Being Intentional with Your Family

As a place to begin, let’s consider these words by Chuck Swindoll:

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.

We live in a world that downplays the value of the home. We don’t realize the kind of world our children face each day, and how things have changed. 

• -Kids in the ’30s grew up during the Depression when times were hard, everybody had to work, and a dollar was a lot of money.
• -Kids in the ’40s grew up with World War II, Frank Sinatra, and Bogie and Bacall.
• -Kids in the ’50s grew up with black and white television, “I Like Ike,” hula hoops, and a kid from Tupelo, Mississippi named Elvis Presley.
• -Kids in the ’60s grew up with the Beatles, LSD, assassinations, the summer of love, Vietnam, and violence in the streets.
• -Kids in the ’70s grew up with Charlie’s Angels, disco, Happy Days, MASH, Saturday Night Fever, and the Doobie Brothers.
• -Kids in the ’80s grew up with crack cocaine, AIDS, MTV, PeeWee Herman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nintendo, and Nightmare on Elm Street.
• -Kids in the ’90s grew up with the Simpsons, Friends, Seinfeld, Michael Jordan, Monica Lewinsky, rap music, and Nirvana.
• -Kids in the 2000’s grew up with 9/11, the War on Terror, American Idol, Harry Potter, South Park, MySpace, and Hannah Montana.
• -Kids in the Teens are growing up with Lady Gaga, Drake, iPhones, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, sexting, assault on sexuality, furries, and the list can go on and on. But the more disturbing part of that is the lack of FAMILY.
• Our kids see more, they know more, they experience more, and they grow up so much faster.

Joshua certainly understood the power of parents. As he came to the end of his life, he called the leaders of Israel together for one final message. Knowing he is only one step from death, he sounds a call to renewal that begins with a recital of God’s blessings in the past (Joshua 24:1-13). Then he challenges the people to be faithful to God (Joshua 24:14-27). In the middle of his message we find those stirring words that have been quoted and memorized for over 3000 years, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (v. 15). That is intentional.

Decision # 1: Build a Faith-Filled Family.

As Joshua recounts the story of the conquest of the Promised Land, he reminds them of what the Lord had done for them:

Joshua 24:11-13

“And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you,
 and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And I gave them into your hand. And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow.
I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built,
and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards
that you did not plant.”

Joshua wants the people never to forget they owed everything to God. After all, the Israelite army had won battle after battle, often routing the enemy from the field. It would be natural to start thinking, “We’re something special.” But that thought is always deadly. Joshua knew that once the people took credit for their victories, they would soon turn away from the Lord altogether.

Has God blessed you? Talk about it often.

We ought to do with our families what Joshua does with the people of Israel. It’s a good thing to review past blessingsand to make a written record of God’s faithfulness. We need to say to our children, “Do you remember when you were so sick, we prayed to God, and you got better?” “Do you remember when Dad lost his job and we were afraid, so we prayed, and God gave him a new job?” “Do you remember when we prayed for so and so to be saved, and six months later they accepted Christ?”

A good memory of God’s blessings is a great advance against backsliding.

Has God blessed you? Write it down. Tell it to your kids and their kids.

Don’t talk about the church. Don’t talk about problems within the church.  Talk about Jesus.

Talk about Him often. Think often about it. Tell it to your children, your family, your friends. Pass it along so that succeeding generations can tell the story after you are gone to heaven.

Decision # 2: Teach My Family to Worship God.

Joshua 24:14-15

¹⁴ “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵ And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

‘‘Now fear the Lord” (Joshua 24:14a). When we think about the fear of the Lord, many people get the idea of cringing in terror. The biblical concept is much broader than that. Fearing the Lord means having such a deep respect for God that we want to please him in all we do. One writer says it refers to the “inner devotion” that causes us to honor God.

How do we share this “inner devotion” with our families?

It’s more an atmosphere than a program. When the parents truly fear God, their children will learn to fear him too. When they love the Lord, it will be natural for the children to love him too. When they sing hymns, their children will learn the words. When they pray, their children will quietly pray with them.

Relationship with God is better caught--than taught.

1. Lead by example (ex. let them see your prayer and reading, tithing, fasting, serving)
2. Set apart times in your personal family where you worship God.
3. Sit around the table. Eat together. Do life together. Talk together. (No electronics in rooms)
4. Be faithful to the house of the Lord and worship God together.
5. Serve God together.

Men bear a heavy responsibility in this area. I am speaking to dads, husbands, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and uncles. I am also speaking to young men, high school boys, college men, young single men, and older single men. Men of every age, it starts with you. For too many years we have delegated spiritual leadership to the women while we went out into the world to make a living. We have laid a burden on the women God never intended them to bear all alone. God meant spiritual leadership to be a shared burden, but the men must take the initiative if we truly want God’s blessing.

There is a famous painting by Norman Rockwell that appeared on the cover of Saturday Evening Post in 1959. It shows a suburban family going off to church, led by the oldest sister followed by mom who is followed by the younger sister. All three women are dressed for church. Following them is a young boy who appears to be going with some reluctance. What’s the problem? At the center of the painting is dear old dad slumped in a chair, in his pajamas, reading the paper with a cigarette in his hand. As junior walks by, he casts a longing eye at his father.

He’s going to church, but he’d rather be with his dad.

https://www.jumpingfrog.com/images/magazineads8/adz4463.jpg

Men, when will we learn that our actions speak louder than our words?

Did you know that Mother’s Day is the third most highly-attended church day of the year in the United States?  Did you know that Father’s Day, one month later, is the least attended church day of the year?

Another survey found that if a child is the first person in a household to become a Christian, there is a 3.5% probabilityeveryone else in the household will follow. If the mother is the first to become a Christian, there is a 17% probabilityeveryone else in the household will follow. However, when the father is first, there is a 93% probability everyone else in the household will follow.  (maybe a chart)

Here’s the point of all these statistics: Dad’s impact on the kids’ faith and practice is HUGE.

Dads, let me encourage you with these words which Moses spoke by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the dads of the new generation in Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 6:6-9

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Decision # 3: Ultimatey your family is HIS!

Joshua 24:15

 “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve,
 whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.”

These verses tripped me up when I first read them.

Like when it doesn’t all end perfectly, at the time there is no happily ever after.

You should breathe a sigh of relief if you have been struggling in this area because the bible clearly says there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  You don’t have to take on other people’s choices, Joshua didn’t.  He freely allowed them to make a choice.

Then I understood that Joshua was appealing to the democratic sense of his hearers.

He offers them a series of choices. First, the true God. Then the gods beyond the River (meaning the River Euphrates), referring to the gods of Ur of the Chaldees. Those would be the gods of ancient tradition—the moon god and the sun god. Then the gods of Egypt, meaning the gods of sun, rain, darkness, and natural disasters. Then the gods of the Amorites, meaning the gods of fertility and sexual pleasure.  (lust of flesh, lust of eyes, pride of life)

We can’t force people to serve the Lord

Joshua said Make your choice. 

If you don’t want to choose the living and true God, then go back to the false gods you used to worship. Go all the way back to Ur if you like. Some people prefer the gods of this world to the one true God of the Bible. Their eyes are so blinded by sin and their heart so given to fleshly indulgence that they would rather drink from the cesspool of sin than to drink from the Water of Life.

We need not try to coerce people into serving the Lord.

If they prefer some other way, then so be it.

It’s almost always a mistake to crowd people too closely when we attempt to win them to Christ. “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” We have nothing to fear and everything to gain by presenting the options and giving people the right to make up their own minds.

I think naturally that happens around the age of graduation…18ish.

There are also rules of my house, physical house.

But outside of my house ok, you get to make choices. 

I have built a faith filled family.  I have taught you how to worship a PERFECT God. 

You chose. Your actions have consequences.  Your choices come with long-term effects.

I will pray.  I will fast.  I will believe.  Until my dying breath most likely.

But I am setting this as the standard. 

“But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15b).

In these simple words we find the will of God expressly stated. 

We are to serve the Lord, and we are to do everything in our power to see that our family follows our example.