From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: God wants your family to flourish, and you who have young kids, now is the time to really dig in. You teach them the fear of the Lord. You teach them that we love the Lord because He loved us, and you obey and you model that before them and spend time with them. God will bless your family life with His love, His joy, and His peace.

Larry Nobles: God wants you to have a godly home. But the big question is this: what do you have to do to make that a reality? The essential key to having a flourishing family is using the fruits of the spirit that are in your family—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The message today is the last from Pastor Jeff's four-message series, Love and Marriage: Doing Family Life God's Way. This series is our special thank-you gift to you for your support this month of any amount. It's our fiscal year-end, so we pray you'll ask God what He would have you to do. Go to FromHisHeart.org to get your copy in the format of your choice.

Last time, Pastor Jeff began listing things we needed to practice from God's word in order to have a godly home. The first was the recognition that our children are priceless gifts from God. The second was realizing that godly families begin with godly parents. Open your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 6. Here is Pastor Jeff to help you have a flourishing family.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Mom and Dad, it starts with you. 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. When you have that, then you're ready to invite the kids into that.

That brings us to the third recognition: recognize that good parenting requires diligence and grace. It says in verse 7, "You shall teach them diligently." These words, which I'm commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Good parenting requires discipline, diligence, grace, and love—all those things that are necessary in order to train up a child in the way he should go. You have to be disciplined to do that. You have to have a plan to do that. You don't want to just be willy-nilly with no plan. Everything is just wide open in our house; there are no rules. It can't work like that.

Typically, in marriage, you have one who is more disciplined than the other. One of the things that drew me to Debbie like a magnet, not only her outer beauty but her inner beauty, is the fact that she's so disciplined. I love that about her because I'm not like that naturally.

Debbie was the person that in school, if you get a research project given at the first of the semester, she goes home and starts working on it. It's not due for like two months, and she's already working on it. A week before it's due, she's already got it finished. A week before it's due, I'm saying, "What was that assignment? I've got to start working on that. I've got two days to finish this. Debbie, what about you? You want to work on it with me?" She said, "No, I did that a month ago."

I just love that about her because she's always disciplined and prepared. She was great with the kids because she had discipline. She had guardrails set up. They'd come home from school and what was the first thing they did? Homework. We do homework. We do work before we play. The kids just learned to do that. They always had their homework done because they just knew that's the way Mom does it. There's work before play.

God gives us children to love and to train. We train them all the time. There are formal times of training as we teach them about the Lord, about life, about honesty, integrity, and responsibility. We teach all those lessons—lessons that come from the Scripture and lessons about how to just do life.

Robert Lewis, who started Men's Fraternity, said his dad was not around much. He was around, but he was not around. He was there, but he was not there. He was never really involved in the family. He said, "When I went off to college, I didn't know how to do anything. My dad never taught me anything. He didn't teach me how to change a tire, how to change the oil, or how to balance a checkbook. He didn't teach me any of those life skills."

He said he always felt like a doofus and was just angry at his dad for not teaching him that. So, we teach things. Obviously, we pass on the baton of faith. We teach our kids about God and how they can trust God. But then we teach them about life skills. How do you do life?

It was said of the Eskimos that one of the first things an Eskimo dad teaches his kid is, "Don't eat yellow snow." It's an important thing to know. Kids see something dead on the gutter. I remember there was a dead gopher head when I was a little kid. I found it in the gutter and brought it to my mom. I said, "Look how cool this is!" She said, "Don't touch that!"

I didn't know it was something bad. Little babies find a dead spider, or even a live one, and they want to put it in their mouth. Everything goes in the mouth. You have to teach them, and you are faithful to do that and disciplined to do that. You love them and train them.

Remember this: your children's desire for you is gigantic. That's one of the wonderful things that God builds into kids. They come into this world, and they want to be with Mom and Dad. They want to spend time with Mom and Dad. Especially Dad, because typically Dad is bigger, stronger, and often not around quite as much as Mom.

Kids look up to Dad. That's a serious wound that people carry in their hearts because their dads weren't there, or if their dads were there, they were abusive and always belittling. I don't understand dads that can be that cold to their kids. I would rather die a thousand deaths than to wave goodbye to my kids and never see them again. I don't get that.

Your kids have such a gigantic desire to spend time with you and to have you involved in their lives and for them to be involved in your life. Your example to them is critical because, as it says, what are we supposed to do as parents? We're supposed to teach God's words and His commands diligently to our sons.

Talk of them when you sit in your house. When you're just chilling in the house, talk about spiritual things. When you walk by the way, when you go to the store, look for opportunities to share something about the character and nature of God. When you lie down, when you're getting ready to go to bed, that's a great time to read Bible stories to your kids.

I'm talking about when you have little kids, and you read Bible stories to your kids, and you pray with your kids. For Dad to do that is important. They need to hear Dad. Dad is the leader and the spiritual leader in the home. When you rise up and start your day with the Lord, those things are critical.

As important as that is, how you live your life before your kids is even more important because evangelism is as much caught as it is taught. They want to see Jesus real in Mom and Dad. If they don't see Jesus real in Mom and Dad, as the old saying goes, a child's going to have a hard time finding God as his Father if he doesn't find some of God in his father.

He needs to see that. Our kids know we're not perfect. We mess up. But they want to see modeled before them that when you mess up, you get it right. "Dad, you're asking me to do this when I mess up. You're asking me to apologize and get things right with my brother or my sister or a friend down the street, but Dad, do you do that when you get things wrong?"

We need to be people who are humble enough to say, when you mess up with your kids, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me." They need to see modeled before them that Dad really loves Mom, and Mom really loves Dad, and Dad loves the Lord, and Mom loves the Lord. This isn't a show we're putting on; this is real in our lives.

A godly home starts with Mom and Dad, and then we pass that on to our kids. The Lord wants His word to govern the home. I love what it says. I think the Jews took this literally and not so much spiritually. They would have done better to take it spiritually and not so much literally, but he says you take the word of God and what do you do? You bind it on your forehead, and you bind it on your hand, and you put it on the door of your house.

The Jews would have phylacteries—these little boxes that they'd wear on their arms. It was boxes of the Scripture verse Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and they'd have it on their arm or on their hand. They'd have a phylactery box that they'd put on their forehead. They would have what is known as a mezuzah, which is a little box where you'd have Scripture before you go into the house.

The point of it is not just to have these boxes on your head, hand, arm, and door. The point is you're going to have the word of God govern your thoughts. You're going to have the word of God govern your actions, what your hand finds to do, and you're going to have the word of God over your home. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. They did the outward, but they didn't do so well with the inward. They would have done better to not do the outward and do the inward—let the word of God govern their home.

Larry Nobles: You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve today, and it's the last message in his Love and Marriage series, Doing Family Life God's Way. The lesson today: "Families that Flourish," Part 2. He'll conclude this lesson in just a moment.

Marriage and family life are designed by God to be a source of love, joy, and blessing. Yet, so many people struggle to find and maintain that joy. Recognizing God's original purpose for marriage and how your home can be a place of harmony and peace is vital for our homes, our cultures, and our world.

Through the power of His word, you and I can experience the joy and blessings of a home built on the rock of truth. This brand-new series, Love and Marriage: Doing Family Life God's Way, and the companion booklet, I Still Do, written by Pastor Jeff and his wife, Debbie, are our special gifts to say thank you for your support this month of any amount.

It's a big month for us, as it is our fiscal year-end month, striving to meet our expenses for the year and fill a gap in our budgeting so far. If From His Heart has been a blessing to you over these months or over these years, then say yes and go to FromHisHeart.org and make that fiscal year-end gift.

When you do, we'll send you the Love and Marriage series and the I Still Do booklet. You can also call 866-40-BIBLE. That's 866-402-4253. God bless you. Now, let's conclude this series and today's last message in the series, "Families that Flourish."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I was listening to a sermon yesterday on Deuteronomy 6, and the preacher said this: God gave Deuteronomy to the people right before they went into the land because they're going into the land of Canaan. What is the command? Don't have anything to do with those people. You drive them out of the land because the Canaanites are a cancer.

If you let them live with you, just like if you let cancer stay in your body, it doesn't just stay over to one side; it wants to reproduce and take over. If you try and compromise with the Canaanites, you're going to pollute yourself. Not only do the Canaanites want to take you out, but they really want to take out your kids and your grandkids.

Listen, we live in a world, and the world is coming after your kids and your grandkids. The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, and they want to devour your children. I would rather the devil come after me than come after one of my kids.

Anybody in here who has kids, we love our kids. We'd rather see bad things happen to us—physical things, sicknesses, and things like that—than happen to them. But the devil's coming after your kids. So, it's very, very important to train up your kids in the way that they should go. It's very important to arm your kids with Scripture and with a biblical worldview.

It's very, very important to be that example to your kids. You're not perfect; I'm not perfect; we're not perfect; Moses wasn't perfect. But we can be genuine. We need to parent with grace and truth. It says that about Jesus: and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory—glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The way you parent your kids is the way God parents you. He parents you with grace and truth. There's law; there's structure there, yes, because the moral law of God doesn't change. But there's grace there, and God sits on a throne of grace. I was listening to my friend Tim Kimmel, and he was preaching on parenting. He's written a book called Grace-Based Parenting. He said this: "You know what it's like being a kid in today's world? It's a 24/7 operation of not being embarrassed."

I went back in my mind thinking what that was like as a kid. We didn't have cell phones. We had phones at home; all they did was make phone calls. You'd have a camera, but none of the kids took cameras to high school with them. You didn't have somebody that had a device that, at any moment you do something stupid or you wear a shirt that doesn't match the pants and people are snickering about you, that doesn't end up on social media and everybody's laughing at you.

He said kids are on a 24/7 mission to not be embarrassed, and it's exhausting. So, parents need to come alongside their kids and protect their kids as much as they can from the embarrassment and not be hurling embarrassment upon them. They need to be there encouraging them.

He talked about his kid one time and said to his dad, "Dad, I want to grow a mohawk." Dad said, "Well, yeah, I guess you could do that." He wasn't going to be real hardline: "No, you're not doing that." Before he could really talk it through, his kid had his sister shave his head to a mohawk, and then to get it to stand up, he put glue on it.

Then he went to church like that. He said the pastor saw him and knew who he was because he was Tim Kimmel's son, and the pastor made a big to-do over how good his hair looked. He encouraged him; he didn't discourage him and didn't say, "You look like an idiot." That was obviously going through his head, but he didn't say that.

Tim is all about being careful when you parent. Just remember how God treats you. How does He deal with you? God sits on a throne of grace, not on a throne of judgment. He tells us that we can boldly come before His throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace to help in time of need. He said sometimes as parents, we pick a hill to die on that's just not worth dying on.

He told a story about his son, Cody. Cody was in high school, and Tim is putting Cody to bed. They're talking before bed, and Cody says to him, "Hey Dad, I need you to sign me out of school early tomorrow. I need you to sign me out at noon." Tim said, "Oh yeah, why's that?" He said, "Well, because Steve has tickets to opening day of the Arizona Diamondbacks. He's got really good seats, and we're going to sit behind the dugout. It's going to be so fun. The game starts at 1:30 or something like that. Dad, I need you to sign me out at noon."

Instantly in Tim's mind, he said, "This is an opportunity for me to teach my son about personal responsibility." So, he said to him, "Cody, wait, you can't do that. You have school." He said, "Yeah Dad, but this is an opportunity that doesn't come around. This is opening day."

He said, "Yeah, but think about school like a job. You have this responsibility, and your job doesn't end until 3:00. How could I possibly sign you out at noon? That would be wrong." He said, "Dad, but this is going to be so fun, and we got these great seats." His dad said, "Yeah, but that wouldn't be right, would it, Cody?"

Cody looked at him and said, "Dad, I bring you home straight As. I don't cause any trouble for you. I'm asking you if you'll sign me out three hours early on one day so I can go to a baseball game with Steve. Is that too much to ask?" Tim said it was almost like the Lord just thumped him in the head and said, "You idiot, why are you dying on this hill?"

So, he said he was convicted, and he pulls out his wallet and he pulls out two big bills, and he says, "This is what I want you to do for me, Cody. I want you to buy the biggest hot dogs and the biggest drinks for you and Steve, and I want you to have fun. I want you to forgive your dad for being such an idiot about this. You're a good kid, and I appreciate you."

He said this: "As parents and as kids, we have situations that come into our lives. Certain things stick, and certain things fade from our memory." He said, "I don't know if my son Cody would even remember that situation. But I can promise you this: if I had held my ground, if I had said no, you can't go because I'm going to show you about personal responsibility, my son Cody would have remembered that experience for the rest of his life, where his dad was such a hardliner and wouldn't give even an inch on something that really didn't matter."

We parent with grace. Yes, there's the law of God. We don't back down on the law of God. There's grace and truth, and sometimes we tend to fall too much on the grace side and there's no truth, or too much on the truth side and there's no grace. We need to have a balance there and let God's word govern our homes.

Nobody does parenting perfectly. You can do parenting really right, and it doesn't work as far as your kids are going to turn out loving the Lord, walking with the Lord, serving the Lord. Samuel, the prophet of God—his sons were worthless. That's why they wanted a king. They said to Samuel, "You're getting old, and your sons are worthless. They don't follow the Lord. Give us a king so that we can be like the other nations."

There's not a more godly man in the Scripture than Samuel, but his sons weren't godly. We don't know why. The Bible doesn't tell us why. But I remember James Dobson saying there are no guarantees. If Samuel's kids went off the rails, there's no guarantee for me. I need to be praying, and I need to be doing all I can to make sure that if they go off the rails, it's not because of Dad.

No matter how old you might be, because your child wants to connect with you, it's never too late to try and reconnect with your son or daughter that you have wronged and ask them to forgive you and try and reconnect that relationship.

God wants your family to flourish, and you who have young kids, now is the time to really dig in. Train up your kids in the way that they should go. I know a lot of parents get pushed into sports, and sports become almost God. Don't do that.

I heard a testimony of a lady who said to the church, "Don't do what we did. We took our kids, and everything was about their extracurricular activities. It was all about sports, it was all about cheerleading, it was all about this and that and the other, and now they're grown and gone, and I don't have one child on the road to heaven." It's not worth it.

You teach them the fear of the Lord. You teach them that we love the Lord because He loved us, and you obey and you model that before them and spend time with them. God will bless your family life with His love, His joy, and His peace.

Larry Nobles: It is so very important that God's word govern your family, shape your values, guide your decisions, and fill your daily life with truth and grace. We hope that today's message, "Families that Flourish," and the series, Love and Marriage: Doing Family Life God's Way, have helped you do just that.

All this month, we're going to be airing messages from God's word by Pastor Jeff about marriage and family and the great importance they are in our societal structure and health. This is our fiscal year-end month, and we're hoping to catch up from a deficit we have so far this year.

Would you consider a special fiscal year-end gift today to help us close that gap? If so, we'll be thrilled to send you this series that we've aired so far called Love and Marriage and also the booklet I Still Do as our thanks for your support. The series is available on CDs, on DVDs, USB flash drive, or immediate MP3 download.

Again, call 866-40-BIBLE or go to FromHisHeart.org. God bless you for what you can do to help us this month. We also hope that when you visit us, you'll sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly Real Hope email encouragement letter. You'll get that in your inbox every Friday morning. Plus, if you're on social media, you can easily connect with us from our website at FromHisHeart.org.

Thank you for joining us today. I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to be here tomorrow when Pastor Jeff begins another powerful and extended series to help your family and marriage flourish. The series is called We Are Family. Join Pastor Jeff Schreve next time as he speaks truth, love, and hope to a lost and hurting world. And remember that no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more at FromHisHeart.org.