ASI 2012: It's Time... To Be About Our Father's Business

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ASI 2012 Seminar: Home & Family

Phil Mills

Sherry Mills

How to be a Godly Parent

God has more blessings to give families than families have room to receive his blessings.

God says, prove me now herewith if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Jacob had seen this kind of blessing in a home.

And who could blame him for wanting the blessing that he had seen on his grandfather Abraham?

Today the word blessing has been so trivialized it just doesn't have much meaning.

When people sneeze, we say, God bless you.

But in the Bible, God's blessing is a big deal.

God's blessing of Job was so great that Satan himself could only complain about it.

He said, has thou not made a hedge about him and about his house?

Has blessed the work of his hands and his substance has increased in the land?

This blessing had set Abraham apart in his family.

His encampment was the headquarters of God's work on earth.

Kings dared not touch Abraham or his wife.

And at the end of Abraham's life, he passed this blessing on to Isaac.

He placed his hands on Isaac's head, and he blessed Isaac, Jacob's dad.

With this blessing, Isaac had been set aside as God's friend.

Isaac Holm became the headquarters of God's work on this earth.

His flocks were healthy, his gardens produced bountifully, his family was happy.

Is it any wonder that Jacob sought this blessing?

God designed that his blessing would be wanted.

Hebrews 11, 6, he that cometh to God must believe that, say it with me, he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

God wants to give this blessing to our homes.

Dear Lord, thank you for this opportunity to study your word together about that which makes for godly parenting, godly homes, and godly blessings.

I pray that you'll be right here, that your Holy Spirit will be poured out.

Bring us an encouragement, bring us information, and may we be different, because we've been set aside as your special people.

You can open your Bibles if you have them to 2 Samuel 6.

And the ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite 3 months.

And the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household.

And It was told King David, saying, The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God.

After wide consultation with all the leaders of Israel, David had gathered all Israel together from Shihor in Egypt to as far as the entrance of Hamath to bring the ark of God from Kirjath-Jerim.

With great fanfare and celebration, David was bringing the ark 9 miles from Kirjath-Jerim to Jerusalem on an ox cart.

And David and all the house of Israel were making merry before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

But tragedy struck when the cart went over a rough spot in the road.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, or as the NASB puts it, his irreverence.

The festivities of the occasion stopped immediately.

Solemnity and fear swept over the concourse of people.

And David was angry because the Lord had burst forth against Uzzah.

But what do you do if you think God just didn't handle the situation right?

David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, how can the ark of the Lord come to me?

So David was not willing to take the Ark of the Lord into the city of David.

Undoubtedly, he thought of what happened to the 3 cities of the Philistines that had the Ark of God.

He must have thought of the judgments on the men of Beshemoth who had irreverently lifted its coverings after it had been returned to Israel.

He may have thought of the exclamation of the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings, Numbers 17 and 13, from the New Living, everyone who even comes close to the tabernacle of the Lord dies.

David felt it may be dangerous to have the Ark in Jerusalem unless God's judgments come on that city.

He decided the safest thing to do would be just to leave it right where it was.

He looked for a place where the Ark could be stored, and for a second time in the Ark's history, it was with a family—the nearby home of the Levite Obed-Edom.

God had overruled all these events so that the eyes of all Israel were on the family of Obed-Edom.

What would happen if the ark of God was in the home?

No tumors of fear, no infestation of rats, no mice, no fire flashed out and destroyed the people in the home.

And just as it was clear within 10 days that Daniel's health was blessed by his obedience to the Lord, just so it was clear that God's blessing was on the home of Obed-Edom.

The ark of the Lord was in the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite, for 3 months, and the Lord sent a blessing on Obed-Edom and all his family.

The ark brought them not a curse, but a blessing.

And if we bring the ark of God into our homes, God will bless us just as he blessed Obed-Edom and his family.

To understand the topic, we need to study more deeply into the Ark.

The Bible refers to it by various names such as the Ark of the Lord, the Ark of the Testimony, the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of God's Strength.

It has so many names because it wasn't just an empty container.

Paul tells us that it contained 3 objects, the golden pot that had manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant.

On the side of the ark were the book of the law, the scrolls of the testimony, or the spirit of prophecy, That inspired instruction that God had given the prophet Moses to explain how the 10 Commandments can be applied to the life.

Then the mercy seat was placed on the top of the ark to cover it.

On the mercy seat, 2 statutes of angels, cherubim were placed, and their wings arched over the top like a golden rainbow.

The ark was heavy, and to aid in its transportation, 2 rods were placed on the side so that 4 men could carry it on their shoulders.

The Ark served as God's portable headquarters for his work on this earth.

It was his portable throne where he met, he and sat in judgment.

From here he issued his instruction to the leaders of Israel.

Note what God told Moses to do about the ark, Exodus 25 22.

And from above the mercy seat, from between the 2 cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

For a few months, Obed-Edom's modest home became God's palace where his earthly throne was located.

His home became the place where God met with man.

And ever after, Oda Biedem and his family would regard those 3 months as the highlight of their experience of life.

Imagine being entrusted with the very tables of hewn stone, with the law of God that God's own finger, his own handwriting had written.

The golden pot filled with the actual manna from the wilderness, still fresh after centuries, reminding us of God's sustaining of our daily needs.

And then Aaron's rod, still with blossoms and fruit, reminding of the fact that God chooses our leaders.

But it was more than the precious artifacts that came with the ark.

When the ark came through Obed-Edom's doorway, Obed-Edom's home became a little bit of heaven.

Conna Bond

Mark Bond

Home: A Little Heaven on Earth - and What To Do If Yours Isn’t

My name is Conna, and I'm here with my family, Mark Bond, and our oldest is Emily Beth, and we have Chelsea and Taylor and Adriana, and we are having them help us today.

I want to start right off the bat by saying we are not child raising experts, we are not parenting experts, but as our kids have grown and gotten older, we've had a number of people come to us.

In fact, even when I went on a mission trip last October, I had people over there come up to me and say, how is it that your children are still in the church?

How is it that you're so close as a family?

How is it that you got them to come with you and each 1 give a series of sermons?

And it gave us some pause to think and kind of reflect because I can't say that there has been 1 focus in how we have chosen to raise our children other than we wanted them to know the Lord and we wanted to be close as a family.

And so we started examining our own experience and we asked our children, write down, tell us some of the things that we have done as a family that made a difference for you, that made, that strengthened your faith, that kept us close as a family.

What are the things that we did that were right, sometimes by accident, and we only recognize it in hindsight, of course, we know the Lord was guiding us.

So we're gonna let our children share some of those things today because I think it gave us some insight and I'll tie it up in the end with what some of those principles are.

But We could share scads of quotes and verses from the Bible.

We're gonna share our own experiences today and we urge you to be Bereans and go and double check anything that we share with you with what the Bible says and with what God's word says.

There's so many wonderful books, child guidance, education, counsels to parents and teachers, and so many others by other authors.

And it is good to read those things, but sometimes it's nice to hear a personal testimony as well.

And that's mainly what we're going to share today.

We've noticed something that parents can read all of those books and go through all the child training and go through all the seminars and still somehow miss the boat.

And I think that that question, how can that be?

How is it possible to go through all the motions, to read all the books, to have all the knowledge, and still somehow fail our children or fail in our own lives?

And we're going to just look a little deeper into some of those questions today.

That's probably what is maybe unique about our seminar.

I think we're going to go ahead and start and let our children share right in the beginning if you guys are ready.

And she is going to share a few things that she wrote down that she thought has made a difference in her life.

OK, I want to start out by saying I am completely terrified right now.

OK, so I want to start out by saying I really am thankful to my parents for all that they have done for me.

They are amazing and I don't know what I would have done without them.

I think that the times that my parents really, really got through to me the most was when, like, if I did something that they told me not to, or I did something behind their back, they didn't, like, get super angry at me and be like, Adriana, don't do that, don't do that.

They came to me, and they were calm, and they were sweet, and they brought me a little treat.

And they said, Adriana, I understand how you feel, but that's just not how we go about things.

And that's the times that I always felt worse.

So I haven't done anything like that since.

So also, when they teach me, especially my mom, they really, They ask us questions and they engage us in conversations, and they bring up questions that really need to be answered.

And they ask us things like, why we believe what we believe, and why we think we go to the church we go to.

And She asked us 1 time, why do you think we believe in creation rather than evolution?

And she doesn't, and whenever we ask her questions that she has a hard time answering, she looks it up or she goes to the Bible for answers.

And also, they also really like, they acknowledge that we're there and they don't just like turn us off when we ask them questions or when they're talking to somebody else.

They look at us and they say, just 1 moment until we're done.

And they make it a point when they're done to ask us what we needed them for.

He's our only son, and he just turned 14.

So A couple of years ago, I was living in Texas and I had a friend of mine.

And I was going to go have a sleepover at his house.

And I was like, this is going to be awesome.

And I also was excited because I thought he had a little bit more freedom religiously than I did.

And I could do stuff that I hadn't been able to do at home and have a little bit more freedom.

And I got over there, and I had this leap over.

And I got back the next morning, and I just remember being so terrified and almost like I had a knot in my stomach.

And I was just not very happy with what went on.

And I remember just telling my mom, thank you mom for being the kind of mom that says no.

And I know that saying no, I know that saying no matters.

And parents need to have the courage to say no to their kids when it may not always be the thing they want to hear or the thing that they're looking for.

Parents do know what's best and that sort of thing.

Another thing I wanted to share is that when I was, I think, 11 years old, my dad started taking me on business trips with him.

And I started getting mentored by people.

I met all these people in Houston and all over the United States.

And I just, I got a lot of opportunities that way.

So I know that that helped me a lot also.

She is almost 19 and she has just finished her freshman year in college along with her sister.

They were so close in age that we had them in the same grade.

Alright, so for me, I have a couple points that I'd like to make when it comes to how I was raised and what really made a difference in my life.

My first point would be that a home of support and love can really heal someone.

When I was starting back when I was like 2 and 3, ever since I can remember, I was a high-stress child.

My mom always said I lived in the red zone.

It didn't matter what was happening in my life.

If it was exciting, it was so exciting that I couldn't handle it.

And if it was something scary, it was so scary that I couldn't handle it.

And even for little things, just going on airplane rides, anything like that, it was, I couldn't do it.

I was basically crippled by my own fears and another thing was I was extremely shy.

Most people that know me now are so surprised by that.

But I couldn't even walk into a room without 1 of my family members in front of me.

Because it was so intimidating to see other people.

And I couldn't spend nights even at my grandparents' house.

Even though I loved them and was comfortable with them during the day, at night I just had to be with my family.

They wanted me to be happy at home and be ready to be at home.

But eventually I would get so stressed out that anything was hard for us as a family because it was high stress for me.

And so they were kind of at a loss for what to do with me.

And, you know, we couldn't even go on trips.

My family has traveled a lot and the night before we would fly somewhere I would get so sick to my stomach and my parents would share things with me telling me that everything was gonna be okay and that it would be just like being at home and we were just gonna go have a big adventure And that almost made it worse.

But 1 time my dad made the joke about, wow, I don't know if Chelsea's ever going to be able to get married because she's not going to be able to even make it down the aisle without a bucket because I would get so sick.

And he didn't mean anything by it but that was a reality to me at that age I was like I am never gonna be able to get married and It was an insanely real possibility in my mind.

Nebblett Family

Family INC.

Our presentation this morning is called FAMILY INC.

Now, it's kind of a play on words, but FAMILY INC, INC is an acronym, which we'll be exploring in the next few minutes.

But it's a play on words because our objective here this morning is to explore and give you a picture of what a truly functional family looks like and what a truly functional family can accomplish.

A fully functional, spiritually mature, emotionally connected, service-oriented family.

But we fully believe that the tasks that God has given to families are a mouthful.

And so that's what we want to explore this morning.

I'm going to start with a statement which I believe is perhaps the understatement of the year.

And that is, the family was meant to work.

Now, before you lock that out or immediately block it out as something overly cheesy, something overly.

Let me tell you exactly what I mean by that.

When I say the family was meant to work, I mean it in both senses.

1, The family was designed to function properly.

Many times you've probably heard, as I have heard, a poor mother stressed out by her 2 or three-year-olds just at her wits' end.

And she might be commiserating with some friend of hers and maybe the friend would say something to the effect of, oh but he's a two-year-old so you know what better can you expect?

Well it is true that you can I guess expect some trials from a two-year-old however I want to challenge that that is the norm?

I want to challenge that that's God's intention.

If there's something in the family that's not working, then we should do something about it.

And that sometimes is easier said than done, but there are ways to follow the blueprint that God has given us to pursue a family that works.

My keynote comes and it goes, and it comes and it goes.

I also mean that the family was meant to work in another sense.

And that was not only is it designed, it's supposed to function properly, it is also designed to accomplish a very specific task.

And that's part of what we'll be exploring in the next hour so I won't give away too many of the secrets.

But even as you sit here now and as we start, I can imagine some of you thinking, some of you saying, you know, I know all of this is true, but you don't understand our situation.

We can't understand every person's situation.

However, there are some things that we do understand.

There are some problems that are common to all families, including ours.

And it is those that we want to look at today.

And we want to open up a realization today that we're all in this together.

And if we stand together, given the principles that God has given us, we can be victorious, every 1 of us.

It's not about how you started this race.

This was the crew of STS-107, NASA's scientific mission that NASA conducted.

They took off with probably the longest scientific to-do list of any shuttle mission up to that point and possibly since.

They were going to conduct a huge number of international experiments in space for the purpose of furthering science, obviously, and a few other things.

The gentleman on the far right was Israel's first astronaut.

And so this was an international venture.

And it took off with high hopes of success.

That's the picture of the actual takeoff.

I don't know about you, but in our house, we have some serious space enthusiasts that were very, very, very distressed to see this shuttle program end.

Series

ASI 2012 Seminar: Home & Family

Home: A Little Heaven on Earth - and What To Do If Yours Isn’t

Transcript

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Sponsor

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