This message began with a clip from Joseph and the Technicolor DreamCoat. The clip was when the brothers sold Joseph into Slavery and then told Jacob the news.
Wow that is the family that put the fun in dysfunctional.
My Daddy told me once that everybody is good for something even if it’s to serve as a bad example. And if we look at the family of Jacob, You remember Jacob don’t you? He was Abraham’s grandson and Joseph’s father; we discover that they make a great bad example. And it was probably because he had seen the mistakes that his father had made in raising his kids that Joseph seemed to do alright with his children and then later on with his siblings when they were reunited.
Most people know the story of Joseph and his coat of many colours. You either learned it in Sunday School or heard it in a sermon or watched it in Andrew Lloyd Webbers musical, which by the way was the opening clip for this morning’s message.
In case you’ve forgotten the highlights of the story, Jacob had twelve sons but he had one favourite son and that was Joseph. Now I know that we all think that our parents love our siblings more then they love us but Jacob did love Joseph more, it wasn’t a guess it was a given. The bible tells us in Genesis 37:3 Now Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. And just so nobody would doubt how he felt about his youngest son the verse goes on to say So one day he gave Joseph a special gift—a beautiful robe.
Well, the rest of the siblings weren’t blind or stupid they knew how their dad felt about little Joe and Joseph didn’t make it easier for them to like him. We are told that he was quick to tell his father about any mischief the other guys got up to, and then there were the dreams. On two separate occasions he had dreams which he interpreted to mean that he would eventually rule over his brothers. Now in twenty-twenty hind sight we know that those dreams were destined to come true, and you can’t fault Joseph for having the dreams. But did he have to go and tell his brothers about it, after the incident with the pretty coat it would have been like rubbing salt into their wounds.
One day when the rest of the boys were out tending sheep Joseph was home, not tending sheep and his father sent Joe out to check up on the guys. When he arrived, well if it was a movie the music would have changed to a minor key suggesting that something bad was going to happen. I don’t know what the boys had been talking about before Joe came but I would suspect that he was the topic of the conversation because when they saw him the bible tells us that made plans to kill him.
Now if you know the story then you realize that there was a change of heart and instead of killing their little brother they sold him into slavery. I’m glad my older sister never thought of that. Joseph ended up in Egypt and after a number of years and a series of misfortunes and adventures including a couple of year in jail he ends up the most second most powerful man in the kingdom right under the Pharaoh. He married and became the father of two sons. When a famine stretched across what would eventually become Israel, the brothers had to come cap in hand to Egypt looking for food to sustain their families, never imagining that the man they would need to approach would be their long lost brother.
So, if you were Joseph how would you feel? You would have gone from favoured son to slave, gotten a good owner and then you were falsely accused of rape and were thrown in prison, you did someone a favour and thought it would get you sprung but you ended up spending two more years in jail. It’s probably a character flaw on my behalf but I think I would have spent at least a little bit of that time plotting revenge. And now the brothers stand before him, wahah-hah-hah.
But that isn’t what happened, Joseph did have them jump through a few hoops but it was primarily to see if they had changed in the time that had passed and they had. And so listen to what Joseph does to these brother’s who had treated him so, so wrong. It’s found in Genesis 47:11 So Joseph assigned the best land of Egypt—the land of Rameses—to his father and brothers.
Probably not what they expected, certainly the first time I read the story it wasn’t what I expected. And in the years that followed Joseph raised his family and provided for his brother’s families in a way that never happened in the home he grew up in. What was it that made his family different then his father’s family? We can learn from both the good example set by Joseph and the bad example set by his father.
And so from this story I offer six tips for building a stronger family.
1) Pray Hard I don’t think that there can be anything as vital in raising our kids as prayer. Ephesians 6:18 Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all Christians everywhere.
That ought to be etched into the forehead of every parent here, it doesn’t say pray sometimes, or pray occasionally, or pray intermittently but Pray at all times, it is unfortunate but true that we all too often fall into the trap or praying for our kids only when there is trouble. They’re sick and so we pray that God will heal them. They are rebellious so we pray that God will convert them, they get into trouble and we pray that God will help them.
The reality is that we need to carry them to God’s throne room every day of life and not just to ask God to watch out for them, when was the last time that you actually thanked God specifically for your kids.
But let’s be truthful, some days it’s easier to give thanks for your kids then on other days isn’t it? We are probably the odd family out but we have always had problems having family devotions, that’s when you spend time each day reading the Bible and praying with your kids. With us it’s a real hit and miss thing, can anyone else identify with that? But one thing we have done is I pray for and with our kids every morning before they go to school, it isn’t always eloquent but it gets done, and I thank God for giving me a special son and a special daughter and I ask that He will give them a great day at school and keep them safe.
Oh by the way don’t pray that your kids will get to know God unless you’re willing to make the introductions. That is a major part of Proverbs 22:6 Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it.
"But preacher" you say "Don’t you think they should be old enough to know what they are doing." Yep, sure do and I think that most kids are capable of making that decision a lot earlier then we think they are.
Rest assured that the Devil isn’t going to wait until they are an adult to put a claim in on them.
2) Don’t, don’t, Don’t compare your kids to Each Other
Somehow I suspect that the other boys probably got a pile of “Joseph this and Joseph that” when they were growing up, and it didn’t motivate them to be more like Joseph it motivated them to throw him in a well and then sell him into slavery.
Psalm 139:14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvellous—and how well I know it.
The Bible recognizes that God created us as individuals, and we need to realize that with our children, they aren’t clones and you really wouldn’t want that, would you? Besides let’s be honest the only traits that we wished they shared are the positive ones.
Your children are individuals. I have to realize that Stephen and Deborah are two very different people they aren’t clones, and I can’t expect them to act the same or perform the same as each other or like anybody else’s kids. I hope that Mary and Joseph never compared James and Jude and their other children to Jesus. I meant just imagine growing up as Jesus kid brother, your teachers saying, "Why can’t you be more like your brother, why he knows everything" or your Mother saying "Why can’t you be more like your brother, he’s so loving" or your Father saying "why can’t you be more like your brother, he’s never got into any trouble" and everyone saying "Why can’t you be more like Jesus, why he’s perfect" I wonder if Jesus brothers, James and Jude were ever talking and one of them said, "That Jesus, the way people talk about him you’d think he could walk on water."
Respect and love your kids for who they are, not for who you wish they were.
3) Encourage your kids 1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. Paul was telling us that as believers that we have to encourage one another, and I think that goes double or triple for our families especially our children. We need to become our kid’s biggest fan club, not just in general terms , although statements like, "You’re the best son in the whole world" never hurt anyone. We need to tell our kids how proud we are of them, and we should be proud of them. Too often we are guilty of measuring our kids by adult standards and then find that they don’t measure up. But admit it you can’t expect a ten year old to perform like an adult and if those are your expectations then you are bound to be disappointed.
When we see our children’s effort for what it is, and that is the effort of a child, then we can say, "Boy you did a great job of that didn’t you?" When was the last time you said "Do you ever sing good." or "You are some smart" or "You have the prettiest smile in the whole world." We need to encourage our kids every step of the way, and we need to encourage them to be the very best they can be, not the very best our expectations are or the very best that somebody else can be.
They may not grow up to be a nuclear physicist but do you really think that the world needs any more nuclear physicists? It’s all to easy to be silently proud and we can fall into the trap of saying well they know that I’m proud of them. But they won’t know unless you tell them, and it won’t hurt if you brag them up a little bit. I mean if it was all right for God to brag on His Son then it must be all right for you to brag on your kids a little bit right? And God did brag on Jesus, for everyone to hear, listen to what he said at Jesus’ baptism, Mark 1:11 And a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with you.”
4) Model What You Expect. Joseph may have been a bit of spoiled brat as an kid but as an adult he was a man of integrity. When he was propositioned by the wife of his master listen to his response in Genesis 39:9 How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God. If you know the story then you know that she became the woman scorned, claimed that Joseph had raped her and he was imprisoned, and he may have lost his freedom but he didn’t lose his integrity.
One day a little boy’s mom caught his tell a fib. "Do you know" she warned "what happens to little boys who tell lies?" “No what , Mommy?" he asked. "Well," she said, "there is a man up in the moon, a little green man with just one eye, who sweeps down in the middle of the night and flies away to the moon with little boys who tell lies and makes them pick up sticks all the rest of their lives. Now you won’t tell lies any more will you for it’s awfully, awfully naughty."
Nowhere is it truer then at home that more is caught then taught. Now you may be able to rationalize to your satisfaction why you can do something and they can’t by using the standard, "because I’m an adult" but that doesn’t always cut it with a child or a teen. "Do as I say not as I do" is no longer a valid child raising technique. Maybe we ought to change Proverbs 22:6 to read Teach your children to choose the right path, and then walk on it yourself.
For better or for worse your kids will probably grow up just like you, and aint that a thrilling thought. Mini me. And so we need to be a pattern that our children can follow. Every year I see more and more of Captain Burton Guptill creeping into me. And some of those things I like and others I don’t like and some I’m not sure of. And if I’m not real careful my kids will be a lot like Rev. Denn Guptill, the good, the bad and the indifferent. I may not be responsible for everything that my kids do and are, but I will always be responsible for the areas where they followed my example.
5) Your Child Is Not Living When You Lived. Acts 13:36 Now this is not a reference to David, for after David had served his generation according to the will of God, he died and was buried, and his body decayed. Very simply David did what he had to do when he had to do it then he died. This is 2002 it’s not 1972 or 1982 or even 1992 it’s 2002. And our children are living their lives in their days not yours and not mine. Like David they will have to serve God in their own generation. Joseph could have played this one like an orchestra to his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Why when you I was you age I was thrown in a well, sold into slavery, and spent two years in jail, you kids have it easy compared to me. But we have no indication that he did that.
Now I know that things are different now then when you were a kid. And that things weren’t as easy then as they were now. Am I right? The only thing I don’t know is the story that you string to your kids about what it was like when you were growing up. But I can guess. I’m sure that you tell them how you loved school, and always got straight A’s and never talked back to your parents or teachers and how you delivered all of the newspapers in your town no matter what the weather and never complained about anything.
Have you told them yet how you had to get up at four in the morning and break the ice out of the basin to wash and then before dawn you had to milk the 200 cows and split 10 cord of wood before walking 17 miles to school mostly in snow storms, and back then we really had snow. And then when you got home you had to do your chores all over again and study by candlelight and be in bed by six. Am I close?
Hey I understand I’m forty two and every year the winters get colder, the snow gets deeper, the walk to school gets longer, my grades get better, the herd of cows gets larger, and that pile of fire wood gets higher and higher. Son when I was your age.
And the worse part is that I was never an A student, I caught a bus or drove 11 out of 12 of my years in school. We had electric heat so we didn’t burn wood, and never owned a cow. In fact I’m working on a new story to tell the kids. "Kids when I was your age we didn’t have Sega or Nintendo all we had was electronic Pong, remember that? We didn’t have computers we only had calculators and they only added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. And when I was your age we only got two channels on our black and white TV and you had to get up to change those channels." Doesn’t sound as good does it? Maybe I’ll go back to the cows.
Today is 2002, it’s been twenty four years since I was a teenager last and it’s a whole new world out there, and things are a lot different. Our kids have been through a couple of recessions, they unemployment rate for those under 25 is incredibly high; they will inherit a monstrous national debt that will be our legacy to them. I don’t know if I ever used the word terrorist when I was a teen, and the twin towers had just been built. Now our kids have to cope with wonderful travesties of nature like aids and beer is no longer the biggest thrill in town and for that matter neither is grass. These aren’t the simpler times that we grew up in, so let’s not try to convince our kids that they are.
6) Release your kids Genesis 2:24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. We need to realize that our kids aren’t going to be here forever, and if we release them a little bit at a time, it won’t hurt nearly as much when they leave completely.
We all know women that when the last one leaves home they fall apart because they’ve never had a life other then the being a mother. We all know couples who’s marriages fall apart when the last one leaves home because they’ve never know one another as anything other then Mommy and Daddy. Oh by the way that is one very good reason why couples need to get a baby sitter every once in awhile and go out on a date, without the children, gasp!
I heard a family counsellor say once that when the last one leaves home we should have a tear in our eye and a song in our heart. They won’t be ours very long, and for our sake as well as for theirs we need to be preparing them for the day that we will turn them loose on an unsuspecting world.
Did I say six hints? I lied, there are seven.
7) This is probably the most important thing I’ve said today Tell them you love them a hundred times a day.
PowerPoint may be available for this message contact me at denn@bccnet.ca
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