From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: God wants you to have a godly home. So the big question is, how do you have that kind of home? How can you enjoy the fruit of the spirit in your family? Is that even possible? Yes, it's possible. But you have to hear from God and heed what He says. Put into practice what He says. It's not going to happen going your way. It will only happen going His way.

Larry Nobles: God wants your home to be a safe and a wonderful place. He wants you to have a blessed home where there is harmony. Is it possible to have that kind of home? This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, and of course, the answer is yes. And you'll learn how to today with part one of the encouraging message called Families That Flourish. It's from Pastor Jeff's new four-lesson series Love and Marriage, Doing Family Life God's Way.

By the way, this series and Pastor Jeff's booklet, I Still Do, are our special gifts to you, thanks for your support this month of any amount. It's our last month of the fiscal year, and we have a sizeable gap that we need to fill before the end of the month. Thank you for helping us this month to share the good news around the world each day. Now, though, open your Bible to Deuteronomy Chapter 6 as Pastor Jeff Schreve begins to explore the things to do to have families that flourish.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: You remember Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz? The whole movie, The Wizard of Oz, she had been taken to this strange land and she wanted to go home. At the end of the movie, she was told, "You had the power to go home all the time. You had those ruby red slippers. All you had to do was click your heels together and just say those words: there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home."

God wants your home to be like that. He wants you to have a godly home. He wants you to have a blessed home where Mom and Dad love each other and the kids love each other and everyone enjoys the home because it's filled with love and joy and peace. So the big question is, how do you have that kind of home? How can you enjoy the fruit of the spirit in your family? Is that even possible? Yes, it's possible. But you have to hear from God and heed what He says. Put into practice what He says. It's not going to happen going your way. It will only happen going His way.

So we're going to be in Deuteronomy 6, but we're going to take a little detour at the beginning into Psalm 127. I want to share with you three recognitions from God's word, three things that we need to recognize and put into practice in order to have the home that God wants us to have. Recognition number one: recognize that your children are priceless gifts from God. When God gives children, He gives such a priceless gift to a husband and wife.

Psalm 127, a song of Solomon that's about the home, says, "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." Now the quiver size is different for different people, but children aren't a burden, they're not a penalty, they're a blessing from God. They're a benefit. What a blessing.

Now in our world today, the world tries to tell you that children make a rich man poor, that children just drag you down, that if you have the choice between having children or having money, you'd much rather want to have money. I ran across a writer entrepreneur named Alexa Curtis, and she posted this on Facebook. She said, "I was talking to a woman in her 70s and she told me this about children. She said, 'Alexa, you can have a house with kids or you can fly first class.'" And she said, "I'd rather fly first class." How sad.

Well, Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire and movie producer... Am I A Racist? What Is A Woman? If you've ever seen those, he does a great job. That's Matt Walsh. He looks like his beard is something from the Middle Ages or something; it just keeps growing. But Matt Walsh had to say this in response to this idea that kids aren't worth it and kids are just a drain.

He said, "Having a large family is the best. I know it won't surprise you to hear that coming from me since I'm certainly biased with six of my own children, but I can tell you firsthand that there is nothing like coming home to a house full of energy, laughter, and love. It's chaos, sure, but it's the best kind of chaos. Just the other day, I walked in to find my five-year-old sitting at the counter coloring in one of her princess books. The second she saw me, she dropped everything, jumped off her stool, and ran into my arms.

My eight-year-old son was in the other room, completely absorbed in some grand action figure battle. My 11-year-old son was outside practicing with his bow and arrow. My daughter was upstairs reading, and my two-year-old twins were zooming around the house on their plastic cars, absolutely destroying the floors, but I don't care. He said the house was alive. I lived both ways: coming home to an empty house and coming home to a full one.

I can tell you without a doubt this second option is so much better. It's not even close. There's a kind of joy, purpose, and meaning that only family can bring. And that's true whether you're rich or not. Kids don't take away from your life, they make your life. If you have kids, have more. If you don't, get to work. You won't regret it."

I just thought that was wonderful coming from Matt Walsh. He recognizes that kids are difficult and a challenge, but they're wonderful. And that's the thing. They're priceless gifts from God and they're wonderful and at the same time challenging. Anybody that has ever raised kids, you know that kids are tough. Kids are exhausting. When they're little, they're so fun and so funny, but they just wear you out. They can be so exhausting, physically exhausting because you have to watch them.

Our little grandson Jack, our oldest grandson, is getting ready to be four. He'll be four in July. Jack is into everything. When Amy had Drew, our latest grandson... Drew is getting ready to be three weeks old. Yeah, three weeks tomorrow. So we went there the first week and Debbie was taking care of the kids while Amy and Travis were at the hospital. Then I showed up to help Debbie. The kids are up at about 6:00 AM and they last until about 6:30 or 7:00 at night.

Then we would go... we had a place to stay, a friend of ours that lived just a few minutes away from Amy and Travis to give them some time. So we would go to her place and we'd hit the bed at eight. We're exhausted. We've been taking care of these little kids. No wonder why God gives kids to younger people versus older people because they can be exhausting. They're into everything.

But they're so fun and so funny. They get older and they're teenagers, and they're fun and funny, too. They're so full of life, but they're not physically draining as they are emotionally draining and potentially financially draining. There's just a lot of drains in there, but here's the thing: they're wonderful and yet challenging.

Everybody knows the name Ray Romano, the comedian Ray Romano. We have a picture of Ray with his family. He's got four children. That's Ray and his wife and his four kids. I like what he said about having children. He said, "Having children is like living in a frat house. Nobody sleeps, everything's broken, and there's a lot of throwing up." That's just true.

How about this comedian Jim Gaffigan? He's got five kids. Somebody asked him, said, "Jim, you went from four kids to five kids. What's that like?" He said, "Well, think about it like this: you're in the ocean drowning and someone hands you a baby." He said that's what it's like going from four kids to five kids.

I like this quote from some anonymous person. Ever had a job where you had no experience, no training, you weren't allowed to quit, and everyone's lives were at stake? That's parenting. When we took Jill home from the hospital, we'd been married 16 months or so and we had Jill and boom, we were holding this little girl and neither one of us knew what we were doing. I'm sitting there thinking, "I hope you know how to do this stuff." She didn't. I sure didn't. Changing diapers and all that, we had to learn all that stuff.

So it is wonderful, but it is a challenge. Children are a tremendous responsibility, tremendous responsibility. God gives a great gift when He gives you a child, but there's responsibility that comes with that child. I love what Janna Mayo taught me one time. She said, "You know what the one word is when you have a child? You know what God's one word to you is?" I said, "No, what's that?" She said, "Behave." When you have children, you need to grow up and you need to behave.

We're going to talk about that as we get into Deuteronomy Chapter 6. But the Lord tells us that there's responsibility. Ephesians 6:4: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." That's the challenge. That's the responsibility. To train them up in the discipline of the Lord, in the instruction of the Lord.

What is parenting? Parenting is passing the baton, like a relay race, passing it on to the next generation. Christianity is always just one generation from extinction. If we don't pass on the baton of faith to the next generation... and the next generation as a parent, that's your kids. You have to pass on the baton of faith to your kids.

So that's the first recognition: recognize that your children are priceless gifts from God. Second recognition: recognize that godly families begin with godly parents. Godly families, if you want to have that kind of family where the fruit of the spirit is all over your home, well, it begins with you, Dad, it begins with you, Mom.

Larry Nobles: You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, and he'll expand on that necessity for godly children in just a moment. Today's message is entitled Families That Flourish, and it's part one of that lesson from the four-message series Love and Marriage, Doing Family Life God's Way.

One thing Pastor Jeff will mention later in this message that we all need to recognize is how important prayer is to a flourishing family. It's very important for families and for you alone. Are there things going on in your life that you've prayed about but God hasn't answered that prayer yet? Would you like others to join you in that prayer? When you go to FromHisHeart.org and click the prayer link, you can list that prayer there and people from around the world, literally, will see it, bow their heads, and join you in that prayer.

The Bible says where two or more are gathered, God is there, too. And when you do that, you can click a button there online, you'll get an email notification that someone is with you on their knees, too. Now, it's completely anonymous but comforting to know that God is at work for you and others who care enough and have faith enough to join you in prayer. Again, go to the prayer link at FromHisHeart.org. Now, let's conclude today's part one of the message Families That Flourish from the series Love and Marriage, Doing Family Life God's Way.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: This is what the scripture says in Deuteronomy 6, beginning in verse 1. Moses to the people: "Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it." Now remember this, they're going into the promised land. They've been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. He is speaking to the new people because the parents of these kids, they didn't trust God when they had the opportunity to go into the promised land.

They said, "We can't go into the promised land, there are giants in there. We need to go back to Egypt." And the Lord was so angry with them. The Lord wanted to wipe them out and said, "Moses, I'll just start over with you." Moses interceded for the people, but the Lord said, "None of those people are going to go into the promised land." He said, "For every day they spied out the land, 40 days, they're going to spend a year wandering in the desert until they all die out, everybody 20 years old and upward, and their children, whom they said would be fodder for the Canaanites, they're going to get in and they're going to enjoy the land."

And so for 40 years, they wandered around until all those people 20 years old and upward died, except for Moses and except for Aaron, except for Joshua and Caleb, except for those that had faith. But the rest of them all died. Deuteronomy literally means second law. It's the recapitulation, the reiterating of the law. Moses is telling them, "Hey, this is what it's going to be like. You're getting ready to go into the promised land, so you need to heed what the Lord said, you need to do it."

"And I, God has commanded me to teach you, verse 1, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel," he says in verse 3, "you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey."

So we need to recognize as parents that a godly home begins with us. It begins with a godly husband and a godly wife, a godly mom and a godly dad. It begins with us. We have to start putting God's word into practice in our own lives. So Mom and Dad need number one, as it says here, to fear the Lord. To fear the Lord. 29 times in the Old Testament, you run across the command "fear the Lord," "fear Yahweh." Lord is all in caps. Yahweh, Y-H-W-H, the special covenant holy name for God. Fear Him.

He emphasized in Deuteronomy 5 when he goes back to the Ten Commandments, he reiterates what the Ten Commandments were. He said, "You know, when God gave us the Ten Commandments, He came on the mountain in His power, in His glory, in His holiness, and you were scared to death." Now you meaning your parents, because a lot of these kids hadn't been born yet. This was 40 years ago. But you were scared. And God wanted you not to be afraid of Him, but He wanted you to fear Him.

God doesn't want us to be afraid of Him like He's going to whack us if we get out of line. You have to walk around eggshells when you're talking about God or in God's presence because God has a hair-trigger temper and you do something, whack, He's going to smack you. Not like that. You just have tremendous reverence and awe for God. To fear the Lord is to recognize that God is God and you're not God. You give God His rightful place as master in your life and you take your rightful place as slave, as doulos, as it's recorded in the New Testament.

You know, Jesus said in John chapter 15, "I no longer call you slaves, I call you friends." We are the friends of God and we're the children of God, but we're also the slaves of God. Did you know in the New Testament when you read the epistles, you'll find that the writers, Peter and Paul and James and John and Jude, they all referred to themselves as bondservants? New American Standard uses that term. Paul, a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that's the Greek word doulos, and that means a slave, that's the lowest slave. And that's how they referred to themselves.

Even James and Jude, those are half-brothers of the Lord Jesus. When they write their letters, they don't say, "Jude, the half-brother of the Lord Jesus, look at me." No, he says, "Jude, a bondservant, a bondslave, a doulos of the Lord Jesus Christ." Those guys understood that God is God and they're not God. There's a vast difference between them and God. So they take their rightful place as slave and they give Him His rightful place as master.

The scripture says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, it's the beginning of knowledge, it's the beginning of anything and everything to understand who God is. So Mom and Dad need to fear the Lord. I like what it says in Psalm 130 verses 3 and 4: "If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." See, the fear of the Lord is not just God is so mighty I'm scared to death of him. The fear of the Lord is, "God, You're so good. You're so good. I have such tremendous reverence and awe. You forgave me so that You may be feared." He forgives our sins.

Secondly, Mom and Dad not only need to fear the Lord, they need to love the Lord. And that is emphasized in verse 4. This is the most familiar passage of scripture to the Jews. This is the Shema. This is what they learn, the first thing that they learn and memorize from scripture comes from Deuteronomy chapter 6 beginning in verse 4. It's the Shema. Shema is the Hebrew word that means hear.

And it begins in the English Bible, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Now the orthodox Jews, the serious Jews, they learn this, they teach their children this, and they recite this morning and evening. They go all the way through verse 9 and they recite it. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."

So Mom and Dad, we model that for our kids. We have to come into marriage, we're going to build this marriage, we're going to build this home, and we're going to fear the Lord. As Joshua said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The Lord is king here. We take our place as douloses. And then we love Him. And we love Him with all our hearts. Christianity is a love relationship with God. It's not about keeping rules. It's about loving Him. Loving Him who is so good to us. We don't love Him just a little bit, we love Him with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, all our might, everything that we have, we love God.

If you are struggling with sin, sin is an issue of the heart. Anytime we're going after other things, it's because we've left our first love and we think other things are going to satisfy. Other things aren't going to satisfy. What satisfies is your relationship with the Lord. Now when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, He hit on this commandment, the Shema: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind."

So Mom and Dad, it starts with you. The godly home starts with you, that you fear the Lord, that you love the Lord, and that you thirdly obey the Lord. Real love, the way you test if you have real love, is with obedience. If we say we love God and we don't obey God, guess what? We don't really love God. Then it's just talk. Talk is cheap. You know, we have that phrase, "Talk is cheap, put your money where your mouth is." Let me see it. You say this thing, well let me see in your actions that you really believe that.

Obedience is the way that we reveal to God that we really do love Him. Jesus said in John chapter 14 verse 21, "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." It's all about love.

You remember with Peter? After Peter blew it so bad and denied the Lord three times, John chapter 21, Jesus has a one-on-one with Peter and what are the three questions? "Peter, do you love Me? Do you love Me? Do you love Me?" It's all about love. And real love always obeys, and that's how you know it is real love.

So Mom and Dad, starts with you. You have to build... you're the foundation. The Lord is the foundation for everything, and on top of that foundation is the marriage and the love relationship that you have each individually with the Lord and with one another. And when you have that, then you're ready to invite the kids into that.

And that brings us to the third recognition: recognize that good parenting requires diligence and grace. You have to have a plan to do that. You don't want to just be willy-nilly. We have no plan, everything is just wide open in our house, there are no rules. Like Outback Steakhouse: no rules, just right. It can't work like that.

Larry Nobles: Rules based on Bible truth and godly wisdom are critical for you personally and surely for your children. There's much more to say about how to have a family that flourishes. Pastor Jeff will be back tomorrow on the broadcast to continue this message from his series Love and Marriage, Doing Family Life God's Way.

So make plans to be with us again for the conclusion to the lesson called Families That Flourish. Today's message is from Pastor Jeff's new four-message series Love and Marriage, Doing Family Life God's Way. And the series plus the booklet, I Still Do, are our thank you gifts for your support this month. It's an important one for us. It's our fiscal year-end. We're seeking to close a gap in our budget.

If God so moves you to help us this month, call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go online to FromHisHeart.org to make that fiscal year-end gift. And we'll send you Love and Marriage and the booklet I Still Do. You can get the series in the format of your choice. Thank you for asking God if He'd like you to join this ministry touching hearts and homes in your hometown and around the world.

Well, thank you for joining us today. I'm Larry Nobles, reminding you that From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Schreve, whose mission is to speak the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. We hope you'll join us next time for part two of the lesson Families That Flourish. That's on Wednesday when we'll open up God's word and share real truth, real life, and real hope from His heart.