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We’ve been starting a new series together, and it’s on how to grow a Christ centered family. And it’s an important question for us to ask as a church, because the family is extremely important to God. After all, the family was the first institution that God established. And last week we began the journey together on understanding what a biblical family was and defining what makes the difference between a Christian family who allows Christ to be the center of the home, and any other family that we come in contact with through the rest of the world? Much like every family throughout the world, one of the things that we noted is, just because you’re a Christian family doesn’t mean you’re a perfect family. In fact, if you know the Lord, one of the things you’ve come to find in your own relationship towards him is that we oftentimes fall short of what God desires for our lives, and that’s the case with our family as well. We’re not perfect, but one thing that the Christian family, or the Christ centered family has in the center of their home, if they know Jesus is the sinless Savior. It takes a lot out of especially parenting as as adults. When you think about your children, when you realize that your children are sometimes going to make mistakes and that you out of embarrassment in public when those things happen, don’t have to react in such anger knowing that every once in a while it just might happen, right? Building a Christ centered family is close to the heart of God.
It was the first institution that God created on this earth. And even when he, the Lord, shared with the Apostle Paul as he supernaturally wrote the book of Timothy and Titus, when he told those young men, those pastors establishing and working within churches to seek out leadership within the church, the way that you found those leaders to help establish that church were to find to find leaders who were following and living a biblical lifestyle to their families, who are managing their households well. A family is a mini expression of the church. A church is only as healthy as the families who make it up. And so answering the question how do we build a Christ centered home is important for us as an entire church family, regardless of where we are in our relationship with God. Whether you’re young and single and you’re looking to a family one day, whether you’re married, with children or or you’ve retired and kids have flown the nest, it’s important for us as a church family to learn how to build a healthy and God centered home. After all, it’s God’s desire for the home. You know, as people, when we find God’s desire for our lives and God’s purpose for our lives in him, we we live the way God has designed us and through that begin to experience peace, joy, and happiness.
And I believe the beginning of this year is a brand new year, and we like to start things fresh. And if we would just give God control of our lives and of our family. God will literally rock our world, and the joy that he promises in Scripture won’t just be a story that we find within the Bible that’s contained for those people, but it will be applied to our lives as well. As we’ve looked at a Christ centered family together, we’re going to see all explore all sorts of avenues of the family, what it means to be a godly man in a household and in God’s eyes, what it means to be a godly woman, how single people experience and handle looking to a family one day. Discipline what? How that fits into a family, all sorts of avenues we’re going to begin to explore together to get an idea of when we talk about what a Christ centered family, what it looks like in Scripture, and how it applies to our own personal lives. As we begin begin that story this morning, we’re going to talk about the area of communication. I know every guy in the building just rolled their eyes at us and and lowered their heads. Right. Communication Let me give you a fact, man, that will make you feel a little bit better when it comes to communication. I read this in a recent magazine, Homemade Magazine of all things.
It says a woman’s vocal cords are shorter than a man’s, and she can actually speak with less effort. We didn’t need science to tell us that, right? We just we know that from experience. Shorter vocal cords not only cause a woman’s voice to be more highly pitched, but also require less air to become agitated, making it possible for her to talk more with less energy. All these, all this, all these years, they thought. The ladies thought that we just weren’t sharing enough with them. But little did they know, it takes a lot for us to say things right. Trying to help you out, guys. For you. Too far into this this morning communication. It’s important to think of a let me throw out a couple jokes for you this morning. We’ll see how it goes. You give me positive feedback on these. All right. There was a couple who was traveling from America towards the east, and as they were on the journey, they decided to take their dog with them, greatly appreciating all the experience that they were to have with one another in their small little animals. They journeyed together and eventually, as they began to travel, they became somewhat irritated with the language barriers to all the countries that they were coming in contact with. And one day they were they were sailing across the country, and they decided to to take port into one of the local towns along this area of the east that they were in.
And and they went into a restaurant and they started to eat, and they took their dog with them. They wanted their dog to experience everything. And and they motioned to the waiter, you know, they they were interested in eating. They gave the sign language for, for eat. And, and the waiter brought him a menu, and they enjoyed what was on the menu that they had selected. And a little bit into the to the meal, they noticed that their dog hadn’t eaten anything that day. They had been out and enjoyed much of the scenery in the town, and so they motioned to the the waiter that their dog needed something to eat, and the waiter just gladly nods his head, and he picks up the dog and goes back to the kitchen, only to find an hour later, their poor puppy coming back out on a on a platter, ready for them to enjoy the meal. Right. Communication is important, right? And especially understanding the way we communicate toward one another. If you didn’t like that, let me give you another one. There was a couple business people, a husband and wife. They were from New York, and both of them were going out of town on business. And the husband happened to get his business finished a little bit sooner than he expected. He got back to New York and he noticed there was a blizzard, and he was getting tired of the cold weather.
Anybody there yet? And he decided, you know what? I’m going to. I’m going to take a trip down to Florida. I’m going to call my wife. I’m going to tell her not to go home to New York, just come down to Florida and meet me and let’s enjoy the the warm weather together. He sent the email and she was glad to receive it, happy that he had thought of her and the vacation and spending some time together and getting warm, especially after this business trip. When he got to Florida, he decided that he would go ahead and email his wife again to let her know that he had arrived and he began to type the email and forward it on. But instead of typing in her address, he accidentally missed a couple of keys and and it accidentally sent it to an old lady who was living in Iowa. Unfortunately, this this lady had just experienced the passing of her husband, and she opened up the email and she began to read it. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, her family heard all these screams. And they walked into the room and they noticed she had fainted on the floor. And they looked up at the computer screen and began to read the email. Dearest darling, just wanted you to know I arrived safely. Looking forward to you being with me tomorrow. Signed your husband. Communication.
Good. Communication is important. Do you know that the average person and a single day speaks enough to fill up 50 pages in a book? In fact, we talk so much that we can fill 132 books of 200 pages each year. That’s for guys, men and women, right? That’s a lot of communication. And God built us for relationships. We’ve seen that communicated through his word. Time and time again as a church, he created us in his image. And when he created us in his image, the Bible gets very specific. And the way God creates us in the beginning, he designs this whole world, this whole world, and all the animals and everything contained within it. But when he gets to man, he he sort of takes a pause to begin to explain the significance of who we are as creatures. And it says that he forms us out of his hands, and then he breathes into us the breath of life, different than any other creature that God has designed. God places his Spirit within us, and for the first time, one of God’s creations is able to socially interact back with God. Experiencing a relationship with him. We find our purpose and fulfillment as we connect to God relationally. Not only that, but he also created people. He looked at man and said, that is not good. When he first created him, didn’t he? He said, I will make you a helper. And the two of you shall become one flesh.
In fact, throughout Scripture, God continues to describe for us the unity that he desires among his people. He says in John 17, I will be in them, and you will be in me, and that they may be perfected in unity. Unique in Scripture to see that the perfection of us as people comes through relationship with Christ. God desires to dwell among us. It tells us in second Corinthians six. In John 13, Jesus gave us the greatest command to love one another. He tells us in second Timothy 222, pursue righteousness, faith and charity, and peace with them who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. It means God’s desire for us is to gather with a congregation of people who seek after Christ and want to grow close to him, to encourage one another in that relationship. Relationships and commuting. The communicating that relationship about God to one another is significant and close to the heart of God, and there is no more powerful place in your life that you have opportunity to do that than the confines of your own home with your family. It’s important for us to share the beauty of a relationship with Christ and what God is doing in our own lives with our family. The family is the many expression of the church. You know what God tells us about communication as we look at it through this, through Scripture. It’s a communication in the very beginning of creation.
Met some complications and it came in the form of sin. God breathed into us the breath of life. Man chose something contrary to God. Sin came in the world. It says in Genesis three eight, I don’t know why that’s like that, but just ignore that for a minute. Genesis three eight. At the very top it says, and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. That quote from Scripture just came right after Adam and Eve were told by God not to eat of the fruit. Eve went and partook of the fruit. Adam then ate of the fruit, and it says when they realized that they were naked, they realized that they were sinners. They hid themselves from the presence of God. When sin came into this world, the unity that God desired divided rather than get near to God in their sin. Adam and Eve ran and hid. We find ourselves doing that often as people. We even think about church that way, sometimes wrongfully. I’m a sinner. I can’t go to church yet. I’ve got to get my life right and then I can go right. Well, Jesus teaches us in this passage of Scripture in three eight is that very early on, right after Adam and Eve sinned? It tells us in verse ten that God starts pursuing Adam and Eve. Adam, where are you? Adam, where are you? And he confronts Adam in his sin. And Adam tells him, listen, I ate of the fruit, and I hid from you because of the shame that it brought into my life.
While we as people want to run away from God in the middle of our sin, God is crazy about pursuing you and reuniting that relationship that he had with with us before sin came into our lives. I like what Adam does. He’s a just a great man. He brings in the first marital fight. First marital fight. Ladies, if you want to know what’s caused by Adam, okay, we’ll take the blame for this. But he says in verse 11, when God first comes and confronts Adam about the sin that they’ve that they’ve done in the Garden of Eden, Adam says this. He just throws his wife right under that bus. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave me gave to be with me. She gave me from the tree, and I ate. It’s her fault, God. Now listen. Don’t just ignore what went in my mouth. It’s. It’s all her. And then she goes on to tell the the lady in verse 16 he says. And your desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you. And to the man he said, since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat.
The ground is cursed because of you. And what we find in verses eight of Genesis and verse 16 of Genesis, verse eight, it tells us, listen, there’s now problems with our relationship with God because of sin. Verse 16 and 17 it begins to tell us, listen, there are problems with your relationships with people, especially in your married life, because of sin. It goes on to tell us in Galatians 520, discord. Listen, this is the this is the, the fruit of the flesh we talk about in this passage of Scripture. This is what flesh looks like, and this is what the Spirit of God looks like when it works in our lives. In verse 20, he’s talking specifically about the flesh. God desires unity. God desires oneness among his people. God desires a relationship with us, working together as as God’s children, following after him. But he says, when the flesh is at work in our lives, this is what we begin to experience. Discord happens. Jealousy happens. Fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions and factions. Everything that divides us as people. That’s what takes place when God is working in our lives. We find unity when sin is working in our lives. We find dissension and factions disunity among us as people. God desires for us to be one in relationship to him and with one another. Standing with one another in love and truth. Tells us we’ve seen together in the book of Ephesians how much God pursues a relationship with us.
And we last week started to open up the book of Ephesians. It’s very important to understand relationships in general, especially our relationship to a husband and wife. The first three chapters of Genesis. All it is, is just an explanation of the gospel. This is what God has done for you. Beginning in chapter four, God then begins to apply it to our lives. Since God has done this for you, this is how we should live in this world. And knowing Jesus with one another. As we walk hand in hand with our God, it tells us that God was so crazy about a relationship with us. Look at look at this in verse chapter two and verse 14, he starts talking about reconciliation to himself and reconciliation with one another. He says, For he himself is our peace. Who made both groups in this passage of Scripture, he’s referring to Gentile and Jew who are warring against one another. And he’s saying, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. All of Ephesians chapter two is very specific to the gospel. And Jesus is saying to us, when sin entered into our world, we had no peace in our relationship with God. We had no peace in our relationship with one another. And apart from God bringing it into this world, we’d never experience it. But God became that peace for us.
And in the middle of the argument that’s existing within the church of Ephesus, he says, I’ve knocked down that barrier of dissension, and what I’m after is your oneness. The book of Ephesians is a beautiful book for us as people, just to look through its pages and understand that God has a plan for us to function in this world relationally, with other people. And knowing Jesus and how we live for him in this world is important to God. In fact, Ephesians chapter four, as it begins to explain for us how we live for the Lord in this world, he he uses, he begins to use the word walk in Ephesians four one. It says walk in a manner which is worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Walk no longer as the Gentiles walk. It’s important for us as people to walk in love, having known the Lord, to walk as children of light in verse 15. To be careful how one walks. Paul gives this idea in the book of Ephesus that as we’re journeying in this world, it’s sort of like a walk. It’s a walk with God by our side, and it’s a walk before others. And as we’re walking around in our relationship with God, it takes the opportunity at that slow pace for everyone to be able to examine us in the way that we’re choosing to live our lives, and in so doing, begin to see Christ manifested in our relationship in the way that we choose to live before others.
God is concerned not only with your relationship with him, but how we walk before others and how that relationship is played out before others. He even goes on to say, not only is he concerned with your walk, but he’s concerned with our unity as well. He says in verse three, be diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. We are one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father of all. God is emphasizing the unity that he desires to bring into this world. When sin is separated from us and we live in a right relationship with him and seeking to live in the right relationship with others. Notice the very first part, the words that I’ve underlined there, he says, be diligent. Meaning this as you’ve walked in this world for the Lord, you’ve noticed that to have godly relationships with other people is difficult, isn’t it? I always say the greatest thing about ministry is people, and the worst thing about ministry is people. I mean, there are ups and downs in your relationship. And what Paul says to us in this passage of Scripture is we’ve got to make effort to live in that oneness, because personalities rub raw on one another, don’t they? Be diligent to preserve the unity. God is concerned with the way we choose to live in this world, and he’s especially concerned with the way that we choose to live our relationship before others.
And what’s interesting to me, as I’ve looked at the book of Ephesians, the way that God has expressed his the gospel to us that Jesus came to this world. He died for our sins, that we might be reconciled to him. That’s it. That is the gospel. Jesus did it all. And so expressing our love towards God and so surrendering ourselves to Christ and accepting what he’s done on our behalf, God becomes concerned for the way that we communicate this to the world, and he starts out of all things, the way that we begin to communicate towards one another, the way that we should communicate within our own families starts on the foundation of truth. We think about communication. We think about what God wants for our families. It always starts in the avenue of truth. Last week we we looked together the importance of establishing a home where it’s grace filled, where when we walk into the doors, we feel the opportunity to speak freely, even in the midst of our sin, that God could find healing for us among our own family, and begin to use our family as a tool and resource to help us to change Within our families. It’s important to provide a place for us to communicate truth to one another. To know that as husband and wife, at points, you’re going to feel each other.
To know that your children at points are going to fail you. To know as a parent, as parents, at points, you’re even going to fail your children. But you need a place where you can communicate truth. Because when truth is able to be communicated, you then begin to pursue how to make a change and how to grow together and how to walk in unity and love. He says in verse 25, notice the first word that he starts with. It’s significant. Anytime you see this word in Scripture, you got to ask, what therefore is there for? He’s he’s just explained to us the entire gospel, and he’s saying to us, therefore, because you know this gospel, it’s important to speak truth. When you find truth, you know how significant it is to share with other people. Truth is the direction that we pursue as people, and we want to find our purpose in God when we discover it. We understand that truth. It’s important that our family discover that truth with us. That way, we can get on that journey together and pursue what God desires for us together. Therefore, he says, it is significant to your lives and to your relationships that you are honest with one another and that you speak truth. Satan first moved into Lehi. I, being the wonderful husband that I am, decided that we were going to go on a romantic walk together. And before we left on this walk, I even went out and scouted out the area, surveyed the area on this beautiful walk in our new neighborhood.
We just we just moved into looking forward to to having this time together. And we started our journey. And at one point since since I’m from back east and there’s lots of trees back east, I wanted to walk through the woods. And so a part of our our journey went through the woods. And right when we got to the beginning of the entrance of this woods, it was getting a little bit dark. Stacy took one look down this trail and said, I’m not going. Which left us at that opportune time to come up with a new idea on how we were going to make the journey back to our vehicle and back to our house. And so we started this new trail together, of which we had never been on. And we were just saying to ourselves as we went up every street together, just just one more street up and over, and we’ll be able to find our way back. There’ll be an opening. There’s got to be. And we take that street and we’d get there and. And then there would. We wouldn’t find the opening that we needed to get back to our vehicle. And then we’d say to ourselves to go back the way we came. Looks a little far. Let’s just keep going. So we’d keep going together and we would make the next turn looking, oh, it’s going to be here.
We know as soon as we round this corner we’re going to find our way back. We didn’t find our way back. The problem was, we had allotted for ourselves just a couple of hours on this journey, and I had an appointment to get to. And so tension just really started to build in our relationship at that moment because we couldn’t find our way back. If she had just walked through those woods, you know, it’s time for her to be a man and eat a couple spiders if she has to. Right Too stubborn to turn back. We continued on the journey. About four hours later, we were back home. You know, it was important for us in that moment to have a little bit of truth on where that road was going to lead us. But we definitely lacked it. You know, when you look in this world, there are many families who are functioning that way. They have no direct goal in what they want to achieve together, because they have no understanding of their own significance and purpose in this life. And what they need is a little bit of God’s truth to give them purpose and direction as a family, that they may enjoy that journey together, that they may see how that road lays out for what God desires for them. It’s important as family to be on a journey with God to discover his truth.
And when you find his truth, to learn how to live that together in such a way that it brings unity and truth both with your God and with your family. Jesus said in John 17, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. That is not just a quote from a movie. Knowing truth brings freedom not just to my life, but also to the lives of my loved ones and even to the life of your church. It’s important as a family that you understand the significance of truth. Can I pause right here for a moment and just highlight when speaking the truth? Therefore, speak the truth to one another, that it’s also important for us as families to take the time to share what God’s doing in our lives together. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate or overdone or take a whole lot of planning. You know, just simply look as parents, just to find a significant Bible verse. 1 or 2 Bible verses sit together one evening around the table, spend some time together around a table, maybe one day a week. Pick some time and just ask. Share a verse. Ask your children what they think about a verse. Share some thoughts as a parents. Take 5 or 6 minutes to do it and move on. Plant the seed to give God the opportunity to begin to work in your heart and change not only you as a person, but your family as well.
God can’t make the change in your life unless his truth is being administered. But if you give him the opportunity to even pray as a family or share just a snippet of his Word together, God can use that to begin to work in your hearts, to make a change and get on a path towards God’s truth. Building a Christ centered family starts with communication, and that communication has to be centered on the truth. It’s how we solve problems. It’s how we grow together. Second, godly communication comes by sharing God’s heart with God’s timing. You know, to be honest, there are times when we get so frustrated with each other and even in our own homes that we say things to each other we wouldn’t even think about saying to anybody else. And some of the statements may be you, as husbands, that we need to repent of before our wives. When we’ve lost our tempers, we wouldn’t even dream about saying before our bosses. The next verse in Ephesians, as we’ve seen in verse 25 and verse 26, addresses that. He says, be angry. Guys, ladies don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity for the devil. Because when we act angry, we bring discord among our family. It’s not unity. And who works in an opportunity like that is nothing godly but Satan himself.
You know, it’s it’s possible. If you’ve studied the scripture, anger can be a godly thing. Now I’ll say 99.9 repeated percent times. Anger is not used in a godly way. You know one thing that Jesus was angry against? Jesus hated Sin because when sin was present, he understood that it accomplished one thing in the lives of of the relationship between he and his people. It brought division. And see he hated. He was passionate against anything that stood in the way of a relationship between he and you. So much so that he came all the way to this world to die for our sins, to prove to you how much he desired to be one in a relationship with you. We talk about being angry and do not sin. When we look at our own families, we become frustrated with anything that brings division among us as people within our own homes, even within our own lives. Because God’s desires for us to walk hand in hand with him and hand in hand with one another. You know, there’s usually two ways in which we react angry and it’s and it’s done in an ungodly way. First is we we blow up. You ever seen those people? Maybe. Maybe you are one of those people. You get so frustrated about something you can’t hold it in anymore, and all of a sudden you blow up. It’s even a popular form of counseling that you’ll bring the counseling to the counselors class, and sometimes they’ll bring the person they’re mad at, and they’ll take pillows and just hit each other, let out your rage, you know, just scream at the top of your lungs until you feel better.
Which is fine for the counseling. It just does nothing for the person they’re dumping all over. Be angry and do not sin. Blowing up is ungodly. Ventilation is unchristian. See, there’s a way to be angry at the sin that divides, but still love the people who are a part of the situation. The other way that we tend to be angry as people and this is this is for those who are more quiet, is that we we tend to clam up sometimes. We don’t express the the need that we’re experiencing in our own lives. There was a story of a lady who she went before this counselor because she had all of these ulcers, and she had gone to the doctor before. And and the doctor told her, it’s nothing medically that’s wrong with you. It’s something that’s just frustrating, that’s creating these ulcers. And so she grabbed her husband by the arm, and she comes to this counselor’s office and brings them in and says, we’re here because we need counseling. And she takes this giant notebook and she throws it down. She says, and this is a list of everything that my husband has done wrong with me. Of which the counselor sat for a moment to allow the lady to calm down.
And he just simply said to her, you know, this may be a book of everything that your husband’s done wrong with you, but it’s also a book of every injustice that you’ve brought against him, because the Bible tells us in first Corinthians 13 five, love keeps no record of wrong. Don’t clam up and don’t blow up. It’s okay to be frustrated with the things that divide your family, but don’t attack the people that God has called you to love There’s a way that I call Matthews Way in which I think God has given us to handle problems in our lives. First, I want to encourage you as a family when you’re facing any sort of trial together. According to Matthew chapter seven, he tells us, take the log out of your own eye before you take the splinter out of your friends. Meaning, when our family is encountering problems together and we need to communicate about it with one another in order to progress out of it. Just to be honest and truthful, um, I need to first be humble in the circumstance and the way that I’m humble as I come before my own family and I admit my faults. You know what that says to your family? That you’re not there to just attack them, but you’re willing to open yourself up and let yourself be vulnerable for the sake of unity among your family. You know, I’ve met people in this world that, you know, we look at the first point, we need to share truth together.
And they say, okay, I’ll share truth And then all of a sudden they they go before the person that’s causing such problem and they’re just so bluntly honest towards them that it just creates a wall and a barrier and it makes you get all defensive. Oh, you’re honest with them, that’s fine. But you’re also not very loving towards them. But coming before them and just admitting, listen, I’ve got faults and I want to work on this as a person. And, you know, I feel I feel this way in our family right now. And I think it’s because of this. Will you help me to work on it? Because there’s something that’s so important to me, and that is just our relationship together. And what I’m interested in is, is just being able to love and live the way God has called us to. The Bible goes on to say, even in Matthew chapter five, if you have wronged someone, even in a church service, if you’re coming together here this morning and you’re beginning to worship, if you think in your mind and you’ve got some kind of burden that you’re just bearing about the the relationship with someone that you’ve wronged. It tells us in this passage of Scripture to go before that person and make that relationship right before you come before God and worship That’s good, right? If I’ve wronged someone, I should do that.
That’s the godly thing. I like what Matthew says next, though. He says in verse 18, if you’re gathering to worship again and you think of someone that’s wronged you, they’ve done the thing wrong to you and your relationship isn’t right. He says, go to them and make that relationship right. Essentially, what Matthew is saying is you as a believer in Jesus because of that walk that God is so interested in. At no point in your life do you not bear the responsibility of seeking a right relationship with man. The Bible tells us to seek peace with all people. If you can’t think of anything in this world as you consider making relationships right with people, if you can’t think of anything to say to someone who’s wronged you, start by this. I’m sorry it took me so long to come and talk to you. But I need to say something. This problem between us has caused so much pain in my life. I can’t stop thinking about it. And I’m not okay with the tension that’s between you and I. And I just want to find forgiveness in it. And I just want to make it right. God’s desire for us is to share his heart according to his timing. Notice it says in this passage, don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Give no opportunity to the devil. It says in verse 26 and 27 of Ephesians, Matthew says this for us as people sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof.
Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, because sufficient to the day is the trouble thereof. Meaning God only made your shoulders so big, and the problems that you’re experiencing in your family if you. If you’ve got any problems, I’m sure you do. We’re all normal, right? You can only bear that burden for that day. And when you start carrying the problems of the past and looking to the problems of the future, it is too overwhelming for you to handle. And you’re going to be a bear for your family And what happens to us when we don’t seek to reconcile those relationships. We go to bed with harboring unforgiveness and resentment, and the next time an argument starts, guess what I’ve got waiting in the wing? I’ve got this artillery. Artillery to start World War three. On our relationship at that moment. You’re accusing me of this? Well, guess what you did, buddy. And out comes the bombs, right? The Bible tells us sufficient for the day. Don’t let the problems subside. Carry God’s attitude towards the problems that you face. Be angry. It’s okay that you’re upset over things that divide. But don’t let the sun go down on that. Because what’s important to God above everything else is the unity among your family as you truthfully follow him. Be diligent in understanding.
Sin will come, but it’s our responsibility to bring that unity with one another. Guys, what it requires us to do is get a little tired and communicate more sometimes, doesn’t it? To not maybe clam up or blow up as often. Temptation may arise. Number three, he tells us in the very next verse of Ephesians 429, godly communication is proactive. It’s not just reactive. Meaning this when we have problems, we react to that. We try to solve it as a family, but we don’t stop there. Our goal in life isn’t just to solve problems in our family. Who wants to be in a family like that all day long? It becomes your responsibility. It’s not. It’s not an enjoyable one, but it says that we need to be proactive as well as reactive. It says in verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths. Corrupting talk isn’t a foul language, okay? Although, kids, this isn’t an encouragement to use foul words, okay? Corrupting talk is anything that tears down. Let nothing that’s going to tear down your family come out of your mouth. Now we understand truthfulness sometimes hurts, but the point of truthfulness is to build us back up into God’s direction. Together, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. God desires for us to build up one another.
Can I say, parents, don’t let your kids tear down your spouse in front of you. Parents, don’t tear down your spouse in front of your kids. That’s one of the worst things that kids can learn in a household when they’re trying to see from mom and dad how to live a godly life and how to grow a godly family. Because one day your example is what they’ll mimic. Build one another up. There’s a survey that was done by a group of counselors. They interviewed 300 couples that had been married for at least 15 years. That described themselves as being happily married. And these this group agreed that marriage made them happy in the following areas. They said having a generous, positive attitude towards one’s spouse and viewing their partner as one’s best friend. This couple, this. The couple said, I am married to someone who cares about me, who is concerned for my well-being, who gives as much or more than he gets. He or she gets in the relationship, who is open and trustworthy, and who is not mired down in a somber, bleak outlook on life. The second key, they said, to a successful marriage, was a belief in importance to commitment towards one another. Marriage was viewed as something people stick with and work to develop in spite of difficult times. Jesus even told us they’d come. In addition, they also agreed about the aims and goals in life, and they had a desire to make the marriages succeed.
That’s important. The last two parts, I mean, there’s going to be trouble, but we need to have truth that gives us the absolute goals that we need to follow as a family, but the family had a general positive attitude towards one another. And let me just tell you, it’s because maybe without even knowing it, they begin to apply this verse to their lives, their communicating language, in such a way that built one another up, that gave them an opportunity to trust in each other, to rely upon each other, and made the marriage such a positive place to be. These same counselors noted within married couples that they they warned about what they called the the silent eighth year of marriage as they studied married couples. One of the things that they’ve discovered is that married couples only speak to one another 27 minutes a week, and any important dialogue just face to face. But the eighth year, for some reason, out of all the years, that number dwindled all the way down to to ten minutes a week, that lived in silence. And the expectation was, well, we know each other well enough so we don’t have to communicate. But can I tell you as people this morning we can’t live on the past in our relationships. If we want to progress and grow together, it’s important for us to continue to walk to each other because as people, we’re always changing.
Here’s how I know because God is always working within us and changing us into something different than what we were the day before. And so it becomes important for not only to live on past memories together, but to grow future ones. Can you remember your dating years right? I love him, she thinks I’m wonderful, right? You walked into the kitchen one day. She had you pop open the door. You thought you were just the manliest man. Any more jars? You want me to open up? Honey, you know I love you all. In the beginning. Newlywed stage. You know what made that so special? It’s because of that opportunity and that time in your marriage. You were investing in the lives of one another. You’re building each other up. That’s a godly thing. That’s why as a church, as a part of this series, one of the things that we’re going to provide for you as parents is just a date night opportunity where we’re going to bring in some babysitters here and let you go out on a date and just start working on building that relationship up. There’s a story about a young lady named Mary, and she had all sorts of facial deformities. She was different, and she really didn’t like going to school because of the jokes and stares of the cruel children that would tease her. Mary often wondered if anyone outside of her family would ever love her because she felt so different.
One day, the children went into their new classroom together, and teacher, by the name of Mrs. Leonard was going to be their new teacher. And everyone liked that teacher. She was always warm, glowing, inviting to the kids. And Mary especially just loved her new teacher. One of the problems that Mary had also with her facial deformity was she was partially deaf. In one ear and one of the. In the 1950s, when Mary was in school, one of the things that teachers would have to do was to give their children a hearing test. And Mary always hated that hearing test, because she knew that if kids found out, she couldn’t hear out of one of her ears that they would begin to make fun of her. And the rules of the test were you would have to go stand outside, and the teacher would invite you in, and you would go in and stand next to her desk, and you were to stick your finger in one of your ears, and the teacher would whisper something in your other ear that was open, and you had to repeat what the teacher said back to you. And Mary came up with a plan this time. And Mary, who had no friends at school, who was just ashamed as a person, always looking down in conversation, her name was called with great embarrassment. Building up in her heart, she walked into this classroom and she stood sideways at the teacher’s desk and she just pretended to to cover her ear.
And she just hoping to God that she could hear what the teacher was about to say. That way she could whisper it, and none of the children would make fun of her, of which Mrs. Leonard leaned down, and she just whispered into Mary’s ear something that would change her life forever. She said, Mary, I wish that you were my daughter. Those words of grace ministered in the heart that needed love brought change for Mary. And I think in our society, we’re so good at criticism and the negative, but we’re not good at building up. You think all across the country there are counseling sessions taking place of young children who are going into offices who were just defeated, who have have no esteem, have no identity, no acceptance from their parents, from their parents, because they’ve never heard just special words like that, that Mary was able to hear from her teacher. If we didn’t grow up in homes that were regularly building us up, maybe we ourselves have developed habits that aren’t encouraging towards one another. If you need to understand as as dads even thinking about encouragement that you need to bring your kids, or as mothers needing to bring your kids, how about this every once in a while, taking the time to say, I’m proud of you, or you did it, or I knew you could did it or you could do it.
Excuse me. Or what a good helper you are. You’re very special, I trust you. That’s so creative, man. You made my day. What the Bible is interested is that we begin to build one another up. By building up with each other, we also need to take the time to invite Christ to be a part. You think about how we can even build one another up in prayer. Maybe I should ask parents how often? How often do you pray for your spouse? Are you building them up before the Lord or your kids? God’s desire for us is to build one another up. Let me quickly zip through these last two points for us. God’s desire as well. And we see this all through the book of Ephesians chapter four. Let me encourage you when the sermon is over today, if you want some direction for your family and how to pursue a relationship together, read Ephesians four. Sit down with your family in a circle and just read the passage and say, listen, God has given us a goal for the way to communicate. It was so shocking to me when I saw this in Scripture. It’s like God came into my life and God saved me, and I have a relationship with God, and now I just kind of figure things out on my own. Now, God gave us sort of a template of understanding of how he wants to communicate our lives with other people, and he wrote it in Ephesians four.
This is how we should live among one another as a family. This is our goal. Now we have a goal in our communication. It’s Ephesians four. If anyone ever says anything contrary to what Ephesians four says, we stand up and say, hey, I hear what you’re saying, but I just don’t think that it was quite the way. Maybe you didn’t express it the way that God desires. Here, look in I didn’t even click over. Look what God says in verse 31. Have a goal for communicating. It says in 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Here’s what God doesn’t want us to do in verse 31, but here’s what God wants us to carry. You know, Paul is talking. Let me remind you, to a group of people who are fighting with one another, Jew and Gentile. And he’s saying to them in the midst of that argument, guys, here’s what you need to bring in, and it’s going to begin to solve problems. It’s just a tenderheartedness. Here’s what you need to do, not let resentment just build up. Bring forgiveness. Think about that in context of your relationship with God. The Bible tells us that we were enemies with God, yet Jesus came into this world, and while we were yet sinners, it says Christ died for us, meaning we’ve done nothing to earn his favor.
But yet when God brought his love into our lives, it brought us into relationship with him. If we’ve just accepted and come to him in repentance of what he’s done on the cross. Think about your family in the middle of all the arguments, when it seems like it’s impossible. And at the very least, I’ve just got to walk away a winner. Paul is saying, don’t worry about who’s going to win. Bring this attitude in your family. Jesus’s love demonstrated to you that when only one side of the argument had the crystal clear perspective on what life was all about, and the other side was arguing when love came in through that one person, it reconciled relationships. And so he communicates that to us. In every argument, there are really two sides to an argument, or two perspectives of an argument. One is attitude and the other is the issue. If we could learn to handle the attitudes, we can solve the issues better according to God’s will. This verse says to us, check your attitude or in the in the quotes of the famous 80s rapper. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, right? I am, I’m on a roll of cheesiness today. On the what God desires for us in our relationship is to put away bitterness, but experience his grace and love.
And and Ephesians really helps us as a family to gather a goal in communicating with one another. In verse five or excuse me, chapter five and verse one, God’s encouragement for us is to think corporately, not individually. And one of the reasons we argue a lot, if we do argue at all in our relationships, especially at home is because we’ve got our own agendas and we try to force that agenda on each other. And sometimes it’s not even according to what God’s will is. But Jesus recognized this force in chapter five and verse one that we need to begin to think corporately, not as individuals. He says, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. As a group, together, corporately imitate Jesus and walk in love. There he is concerned with your walk again, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us. It’s about the needs of the family. It’s about what God wants to do in the corporation of the entire relationship of us. And look what it says. And this is the beautiful part of this whole passage. You know, I see chapter five and verse one and two, it really needs to be included with chapter four. And he says, because Jesus, this was Jesus’s pursuit. It’s our example, it’s Jesus’s pursuit. But look what it says about Jesus’s life at the very end. It says he became an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
You want to think about what I’m after in this life to God? The most important relationship that we could have. I just want them to find my life pleasing to him. God talks about in this passage of Scripture that when when Christ laid himself down, it was such a beautiful aroma. I can’t help but think, even in our families and everyone else may have a different goal, and everyone else may not understand completely what truth is. But as God begins to work in you, and you begin to live that in your family and share that with your family, God will begin to change them. And God, as God begins to change him and they see someone who cares about their interests, who loves them, who doesn’t carry anger, who has forgiveness and is tender hearted, seeking after them when they bring that into a relationship, even to their own family, you know what? They become a fragrant aroma. I have this friend. He went to war and came back and and I hadn’t met him at this point. I’d only met his wife and he went off to war and came back. And I was expecting, like, you know, I don’t know how everybody comes back from war, but when you come back, there’s you’re going to be thinking a little different, and you’re going to be probably a little rough on the edges. I don’t I don’t know what he was involved in over there, but man, he came back and he was the he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met.
In fact, we went out to dinner a couple times and we got to know him and have a relationship with him. I come to find out he was so nice that we couldn’t keep people from coming and sitting around him, because he was such an encouragement to be around. I mean, he made you when you walked away feel good about yourself, even if you were the the worst of sinners and you just wanted to be better just because he encouraged you. So much. That’s what God desires for your family. God’s not okay with sin. God’s not okay with division. And we shouldn’t settle that among our own families. We shouldn’t let bygones be bygones and just say, hey, it’s okay. Let’s just all live our lives separately. Because what God desires for us is to begin to change us through the lives of one another. And you know, there is no better way to live for Jesus than in relationships with other people. Because as we find the tension and rubbing raw with one another, we think about the way that God came into our lives when we rubbed him wrong. We brought sin forth, and yet he still died for us. And it teaches us to be sacrificial just like that, to be grace loving just like that, and to begin to die to self. That God may begin to work in their hearts and in so doing would become a fragrant aroma. Let’s close in a word of prayer