From His Heart

Jeff Schreve: There are too many married couples in our society today who simply don't resolve conflict. They have huge explosive fights with nothing ever getting resolved. It just blows over for a little while, but it never goes away. They don't talk about it anymore until the next time, and the rest of the household just resides in that environment of a dysfunctional culture in the home. It's always underneath.

Larry Nobles: Does that hit a little too close to your home and your married relationship? This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, and today we're going to help you stop the wrestling with this issue by teaching about what God wants for families. The lesson is called "What Every Family Needs," and it's from the series "Modern Family: God's Wisdom for Today's Family."

If you miss any of this practical lesson, you can go to fromhisheart.org, click the listen link to download an MP3 of any broadcast. Now though, open your Bible to Ephesians chapter 4 and turn to verse 29 as Pastor Jeff describes what every family really needs to stay healthy.

Jeff Schreve: What does every family need? Every family needs a godly culture. It doesn't mean you're perfect because nobody's perfect. No person is perfect, no church is perfect, no family is perfect, but you can be godly.

Three characteristics of this godly culture, what every family needs. Characteristic number one, this is what God wants: God wants you to have a culture of encouragement. A culture of encouragement. Your home to be characterized by encouragement. Your family characterized by encouragement.

Look at verse 29: "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear." An environment, a culture of encouragement. Every person needs encouragement. Every single person. Every person in your family needs encouragement.

The Bible says in Hebrews 3:13, "But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." We need encouragement. God says do it. How often do I do it, God? Day after day, every single day, encourage.

People need encouragement. Be careful in your home especially to speak words that build up, not words that tear down. Look at it again: "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth." The word for unwholesome can also be translated corrupt, bad, rotten.

You can use your words to speak life, to encourage, to build up, or you can let rotten things come out of your mouth that will discourage and dishearten and tear people down. God wants you to have a culture of encouragement.

Second characteristic: God wants you to have a culture of spiritual sensitivity. Look at verse 30. It says, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Circle the word grieve there. That word means to distress. It means to make sorrowful. It means to offend. It means to make uneasy.

Obviously you don't want to do that, and what we need in our homes is spiritual sensitivity so we're sensitive to the Holy Spirit and that we make our homes Holy Spirit friendly, which means the Holy Spirit is welcome in your home.

We have to decide, do I want my home to be a place that welcomes the Spirit, that is Spirit friendly, that makes friends with God? Or do I want my home, my life to be a place that makes friends with the world? So your home needs to be Holy Spirit friendly. In order to do that, then you have to get rid of anything in your home that offends the Holy Spirit.

You have to start doing some surgery in your home and saying, "Hey, I'm going to get rid of those things, anything that grieves the Spirit, anything that offends the Spirit, anything that makes the Spirit sorrowful." I don't want that because I want the Spirit to dwell in my home and to be comfortably at home in my home. And so I have to get rid of some things.

You say, "What things?" Well, the scripture talks in chapter 4 about lying. Verse 25: "Therefore, laying aside all falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another." How many homes do you think there are in our community where lying is kind of the mode? Lying is kind of the culture. When you get in trouble, what does the culture of the home say? Lie.

It can be subtle. When I was a kid and I first became a Christian, I began to notice, I became sensitive to the Holy Spirit who lived within me, and I became sensitive to things around me. I became sensitive to how things were operating in my home.

I remembered my dad, before the days of caller ID, when people, the phone rang and you just answered it because you didn't know who it was. So you just answered it, and it would be a phone solicitor. Phone solicitors hate caller ID because no one ever answers their call anymore. But we used to answer them.

I remembered my dad would answer the phone, and it would be some phone solicitor, and he would say, "Oh, you want to speak to my father? He's not home right now." Your father? Your father's 90 and lives in a different state! I said, "You're the father! They asked to talk to you." He said, "Yeah, I didn't want to talk to them."

I said, "Well, just tell them you don't want to talk to them. You just lied to that person." He said, "I did not lie. It was a mental reservation." Call it what you want, it was a lie. You're here, you're pretending that it's not you. And so I was like, just tell them the truth! How hard is it to tell the guy the truth? You don't even know the guy! He's just somebody wanting you to buy slippers or whatever they're selling.

It's just little things like that. How much in our home do we just tell lies? Speak the truth! And if you have lies, get rid of those things. How about this? How about pornography? What do you do if you have pornographic materials in your house? You say, "Well, I've got them hidden. They're out in the garage." You think the Holy Spirit's friendly with that? You think the Holy Spirit feels comfortable with that stuff in your home? Of course not. Get it out! Get it out of your home.

How about the music we listen to? You say, "Oh, it doesn't matter. It's just minor." Is it Holy Spirit friendly? Be careful. If you're listening to stuff like that, get rid of it. Get rid of anything like that. Songs that take God's name in vain, songs filled with vulgarities and cuss words and things like that. Don't let that pump into your brain.

We've got to get serious. If we're going to have a culture of sensitivity to the Spirit, we've got to get rid of those things that the Holy Spirit says, "That's offending me. That's making me uncomfortable. That is hurting my heart. I'm not going to hang around with that."

In the book of Acts, when Paul was in Ephesus, he led these people to the Lord, and they were so serious, and they came out of a pagan background, black magic. These people had black magic books where they could learn their incantations and how to summon up demons and demonic power and things like that. They recognized this is of the devil, and they took all that stuff and they gathered it and they had a huge bonfire because they said, "We're ridding our lives and our homes of this material."

The scripture says it was worth 50,000 pieces of silver. It was a valuable amount of stuff. They didn't sell it in a garage sale. They burned it. They got rid of it, and the Lord was glorified. God wants you to have a culture of encouragement in your home. He wants you to have a culture of spiritual sensitivity in your home.

Thirdly, God wants you to have a culture of kindness and forgiveness. So critical. Look at what he says in verse 31: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice." Those are all bad things. "And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Look in verse 31: "All bitterness." Bitterness is a smoldering resentment. "And wrath and anger." That's blowing up, losing it, blowing your top. "Clamor" is noisy complaint. It's just irritating. It's fingernails on a chalkboard. It's when you go into some homes and there's just screaming taking place in the home.

When I was a kid growing up, some of my friends that I used to play with, you'd go in their home and that's how they communicated with one another. The mother, she had five or six kids. She would just scream at them. And the kids learned the culture. That's how you communicate in our home, and they screamed back.

I wasn't used to that. I was used to "My dad's not home right now." I was used to that, where you just kind of lie your way through. And so I was like, whoa, this is weird. I would never yell at my mom like that, and she would never yell at me like that. Just noisy complaint, clamor and slander.

That's the word for the devil. He's the slanderer. He's the one that speaks evil of you and me to God. Put that away from you along with all malice. Malice is to plot and think evil of others. Those are all bad things. It's not a home that you want to have those things in.

God says, "I want you to have a home, a life, a church characterized by kindness. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another." I want that to be what characterizes your home.

Larry Nobles: And we know you want that to be true for your home. Pastor Jeff will conclude this dynamic lesson, "What Every Family Needs," in just a moment. But first, let's state the obvious. One of the first things we all think about is money. But how much do you really love money? Do you think about it all the time? Do you worry about it all the time, or most of the time?

The Bible says, "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some, by longing for it, have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." You see, money is not our problem. It's our attitude toward money that is. In Pastor Jeff's new series that we aired earlier this month called "God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money," he presents four truths from scripture to help all of us understand the dangers of loving money and how it's better to focus on God's blessings that free us from this spiritual disruption, to say the least.

This new series is our gift of thanks to you for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount. We're on this station and on hundreds around the world each and every day because of the support of our listeners. Pastor Jeff receives no income from this ministry.

You can receive the "God and Money" series on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an MP3 download when you make that gift today by calling 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go online to fromhisheart.org. Thank you very much for joining with us to share these messages around the world each and every day. Call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org. The series is called "God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money." God bless you. Now, let's continue the lesson "What Every Family Needs."

Jeff Schreve: Now, you know when you find a person in verse 31 who's bitter, you know how it is when somebody's bitter? They just have a sour, cynical disposition on life. And you find someone who is bitter, and know this: that person is hurting somewhere. Sometime in their life, someone hurt them, hurt them deeply.

Maybe they told them, "Boy, you're so stupid you couldn't pour water out of a boot." Maybe that got ingrained in them over and over and over, and they're resentful of that person who said that, and bitterness has set in. And see, here's the progression: when you're hurt, that hurt turns to anger.

And when you're angry and you don't resolve the anger, the anger goes to resentment and goes to bitterness. And so when you see a person who is so bitter and so sour and so mean, that person's been hurt and has never dealt with it.

And so often we have homes where people get married and this person's been hurt and they've never dealt with it, and that person's been hurt and they never dealt with it. Well, let's get married! So I can dump all my hurt on you and you can deal with it, and the other one says, "Well, I'll dump all my hurt on you and you'll deal with it," and they come together and, oh man, it's an ungodly culture.

The Lord says forgive. Set an environment of kindness and forgiveness. Be quick to make wrongs right. That's what we need in our homes. If I wrong you, I need to be quick to make it right. Look at Ephesians chapter 4, verses 26 and 27: "Be angry, and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity."

Do not give the devil a *topos* is the Greek. *Topos* means, it's from our English word topography. It literally means a place. Don't give the devil a place. If you let the sun go down on your anger and you don't deal with stuff in your family and in your life, you give the devil a place.

You say, "This is what I want to come in here," and the devil will come in. You give him a place and he'll come in. And any place and every place where the devil comes in, he turns it into a garbage dump. He turns it into verse 31, where it's full of bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander and malice. He takes home sweet home and he just ruins it.

And so much of the time we have homes like that, it's because we don't make things right. We don't resolve conflict. We let the sun go down on our anger. Now listen: when it comes to forgiveness, there is the offender and there is the offended.

When you have conflict, somebody did something to hurt your feelings, and so you might be the one hurting people's feelings or you might be the one receiving the hurt. There's the offender and the offended. With forgiveness, for the offender: humbly seek forgiveness. That's what offenders need to do.

I hurt your feelings. I hurt your feelings, wife. I hurt your feelings, husband. I hurt your feelings, daughter. I hurt your feelings, son. I'm the offender. What does the offender do? You humbly ask and seek for forgiveness.

I mean, there has to be from the heart. I'm so sorry. I hurt you. I realize that, and I feel that hurt that I inflicted in your heart. I feel it in my heart. Please forgive me. And when someone does that, it makes such a difference. When dads do that with their kids, it makes such a difference.

And here's the sad truth: so many dads don't ever do that. They never humble themselves. "I'm the dad." So what, you're the dad? You're the offender in this situation. Make things right. Ephesians 6:4, it says, "Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger." You know one of the ways that dads can provoke their children to anger? They hurt their feelings and they never make it right. They never humbly seek forgiveness even from a little child. Your child wants to forgive you if you'll ask them, if you'll humbly seek that.

So the offender needs to humbly seek forgiveness. And for the offended, they need to graciously grant forgiveness. When someone humbly seeks it, graciously grant it. And even if they don't humbly seek it, because you can't control another person, you can still grant forgiveness.

Forgiveness is for the person who is offended. Forgiveness frees you. You can't make a person who wronged you apologize to you, but you can let it go. You can let it go. And how wonderful when someone does seek forgiveness, you can graciously grant forgiveness.

The word for forgiveness that's used in verse 32 is the word *charizomai*. And it means to show oneself gracious and forgive. That's the way God is. He says, "just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." God is full of *charizomai*. He graciously forgives you and me.

By His grace He does that. And so the offended needs to grant forgiveness. You say, "Well, Jeff, I have trouble with that." Join the club. I do too. I do too. It'll ruin your heart if you hold on to bitterness. It'll just ruin your heart. You become an awful, sour person that nobody wants to be around.

You've got to get that out so the Lord can work through you. Jesus said, "If you don't forgive men their transgressions, my Father won't forgive you." You're in deep trouble if you don't forgive. Let me tell you how you forgive: you remember how much you've been forgiven.

Just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. You want to have power to forgive? You say, "Well, this person sexually abused me. They physically abused me. They cheated me in a business deal. I lost my job," whatever it might be. I'm not minimizing that, but how do you deal with that? How do you forgive? You remember how much He's forgiven you. Whatever someone has done to you, you've done so much more to God. And God in Christ also has forgiven you.

A culture of encouragement, culture of spiritual sensitivity, a culture of kindness and forgiveness. It makes all the difference in the world. Many years ago, the New York Times published a piece that talked about two families: a family who was known for godliness and a family who was known for ungodliness. It was the family of Jonathan Edwards and the family of Max Jukes.

They were both born in the 1700s. Jonathan Edwards married his love named Susan. Jonathan Edwards, as you remember, he was the great preacher during the first Great Awakening in the 1700s. Jonathan Edwards preached the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which is a famous, famous sermon. Jonathan and Susan Edwards had 11 kids.

And they had a godly culture in their home. They conducted their lives based on the word of God. They conducted their homes based on the word of God. Godly culture. Max Jukes, ungodly guy. Max Jukes just living for himself. Max Jukes, not a Christian. Max Jukes didn't care about following God. He just cared about gratifying self.

Well, they had families. And there was a study done on their descendants. Hundreds of descendants. People who came from Edwards' line, people who came from Jukes' line. They said, what's the difference? Let's see what happened with these people.

Max Jukes' descendants: seven were murderers, 60 were thieves, 100 were alcoholics, 67 of them had venereal disease, 50 of the women were prostitutes, 130 were convicts, 310 were paupers, 300 physically wrecked by indulgent living. The Jukes family and descendants cost the state more than 1.2 million dollars in that day and that time's money to take care of the Jukes because they were so delinquent.

Not the case for Jonathan and Susan Edwards. With their hundreds of descendants, one was a US vice president, three were US senators, three were governors, three were mayors, 13 were college presidents, 30 were judges, 65 were professors, 80 were public office holders, 100 were lawyers, and 100 were missionaries.

What made the difference? A godly culture. A godly culture. And you know what's so wonderful? Jonathan and Susan Edwards, they don't have a monopoly on a godly culture. What they had, what they did for their 11 kids, you can have and you can do. God wants to do that in and through your life. Will you start today doing family God's way?

Larry Nobles: A heartfelt question, and a question you need to wrestle with in your own heart. You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve today, with this question for you: are you able to truthfully say that your home is one of a godly influence?

The truth is, if Christian homes are not godly homes, there is little hope for anyone else's home to be a healthy and happy place. We have Jesus, and that needs to show in our families, not only when we're telling others about the Savior, but by the way we live and the way we react in the world.

At From His Heart, we pray that you are allowing your family to be an example for your children and to those around you who see God working in and through you and yours. If you'd like to help From His Heart with a financial gift this month, we'd like to say thanks by sending you his new three-lesson series, "God and Money: What the Bible Says About Managing Money." You can make that gift when you go to fromhisheart.org.

Time has gone for today. I'm Larry Nobles. Thank you very much for being here and we trust you'll be back next time and join Pastor Jeff Schreve as he speaks truth to parents in a message called "The Challenge of Parenting." That's next time, right here on From His Heart.