The restoration of humanity begins in the home. Many complain of a lack of love in society and even in the church, but this lack simply reflects the conditions of the homes that make up these congregations and the nation. This 2-part series introduces the urgent need for the revival of the family. It describes how the home revival under lies every other revival. Yet, this spiritual renewal must begin with the heads of families. Thus a radical call is made to the fathers and husbands to step up and teach their wives and children that they are fearfully and wonderfully made and to prepare them for the home of the blessed.

<p>The restoration of humanity begins in the home. Many complain of a lack of love in society and even in the church, but this lack simply reflects the conditions of the homes that make up these congregations and the nation. This 2-part series introduces the urgent need for the revival of the family. It describes how the home revival under lies every other revival. Yet, this spiritual renewal must begin with the heads of families. Thus a radical call is made to the fathers and husbands to step up and teach their wives and children that they are fearfully and wonderfully made and to prepare them for the home of the blessed.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

R3 Inc/ Handsworth SDA Church- England

Love at Home

Sebastien Braxton

Keep the Heart

Heavenly Father, you know that we are nothing But Jesus has paid everything to redeem us and so we are here on this Sabbath to confess his worthiness and Lord as we stand here on the very precipice of the preaching of your word, we pray that we would see Jesus.

And as we see him, Lord, that something may awaken in our souls to want to be like him.

Not just in life, not just in ministry, but in the home.

We ask, Father, that your spirit may move upon not just the words that are spoken but upon the hearts that hear them.

Lord, that we may take it to heart and that we may be changed, that we may be a Christian in our hearts.

Father, we are so grateful for what you will say to us and Lord we pray that you'll give us an obedient heart that would walk in your ways This is our prayer And we offer this prayer from our hearts in the mighty name of Jesus Amen The title of my sermon is the influence of the home Last night I introduced To them that we were going to go over 3 messages Starting with last night those of you who are not here.

I'm so sorry that you couldn't make it I know it was due to extreme medical conditions as to why you could not join us But God was still able to reach you where you were amen and so anyway.

We were going to go through the 3 I's Right.

So last night we talked about the initiation of the home this morning.

We'll talk about the influence of the home in the afternoon we'll talk about the interference of the home and So I'd like to begin with a story about fishing.

And we have Lake Michigan right there, 1 of the biggest lakes in America and even in the world.

But I never went on that lake to go fishing.

And so a man was talking about fishing and he said, you know, there's something you can learn from fishing about life and about the news.

And the man said, well, you know, when you start fishing, you know, you catch these big fish.

You catch the mama fish, you catch the papa fish, you may catch the fully grown adult male fish, but he's not necessarily mated yet.

But he says 1 day when you go fishing and all of a sudden you bring up this little small fish, you realize you're not catching parents anymore.

And he says, when you know that all you have left in the pond is little baby fish and small fish, he says, you know the pond is almost empty.

It is time to almost move on to another pond.

Because when we look in society and we look on the news, it's 1 thing to have grown men killing people.

It's 1 thing to have grown women pursuing individuals out of violence or revenge or jealousy.

It's another thing when you begin to see young children committing crimes that years ago only adults committed.

In America, we recently had an incident in Isla Vista, California.

He posted a YouTube video less than 8 hours in advance of his killing spree and he began to introduce to the public Via YouTube, he said, I want you to know that tomorrow is the day of judgment.

For all of you girls that were not interested in me and you decided to give yourselves to these mindless brutes because he was an athletic young man, but he didn't respect you, he didn't care about you.

I would have treated you well, but you didn't want me.

For all those people who didn't want to be my friend, as I went to this university for 4 years and not 1 person sought to befriend me or to encourage me.

So he decided that he would kill everything in sight.

As soon as he got in the car, the first person crossing the street, He hit them with the car.

Then he began to fire into a local snack shop, killed a young man who was just coming from class to get some juice.

And all because of this man says, because girls weren't interested in him, that he wanted to be interested in him.

But you can go even younger, and you have 2 12-year-old girls in America that decided to plot the murder of their best friend.

At first, they decided they were going to duct tape her and stab her to death, but they decided, you know what, we're going to lure her into the woods.

And they were going to plan this, and they had about 10 knives in their backpack from their parents kitchen and As they led this friend they began to attack their friend in response to a mythical character called slender man because they wanted to get into his good graces a video series they were watching on YouTube and They did carry out their heinous crime Fortunately their friend did not die With 17 stab wounds she crawled out of the woods onto a biking trail and a biker just so happened to be passing by and took her to the hospital.

When you have 2 10-year-old girls who planned to kidnap and sexually assault an autistic classmate, a young boy from their school.

And they succeeded, but they didn't want to subdue him with knives or weapons or guns.

And you're thinking to yourself, the question that immediately comes to your mind is You know that the pond is almost empty when these kind of crimes are coming into the minds of 12 year old girls You used to think you got to worry about your sons.

They're not gentle they got to learn how to control their strength, but now we're talking about young girls.

Not just young boys not just 15 not just 21, but 12, but 10 and The question that we all ask when we look at these news reels is where were their parents?

How did you get 10 knives from your mom's kitchen and she didn't know?

How is it that you're watching a mythical character who's about horror films, who's telling you about killing young kids in ways that he's done it, and your mom has no clue?

There seems to be a problem in the home because you know the pond is almost empty and What is the problem?

That's here is because mom is so stressed out.

She just wants to leave her kids in front of YouTube The dad is so overwhelmed.

Let them watch whatever on their iPods because I just need my own time.

But the common denominator in all of these crimes, in every situation, in every atrocity that hits our society that hits our world There is 1 common denominator is that they all came from a home They all had a mama and a papa They all had a daddy.

They all had a grandmother at some point in time.

And so the Bible says in our scripture reading, turn there with me to Proverbs chapter 4.

The Bible says, through the wise men, giving counsel to continue to speak to us for ages.

The wise man reminds us of something that he says can cure all the issues of life.

The Bible says, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

The first thing that Solomon wants us to know is that the issues of life, they come and are Dependent upon whether we respect or we neglect the heart You see we can start off with the human being himself or herself That Solomon looks at you, and he looks at me and he says listen every issue in your life and in mine it comes from the heart and Therefore the issue that we are grappling with today is about do we respect or do we neglect the keeping of the heart?

If you can conquer this, conquering their eyes, conquering their hands is no difficult task.

If I can get to your heart and rule right here inside your mind, there's no wonder I can get you to say any unkind thing to your wife or to your children.

It is no wonder because I've conquered the very metropolis of who you are, the very citadel of what it means to be a man.

It has already been conquered by some other power.

And he says if you don't keep the heart, this is where all the issues of life come.

But you see, he's using the heart not just as a citadel not just as a metropolis or a key critical city inside of a nation He is using the heart as a symbol of a reservoir of water the ways by which water is disseminated into the public.

And you and I both know that if the water was poisoned or polluted, society would have a huge problem.

There's only so many places you can go to say, well, maybe we can import some extra water.

But if the water supply in England became polluted, if all of a sudden it became corrupted, poisoned, to drink it is to drink death.

Then you ask yourself the question, What is the reservoir in need of?

So when people look at man, when they look at society, you get these people who are moralists.

They don't want to believe in Christianity, but they want to believe that human beings can live holy, godly, kind, loving lives.

So they'll say, well, if England, you know, the water is corrupted, Can you imagine a man coming on the news in BBC and say you know the water is poisoned?

You know what we need the problem is we need some new pipes to be installed and Everyone would know watching that newscast that this man doesn't know what's going on.

New pipes don't change poison water But you see when we say a man is in need of new principles When a man is in need of new channels to Operate and control his life better time management what you're saying is he just needs new pipes But the problem is not the pipes the problem is the water itself is poisoned But you see there's another brother that comes on BBC, and he says no no man's not in need of new pipes he's in need of a new engineer, someone to control the flow of the water.

You see, the problem is it's too much water flowing to certain parts of England.

You would look at the newscast, you say, this man doesn't understand the problem.

It is not new pipes and it's not a new engineer.

Whoever turns the switch on and off makes no difference to the fact that the water is what?

Poisoned it is polluted, but we will sit and say well man is in need of education Man is in need of better understanding Brothers and sisters if you give a wicked man more knowledge.

He just knows how to do more wickedness This is why our homes are messed up Because we push education, but we don't push righteousness You will pay the University of London 20, 000 pounds a year to teach your child music, but the preacher comes to give him Bible studies that should be free And he'll be burning in hell with his London education Be weeping at the altar.

What’s the Best Thing I Can Do For My Family

My mother almost left my wedding weekend early.

She told me that a friend of hers was getting married Just take this off and that she she said, you know, I don't know if I can stay on Sunday she was gonna cook a family brunch for my family my wife's family and I said mine, you know, it's up to you what you want to do.

But she says, my friend's getting married, you know, this Sunday, this Sunday, my wife and I got married on a Saturday night.

And thankfully my wife stayed, my mom stayed.

And the, I got married in July that year.

And in September, my mom called me, Or I called her and I said you know how are things going and she said you know that couple that I was waiting to Go to their wedding the next day after your wedding I said yeah, yeah What's going on with them she says, well they're actually divorced now And I said september they just got married in july she said yeah she said I was so glad I didn't pay my money to go to that wedding.

I'm thinking to myself, how can you get married in July?

I tell people, just the expense of having a wedding, just make it 1 time.

But people apparently continue to do this and there's this new trend in the world called starter marriages.

It comes from the concept of starter homes.

And the idea is that when you first get married or when you first get your first job, real job, you go and you buy a starter home.

That means something that's very much less than your budget.

So this concept has now moved into marriage.

And they said, now your first marriage, for most people, they don't find the right person the first time around it's a starter marriage You got to say have mercy And I said this is a warm-up.

I'm not going through all this for a warm-up This is just practice Starter marriages and so as a result people are saying yeah, you know we hit our five-year mark it was just a starter marriage now moving on and I found the real person for me and This is a trend this has been going on for almost 10 years now And you cannot even imagine Just the destruction and most of the time they try not to have children of course Because that just Complicates your starter marriage going forward in the future and so Clearly the family is in a situation.

Things are not easy if you want to have a godly family that stays Together in the long run the world is not catered to your family and So as a result we really must be thankful that we have at least this weekend But I just want to pray that we would not we wouldn't stop studying family after today This wouldn't just be a youth day kind of topic but that we would sincerely go home each and every 1 of us and really begin to consider as Families together in worship and study and in prayer.

What is it that the Lord would have us to do?

What is this ideal for the family and how we can live up and realize that ideal?

It's it's a critical thing and I definitely commit to still studying this topic The more I study it the more I'm convicted that it needs to be preached and The more I realized that I am a sinner in need of a Savior Let's pray together as we get started with our message tonight Heavenly Father We thank you Lord for bringing us through this day We thank you for the wonderful food that we had and those who served us We pray that you'll bless them and most multiply their energy Father we also pray that you would continue to bless Anton and Kia after this first year of marriage we're thankful that they've stayed together and that they've shown us that it's in the valleys that we grow.

And therefore, Father, I pray that they would continue to be a lily of the valley in their community, in their church and in their family.

Lord, now we ask as we open your word That you would abide with us through the person of your Holy Spirit That you would guide us through scripture and direct our thoughts to those things that would transform our families Is our prayer in Jesus name amen the title of our message again is the interference of the home The interference this morning we talked about The what does anybody remember the influence of the home?

Maybe the potluck was a little heavy for you too many chickpeas, so anyway the interference of the home I want to start off with a comment by a American minister he's not an Adventist minister But he's very well known in a lot of evangelical circles.

His name is Reverend Ike and 1 of the things that he is quoted as saying preaching on the streets of New York City, he says, do you know what the best thing you can do for the poor?

And then he says, the best thing you can do for the poor is not be 1 of them.

Now, obviously, it sounds a little prosperity gospel-ish.

You know, it's all you need to make money So you can be a blessing to the poor not teach the poor how to make money themselves, but that's for a whole nother discussion But its point is still Very salient and very pointed and also very true You cannot help a poor person if you yourself are poor And Therefore the best thing you can do for a poor person is not be 1 of them Therefore you can help them But when you look at our families when you look at our homes when you look at our marriages the question Now comes down to us.

What's the best thing you can do for your family?

What's the best thing you can do for your marriage?

And that's what I want to take as my topic tonight because it answers the question What is it that brings the chief interference in?

The marriage you see the number 1 issue in most marriages is communication Does somebody know that I'm telling the truth on that?

Communication it's like you guys are from 2 different planets Even though you grew up, maybe 20 feet away from each other and you're thinking once you get married all the sudden You don't know how to talk to each other and So this question of what's the best thing to do for your family?

I want to take you to the book of Genesis Genesis chapter 3 Genesis in the third chapter when you're there if you could say amen if you're not there just say have mercy okay If you don't have a Bible just say pray for me Genesis chapter 3 in verse 6 are you there?

All right, the Bible says so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and That it was pleasant to the eyes and A tree desirable to make 1 wise She took of its fruit and ate She also gave to her husband with her and he ate Now when you read this this particular verse in the Bible It's it's it's a verse that is pregnant with meaning There is so much significance in these words that it does not jump out to us immediately from the surface of the text.

First of all, The fact that Eve eats this particular forbidden fruit, she does not keep it to herself.

It's interesting that sinners are natural evangelists.

You don't have to tell her to bring it back to her husband.

The serpent didn't say, and by the way, after you eat the fruit, if you like it, Why don't you take it back to your husband now?

Nope They automatically go and some of you who know who have worldly friends They don't have any problem trying to invite you to a strip club Trying to get you to take drugs Trying to get you to leave your spouse or all kinds of other crazy things They have no problem to come and say look man.

This is how it worked out for me walking commercials for these things And it's a wonder that we find it hard to go share Christ But nevertheless this woman runs to her husband Now the Bible says in Genesis chapter 2 in verses 16 and 17 God had commanded the man and he says you may eat of every tree of the garden freely but of the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil that is in the midst of the garden you shall not eat of it for in the day that you eat thereof you shall what?

Surely die now follow Adams conundrum so Adams wife comes back to him from the forbidden tree, and she's eaten the fruit and as she comes to him She says Adam Adam look.

I have the fruit Now the question is what is going on in Adams mind?

At this particular point in time when his wife comes up and she's got 2 chunks bitten out of this thing Adams thinking in his mind.

Dead, but she is alive So now Adam has a choice to make and That choice is does he trust his experience Does he trust his 5 senses?

Does he trust his emotions or does he trust the word of God.

So as she's coming, it'd be different if she came to Adam, right?

And as she comes to him, this is how I imagine it in my mind, forgive my imagination.

Her skin is falling off, eyeball is coming out, Adam, Adam, I ate the fruit.

That's not a good quality type of evangelism, right?

But you see this is what makes it so attractive is that externally she looked like everything was perfectly fine This is always the case for sinners People in the club people cheating people partying people having affairs All these different things going on and they make it look like they're just so happy They look like they're enjoying life, but we Know the truth behind what's going on in his mind.

She is deceived She has no idea the gravity of her situation, but Adam does And now Adam is in this situation where he has to make a decision do I trust?

My feelings my my sense of touch my sense of reason Because it's not just his emotions not just his senses, but even his mind.

Because Adam could reason logically in his brain.

God said, if you eat of this tree, you will surely die Eve has eaten of the tree Eve is alive Therefore God's Word is not true Does that not make logical sense based on his experience yes or no yes it does So now Adam is not just fighting with emotions he's fighting with logic and at this particular point in time You ask the question what is the best thing Adam could do for his family And The answer to that question is very simple the best thing for Adam to do for his family, for his wife, and for every other child and descendant that would come through him.

The best decision he can make for his family is to obey God.

Because Adam ate the fruit Therefore the Bible says you know what I will multiply your sorrow in childbearing Because Adam ate the fruit Do you know why a woman is raped every 26 seconds in South Africa Because Adam ate the fruit Do you know why a woman is raped every 26 seconds in South Africa because Adam ate the fruit Do you know why almost 40% of youth from 18 to 24 attempt suicide more than once many of them are successful and A person attempts suicide every 40 seconds in the world Every 40 seconds because Adam ate the fruit Do you know why the Lord was crucified Because Adam ate the fruit Do you know why Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane?

Sweating great drops of blood saying father if it be possible let this cup pass from me Because Adam ate the fruit Do you know why when you go home and your wife goes off on you in an un-christlike way Do you know where that came from?

Adam ate the fruit Do you know when you go to your job and your boss says I could care less that it's Christmas and you want to be Home with your family you're gonna come to work Because Adam ate the fruit Do you know why he saw was coming to kill his brother Do you know why Laban deceived Jacob into marrying Rachel's sister Should I continue or do we get the point?

Because Adam ate the fruit The worst thing he could have done for his family was to disobey God So right here in this question, we say what's the best thing you can do for your family?

It's to do what Jesus told you to do It's to obey God.

That's the best thing to do But here he's looking at his wife thinking Oh Eve's gonna die God's probably gonna let her die and she's my wife.

She's my all she completes me I'm gonna die with her and eat the fruit you fool Because in these moments of situations what's happening in Genesis 3 is not about humankind.

This is about their family and every other child That would come through them in the future This is what we inherit from our ancestors a fallen nature When you sit down today and you ask yourself the question here I am struggling with this sin for years Here I am trying to get victory Here I am fighting against something.

I know it's wrong And I've asked forgiveness of Jesus time after time after time after time We're having this battle because Adam did not do the best thing for his family That means as you and I decide what we Do in our families do we recognize, what we're giving to our children and their children and their children's children Right here from the very beginning there's much more at stake than what meets the eye.

It seemed like it was such a small thing, right?

You ask that question until you find out how many children are sexually abused.

You ask that question until you find out how many young boys are in prison, there to spend the rest of their future.

You ask that question until you find out how many young boys are in prison there to spend the rest of their future You ask that question till you find out how many people contract HIV every day How many people are addicted to cocaine to marijuana to meth and all kinds of other drugs You ask that question till you read about date rape in universities You ask that question till you meet a young girl who thought the guy loved her that got her pregnant only to find out when Responsibility came knocking at his door.

He decided to move out Then you recognize The best thing Adam could have done for his family was obey God This is what brings interference Into the family Because Adam is looking at Eve and he's thinking I want to be loving towards her I want to react to what she's doing Rather than asking himself this is not about Eve That's not the issue on the table.

You put something on the table, Adam, that is not even of worth considering.

The question you need to be asking yourself is if I disobey God what are the potential consequences of this?

So when we come home and we say you know what as this person is going off on me and yelling and being unkind I'm thinking you know what this person's gonna think they can do this to me all the time This person's think they can walk all over me this person thinks that they can just disrespect me This is what's going through our minds and we're basing our decisions by an issue.

Series

Love at Home

What’s the Best Thing I Can Do For My Family

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Building Homes on the Rock

52m

Experience The Power

Bits and Pieces

1h 1m

Plenary

In Love, and Lost

50m

SWYC 2012: As In the Days Of ...

In the Days of Noah

1h 14m

Love at Home

Keep the Heart

56m

Restoring the Home

01 The Sealing Work and Its Order

44m

Plenary Sessions

God Invented Sex

1h 34m

Plenary Sessions

As For Me and My House

1h 15m

The Spirit of Antichrist and My Fifth Grade Birthday Party

39m

Shacking Up

39m

Plenary

The Faith of Jesus

49m

May I Help You

1h 1m

Sound Doctrine