Find Joy Through Your Family!
Series: Find Joy in the Journey
Thesis of series: Joy needs to be experienced in the journey of life! But Joy, like any other attitude, can come and go. It is not guaranteed simply because we are born again believers. We must put ourselves in the places where experiencing joy is a possibility. We need to go after and find joy in our journey of life. What are you doing to cultivate joy? Remember joy is a choice!
Many get all caught up in our, so called, destinations but in the process, we never enjoy the moments in the journey of life to that destination. But God is more concerned with the journey, than the destination so we need to focus less on the destination and enjoy the journey today – we need to find the joy in the here and now.
Introduction to Series:
Quote from Chuck Swindoll’s book “Laugh Again”: “I know of no greater need today than the need for joy. Unexplainable, contagious joy. Outrageous joy.”
Studying about joy in Scripture, looking at verses which speak of joy, helps build an understanding of how to put ourselves in places where it is possible to find and maintain an attitude of joy in our journey of life. Scripture reveals it is possible to find laughter and joy in living life in a sin-filled world! The Apostle Paul teaches us this can be done!
Scripture Texts for 2019:
Phil. 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”
Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
John 15:11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
Sermon: Finding Joy in the Journey through Family!
Thesis: We need to learn the keys to having a healthy family if we want to fend off the attack of the enemy on our families. If we want to experience joy in the journey of life!
Texts: Ephesians 5: 1-33; I Corinthians 13
Introduction:
It’s no secret that Satan has declared all out war on Biblical families. In the Garden of Eden, he disrupted the marriage of Adam and Eve with deception about God. In the very next chapter of the Bible, his influence was so great that a brother killed a brother and the killing and dysfunction in families has continued on thru time. From that moment in Genesis His focus has been on destroying Biblical homes.
Question: You may be thinking – Why?
Why does Satan and his demonic forces attack biblical families? The following thoughts are from an article from Chuck Lawless:
Bottom line - He aims in general to destroy what God has created. That’s just his destructive nature. If God had granted him permission to do so, he would have killed Job and wiped out all biblical families he could.
Listen carefully the enemy is not your spouse – your wayward child or even other family members it is the influence and deception of Satan on other people. It’s a spiritual war not a fleshly war!
The enemy wants to destroy the witness of our marriage. Paul told us in Ephesians 5 that our marriages are a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If the enemy destroys my marriage, I can no longer model the gospel by loving my wife Kathy as Christ loves the church. It would impact my kids and grandkids. It would tarnish the witness for Jesus.
Chuck Lawless states, “Satan hates our children. He delights when our adult decisions affect our children by turning them against God and the church. Sometimes we become the enemy’s tools to do that when we follow his ways more than God’s. The enemy wants to take out the primary place of disciplemaking. The first place for making disciples is in the home, where parents are to disciple their children. When that home is messed up, the church’s disciplemaking work is only harder.”
He strives to remove people from ministry through family conflict. From hindering kids from following their call because of family conflict and strife. The conflict convinces them of God’s unwillingness to care about them. The bottom line is that Satan wants to so destroy and disrupt our homes that we have no energy left to do ministry.
Chuck adds, “Satan wants to redirect the church away from evangelism. He will do whatever he can to keep us from taking the gospel to our non-believing neighbors and the nations” he primarily does this by attacking and disrupting our homes so that our pastors spend all their time trying to put out family fires.
He always wants to hinder prayer. Peter warned us that unhealthy marriages block our prayer channel (1 Peter 3:7). Satan will always aim to rob us of power by weakening our prayers.
He delights in scars he can attack later in life. Our sinful choices often leave scars in our life and in the lives of our children. Satan doesn’t miss opportunities to rip them open when he wants to later in our life.
He wounds entire church families when a biblical home falls apart. That’s part of what it means to be a church – we all hurt when one hurts. Great anguish sets in when a brother and sister in Christ choose to end their commitment made to God and allow pain and anguish to rip their families apart.
Pray today for your family, and then pray specifically for four other families. Let’s cover thousands of homes in prayer today.”
From http://chucklawless.com/2017/08/10-reasons-satan-attacks-families/
Good News for the family shared by Gary Collins in Family Shock:
* Despite all the change and turmoil that disrupts family life. God is still aware of what is going on and is still in control.
* If most people had to do it over, they would marry the same spouse they have now.
* Even though divorce rates are high, most marriages stay intact.
* While 3 percent of women living with men in America suffer at least one violent domestic incident during a given year, the good news is 97 percent do not.
* The majority of families are not seriously dysfunctional. Most kids do not become “adult children of dysfunctional family backgrounds, “and most of us are not in need of recovery.
* No family is perfect and without problems and periodic crisis.
* All parents make mistakes, but most of their kids survive very well, even without therapy and twelve –step programs.
* When families and marriages have problems, counselors can often help.
* It is possible (but admittedly more difficult) to have good marriages, healthy families, and stable kids even when we live in bad environments or in chaotic, immoral, God-rejecting society.
* We can raise kids successfully even if we don’t have all the answers.
* We can raise kids successfully even if we haven’t read parenting and marriage books and even if we aren’t perfect.
* Even good parents sometimes have rebellious kids.
* Even bad parents sometimes have healthy, adjusted kids.
* When things are not going well in your family, that does not mean that all is hopeless. Often ”this too will pass.”
* We won’t understand everything that happens to us.
God cares about each of our families.
But the key we need to learn is we need to build families that are strong and flexible and able to stand firm in the storms and changes this society is bringing against it. Building strong family units takes work and sweat but it’s possible. God promises to give us the desires of our heart if we place Him first in our lives. The family is His design and plan for every person on the face of the earth. We are all part of a family by God’s design.
I want you to say the word “Family” with me.
What rushes through your mind?
Often, we think of examples of families through tv shows like, the Walton’s, the Huxtebal’s, Leave it to Beaver, Partridge Family,7th Heaven, the Brady Bunch, Andy Griffith show and the thoughts go on.
So, what is a family?
The Family was and is designed by God. It was designed to be a place of safety from the world. It’s an environment where the art of nurturing takes place. It’s a location were children are born and raised. It’s were love takes place on a daily basis. It’s were encouragement is dished out in large doses. Were discipline is found and respect is taught for others and for God. It’s a place that changes and adapts with time. It goes from taking care of the infants - to toddlers - to pre-teens - to the teenager and eventually to sending them off as adults into the world to build their own family units.
The truth is, “The process of building a family takes a lot of work!”
A family will go through several stages in the journey of life:
Stage One – The family begins at the, “I do’s” and a couple is birthed. It’s the stage were dying to self takes place.
Stage Two- The couple’s life is dramatically changed at the arrival of the first child. Now comes heaps of responsibility and stress and learning how to adapt.
Stage Three – The children grow up out of the toddler years and start school. The family is apart more and life becomes more hectic with school age children. Families can drift apart if they are not careful here in this stage of life.
Stage Four – Now the children reach adolescence and life changes quickly. Turmoil enters the family unit. Hormones invade the home. Expenses go up for couples in this stage. There are more activities and more separation of the family individuals. There are more choices to make and peer pressures. The family helps here in guidance and direction while allowing the child now teen to become and individual and to move to individuation. This is a hard time for the family and can tear it apart if it is not spiritually healthy.
Step Five- The empty nest is another difficult passage were the couple finds themselves a couple again with their children gone. Children no longer are the focus of their family unit. Now mom and dad look to each other for companionship but if they have disconnected along the way then they too can lose the family at this point in time.
Stage Six- Then comes Grandchildren but it’s still very different. You can see why we need the healthy keys of a strong family if we are going to thrive, adjust, flex and stay together through these life stages.
T.S.- Let’s look at the keys needed to build a spiritually healthy family unit.
I. The first key is God is the foundation on which the family is to be built on. He is to be our Master Architect. He is our firm foundation!
a. This is why Ephesians 5:1 tells us to imitate God – We need to be like him in the family and in the relationships within the family. We need to act and react like him.
i. We need to use his blueprints and build on the foundation he has laid out for the family.
b. This means love radiates out of our lives as leaders in the family.
i. When we say love we mean genuine authentic love! Like God!
ii. Ephesians 5:1-4 (Message) Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. Don’t allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed. Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, Christians have better uses for language than that. Don’t talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn’t fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.
iii. We need to have extravagant love.
c. Just like I Corinthians 13: If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
d. With God as the foundation and the model we discover the healthy family unit starts to emerge by God like actions and is built upwards.
i. When we build according to His plans and use His resources the healthy family emerges out of the ground and grows.
ii. There are two questions that I want you to think about:
1. Since God created the first family and it was good why should we not follower the master builders plan for a healthy family?
2. Why should we even listen to the world’s view on how to build a family when all their families break apart in the storms of life?
a. Today the world wants to redefine family into it’s twisted version of it – but the bible clearly defines what a family looks like and acts like.
iii. Ephesians 5 tells us what not to do in verses 1-16 to our families as they grow.
1. No evil ways no immorality, harsh language, swearing at each other, put downs, character assassination, no sexual promiscuity, no lies, no deception, don’t listen to the what the world tells you to do.
2. These types of behavior and actions will destroy the family not build a family.
a. Illustration of how people listen to empty words of the world. Talk about Dobson’s show on people who have affairs.
i. They start to listen to the deceptive empty words of the world. It comes slowly and they start to justify that it’s okay by God!
ii. The enemy enters the family through open doors – do you have any?
3. We need to live by wisdom! Wisdom comes from above says James. Wisdom comes from God and His teaching and instruction.
a. Wisdom that brings life not death-blessings not curses. This is what we are to listen too!
iv. Ephesians 5:17 says it again “17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
1. What is God’s Will for the family? To honor him and reflect his nature.
v. Ephesians 5:18 (NIV) 18Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
1. Warning is don’t to get drunk because it leads to debauchery.
a. In 4 out of 5 suicide attempts alcohol was involved.
b. Alcohol is involved in 38% of the deaths caused by drowning.
c. Alcohol is involved in 38% of the fatalities on the road.
d. Alcoholism has lead to people doing more evil things than anything else. Sexual rape, incest, child abuse, domestic abuse.
i. A pole last night on KTIS said that alcohol is involved in 75% of date rape cases on college campuses.
ii. In 2/3 of the cases were there was violent behavior against family members alcohol was involved.
e. In violent crimes such as homicide alcohol was involved over 67 % of the time.
f. Families have been destroyed because of alcoholism.
2. Instead of being alcoholics we need to be spiritual-aholics.
a. Ephesians 5:19-20(NIV) 19Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
i. We need to sing praise to each other, we need to make music in our heart and really experience a high that is so much greater than alcohol or drugs can give.
ii. We need to get high on giving God thanks.
II. The Second key to a healthy family unit is spelled commitment to submission.
a. Submission means the act of surrendering to a decision or action of another.
i. Ephesians 5:21 (NIV) 21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
1. We in the family need to submit to one another because this brings great highs and great joy to the family.
ii. Ephesians 5:22 (NIV) 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
1. Wives need to submit to their husbands as they would to the lord.
iii. Ephesians 5:23 (NIV) 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
1. Yes, the husband is suppose to be the head of the family leading the way but he needs to be Christ like while doing it. He needs to be a servant leader like Jesus.
2. He said, “Not my will Lord but your will be done!”
3. We are to be Servant Leaders whose three motto’s are:
a. “I chose to Lose!”
b. “I will not Quit!”
c. “No Pride!”
4. It’s called self-sacrifice! The Christ like thing to do!
iv. Ephesians 5:24 (NIV) 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
1. In the spiritual realm wives need to submit to there husbands as he follows Christ.
v. Ephesians 5:25 (NIV) 25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
1. Husbands need to love their wife and family like Christ loves the church.
2. You need to open up your arms on the cross and die to yourself and live for the Lord and serve your family with the help of God.
vi. Ephesians 5:26, 27 (NIV) 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
1. If you build on God’s foundation and follow his blueprints your family will be clean and holy.
2. We need to present our families to God without a hint of evil in them. No stains - no wrinkles - no compromise. As we seek to ruthlessly keep evil out of our families God will bless them.
3. No works of the flesh only the fruit of the spirit.
a. No porno
b. No immorality
c. No drugs
d. No selfishness
e. No ego – edging God out!
f. No deception
b. This act of commitment also involves love – Jesus like Agape love – it’s a love that sacrifices for others, that treats people like God would treat people. It always loves and always forgives and always protects. It’s a love like most men have for themselves.
i. Ephesians 5:28 (NIV) 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
1. Men we need to love our wives and our families like our own bodies.
ii. Ephesians 5:29 (NIV) 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—
1. We need to feed them and care for them just like we take care of ourselves. Both physically and spiritually.
iii. Ephesians 5:30 (NIV) 30for we are members of his body.
1. Why because we are members of the Body of Christ!
iv. Ephesians 5:31 (NIV) 31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
1. The goal of the husband and wife is to become one because that’s what makes up an imitator of God. The husband and wife are to work together as one and imitate God’s character through the two working in unity.
v. Ephesians 5:32 (NIV) 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
1. We become one with Christ as we unite together and it’s symbolic of the relationship Christ has with his bride the church.
2. Of the world’s three great institutions - the home, the church, and the state - the home is the oldest and most sacred. The home consists of the family unit, which is the cohesiveness that holds society together. The family is bonded together by the union of two individuals who unite in love and make a covenant relationship with each other and with God.
III. The third key to a healthy family unit is loyalty and faithfulness to your marriage and spouse.
a. We must have strong moral values.
b. Infidelity creeps up on a marriage because of busyness, broken relationships and lack of time for one another.
i. Here are eight reasons why people cheat on their spouse:
1. Lack of love: Feeling that your partner is not “The One” for you. No longer feeling passionate love or even falling out of love. Perceiving the relationship to be boring, dull or stagnant. “Lack of love is a powerful motivation — it’s definitely one of the stronger ones,” Selterman noted.
2. Sexual desire: Feeling unsatisfied with the sex life you have in your relationship, perhaps because your partner has lost interest or you want to try something new that your partner can’t give you. “We also found people might be motivated to test the waters with regards to their own orientation or identity,” he said.
3. Neglect: Feeling that your partner is not paying enough attention to you or not spending enough time with you. Not feeling appreciated.
4. Situation: When you’re in a different setting or not quite yourself — perhaps when you’re on vacation, drunk or under a lot of stress — you may have a momentary urge to sexually explore that would not necessarily be part of your stable, everyday behavior. “Landmark events,” such as an upcoming 40th birthday, may also lead you to cheat. One study showed “9-enders“ — people who are 29, 39, 49 and so on — may seek an affair as they approach a new decade to try to find meaning in their life.
5. Variety: You live by the motto “You only live once,” so you want to try lots of sexual experiences with as many partners as possible.
6. Low commitment: This is oriented toward people’s definitions of exclusivity, Selterman said. “Some people say they never discussed being exclusive with their partner or ‘I didn’t want to get too close,’ or ‘I don’t envision a future with this person,’” he noted. “They’re in a relationship, but they haven’t specified that the commitment level is high or the exclusivity is there.”
7. Esteem: You feel sleeping with others will improve your sense of self-worth, signal your independence or increase your social status and popularity.
8. Anger: You suspect or know your partner has betrayed you, so you want to get even. “The motivation is revenge,” Selterman said.
a. The above from https://www.today.com/health/infidelity-8-reasons-why-people-cheat-become-unfaithful-t121512#anchor-5Variety
c. Faithfulness to the marriage is a matter of honoring God’s way.
i. Exodus 20: 14: You shall not commit adultery.
Conclusion:
What do they need to know?
Answer: The biblical family is under attack! They need to see this truth and have their spiritual eyes opened by the Holy Spirit.
Why do they need to know this?
Answer: So, they know to fight for their families with the help of the Lord. They need the Holy Spirit to show them how to protect their families.
What do they need to do?
Answer: They need to start paying attention to suttle and not so suttle attacks on the biblical family through – places of education, media, Tv shows, movies and yes even kids shows.
Why do they need to do this?
Answer: So that they protect their families from the lies of the enemy and so they stay rooted in being a biblical family unit.
Theodore Roosevelt said in 1917, “No other success in life-not being president, or being wealthy, or going to college, or writing a book, or anything else-comes up to the success of the man or woman who can feel that they have done their duty and that their children and grandchildren rise up and called them blessed.”
Chuck Swindoll said of the family, “Whatever else may be said about the home, it is the bottom line of life, the anvil upon which attitudes and convictions are hammered out. It is the place where life’s bills come due, the single most influential force in our earthly existence.”
Summary of 3 points:
1. Build on God’s foundation and use His blueprints.
2. Commit and submit to each other and to the biblical family unit.
3. Be loyal and faithful to the family and to each other.
