Desperate Families (Pt. 1): “What About Me?” - Commitment
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Isaiah 58:12 (NKJV) - “Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of 7Streets to Dwell In.” (MES) - “You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, and make the community livable again.”
Families around the world are in trouble. Everywhere I travel, it’s the same story. Families in America are in trouble in a time when we have more books, more Dr. Phil’s, Dr. Laura’s, and Oprah’s than any generation before us. Families are in trouble in the church, with all the TV programs, seminars, preaching on the family, and state-of-the-art youth and children’s facilities and programs.
What does it all mean? Is there any hope for the family? The word that we are using to describe the family in this series is “Desperate” (in despair, in great need, very serious, or dangerous; desperation is the state of being desperate, almost reckless).
Dr. Tim LaHaye, author of the blockbuster bestselling series, “Left Behind,” says, “The family is fast becoming the target of humanism; the amoral, atheistic philosophy that pervades our whole culture. In order to protect your home, you need to know what influences saturate your daily life with values that are contrary to your own and to God’s Word. And you need to know what to do about them! A startling number of veteran Christians are choosing divorce as a solution to marital difficulties instead of facing them as sign of spiritual problems that, with God’s help, could be resolved.”
Dr. Pat Fagan says, “Social science data continues to demonstrate overwhelmingly that the intact married family that worships weekly is the greatest generator of human goods and social benefits and is the core strength of the United States. Children in this group are five times less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to have behavior problems at home and school, and are more likely to be cooperative and understanding of others’ feelings. Parents of these children report less stress, healthier parent-child relationships, and fewer concerns about their children’s achievements.”
We are in a battle for the family and, from all outward appearances, it looks like we are losing. That’s why we’re preaching this series for the next six weeks. Our text expresses our confidence that comes from the Lord, Isaiah 58:12 (MES) - “You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.”
I’m an optimist when it comes to saving marriages and families, because I’m keeping my focus on building strong marriages and families. I’m an optimist because I was raised in a strong family and live in one. I’m an optimist because I believe “God is the God of all flesh, and there is nothing too hard for Him.” With God, there are no impossibilities!
Be careful not to be confused by some of the Myths that are floating around in reaction to the desperation in families:
Myth #1: Never discuss divorce with children in strong families — you will upset them.
Truth: Teach your children about the real world and the dangers that others are facing so they can grow up to help rebuild marriages and families.
Myth #2: Avoid mentioning the blessing of strong families to those from broken homes, as you will only further wound and hurt them.
Truth: They must see and hear how they can rebuild their own future around principles that save marriages and families.
Myth #3: The church shouldn’t keep mentioning “traditional family values” or it will offend the growing number of blended or single parent families in our society.
Truth: We must minister to all kinds of new family structures, but always uphold God’s ideal, Biblical family, and raise up Godly generations!
Now, let’s get down to business. Do YOU want a better marriage and stronger family? Let’s take a six-week journey through tested and tried solutions to the “desperation” families face today. Let’s see if we can solve some of these problems with solid answers. This is the passion of our ministry at Gateway.
Dr. Lyle Schaller speaks about “The Four PLACES” that once existed in American life: Home, Neighborhood, School, and Church. Of these four, only the church looks like it can still help “Desperate Families” survive.
We are going to try to answer six key questions that bring desperation and defeat to many families. The first is “What about me?” and we’ll look at the whole issue of COMMITMENT: “to give trust or charge; to consign for safe-keeping.”
There is no place where commitment is more needed than in marriage and family. Without it, parents and children become self-centered, and focused on self, not others.
Paul gives us some good advice about living in harmony in Phil. 2:3-4 - “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” That’s “commitment” — “to consign for safe keeping, to trust.”
Just look around you and see what can happen in a marriage when one or both of the mates put self above their commitment or safekeeping of others. Desperation is the result.
What does “Commitment” involve?
- Interrelationship between parent and child.
- Identification of children with their parents and family.
- Interaction with adults for a child to grow to maturity.
- Physical, emotional, and spiritual contact needing time. “Time is like oxygen - minimal amount needed to survive, less than that amount can cause permanent damage to body, heart, brain.”
Dr. Edward Hoffman (Psychologist-NYC) “Our society — especially our schools, colleges, corporations, medical schools, and hospitals — all seem to view the family as a necessary evil” (rather than an ally)
What can we do to develop and build generational commitment in marriages and families in a society antagonist to Christ?
1. Begin early to prepare our children for Christian marriage and family life.
Malachi warns against “unfaithfulness to the wife of our youth.” God assumed their teaching started young. At Gateway, we are doing it, if you get you children to the “table” to hear. Get your children involved in Children’s and Student Ministry so we can assist you in the training process that every child must have.
Dr. Hoffman says, “It is never too young to start fostering healthy attitudes about marriage and commitment to family long before mid-adolescence” Lubavitcher Sect of Orthodox Judaism trains girls by seven, boys by 12.
It is incredibly important that as Christ-followers, we model loving, successful marriages and families to our children and others. Children must sense that successful marriages and families know how to get past the rough “potholes” in daily life.
Grandparents play a big role in modeling success, because their generation enjoyed it. Vangie and I noted that at my 50-Year Jamaica High School Reunion… the average couple around our table was married over 45 years. That was our generation. Look at what’s happening today!
Studies show that “the learning process for children occurs continuously, even without verbal instruction by parents.” Remember the old saying, “Actions speak louder than words!” We will conduct another Institute in Basic Life Principles this summer to help you build Godly principles into your family life. Call for information now.
2. Keep the marriage covenant and “teach your children well.”
Mal. 2:13 (MES) - “You fill the place of worship with your whining and sniveling because you don’t get what you want from God. Do you know why? Simple. Because God was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride, and now you’ve broken those vows, broken the faith-bond with your vowed companion, your covenant wife. God, not you, made marriage. His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you. Don’t cheat on your spouse. ‘I hate divorce,’ says the God of Israel. ‘I hate the violent dismembering of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.’ So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat.”
When researching the reasons for failure in marriage and family, you get to the root of the problem — lack of commitment to others and focus on self! In an article by Josh Hunt, he chronicles the “Anatomy of an Affair” and identifies “selfishness” as the root cause of most extra-marital affairs.
3. Strengthen your relationship to Jesus and renew your commitment to Him, His Church, His Word, His life in you!
Let the Holy Spirit begin the process of repentance, salvation, and Spirit-led living in your life, marriage, family, and let it begin now. God promises, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.” “Seek first the Kingdom & His righteousness & all the other things (a blessed family) will be added.”
Both successful couples and those who have had failed marriages can help us “raise up the foundations of many generations” — “You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew… You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild & renovate, make the community livable again.”
Desperate families need rebuilders like you and me to help them find hope in despair, light in the dark, and Jesus! Malachi 3:6 gives a prophetic promise that I am standing on today, “But also look ahead: I’m sending Elijah the prophet to clear the way for the Big Day of God—the decisive Judgment Day! He will convince parents to look after their children and children to look up to their parents….”
The Holy Spirit is ready and willing to assist with help for Desperate Families!
Crossings, Pt. 4: From Earth to Eternity
Sunday, April 26, 2009
There are times in our lives when we pass through difficulties, and we simply say, “Thank God, I’m glad that’s over!” I sometimes feel that way as a pastor. We face a great challenge, the going gets tough, and then it’s over. As my Dad used to tell me, “This too shall pass!”
Well, I can just suppose Jesus may have had that sigh of relief, accomplishment, fulfillment, as He was lifted from the earth in a great cloud and went home to the Father in Heaven. What a glorious homecoming that must have been!
We don’t hear much about this “crossing” for Jesus and the disciples, but I want to speak about it today. It is called the Ascension. I call it the “crossing” from earth to eternity. What happened as Jesus crossed over that bridge affects every one of us today, whether we are professing Christians, or true Christ-followers, Christ’s Ascension into heaven….
IT AFFECTS OUR PAST
Acts 1:1-3, Luke writes, “The first account I composed about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.”
With His mission accomplished, the Ascension ends the earthly ministry of Jesus at His first coming 2,000 years ago. Remember, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save those who were lost; the Physician came to heal the sick; the Shepherd came to find the sheep; the Lamb came to be slain for the sins of the people.
Most of the Biblical record about Jesus relates to His earthly ministry in a span of just three years. John 6:38-42- “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.’Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?”
You know, the world is till confused about where Jesus came from and what He came to do. Dr. Donald Barnhouse said, “Jesus Christ was not just a teacher sent from God, but God sent to teach.”
Listen, what Jesus accomplished in those three years of teaching, healing, dying, and rising from the death, makes this “crossing” possible for everyone of us. We can pass from the earthly to the eternal. The moment we believe & trust Him to forgive, restore, and reunite us with the Father, just as He was at His Ascension.
His resurrection and ascension proves that God’s earthly creation can take on the eternal. Paul said that because Jesus became the “first fruits” of the earthly, human flesh, to be resurrected from the dead. He opened the “crossing” into heaven for all of the redeemed, born-again Christ-followers through all the ages.
Eph. 4:5-10 (NIV) - “There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.”
(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)
I want to tell you the good news today. You can make the crossing with Jesus over the “bridge of hope” for salvation, forgiveness, a clean slate from the past sin and shame that may have engulfed your life. The Ascension affects our past!
IT INFLUENCES OUR PRESENT
This is incredible. As Jesus ascends into heaven, He makes His Disciples a promise. Listen to Luke in Acts 1:4-9 (MES) - “As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but ‘must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon.’ When they were together for the last time they asked, ‘Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?’ He told them, ‘You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.’ These were His last words.”
Jesus’ last words form the pivotal message of hope for every believer from Pentecost to today. “You will receive power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” In Acts 2:38-39, Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
Every born-again Christ-follower has received what Jesus said He would give us after He ascended back to the Father in heaven. John 16:7- “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” From John 14:16-18 - “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
Christ lives in every true believer, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “Greater is He Who is in you, then he who is in the World.” At Pentecost, 10 days after Ascension, we potentially crossed from weakness and failure to power and victory!
That’s why Paul could say (Phil. 4:13) - “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” (MES) “Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.”
If you haven’t crossed this bridge of hope, do it today. Ask God to fill you life each day with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, guiding and controlling your life, marriage, family, business, ministry.
IT IMPACTS OUR FUTURE
ACTS 1:9-11 - “And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.’”
Remember Jesus promise to His disciples in John 14:1-3 - “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
Talk about a result of the Ascension, Jesus is there in the heavenly right now involved in at least two special activities:
- He is sitting at the Throne at the right hand of the Father, interceding on behalf of all believers here on earth. Hebrews 4:14-16 (NLT) - “So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, & we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
Listen, thank God for Mary and all the saints in heaven, but you don’t have to pray to them. Paul said in I Tim. 2:5-6 - “There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”
- He is also in a building program, preparing our eternal homes. Listen to John 14:1-2 (NLT) - “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you…”
That’s the blessed hope we have as Christ-followers. Jesus will return to rapture His Church, all the born-again believers, just like he said he would.
In August 1914, Ernest Shackleton set out from England to Antarctica with a crew. In January 1915, ship trapped in ice pack. In April 1916, Shack and 5 men, set out to get help. Finally on Aug. 30, he returned to rescue the crew. Frank Wild was left to command the men, and had them ready for the slim chance of Shack’s return. When the moment came, they rushed off the cracking ice just in time because they were ready. Later, it was noted that almost daily, Wild would say, “Boys, roll up your sleeping bags, the boss may be here today” so when the “boss” actually did return, they were ready!”
Are YOU? You can be, if you make this crossing.
