The Gift of Family
James 1:17 Deuteronomy 6:4-8
by Rev. John Hannem, Calvary Baptist Church, North Sydney, NS May 29, 2005
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Parenting is a tough job. It’s very demanding and it’s 24 hours a day; it has good days and bad days. There are days when you wonder if you are really making any headway with your kids. But even though it can be exhausting it is the most rewarding job there is. This especially rings true when you see your children grow up to become mature adults who turn around and pass on what you have modeled and taught them throughout the years. The truth is parenting matters and it makes all the difference in the world.
In our society today I read a lot about how many parents are not parenting any more. They have children but then they don’t want to raise them. I discovered this story in my research a few weeks ago. Listen to this:
Students involved in a research project at the
Have you ever asked yourself, “What is the purpose of being a parent, what are we suppose to do as parents?” The Bible in many places emphasizes the crucial role that parenting has in the lives of our children. Listen to what it says!
Deut. 6:4-8 - Hear, O
The text goes on to tell us how important it is for us as parents to teach our children well.
Where would we be today without the parents who loved us and taught us so much? I heard about a pastor who asked that question one Sunday morning during his sermon, he asked, Where would you be today without your parents? And a little fellow called out from the back of the church ... “Home in bed sound asleep!”
Everything you’ve needed to know, somewhere along the way your parents probably taught you. Let’s revisit some of those lessons that our parents taught us:
MY PARENTS TAUGHT ME…
· LOGIC…If you fall off that swing and break your neck, you’re not coming to the store with me.
· HEALTH CARE…If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they’re going to stick that way.
· TO THINK AHEAD…If you don’t pass your spelling test, you’ll never get a good job!
· TO MEET A CHALLENGE…What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you…Don’t talk back to me!"
· HUMOR…When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me!
· HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT…If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.
· GENETICS…You’re just like your father!
· ABOUT MY ROOTS…Do you think you were born in a barn?
· ABOUT THE WISDOM OF AGE…When you get to be my age, you’ll understand.
· ANTICIPATION…Just wait until your father gets home!
· RECEIVING…You’re going to get it when we get home!
· JUSTICE…One day you’ll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you. Then you’ll see what it’s like.
And those are just a few of the lessons! I can’t help but think that no matter what generation you choose, parents have always had a way of communicating those pearls of wisdom to their children. Sometimes we think of the men and women in the Bible and get this idea that they weren’t really like us, but that’s just not so. I have here some quotes from parents in the Bible to show you that some things just don’t change.
· Samson! Get your hand out of that lion. You don’t know where it’s been!
· David! I told you not to play in the house with that slingshot! Go practice your harp. We pay good money for those lessons!
· Abraham! Stop wandering around the countryside and get home for supper!
· Cain! Get off your brother! You’re going to kill him some day!
· Noah! No, you can’t keep them! I told you, don’t bring home any more strays!
· Judas! Have you been in your mother’s purse again?(2)
Well, I don’t know if those parents really said all of that, but one thing is for sure – we love to have and make fun of our parents and we ought to go out of our way to communicate our love for them.
This morning, I want to speak to the families who are present here today and call to your attention what a precious gift that God has given to each of you. That gift is the family unit. I say that I am speaking to families because I am not speaking directly to husbands or wives or even children. I am not necessarily speaking to the traditional family either. You may be a single mom or dad; you may have your children raised or not have any children at all. Regardless of your present situation, God has given you a family to enjoy and to grow for His honor and glory, and today I simply want to remind you of what a blessing you have in a day when the things of God, the blessings of God are so often overlooked or pushed to the side.
God only created three institutions: the church, the government, and the family. The family was the first. In the Garden God saw that Adam was alone, so "the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs…and with the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, he made a woman, and brought her unto the man."... Solomon wrote, "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing…, and David wrote in Psalm 127,
Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
Have you thought about your family lately as being a precious gift from the Lord? I know they aggravate you some times. I know your frustrated and upset sometimes, but your family is a gift from God. That wife you married and complain about? You chose to marry her. You may be like the man I read about who wrote the following letter: .... My wife and I have learned the secret to making our marriage last: two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, eat some good food and enjoy good company. She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays. I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back. I asked her where she wanted to go for our anniversary. She said somewhere I haven’t been in a long time, so I suggested the kitchen. The last fight we got into was my fault. She asked me what was on the TV and I said dust.
Now I haven’t spoken to my wife for 18 months..... I don’t like to interrupt her.
Now we hear things like that all the time, but the reality is that it is time for us husbands to begin to honor our wives and our marriages by being honorable, even in our speech. God gave her to you for a reason; she is His gift to you. Ladies, that husband that you nag? You chose to marry him. Those children you have are gifts from God – they really belong to Him – so you need to treat them and raise them the way you think He’d want you to.
Listen, families are falling apart, and its time that we consciously decide to be different. Let me give you the four most common mistakes people make in their families:
HOLD ON TO YOUR UNREALISTIC VIEWS
If you want to ruin your family, then look on your family as a bed of roses where all your wishes and all your needs will be met. Don’t expect to make any sacrifices yourself or show any patience and understanding.
REFUSE TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS
If you want to ruin your family, then remain proud, selfish, domineering and greedy. Don’t work at compromising or adjusting anything. Remain inflexible and unbending in your attitudes.
DON’T DEAL WITH CONFLICTS CONSTRUCTIVELY
If you want to ruin your family then go right ahead, holler and shout and scream when things don’t go your way, or clam up and pout, that’ll get ya your own way too. And you’ll ruin your family in the process
KEEP BEING CRITICAL AND FAULTFINDING
Finding fault in others is easy – it takes no brains, no self-control, no maturity and no love. And you get the same in eturn.
If you want your family to be all God desires for it to be, then I want to challenge you as a family unit, whether you’re young or old, regardless of your family’s present situation, to embrace three radical priorities.
PRIORITY #1 - RADICAL SELFLESSNESS
Listen, we’re in a real battle for families today – I don’t care who you are or what you do, your family is supposed to be the most important priority in your life. Your family is more important than your work, than your fun, than your buddies, than your church or anything else you can think of. Maybe its time to quit trying to have it all and realize that the best thing God has to give you is something you already possess.
Are we raising our children to be missionaries or a mission field? Did you hear what I said? Are you raising your children to be missionaries – men and women of God with sound values and Biblical convictions who will reach their generation, or are you raising them to be the next mission field? Let me give you a couple of questions to consider – every Christian parent in this room needs to prayerfully ask and answer these questions:
Am I dying to self so that I can be the parent God wants me to be in raising the next generation? Am I dying to self so that I can be the husband or wife that God wants me to be?
I read about one husband who thought he could prove his love for his wife. To prove his love for her, he swam the deepest river, crossed the widest desert and climbed the highest mountain. In the end she divorced him.... He was never home. Remember men; no woman has ever shot her husband while he was doing the dishes.
PRIORITY #2 – RADICAL CONVICTIONS
It is time for families to admit that we have forsaken biblical convictions and replaced them with personal preferences. What am I talking about? I’m talking about things like living together, homosexuality, I’m talking about having tolerance for anything and everything except Biblical convictions, I’m talking about accepting foul language as normal and alright. It’s time for families to embrace some radical convictions. But friends it needs to start in the home.
Parents need to model genuine love for others. Parents need to live holy and pure lives. We need to teach our children that sexual involvement prior to and outside of the marriage relationship is wrong. It has always been wrong, it will always be wrong, and it is sin.
When I talk about convictions I’m also talking about doctrinal convictions: the Bible is the Word of God. It is right and it is true. It is right and true for you and it is right and true for everyone else too. It was right yesterday, it is right today and it will be right tomorrow. The church is local. Baptism is by immersion. The Lord’s Supper is a memorial supper. There are only two ordinances. There are only two church offices. I’m talking about calling sin sin and that repentance comes before salvation and that salvation is by grace through faith and that Jesus died and was buried and that He rose again the third day and that one day He is coming again in bodily form to resurrect dead believers and those who are alive too.
When I talk about convictions I’m talking about moral convictions: sex and drugs and language and movies and music and friends and TV and dating and dress. I’m talking about being a Bible believing Christian and not being ashamed or being afraid of being one even if you are different from everybody you know.
Listen, some of you young people want attention? Let me tell you something – you look and dress and act like you do – but you blend right in. If you want to be different then start acting like Jesus or John the Baptist or like Paul in the Bible and you’ll be different all right. You want to be different – try it Jesus’ way – go ahead, I dare you to and see if God won’t bless you more than you ever dreamed.
PRIORITY #3 - RADICAL INVOLVEMENT
In 30 B.C., Virgil penned these penetrating words about the formative world of child rearing: "As the twig is bent, so the tree inclines." Someone told me one time that children are like wet concrete – it is easy to make impressions on them, but once you make them, they are set for life."
Every parent must do battle with the culture to bend and form their child’s character. But it’s not just involvement with children that is needed, husbands and wives need to be dramatically involved with one another if they are to have a biblical home and family. Listen, family involvement does not mean that you are the family taxi – it’s a sad commentary on our society that far too many kids are growing up in the car on Happy Meals headed here and there for every activity under the sun. We may think we are building well-rounded families, but all we’re really doing is driving them farther apart.
You tell me, are the families of my generation better off than those of my grandparents who grew up spending their days at home? Many of them never finished school. Never moved off the farm. Never traveled off the island let alone out of the province or the country. Never played sports or went to college – but that generation had something that ours is missing – family. Where is the hugging? The holding? The affirming? We need families who read together, who get in the floor and play together, who cheer in the stands and laugh and play in the park.
I’ll tell you what else we need – and that is parents who will get involved in every aspect of their children’s lives. Parents who spend time at the school in positive affirming involvement are parents of kids who will normally excel in the classroom. I’m sorry, you may disagree with me here, but friends I believe we need parents who aren’t afraid to rifle through their kids belongings and not apologize for it, parents who talk to their children and allow the children to talk in return. God has given parents an awesome responsibility: We are called to stay involved in the lives of our children. That requires that we initiate discussions with them about some of life’s most challenging subjects – drugs, alcohol, human sexuality, modesty, the way they dress, the temptations they will face, and so forth.
Do you love your family? Are you committed to seeing your family grow together and be all God wants it to be? Then today I want you to begin by affirming that He has given you that family as a gift to be enjoyed and administered for His honor and glory.
I have an exercise I want you to participate in very quickly:
· Husbands, I want you to turn to your wife and repeat after me: You are a wonderful gift from God. I love you and am committed to you.
· Wives, I want you to do the same – repeat after me: You are a wonderful gift from God. I love you and am committed to you.
· Children: (Some of you are grown now), look at your parents and repeat after me: I am glad God gave you to me. I love you and am thankful for you.
Maybe you didn’t fit into one of those categories, or those people weren’t here today – you can still affirm your love and commitment to them after the service, even if you have to do it over the phone. And let me say a word to the many grandparents here today – we need you. My generation needs you more than ever to get involved in our lives. Now some of you are busybodies you’re smothering your children and grandchildren. You need to stop that and let your children take responsibility – even if they do fall and stumble and fail. But likely most of you could get a little more involved in the lives of the families in our church or at a school. I’ll say it again, we need you.
Problems with youth in our communities......we blame it on the teens, on the schools, on society, on the justice system .... Friends, that’s not where the problem lies ... the root of it all is the decline of the family unit. We need to take a step back and build up the family if we ever want to see any positive changes in this area.
I want to pray for families this morning