I hope you read Part 1 of Dr. Baugham’s great sermon. His point #1 is, worship God without rivals. His point #2 is “build your home on a foundation of Biblical love.” That’s where we are. To continue this sermon, I wish I were as passionate as him.
Biblical love is, then, defined as “an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, that leads to action on behalf of its object.” This might explain why marriages by parents’ choice (when the couple often didn’t even meet each other before the wedding) can be surprisingly successful, if they are activating their will. Today’s concept of internet dating based on “matching interests having the most success” is more selfishly oriented. But a marriage can’t go long that is based on selfish interests—truth is, if you’re going to be married and live together, it demands sacrifice. If you believe in the worldly concept of love, God is unreasonable when He calls us to fidelity. No, God wants us to choose to love this person; and choose to make the marriage work “in sickness and in health.” Voddie tells his wife, “Girl, if you leave me, I’m going with you.” He was 20 years old when they married. “Our first baby was born 10 months after our marriage because we were what you call “efficient.”” When they had their first argument, they had no idea how people could have serious disagreements and somehow work through them and continue to love each other nevertheless. “We had our Cortez moment. We burned the ships. Nobody’s going home. The D-word is not an option. Homicide we leave on the table.”
“Accompanied by emotion.” Which means, ladies, it’s not Led by emotion. Your emotions change hourly. Which means, men, it’s not void of emotion. “Guys try to tell me, “I’m not an emotional man.” I tell them, “Sell that somewhere else.”” If you’re on the golf course, and shank one, you don’t say, “I seem to hit that one poorly.” When you’re watching a ball game, and your team is getting beat like a tied-up goat, you don’t just sit there and say, “Well, they have far more points than we do right now.” We’re incredibly emotional about the things that matter. Love is passionate. Love acts on behalf of that which is loved. This is biblical love. You want to see a picture of it, it’s in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is sweating out drops of blood, and says, “if there is any other way, let this bitter cup pass from me…nevertheless, not my will, but Yours be done.” It was an act of the will, a choice, accompanied by intense emotion. And it led to action—the Cross—on behalf of its beloved—us.
If we build our homes on a foundation of biblical love, everything is more secure. Even if you don’t feel as close to God—or your spouse. That’s OK; love is an act of the will. You move your mind to choose God’s way—joy is His way.
3. Be committed to a biblical worldview. Consider Moses’ words, “These words which I’m commanding to you today shall be on your heart.” Or, redefining “heart,” these things shall be seared on your will. To get that from our children, we need to teach them the biblical worldview. We “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” ourselves too. That gets us obedience to Him—without just memorizing rote rules. It’s a shame that we want advice from Dr. Spock or Dr. Phil, but we don’t train our kids regularly from His Word—we don’t ever want to hear from Dr. Jesus. Do you really believe that “all Scripture is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness?” That the Scriptures are an answer to every aspect of your life? That’s what it looks like with His commandments seared on your heart. Therefore, we must
4. Teach the Word of God to our children. Through surveys, we found that less than 1% have family worship once a year. We’re not catechizing our children. We leave it to the church, in their one-hour noisy sessions; the biggest churches actually suggest that they would do the teaching, not us, since they are “trained professionals.” These churches are so far from the Word that they hire people to do jobs that are called by God to be your This phenomenon has been going on for at least 35 years.
Ephesians 6:4:
fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord.
It is your responsibility to teach theology and church history. Psalm 78 is replete with this. You get one shot at it, since when they are young, their mind is still malleable. What could possibly be more important? When you breathe your last, and you are dead and gone, what will you leave? You’re going to die and somebody’s going to get all your stuff. But what legacy are you leaving for your children? Just “stuff?” I’m tired of hearing these celebrity-guys who retire early, and they’re 50 or 60, and they say, “I’m leaving now to devote more time to my children and family.” And I’m watching this on TV, and I say, ‘bro, it’s too late.’ Where were you when your children were apt to listen to you, when they were young, and thought you were ‘super-dad.?’ So when they’re grown, living a life that you didn’t train them to live God’s way, you can have the life that you can live for yourself. We’ve got it backward. When you worked, did you decide, “I ‘have to’ move our family because there’s more money and a better opportunity.” Or did you decide, “I’m moving because there’s a slower pace of life, and a more manageable position that will allow me to make an investment in my family and children that I need.” There are people in this room, who can testify that when they look back at the lives of their children, who are not walking with God, completely astray, and they will say, “Oh, if I had it to do over again.” They even say to their grown child, “Don’t buy the lie that I bought. Disciple your children from the Word—so you will leave something of eternal value to the next generation.”
5. Mark your home as God’s territory. Here’s some verses that people don’t get: Deuteronomy 6:8-9:
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
As a child, my mother’s Buddhism marked all my senses—the incense, the statue, the beads, the ringer, the chants. Some of you, as a Christian, have certain routines since you were children, such as the same meal every Sunday, and all the family is invited. Now that you are grown, when you smell that meal, it reminds you of Sunday afternoon at home. Some of you have a daily tradition of family worship, followed by a meal. Some have sayings on the walls, or Christian music in the evenings, in a quiet time, without TV. These mark your home forever as a place of praises sent up to His Throne. Finally,
6. Keep your prosperity in check. In the Old Testament, when God gave the Israelites the land, the homes, the wells already dug, the new wealth, He said, “watch yourselves”—because that’s when you’re prone to forget the God who gave you all this.
Prosperity is difficult because we become unfaithful. That’s why Jesus said, “It’s easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” That’s why Jesus said to the rich man looking for eternal life… go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” The rich young ruler walked away; to him, Jesus, whom he only respected, wasn’t worth losing all his wealth. So, it’s hell for him. And for us, if we get entangled by the world. Nothing will challenge your commitment to God more than prosperity. Adversity has a tendency to drive us to our knees. Prosperity will drive us away from God. We begin to look toward the gift instead of the Giver.
Dr. Baugham’s testimony is throughout this. The way we’re seeing this is, unbiblically, we yearn for everyone to obtain work for prosperity. We’re no longer raising women in our culture. We’re raising men with women plumbing. “Our daughter is homeschooled, and is not going to college. You ask her why, and she’ll say she wants to be a homeschool mom, raising her kids to follow God.” We should be raising our girls to be moms and wives. We won’t send her out, hoping she finds a good man, and if not, have a prosperous life, hopefully, as an independent, unprotected, vulnerable woman. I will not send her off to some university to act “in loco parentis.” I’m her parent. I’m her covering until she is married. “Why does this sound so radical?” Because we are a lot more American than we are Christian. We do the same thing everybody else does. There’s a whole lot of women out there who bought the lie that says, “you can have it all, materially.” Truth is, Scripture clearly says, you were never meant to. No one is. You have a role to play, as Scripture has laid out. Why would any woman give it up, who is able to grow life within them, who is able to have a symbiotic relationship, your heartbeat and your child. They know your smell as a newborn. The first thing they need to do is nurse at your breasts. When nursing, they are looking into your eyes. Why? Because God designed you to nurture them.
You know what our culture says? “That’s not good enough. You need to share Adam’s curse (difficulty in work, providing for the family), because Eve’s curse is not enough for you.” Our world also says, “as soon as you can, you get that baby off you, and hire someone else to do what God created you to do.” God says “I’ve created you to have a role as suitable helper for your husband. What does our world say? Well, let him go to find someone else’s wife to be his right arm (speaking of office jobs), then you go to be the right arm of some other man. When our women have the greatest gift, the greatest calling, the greatest opportunity in the world—the hand that rocks the cradle stands to rule the world. That’s your power and influence, young ladies, if you let it be. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more precious, and powerful than authentic, strong, submissive womanhood. And there is nothing that is in shorter supply—except for authentic, passionate, protecting, providing manhood. Our houses are NOT in order. We are raising men who are weak and have not been given permission to stand up and lead their homes. And women who are unprotected and completely dissatisfied because somebody told them that they could ‘have it all.’ She rejects the God-blessed motherhood, takes on Adam’s curse and pays someone else take the “menial” job of nurturing their children. God help us.
No comments:
Post a Comment