From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Spending time together as a family, having dinner together as a family, those are important things. Dads, let me encourage you, you be the one to put your kids to bed. You be the one to share Bible stories and pray with your children at night.

That makes a difference in their lives. And if you are a single parent, then you do that on your own. Let me encourage you with all my heart in your life, in your home, in your marriage, in your family, do it God's way. And when you do it God's way, you experience the blessings from God.

God didn't create marriage and family to be a burden, to be a bust. He created it to be a blessing. He wants it to be one of the greatest blessings this side of heaven. How can you have an awesome marriage and family in a time when families all over the world are falling apart?

Larry Nobles: Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, who today continues his lesson taken from Psalm 127, called The Key to an Awesome Family. Listen, he'll explain that the key to an awesome family is not hidden under a stone. This message is the first of seven in the timely series, We Are Family. For information about today's message or the current series, We Are Family, go online to fromhisheart.org.

Open your Bible now to Psalm chapter 127. Here's Pastor Jeff with part two of The Key to an Awesome Family.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Psalm 127, verse 1. "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it." "Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain."

What is the key? The key is Jesus. The key is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the key. But now that's a very broad answer to the question. And you say, well, how do I get my hands around that? Well, we're going to look at Psalm 127 and break it down and see what he wants from us and what he says if you will do this, then this will happen.

There are three requirements in order to experience an awesome marriage and family. Requirement number one, the Lord must be the builder of your home. He must be the builder. "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it."

Now, the Lord loves to build things. The Lord is building us a heavenly home. The Lord is building a church home because he said to Peter and the disciples, "Upon this rock," speaking of himself, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." So he builds a heavenly home, he builds a church home, but he also wants to build your family home.

And unless he does, the Scripture says your labor will be in vain. I don't care how hard you try, without the Lord, as Jesus said in John chapter 15, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." But with me, you can do all things. So you have to have the Lord as the builder of your home.

Now the question is, well, how does that work? How do you get God to build your house? You make the decision to serve him with all your heart. See, the Lord wants you to fully submit to him. Not partially, not mostly. He wants you to fully commit to him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your might, to love him and to commit yourself to him. And he wants you to not only fully submit to him, but genuinely walk with him.

John said this in 1 John chapter 1, "This is the message that we announced to you from the beginning that we announced to you that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin."

What is the Christian life? It is a walk by faith in the light with the Lord Jesus Christ. Hey, "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it." The Lord must be the builder of your home. That's the first requirement. Second requirement, the Lord must be the protector of your home.

Look at verse 1 again. "Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain." Now, what is a city? A city is a collection of homes. And so the Lord is still talking about the home in verse 1. And the Lord not only needs to be the builder of the home, he has to be the protector, the guard, the keeper of the home.

And if he's not, then the watchman keeps awake in vain. And in Old Testament times, they would have a wall around the city. If you didn't have a wall around the city, your city was in trouble. That's the whole book of Nehemiah. He comes back to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall around the city so that the city can be vibrant once again. Without a wall, you couldn't defend it.

And so there's a big need for the city to have a wall so that you can have watchmen on the wall, so that you can protect the city. And the Lord is saying, "I need to be the watchman on the wall. Unless I'm guarding your house, you're going to not be protected, and the watchman's going to keep awake in vain."

And unless you're working 24/7 on the wall, it's still not going to be enough. Now, why do I need the Lord and why do you need the Lord to guard your house? It's because you have an enemy prowling around the perimeter. That's why.

You have an enemy, I have an enemy. And that enemy is the devil. First Peter chapter 5, verse 8, says, "Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." The devil is outside on the perimeter. He's outside the wall.

And if you don't have the Lord guarding the house, the devil is looking to see, "Who can I take out? Who can I devour?" And the devil is too strong for you or for me. We can't stand against the devil in and of ourselves. We need the Lord to be able to stand against the devil.

And "Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain." Let me tell you something about the devil. He has a plan. He comes to steal and kill and destroy. That's what he, he's the original terminator. He's not going to stop. He doesn't ever take a break. He is going to try and destroy you, and he wants to hit you where it hurts the most. And where it hurts the most is at home.

If he can hurt you in the business world, hey, you know what? You can get another job. But if he hits you at home and hurts your marriage and hurts your family, you're in serious, serious trouble. Deal with issues in your marriage. Deal with issues in your family. Sometimes you might have to agree to disagree, but you can't let those things just kind of go swept under the rug. It doesn't go away when you sweep it under the rug.

And watch out for the way the devil comes in because we so often give the devil just an open invitation. We do things that the devil says, "Oh, I like it when you do that." Let me give you an area that destroys marriages and families so much of the time. Law enforcement officers would be here to testify, "Yep, we've seen a lot of that." Drugs and alcohol destroy marriages, destroy families, destroy kids.

And you know, we think, well, okay, drugs are bad, but prescription drugs, I have to take that. Now we found out about the opioid crisis, prescription drugs are bad. But we think alcohol's okay. The Bible says this, Proverbs 20, verse 1, "Wine is a mocker. Strong drink a brawler. And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise."

You know what? If you don't want to have trouble with alcohol in your marriage, in your family, with your kids, one way to make sure you don't have trouble with it, don't ever start drinking it. You're never going to get intoxicated if you don't drink it, unless you go overboard on NyQuil. I mean, you're just, it's just not, you're not going to have trouble with it.

And so I made a decision early on in my Christian life, there's no upside with alcohol, there's only a downside. You say, "Well, I can handle it." Well, maybe you can, or maybe you can't. Stay away from the things that will destroy your marriage and your family. Hey, the devil is out there. He's watching and he's looking to pounce on someone who is unwise and who is leaving an open door.

Let me tell you something else that can destroy your marriage and family. Is your smartphone. This is an iPhone. And we, these things are invaluable to us. I mean, we just went on a trip and everyone had a phone. You know, you have it to stay connected and these are good things, but these can be devastating things because of the things that you can pull up on these phones.

Because of the way that you can flirt on these phones. You think it's minor. You think it's no big deal. It's a big deal. My friend Greg Mott, who's pastor at First Baptist in Houston, he said in his family they have a no phone zone in his home. He said, "When we have dinner at the dinner table, no phone. The phones go in the no phone zone." He said, "We don't let our kids take their phone back into their bedroom at night." Why?

Because it's too much temptation. And so at night when the kids go to bed, the phone goes in the no phone zone. And it's going to be confiscated until the morning. We got to watch ourselves, uh, men and women because if we don't, the devil will come in and steal and kill and destroy.

So we need the Lord to guard the house. We need the Lord to guard the house because the enemy is prowling around the perimeter, but also because you have an enemy prowling on the inside. The devil's on the outside, but there's an enemy on the inside, and that enemy on the inside is called your flesh.

Larry Nobles: Well, a topic we will continue to investigate with Pastor Jeff in just a moment. A woman named Shirley recently wrote to us to say that this ministry meant so much to her and her family. She wrote, "I share Pastor Jeff's powerful messages with family and friends all the time. We have family Bible study every Saturday by video call and are studying the Book of Revelation. And we use his sermons in my study. May God continue to bless you and use you to bring more people to him."

Shirley isn't just listening, Shirley is sharing these messages with her family to study God's word together. That's the ripple effect of your gift to From His Heart. Our terrestrial radio outreach in the United States alone is 850 stations and growing, mounting to nearly 900,000 people listening and growing in Christ because of it.

To join in this outreach and have a significant impact on people seeking real truth, this month you can make a gift, a fiscal year-end gift, to help us close out the fiscal year on a solid note. For your gift today, we'll say thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's 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. Just call 866-40-BIBLE to get your copy. 866-40-BIBLE. Or go online to fromhisheart.org to make that gift. And when you do, we'll also send you the booklet, I Still Do.

God bless you. Now, back to the conclusion to this lesson called The Key to an Awesome Family.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Paul said, "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." Your flesh wants to sin. Paul said in Galatians 2, "I've been crucified with Christ, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered himself up for me." And your flesh has been crucified with Christ, but your flesh still has a voice. And your flesh still calls out.

You don't have to obey the flesh. I don't have to obey the flesh as a Christian, but you hear the flesh. And there's the pull of the flesh, and the flesh wants to lust, and the flesh wants to be greedy, and the flesh wants to get revenge, and the flesh wants to be jealous and all those things. And the Bible says the only way you defeat the flesh is in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians chapter 5, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please." There's a battle that rages inside of every Christian. It's a battle between the flesh and the spirit.

And the spirit wants to obey God, and the flesh wants to listen to the voice of the devil, the voice of the tempter, and the flesh wants to lust, and wants to commit sin, and wants to gratify the flesh, and wants to overeat and overindulge and all those things. It wants to be lazy, wants to be hateful. That's the flesh. And you can't control the flesh with the flesh. You can only control the flesh with the spirit.

A little poem I like says this, "Two natures dwell within my breast. One is foul and one is blessed. One I love and one I hate, but the one I feed will dominate." Are you feeding the spirit or are you feeding the flesh? Because if you feed the flesh, the flesh is going to dominate, and the enemy within is going to start eating you up on the inside.

Hey, we need the Lord to guard the house, to guard the marriage, to guard the home and guard the family. So the Lord must be the builder of your home, the Lord must be the protector of your home, and then thirdly, the Lord must be the multiplier of the home, the multiplier of the home. Verse 3, "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. They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate." The Lord is the multiplier of the home. You remember what the Lord said to Adam and Eve? "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." That was the command to Adam and Eve.

Now, God loves children, and God likes us to be fruitful and to multiply. Now that comes from God. He's the one who opens the womb. I don't care how good medical science gets, God is the one who gives life. And he's the one that opens the womb.

And sometimes God doesn't open the womb. Listen, I don't understand about why God doesn't give children to some who desperately want children. And I don't understand why God gives lots of children to those who are throwing them away. But I know that you can trust God. I know that God is good. I know that God's ways are not our ways.

But here's the thing that we read from Scripture and we can say in general from Scripture, the Lord wants his children to have children. He wants that. Children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth," he told Adam and Eve. And God wants his children to have children.

It says in Malachi chapter 2, verse 15, "Didn't God make you one body and spirit with her?" He's talking about the husband to his wife. "What was his purpose in this, making you one spirit with her? It was that you should have children who are truly God's people." God wants Christians to have children.

And we need to have as many children as we can have under the direction of God. We need not say, as this one lady told me just recently, she said, "Well, I wouldn't want to have kids." She said, "Because this world is too evil, and so I wouldn't want to bring kids up in this world." Well, God wants you to have kids. God wants his children to have children.

Because God wants his children to teach the children how to know him, how to love him, how to come into a relationship with him, how to be the people he wants them to be. So not only does the Lord want his children to have children, the Lord wants his children to raise godly children. He says, "It was that you should have children who are truly God's people."

As parents, God wants us to be serious about what he wants us to do with the kids he's given us, and that is to raise godly children. The focus is to raise godly kids, to train them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, to train them in the way that they should go so that when they're old, they don't depart from it.

The focus of parenting is not to see if you can get your kid to be valedictorian. The focus of parenting is not to see if you can get your kid on this select soccer team or volleyball team or baseball team and maybe hopefully get a scholarship or be the star of the team. That's not the focus of parenting. Those things are well and fine, but it seems in our world today that has become the focus.

Especially with sports. I love sports, but sports is out of control. Sports is a major, major idol in America and in so many Christian homes. That has replaced the Lord as number one. You say, "Well, I don't think that's true." That dictates everything. It dictates everything.

I mean, we can't come to church on Wednesday night because we have ball game. We can't come to church on Sunday because we, you know, my son is in select and we go away every weekend. As one couple told me, this was years ago, they said, "Well, my son got picked to be on this hockey team, and so we're going to be out for the next six months of Sundays." I said, "Well, how does that work with your spiritual life?" "Well, I don't know how it's going to work with our spiritual life, but this is hockey." I go, "Who cares if it's hockey?"

He said, "Well, he's not going to, he's not going to ever get that, that big break to play in the pros unless he does good in select." "It's vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors. He gives to his beloved even in his sleep." Put God first. "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you."

And the Bible clearly says in the book of Hebrews, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near," the day of Christ's return. We need to come together Sunday after Sunday to encourage one another, to grow together, to hear the word, to praise the Lord. That helps your heart to stay on fire.

If you got a kid that's a great baseball player or basketball player or football player, praise the Lord, hats off to you. But don't let that become number one in your life, and don't teach your kid that that's the most important thing in life. It's not. God is the most important thing in life. Honoring God with all your heart, that's the most important thing in life.

And we want to raise our kids in the fear and the admonition and the instruction of the Lord and let them know that being with God's people on Sunday, that is critical to us because that's how you grow. That's how you grow. Listen, spending time together as a family, having dinner together as a family, those are important things. The no phone zone, that's an important thing. Dealing with issues, bedtime, where you, especially with little kids.

Dads, let me encourage you, you be the one to put your kids to bed. You be the one to share Bible stories and pray with your children at night. That makes a difference in their lives. And if you're a single parent, then you do that on your own. And if you're in a blended family, then all the more do you need the Lord to build your house because it's so much harder when you're in a blended family, and we have many, many blended families today.

And listen, it's harder, but it doesn't mean it's impossible because with God all things are possible. The Lord is the multiplier of the home. Now, just in closing, you know, you look at Psalm 127 and you say, "Okay, well, that's that's God's blueprint for the home." And you say, "Well, I don't really want to do it that way." That's fine, you don't have to do it that way. But what does he say? "Unless I build the house, all your labor's going to be in vain. Unless I guard the house, all the labor is going to be in vain. Unless you do it my way, you're not going to experience the blessings that come from my hand."

See, we have a choice. We have a choice in life. We can do life our way, what sounds good to us, or we can do it his way. The Bible says that "There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end are the ways of death." Let me encourage you with all my heart, in your life, in your home, in your marriage, in your family, do it God's way. And when you do it God's way, you experience the blessings from God.

Children are like arrows in the hand of a mighty man. An arrow was once a crooked stick. And somebody took that crooked stick and somebody began to work on that stick and sharpened that stick and shaped that stick and polished that stick and sanded that stick and put that stick in the bow and shot that arrow at the enemy, and that's what God wants parents to do with their children, to raise up godly children who will be arrows to be shot against the enemy of our souls, to make a difference for Jesus Christ in this world. That's the responsibility of mom and dad.

We can go God's way and be blessed. We can go our way and experience uselessness and ruin and vanity. The choice is yours, the choice is clear. Go God's way and be blessed.

Larry Nobles: Maybe you're a father or a mother listening today, and you'd like to turn from your sin and back to the Lord in order to be the parent God wants you to be. Maybe you need to just pray and say to God, "God, here is my life, take it back and help me to have the holy conduct and godliness and to be the parent you want me to be. I'm willing to recognize my deficiencies and turn it over to you to make me a better servant of Christ."

If you've never surrendered yourself to Christ, we invite you to go to fromhisheart.org. Click the "Why Jesus" link to get your questions answered and discover some very helpful resources to get you started on your Christian walk. Your gift to From His Heart this month will be very helpful to us as we are in our fiscal year-end this month. And you can make a gift when you go online to fromhisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE.

And with that gift, we'll send you the series Love and Marriage: Doing Family Life God's Way and the booklet I Still Do. And thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to be right back here next time when Pastor Jeff will have the second message in the We Are Family series. That's when we'll again hear real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart. Here on From His Heart.