Rev. David Holwick S Family Concerns #1
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
June 29, 2008
Psalm 68:3-6
ALL IN THE FAMILY
I. THERE'S NOTHING LIKE TOGETHERNESS.
A. I just spent 4 weeks crammed into an RV with my in-laws.
We had the smallest Class-C RV in the West.
No bedroom, just a sofa-bed and a crawlspace bed.
It was narrow, too - two people couldn't pass in the
center aisle.
Grandma had to flee to the bathroom when I moved to the
back.
Celeste and I slept in the crawl space over the cab,
and her parents slept on a fold-out sofa.
A little ladder about eight inches wide came up to our
berth, and their sofa-bed pushed it at an angle.
When nature called in the middle of the night, my
underwear would catch on the top of the ladder and I
hang there, twisting slowly in the wind.
But we had a great time - no fights or arguments the entire
trip.
B. Even nature appreciates the benefits of family.
Our most remarkable sight was a group of buffalo on the
road south of Mammoth Springs, Yellowstone.
We saw a car stopped, and the buffalo bunched up in front
of it.
We soon figured out why they were bunched up - a gray
wolf was circling them.
All their calves were in the center and the horned adults
faced out.
The wolf scampered off. But the buffalo wouldn't budge.
Eventually they began to amble down the road, bunched.
Buffalo amble at around 2 miles per hour.
They wouldn't turn into the woods or by the stream
because the wolf might be there.
All fifty of them just kept walking in a bunch.
About 80 cars followed them.
An 18-wheeler truck for Xantera, the concession company
in Yellowstone, decided he wanted to get home.
He passed us on the left and drove right up to the herd,
inches away, trying to intimidate them.
They didn't care. They just kept ambling. For 40 minutes.
At least I have lots of photos.
And no buffalo calves were eaten.
Togetherness has its benefits!
#35362
II. FAMILIES WERE INVENTED BY GOD.
A. Left by themselves, people get lonely.
1) Genesis 2:18 says Adam was lonely so God created Eve
for him.
2) Psalm 68 says God puts the lonely in families.
B. A basic purpose of families should be companionship.
1) We should accept one another, in spite of faults.
2) We should spend time together and build each other up.
3) And we should have a special focus on our kids, that they
feel loved and appreciated.
III. MANY FAMILIES DON'T EXPERIENCE THIS CLOSENESS.
A. Little communication.
1) Television is a great killer of communication.
a) The Holwicks now eat most of their meals at the kitchen
counter.
b) What sits at the end of the counter? A flat-screen TV.
2) We fill our time with so many diversions we don't do that
much together anymore.
B. Ill-feelings toward one another, even hostility.
1) Some families have let the "root of bitterness" take over.
2) Assess your comments about one another: mostly positive or
often cutting?
C. Even Bible families experienced these issues.
1) Adam and Eve played a blame game with each other.
2) Cain, the first born human, murdered his brother. Gen 4:8
3) Sarah, the wife of Abraham and a most gorgeous woman by
popular opinion, let her husband sleep with another
woman and then hated her for it. Gen 16
4) Job, the epitome of faith, suffered from the nagging of
a faithless wife. Job 2:9
5) Samson, who put Arnold Schwarzenegger to shame, had a wife
who betrayed him for money. He ended up taking his own
life. Judg 16
6) King Saul was so proud he decided to kill his own son, but
his army wouldn't let him. 1 Sam 14:44
7) David, the apple of God's eye, concealed his adultery with
a murder. His family was marred by sexual abuse and
internal violence thereafter. 2 Sam 11
#35123
D. Dysfunction hits everyone.
You can barely discuss families these days without hearing
the term "dysfunctional."
It is has made a wonderful excuse for all sorts of behavior.
Pastor John MacArthur is a famous TV preacher who also does
a lot of counseling on the side.
And he hears a lot of griping about families. He remarks:
"I hear people say, 'But I come from a dysfunctional family.'
Join the human race!
I come from a dysfunctional family, I conduct a dysfunctional
family, I am a dysfunctional human being, and so are you.
"I cannot function the way God made me to function.
I cannot do what I am supposed to do.
I do what I don't want to do, and I don't do what I want to
do - I am dysfunctional!
I was raised with dysfunctional people.
I still live with dysfunctional people, and they live with a
dysfunctional person.
That's the way it is if you are fallen."
#965
All of us are fallen, but failure doesn't have to be our
destiny.
God has a way for us to find joy and closeness.
IV. YOUR FAMILY CAN BE MORE!
A. Be more than just stuck with each other.
1) The book of Proverbs says we should cherish our spouses
and nurture our children.
2) Your family can be an instrument of God's grace - or a tool
of the devil.
B. Keep a positive perspective.
1) Our baby, Josiah.
I was miffed with him this week.
I drove his car back from Creation '08 and found his
back tire had 8 pounds of pressure in it, and there
was no spare in the trunk.
Then I found out he got a $50 ticket from Hopatcong for
skateboarding without a helmet.
Celeste called me from Creation yesterday and I was
ready to unload about him.
But before I could, she told me that she had just had
the most amazing talk about spirituality with him.
How he feels his faith is real and he wants to share it
with his girlfriend so he can pray with her like
Daniel prays with his girlfriend Cara.
And how he is considering baptism, but he wants it to
be real and not just following the "herd."
I had to admit that her Josiah story was better than mine.
2) Frustrations with one another come easily.
a) Work at keeping the big picture in mind.
b) Creation speaker Justin Lookadoo and his weird cat.
Lookadoo didn't much appreciate his cat and never took
it to the vet.
But when he got engaged, his wife-to-be said if he
didn't take it to get its shots, she wouldn't let
it get near her cat.
So he took it to the vet.
And after a long assessment and several tests, the
vet came out to the waiting room.
He told Justin he had two choices - put down the
cat now, or take it home and watch it die a slow
and painful death.
It had feline leukemia.
Justin handed his cat to the vet.
He then drove off, but before long he pulled to the
side of the road and bawled his eyes out.
Before he had left his cat, he took off its collar
and put it on his own wrist as a bracelet.
Whenever he looks at that bracelet, he says to himself,
"I wish I hadda..."
#9558
c) Don't take your family for granted.
1> Even the hard-to-love ones.
2> Just work harder at loving them.
V. OUR FAMILIES REFLECT OUR FAITH.
A. Paul uses "family" to describe our relationship with God. Eph 3:15
1) Our own families fall short of this perfection, but God
can still use us.
2) Does your family have a spiritual dimension?
a) Do you know where each member stands with the Lord?
b) On my vacation, I began thinking of this as a pastor.
We get so used to each other in church, it is easy
to make assumptions.
But not everyone here really knows the Lord.
Last night I got a call around 10:00.
I could hear loud pumping music in the background.
It was Stephanie (I think) and she called to tell me
that the speaker had given an invitation to the kids
to make a decision for Christ.
Stephanie, Emily, Daniel, Jamie, Aaron, Jeremy, Shauna,
and Nicole had all gone forward to accept Christ.
And they wanted me to know this.
We can train our kids in the ways of the Lord, but we
cannot force them.
But if we train them diligently, the fruit will come.
B. Sometimes it is a hard road.
Creation speaker Ron Luce told the story of his own family
growing up.
They were the poster children for a dysfunctional home.
His father abandoned them when Ron was 7.
When he was fifteen, he ran away from his mother, who beat
him, to look for his father.
Luce was certain his father would save him.
He found him near San Francisco, and asked if he could move
in.
Sure, said his dad, but he set a condition.
"Son," Luce remembers him saying, "if you're going to try any
of that pot, be sure to bring it home so we can all try it
together."
Luce was a dutiful son.
He bought some marijuana and trotted back to his father's
house, and with his dad and stepmother, he got high.
Or rather, they did; Luce says he wanted to inhale, but he
didn't know how.
His hatred for his mother lingered.
As he put it, he hated her guts.
He even went to court to testify against her so she would
lose custody of the other children.
He was successful.
Then as a teenager, Ron Luce went to a dynamic church and
found Jesus.
He still hated his mom, but he prayed for her.
Fifteen years later, she accepted Jesus too.
She never apologized to him, but there were definite changes
in her life that showed true repentance.
He was finally able to make his peace with her.
#35363
C. God has put you in a family. What are you doing with it?
1) Do you pray for your family?
2) Do you talk to them about spiritual matters?
3) This last week, did you do something considerate for
someone in your home? What will happen THIS week?
4) Life is short. Don't kick yourself by saying, "I wish I
hadda..." Do something now to make it a reality.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 965 "Christian Counseling: Putting On the Lord Jesus," by John
MacArthur, Jr., Grace Community Church, Panorama City,
California, Internet, 1991.
# 9558 "I Wish I Hadda...," by Justin Lookadoo, message given at
Creation 2008 Music Festival at Mt. Union, Pennsylvania.
#35123 "Preaching The Messy Lives of The Bible," by Ron Forseth,
www.sermoncentral.com newsletter, February 25, 2008.
#35362 "Togetherness Has Its Benefits," personal experience Of David
Holwick.
#35363 "It Took Him Years To Get Over The Hatred," adapted from the
article “Behind-The-Scenes With The Most Militant Christian
Youth Crusade in America” by Jeff Sharlet, Rolling Stone
magazine, #1024, April 19, 2007.
These and 30,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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