Wired For Life I, God's Heart For Families

As soon as you can make room there, go ahead and be seated and let's turn to God's Word together. Isn't it a good thing to make time for the Lord just to minister? I mean, this is a good thing and it's something most of us find challenging to do in our schedules. Well I'm still kind of processing last weekend myself, Jeff has mentioned it and a couple other people, what a great day it was in the tent. I want to thank those of you who came and served us and helped us to get up there and around there. It's quite staggering, we had a total of almost 3,000 people around there and nobody fell or tripped or fell in a gopher hole. It was just an awesome day, I can't remember in 20 years a day that had just more energy and life to it and promise. So thank you for being part of it and those of you who missed it, I can give you a cassette video cassette tape, you can't begin to capture what happened and I wish we could have the students in the front every week and I'm working on that actually. But when you have three services it does change things quite a bit and I'll talk a little bit more at the end about what's next with Dream Builders and how we're going to go forward from here. But thank you, that's the main thing I want to say, thank you for being such a help last week and I know how we did it, we got people out almost faster than normal Sunday. So I guess it was just a combination of, I guess paying the police helps doesn't it Pastor Scott, get a little extra help there. Well this is a time when we're going to be launching into a new series, Pastor Dave and I are going to be teaching for the next six or seven weeks on building strong relationships. There's a little card in your North Way Notes, it's really an invitation card, it's not for you, it's for you to give to someone that you work with or someone that you know that would be interested in just discovering some things about what God says about relationships. We're going to talk today about God's heart for families and particularly the place of moms in our life. You know moms, you've been under a lot of pressure and a lot of expectations in the last couple of decades, haven't you? Maybe the last 30 years. The whole issue of moms becoming all things to everybody, working and doing this and doing that and taking care of the kids and you get this sort of impossible standard, sort of the Barbie doll thing, right? There's mom right there. Not too many moms look like that that I know of, at the end of the day anyhow, but I'm happy to tell you that the people, I think it's at Mattel, they're coming out with a new line of Barbie dolls for those of us who are more of the boomer set. You might want to pick one of these up today, friends, it's not too late to honor your mom with a bifocal Barbie. Comes with her own set of blended lens fashion frames in six wild colors, neck chains and large print editions of Vogue and Martha Stewart Livingston. They also have a, oh here's one, a soccer mom Barbie. All that experience as a cheerleader is really paying off as Barbie dusts off her old high school megaphone to root for Babs and Ken Jr. Comes with a minivan in robin egg blue or white and a cooler filled with donut holes and fruit punch. I thought that was interesting, how about this one, how about hot flash Barbie? Press Barbie's belly button and watch her face turn beet red while tiny drops of perspiration appear on her forehead. Comes with handheld fan and tiny tissues. There's a few others, flabby arms Barbie, how about mid-life crisis Barbie? It's time to ditch Ken, Barbie needs a change and Alonzo, her personal trainer is just what the doctor ordered along with Prozac, they're hopping into their new red Miata and heading for Napa Valley. Well, culture's changing with the needs, aren't you glad there's something more permanent? It's God's word, let's look at this together. Lord, we pray that you'd open our hearts today to hear your word to us and help us to learn how we can establish a place where there is honor in Jesus' name. How do you feel inside when something you value is dishonored? I mean, did you notice, maybe it was four or so, five weeks ago, up in Quebec City, they were having some kind of international economic summit and there were some protesters there from all over, just not many, but enough to create a stir. And one of the things they did was to hold up an American flag and burn it. How do you feel inside when an American flag gets burned? If that doesn't get you, it should. Or how about if somebody takes a can of spray paint and paints on the side of a church building where people have been helped over the years or maybe defaces a monument, do you get a little, I get a little sideways about things like that. And you know, I get a little sideways as well when I see families become a place that instead of honoring one another, there's a lot of dishonoring going on. There's a lot of distance, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of people who are hurting one another. And as a result, husbands and wives continue to separate and divorce at alarming rates. And the thing that we see the most here at North Way as a result of this, and I don't say this to somehow pass any guilt along to people as much as to just alert people, the biggest fallout we see is in the lives of the kids. The rebellion they go through, the acting out, the lying, the cheating, the drug use, the violence. You want to know why there's so much violence in schools today? Much of it's coming from kids whose families just weren't a place of honor. And I could go down a long list. Perhaps that's why God was so clear about the importance of bringing honor in a home. Look at the top of your outline. It made the top ten. This is the fifth commandment. Look what it says. Honor your father and mother. And by the way, this is the first commandment in the Bible that has a promise attached to it. It says, so that you will live long in the land, or as one translation says, so that you will live a long and blessed life. There's wisdom in God's way, if we'll follow it. And God feels apparently quite strongly about it, he wouldn't have put it in the ten commandments. I want to focus on the honor your mother part of this today, because it is Mother's Day after all, and maybe when Father's Day comes we'll talk about Father in that respect. Now notice that the Bible does not say, honor your mom if. You know, if she got everything right. If she was like June Cleaver, you know, and had an apron on, and had the house perfectly clean, and had dinner coming out just when you needed it. It doesn't say honor your mom if she bonded with each kid the same. Honor your mom if she never made any mistakes. It doesn't say either to enjoy everything your mom does, or to live for her approval. It just says honor her. Honoring is in essence the best gift we can give. Pastor Jeff talked about some of the gifts he gave his wife and the mom of his kids. But the best gift that anyone can give is the gift of honor. Look what Gary Smalley and John Trent write in their book by that title, The Gift of Honor. Look at this on your outline. Honor is a decision we make to place high value, worth, and importance on another person by viewing him or her as a priceless gift. You see, it's how you see them that enables you to give them honor. The first blanks on your outline there, honor is not given because of performance, but because of position. Honor isn't something that you give a mom because she deserves it by her performance, but rather because of the place that God has put her in your life. And they go on to say, then granting him or her a position in your life worthy of great respect. Two parts of that. You see, you give honor because God has put this gift in your life, the gift of a loving mom. The same idea is given in scripture when David writes, how precious or literally honorable your thoughts are to me. What a priceless gift, David is saying, your thoughts are to me, oh God. The thoughts of your word. It's like a priceless gift to me. And then even more specifically to those of us who know Christ, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6.20, you were bought at a price. The word there for price is literally the word for honor. You were bought with this honorable sacrifice. Therefore, glorify God in your body. God has a lot to say about honor and great respect. You give respect as a gift. Not because of performance. How many of you ever stood in front of a judge? How many of you are afraid to put your hand up for fear that people would know that? If you stood in front of a judge and you don't say, hey, how's it going, dude? Why wouldn't you do that? Because you'd be in worse trouble, wouldn't you? What do you say to that person up there, him or her? You say, well, your honor. Why do you say that? Because they're in a position of great respect and authority. So it's an important thing to understand. It's not based on performance, but based on position. Now, I'd like to share with you today, and it won't take really very long, three specific ways that we can bring honor in our homes, and particularly to our moms. First of all, if you dishonor someone, you're likely to ignore them or take them for granted. Honoring in a home begins when you acknowledge the sacrifice that your mom made. Acknowledge their sacrifice. And I'm talking about acknowledging it on an ongoing basis, not just once a year, but regularly. Listen, friends, moms have paid a great price. In economic terms, for the numbers people among us, they say it costs, the experts who study these things, at least $300,000 to raise a child from birth through college. And in terms of lost opportunity wages, most people say, no, it's probably in the neighborhood, depending on one's education level and so on, of about a million dollars. So when you pick up your little one and say, you know, you're worth $1.3 million to me, just like you stand. But much more important than that, moms, right out of the gate, give a great sacrifice in terms of their own pain. Think back, moms, to those first moments of life. I remember taking Lamaze classes when Carol was first pregnant. Those Lamaze people were a little optimistic about the whole process, actually. I mean, the word pain is not allowed. They say you're going to experience some discomfort in delivery. The role of the husband is called a coach. I find that kind of a strange use of the word as well. When I think of coach, people like Bobby Knight come to mind. Roaring around, screaming, throwing chairs. I mean, there was someone in the delivery room, throwing chairs and screaming and looking like Bobby Knight. It wasn't me. I remember back then. I remember when Jonathan was born, in the middle of a Steelers playoff game in 1979. What a bad time to be born. It was inconvenient for everybody. Things were going slowly. Doctors were nowhere to be found. Carol was experiencing a lot of frustration. She got a little vocal about it. I leaned over and said, honey, are you feeling some discomfort? It wasn't a good thing to say. But from the day of birth until the day one of you die, moms are involved sacrificially in their life. Aren't you, mom? You're always, when to say yes, when to say no, when to give a little more of this, a little more of that. When to be hard about things, when to be a little softer. What kind of friends to hang out with and when to be with them. When to give advice, when to be quiet. And there's nowhere to get all this great wisdom when you need it at that moment. At Real Families, we have a website that you can go to just as you need it. But even then, a lot of decisions just require instantaneous judgment. Have you discovered that being a mom can be sort of a lonely experience now and then? I remember when Amy first came home from the hospital, we had a little reception party. I was our first child and folks came. We probably had 20 or 30 people in our little house. It was a great couple of hours. Everyone held Amy and oogled and did all the things you do with a newborn. Amy cried most of the time. After a couple of hours, everyone left. Everyone went home except Amy. She was home. And I remember this distinctly. Looking at Carol and here's this little baby and the little bass in there. Now what do we do? Here she is. This is going to be the focus of our energies for a long, long time. Your mom wasn't perfect. Nor was her mom before her or her mom before her. But they did their best. And they're worthy of honor. And as we get a little older, we tend to grant more grace, don't we, to our parents than we did at the time. You see, when you're growing up, mom and dad, they look sort of like all-knowing and all-powerful. And you kind of think sometimes they want to be grouchy. Because if they didn't want to be, they could change. They want to be this or that. But then you come to realize as you get a little older, your mom had problems and issues and struggles just like you do. It's just part of life. And they're in the middle of all that trying to work out this challenge called parenting. Part of honoring your mom is acknowledging her journey over the years as well and getting to know some of her history too. And let me just tell you, it doesn't stop when you're 15 or even 50. I discovered this in the last few weeks. See, my mom had five siblings, and particularly an older brother was very precious to her. He was four years older, and he served in World War II as a glider pilot who went behind the enemy lines, an extremely dangerous assignment. Afterwards, he survived the war. He came back and got married in 1945. And for two years, Chris was struggling to start a little commercial, small little private airline business. In 1947, he and his wife of two years took off, and their airplane crashed right here in Pittsburgh and killed them both and left a one-year-old daughter named Donna. No one in my mom's family had the resources to care for another child, so they had to send Donna, now an orphan, out of state. And my mom was heartbroken about all that because her niece that she wanted to love, she couldn't love and be with, and they lost touch over the years. For 54 years, my mom had never spoken with Donna until three weeks ago when Donna came back to Pittsburgh to find her roots, to discover her family. And so I got to meet for the first time my first cousin, who is an architectural designer in Southern California, a wonderful lady. And I heard my mom share with her in great detail the stories of her dad. She pulled out an air medal that he had won, showed him his wedding band that they had pulled out of the plane wreckage and gave it to her. And I heard my mom just sort of sharing her heart about how much she loved Donna's dad. And it was real important for my mom to do that, and it was important for me to affirm that. Acknowledge your mom's sacrifice. It means a great deal to them. The second thing, if dishonoring is to tear someone down, to honor them is to affirm and appreciate them. You know, a word study in the Bible of honor reveals that it has the idea of weights or substance. Something that is an honorable thing has a great deal of content to it. The Bible talks about a place of honor in Luke 14.8. A seat of honor, Revelation 4.9, where Christ sits. Favor and honor go together, Psalm 84.11. When you honor God, you bring Him a weighty offering. Look at Proverbs 3.9 and 10 in the Message Version. It says that honor God with everything you own. Give Him the first and the best. You see, if you just give God a little tip, it doesn't honor Him. It honors Him when you give Him something of substance. And so the whole idea of honoring means that what you do is to affirm and appreciate in a substantive way. The root word in the original language is the word for wonderment or awe. It's like when you encounter a person of honor, you go, wow, awesome. Kind of like when you see Mario Lemieux score a goal with a minute left, you know, just before overtime. You go, wow. Or like when you're driving down Route 19, there's a sign that says, men at work, and you go over the crest of the hill, and there are men at work. Wow, amazing, you know. Turn to someone right now and just honor them and go, wow, good. Just look at them and go, wow, awesome. If you're going to be with your mom later today, just go up to your mom and look right at her. Not for a real long time, because she'll think... Just look at her and go, wow. Or if you see somebody single after the service, you want to get there and just go, wow. I mean, that works too. In so doing, you see, what you do is you make an important statement, and you validate your mom's choice to invest the best energies of her life into you. The world affirms achievements and titles and roles, but you can affirm what your mom has done. You're saying, and by the way, you're the one that she needs to hear it from more than anybody else. You're saying, and by the way, it doesn't matter if you're four or 14 or 34 or 74, keep saying it. Mom, you're awesome. I couldn't have made it without you. And by the way, when you affirm your mom and appreciate her, do it in her language. Do it with things that she appreciates. Don't say, Mom, I just really want to affirm that I have two tickets to the hockey game. You want to go with me? Sit in the front row and watch guys mash their head against the glass? No, she probably wouldn't do that. My mom loves to receive things in writing. She really doesn't care that much about flowers and stuff. Anything written, she keeps it all. She has this long drawers full of letters and cards and stuff that she loves to receive. That's her language. Carol's three most precious words are her. Her lovely language is, let's eat out. But you have to know what your mom wants to hear. And by the way, as you go along, moms need to continually be affirmed that they are important and connected with the family. Even as we get older and we have families, stay connected to mom. One of the prices we're paying in our culture these days is the fast-paced and mobile culture in which we live. Families just get sort of on a track and get busy doing things. And moms and grandmoms get left out. I remember when I was a kid, after church every Sunday, at one o'clock we'd pile in the car and we'd go from out in the Beaver Valley down into two different parts of the city of Pittsburgh. And it was an all-day thing. And I got to tell you, I didn't really want to do it then. I would have rather gone to soccer or volleyball or basketball or football or baseball or gymnastics or you name it. But I was with my family. And I look back and I say, you know, thanks for making that deposit and affirming that as a primary value because it's shaped our family to this day. Moms need to hear those moments when you take the time to listen to them and say, what you have to say still matters. Now some of you, I know, came from situations where your mom didn't have much good to say about you. And many of the things I'm saying right now might seem out of context because you just have a difficult time affirming or appreciating or honoring your mom at all. But let me tell you again, it's not about their performance. It's about the position that God put in their life. And you need to make some headway at resolving that situation. The third thing that you can do, see, if you dishonor someone, you abandon them. But if you honor them, number three, you'll always be there. This is the expression of honor that has changed, I expect, most dramatically in our culture. The Bible says that the way you treat an older or elderly parent is a demonstration of your true faith. You can stand here today and say, praise the Lord and glory to God. And you can sing and you can clap and you can get all expressive. But the Bible says, look at the second verse under this point, anyone who won't care for his own relatives when they need help, especially his own family, has no right to say he's a Christian. How about that? See, it's a matter of demonstrating your faith. This challenge has taken on a whole new meaning in a time when parents are living longer and longer and longer. Carol's mom turned 90 last Saturday. But there's something very grievous about the number of elderly people who are being abandoned by their children, children that they raised, and being left alone in their final years. Now, I recognize there's some circumstances that require professional assistance. I'm not saying it's wrong to have your parent in a home. But I am saying it's wrong if it's just the most convenient thing to do. It's not the government's responsibility to care for a parent or grandparent. It ultimately is yours and mine. And it's not easy to do that. You know, it's easy. When we have to feed and care for and diaper and clean up after our little baby, we kind of do it knowing that eventually, you know, it might be 15 years later, they're going to be able to clean and feed themselves. And they're a little bundle of hope and joy. And there's possibility there. But when you have to clean and feed and diaper and take care of an aging parent, it's just sad. Because there isn't anything to hope for at the end. It's just a sacrifice. But I want you to know something. And listen, if that's the situation you're in right now, it isn't a waste of your time because God is watching and He says, What you do to the least of these, you've done to me. He says, that expression gets noticed by me. Look at the next verse in your outline. They should put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents. For this is pleasing to God. Why don't you circle that? This is pleasing to God. It was for this very motivation that Mother Teresa walked the streets of Calcutta and cared for the indigent and dying people who could in no way repay her because she was doing it as unto the Lord. Isn't it amazing that when Jesus was dying on the cross for the sins of the world, His arms spread out, blood pouring down His face and out of the wounds from His back and His side, He looked down at the Apostle John and He said, Behold your mother, as He pointed to Mary, or looked at Mary. Behold your mother. Even Jesus, and I think that's profound, even Jesus at the most crucial moment in human history, the redemption of the world, looked down at John and said, Take care of my mother. How can we do any less? I'm sure today that some of you are struggling with a situation like this. Some of you are feeling alone and maybe just a little overwhelmed. But I want you to know it's worth the investment. Kevin Lashaw is going to come and sing a very beautiful little song about caring for a mom in need. And maybe today your mom's fine. And if so, then just let this be an encouragement to do what this song says and to listen and to care. But if you need a special moment of grace in your life to see how important this is, just listen as he comes to sing and share this song about the light of life that you want to keep until that light goes out. But it's the message that we really have to take to heart today. Some of you are blessed with the opportunity today to make that expression, not to have to wait until it's too late. I hope you'll act on that. For some of you it is too late. Your mom is already gone. And if there's some things in you that you wish you'd said or things that maybe needed to get resolved, I want to encourage you very strongly. See someone and talk to them about it. Take a few hours with a Christian counselor, a mature Christian, and just tell them what you've been feeling. But it's so important that we not just let these moments go by. And for some of you who have real struggles with your parents and maybe your mom, maybe you haven't communicated, I just want to just appeal to you and strongly urge you to make an effort to go to them and say, Mom, I want to honor you. I want to affirm you. I want to love you. It's just hard for me and here's why. Take a risk. Don't go through your whole life and just keep pushing distance. It just isn't the way to go. And every mom that's here, and every dad as well, if you're a believer in Christ, the yearning of your heart is for your mom, as a mom or a dad rather, is for your child to come into a relationship with Christ. Because you know that there's no greater gift that you can give your son or your daughter than to know the Savior that you've come to know. And I recognize today that some of you as moms are having a hard time because your child is far from God. And you're grieving and hoping and praying that something will change. Well, I want to say today that some of you have the opportunity to take a step to Christ. This hasn't been a message about what Jesus did for us on the cross. It hasn't been a message about salvation, about freedom from guilt and forgiveness of sins. But if you're here today with an ounce of openness, you sense His presence here. And you know whether or not you have a relationship with Him. And by the way, you know if you've drifted so far from Him that unless you take a step back, you could drift away. But I want today to take a moment and invite you to come to Him. Would you stand with me please? Throughout the auditorium, no one's going to move around right now. I just want you to bow your head in a moment of prayer. If you're here today and you say, it's time for me to get right with God, I want to know that Christ has established His presence in my life. Let's bow in prayer. And I'm going to lead you in a short prayer. The Bible says that if you confess the Lord Jesus or invite Him in prayer into your life and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, that you will be saved. That's the beginning. To be saved means to be made right with God. I want to invite you to do that today by praying this prayer after me. Would you please, wherever you are today, pray this prayer after me. Lord Jesus, just say the words to Him. Lord Jesus, I do want to know You. Thank You for dying for my sin. I ask You to come into my life and begin to change me and take my hand to the day we go to heaven. In Your name I pray.