As For Me And My House Part III, Bringing Grace Into Your Place

All of them and don't forget that the elders in this service will always be here to pray with you Right after the service over here under the alpha banner if you need further prayer, let's take our outlines out of our notes I want to get right into the message this morning and I encourage you to get your notes out because you're gonna want to just Walk out of here with a couple of takeaways today That I believe will be of help to you. Let me get right into it this morning Well Over the past months the nation has been shocked by several acts of extreme violence by children We're in four separate incidents Ten children ten people have died and 20 others have been wounded by children using weapons in Kentucky, Mississippi Arkansas and then most recently they got real close to home didn't it went up in Edinburgh a Fourteen year old took out a gun and shot a student a teacher who was chaperoning a dance and then wounded two other students this past week the news came out that there was a hit list of teachers and Students at the Mars Middle School Which threatened those teachers and students with sudden and necessary extinction. It's causing many parents and Most every mature adult to say what is going on? in our nation Now I could certainly contribute to this debate and give my opinion as to what's happening and why I have strong feelings as to Why young people are becoming increasingly violent and extremely callous towards other and I want to say very clearly listen Listen, it starts when you Condone the destruction of life in the womb Hear it it sets in motion Well, I understand your I understand your applause of agreement It it sets in motion that life really doesn't matter all that much friends Why are so many in a moral crisis these days That would seem actually bizarre wouldn't it? I mean if it wasn't so tragic It's just almost weird because everything in our nation is supposedly so wonderful Read the polls we're all just raking in the cash and the economy's booming and life is good and Yet these unexplainable acts are taking place What I want to talk about today is the root issue as far as I'm concerned It was Henry David Thoreau who said for every thousand hacking away at the leaves of evil. There's one striking at the root I want to be that one today by the grace of God because I believe the root of the problem is the home It's in the family and Though you may not be dealing with a violence issue in your family I also want to speak to every parent who holds is their dream the possibility of raising a godly fulfilled image bearer of Jesus Christ The source of that power friends is what happens in the home without a doubt the greatest single controllable Factor in your child's development is you parents you can't always affect your child's wiring patterns and all the rest, but you can affect your attitudes and Your behaviors and I want to talk about that today And I also want to say one other thing for those of you who are single today There's a number of you sitting here saying oh man, you know, I'm 19 years old and going to college What's this have to do with me? Well apart from your home Where you may influence others in your home? I want to talk about these seven things Related to your house. The word house in the Greek is the word oikos You do a little word study as I did this week. You'll find that oikos has multiple translations The word means literally house or household. It means your person You're called the temple of the Spirit of God. You're an oikos of sorts It's second means the family or household in which you dwell the third application Has to do with your place of employment or pursuit of a career your job That's also your oikos and finally in the New Testament Greek It has to do with a sphere of influence those people who you influence in the classroom or in recreational Activities or neighborhood or whatever these qualities these seven qualities if developed and exercised in any of these areas will bear much fruit So if you're single married Employed a class or a student in a class a parent or in relationship with any other human being this message relates to you Turn to someone and say that must be me Okay The reason that I feel strongly about this is simple I've come to develop a conviction that what is most needed to correct what is happening in our homes What is most needed to change the moral? Trajectory of our nation is a baptism of the grace of God in this land Friends grace is a word that I'm really pumped up about right now in fact I'm already preparing different resources to study through the summer so that next fall. I I've got a sense I'm not gonna commit to it, but the entire fall I'm gonna study this word because I believe that many of us who've come from very tight Rigid sort of liturgical backgrounds and and legalistic backgrounds more accurately don't understand grace Grace as author Chuck Smith says changes everything when you receive grace Which is simply God's power at work to perform his will if you want to write a definition there on the side of your notes God's power at work to perform his will in your life when you receive grace everything changes in you and in the relationships that you affect You know, it's interesting to me today how much we spend trying to change the externals in our lives I'm gonna get been hearing these commercials on tele or radio these little ads that come on About all these different makeovers you can get you know It's amazing how many body parts can you can get upgraded these days, isn't it? And you never know when you're looking at someone are they synthetic or not is the way what it comes down to But the fact is no matter how many new body parts you get or things you get changed or or rework in the end What's inside doesn't change unless the grace of God touches you and that's where I want to focus my attention for a few moments today grace is the infusion of the power of the Spirit in the inner man that Transforms you from the inside out and that's what this nation needs. We need transformed from the inside out Because the outside things aren't working Children are shooting each other Something's got to happen And it all stems from the fall of man in Genesis 3 through 5 on your notes Someone's gonna need to hand me their notes on if you'll hand me yours, please Thanks In Genesis 3 through 5. I won't have you turn there because time won't allow today, but We find what is called the fall of man and the resulting curse That's the first blank the curse That came upon mankind now you want to know theologically why we have problems in today's world It's because the world in which we live has been Fallen has fallen rather under a curse of God God has said we've allowed sin in and it's sin You see that causes the wars the suffering the pain the heartbreak all the things that people point to God and say Why did you do this God friends? It's not God doing it It's what we've allowed into this world by our own sinful actions And I just a little acronym here for the word curse this is how many of us conduct our relationships and again, I want to say if you're a Professional in a small company if you're a Teacher in a classroom if you're a student if you're a parent these five things Influence your relationships number one C stands for controlling many of us try to get by in life by controlling others behaviors It's a result of the fall of the curse. We say to people if you do this, then I'll accept you If you don't then I won't and many people live their lives trying to gain that acceptance by someone else's controlling behavior Another mark of the fallen relationships in the world today is unforgiveness. I Wonder if I paused right now and just somehow could Bring all of your thoughts to look at your own heart How many of you if you were honest know that you've not dealt with an issue in your life about forgiveness? Unforgiveness is holding on to the past in order to influence the present behavior of someone as long as you don't forgive them They can't be free a third third reaction to the fall Is being reactive or a third response to the fall is being reactive rather than responding appropriately in relationships you respond reactively you respond Defensively or critically how many times do we just find ourselves going off the handle? Well, what is that? That's because of the curse The next the S stands for shaming This is the lack of valuing a person just for who they are This is calling someone in word or indeed unlovable unworthy of your affections defective or inferior. Why can't you be like your brother? I Mean why can't you do it like she did it It's controlling another by belittling them It's the use you always statements that we often that's shaming and that's a way of affecting people's behaviors And the fifth is ego centeredness Friends this is something this is when we we try to control there simply by making sure that we elevate ourselves over them in some Way that our reputation is protected at the expense of someone else those five simple letters. I Would tell you in my counseling. That's how a lot of people live life right there Trying to manage life according to those Ingredients that are a result of the fall the curse that fell upon men friends If you're laboring in relationships using those techniques You're tired. You're worn out Your life is likely miserable and you're here today. Just wondering if there's any hope I want to say to you There's only hope in the grace of God That is the answer to the curse that's on mankind and I want to talk about grace No matter how desperate you think your situation is Ephesians 2 5 says when we were dead in our sins the grace of God found us if God can redeem us out of dead sin How much more can he redeem a relationship or a situation that you may feel as hopeless? So, how do you open the valve to let grace begin to flow in your oikos whether that's your home or your classroom or your office? your neighborhood How do you do it number one you do it by choosing some things and namely number one by choosing to love unconditionally Unconditional love which is grace reaffirmed Friends once we begin to flow in love when life-giving accepting Understanding inclusive love is spread lavishly to each member of our oikos of our house Whether the regardless of their age or sex or competency or attractiveness it almost immediately changes the climate It's what John said in first John 3 1 behold. What manner of love is this? That we should be called the sons of God. He just couldn't get over It's almost a miss a mystery in healthy homes friends. Love is displayed in inordinate amounts There's acceptance rather than rejection. There's understanding rather than judgment. There's participation rather than manipulation Not based on the response or behaviors or reactions to what you've required of them. It's simply Unconditional love one of the things that I was most blessed by by so many people as you came to talk to me about my Dad, but she said, you know, your dad just had this way about him and making people feel Accepted There was in just the way he had of affirming people in a loving way not a you know Not a sort of a it wasn't a sweet way. It was just sort of an accepting Almost more times than not a humorous way and that was a great quality about my dad that I'll never forget Now what releases this grace is the ability to speak it and friends I want to just underscore this you can know that you love someone But if you don't tell them they don't know it and there's some of us here today that aren't real good at expressing love If we're honest, this isn't something we learned in our household of origin We don't know how to tell people that we love them in a world where we're reminded daily of our faults when your students leave Their home each morning parents how much affirmation you think they get on the bus? How much affirmation do they get in the hallways and in the classrooms they can't read your mind You need to let them know just how much you love them because when they get to know that then they're free to live in it And give it back and that's why last Sunday when I sent my two boys back to college I put David on a plane and John back in a car to go back up to school I could give them both a hug and look him in the eye and say I love you and they can look me in the eye and say I love you too dad because we're used to saying that to each other and That bond is real and it's alive and it'll always be there because we invested in it when we were young I want to say to you dads. Do you tell your kids that you love them? You say well I never did my dad never did and I guess I never will Why not start today? Why not walk out of here today and call your son or your daughter and say you know I haven't told you in a long time. I really love you They need to know that It fills up their tanks and reminds them that regardless of what others say they know they're loved now I got to tell you I mean my Guys aren't perfect at this either. I mean sometimes they didn't always show it. In fact one of the sons I won't mention which one forgot my birthday this year So when he came back and when he came home, he ran upstairs. We were all kind of the kitchen and he ran upstairs And got this card and said oh I was gonna mail this to you and I open it up and the ink was still running down the card, you know, I mean I Guess it's fair to say it wasn't Jonathan. His friends are all sitting here. So Now this whole thing of unconditional love seems like a no-brainer when everything's going well, that's not that big a deal But how are you expressing love when it's not going that well? When conditions in your home were a little stressed, you know when the temperature is up just a bit How are you when your 14 year old daughter mom won't talk to you? Or how are you dads when your 18 year old son tells, you know, I don't want to go to your college dad I've got my own plans Or how are you spouses when? Your husband or wife isn't all that interested in what matters to you in a given time It's hard to show love you might want to write this down Unconditional love is a verb not a feeling Unconditional love is a verb Not a feeling just write that at the bottom of your page Number two You inject grace in your home by making and keeping promises Make and keep promises. That's grace recalled. It's grace in specific It's a deposit in the emotional bank of the loved one or the one that you care about in your oikos Stephen Covey who many of you have heard about in the business context Wrote the book seven habits of highly effective people. It's a bestseller for years now. He's now written a book called seven habits of Something I think it's effective or loving families But here's what he says many times over the years people have asked if I had one idea Just one that would best help people grow so they could better Cope with their problems seize their opportunities and make their life successful and I've come to give a simple four-word answer make and keep promises Although this may sound like an oversimplification I truly believe it is profound Promises you see come from God God established Covenants the word covenant in the Hebrew is the word for promise The Bible is the Old and New Testament old and new covenant is the same word the old and new promise So it was God's idea to make a promise if you read about in Genesis 15 God initiated a promise with Abraham I'm gonna give you people and I'm gonna give you what's the other part? Land and so God proceeded to give Abraham Generations of people and then he gave them a land when the Egyptian when the Egyptians took the Israelite slaves after well God freed them and they went off to the what? To the promised land and it's all about land. It's a part of the promise God makes and keeps promises He knows that covenants are important And how many of you know, sometimes your promises cost you Sometimes your promises cost you dearly years ago. I remember when I was a little more athletic I used to get home from work and want to go out and do something one time pastor Scott and his brother Mac and Ron Myers Challenged us to for me to get involved in a devil's tennis game And I remember getting home But I was really pumped up to go out and I promised the kids that we would go down to North Park and ride the swings I Don't know. That's a that's a bummer if you're a dad and you want to go play tennis ride the swings It's not really a thrilling exercise and remember coming home I saying the kids how about if we could we do that later on today? And I'll never forget they've done this a hundred times and parents you've heard it. They said but dad you You promise and they hold you to it You need to do it One man, I know that's going through a pretty nasty divorce Promised me he said, you know what? I'm gonna promise before you but I'm not gonna speak ill of my wife who's divorcing me and even though she's Made it very difficult. He's been sticking to that promise and I told him you know what? God's gonna honor you in the end in the end you're gonna come through that a different man than if you so back into that relationship with with Destructive words friends. I'm convinced that if you want to put a deposit in the bank of grace Making key promises and by the way, how many of you are promise keeper man? You're in the promise keepers movement. I Want to also let you know there's something starting in the nation. You're in on the ground floor. It's called couples of promise my friend Dr Kevin Lehman is starting a new national ministry called couples of promise and North Way is sending a couple to get in on the training next weekend and we're gonna have lots more to tell you about how couples can celebrate their covenant and Build on the promises they made in their marriage files Number three the third thing you need to do to set grace in place in your home is to set boundaries Which is grace? redefined Ephesians 6 4 is quoted there Now word to you parents don't keep on scolding and nagging your children Making them angry and resentful rather bring them up with loving discipline. The Lord himself approves with suggestions and godly advice friends It's possible to abuse grace listen Paul wrote in Romans 6 1 Don't think that just because grace is there that you can just go on and sin at your whim He said heaven forbid that we do that Rather we need to have boundaries in our lives Let's do what pleases God not taking a presumptuous attitude toward grace It's strange to me now as a parent whose kids are pretty much grown to see a significant number of parents Who don't get it when it comes to discipline? And I want to say this with a little bit of love but a straightforwardness because I feel so strongly about it I'm amazed at the number of parents who have adopted a sort of Hands-off attitude about raising their kids you're buying into a world's mind world mindedness here friends Don't read about raising kids in the newspapers It isn't going to help you Read about raising kids in the book This is proven In fact, the book of Proverbs is very clear says numerous times if you love your children, you'll discipline them If you want to give them hope you'll discipline them if you hate them you won't now how many of you hate your children a lot of hands going up in Fact the Bible says that God loves us so much. Let's put that up. Please Hebrews 12 that he disciplines us. Look at this God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. Now, no discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful And that's true I Mean I remember a couple times I'd go and I say and I would be pretty angry the kids I think well, you know, you're gonna get a spanking for this and and then I try to remember I'm doing this because I love you and they say dad. Would you love me a little bit less? This is but later on however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who've been trained by it friends If God loves us and therefore disciplines us parents you need to do the same thing Well, someone say yeah But I've seen parents who just lose it and they just discipline out of anger and I have to say I don't condone that nor Do I support it and I think it's right It sometimes is a fact that parents need to deal with but for every parent that maybe gets a lot of control I see far more parents who don't do anything Who just kind of let little Johnny or Sally or Mary or Carter Catherine or whatever just do their own thing Carol and I were away for a little bit after Easter to get some rest and go to a couple of meetings together and We were staying at a place that had two floors and underneath our place with two families with little one Each one had a little child one was named Gus and the other Ian And Gus and Ian we get up every morning way too early They'd go out and they play in the little yard that was outside their room and little Gus was just he was a I mean If you picture what little Gus would be like it was him He was a chunky little guy and every time I hear this Ian was crying all the time because Gus was chasing one time I looked out there and Gus was chasing him and he fell down and he booted him And I saw Gus's dad come on saying now Gus We don't kick you're gonna have to go to the timeout box if you do that again The kids like bawling here, so he just boots him again. I said Gus now we don't do that You're gonna have to go to the timeout box the third time hit him right in the stomach and Ian just like And I went to take you on it. I wanted Kevin Lehman's book and just dangle it over the fence You need to read this, you know help Figure it out It takes some discipline Children are searching for boundaries They're looking for guidelines and though they may fight you at first and especially if you wait To bring development into their to bring discipline later on in their development. They're gonna thank you in the end Now there are lots of schools of discipline. You may take the James Dobson more kind of forward approach maybe the reality discipline of Kevin Lehman, which is more the consequences and Working those out or you may take the the Explanational approach that some were advocating and I don't care which one you take but take one and stick to it Develop it and agree upon it as parents How many little kids are very good at finding which parents got the soft spot where huh? They're real good at that Parents you need to agree The key is that you establish the boundaries and keep them and it also is very important that you help your kids develop The balance of their understanding of their responsibilities It's a very important part of their growth in a home where grace is in place their responsibilities in terms of keeping commitment and and and Being responsible to to show up when they say they will and and complete jobs that they commit to and hundreds of other little character Lessons that make them become mature and responsible adults It was Bill Bennett who said this The only hope for our society is to revive Such virtues of self-control and prudence and honor and fidelity to commitments and that kind of training he wrote must begin in the home Where family members instill a sense of responsibility in each other and I couldn't agree with him more Consequences for our actions being a giver not just a taker these things friends begin in the home number four If grace is to be in place, you have to learn forgiveness Forgiveness is home man. This is a two-hour teaching The fact that we're human remember going back to beginning the message the fact we've all fallen that the curse has happened in our lives We're all gonna fail as parents as bosses as employees as spouses people fail But what we realize too little is how much pain our failures cause Are you astonished as I am when I read the bestseller lists? Do you see the books that are continually up near the top? It's books like, you know men are from Mars or women from Venus. What's that book about? It's a book about understanding why we're so different and why we cause each other pain Debra Tannen's book you just don't understand But it's a million-seller. Why because there's pain involved in relationships And when there's pain in your house, what do you do with it the power to give and receive forgiveness is so important In my premarital counseling one thing I established early on with couples is I say You need to decide who's going to be the first one to ask forgiveness when there's a difference in Your relationship when you have a falling out and I usually have to look at the men and say and I have to tell you brother it's incumbent in God's economy that you have the courage to lead and asking forgiveness Because if you don't you'll allow bitterness to establish a foothold in your relationship. I Mean there's so much I could say or just let me just deposit two things number one if you hold on To offense and pain and hurt and bitterness listen number one. You will always be a victim Until you forgive you might want to write that down You'll always be a victim in a culture that always seeks to transfer blame brothers. You cannot be healed until you give forgiveness to the one that hurt you in any definition of your oikos Forgiveness is the key to opening the channels of trust and unconditional love that heal your heart Listen listen, it's not the snake bite that kills. It's the chasing of the snake that draws the poison into the heart And that's what's happened to far too many people who named the name of Christ the second thing Listen, this is the weird one until you forgive the person you want to see change probably won't Somehow unforgiveness creates a prison that people can't get out of that's what that scripture in Matthew 18 talks about Until you forgive people stay locked in their Blindness and darkness and as difficult as it may be to comprehend unforgiveness is a prison that you create I urge you to read that so no matter what the offense whether it's desertion by a parent Infidelity of a spouse broken promises character assassination, let alone the petty grievances that many of us call wrongs in our lives Develop the habit early on to ask and receive forgiveness The next thing is to value each person which is grace revealed Friends have you noticed how God has a way of putting different people together even in marriage? How many of you are married to someone is really different than you? How many of you're afraid to put your hand up right now just to prove that I Mean, I've asked God lots of times, you know, Lord Did you just have a sense of humor when you put us together? I I mean was he just experimenting with humans to see what he could make up I mean Carol and I are so different Carol is extremely patient. I Just don't get it sometimes he could just I'm still learning lots of lessons of patience Carol is very level. I mean her. I mean her emotional swings are very very narrow. I mean I've been accused of having PMS more than she has I Carol has the electric blanket on and down comforter on top of that 365 days you you could grow vegetables on her side of the bed, you know, I Like to sleep with the windows open and get some air in the room In Carol loves cats, you know I'm not there yet. I'm tolerating them Our children are really different. I mean our home is just it's really different Jonathan kind of fades out after 11 p.m Or so David gets up at 11 p.m. And Amy has pretty much the same energy at 11 a.m. Or 11 p.m We're just all different. The staff of this church is extremely different. I mean What a mix I mean we we have some who are extremely laid-back in their style and a few are very intense We have some who are highly organized and a few who show up and say where did I leave my office? You know that kind of thing Why is that? Why are people so different? Why are you some of you here today are cold right now and you're putting on your jacket and some of you are going like This what's right and what's wrong? We're just different how some of you're gonna go out and go to Wendy's and some of you get a hamburger with lettuce tomato pickle onion mustard ketchup a Little and over and say hey just plain cheeseburger Who's right? Well, neither one of you're just different and God's put us together To be different so that we can learn to understand and appreciate and value one another God wants us to bring out the best in our diversity. He does not want you to recreate someone in your image And The sooner you get that parents the better off you'll be In many ways the family is a place where we can learn how to encounter others who are different and accept them just as Christ Accepted us in a healthy family. There are no black sheep. There are no favorites even the one who does everything The goal in healthy families is not to crank out cookie cutter kids who all look and act the same but to raise kids who can discover and develop their gifts and Their callings and the unique created design that God made them to be We want our kids to be able to say my family was a place where I could be myself It was just okay to be me And you know what when you raise kids like that They tend to be accepting of other people people of other colors other backgrounds Other interests other socio-economic levels they're people who just learn to love Are you raising kids in that kind of environment? Are you valuing each kid that way? How about number six? You bring grace into your home When you cultivate a sense of humor Sense of humor is grace rewarded Friends when there's grace in abundance, you're always gonna find laughter in abundance That's why joy is one of the great themes of the New Testament Laughter and joy is supposed to be the mark of the people of God we're not supposed to be walking around looking like we've just been baptized in pickle juice all the time a Home where laughter flows is a place where people want to be Because there's a sense of relaxed confidence a that someone's in control here more than just the people that we see Um, there have been lots of times in our home when something pretty nasty happened and It was laughter that turned the whole thing around God uses humor to bring perspective and to regain sanity and to renew Appreciation for what really matters in life and that is listen. It's the people not the stuff I Want to take you back just a couple years ago and my family when I had an incident that I think really displayed this Very well, we took our kids out. It was sort of the last vacation before he was to get married we went out west together to do some sightseeing Grand Canyon all that kind of stuff and I took my My one of my favorite possessions, which is my Nikon camera. I got for my 40th birthday and I've had Thousands of wonderful pictures works perfectly It's got a great lens on and everything Fully automatic and I took the kids out for a and Carol's with us. We went for a family hike Go get it, you know, so we went hiking together up in the mountains and oh It was just one of those kind of moments when it looked like we could have some fun creating something with a video camera and this camera and I gave this camera to David to hold and I asked Jonathan said well Why don't you get up on this little rock ledge and and see if I mean the way it look it looked like he was Gonna dive off into the end of the Grand Canyon and just disappear forever So we were just kind of calling around having fun together said well, let's see how this works so listen carefully David had a reaction to Jonathan apparently disappearing from the radar screen and You'll see what happens which became a family moment. Let's douse the lights here guys and see if we can all Okay, okay watch out Dave Huh, I think you might John just be real careful. It's a long way. All right Oh Now mercifully the tape was edited right there It was a less than godly response that initially came out of my mouth Might come up and check this out afterwards this The thing is still totally whacked out and bruised up it at that moment, I Mean everything in my nature my fallen man wanted to do something desperately wrong But someone had the idea said did you get that on tape? And so we backed it up and we started watching that thing and every time we watched it We did exactly what you just did we laugh. I don't watch it a hundred times and we laugh more every time we watch See it took something. It really wasn't right and Put it in perspective and you know something friends Those kinds of humorous moments in home are what the kids always remember. It's what makes our ho