Dalton First United Methodist Church Podcast
Family Matters - Pt. 4 of Bless This Home - Pastor Steven Usry
Can you recall the last time you intentionally sat down with your family, discussing and reflecting on the teachings of God?
Family Matters - Pt. 4 of Bless This Home - Pastor Steven Usry
Can you recall the last time you intentionally sat down with your family, discussing and reflecting on the teachings of God?
Family Matters - Pt. 4 of Bless This Home - Pastor Steven Usry
You are listening to the Dalton First United Methodist Church podcast. To learn more about Dalton First United Methodist Church, visit us online at DaltonFUMCcom. We hope that today's message from Pastor Stephen Usry inspires and encourages you.
Speaker 2:We've been in a series during the month of August and we've been talking about family. In the very back of your worship guide you'll find a message outline.
Speaker 2:Always provide a message outline and invite you to grab a pin located on the seat back in front of you there to be able to take some notes as we read through some scriptures, as we invite you to fill in some blanks, maybe even circle some portions of our scripture, but we've been talking about family. The series is called Bless this Home and the day. I want to talk to you about why family matters. By the way, I know Matthew said it earlier, but I just want to pause for a minute, and this morning I was teaching Sunday school. I was talking about the long history of this church and its ministry, some of the great preachers that have preached from this pulpit, and how privileged I am to be able to preach, and I want to take just a moment again to say thank you to those who are watching, watching online with us. We have so many people who watch via social media and watch via our televised broadcasts. Just want to say an incredible word of gratitude for welcoming us into your home. As I begin today, I want to share a little joke I heard with you about a husband and wife who had celebrated 60 years of marriage together. They were having a big shindig 60 years, it deserves celebration and somebody asked them while they were standing up there together what's the secret to 60 years. How did you make it this long? And instead of filling the question together, the husband just decided he would field it. And so he stood forward and he said when we got married, we made a decision together, and that was that if there were any major decisions to make, I would make them, and if there were any minor decisions to make, she would make them. And in 60 years, we've never had to make a major decision. That's cute, isn't it? Hey guys, we're talking about family. We've been talking about marriage. We've been talking about parenting. Today I'm going to talk a lot about parenting as well, and family, but here's the big idea. The big idea is that God knows your family and your family matters. You know, whether it's your unique, smaller family or what you might call your extended family. In God's ordination, he brought all of you together, that's if you're a biological crew or an adopted crew, whatever your crew is, and you might go what, what he brought that nut into our family. God knows what he's doing when he puts a family together and your family matters. And our hope during this series is that we're thinking how do we have the strongest family we can? How do we have the the most successful family, how do we have a family that really honors God together?
Speaker 2:This morning, from our scripture, we're reading the chief scripture from Deuteronomy, chapter 6, and I just want to drive back to that scripture and reflect into a few pieces of it as we get into the message for today. Moses is standing in front of the entire Israelite nation and he's speaking. He gives what we call the great Shema at the very beginning of Deuteronomy, chapter 6. Here, oh Israel, the Lord, thy God, is one God. And he begins to recite the commands of God and we pick it up in verse 5, and he says what Jesus would call the greatest command of all. He says these words Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. You know, sometimes when I'm reading a scripture, I like to insert a few words, a few questions, and one of the questions I like to insert is how it's not a good question to ask right there Moses says these words these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Well, practically, how do we do that, moses? How do we take God's commands and how we really get them on our hearts. Moses tells us.
Speaker 2:Moses says impress them on your children. I look at that word impress because I think we can all have our own little indefinition of what we think impress is right. One synonym of that word is engrave it right. Engrave it on the hearts of your children. Another word that I saw was press it into. He's saying press these commands into the lives of your children. But no matter how you might read it, what for sure what he's saying is, with repetition, bring these commands back up over and over again. How do we know that? Because read the rest of the passage. He goes on to say talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. He's saying repeat these commands, teach these commands, impress these commands, engrave these commands into the hearts of your children. By the way, anybody who's a parent, anybody who's a grandparent, especially those who are formal educators in the crowd, you know that you learn something best. When you teach that thing right, you're not only teaching it, you're learning and reinforcing it for yourself. I think there's a beautiful duality. How do we get God's commands on our heart. There's this beautiful, this is the call of a family to, by repetition, parents, grandparents, impressing these things. It's a beautiful thing that happens in our hearts because it impresses the commands on our hearts even as we teach it to our children or to our grandchildren.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to need to, if I can, for just a minute. Can I just modernize this passage for just a minute? I'm going to go back to those words. Talk about them when you sit at home. By the way, when they sat at home those days, they were doing a lot different than sitting at home our days. Don't you know what I mean? We think about your family when you're sitting at home. What are you doing normally, right? Sometimes we're at dinner. Sometimes we're watching TV together. There was no TV back in Moses' day right? He was saying repeat these commands when you're sitting at your house.
Speaker 2:He goes even one step further. He says when you walk along the road with your family. By the way, anybody walked along the road with your family recently. Anybody done that? We don't do that anymore either, do we? But what do we do? We get behind the wheel of a car, don't we? We get on these trips.
Speaker 2:What he's saying is repeat these commands, talk about these things while you're going through life. Have it over. You want to impress it on your heart. You're impressing on your heart and you're impressing on theirs. Whether you're at home, whether you're at the dinner table, whether you're behind the wheel of the car, you're on the family road trip, talk about God. Just don't let them get in their games, right? Don't just let it get into the music. Have a moment where you zero in about who God is and what God has said and what God's commands are. He says when you lie down at night, before you go to bed, talk about these things. When you get up in the morning, talk about these things.
Speaker 2:And he even goes so far as to say write God's commands on your door frames. Now, those of you who know the Jewish culture, they literally have the little frames, right, the little things where they put the scriptures. In Mizzouza is that what it's called? They put them up on the door. It was their way of every time they passed. They would pass through every door. As they passed through, they would see God's commands rolled up inside as a way of repeating, reminding themselves, right, of what God's word is. And then not only that, he says put them on your gates. This is the idea of literally show the world that you are a follower of God and that you believe God. This is a beautiful reminder of how we I think of it as a picture. This is a picture of what a home a family is supposed to be, a family that's under God's care, a family that's trying to make God the center of who they are. Let me tell you a little quick story that you'll probably one day see.
Speaker 2:Whenever I do a wedding, I sometimes will change elements of that wedding based upon what the couple wants. But when I step forward, in whatever venue it is to marry a couple, and the beautiful party comes and walks in right and the husband is I mean, about to be a husband nervous as all get out, I have to say keep smiling, keep smiling, keep smiling, because they just want to cry. And that beautiful bride comes up and there's this beautiful moment the music is playing and all the people have stood because the bride has entered the room. If you ever come to a wedding that I officiate every wedding I start I will tell you right now I start the very same way. It's the opening words that I share. I've never done a wedding and not shared the very same opening words. And you know why? I'm sure you don't know why, because when Julie and I were married, this is what the pastor married us said.
Speaker 2:It made such a big impression on me, even when Julie and I were about to make our covenantal vows, while everybody was standing up, he quoted scripture. It's the same scripture that I quote before every wedding that I officiate. Here's what I will say. It's from Psalm 127. I normally don't tell people that, okay, unless the Lord builds the house, all who labor will labor in vain. And then I seat all the people and then we get on with the wedding. But I want to tell you how important that scripture is to me.
Speaker 2:I really believe that the Lord wants to be involved in our marriages and in our homes. I really believe the Lord wants to help and lead us in building a house that honors him, and my wife and I believed it so much that even on our wedding program we wouldn't call our wedding a wedding. We called it the covenant of Stephen and Julie, because we believe that God is a God of covenant and we believe he wants us to model that covenant. He wants to build that covenant into our lives. This is a beautiful picture of what it looks like for God to bless this home Church. My hope is, whatever dynamic, whatever family that you're a part of some of us have family that are close. Some of us have families stretched out all over America. Whatever, whatever the dynamic, our prayer for you is that God is building your family. He's not done yet. He's. It's a work in progress. And then if we could understand, unless the Lord builds the house, everybody else who labor's just labor's in vain.
Speaker 2:Today I want to share four final thoughts from you. These are kind of safeguards, if you will, things that I'm watching happening in our culture right now, and that just things that I want to share with you, especially if you are a mom and dad, young, or grandmother or granddad, you have young, young children. Here's just four simple things that I wanted to share in a little bit of time I have this morning as a way of thinking about how to have a family that honors God and make sure that God stays at the very center of it. So you got your pin.
Speaker 2:Let me first of all talk about the great parenting challenge In a nutshell. What is the parenting challenge? Prepare our kids for the real world. Write that one down. What is the parenting challenge? By the way, parenting is a huge job. It's 24-7. You don't get to take breaks. You're always Once you have them, you have them, and parenting is an incredible challenge, 24-7 job. What is that challenge? Preparing them for the real world.
Speaker 2:In God's sovereignty and His ordination, he gave us these little bitty things that are going to grow up. Now, what does the Bible tell us about those little bitty things? Read the Scripture there. It says something about them, those little bitty things. Proverbs 22,. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, foolishness. So whenever that child misbehaves you might want to quote that to yourself Foolishness is bound up in that heart. So one of the challenges that we have is to grow our children up in wisdom, to grow up our children in the knowledge of the Lord, to grow up our children and get ready for the real world that is out there. By the way, the real world is a tough world, right? How do we teach them to be wise?
Speaker 2:You know there's some things going on right now in the way that parents are parenting. You've heard about them. I don't think they're very helpful towards preparing children for the real world. Have you heard of helicopter parents? Anybody ever heard of? Yeah, you have. I looked up helicopter parents in Google and I was trying to get an official definition. There really isn't one, but the idea of a helicopter parent is a parent who just kind of hovers over their child all the time. It's this idea of a parent who really won't let that child have a chance to fail. They just want to make sure everything is cared for. They're just going to always be there. They don't ever let that child kind of just step out on their own right. Helicopter parenting is sometimes hindering our children, not helping them, right, it's not. Sometimes. I think, as parents and every one of us knows this you've got to step back and not hover over them and let them go their way, because they're going to trip, they're going to fall, they're going to fail, right. But that's part of the way that you prepare them for the real world.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I've seen and, by the way, I think I struggle with this one big time as a dad. I don't have a name for it, but one of the things I tried to do as a dad was I could see, they couldn't see it. This is the way parenting works. You can look off in the distance. You can see ahead of them some trouble they're going to hit. You can see it way before they do, and one of the things that I wanted to do was go remove the obstacle. Oh, they're going to hit. There's going to be something out there they're going to run to. I would run ahead of them and I would get the obstacle out of their way so that I would make the path smoother for them. Anybody know what I'm talking about. Anybody ever felt the need to run ahead of your child and try to make the path easy for them.
Speaker 2:Finally, I realized I think it was a good mentor of mine who said our job isn't to run ahead of our children and to remove the obstacles. There's going to be obstacles. There's going to be speed bumps. We've got to prepare them for that journey. We've got to prepare them to hit the obstacle themselves and not go remove it To hit the speed bump and be able to keep rolling forward. Guys, I think one of the most important jobs we've got to do is being able to understand that this challenge is huge. Right, we've got to prepare them for the real world.
Speaker 2:Again, here's a good question how Fill in number two? And this is not comfortable, okay. Number two consequences oftentimes help children attain wisdom over time. Consequences doesn't matter what age they are. Consequences teach them and they help them attain wisdom over time. By the way, we don't like that, but it's reality, we know it's true. So our job is to be the sage, the person who's wise, and the person who helps them see the consequences of their action, but it's going to cost them the pain that is going to occur from it, but not to keep them from it necessarily. This is more of an art than it is a science.
Speaker 2:The Bible says in Proverbs 25, the purposes of a person's heart are deep waters. I want you to think about, maybe, the child, or the children, the teenagers under your care, and I want you to hear what that scripture says. The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out. The idea is, one of our parenting jobs is to, with the Lord's help, have insight into those lives, those little lives or maybe those bigger lives. By the way, anybody kind of want to give an amen. You never stop parenting, right? Sometimes they're almost grown adults, right. One of the things I think is the challenge of a parent is to, with God's help, get insight into those lives, into their purpose, god's plans for them, and to be able to draw that out. I think this is one of the gifts, one of the not only the gifts that a parent brings to a child, but it's one of the things that we desperately need God's help with. That we would have the wisdom to draw out and help them see their purposes.
Speaker 2:Third big idea I'm just sharing four big ideas with you all close down in the series. Okay, I want to challenge you, especially in this culture, to watch your family's speed, watch your family's speed. So many families run, run, run. They run at mop five speed. Their kids are involved in everything in the world, right, they've got all the music lessons, multiple ball lessons and traveling, and they're doing and they're going, and it's almost like we don't want our kids to miss out on anything, right? What they call that F-O-M-O FOMO. Anybody know what FOMO is Fear of missing out. It's almost like we have that for our kids, right, we don't want them to miss out. But one of the things you got to be careful of is your family's speed. Now, if you've never heard this before, receive this as a gift, because it was given to me years and years ago.
Speaker 2:Discipleship never happens in a hurry. You cannot go post a guy at mop five speed. It doesn't work that way. You have to slow down to really experience deep discipleship. As a matter of fact, I would say it this way Hurry is the enemy of discipleship. Now, if it's true that my vertical relationship with God, if I'm going to get closer to being like God, I got to slow down, then it's also true that on that horizontal relationship, I can't go deep in relationship with others if we're always just moving at mop five, if we're always just running and gunning right. You can't do that with close friendships and you certainly can't do that in your family.
Speaker 2:I want to challenge you to watch your family's speed. You might be trying to have them experience all these wonderful things, but there is a give and take and so be very careful. You know the Bible says in John 15.5, I am the vine, jesus' words, and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. It takes time to abide in God, but Jesus makes it very clear if you will abide in me and I in you, what was the outcome? Fruit, you'll bear fruit, but you've got to be careful of your family's speed.
Speaker 2:I'm closing down this series and just sharing four things. To be careful of right. And so make sure that you are you're preparing them for the real world. Make sure you're allowing them to experience those consequences, because that's many times how they learn wisdom. Make sure you're watching your family's speed.
Speaker 2:And then, lastly, number four write this one down, number four when conflict occurs, stay at the table. You know, I'm sharing these things really with you because I've seen so many families go through so many things and so many times I've just seen pain that existed, that didn't need to exist. And I share this one because sometimes, when families go through the struggle, somebody wants to hit the escape hatch, somebody wants to bail right. And here's the reality In every family there's going to be struggle. In every family there's going to be strife. And every family's going to be sadness. And every family's going to be sickness. In every family there's going to be a hard moment.
Speaker 2:My strong encouragement to you is set your anchor deep. We don't bail. That's part of the reason why Jewel and I called our wedding a covenant. God never bails. He never bails right, and we're supposed to be like God. I think there's a fad in this culture that we live in right now, where people make commitments and then they almost immediately start looking how they can get out of their commitments right, how they can break their lease, how they can stop their contract. This is very much the culture we live in, but this is not who we are supposed to be. We are supposed to be a people who, like our God, keep our commitments. And so, when you go through conflict as a family, don't run, don't bail, because your family matters, and I promise you it matters more than your comfort.
Speaker 2:As I close down this series today, I want to pray for you and your family and, as your pastor, I want to just covenant with you that one of the things that we're after in this church by the way, anzlie, welcome to the team right One of the things we're after in this church is building families, strong, godly families. That's what we're going to do. But it occurred to me that you know there's no perfect family. Can I get an amen? You can say it louder there's no perfect family right? Amen. There's no perfect family. We're all going to have struggles, we're going to have good moments and we're going to have really hard moments.
Speaker 2:And I just felt led by the Holy Spirit today, as I close down this series, to pray for the families that are here, that are joining us online, that are going through the hardest of moments, because, let's just be real, life's tough and there's some of us right now who are going through the fight of our life. We're here for you and I consider it a great honor in the next few minutes to be able to pray for you. Would you buy your heads and let's pray together? God, we thank you for the moments in our life and in our family's life that are sweet moments. Sometimes those moments just fly by, but they never escape our memory. Right now, we have memories of moments. Where were the people that you entrusted us, you gave to us, we did life with, and life was sweet and fun and joyous and there was love. We owe gratitude to you for that, because you gave us those people.
Speaker 2:But, god, into every family also reign must pour, and in every one of our families, every one of us can say that we've had struggles, we've had problems, we have trials, and there are some families right now going through the fight of our life and you brought them here today to remind them that you know and that you care, and that you will have the final word.
Speaker 2:Not the struggle, not the pain, not the heartache, not the break, not the worry, not the anxiety, but you will have the final word. And for some of us, god, today, we claim that for ourselves, we claim it, we claim your victory and your goodness. God, we ask you build our home, build our family, because we know if it's built on the rock it will stand and anything built on sand will fail. God, I thank you for the good work you're doing in our church. Oh Lord, continue to breathe on this place that we may be for one another, the family of God and Jesus. We love you. Thank you for bringing us into the glorious family that we will one day see in the kingdom triumphant. Come, lord Jesus. Come, lord Jesus. We pray this in your most holy name.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Dalton First United Methodist Church podcast. If today's sermon resonated with you, we encourage you to share it with someone who might benefit from the message. Join us for worship and stay connected at DaltonFMCcom. God bless and see you next week.