Keys To A Healthy Family?
Thesis: We need to learn the keys to having a healthy family if we want to fend off the attack of the enemy on our families.
Texts: Ephesians 5: 1-33; I Corinthians 13
Introduction:
Good News for the family shared by Gary Collins in Family Shock:
Ø Despite all the change and turmoil that disrupts family life. God is still aware of what is going on and is still in control.
Ø If most people had to do it over, they would marry the same spouse they have now.
Ø Even though divorce rates are high, most marriages stay intact.
Ø While 3 percent of women living with men in America suffer at least one violent domestic incident during a given year, the good news is 97 percent do not.
Ø The majority of families are not seriously dysfunctional. Most kids do not become “adult children of dysfunctional family backgrounds, “ and most of us are not in need of recovery.
Ø No family is perfect and without problems and periodic crisis.
Ø All parents make mistakes, but most of their kids survive very well, even without therapy and twelve –step programs.
Ø When families and marriages have problems, counselors can often help.
Ø It is possible (but admittedly more difficult) to have good marriages, healthy families, and stable kids even when we live in bad environments or in chaotic, immoral, God-rejecting society.
Ø We can raise kids successfully even if we don’t have all the answers.
Ø We can raise kids successfully even if we haven’t read parenting and marriage books and even if we aren’t perfect.
Ø Even good parents sometimes have rebellious kids.
Ø Even bad parents sometimes have healthy, adjusted kids.
Ø When things are not going well in your family, that does not mean that all is hopeless. Often ”this too will pass.”
Ø We won’t understand everything that happens to us.
Ø God cares about each of our families.
But the key we need to lean is we need to build families that are strong and flexible and able to stand firm in the storms and changes this society is bringing against it. Building strong family units takes work and sweat but it’s possible. God promises to give us the desires of our heart if we place him first in our lives. The family is his design and plan for every person on the face of the earth. We are all part of a family.
I want you to say the word “Family” with me. What rushes through your mind? Often we think of examples of families and shows that portray them, the Waltons, Huxtebals, Leave it to Beaver, Partridge Family,7th Heaven, the Brady Bunch, Andy Griffith show and the thoughts go on. So what is a family?
The Family was and is designed by God. It was designed to be a place of safety from the world. It’s a environment were the art of nurturing takes place. It’s a location were children are born and raised. It’s were love takes place on a daily basis. It’s were encouragement is dished out in large doses. Were discipline is found and respect is taught. It’s a place that changes and adapts with time. It goes from taking care of the infants - to the toddlers - to the pre-teens - to the teenager and eventually to sending them off as adults into the world to build their own family units. Know you now why I say, “The family takes a lot of work!”
A family will go through several stages.
Stage One – The family begins at the, “I do’s” and a couple is birthed. It’s the stage were dying to self takes place.
Stage Two- The couple’s life is dramatically changed at the arrival of the first child. Now comes heaps of responsibility and stress.
Stage Three – The children grow up out of the toddler years and start school. The family is apart more and life becomes more hectic with school age children. Families can drift apart if they are not careful here.
Stage Four – Now the children reach adolescence and life changes quickly. Turmoil enters the family unit. Hormones invade the home. Expenses go up for couples in this stage. There are more activities and more separation of the family individuals. There are more choices to make and peer pressures. The family helps here in guidance and direction while allowing the child now teen to become and individual and to move to individuation. This is a hard time for the family and can tear it apart if it is not healthy.
Step Five- the empty nest is another difficult passage were the couple finds themselves a couple again with their children gone. Children no longer are the focus of their family unit. Now mom and dad look to each other for companionship.
Stage Six- Then comes Grandchildren but it’s still very different. You can see why we need the healthy keys of a strong family if we are going to thrive, adjust, flex and stay together through these life stages.
T.S.- Let’s look at the keys needed to build a healthy family unit.
I. The first key is God is the foundation on which the family is to be built on. He is to be our Master Architect. He is our firm foundation!
a. This is why Ephesians 5:1 tells us to imitate God – We need to be like him in the family and in the relationships within the family. We need to act and react like him.
i. We need to use his blueprints and build on the foundation he has laid out for the family.
b. This means love radiates out of our lives as leaders in the family.
i. When we say love we mean genuine authentic love! Like God!
ii. Ephesians 5:1-4 (Message) Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. Don’t allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed. Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, Christians have better uses for language than that. Don’t talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn’t fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.
iii. We need to have extravagant love.
c. Just like I Corinthians 13: If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
d. With God as the foundation and the model we discover the healthy family unit starts to emerge by God like actions and is built upwards.
i. When we build according to his plans and use his resources the healthy family emerges out of ground and grows.
ii. There are two questions that I want you to think about:
1. Since God created the first family and it was good why should we not follower the master builders plan for a healthy family?
2. Why should we even listen to the world’s view on how to build a family when all their families break apart in the storms of life?
iii. Ephesians tells us what not to do in verses 1-16
1. No evil ways no immorality, harsh language, swearing at each other, put downs, character assassination, no sexual promiscuity, no lies, no deception, don’t listen to the what the what the world tells you to do.
2. These types of behavior and actions will destroy the family not build a family.
a. Illustration of how people listen to empty words of the world. Talk about Dobson’s show on people who have affairs.
i. They start to listen to the deceptive empty words of the world. It comes slowly and they start to justify that it’s okay by God!
ii. The enemy enters the family through open doors – do you have any?
3. We need to lives of wisdom! Wisdom from above it says in James. Wisdom from God’s teaching and instruction.
a. Wisdom that brings life not death-blessings not curses.
iv. Ephesians 5:17 says it again “17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
1. What is God’s Will for the family? To honor him and reflect his nature.
v. Ephesians 5:18 (NIV) 18Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
1. Warning is don’t get drunk because it leads to debauchery.
a. In 4 out of 5 suicide attempts alcohol was involved.
b. Alcohol is involved in 38% of the deaths caused by drowning.
c. Alcohol is involved in 38% of the fatalities on the road.
d. Alcoholism has lead to people doing more evil things than anything else. Sexual rape, incest, child abuse, domestic abuse.
i. A pole last night on KTIS said that alcohol is involved in 75% of date rape cases on college campuses.
ii. In 2/3 of the cases were there was violent behavior against family members alcohol was involved.
e. In violent crimes such as homicide alcohol was involved over 67 % of the time.
f. Families have been destroyed because of alcoholism.
2. Instead of being alcoholics we need to be spiritualaholics.
a. Ephesians 5:19-20(NIV) 19Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
i. We need to sing praise to each other, we need to make music in our heart and really experience a high that is so much greater than alcohol or drugs can give.
ii. We need to get high on giving God thanks.
iii. This is what happens on Saturday night at IHOP.
iv. It’s a Heavenly High!
v. This is the best high you could get on Saturday night any where in Amery.
II. The Second key to a healthy family unit is spelled commitment to submission.
a. Remember last week’s message “I do!”
b. Submission means the act of surrendering to a decision or action of another.
i. Ephesians 5:21 (NIV) 21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
1. We in the family need to submit to one another because this brings great highs and great joy to the family.
ii. Ephesians 5:22 (NIV) 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
1. Wives need to submit to their husbands as they would to the lord.
iii. Ephesians 5:23 (NIV) 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
1. Yes, the husband is suppose to be the head of the family leading the way but he needs to be Christ like while doing it. He needs to be a servant leader like Jesus.
2. He said, “Not my will Lord but your will be done!”
3. We are to be Servant Leaders whose three motto’s are:
a. “I chose to Lose!”
b. “I will not Quit!”
c. “No Pride!”
4. It’s called self-sacrifice! The Christ like thing to do!
iv. Ephesians 5:24 (NIV) 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
1. In the spiritual realm wives need to submit to there husbands as he follows Christ.
v. Ephesians 5:25 (NIV) 25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
1. Husbands need to love their wife and family like Christ loves the church.
2. You need to open up your arms on the cross and die to yourself and live for the Lord and serve your family with the help of God.
vi. Ephesians 5:26, 27 (NIV) 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
1. If you build on God’s foundation and follow his blueprints your family will be clean and holy.
2. We need to present our families to God without a hint of evil in them. No stains - no wrinkles - no compromise. As we seek to ruthlessly keep evil out of our families God will bless them.
3. No works of the flesh only the fruit of the spirit.
a. No porno
b. No immorality
c. No drugs
d. No selfishness
e. No ego – edging God out!
f. No deception
c. This act of commitment also involves love – Jesus like Agape love – it’s a love that sacrifices for others, that treats people like God would treat people. It always loves and always forgives and always protects. It’s a love like most men have for themselves.
i. Ephesians 5:28 (NIV) 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
1. Men we need to love our wives and our families like our own bodies.
ii. Ephesians 5:29 (NIV) 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—
1. We need to feed them and care for them just like we take care of ourselves. Both physically and spiritually.
iii. Ephesians 5:30 (NIV) 30for we are members of his body.
1. Why because we are members of the Body of Christ!
iv. Ephesians 5:31 (NIV) 31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
1. The goal of the husband and wife is to become one because that’s what makes up an imitator of God. The husband and wife are to work together as one and imitate God’s character through the two working in unity.
v. Ephesians 5:32 (NIV) 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
1. We become one with Christ as we unite together and it’s symbolic of the relationship Christ has with his bride the church.
2. Of the world’s three great institutions - the home, the church, and the state - the home is the oldest and most sacred. The home consists of the family unit, which is the cohesiveness that holds society together. The family is bonded together by the union of two individuals who unite in love and make a covenant relationship with each other and with God.
III. The third key to a healthy family unit is loyalty and faithfulness to your marriage and spouse.
a. We must have strong moral values.
b. Infidelity creeps up on a marriage because of broken relationships and lack of love for the other.
c. Faithfulness to the marriage is a matter of honoring God’s way.
IV. The fourth key is Respect for your spouse as a best friend.
a. You must want to please and support the other.
i. See Ephesians 5:33: 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
b. This means being a partner in the family.
i. This means communicating in a positive way.
1. We in the family unit must have 10 positive remarks to every one negative remark we make.
2. When couples go for counseling their number one complaint is communication chaos.
3. Communication breakdown happens when respect is gone.
ii. Respect and honor for your spouse is essential.
c. This means supporting the other in dealing with the children. In other words mom and dad are always on the same side.
d. This means showing others that you love each other in public and private. This also includes the children.
V. The fifth key is you need to be a good parent.
a. A good parent is one who does the following:
i. You have your spiritual life in order and you are focused on Jesus.
1. This means that your spiritual commitment directs your life and the way you respond to life issues.
ii. You are not satisfied with being a survivor of parenthood.
1. You actually want to enjoy life and benefit from raising your kids.
2. You want to make a difference and it shows in your kids.
iii. You understand that you are accountable to God for the way you raised your children.
1. Deut. 6:1-9: 1These 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, 2so 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. 3Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.5Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7Impress 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. 8Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
2. You realize raising your children for God has divine rewards and a divine purpose.
iv. You have learned that personal happiness comes from self-sacrifice not self-gratification.
v. You model for your children a Biblical lifestyle and exhibit being a good role model. Ephesians 5
vi. Love is spelled time!
1. Good parents spend time with each other and with their kids.
VI. The sixth key is you need to have a strong faith in God and be willing to pass it on to your kids. You need to be their teacher.
a. You are intentional about you faith.
b. You teach your kids to pray.
c. You share His story, your story to your kids, then they pass on their story.
d. When the church and families unite God does miracles.
e. Humorous things our mothers taught us: See List!
VII. The seventh key is having the willingness to forgive and be forgiven.
a. Why should you forgive?
b. Charles Stanley gives us reasons why in his book The Gift of Forgiveness.
i. He states, “A person who has an unforgiving spirit is always the real loser, much more so than the one against whom the grudge is held.” He adds, “Un-forgiveness, by its very nature, prevents individuals from following through on many specifics of the Christian life and practically necessitates that they walk by the flesh rather than by the spirit “(17,18).
ii. He also expounds in his book on how un-forgiveness devastates the one who refuses to forgive. Let me summarize them.
1. When we choose to not forgive in one relationship we discover that it spills into other relationships and it destroys them.
2. When the unforgiving person stands around and waits for the other to make restitution he loses out on life because they never make any progress in their game. That sad fact is as they are standing around waiting they form fleshly patterns of behavior and incorrect thought processes.
3. Stanley states, “Regardless of how wrong the other person may have been, refusing to forgive means reaping the corruption in life. And that corruption begins in one relationship including the relationship with God, and works its way into all the rest” (25,26).
c. John MacArthur gives us reasons why we need to forgive in his book and series, The Art of Giving and Receiving Forgiveness.
i. Un-forgiveness imprisons people in the past.
1. I always say don’t let the past dictate the future.
ii. Un-forgiveness provokes bitterness.
1. The Bible calls it the root of bitterness in Hebrews 12:15.
2. He states, ‘Bitterness is the cancer of the heart.”
a. Forgiveness is the most godlike act that a person can do.
b. Forgiveness affirms unmerited love.
c. God promises his love to those who forgive others.
d. Forgiveness prevents hate.
e. Un-forgiveness results in discipline by God.
f. The unforgiving will not be forgiven by God.
d. Jesus makes it very clear that we have to forgive. This is the primary reason we are to forgive others because He said so.
Conclusion:
Theodore Roosevelt said in 1917, “No other success in life-not being president, or being wealthy, or going to college, or writing a book, or anything else-comes up to the success of the man or woman who can feel that they have done their duty and that their children and grandchildren rise up and called them blessed.”
Chuck Swindoll said of the family, “Whatever else may be said about the home, it is the bottom line of life, the anvil upon which attitudes and convictions are hammered out. It is the place where life’s bills come due, the single most influential force in our earthly existence.”
Summary of 7 points:
1. Build on God’s foundation and use his blue prints.
2. Commit and submit to each other and the family unit.
3. Be loyal and faithful to the family and to each other.
4. Respect each other in the family.
5. Be a good Godly parent.
6. Teach your kids about the Lord and his ways.
7. Forgive one another like Christ forgave each of us.
