Part 27: FULL. Part 9 Why God Ordained the Family

Transcription

1 Part 27: FULL Part 9 Why God Ordained the Family A. Today, we will finish the series: Why God Ordained the Family. 1. I always marvel how the Word of God can set people free. When He gives us a Word about a particular subject, that Word contains the anointing and authority to make it happen. If He gives a Word on physical healing, the anointing to heal is in that Word. A Word about finances could provide the anointing for your next financial breakthrough. If the message is about salvation, souls will be saved. 2. We have been watching this principle work among our church families. Several who were in the process of divorce have canceled the proceedings and decided to let God work things out. One couple that was already divorced has renewed their covenant vows. How I thank God for these testimonials! 3. Two of our members who were living together and raising children but were never married have honored God s Word by performing the marriage vows. I am so grateful for their decision to obey God. 4. On this last week of the series, I believe God wants to heal families who are in crisis. Get ready for your miracle! Saving Your Family Text:

2 Hebrew 11:7 (NKJV) - By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark FOR THE SAVING OF HIS HOUSEHOLD, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. (The NIV says,...to save his family. ) B. Without a doubt, this is a very challenging time for families. 1. In our world, we must deal with the stress of a job and career, the challenge of raising children, money problems, and a rapidly changing society when we re told it s okay to throw away everything we ve ever been taught. No wonder people are suffering from such unbelievable pressure! And some families don t survive. 2. The enemy is diligently working to destroy what is precious to you. If there should be any weakness in your commitment to God or your family, the enemy will use it to cause failure and division. That s why you need this message! Jesus told Simon Peter: a. Luke 22:31 (NKJV) - Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. b. In other words, he wants to separate you from all that really matters and that causes division. 3. The enemy s most effective way of hurting us is to attack our families and homes. I m sure you know many who are in conflict right now. In these crazy times, it s so easy for people to mess up their lives and destroy their own homes. 4. A host of family stresses, combined with Hollywood s lack of moral values, are taking its toll on marriages and relationships. With Hollywood s lack of values and zero dependence upon the Word of

3 God, many families never work their way through their problems. They just fall apart. 5. But in spite of all the bad news, young couples should not be afraid to raise a family You don t have to be fearful about the future of your children and grandchildren. 6. Do not allow a spirit of fear to grip your heart. When circumstances become severe, God s grace abounds even more! Your part is to cover and protect your family. 7. To have a home with faithful, committed members, you must fight for your wife or husband, and your children. As you do, remember that God is fighting right alongside you. If we save the world and fail to save our own families, we ve fallen short of success. C. Not only can a family in crisis survive, you can become the envy of your community and church! 1. You don t have to throw it all away and give up. There are steps you can take and someone you can turn to. You are not alone! 2. Noah was so moved with godly fear for the safety of his family, he decided to do something about it. He saved his family from the coming storm by building an ark. 3. Fathers and mothers who were too busy partying and doing their own thing refused to join Noah and were destroyed! But Noah chose to save his family and not allow them to perish. As the leader of his home, he sought God about what to do and then did it! 4. The Holy Spirit is asking, Will you take the necessary steps to save your marriage and family? It took many long years of hard work for Noah and his sons to build the ark. How much work and

4 effort is your family worth? How far will you go to save them? If you follow Noah s example, you ll find that God will also help you! 5. Noah took a firm stand for righteousness. In the midst of gross sin and wickedness, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Those who stand for righteousness today will also receive God s grace! 6. Our families are constantly being exposed to sin and temptation. It s all around us, pulling on us, talking to us, and promising... No one will ever know. I pray that each one of us will find God s grace, every day. 7. Our children deal with situations and temptations that their parents and grandparents never faced. Some of our kids won t make it. Lured by forces of seduction and distraction, people fall; marriages fail; relationships come apart at the seams. 8. This message is for the healing of families in crisis. Let me give you some ways to turn your marriage and family around. Your kids can be saved, no matter how far away they have drifted. Let s save our marriages and believe God to produce loving families again. D. Step One: Stop the fighting! 1. Call a truce; halt the hemorrhaging; cool the emotions. Before any type warfare can cease, both sides must agree on a ceasefire. 2. At times, silence is much more important than words. When Israel marched around Jericho, their silence brought victory as much as the shouting. When you can march around a problem without saying a word, you re on the way to a breakthrough. It takes a strong person to be silent when facing a challenge. 3. When Israel shouted on the seventh day, it was already too late for the enemy to react. God had been working on the problem while

5 Israel remained silent. With no shouting matches, complaints, or confusion, they allowed Him to do what He does best. It may be hard to do, but for the sake of everyone involved, silence can be golden. 4. Stop reacting and fighting about what your spouse or kids are doing. Be firm in your stand but don t fight. Let God fight for you. Shhhh! Shhhh! Just be quiet for a while and let things de-escalate. E. Step Two: Love on each other. 1. I didn t say to love each other, but to love on each other! Many husbands love their wives, but never express their feelings. And all the while, she s dying on the inside, wishing he would show some verbal affection. Likewise, many wives love their husbands, but never tell him with words. Many parents love their teenagers and the kids love their parents, but neither of them take the time to express their love to each other. 2. Again, don t just love your family; love on them. Act like you love them; tell them you love them. 3. Pastor Jentzen Franklin tells the story of Tom Fred Tenney calling to say, Jentzen, God said for you to hug your kids...and then hung up the phone without another word. Jentzen said that one of his kids had been involved in things that made him feel like killing him instead of hugging him. The conflict in their home was so terrible, Jentzen had considered resigning from his church and leaving the ministry. But when he hugged his kids, they melted and everything changed! 4. There is definitely a time to address wrong actions. You can t allow things that will destroy a family to go unchecked. If you don t

6 confront the situation, things will only get worse. But sometimes, you ve got to just wrap your arms around that husband, wife, or family member and say, I love you and I mean it. I can t accept what you re doing, but I love you! That s what Jesus did for each of us. He loved us in spite of our wrong deeds and actions. F. Step Three: Make your home into God s dwelling place. 1. Ask God to live in your house not just your heart. We think that church can only be a building with a steeple. But that s not so. In Acts, chapter 2, the Holy Spirit filled the house where they were sitting. The upper room was actually the upper story of someone s home that was filled with the Holy Spirit! 2. In my younger days, I remember visiting in the homes of prayer warriors. You could feel something in their house. There was a peace, a sense of tranquility that is seldom seen or felt today. 3. When I visit a home as their pastor, at times you can feel a vicious undercurrent of strife and tension. The blaring television in the corner is filling the atmosphere with all sorts of wickedness. Don t let that be the place where you live. Fill your home with the presence of God. We re not supposed to visit God s house on Sunday and then leave His presence at the church. 4. In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant represented the physical manifestation of the Presence of God. For several months the Ark resided in the home of Obed-edom. And believe me, when His presence is in your home, incredible things begin to happen. The Bible says that God blessed Obed-edom s home with an overwhelming abundance of His favor and blessing.

7 5. What makes Obed-edom s story so extraordinary is the fact that he was not a member of the tribe of Levi. He was a Gittite from Gath, one of the major Philistine cities. That also means that he was not an Israelite, but a Philistine the archenemy of the nation of Israel. But astonishingly, when the Ark came to rest in his house, Obededom fell in love with God s presence as he ministered to Him and protected the Ark of the Covenant. 6. When David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Mt. Zion, Obededom accompanied the Ark and became part of the Levitical priesthood. But there s more. Obed-edom had 70 descendants who had been exposed to the presence of God while the Ark was in his home. Not a single one of his children and grandchildren failed to minister in the Tabernacle of David and to love and serve God. Not one of them was lost. 7. In contrast, wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel served idol gods and made no place for the true God in their home. They also had 70 descendants; but unlike Obed-edom, all of their family members were beheaded by Jehu when God instructed him to overthrow Ahab s wicked regime. All of their children perished and were lost. 8. Mom and Dad, if you make your physical home into a dwelling place for God, you can save both your children and grandchildren. Turn your home into a place that welcomes His presence. This very day you can make a decision that will affect your family far into the future. Your great-grandchildren can be serving God instead of being strung out on drugs, in prison, or members of a gang because you chose to bring the presence of God into your house! 9. The night before Israel left Egypt, every family was commanded to apply the blood of a lamb to the doorposts of their homes so death

8 could not enter their houses. We can also figuratively place the blood of Jesus on the entrance to our homes and say, Death, you cannot enter my home. You can t have my children or my wife or destroy my marriage! 10. Zacchaeus life was changed the day he climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus. But his family was also affected when Jesus said, Zacchaeus, come down for today I m going to abide at your house. Because this despised tax collector welcomed Jesus into his home as a guest, he and his family were never the same again! 11. Two disciples who were journeying from Jerusalem to Emmaus brought revival to their home when they begged Jesus, Stay with us, for the evening is late. If you invite Jesus into your house, something good is sure to happen! G. Step Four: Let God change your heart! 1. Be honest: there is a reason for the crisis your family is facing. Whether the culprit is Dad, Mom, or a teenager, someone is responsible for this situation. 2. Pride can make you unwilling to submit or to become so haughty, you ll lose everything that really matters. Our society says that a confession of wrong doing is a sign of weakness. But that s not true! To say, I m sorry, can be the hardest thing you will ever do. It takes more strength to speak those two words than you can possibly imagine. But do it anyway! 3. Let God soften your heart. Don t become cold and indifferent. If your heart becomes calloused, you can lose all feelings of pain, sorrow, shame or regret. But that s not all you ll miss. You can lose

9 the ability to feel joy and love, causing you to just shrivel up inside. Open your heart to God and let Him change you. Don t resist Him! H. Step Five: Forgive each other! 1. Mark 11:26 (NKJV) -...if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses. 2. When you re trying to save your home, the beginning point is not asking to be forgiven. It s too great a challenge. I ve put this on the list as No. 5 for a reason. When you ve been betrayed or painfully wounded, it s very difficult to simply forgive. 3. To forgive someone who failed to repay a small $5.00 debt can be quite easy. But if you ve invested your life savings in a company that has misled and cheated you, that s much harder to forgive. Likewise, if you ve invested in a relationship and find that you ve been misled, that s the most painful of all. 4. Think of forgiveness as a process. Allow God to do a work of grace in your heart. It won t happen overnight, but if you ll let Him complete the process, it will happen. Begin with the things I ve already mentioned and then let God slowly do what He does best. 5. If you ll begin today, you may be surprised at the help God can give. If Jesus could forgive those who pierced His hands, feet, and side, He can surely help you forgive. Historians tell us that the soldier who pierced Jesus side while on the cross became a believer, truly forgiven, saved, and delivered! I. Step Six: Fight for your family!

10 1. Don t write them off yet. There s still hope, no matter how serious it may seem. Don t allow the enemy to win. If you re willing to fight for them, God will strengthen you. 2. While the people of Israel were rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem to protect their families from the enemy, Nehemiah instructed them: a. Nehemiah 4:14 (NIV) -...Don t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes. 3. People divorce for the most frivolous things like the spouse who squeezed the tube of toothpaste in the middle instead of the end. It s a terrible thing for people to get married and divorced, almost as quickly as they were married. Don t allow the word divorce to even be an option. Take it off the table. Divorce should only be for extreme situations, not about a certain brand of food you prefer. 4. Place great value on your marriage. If it s valuable, you won t turn loose so quickly or put your marriage in jeopardy. You ll fight to keep your family together! J. Step Seven: Pray. 1. No one has the authority to pray for a family like Dad and Mom. That s your designated office. 2. We ve been taught some incorrect things about prayer, such as: every prayer offered to God is equal. That isn t true. The Kingdom of Heaven has some very important protocols. One is that value and honor should be given to specific offices. Mom and Dad, since you are the designated head of your home, God honors your office.

11 3. When I pray in the capacity and office God has given me as the Senior Pastor of this church, I believe I can touch Him for this congregation. However, my prayers may not be as effective for the church across the street, since I have no authority there. 4. When I pray for this nation and I do pray for our country, I pray as one of 330 million citizens who are all equal. But when the President of this nation prays, his prayers are from his appointed office : a. Romans 13:1 (NKJV) - Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 5. When the King of Nineveh heard Jonah s message from God that judgment was coming, he put on sackcloth and ashes and called the people to fast and pray for three days. God heard the King s prayer and saved the entire nation. Since Nineveh was the capitol of Assyria, in his capacity and office as King, he called his nation to repentance and declared a fast. Because he removed his royal robes and draped himself in sackcloth and ashes, God honored his prayer of repentance. 6. The King of Nineveh s prayer saved the nation. Similarly, heaven honors the God-ordained leadership of Mom and Dad. When YOU pray, God will hear YOUR PRAYER in a way He wouldn t hear mine, because I m not the leader of your family. K. Life Application Points: As we pray, I m believing God will work miracles for families right now! 1. I m inviting everyone including our guests and friends to come forward and experience the power of prayer.

12 2. Let s begin with the husbands. Since God called you to be a priest and a king to your family, take your wife and children in your arms and pray for them. 3. Wives, since your prayers and intercession can touch the very heart of God, turn and pray for your husband and children. Let s pray together as a family. 4. If your family has been in conflict, let s take a major step in the right direction. Turn to your companion and simply say, I m sorry. It won t fix everything, but it s a good beginning.