Family

Having Kelly and Jennifer and the three grandkids there this for a whole week, well, Jennifer wasn't there for a whole week, but Kelly and the kids, it was a wonderful time. We really missed Jason, my son-in-law, and he said that he didn't know what to do with himself. He said, you know, he went to work every day, but at night, without Kelly and the kids there, he was just ... Kelly said he's just deteriorating day by day, you know. He's in a place he doesn't shave, he just sits around and eats. She wasn't sure what he was eating, you know. So that's the problem with men. We become barbarians very quickly. We just resort back to this. So we wish he had been able to come, but it's always interesting to watch your daughter raising her children. And in many ways, you see how you were a parent affected how she parents and watching them, how her and her husband deal with things. And sometimes you think, wow, they're doing such a good job. And sometimes you bite your lip and say, it's not my place to say anything. And then sometimes you step back and say, oh, don't do that. I should have taught you that. But it was an interesting exercise. She and I talked, and watching how families form. She has a different idea of family she did when she was a teenager. I remember when she was a teenager, the Cosby Show was real big. Remember the Cosby Show? She wouldn't watch the Cosby Show. And my wife loved it. She said, why not? She said, it's our family, and I don't want to watch it. It's just like, why would I want to watch a show about our family? It's the same thing. Now it's like, wow, it'd be good to have a family like the Cosby Show, wouldn't it? So it's a little different viewpoint of family. But I've been thinking a lot about family, just because having them there. And of course, we always work close. So it's difficult to have our families scattered out so much all over the place. So it was nice to have them. And it made me think a lot about family. So I started looking back to the sermons I've given over the last few years and realized how few sermons I've given about family. How few sermons I've given even about marriage. I mean, we've been covering so many other things about Christian living and in-depth issues concerning God's Holy Spirit. And we've been dealing with some prophecy issues and different things. But I haven't been talking a lot about family. And some of you say, well, I'm a grandparent. I'm not raising children anymore. Or my children are grown. Or I'm single. But the concept of family applies to all of us. Many of you are interested in agriculture. And you're interested in growing things. And people are talking to me all the time about how they're starting a garden. Or they want to learn how to grow some kind of fruit trees. So there's this interest in growing things. And in order to grow something, you have to create a certain environment for that to grow in. You know, if you talk and just threw some seeds out on hard ground, you're not going to grow anything. And so we're very concerned about the environment and creating the proper environment in which we can grow plants. We know the same thing about animals. You have to have a certain environment for an animal to be healthy in. And not only physically, but an animal can become mean. You put an animal in a mean environment, and what does it become? It becomes mean.

And we don't spend sometimes, there is much effort, thinking about the home environment that we create. And so the home environment that we create doesn't matter whether you have children or not. When you come to a congregation, this is a home environment. What kind of environment do we create for children to grow in? You know, our marriages and our families are a great microcosm of our Christianity. Oh, we keep the Sabbath once a week, and you tithe every time you get a paycheck. And there's things you do, but it's inside your family that many times our greatest flaws are shown. You don't want anybody to know what your wife knows about you, or your husband knows about you, or what your kids know about you. You don't tell anybody this. How many times have parents told kids that? You know? And so inside this little group, however small or big that group is, is where our Christianity really meets, you know, the rubber meets the road so many times. You use an old cliché. I'm going to give you two principles, big overriding principles that we have to think about in terms of marriage and family, and then I'm going to get very specifics. Get specifics of what we should be looking for in order to create a healthy family environment. When I mean a healthy family environment, I don't necessarily mean just a clean house. I'm talking about the emotional, intellectual, spiritual relationship between members of the family. And I've talked to people before that say, well, what happens inside my family is not my Christianity. Well, yes, it is because it shows our true character. But also, we are given the family by God to teach us something about His plan of salvation. The family itself, turn to Ephesians 5. Now, anytime a sermon is given about marriage, probably 90% of all sermons you've ever heard about marriage, at least part of all of Ephesians 5 is read. I'm going to read a passage here, part of Ephesians 5, but I don't want to dwell on the exact issues concerning the relationship between husband and wife or the roles or how we'll go through to explain how this works, because that's not my purpose today. But Paul actually has two purposes in giving this passage. One is to explain, okay, here's how harmony works within this husband-wife relationship, and this has to be done.

Husbands are commanded to love their wives. It's a command. Wives are commanded to respect their husbands. It's a command. That's a sermon I'd like to give here sometime in the next year on the difference between love and respect, because you can be loving your husband and not getting...he's not responding the way you think. You may be respecting your wife in the way that you respect another man, and you're not going to get the same results.

So that's a command, but there's something else in this passage. That's only one of the two purposes Paul had for writing this, and I'll show you what I mean. Verse 22 says, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, and he's the savior of the body. Now what we do is, men, we pick out wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife. Oh, man! Write that down, print it up, you know, on a computer, and stick it on the refrigerator.

Well, that's okay. You automatically have a problem. That's not what we're talking about today. It's the second part of this verse that I want to really talk about. As also, Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything, our relationship between husband and wife is a way of teaching us about the relationship that we have as members of the body of Christ with Christ as the head of the church. I heard a statement once made years ago that had an enormous impact on me. This is probably 40 years ago. A minister said, some of you men will not be in the kingdom of God because you did not learn to be a good wife. The Christ ends up thinking, what in the world does that mean? What he meant was, we have not learned how to be a good wife, and our response to Jesus Christ is our head. And so, this husband-wife relationship has a lot to do in teaching us about our relationship with Jesus Christ. Every one of us, male and female here, is part of a group that is becoming a bride to Christ. And the marriage and family helps us understand that, or should help us understand that. This is why when our marriages are in constant turmoil, we can't even get into this spiritual part. How do we understand the spiritual depth of this when our marriages are in turmoil? It's only when our marriages are following the ways God teaches us that we begin to understand, wow! This is how we as a group, this is how me and my wife as a couple, are to respond to Jesus Christ. Both of us are the wife of Jesus Christ, in the role of the relationship that we have. He goes on and talks about how the husbands are to love their wives, and what is the example he uses? Verse 25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. The church is used and called a her. Now, we know the church is not feminine, it's not all women, right? Yet we are collectively a her. We are collectively a bride.

Gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her, and with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she should be holy and without blemish. So a husband should love their wives. So, we are to look at Jesus Christ as an example, but that also means that our love towards our wives should be an example to others of how Christ loves the church, that title of total dedication, total self-sacrifice. See, there's a whole other story line underneath this, and that is our marriages and our families reflect what God is doing in salvation and creating the church. That's a pretty big, you know, it's one thing to say, okay, we've got to learn to get along and love each other and have a good marriage. It's another thing to say that we are a reflection, or supposed to be a reflection, of what God is doing on earth with the church. Suddenly, it makes our marriages, the example of our marriage, is really, really important, doesn't it? Other people should see our families, our marriages, as a reflection of Christ's relationship with the church. In fact, in verse 32, he says, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular, so long as his wife is himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So verse 33 gives us, now that needs to be expanded out greatly. Paul did not take verse 33 and expand it out, because he's talking in principle here. Verse 33, we can write a whole book, we can give 10 sermons on verse 33. Verse 32 is the point that we miss. He says, I'm showing you a mystery. God designed the husband and wife marriage relationship to be an example of the relationship between Christ and the church. So that's an enormous spiritual principle that we need to think about in our marriages. Then in Romans 8, the second principle, then we're going to get into some practicalities here. Romans 8.14, one of the most... Romans chapter 8 is one of the most encouraging chapters in the entire Bible. But he says, Paul writes, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. You did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry out, Abba, Father! The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. The father-mother-child relationship, the parent-child relationship, teaches us about our relationship with God. When my wife and I had children, you know, a small child, parents are like God to them, aren't they? And I'm amazed at how many counseling sessions I've done over the years with men and especially women who have a very difficult time relating to God as a father because they were treated the way their father treated them, the way their dad treated them, abused them, beat them, maybe sexually abused them. How can they relate to God as a father? That's a long, hard process.

Sometimes children have a hard time. What children do is the way they see God is the way they see their parents. My three-year-old, I asked him if he wanted to give the prayer, and he was missing his dad. He was missing his dad that day. So I asked him, would you like to give the prayer at dinner? And his whole prayer was, God, I love you. I love you so much. I miss you so much. It's like, wait a minute. He's talking about his dad. That's how he related to God. And God, I wish you would come see us. That's how he was relating to God. Now, he didn't think God was his dad. He knew that difference. But you understand how he related to him. He related to the way he related to his dad. Now, a lot of how we learn as children to relate to God comes from the way we relate to our parents. So the parent-child relationship teaches us a lot about the fact that God is creating a family. Our little families are part of a huge plan of God. Your marriage, your family, your grandchildren, you know, your uncle, your aunt, whatever relationship you have inside of a family, that family is just an example of this huge family that God is creating, this huge family. Then it will include everybody on the face of the earth, everybody. So these two spiritual principles are very important to understand.

So on the spiritual level, our families are actually examples and help us understand. They teach us this greater thing that God is doing. Now, on a physical level, a family is very important. Now, when I'm talking about family here, I realize that we don't live in a world where everybody has the perfect family anymore, right? Well, perfect family has never existed. But you know what I mean? The ideal family. Husband, wife, and children. And the husband and wife are married their whole lives, and you know, they raise their children. That unit is being destroyed in society. But that was the unit God designed. Now, we may not live within that unit, but we must try to recreate that as much as possible. That's one reason why we need each other's help. We need each other's help a lot. To keep our marriages together, but also to keep our children. Because Satan doesn't play by the rules. He has no rules. And now children go to school, you know, when 25 years ago, 30 years ago, someone would come to me and said, you know, I would like to homeschool my children. Usually, I would sit down with them, and in most cases, explain why they shouldn't do it. We talked about this at the Women's Club last Saturday night. And we had a very interesting discussion at the Women's Club. I asked them what kind of issues that they're dealing with, especially with children, with grandchildren, and get a whole list of things that they're dealing with. And as I told them, we're having that discussion now. My parents had the same discussion. I remember me and my wife with others having the same discussion. And after their children have gone on and left the home, they'll be eventually having that discussion. It's just because we're dealing with a world, but each generation is dealing with a collapsing world that is actually now designed to destroy the family. So our children go to school, and in first grade, they're given little books to read about how they need to accept Jimmy, who has two fathers, two daddies, instead of a daddy and a mommy. So now, you know, when I counsel most parents, if you are capable of doing it, home schooling is a wonderful option.

The socialization issues are taken care of. I mean, eventually, though, our children have to face the world, and they're going to go face it sooner or later, and we can't hide it from them. But they will hide it from us. They're experts at hiding it from us. We have to support each other as parents. We have to support each other as people. We have to work together because the world will pick off our children. The more they move to the outside of the herd, the things called the lions for a reason, the easier prey they become. A lion will pick a young one every time. It's easier to catch, easier to bring down, doesn't put up a fight.

So that's what he does. So we even work together as a family.

The family life, then, in our own lives now, in our physical lives, is the extension of God's family. It's the extension of His government. This is our little kingdom of God on the earth. It is society's basic social unit. It isn't anymore. And our society is collapsing. It is the society's basic economic unit. It isn't anymore. Kim, the other day, was just distraught. She came into me and said, I just heard something on the radio that was unbelievable. She said that she was listening to a talk show, and a man called him, and he said that he and his four sisters had come up in a home where their dad had abandoned them. His mother had had a good effect on him, and he had actually gone on and got a college education. A good job was married and had children and had a very stable life. But the four girls did not. And between the four girls they had – let me make sure I had this right – 17 children, right? The four girls had 17 children from 17 different men. So they were all on welfare, and he said they were bitter women who sat around and complained that the government didn't take care of them enough. And he said their lives are messed up, but the 17 children have almost no hope now. And what will they produce? Fifty children. It's scary. It is no longer the basic social and economic unit.

It is a unit that builds bonds between its members through common blood, through common dreams and experiences and successes and failures and sickness and health and everything else. It builds a bond between these people. They can't be broken. It is supposed to be a stable, secure haven and support in times of trouble. I remember as a kid, we didn't have the perfect family life, but my parents did a much better job. As I got older, I realized I would have done a good job. But no matter what happened at school, somehow you went home, and when you shut the door behind you, you were safe. Somehow you were safe in this place. I remember feeling that. It should be that way for all of us, husband, wife, children. Well, when we go into this, we're safe. We're safe with each other. It is also then a training ground to prepare children to become a tour God-centered adults.

Now, if you sat down with, you know, there's numerous people in this congregation that have a lot of expertise in growing things, and you said, is this a healthy plant? They could tell you if that was a healthy plant or a non-healthy plant. Right? They could tell you by looking at it, and they could tell you, well, this will save it, and this will make it healthier, and this is what you do. What kind of traits make a healthy family, a healthy Christian family?

I'm going to give you a list of traits. Three of them, actually the fourth one too, are... I didn't make these up, although I could have. I could have gone through the Scripture and done this. But this is from a book I read many years ago called, Traits of a Healthy Family. Now, if they did that, wrote that book, this book today, and I say this book was probably done in the 90s, so it's probably 15 years old. I'd have to go look at the copyright.

Well, no, it's longer than that. It was done in the 80s, so it must be close to... it must be 20 years old. Close to 20 years old. Or 20... Wow. 30 years old. I suddenly feel tired.

But what this woman did, and it was an amazing book, she went to 551 family specialists. Now, what she considered family specialists were ministers, medical doctors, family counselors, principals, teachers, social workers, and coaches. So, 551 is a broad sample from across society, and she said, okay, tell me what constitutes a healthy family. What are the traits of a healthy family? The number one thing she found was that... Now, when healthy families are families, they get along with each other, they love each other. Oh, yes, they have problems, but they solve them. Okay? They have conflicts, but they solve them.

They sometimes get mad at each other. They have disagreements. They like different things. They are able to go out and function in society. They're not violent. They're not criminals, and they're able to function within a church environment. They're able to show... function within social environments. They're able to function in school. They may not be the top students, but they do the best they can. They use their skills. Okay, well, what kind of people? What kind of family produces those kinds of people? And, of course, they say, well, you know, obviously, there are some people that come from very bad families and do very well. And, occasionally, there's somebody who comes from a very good family and does very poorly. There's always anomalies, but what is sort of the norm, the average? And they say, well, there's one thing they found that was common in many, many, many, the great majority of families that functioned well in what they produced. And it was that they had a shared religious core. That was the surprising answer. It didn't matter what religion. They didn't ask what religion you are. They had a shared religious core. At the core of the family was a common set of beliefs about what is important in life, about God, about how life works. That was their common thing. And, without that, the family continued to fracture and fracture and fracture, or continue to have such conflict that it never can work itself out. The people could never really work it out. Now, I reuse this. I could have gone to the Bible to prove that. The reason I find this as interesting is this person proved it simply by going to people who said, now, this is what produces people who work in society.

Which means that the first thing we have to do in developing our families is we have to make our God the center of our lives. Let me tell you something that we do sometimes, and we're going to talk about this tonight at the men's club, too. I worked on this sermon. I thought, tonight, I would like to talk a little bit to the men about fatherhood, grandfathorhood. I've been a father, well, I still am, but now I'm a grandfather. You learn different things as you go through those stages. I always get a kick, though. Mama can yell at him. Grandma just spoils her mind. It's just useless. All I have to do is look at him. Yes, Grandpa. They're still not quite sure, but the one thing they do know is somehow they don't want to break their relationship with Grandpa. But I remember feeling that about my grandfather. Somehow he was bigger than life. Now, I know they won't feel that way much longer, but at the age that they're in, you know, it's like he's bigger than life. It's like my grandson sitting down beside him and saying, let's turn on the TV and find out if there are any movies that you're in.

And then I realized he'd see me on Beyond Today, and he thought I was a movie star. Okay, what movies are you on this week, Grandpa? Well, I'm not in the movies, boy. It's just...

So, you're a little bigger in life than these kids. Okay. What we can do as Christians, because we know the importance of family, is we make the family the center of our lives.

The writer of this book, Delores Corin, she wrote, There are families among us today who idolize the family to the point they expect the impossible from themselves. This family is a kind of built-in failure device. It believes that it just tries hard enough and focuses hard enough on itself and its needs that we have no problems. I've seen families do that. Now, you think about it. When you see a person do that, what happens? The person becomes narcissistic. Everything's about me and my problems of my life and solving me. Well, if a family gets in a place where everything in life is about us, well, they generally create a narcissistic family. So, a family has to be God-centered. It can't be centered just around itself. And isn't that what God told ancient Israel in Deuteronomy 6? Sort of the pinnacle scripture on family and child-wearing in the entire Bible. Deuteronomy 6.

Verse 1. Now, this is the commandment. These are the statues and judgments with the Lord your God has commanded to teach you that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. He says you teach them to your children and then you teach them to the next generation. I'm not around my grandkids much, but I do, you know, just being around them, you have these opportunities. My grandson, we went hiking, walking in the park, and we're about a thousand yards from the road. I wasn't at 300 yards from the car. And I can't go on anymore, Grandpa. Well, yes, you can. It's not that far. It's only three. No, I'm too tired. Well, I picked up the baby was the issue, so I had to pick him up, too. And I said, no, I'm not going to carry you. You're three years old. You can walk to the car. No, I can't. Well, the next thing I do, he's on the ground, crawling. You know, Grandpa! Grandpa! I said, oh, boy, it's going to get dark soon. I guess you'll die in the vultures of communion. And he looks at me and says, well, you know I'm teasing you, but you are going to have to get up and go there. And I'm going to carry the baby that I'm not going to carry, because that's what you have to do. But I'm tired, son. Half of what you do in life will be when you're tired. So you might as well learn it now. But I can't. You can. And I'm telling you you can. And you're just going to have to get up and do it. So he gets up and staggers the...you know, I think he was dying. Gets to the car and all of a sudden he's like, I did it. You know, I made it to the car. I'm a man. But you know, we have to teach him those things. That's what we pass on. I hope someday he's looking at his son saying, I'm going to tell you what my grandpa told me. He's only going to come eat me. So you better get up off the ground.

Verse 3, Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, our God, the Lord is one, the most important verse in all of Judaism. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. What Jesus said was the number one commandment in the entire Old Testament. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently.

He didn't say that you will just bring them to the temple. You know, you can't expect just bringing your children to church. You know, we have Sabbath school every week, and they go to Sabbath school. We have pre-teen activities like tomorrow, you know, where we go bowling. We have teen activities and family activities. But you know, all that is is support for parents. That's all it is. I've been in the church of God a lot of years.

You know, most of the people that I was in the church with as teenagers, almost all my friends, 90% of them, don't even believe this way anymore. And they had some wonderful programs. Now, as you know, I'm always having youth programs, because I think they're vitally important. I think camp is one of the most important things you can do for your kids. I also know that those programs very seldomly keep a kid who is troubled in the church. What they do is they help healthy families keep their kids in the church. Sometimes we'll help a troubled child, and we'll bring them along. But for everyone what we do, there's others that just don't come along. It's how the parents even use those programs. I've seen in the past where people used youth programs as a way the babies sit their kids. The parents had never even attended, but they sent their kids. The core is the family. It's our responsibility. The church is here to help you. And believe me, we will do all kinds of things. We will continue to have all kinds of programs. We have a lot of little kids in this church. We've got a lot of babies coming along, and a few new families that have come. We have, what, four young people coming up into the teen group. And we'll continue to do activities. But in the end, that is support. It is not the core of what happens to that child. It is support.

He says, you shall teach them diligently to your children. You should talk of them. When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.

In other words, this is a way of life. You teach them every moment of every day, every moment of every day, what you do reflects. I knew a person years ago who said, all my children grew up to be bitter against coming to church at all. I also know that that husband and wife, because one of the kids told me, they didn't tell me, told an elder. But what they did, every single Sabbath, they would get in the car and on the way home, the parents would do is show all the things that were stupid and wrong in the sermonette, the sermon, the song leader, and just sit and tear down everybody they talked to in the church. After 20 years of that, their kids hated this place, and then they thought, why?

They, by the way, they went to all the youth programs, but they hated the congregations that they had been in. They liked the youth programs, by the way. It was their best memories of church. Their best memories of church was the youth programs, not God. Not God. We can't make the church family-centered either. It has to be God-centered, and then the families grow out of that.

The second point, so this first point, is healthy Christian families are God-centered.

Now, there's importance to that too, because there's times when you sit down with your child and say, wow, what do you think God thinks of that? God says this, and what you did was wrong. Now, I love God, and I want you to love God, so we're going to have to deal with this.

You're not alone when you have to discipline a child. You're not alone when you say, God... Now, use God as your hammer, and they'll learn to hate God too. But if they have the right relationship with you and you're teaching them about God, they won't want to disappoint God.

The second point is, in healthy families, there's meaningful communication. Now, meaningful communication is different from family to family. I can't give you, here's the perfect family communication model, because it depends on your personalities. I mean, I have a family that everybody talks sometimes at the same time. But what's amazing is we have to learn to stop and listen to each other. So, we do talk, but we stop, and we listen. And what we find out through this research that this person did is that, in healthy families, people talk, but they also spend time listening. There's equal time spent. Every member of the family spends time talking and listening. It was funny to watch the three children, because I was amazed at this one-and-a-half-year-old baby who sometimes spoke in entire phrases. But nobody hears, because the two other children, and mama, and grandpa, and grandpa are all talking. And what was it she said at the store? You know, what's happening here? I think it was at one place she said, and everybody looked at her. This little baby, what's happening here? And everybody looks at her, since that came out of her mouth. But what we found out, she was doing all kinds of conversations. Nobody was listening to her. So she just talked to herself. So we started listening. Come here, kid, what are you saying? And then you'll have to type in gibberish. But every once in a while, it's like, wow, she's actually saying things. Oh, get me out of here is what she said, right? Get me out of here? She was in a... they were at the... H.E.V. or someplace, and she's in the shopping cart. And they pulled up, and they're paying for everything. And she looks up at the girl, the checkout girl, and says, get me out of here! She's one half year old! And she said, did she say that? And everybody's staring at her, and she's like... This baby talks! We didn't know that! Well, now we have to shut up enough to know it. Okay, so now we have to learn to include her in conversations. Now we get another person! It just gets more and more complicated.

And one of the things that they find was very interesting, and this, I think, is absolutely vital, is table talk. You eat needles together. That may be one of the most important things that people can do. Now that may be uncomfortable at first if you're not eating together. You'll sit around and... First of all, no cell phones, no iPads. Okay, okay, no electronics at the table. You shut that off, and now you sit and stare at each other. Do it long enough, and you'll start to talk. But if you set aside a half hour, it'd be even nicer to set us out more time, you know, for evening meal, five nights a week, especially that Friday night Sabbath meal. When you're sitting down together, the electronics are gone, no television on. And eventually, conversation takes place. How many times have we said, you know, he never talks to me, she doesn't understand me, my parents just don't listen to me. We hear that all the time. Stephen Covington in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, gave a little scenario. He said, he said, apply this to your family. Suppose you've been having trouble with your eyes. And you decide to go to an eye doctor for help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you. Please put on these, he says. I've worn this pair of glasses for ten years now, and they've really helped me. I have an extra pair at home, so you could just wear these. So you put them on, and they just make it worse. You can't see anything now. That's terrible, you exclaim. I can't see a thing. Well, what's wrong, he asks. They weren't great for me. Just try her. I'm trying, you insist. Everything is a blur. Well, what's the matter with you? Think positively. Okay, I positively can't see a thing. Boy, are you ungrateful, he says. And after all I've done for you.

What we do is we try to get them to see everything through our glasses. And this is especially important for parents, but it's important for children, too. And I don't care how old you are. If you're eight years old, or you're fifteen or sixteen, it's the same thing. Have you ever tried to understand them?

So you just keep looking at them at your thirteen-year-old glasses, or you keep looking at them at your forty-year-old glasses. And sometimes you've got to say, okay, let me see this through your glasses. Let me see this through your eyes. Let me see how you're looking at this. Many times that will give you the ability, by the way, as a parent to actually reach them. I see what you're thinking now, and here's why it doesn't work. I've been correcting you, correcting you, correcting you. I now see this through your viewpoint. Let me explain to you why this isn't working, instead of just telling you you're bad. Because you see it through their viewpoint. It's like the father who said, I can't understand my kid. He just won't listen to me. I can't understand my kid. He just won't listen to me. Is there a problem with that?

Now, I understand my child, and we have a disagreement, and I'm going to have to correct my child. It's something totally different. My child is wrong, but how do you know if you don't understand? My daughter, Kelly, I could get to confess for things she never did. She wanted to be good so much. Did you do that? I don't know. Maybe I did. I don't think I did. I remember one time some children stole candy in our house. My wife had a box of candy, and somebody had stolen some of the candy. We knew who did it, or we guessed. But I wasn't going to make an accusation without proof, even with a child. The Bible says, don't do that, so I wasn't going to do it. So I brought all the kids together in the room, and I said, okay, someone took this candy. I won't correct you. I mean, I won't punish you, but I want you to confess who did it. And there's all this quiet. And I said, well, Kelly, I would like to talk to you. And I took her in the bedroom, and I said, did you do it? Now, I knew she didn't do it, but what happened was the kids now, it was amazing, because the kids, she told me later, thought, oh, she was going to get punished. See, I took her in another room. And she said, Dad, I think I did it. I don't think I did it, but maybe I did do it. Maybe I just forgot. Maybe I'm so bad I forgot I didn't. Kelly, you didn't do it, okay? But I'm going to teach the person who did a lesson. I said, you just stand here. And I took out my belt and smacked the bed through. I said, now go out there and just sort of look sad. That poor kid was crushed, but he still never come and confessed. But it taught him a lesson. He never came to our house and stole anything again. Well, my oldest granddaughter is the same way. I don't know, Grandpa, maybe I did do it. Maybe I did murder the family next door. I don't think I did it. I, well, God, be mad at me. You didn't do it, kid, okay? I know you didn't do it.

We have to listen to them. We have to understand where they're coming from.

In a research, Dolores Coran found that these are the points of families who have healthy communication. The family exhibits an unusual relationship between the parents. The single most important thing you can give your children is mom and dad love each other.

That is the single most important. If you have a bad marriage, it will affect the way those children develop. It's like, you know, men say, men abandon children all the time thinking, well, I don't take responsibility. By abandoning them, they have made a long-term negative impact on that child. A lifetime negative impact. Well, good. I don't want to take any responsibility. Well, the fact that you didn't meant that you had a negative impact. You can't help. You produce a child. You have an impact on that child. And the most important thing we can give any child is mom and dad having the right relationship.

The second is the family had control over television. Now, this is the 1980s. I would say the family has control over all our electronic media. This doesn't mean that they don't, young people or parents don't use their media, you know, but let's face it. We complain about our children's use of social media, and then as parents, we can be watching too much television. We're still controlled by electronics. We have to break the control that social media and entertainment and electronics has on our lives. And that's a whole subject. You know, the Women's Club last week, this was the number one by far issue that they all said they were having with children and grandchildren.

Number one, their children are changing because of technology and not in a positive way. Number one problem. So we have to have some kind of control. It was easy for me when my two daughters were little because they loved money. They were greedy. So I gave them a dollar a day and charged them for every television show they watched. Well, Dad, can I watch Sesame Street today? Sure, it costs you a dime. I got ten dimes.

I got to give up one of these? Sure. If you watch it every day this week, it'll be fifty cents. If I watch it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I can keep two of the dimes. Yeah? Something's policed themselves. If you get greedy kids, it'll work. If you don't, then it won't work. The family listens and responds to each other. You know, Proverbs 18, 13 talks about how it is foolish to respond to an issue before you hear the matter. We do this all the time.

How many times have we judged a child or a child has judged a parent and you never went and asked the parent or the child, how many times the husband and wife's done this? What really happened here? Give me your side of the story. You know, the single most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with in Mary's counseling is I have learned to never listen completely or completely agree when I hear the first story.

The Bible, by the way, Proverbs says, don't do that. And when I hear the second side, you know what I find out? Ninety percent of the time. They're both partly right and they're both partly wrong, and now it gets real messy. That's what I find ninety percent of the time. It's so much easier just to take what the first person tells you and go beat up on the other person. But that's not how life is.

And we forget that in the way we treat each other within a family. The family recognizes nonverbal messages. In other words, they know if one of the members of the family is down, and maybe that it's a child that needs lots of hugs, so everybody gives them hugs. They know if mom or dad maybe is having a bad day, and it's okay when daddy says, look, you know, mom's not feeling as good. She's having a bad day today. We're going to go do something and let her have an hour off because she needs it.

And they learn that responsibility, and they learn that it's okay. They can see she's not having a bad day. She's not pretending to be something. She needs a little time off. That's okay. They learn to love others. They learn to understand that other people have emotions, too. They recognize individual feelings and independent thinking. And I'm going to talk about this in just a minute because this is real important. In other words, everybody in the family doesn't think exactly the same. Us men can have that problem. We try to herd our family into yellow pencils, and they're all exactly the same. And we treat them, you know, well, that's not life, and that's not actually good for them in the way they develop.

The family recognizes, put down phrases, and doesn't do them. Oh, man, that's hard. We all know the buttons, right? My daughter, Kelly, even told me, sorry, dad, I knew the buttons. I knew dragging walking out to the car to go to church when you're sitting there trying to think about your sermon would make you nervous. So she would, you know, if she was mad at me for something, that's what she would do.

As an adult, I mean, soon as she got in her 20s, I was like, wow, that was wrong. Sorry for doing that. But see, we know that. We know the things that push each other's buttons that will make somebody nervous or give them anxiety or make them angry. We know that. And we'll push those things with each other. In a healthy family, they understand that. They just don't push them, you know. They just don't push them.

The family develops a pattern of reconciliation. There's going to be conflict. There's going to be problems. There's going to be arguments. They always heal it, and they heal it quickly.

The third point is that healthy families share a common sense of right and wrong. Is this amazing? This is something that a group of researchers found out. If the family agrees on what's right and wrong, that impacts on how the children act outside that family. If the family doesn't agree on what's right and wrong, then they'll do whatever they want to do. But that's just common sense. All this research and all these hundreds or thousands of dollars is spent, and is book written to say, when mom and dad agree on what's right and wrong, and they teach their children the same principles, the children tend to live by those principles. If they don't, then the children live by different set of principles. A set of principles they make up, or that the world teaches them. Now, I could have told you that. I could have gone to the Bible. But you know what? Here's people who've proved it. There's people who proved it by talking to who. Family counselors, coaches, teachers. Like I said, I bet you wouldn't find the same thing today. Well, healthy families are one who can accept the fact that there's four of them, and they have four different fathers. They can accept that. Healthy families are the ones who accept that they have two mommies.

And then we wonder why our country is collapsing.

About 20 years ago, well, there's more than that now, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued something very interesting. They issued how to create a juvenile delinquent.

Here's how to create a juvenile delinquent. When your kid is an infant, give him everything he wants. That way he'll think the world owes him a living when he grows up. When he picks up swearing and off-color jokes, laugh at him. Encourage him. As he grows up, he'll pick up cuter phrases that will floor you. Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he's 21 and let him decide for himself. Now, I've actually talked to parents who have come to that conclusion. Well, we don't want to teach our children now. I mean, if we teach them that they have to be honest, you know, or if we teach them that they shouldn't fool around, you know, they'll miss out so much in high school. Or if we teach them they have to keep the Sabbath, they'll miss out on so much. No, if we teach them those things, they'll have happier lives. But we don't believe that. And because we don't believe them, we teach them lies. And then we wonder why they grow up to have miserable lives and hate out sports.

Satan doesn't play by those rules. He started teaching your children about, oh, probably a month before they were born, certain brain activity of the child that makes you believe Satan can actually start working with them before they're born. Yeah, Satan's worked with your child a long time ago. He doesn't play by your rules. I mean, we'll just let them decide when they get older, when God calls them. Understand the fact that your child is here with you today, and we can go to Acts to show that. The fact that they're here today, they already have a special relationship with God. There's a door open for them to walk through. They can choose to walk through it or not. You and I can't make them do it, but that door is open. And if you say, I'll wait till later, you shut the door. You shut the door on your own children.

Avoid using the word wrong, and we'll give them a guilt complex. You can condition him to believe later, when he's arrested for stealing a car, that society is just against him. Pick up after him, his books, his shoes, his clothes, do everything for him, so it would be experience of throwing all responsibility on others. Let him read all printed matter he can get his hands on. Sterilize the silverware, but let him feast his mind on garbage. You know, in electronic media, you think this was talking about magazines and books. Think about electronic media today. Let him read all printed matter, or I'm sorry, quarrel frequently in his presence. He won't be too surprised when you get divorced. Satisfy as every craving for food, drink, and comfort. Every sexual desire must be gratified. Denial may lead him to be frustrated. Give your child all the spending money he wants. Don't make him earn his own money. Why should he have it as tough as you did? For these people, I guess, would think it's really cruel when I make my three-year-old walk to 300 yards when he's sure he's going to die. It was hard, though, when he and I said goodbye. We were at the airport, and I went to say goodbye to him, and he was standing against the wall, crying.

Grandpa shed some tears to take his side against neighbors, teachers, and policemen. They'll all be against him. You can't take your child's side when they're wrong. His parents, it's so natural to take their side that what we'll do is we'll take their side even when they're wrong. Do you know what we produce? Children who are just obnoxious.

When he gets into real trouble, they have excuses like, I never could do with him anyways. He was the bad kid. Prepare your life for grief. That's the last point.

In the book, The Traits of a Healthy Family, they asked all these experts, they said, okay, what is it that you will find in the family itself that works?

We said, well, the family has money. The family has a good education, right? The father has a good job. That's not what they came up with. They found out that having money, your amount of money you make has nothing to do with it. They found out your education level has nothing to do with it. They found out your status has nothing to do with it. The things we think are important have nothing to do with a healthy family. First of all, the husband and wife have a consensus on what is really important in life. They share the same values. The parents then teach a clear definition of right and wrong to their children.

And then children are held responsible for their moral behavior. Does that sound biblical to you? See, I go to Bible and prove that. Some of you can sit here and find all kinds of scriptures. What I just said, what these researchers found is, well, when husbands and wives agree on what's valuable, what moral is, morality is, and they teach it to their children, and then they hold them responsible. Sounds like Deuteronomy to me!

Now, when you teach your children morality, this is a whole other subject, but I just want to make a point in this. Understand that intent is important in behavior. Intent is important in behavior. And the younger the child, and this is true with teenagers, too. They can't always understand that. Now, I want all of you children under the age of 12 to do something here. So, there's about 25 of you here. I want you to do something. So, everybody that's under the age of 12, I want you to do something. I want you to write down an answer to this question. Your parents can help you do it. A child climbs into a cupboard and wants to sneak at some candy and breaks the candy jar. Okay? Another child is helping the mother set the table, knocks over a glass, and it knocks over four glasses and three or four plates, and they all break.

Which is worse?

Now, this seems... Now, you write that down. Which is worse? The child that went up to take some candy and broke the candy jar, or the child that was helping the mom that broke four glasses and three or four plates and just made a mess. Which is worse.

Now, you parents ask them later. The surprising thing is, when this test is done, and I would guess it's different here because of some parenting that's been done, but the majority of children will say the child that knocked over the four glasses and the plates. And the reason why is the amount of damage was so bad, mama would really be upset. They don't understand the intent. As a parent, you would see the intent is different. They would see the amount of damage as what made it worse. That's why morality has to be taught, and intent is so important. That's what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. And intent is so important.

So, it would be interesting. I hope some of you wrote that down. On the way home, they'll ask, what did you write down and why? And then you could say, no, mommy would forgive you for this. This other, let me explain why this is worse. You may find out that many of your children had the right answer, which would make you feel like, oh, good. They're learning something. It would be interesting to ask the parents and see how the parents would answer that.

Healthy families develop. And this is the fourth point, and this isn't for the book. It's just something that I thought about that I just looking at even some of these points, look what the Bible says. Healthy families share common bonds but respect each other's individuals. Remember where these researchers found out that healthy families respect the individuality of people? Sometimes what we can do is we can take the family and try to make it a reproduction of ourselves to the point where it's a reflection of us. So you will see a mother live out her teenage years through her teenage kids. And that's a mess. Anytime you have a mother living out her teenage years through her teenage children, it's a mess. You'll see dads try to make a son something he's not. You've ever seen a man who is a great athlete and has a son who can't chew gum and walk at the same time? And all he does is show disappointment because his son isn't an athlete. Or vice versa. You know, I never was an athlete. I want you to be an athlete. Or I never did this. And so you live out some dream or fantasy or live out your years in your child and almost always you produce in the end a very negative and very discouraged, frustrated child. We have to understand who they are as individuals, what their talents, God-given talents are, what God made them to be. Now morality-wise, you're supposed to teach them. Yes. You mold and shape who they are in terms of their morality, their relationship with God, their relationship with you, their relationship with others. Our impact as parents is enormous. But if we try and mold them into a spittin' image of us, we'll end up in trouble. We have to find out who they are. And it's very interesting. And we look at Judges 13. This is Judges 13. We may talk about this tonight even more at the men's club.

The children of Israel did evil in the sight of Lord, verse 1, and the Lord delivered them as a land hand of the Philistines for forty years. There was a certain man from Zorab, the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was buried and had no children. So the angel of the Lord comes to Manoah's wife and says, you're going to have a child, and he's going to become basically the judge of Israel. This would be Samson. And he explains to her how she is to go through her pregnancy, and when the baby is born, how he was to be treated a certain way, was to be under an Azarite vow. So she says, yes, Lord, this is what I will do, which shows, you know, Manoah and his wife are two very remarkable people in the Scripture.

She says, yes, this is what I'll do. So then she goes home and says, Manoah, I received a message from a man of God. She calls him the man of the Lord. She's not even sure it's an angel. And she says, this is what I'm supposed to do, so this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to obey God. This is a God-centered family, by the way. She didn't say, I'll obey God if you tell me to. She said, I'm going to obey God. Sometimes it's hard to be a wife when your husband and God disagree, right? Because you have to obey God and respect your husband at the same time. Being a wife isn't easy. But being a husband isn't easy, either. You're supposed to love her, even at times when she's not being a good Christian. When she's not being a Christian, it doesn't mean you can stop loving her. Well, that's it. You're not being a good Christian. I don't have to love you. It doesn't work that way. The command to love is to love. It's a God-centered family because when Noah says, oh my, I better find out what I'm supposed to do. You're talking about two remarkable people. See, we read through there. We miss the whole point. God sent somebody to her. He sent an angel to her.

She goes back and says, this is what God wants me to do. And he says, well, then he didn't say, woman can't be an angel. The angel would have come to me. I'm the head of the family. That's not what Manoah says. Manoah says, well, I better find out what I'm supposed to do. So he prays about it. And he asks God. Verse 6 says she went and told him. Verse 8 says, then Manoah prays to the Lord and said, oh my Lord, please let the man of God have you come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who we be born. Oh, I guess I better find out what I'm supposed to do now that God sent an angel to my wife. And I better find out how I'm supposed to raise this child. If God's going to pick him for a job, if God wants him to do something, I better figure out what I'm supposed to do to make that happen. And what's very interesting is verse 12, because God sent him this man of God, which he's about to find out is an angel. And verse 12 says, Manoah said, now let your words come to pass. What will be the boy's rule of life and his work? Okay, God, you want me to raise this child for a special job that you have for him? What will be his rule of life? What will be his law, his principles? How will he live life? How will he carry out his life? And what will be his life's work so I can prepare him for it? He didn't say, you know, but I'm a farmer, and I thought he would be a farmer, too.

You know, I'm a blacksmith, and I was expecting to have a good, strong son to be a blacksmith. What is it that you want to teach me about his rule of life and what work he should do?

That's the question we all have about our children. Proverbs 22, verse 6, last scripture. Proverbs 22, verse 6. I'm going to wrap this up here by the time. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. The modern language Bible translates this, educate a child. Educate a child, train a child in the way that he should go. Now, he just doesn't say, in the way of the Lord. This is very important, the way this is said, the way this proverb is constructed. Train up a child, educate a child in the way of the Lord. That makes sense. We're all supposed to do that, but in the way that he should go, this becomes very personal. This becomes very personal. Help me to understand his rule of life and life's work. My oldest daughter got a degree in art history, and my youngest daughter got a degree in architecture. I thought, wow, that's not going to do him any good. It has. It's done them a lot of good in life, because that's who they are. That's who they are. They thought my interest in history was rather weird.

In the way that he should go, that means we need to look at our children in the terms of who they are, their personalities, and in their God-given talents. We have this remarkable opportunity to help them develop what God gave to them, molding them into the way of God, in the way that he or she should go. What is their rule of life? What is their work? Not what is my rule of life upon them and my work. Now, God's way we are to teach, and that is to be our rules. We have rules in our house, and we kept, we maintained those rules, and that's just the way it was in our house. God's law was kept. If you didn't want to keep God's law, well, there wasn't a question. You would do it. You'll do it, and you'll make your own decision when you're 21. But you will do it here. And we maintain that. And you know, sometimes they didn't like it. But you know, my parents did that, and I hate to admit it, but sometimes I didn't like it. But I sure am glad now they did. I am sure glad they did. Because I look back and realize that helped form the person I would become. The erosion of the family has been taking place in this country for many decades until it's now been redefined. Abortion and homosexuality and other things are just part of the outcome of this redefining of the family. You have been called to become the family of God. Now, many of you come from shattered backgrounds, shattered families. Many of you come from abuse. Many of you come from very difficult situations. Many of you say, well, I don't have a family. Yes, you do. Look around you. You have a family? That's who we are. You can participate in this family. You know? And you know how you can do that sometimes? When you see a child running through the church building, and you know they're not supposed to run, you say, hey, you stop that or I'm going to go tell your daddy. You're part of the family now. You're part of the family.

And we have this way we can encourage each other, we can help each other. So remember, families must be God-centered, healthy families, traits of a healthy family. They're God-centered. They have real communication.

Their whole family is built on a true moral understanding of right and wrong, and they respect each other as individuals. Apply that to your family, and apply that to each other in the congregation.