSIGNMENT
Find a couple who already has a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child’s table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.
There are so many dysfunctional families today.
A dysfunctional family is dysfunctional because of unmet needs.
Whether it¡¦s:
„h a physical need,
„h an emotional need,
„h an intellectual need or
„h a spiritual need, dysfunctional families are dysfunctional because somebody, sometime, somewhere failed to meet a need.
That¡¦s why you find throughout the Bible dysfunctional families.
„h Isaac had a dysfunctional family!
„h Jacob had a dysfunctional family!
„h David had a dysfunctional family!
„h And then there was Judge Eli!
Now Eli¡¦s family perhaps was similar to many families today.
Eli was a faithful man.
He had a duel responsibility at the church as both priest and judge.
Eli was also a family man.
He had two sons who grew up to be priest like their daddy.
But there was something wrong in his home.
Eli was a success professionally but a failure domestically.
Eli reminds me of Billy Sunday, the great evangelist. As he was out winning the world he neglected his children. In fact, all of his children turned from the faith and several became alcoholics. And at the end of his ministry, Billy Sunday said, I have won the entire world to Christ, but have lost my family.
It¡¦s apparent that Eli made some tragic mistakes with his family.
If we make the same mistakes, our homes can be ruined too.
Read text.
Everybody wants to know what the secret is to having a good home.
It¡¦s really no secret because God has revealed His plan in His book.
I¡¦ll give you some things that I believe is important to building a solid foundation for a home.
A good home must have:
I. LOVE
Several years ago, a murky alligator and snake filled bayou near Mobile, Alabama became the temporary grave of 47 people. At 70 miles per hour, an Amtrak train plunged its four leading cars into that bayou on a foggy, dark, Alabama morning just before 3:00 a.m. Moments before this accident, a towboat had errantly entered the bayou, striking the bridge and weakening it. It was so remote an area that it took two hours for helicopter assistance to arrive. Emergency vehicles could only get within six miles of the accident. One of the known heroes on this early morning was a man named, Michael Dopheide. He saved the lives of 30 passengers that morning. He had just received his tax law degree from DePaul University and he was heading to Florida to visit his sister. He treaded water in that 25 foot deep bayou, coaxing people to jump six feet to him, grabbing their arms when they would surface the water. The people he saved included, a two year old, an elderly lady and an eleven year old girl with cerebral palsy. Andrea, this cerebral palsy victim was traveling with her mom and dad, Geray and Mary Jane Chancey. When water filled their train car on that eerie morning, the Chanceys pushed their daughter into the hands of her rescuers. This act of love was Geray and Mary Jane Chancey’s last act on this earth. Moments later, they drowned. Their act of love may be the greatest act of love I have ever read in my life, besides what Jesus did for us.
Our world is obsessed with looking for a feeling.
There is nothing wrong with feelings as long as their foundation is in God¡¦s Word.
But remember that Satan uses certain feelings to lead many astray.
As Christians, we are taught to build upon facts, not feelings.
„h Our salvation is built upon fact, not feeling.
„h Our homes should be built upon commitment, not feeling.
When we were married, we made a commitment to love our wives or husband.
We said, ¡§Until Death Do Us Part.¡¨
That does not mean:
- Until one of us kills the other,
- Until one decides to quit,
- Until we hit tough times,
- Until I see someone else who is more sexy,
- Until I find someone who is not so bossy,
- Until my wife makes more money than I do,
- Until his kids and my kids start having trouble with our kids,
- Until I find out my wife is a nag,
- Until I find out my husband is a tightwad,
- Until we become "Incompatible,"
- Until I need to "find myself,"
- Until I go through mid-life crises,
- Until she becomes dead in bed,
- Until I don’t feel fulfilled,
- Until "We just don’t love each other any more."
So the question is:
„h Will you choose to love God?
If we love Him, we will be obedient.
1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
„h Will you choose to love your family?
If you do, your priority will reveal itself through:
- Your Time
- Your Telling
- Your Tenderness
II. LOYALTY
A shepherd and his small dog once came to live in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. The animal was so loyal to his owner that he followed him everywhere. Some time later the man died and was buried in the local cemetery. Hardly anyone noticed the little dog trailing behind the mourners; but after they left, he went and sat down on the shepherd’s grave. He stayed there not for a day, a week, or a month, but the rest of his life! Interested people gave him food and water, and he never left the spot where his master had been laid to rest. After 12 years he finally died at his post of vigilance. That was faithfulness! O, that we as Christians would show the same kind of devotion to our Lord.
One of the greatest lessons in loyalty is found in the book of Ruth.
A. Loyalty Causes One To Look Past Self.
Ruth was not self-centered she was other’s centered.
By staying with Naomi, Ruth was committing herself to a probable future of poverty, hard work and separation from her native land.
Yet, she was loyal to her family.
There has been an unfortunate shift in the pop psychology of our culture toward self-centeredness - judging all relationships by the standard of whether or not my needs are being met and if they’re not.
Then they dissolve that relationship regardless of who else is affected.
ILL ¡V Story of Kurt B.
B. Loyalty Causes One To Look Past Suffering.
An elderly man was on his deathbed and his wife was there. The man said "Maevis, you’ve always been there. You were there through my bankruptcy in ’42. You were there through my car accident in ’53. You were there through that earthquake in ’64. You were there through my heart-attack in ’75. And now you’re here as I lay dying. Maevis...you’ve been a curse to me all of my life!"
Isn’t that what a lot of people would think in Ruth’s sandals?
Here she has a mother-in-law who, within the span of a few short years, left her hometown because of famine and lost her husband and both her sons to sudden death.
Some would say "What is with that woman? Is she jinxed?
They would be so quick to bale out of this situation.
But, Ruth was loyal.
A little boy was talking to his daddy one time and he said, ¡§Dad, where were you born?" He said, "Well, I was born in Kentucky." He said, "Well, where was mother born?" He said, "Well, she was born in Indiana." He said, "Well, where was I born?" He said, "You were born in Georgia." He said, "Where was baby sister born?" He said, "She was born in Alabama."
Then the little boy broke out into a huge grin and said, "Dad, isn’t it great that God got us all together."
We need homes that will be loyal to:
„h The Word of God
„h The Work of God
„h The Ways of God
All those have to be engrained into a child ¡V by word and example.
III. LEADERSHIP
The ancient philosopher, Socrates, once said: "Could I climb the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim: ’Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrap every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your children, to whom one day you must relinquish it all?’ "
As leaders in the home, there are five things that must be done in order to enjoy the favor and blessings of God.
All homes should:
A. Receive the Lord.
Our number one priority is to see to it that all are saved.
We must help all to understand:
„h There is a God.
„h There is only one God.
„h That God is Lord.
„h That God is to be our Lord.
B. Revere the Lord.
It is not enough to teach our families about the reality of God.
They must also be taught about our responsibility to God.
When we love the Lord, we won¡¦t serve Him half-heartedly.
„h We are to love the Lord faithfully.
„h We are to love the Lord fervently.
Delta Airlines has a slogan that we know so well, ¡§We love to fly, and it shows.¡¨
Well, we ought to love God so much that it shows, and our families can see it.
I heard about a preacher that was talking to a group of kids one time at a Sunday School Class, and he asked them this question, "Why do you love God?" He got a variety of answers as he went down the line. But the one that he liked best came from a little boy sitting on the end of a row, that said, "I don’t know why I love God, preacher. I guess it just runs in my family."
C. Reverence the Lord.
In this chapter in Deut., Moses tells the Hebrews to ¡§fear the Lord.¡¨
Parents ought to show:
„h by the way we live,
„h by the language we use,
„h by the places we go,
„h by the television programs we watch,
„h by the books that we read,
That we fear the Lord!
We had better fear the Lord, not only for our sake, but for our children’s sake.
I have noticed when dads work on Sunday, the sons grow up and don¡¦t come to church (David G).
Listen to the words of Moses in chapter five and verse twenty-nine:
O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!
The father is to be like an umbrella over the family. And the father serves as an umbrella to protect the family; to shelter the family; to give security to the family.
And that umbrella of love and protection and security just covers the family and what happens is when a father neglects that call, raindrops of sin come through the umbrella and as the father sins there are holes in the umbrella and evil comes through and it gets on the wife and the children and all the other activities of the family.
So fathers are umbrellas, providing security and protection and love to each and every member of the family, when they learn to reverence the Lord..
D. Reflect the Lord.
God, from the beginning, intended for the home to be the university of life, where:
„h the parents are the teachers,
„h the children are the students, and
„h the curriculum is the Word of God.
May I tell you how important that is?
Home is where the next generation decides how it is going to live.
Our homes are to be a lighthouse for God.
The Word of God and the God of the Word ought to saturate our living room, dining room, bedroom, laundry room, and playroom.
People should know when they walk into our home that Jesus is the unseen guest, but the welcome Master.
There are basically three lessons you teach in that home every day.
You teach your children:
„h to find the will of God,
„h to obey the Word of God, and
„h to walk in the ways of God.
E. Remember the Lord.
Read verses 13-15.
Now when a nation forsakes God, it begins to ask the question, "Who needs God?"
This is exactly what happened to the Nation of Israel.
When you study their history, after they entered into the promise land, where God planted them, protected them, then prospered them, you find that they went through four stages of spiritual corruption.
1) First, there was independence;
2) then there was indulgence;
3) then there was indifference; and
4) then there was irreverence.
But the greatest weapon we have against sin, Satan, and a sick, selfish, society, is a godly home.
Let¡¦s remember the Lord.
Seek the Lord while He may be found, tomorrow may be too late.
Conclusion:
I read about a young pre-med student awhile back, got a job in one of our hospitals. And he had the privilege of holding the heart of a patient, while Dr. Denton Cooley operated on that person. He held that human heart for over an hour in his hands. This young man said, I’ll tell you, you can’t imagine how it feels to hold a human heart while it’s beating in your hand and to have one of the foremost surgeons in all the world operating on the back side of that heart. A human heart in your hand.
Every one of us here, hold the heart of our son or our daughter in our hand in a way that we can’t even imagine.
We don’t have to be a pediatric heart surgeon to do that.
We can damage the heart of a child in a way that all the surgeon of the world can do nothing about it.
As dads, we must realize that we hold the heart of our children in our hands.
What are we going to do with it?
