You know something – that old saying that blood is thicker than water, it’s true. There’s a special bond between members of a family. Our family really does matter.  And that – that’s why it’s time to start looking at what it means to build a godly family.   Family Matters It’s great! Here we are again, another week continuing our series called, "Building a Godly Family". And the reason we are doing that is because families really matter. We all imagine that out there somewhere there is a typical family – a mum, a dad, two point four well-adjusted children and that perfect family is living out a perfect life. In fact, not just one of them, lots of them, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of them – all these perfect families. I mean, look at them! They all look so perfect but not me, not my family: blended or dysfunctional, arguments or strife; people who haven’t talked to each other for years; parents who drive their children nuts: children who just don’t get it, they go off and do their own thing and leave their parents shaking their heads. You get what I’m saying, right? It feels like sometimes it’s just our family that’s in a mess and everyone else’s has got it together. You know why? It’s those happy ads on TV: selling the four wheel drives with happy, smiling kids in the back seat; selling the breakfast cereal, the ad where the sun is shining in the kitchen window and mum’s pouring orange juice while the kids are sitting there smiling and eating healthy cereal. I mean, come on! Life’s not like that! It’s just not you, it’s just not me. We all have issues in our family – ninety nine point nine percent of the people do and those who don’t are kidding themselves. It varies of course. I mean, not everyone’s kids are doing drugs; not every husband is beating his wife but there is no such thing as the perfect family out there ... there just isn’t. So let’s stop carrying around this burden that we’ve plonked on our heads that somehow my family doesn’t measure up to what everyone else’s family is doing. It’s not about measuring up. In my book it’s about what can I do from this day forward to build a godly family? What seeds can I sow? What plants can I water so that the fruit of a godly family will grow for all to enjoy? That’s what it’s about because our families matter. Let me ask you this: how much does your family matter to you? Just stop and sit back and think about that for a moment – chew it over. How much does my family mean to me? I don’t know what your family looks like but it doesn’t matter who we are, where we’re at, how we were brought up, somehow we are all part of a family. My hunch is that it’s God’s plan for it to be that way – it’s more than a hunch. I mean, God is three persons in one – Father, Son and Holy Spirit living in perfect community. I’m not sure that I have ever even thought of it this way, but there we have it, the first family, God Himself. The first verse in the Bible says, “In the beginning, God ...” “In the beginning, Elohim ...” literally "God's" plural. And the very first person He creates, Adam, well, have a listen to what God says about Adam. It is not good that a man should be alone. I will make a helper as his partner. (Genesis chapter 2, verse 18) And right throughout the Old Testament, what you see is that God’s blessing for His people, the Israelites, is all about having two things – their own land and lots of children. We know that family is meant to be a blessing. It’s a God thing, I mean, right from the beginning, God isn’t just one person; He’s three. Family really matters! And I know that for some people, just hearing that is going to hurt ... hurt an awful lot. Almost half of all marriages in the wealthy West end in divorce. I have friends who have lost loved ones in the ravages of war. Every day twenty five/thirty thousand children die of poverty and starvation and disease and Aids and ... so thinking about family, depending on your particular circumstances, well, you know it can hurt but the reason it hurts so much; the reason divorce is such a scourge and losing someone we love tears our insides out, the reason is this: because family truly matters. We want our family to stay intact; we want our kids to grow up strong and healthy and have a listen to what the Psalmist writes in Psalm 37, beginning at verse 35. If you have a Bible, grab it, open it up here, Psalm 37, verse 25: I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor their children begging bread. They are ever giving liberally and lending and their children become a blessing. See, that’s God’s perfect plan for our families – for us to live a good life; a righteous life and for us to be a blessing to our children and for them, then to go on and become a blessing to others. It’s a story ... well it’s a story that’s written in our DNA. It’s a story that plays itself out in our hopes and our dreams but it’s a plot that we so easily loose in the busyness of a consumer oriented, entertainment oriented, credit card oriented world in which we live. Let me ask you again – out of everything in your life, everything you have, every hope, every dream, every possession, every desire – out of everything, how much does your family matter? My hunch is for most of us, the answer is a lot. Family matters an awful lot, doesn’t it? And if it does, if it really does, then surely ... surely we need to invest in this thing. We need to not just talk about having a godly family but get on a build a godly family. These relationships; these people who matter more to us than any other thing on this earth – that’s what we are going to be talking about this week on the programme – making that investment - getting beyond talking, getting beyond thinking, getting beyond dreaming and actually getting on and building a godly family because there is so much blessing in that – so much.   Setting the Course Now so many families are in a mess – tension, strife – but all it takes is one member of that family to turn back to God; to honour God and God can and will make some awesome and mighty changes. It might take time; it might take longer than you or I would prefer, but God is a God of grace; His heart is to bless our families to a thousand generations. All He is looking for is some godly men, women and children to take a stand and say, "Enough of this. It is time for me to build a godly family." First Corinthians chapter 4, verse 20 in the Message translation says this: God’s way is not a matter of mere talk, it’s an empowered life. You know what I’ve noticed? We can talk a lot about stuff but most times nothing changes unless we actually do something and yet because we come home tired and we need a rest and we just ignore things; we just let things run – the badly behaved children, for example. There is a great proverb, it’s in Proverbs chapter 29, verse 17. It says: Discipline your children and they will give you rest; they will give delight to your heart. Now you’ve seen it down the local supermarket, so have I – the mother with the child. The child is just grinding her down; bad behaviour; throwing tantrums and mum, she’s just tired ... she’s too tired to do anything. She lets this kid run riot, it causes her grief, causing everyone else around the place grief too, I might add. Why does that happen? I’ll tell you why: probably because dad is too tired to discipline the child when he comes home at night so this kid walks all over his mother; she’s exhausted and the kid’s only seven! Wait until this little terror becomes a teenager, I mean, just wait! There is fruit in building a godly family; tremendous fruit! And what Proverbs said is: “When you discipline your children they will give you rest; they will give delight to your heart.” Peace and a delighted heart – see, what you sow, you actually reap. The problem is that sowing ... well, it’s such hard work sometimes and reaping seems to be such a long way off, doesn’t it? Well, let me tell you something, we have been talking about building a godly family but it ain’t going to happen unless we step out in faith and start making it happen. Yes, it’s about God blessing our efforts but if He’s got nothing to bless, then He’s got nothing to bless. We behave ourselves in to a bad place. Bad habits in families happen because we just fail to do things and we do things that are wrong that we shouldn’t be doing. It’s what we say, what we do, what we fail to do. We behave ourselves into that bad place and yes, we should pray, but God expects us to start behaving ourselves out of that place. He’s going to bless that but we have to do our part, so Christians, do you want a godly family? A family where each family member is living out a dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ; where each one is living that out in their lives? Husband and wife have this warm and intimate relationship, children are by and large honouring their parents, each family member respects, honours, understands the other. There’s real blessing; God’s blessing that flows into our families and out through our families when we build a godly family, but we’re going to have to decide that’s what we want, plan it and start living it. We are going to have to decide that some changes have to be made. This easy, comfortable, lazy existence has to change. Discipline is painful; kids don’t like it much; it takes hard work and strength and perseverance but it pays dividends. So let me ask you, how much do you want to have a godly family? And if the answer is: "Absolutely, yes! I do!" then some decisions have to be made. If your family is one with a husband and a wife then it is up to the both of you. Talk and dream and decide what’s important. Set priorities. Figure out "how are we going to do this together? What steps do we need to take first?" Mum and dad, you are the leaders, don’t expect the kids to figure this out. And I happen to believe, actually, that ultimately, the father is responsible for the spiritual growth and nourishment and development of his family; the buck stops with you, dad. This isn’t a sexist thing! So many women would give their eye teeth for their husbands to step up to the plate and take on that leadership role. So many kids would love to have parents who were not only interested in them, who spend time with them and effort, setting boundaries, enforcing the boundaries, nurturing them within the boundaries. I have to tell you, as a person, humph, I’m a natural isolationist. You know something? I so much prefer my own company, often times, to the company of other people – it’s just who I am. Now, I really enjoy retreating to my own space after a hard day at the office so for me, given whom I am, getting involved with the family and the kids and listening to what happened to them at school or at work, it’s just not a natural gift. But we have to start somewhere. You can’t build a godly family if there’s no relationship, if there is no interaction – something my wife has taught me. We are going to talk about some of the "how" a little bit later in today’s programme and again next week. In fact, one of the godliest families I know; friends who live in the U.S. with mum, dad and nine kids! They have given me some of their pointers – both the parents and the kids. So we are going to have a look at those next week on the programme but right now we have to decide, each one of us, do we actually want to have a godly family? Well, do we? And if we do, what are we going to do about it? Maybe that’s something you can pray about and think about and talk about at home over this coming week and we can talk some more next week on the programme, this whole thing of building a godly family.   Children and Honour You know, we were talking earlier about the fact that if we want to build a godly family we have to do more than talk about it, we have to act. And I just want to talk about our children right now because one of the biggest things that rob the peace out of our homes is children who haven’t learned to honour their parents and one another. Now honour is something that today’s generations don’t talk too much about. "Aw, we want other people to honour us", but honour, as it turns out, is a two way street and without it we simply can’t have a godly family. In fact, God thinks that it is so important that in the Ten Commandments, the first four are about God and us and the very next one, the fifth Commandment is about honour in the family. Pretty amazing this whole "Ten Commandments" thing, when you think about it! Let’s have a quick look – the First Commandment is in Exodus chapter 20, verse 2 and 3: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. The Second Commandment – Exodus chapter 20, verse 4: You shall not make for yourself an idol; you shall not bow down to worship them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Commandment number three begins in Exodus chapter 20, verse 7: You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God for your Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. The fourth Commandment, Exodus chapter 20:8, 9 and 10: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath day unto the Lord your God and you shall not do any work. So the first four Commandments are: don’t make any idols, don’t worship anything else other than God, don’t use His name badly and have a day of rest which you give to Him. So those first four Commandments are all about – in a nutshell, executive summary – honouring God. Now I’m wondering if you or I were God what would we have put down as the very next Commandment? Well, if it were me, I think murder would have been number five – I mean, you shouldn’t murder people – that’s really important. What could be more important than that? Don’t steal; don’t commit adultery, what should have been number five? What does God choose as number five? Exodus chapter 20, verse 12: Honour your father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Ahead of murder, ahead of adultery, stealing, lying and jealousy, "honour your mum and dad"! I don’t think I would have put that in the top ten – maybe in the top twenty, but certainly not in the top ten – certainly not as the very next Commandment after those that are about honouring God. Yet, where does God put it? Number five! Not only that, it is the very first Commandment to which there is a blessing attached: So that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you. You know, when you become a parent you start thinking what that means is that if the kids honour the parents, the parents won’t kill ‘em. Yea, well, you know, those teenage years? But that’s not what it means – what it means is that God will bless someone who honours their father and their mother! Figure that out? This is really important to God. See, Israel was going in to possess the Promised Land. They would have to take it by force one day and all the Nations they took it off would try and take it back again. All the other Nations around them would try to defeat them but the blessing attached to honouring your father and mother is this: that you will own your land and you will have peace. Isn’t there a message in that for a few families? Now many families are in a mess because the children have never been taught to honour their parents. I know young adult children in their twenties who live with their parents, they don’t pay any board. This particular woman I know, this child is a drain on the parents’ finances in their old age. They leave a mess behind, they cause pain. Why? Because these children were not taught to honour their father and their mother. You know, as a teenager, the most natural thing in the world is to treat your parents like slaves – you expect your father to be a taxi driver, you expect your mother to wash your clothes and clean up after you but there comes a point in those teenage years when the children are old enough to be taught to do some of these things, not just for themselves, but actually to do some things back for their parents. To clean up messes that they don’t create, to clean toilets that not just they use so that they learn to honour the other people.

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