Are You Happy With You?

Today's sermon will be one of the most important sermons that you have ever heard, not because of me, but because of the content. Much of this material is taken from a book by a man named Bradshaw, and it's Bradshaw on the family. Bradshaw really, I would call him an evolutionist, a Freudian, to some degree. For a long time in the 70s, he had a long series of programs about family life on PBS. There's a lot of great insights with regard to family life and why we are the way we are.

So, give credit to him for a lot of the material, but the synthesis is what we really want to focus on. The first question I want to ask this afternoon is, how do you feel about yourself? Are you happy with you? So, how many of us who are sitting here this afternoon are truly happy with ourselves, with our neighbor, and, you might say, with the world in general? Of course, I would imagine you would say, I'm very concerned about the world in general.

But, you know, one of the things that they started talking about on the news this past week was, with regard to all the news in the Middle East, now they say 80,000 people have died in the, some call it, civil war in Syria. More and more people are killed in Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan, and all this talk about Korea, North Korea, delivering some kind of nuclear warhead. It's like they're not concerned. They had a big gala at the White House this past week. It's like fiddling while Rome burns.

I believe there are far more people sitting here this afternoon who are down on themselves than there are people who are sitting here who believe that they are great pulsating hunks of goodness. Either view is not what God wants. He does not want you down on yourself and depressed, and on the other hand, he does not want you walking around as some kind of egotistical, self-righteous, goody-two-shoes thinking you're better than everybody else.

So, both of those are wrongs. So how do you feel about yourself once again, and have you forgiven yourself for whatever it is, or for whatever somebody else has done, that causes you to be in the state of mind that you might be in? Some people believe that they can have God's forgiveness without forgiving themselves. Why don't people forgive themselves? Why do they desire to bear their own sins? Because you cannot possibly bear your own sins.

The wages of sin is death. So, even if you die in your sins, you're dead, and possibly facing the second death, the only way sins can be forgiven is through repentance and faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. One of the reasons that people desire to bear their own sins, that they're depressed, stems from the fact that they are victims of compulsive, addictive behavior. They can believe that God will forgive, but they cannot view themselves as guiltless and free of sin.

They're not in touch with their feelings because they have been disassociated from their feelings. We'll talk more about being disassociated from your feelings later. Many people, and this is especially true in Western Europe and the United States, but more in particular the United States, because to a large degree Europe is still in a feudal caste system, where it is very difficult to rise above the state of your birth.

Whereas in America, anyone who has the drive and the desire and the ambition, and I could go on with various adjectives, can rise up above their state of birth, where they were born. Many people take their Calvinistic, puritanical work ethic into the church and measure their spirituality by how much of something they've done. Now, it is important to have good works and to do good works, but good works are not going to get us into the kingdom of God.

You know, Jesus Christ said in Matthew 7, Many will come to me in that day, saying, Lord, Lord, have we not cast out demons, done many great works in your name? And Jesus will respond, Apart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you. So we know by that, that there is far more involved. In the Western world, we're taught from birth, you must compete and measure up, or you won't make it.

It is incredible what parents are doing now, especially among the upper class and the upper middle class, with regard to as soon as a son or daughter is born, they begin to plan out their lives. It's like it's imperative for many of them to get their child into, quote, the best schools. If they can't get into an Ivy League school, then maybe they can get into a Big Ten school, especially Northwestern or Penn State. And if they can't get in there, maybe they can get in one of the elite schools on the West Coast, Stanford or maybe Cal Berkeley. And it goes on and on, and it's almost from the time that conception takes place, they're going to push that child to be what they want the child to be. Western Christianity and Western culture, and now it's more Western culture and what some call capitalism, but capitalism now has been turned upside down to a large degree, and you have corporate capitalism, and there's not a lot of entrepreneurs in private capitalism going on. Western Christianity and Western cultures have emphasized success as measured by physical achievements and material possessions. Where is your standing in society? What kind of job do you have? How much do you make? How many degrees do you have behind your name? What do you own? And on and on it goes. Yet, giving these achievements spiritual value and worth. Now don't let that yet at the same time. Many people look at a person who has achieved all these things and somehow attribute some kind of a spiritual dimension to it. Almost every child in America is shoved into a vortex of commands and demands that he or she can never measure up to.

Parents are measured by their children's achievements. Children are measured by their achievements. It's similar to what Job and the Pharisees did. Remember the story of Job? Let's read the first three or four verses there in Job. Job is just before Psalms. Job chapter 1. There was a man in the land of us whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed evil. And there were born into him seven sons, three daughters, ten children. His substance also was 7,000 sheep and so on. And he was very rich and very successful. And through the course of this book on the book of Job, we have Job in essence saying, I have worked hard, I have disciplined myself, I've paid the price, and because of my right ways, I've been blessed, I measure up. And who are you, God, to think otherwise? I mean, why have you, God, become my enemy? Now, of course, Job eventually came to see himself, and he said, I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, now my eye sees you and I repent in dust and ashes. Job did not realize that man must be judged and God must be justified. God is just in everything that he does. Now, there's also the element of time and chance, as it talks about in Ecclesiastes, that happens to every person. So God is just in everything he does, and if you really believe Hebrews 11.6 that I so often refer to, he who would come to God must first of all believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And Romans 8.28, all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. God always, in short, God always has our best interests at heart. Now we look at the case of David. If you go to Psalm 51, forward a few pages to Psalm 51.

David struggled mightily, going through many tests from the time that he killed Goliath, the time he was anointed king of Israel. He was first of all king of Judah, and eventually he was able to bring all 12 tribes under his rulership.

David, in a moment of weakness, committed adultery with Bathsheba. And Psalm 51 is about that. In Psalm 51, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according unto the multitude of your tender mercies, brought out my transgressions. Watch me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin as ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight, that you might be justified when you speak, and be clearer when you judge. So God was just in whatever kind of punishment he executed with regard to David.

Behold, I was shaping in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Now, to explain what that means, I'm not going to go off on that at the present time. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you shall make me know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Now, God says, if you'll do that, he says this in 1 John 1, that he's faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness.

But at the same time, just as important, is you must forgive yourself. You must believe that God has removed your sins as far as the east is from the west, and you must let them go. You must not try to carry Egypt into the kingdom of God, as Israel tried to carry Egypt into the Promised Land. The foundational basis for all positive and lasting things is love. The only lasting good that we really get in this life is something that we can really take stock in and be pleased with, is what we do for somebody else.

Love is the greatest motivating force in the universe. Because God is love, wanted to share his being with us, he created humankind. And because he is love, he was willing to give his only begotten Son as a sacrifice for the sins of the world because of wages of sin as death. God is love. God so loved the world. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples and that you love one another. Greater love hath no man than this than he lay down his life for his friends. So the greatest thing anyone can be taught is how to love.

And the reason why we see the world in the condition that it is in today, the reason why we see killers like that young man who gunned down, I think fifty-something were injured, about twelve were killed in the theater in Colorado, and the man who went into the classroom in Connecticut, Newtown, and kills twenty-six or twenty-seven people, and there have been many other mass killings they do not know how to love.

And of course, it stems from mass killers all the way down through the ranks to petty criminals who are pickpocketing tourists on the streets in London. So we look now at 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 4. 1 Corinthians 13.4 is one of the most succinct summaries of what true love really is. Now the first three verses Paul is saying, if you're not becoming love as God is love, it's all in vain.

Then he describes how love really is and how it behaves. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 4, charity, love agape, spiritual love, suffers long, that means it is patient, forbearing, and it's kind. Charity, envy is not. If you could just do away with envy in the world, what kind of world would it be? Charity vaults not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

See, the truth of the matter is today, by the masses of people rejoice in iniquity. They rejoice in legalized marijuana. They rejoice in government-supported abortion. They rejoice in homosexuality. You could go on and on of how our culture, our people, have gone from a moral-based, and to a large degree, biblically-based morality to where it is today.

Rejoices, love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. And of course, when you come to moral and spiritual things, truth, according to John 1717, is the Word of God. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Charity never fails. But whether there be prophecies, they shall cease, and whether there be tongues, they shall cease, and whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. You notice verse 13, Now abides faith, hope, charity, these three.

But the greatest of these is charity. So the greatest thing that anyone can be taught is how to love, both in the sense of the filial love, of love in the sense of one another, brotherhood, and also the agape love, the spiritual love. Eastern culture is based on ascetic, what you might call ascetic Gnosticism, that is denying the flesh in order to purify the spirit. So in the Eastern world, to a large degree, they are passive, they suppress their feelings, and they sit there in meditation or whatever, hours upon end.

Most of the cultures and nations have some kind of caste system. It's almost impossible to move from one caste to the other, from one social strata to the other. They emphasize asceticism. I've been to Thailand, spent a week or so there, visited the Queen's schools, and all of that. You go around Bangkok, and you see all of these young men in orange robes. They are Buddhist priests, but actually every male is supposed to serve a couple years as a Buddhist priest.

And one of the main things they do is to beg alms, so they're on the street corners and so on. And they fast every day, all day. They have one meal a day if they are truly living up to their pledge. So in the Eastern world, to a large degree, you see this asceticism, the denial of self. And then in the Western world, you see the exact opposite.

It's antithetical, because in the Western world, it's eat and drink, live it up, be merry, do what you want to do. Tomorrow you might die. Let's have a good time today. In the Western world, success is measured in terms of material things. Job, house, car, clothes, people be themselves and others in terms of how much can others help me acquire more objects.

They become disassociated from their feelings and the feelings of others. In order for mankind to commit the atrocities that we have witnessed during the past hundred years, let's say the benchmark started somewhere around World War I in 1914. Of course, the U.S. didn't really get involved until 1917-1918. And from that time forward, I would say that World War I was a demarcation of the world, degenerating at such a rapid rate. It's unbelievable, and it has really accelerated in the past several years. But for people to do what they are doing, they have to be disassociated from their feelings.

How can you walk up to another human being and take a gun and blow them away if you have no feelings? So I believe one of the missing marks has to do with we don't feel that we measure up as we should.

And we have not been taught to love. We've not been taught how to discipline our lives. And we have not been taught what the true values really are. Remember that the motto of Ambassador College, and I would say by extension Church of God, is to recapture true values. And also, the Word of God is the foundation of knowledge. That is true knowledge, spiritual knowledge.

Let's go to 1 Timothy chapter 3. If you or I remain discouraged and depressed, then we're denying the power of God. In 1 Timothy chapter 3, the first several verses there describe conditions that will be extant in the latter times. Paul starts it off. We're not going to read all those verses, but 1 verse, he doesn't know that in the last days perilous time shall come. He describes the various behaviors that will be extant during that period of time.

And it comes to verse 5, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof, from such turn away. Now, as we shall see with regard to being converted and being in Christ, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

So we turn back to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and we'll read about that briefly. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. And what is he expected to do? He's expected to bear the fruits of the Spirit as opposed to the fruits of the flesh as opposed to the fruits of this world. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 14, For the love of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. Of course, it says in Romans 3.23 that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

So all of humankind has the death penalty on their head, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth, know we know man after the flesh. So we should not look at others after the flesh, but in spiritual terms, yes, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.

That is after the flesh. But in spiritual terms, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. A new creation. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Not the ministry of alienation. Not the ministry of gloom and doom, which we could easily get into based on how this world is going. But what are we to do? What are we to bear? We go now to Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such, there is no law. So can we say that we're bearing the fruit of the Spirit? I believe we have concentrated far too much on showing people their sins and trying to set up marks of righteousness. We need to show people why they are, where they are, and provide strategies to help them grow. How can we actually grow up to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ? Look at Ephesians chapter 4. Forward a few pages there. Ephesians chapter 4. Verse 11, he gave some apostles—this is the purpose of the ministry— he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

That's what we want to do. The job of the ministry is that everybody be justified before God, everybody be edified before God, everybody try to be encouraged, everybody bear the fruits of the Spirit, that we are happy, joyful people loving one another as Christ gave commandment. "'Til we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that henceforth we know more as children be tossed to and fro and cared about by every wind of doctrine.'" Of course, a lot of people have itching ears wanting to hear some new thing.

The basic foundational trunk of the tree is pretty simple, but of course it goes over the head of most people, and we know that God has to draw and Jesus Christ has to reveal. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God have to convict, drawn away by every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and of cunning craftiness, whereby they lie and wait till the seed.

The church is not some kind of pie where everybody is in competition to see how they can make everybody else look as badly as they can so they maybe can draw a few members away for themselves. "...but speaking the truth and love may grow up unto Him in all things, which is ahead even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body unto the edifying of itself and love." Now, as we shall see in just a moment when we go to 1 Corinthians 12 in regard to the body as a system and the family as a system and the church to some degree is a system, that all of these parts have to work together and they have to function together.

Otherwise, you become dysfunctional. That's one of the main words you hear in the world's psychological circles today about dysfunctional families. And believe me, we have them. We have dysfunctional families because we have dysfunctional human beings. We have dysfunctional nation because we have dysfunctional families. This I say, verse 17, therefore, in testifying to the Lord, that we henceforth walk not as other nations, ethnos, walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.

Brethren, the blinders and the scales should have been taken off of our eyes. So how do we actually grow up to the fullness of measure of the stature of Christ? Oh, we can always quote Jeremiah 17.9, The human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. Well, the Word of God can know it. Hebrews 4.12 says, The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing asunder thoughts and intents of the heart of man.

So we can be laid bare before God. Paul describes the mind of the flesh in Romans 7. This mind is the learned mind of the flesh or the mind of this world. It is the mind that results from this world's socialization process, complete with all the conditioning that makes you what you are in the flesh.

Some misunderstand and they want the flesh removed. You know, Paul was not depressed or discouraged. He said, of sinners, I'm chief. So maybe we could just get that out of the way. We're all sinners. And we've all come short of the glory of God. But quite to the contrary, he was filled with hope and enthusiasm. The mind of the flesh will always be present, but it can be ruled over. Some misunderstand they want the mind of the flesh removed.

They are filled with shame or guilt because they have this mind. And to a large degree, a lot of people are victims of the past, of the things that they have experience. Notice Romans chapter 8. In Romans chapter 8, in Romans 7, Paul talks about the warfare that is going on in the mind with regard to the flesh. It is not an excuse for the flesh. You read there the last verse of chapter 7. The last verse of Romans chapter 7. I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord.

So with the mind, I may as well serve the law of God. But with the flesh, the law of sin. He didn't say he was giving into it quite the contrary. But that that law was there, and it was warring against his mind. There should be no chapter break. There is therefore now no condemnation, no judgment to those who are in Christ Jesus who walked not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. So we can walk after the Spirit.

We can crucify that old mind, that learned mind, that learned mind, the socialization that we received from it might have been in the family, it might have been with the peers, it might have been media, it might have been all kind of different sources. You notice verse 13, Romans 8, 13, for if we live after the flesh, we shall die. But if we through the Spirit do mortify, put to death the deeds of the body, we shall live. As one author stated, many people live in shame.

Shame has to do with what you believe you are. I'm just ashamed of the way I look. You know, look at my hair, it's falling out. Look at my face, not very pretty. Look at my body, it's falling apart. Look at me, look at that, whatever it is. Look at my family, look what they have done. It could go on and on with look at. And I feel ashamed. So shame has to do with what you believe you are. Guild has to do with what you have done. But no matter what you have done, God says that there is a way out.

So why do we view ourselves the way we do? Research is now coming to light, which has been known by some societies and counselors for 50 years or so, that shows very clearly the organic nature of the family. Alcoholics Anonymous and other groups have known some of this information for a long time. It has to do with systems. For those who are in computer work, you hear about systems all the time, how these systems have to be integrated and worked together. With regard to human beings, we are called organisms.

And families, an organic system, is somewhat similar to the computer system. The family is a series of living, integrated, structured relationships. Integrated, structured relationships. Or we may say the family is composed of interdependent parts. Every part is affected by every other part. The family is very much like the organic system we call the human body. Each part affects another part. Paul uses this very analogy in describing the church, which is also the body of Christ, and it should function as a spiritual system.

The same analogies that apply to the organic system of the family can be applied to the church as well. So we go to 1 Corinthians 12. We'll read some of this background. These verses will show how one member affects the other. While we're reading this, we'll also refer to what you heard many times during the past several weeks, a little leaven leavens a whole lot.

So if we weren't affected by each other, then why would Paul say a little leaven leavens a whole lump? In 1 Corinthians 12, verse 11, the first 10 verses there, Paul talks about spiritual gifts being given to edify the whole body. But all these works, all these spiritual gifts, that one and the self-same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one and have many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we're all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, have been all made to drink into one spirit.

For the body is not one member but many. Now he shows about this system, that if any part of the body is dysfunctional, it's going to affect the whole body. I mean, pain in the big toe can drive you absolutely crazy. Pain in the anywhere can drive you crazy. It might be a toothache. It might be a toeache. It might be any part of the body. If the foot shall say, because I'm not the hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

If the foot shall say, because I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now God has set the members, every one of them, in the body as it has pleased him. And of course, people use that applied to the church as well as to the human body.

And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members yet but one body? It's a system. And I cannot say into the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you, know much more these members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary, and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable upon those who restore more abundant honor and uncommonly parts have more abundant commonness.

For our commonly parts have no need but God had tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked. That there should be no schism in the body, but the members should have the same care, one for another.

Now if it applies to the church, as Paul writes here, surely it must apply to the family.

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members in particular. So this organic system must work in harmony, and these verses show how one member affects the other. Counselors who are dealing with the millions of Americans who are victims of obsessive, compulsive, addictive behavior have come to see very clearly the effect that the family member has on other members of the family. So when the families become dysfunctional, you can count on several family members becoming dysfunctional. Most of the aberrant behavior in our society and culture can be traced back to the family system. Studies show us reenactments of the behavior of the family members that these people come out of. For example, here are the stats, cold hard stats. 80% of the women with drug addictions have had their bodies violated.

80% of the women in prostitution have been violated sexually in their families of origin. That is absolutely astounding. What about pedophilia? Sexual abuse of children. There are 4 million child molesters in this country. You read about little girls being abducted from the playground or the sidewalk, some 8 or 9 years old, and you know what happens. How can that happen? 40% of them are acting out exactly what happened to them in their childhood. It seems so paradoxical that people would wind up doing the very thing that they hated so much. This shows what I've said so many times through the years. I've taught general psychology, I've taught child growth and development, that children learn method far more than they do content. Families encode experiences in childhood, and those childhoods get acted out in society. Alcoholism seriously affects 60 million Americans, 25% of our population. That's 1 out of 4. 1 out of 4 alcoholics. That hardly seems believable. Alcoholism is probably the leading killer in America, in the systemic sense of being the cause, tracing it back. 60% of the women in America are overweight. 50% of the males are overweight. Obesity is a precursor to any number of diseases. 34 million adult women are sexually abused. 1 out of 4 women in the U.S. are sexually abused severely or mildly by age 13, by someone over 18, and 80% know their offenders.

In the majority of these cases, nothing is done. 10 million people are the victims of violence perpetrated by family members every year in the U.S. 10 million people. That's roughly 1 out of 30. 9 out of 10 married men at some time in their lives. That's 90%. Sort of hard to believe, but this says, have had an affair. Which means a lot of women are also having affairs.

Our disease is systemic spiritually and physically. It is manifested in our lifestyle. What we eat, drink, medicines we use. Stress-induced insomnia is a huge disorder in this country. Tranquilizers, sleeping pills, and on and on it goes. So many children now in elementary school are on some kind of medication, either for attention deficit disorder, overactivity, or depression. The father is the only one in the system, in some systems, that could be angry. Our disease is systemic through stress. Daddy could get mad at mama. Mama could get mad at the kids. The older kids could get mad at the younger kids. And the youngest could only get mad at the toys, or the gerbils, or the pet, or whatever. But it's all right. Daddy could be mad.

Anytime you're not true to yourself, you can be taken by anybody that comes along. It has almost nothing to do with rationality, but with people who are not themselves. In other words, you have to be yourself. One of the sayings that goes like this is, A man's home is his heart, and there he must abide. And when you begin to compromise with what you believe in your heart, and what you perceive to be as reality, then you begin to have problems. Anybody who begins to understand the structure of families can manipulate any group of people. Just do them as they were done in their families.

Alice Miller wrote that one individual can control the masses if he learns to use, to his own advantage, the system under which they were raised. Carolyn Payne, author of Neurosis of Nations, argued that the Weimar Republic was that before Hitler in Germany. Weimar Republic preceded World War I. The Weimar Republic would never work because of the authoritarian structure of the German family. The government of a nation will usually reflect the family structure. In this nation today, we see the biblically mandated family in shambles, and we see a government in shambles. A government that throws big parties and celebrates while the world goes up in flames.

This should help us understand how Hitler could capture the minds of the German intellectuals of his time. Contrast that with God's family structure based on love, trust, service, and self-sacrifice. God's family system will bring peace. The Bible clearly gives us the hierarchical structure of the family. All the psychologists, the women liberals, liberals of the day, they would practically burn themselves rather than to hear this. You talk about being heckled. Go on a college campus and read this. 1 Corinthians 11. Karl Rove spoke at Amherst this past week, and he was heckled severely. 1 Corinthians 11.

Now, praise your brethren that you remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. So in the hierarchical structure, Paul says, God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man, and man is the head of woman. Then it gives some detail there with regard to how this structure is recognized in society, which I'm not going into at the present time. But that structure, God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man, man is the head of woman. In Ephesians 5 it says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

Sacrificial love is talked about over and over in the Bible. Now we go to Ephesians 6. So we have father, we have mother, we have man, we have woman. Now what about the children? Here's God's structure.

God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man, man is the head of woman. Ephesians 6.1, Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. And you fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

So that's God's family structure. In a healthy family there are good boundaries. This nurture and admonition of the Lord, it means in the discipline of God. Now the discipline doesn't mean necessarily punishment. In a discipline, like in a college catalog, the various, some say, subjects are listed. Or you could say the various disciplines of learning. So the discipline, the rules of the house, the boundaries are defined and they're set out. And also define what happens if those boundaries are not honored.

So the command is to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So in a healthy family there are boundaries. The rules are flexible and all boundaries are permeable. Daddy and mama preserve their limits. They are self-disciplined and they are disciplinarians, but not disciplinarians. Some people have got discipline, so we're going to spank. Well, spank might be one of the things that you do if you break the discipline.

Researchers have come to see very clearly that behaviors such as alcoholism, a critical, cynical mentality, promiscuity, wife abuse, child abuse, rape, murder, violence, and a myriad of other addictive behaviors are symptoms that stem from malfunctioning families, in almost every case. There are a few exceptions. Once again, we learn method and not content. We learn to do things the way our parents did. And sometimes I just am taken back by, sometimes from the way I clear my throat to the way I say things, the way my daddy did, or the way my mother did certain things. And it's almost like it's embedded and encoded within us. Now, in my rearing with my father and mother, I guess you would say I had a very good upbringing, but it was this what I call Calvinistic, Puritanical, you've got to do the best you can do. You've got to be a perfectionist, and you've got to measure up and all of that stuff, and all that goes with it. And up to a certain degree, that's okay. But at the same time, we need to be taught how to love, how to feel, how to express ourselves, and how to be real people. Studies clearly show that alcoholics beget alcoholics, child abusers beget child abusers, wife beaters beget wife beaters, liars beget liars, flatterers beget flatterers. These behaviors, to a large degree, are learned in the family.

The initial set of rules that I grew up with that I have internalized and used to manage my life or learned in my family, to a large degree, they were warriors. My grandmother and my mother worried about everything under the sun.

And my grandmother especially, she was so afraid of bad weather, that she knew every old sign in the book about, you know, you pour salt out if this happens, and you do something else, if that happens. I don't remember them all. The black cat crossing the road turned around and go back, but she was so deathly afraid of bad weather. And if a thunderstorm would come up, she would gather all of us together. Oftentimes, some of the grandkids were there in the hall, and she would sort of pace around. And one of her sayings was, well, I won't say it, but she was using God's name. In a good way, yes, because the way she understood. And so what happens? The thing that she most feared, like Job talked about, had come upon her one night, April 21st. In fact, the anniversary, and it was on a Saturday night, a tremendous thunderstorm came up, and out of the west, southwest came this tornado, blew her and my grandfather away, and killed them. You know, in my life, I've been trying desperately through God's help to internalize God's principles, not be so worried about so many things. And of course, the other side of that, you can become disassociated from your feelings if you're not concerned, to a certain degree, about things. So in everything, there's like a moderation, a line that you have to walk. The more you internalize the fact that God has forgiven you, and that you are a child of God, the more spontaneous and happy you can be.

A healthy view of oneself is learned through following the example of parents, brothers, sisters, and peers. Now, how many families have that healthy example of parents, brothers, sisters, and peers?

So my view of myself initially came from my parents, and so did yours, probably. And children take their behavioral cues from their parents. The Bible has a lot to say about positive reinforcement. We go back here now to Proverbs. We'll read this verse here. Proverbs 12, verse 25. There are a lot of verses in Proverbs that talk about positive reinforcement. In Proverbs 12 and verse 25, Heaven is in the heart makes it stoop, but a good word makes it glad. It is amazing just what a good word can do for any person. A baby is pure feeling. We say that babies are perfect inner communicators. The bonding between mother and baby begins before birth, and after birth, babies stay next to their mother's breast and stomach and are in motion much of the time. Their mother's eyes are there for them. The only way to have identity is to look at the face that loves you, accepts you, values you for the very one you are.

If a mama is healthy herself, she doesn't need the child for her own narcissistic gratification. She's there to help the child learn how to love. Most people are trying to get their needs met by others instead of trying to meet the needs of others. There's a great difference.

Trying to get your needs met by someone else as opposed to trying to meet the needs of others. We all fall into that trap. Oh, if he or she would only do such, then I would do such and such. But God says he loved us while we were yet sinners. Jesus Christ died for the ungodly.

Most people are trying to get their needs met by others instead of trying to meet the needs of others. Most people are waiting on others to make them happy. They have never learned the living law. It is more blessed to give than to receive. And everyone needs physical strokes or they will die. And they found this out in the late 1800s, around the turn of the 20th century. At that time, if a young woman got pregnant out of wedlock, say around 1890s or 1905, along in that area, and this basically lasted up into World War II, to get pregnant out of wedlock was a horrible thing. And especially among some of the more prominent families, as soon as that child was born, they would take it. Abortion was a very rare thing. They would take that child and send it in what they called a foundling home. And if that baby did not receive the strokes and the love and the care and the attention, many of them died and they tried to figure out why were these babies dying? It was because they were left in a condition in which they had no human contact or reinforcement. All people need to be stimulated and challenged. Healthy families have a lot going on. And we need parents to value us for the single one we are and to take us seriously. If the mirroring is good, in other words, if the example of the parent is good, if you're accepted for the very one you are, you don't have to please your mother as her narcissistic gratification, then you have a chance. And there's a big difference, as we have found out, and probably many of you have found out, between parenting and grandparenting. And oftentimes children become more drawn to their grandparents and their parents. And parents don't seem to be able to figure that out. Well, of course you can spoil them, as they say. In grandparenting, I'm not concerned about how they're going to reflect me, but how they're going to reflect themselves. What are they going to become? What are they going to do? How can I help them? Whereas parents, to a large degree, oftentimes are concerned about whether or not the children are reflecting them the way they want it to be. And this can be true, especially in the church. A healthy family, in a sense, will always be in motion, open, flexible. Family systems can be either open systems or closed systems. Most of the time, sexual abuse and physical abuse are nurtured by closed systems. Everyone is too afraid, too ashamed, to express their feelings. And even if they know abuse is going on, they won't tell anybody, because they are too ashamed. And oftentimes, overloaded with feelings of guilt. And sexual abuse by the perpetrator is a form of addiction. And once it starts, it's almost impossible for that person to stop. A healthy family is going to be vibrant with the parts in motion. Flexibility, spontaneity in the family, there will be joy. People can laugh and play and have fun. The higher the anxiety in the family, the grimmer and more uptight the family structure is. The less room for individual creativity. We need to internalize Matthew 18. Let's go there. Matthew 18. Matthew 18.

At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and said him in the midst of them, and said, Barely I say unto you, Except you be converted, turn yourself about, go a different way, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble themself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receives me.

As long as children are loved and properly disciplined, they don't have to play roles and be performers. They're innocent. There's no pretense. However, very early in life, for the most of us, to one degree or another, the public self, the conforming self, the self that wants to stay in the group and is afraid of abandonment or rejection, begins to take over. Today there is such a tyranny of the peer group in among the youth that it is unbelievable. It's always been there, but it is now so prevalent and also so dangerous. We have you read about and hear about time-to-time bullying. That's a part of it.

Because if you don't conform, if you're not in that group, then you are like the sore-headed chicken in the chicken pin. You're picked on until you have nothing left within you but anger and resentment. Some and many do commit suicide, just this past week or two. Big story about this girl committing suicide because of what was posted on one of the social networks. By the time many reach puberty, many of them are more of an act of performance, more human doings than human beings, more in external self or mass than themselves. The biggest problem for most people is that they don't get to have or express their feelings.

Emotion is a latent form of energy, and if repressed, it causes stress. In healthy families, you get to have your feelings. Now there has to be discipline, boundaries, temper tantrums, etc. One of the greatest laws of human behavior is that successful patterns of behavior are repeated. For example, if you bake cookies just before dinner, and you put those cookies out, the child comes in and says, Mama, can I have a cookie? And you say, No, these are for after dinner. You have to wait until after dinner.

But I want a cookie now! Can I have just one now? And it goes on and on, and you find, OK, you can have one. Guess what? The next time the cookies are out there, if she doesn't say yes, same scenario. And, well, if she just keeps on saying no, he gets down on the floor and rolls and hollers and screams and throws a temper tantrum. OK, I'll give you one. So the next time, same thing.

It could be, can I use the car tonight? Can I have the keys? No, he cannot have the keys tonight. Well, go through whatever. It may be some kind of big argument if everybody else is doing it, or it might be pouting, not speaking, drawing up into a shell, whatever it might be.

Successful patterns of behavior are repeated. Back a few years ago, when one of our granddaughters was about four or five years old, this very scenario had happened that the mother had prepared cookies before dinner, and they were there, and she came in and said, can I have a cookie? And she said, no, these cookies are for after dinner. You can't have one now.

She said, but God says I can have a cookie. I don't know if she got the cookie or not. Let's go to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Now, what we're talking about is having your being able to have your feelings, and for those feelings not to be repressed. But, as I've just pointed out with regard to successful patterns of behavior are repeated, you have to draw lines, and there has to be a discipline administered if the discipline is broken.

This says it very clearly. Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1, to everything there's a season, a time to every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build up, a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing, a time to get, a time to lose, a time to keep, a time to cast away, a time to rend, a time to sow, a time to keep silence, a time to speak, a time to love, a time to hate, a time of war, a time of peace.

But see, if you're not allowed to express, then it is bottled up. What profit hath he that works in that wherein he labors? I have seen the surveil which God has given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in his own time. Also, he has set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end.

There are some things that are hidden in mysteries. I know that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes 7 says, a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. So if I discount the power to perceive, the power to express my feelings, I am going to begin to feel disoriented, cut off, lost. Children quit trusting their own eyes when their perceptions are denied. They don't trust themselves anymore, their own feelings. When a person is fully functional, everything works. The freedom to see, the freedom to hear, what you hear is a great privilege.

The freedom to be able to do what I just read from Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Remember when the empress has no clothes in the story? The whole town played the game of denial and delusion. While the empress had no clothes, but everybody said, oh yeah, she has on clothes. So we all pretend she has on clothes. Perception is one of the anchors of hope. I perceive God to be fair and honest.

I can trust Him, have faith in Him. So I have hope. If you see your mother crying and ask, what's the matter, mother? She says nothing. Go to your room. Perceptions and feelings are denied. This causes disassociation. The most important thing in a family is to be honest. Healthy families have open communication. They have a lot of discussions. They work through their problems. Remember the quote from the play? There was a play titled, The Death of a Salesman.

It was just Death of a Salesman. There's a line in that play. The line is, he never knew who he was. It was stated by Willie Lohman's son as he walked away from his father's grave. He never knew who he was.

Or like the song that we played after a sermon recently, The Man, the Greatest Man, I Never Knew. The loss of self is a great tragedy. It is the crisis to have been born and to go to your grave and never know who you are.

As I've already stated, the family is a system. The system is the interrelated relationship of all its parts, so that if I touch any part, every other part in this system is affected by the touching of that part.

In today's world, with parents working in single-parent families, children are alone, they turn to each other for comfort, and millions of them are out fending for themselves. So, brethren, here we are in a world in which people have become disassociated from their feelings. We're in a world in which children, to a large degree, have been abandoned. We're in a world where anything goes. And so, when you see what you see in this world, we should not be surprised. If you need help with any of the things we've discussed here today, then do not delay to take action. People are quick to get anointed when they are physically sick.

Oh, I can get anointed to go to the doctor or whatever. But when they are psychologically, mentally, and spiritually needing help, very often they are slow to seek help. And oftentimes, because they think that some kind of stigma will be attached to their being. Well, what would you rather have? I'd rather be sick physically than to be sick the other way.

So, if you need help, I would encourage you to seek help. Women are generally more readily seeking help than do men. Because men, you know, we can handle this by ourselves. We can work this out. And on and on it goes. And of course, you start there. But if you can't, then what? So, give these few things here in closing. Seek help. Get rid of false pride. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. And do season. He will exalt you.

Put God first. Hide the word of God in your heart. Control your thoughts. Stop wallowing in your sins. Believe that God has promised He'll remove your sin as far as the east is from the west. Emit where you are. Stop the denial cycle. Deal with your feelings. Seek reconciliation with God and man. Forgive others and self.

Control your environment. Get rid of environment associates who bring you down. Believe God. Trust Him. Do not try to be more righteous than God. If God has forgiven you, and if you don't believe God has forgiven you, boy, are you here. So do not try to be more righteous than God. If God has forgiven you, you must forgive yourself in order to truly be able to bear the fruits of God's Spirit. So, brethren, I hope we'll take these things to heart. I had to cut some of it short here, but the very essence of it is here for those who really want to learn.

And what I'm going to do, I am going to put these notes on. I'm sending them out, just as they're written here. I'm sending these notes out through our email list. Those of you who are not on email will have some copies, Z-Rocks, for you. I hope you will study these things, take them to heart, because we are living in some very trying times, and your children are so precious.

And to a large degree, what they become depends on you. We have several, we have, I guess, somewhere around 20 precious little children, and of course some are teens, and they would, I guess, probably not want to be called precious little children, but they are. And we want to do the very best we can for them.

But then, of course, this has broader applications as well, because the church is a family, too. The household, the family of God. We talk about the family of God all the time. And as we read from 1 Corinthians 12, it also functions as a family. So I'll be sending these out, and then we'll go from there.