Gods Design For The Family

Alright, well, God bless each one of you, richly. It's good to be together this morning again. For the opening text this morning, I would like to turn to Psalm 127, verse 1. I'll give you a few seconds to turn there.

Turn there. Psalm 127, verses 1 to 5. It says here, Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. For so he giveth his beloved sleep. Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning, and we are grateful, Lord, for our families that you have blessed each one of us with. Lord, I pray that you would help us to know how to raise our families, to order our homes in such a way that would bless you and would be a light and testimony to the community around us and in such a way that would bless us and our children and our marriage relationships.

Father, I pray you would speak to us today, speak to me, through this sermon, through this message that you have laid on my heart. I pray that you would have your way with each one of us, open our hearts to hear and our mouths to speak. And you will receive honor and glory, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Alright, well, the message for this morning, the title of the message this morning is God's Purpose for the Family Unit. And I thought it was decent timing, I didn't think about it, but next week is actually Family Day.

Next Monday is Family Day. And that's one holiday that our government has put into place that I think is a real blessing and that we could all embrace, each one of us, whatever stage of life we are at with our families. But I would encourage for us to embrace that holiday.

And I'm sharing a message today on the Family Unit, God's Heart for the Family Unit. But I wanted to just explain in advance that I realize that I am not that seasoned man who's raised a godly home and can look back and say and teach how to raise a godly home. I'm not that person.

I hope that I one day can be. My desire is to be able to do that. And I know I'm not the best father that is in the world.

My children disagree with me on that. But I know that they're still ignorant and they'll know that one day too. And I know that I'm not the best husband.

But I do want to be. And so with that kind of a heart, I come to you. Not with a heart that says, I know how it goes and you got to listen to me.

So I come humbly. I come as one of you and just trying to encourage us to embrace our families. My oldest is only 10 years old, so I don't have that much experience.

I look to some of you who have teenagers that are born again, and I look up to you and I want to know how you did it. I'm learning. I'm learning.

We only have five children. I know to the world that seems like a lot, but we only have five children. I had a dream the other day that we had six.

And it scared Samantha a bit. We only have five children, so we have lots to learn. My oldest is 10.

We had five godly young youth over during Akrisa's wedding. They were all born again, and they were the youngest five of 14. And they were all born again too.

And I would like to know, I would like to hear his sermon. Like that father. And I asked him a lot of questions.

Okay, so how did your parents do this, or how did your parents do that? And they gave me some advice. But what I thought about afterwards is what I, this is what I would have liked to say to them. All right, so you go home, and you tell your parents, you tell your dad, that you met a nice couple, Ben and Samantha Nelson, but they have lots to learn.

And they asked me to ask you to write a book. And once you're done, send it to them. Or come over and preach a sermon.

I want to know. I wish I would have said that. And I still would like to know, how did he do it? He raised 14 children.

And they were respectful, godly young people. Like the example that I would want my children to be. And so we were very blessed.

And I would love to read his book. But God has given us a book. And if we have hearts towards God, and a willingness to learn, and if we're humble, and we don't think like we have it all figured out, I think God is willing to teach us.

So, I don't come this morning claiming that I have all the wisdom. But I come with a humble spirit, as one of you, wanting to encourage us to raise up a godly seed, and myself included. I don't come this morning claiming that I know what wives go through, what mothers go through.

With each circumstance, I don't have the wisdom to give advice for each circumstance. But I do know that they go through a lot. And I do know that God has the wisdom.

And God has infinite wisdom. And that He wants us to tap into His grace, so that we can raise our families according to His will, and His design. And so that He receives glory.

And so that the communities around us are blessed. And so that we are blessed. We have a word for the year.

This year is family. We have a word each year, Samantha and I. We've done it now three years in a row. And this year, the word is family.

So we want to embrace our family more, focus on the family more, and see what we can do, and see what we can learn. And hopefully it's not just this year, but for the years to come. For the children, I would like to do some show-and-tell this morning.

Who's all done a show-and-tell before? Raise your hand if you've done a show-and-tell, even adults. Has adults done show-and-tell? I have. I'm going to close this here a little bit.

It's getting a little cold. Who's all done it? Raise them high. Do you like show-and-tells? Do you like show-and-tells? Well, I'm going to do a show-and-tell.

And the show-and-tell is about my favorite things. My favorite things. So I have my favorite cup.

And that is this one. And you already know that. I showed it at church camp last year.

This is my favorite cup. I got it from my daughters and Benji for Father's Day one time. And it says here, Dad, a daughter's first love, a son's first hero.

And then you have Dad holding his daughter's hand and Dad holding his son's hand. And these are my children. They're like little bears.

And I guess I'm Papa Bear. That's my favorite cup. You like it, children? You like it? I really do.

Okay. I have here my favorite shirt. I wouldn't wear it to preach.

And I wouldn't wear it in town, but I wear it at home sometimes. When I take a shower and the girls bring me an outfit, they normally bring me this one. It says they're world's best dad, hands down.

Lydia and Tears gave that to me when Lydia's hands were that big. And Tears, that was probably about six or seven years ago. God bless each other.

That's my favorite shirt. Okay. I have another favorite thing in here.

Let's see if I can find it. Oh, yeah. Here it is.

I have my favorite pair of socks. You know why I like it? You like the color, children? You know why I like it? When I kick up my feet, it says that on there. I don't believe it, but my children insist.

And so they're my favorite pair of socks. They look a little different, but that's okay. I like them.

I have lots of notes. I love it when my children make me notes. This one here says, wise men still seek him.

This one says, this one's from Tears. This one's, I'm not sure where they all came from, but my children made them for me. Here's a little woodpecker.

Lydia and Tears and Sophie, you know which ones you did, right? Dear Daddy, I love you so much. You're the best dad in the world. All kinds of notes I get.

I think there was quite a bit more, but I just grabbed these. This one says, best dad ever. We actually had an argument yesterday, me and the girls.

I told them that it wasn't true, and they kept on saying, yes, it is. Yes, it is. Okay, so I'll leave it at that.

We know that they're going to grow up one day, and they're going to know that they're going to find out that I had lots of quirks. I struggle sometimes with impatience. They know that.

And looking at that, I didn't say anything there about my wife, but I have a sneaky suspicion that there was a Proverbs 31 behind all of that, a Proverbs 31 woman behind all of that. God bless you, family. I love you, and thank you.

I value the family that God has put into my life. They are very special to me. But they are more God's than they are mine.

And they are more special to Him than they are to me. But God has put them into my care to love and protect them and to bless them. And by His grace, I want to do just that.

And each of you have your own special families. And I would like to see a show-and-tell from each of you, even Myron and Lily. I liked it the other day at a brother's meeting.

Myron opened his Bible and out fell a note. That's a blessing. Keep it up.

I would like to see a show-and-tell. I think it would be beneficial. If we could have a whole service, children and parents showing off what blessed them about their family.

That's why I sent you a picture of our families yesterday afternoon. I sent a picture of each of our families on the brother's group. And I was right in the middle of finalizing this sermon.

And I was going through that part. And I went and I took some pictures off the calendar. And I sent it in for you all to consider the blessed family that God has put into your life.

And cherish it. That is my goal and my burden for today is for us to see the value in our families. And for us to embrace God's design for our families.

So what is then God's design for our families? Very practically, it's one man, one woman, joining together in a marriage union, committed to each other in faithfulness for life. Husbands loving their wives. Wives honoring their husbands.

Both of them connected with God. Have you ever seen the triangle example of how when we're connected with God, we're stronger together? I love that picture. You have a triangle.

You have the husband and the wife and God. And as they're connected with God, they draw closer together. There's a close connection in the marriage as long as there's a close connection with God.

Ecclesiastes 4 says that a threefold cord is not quickly broken. It says that two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.

But woe to him that is alone when he falleth. For he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat.

But how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Husband and wife in love with each other and in love with God is not quickly broken.

And then when that marriage union is within God's design, then the purpose for that is to bear up a godly seed. To raise up children in the fear of the Lord. And Malachi 2 verse 15 says, And wherefore hath he made them one that he might seek a godly seed? Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

Fathers training up children in the ways of the Lord as Ephesians 6 verse 4 says, And ye fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Giving correction and affirming them. I think that's important when we give correction but we also affirm them.

A lot of times when I give correction, they know that I love them. Even with my little buddy, sometimes he needs a correction and I give him a boxy and I tell him, I love you bud, I love you man, but you gotta grow up or not grow up, you gotta obey. I love you but you gotta obey.

So we correct and we affirm. Admonishing and loving them with a strong hand but with a gentle hand. Sparing not the rod if the rod is needed, knowing that it will save their soul from hell.

But doing it out of love and care for their souls just as God loves us and cares for us and chastens us because we are his sons and we are not bastards. We are his children. In the same way should we treat our children.

Children honoring mother and father which is the first commandment with promise. There is a promise children that if you obey mother and father that you will have a longer life. And you will see overall when children grow up to honor mom and dad and respect and bless mom and dad.

The overall most of those children do grow up to have healthier, happier, longer lives. One time when I was a young man, maybe 12 or 13 years old. We had a neighbor.

We lived in a close community. We had lots of neighbors and one of our neighbors, he was from a broken home. He didn't have a dad.

His mom and dad divorced and there was only the mom that worked. And she lived in a fourplex. And she worked all the time and she came home and her children were always mean and rebellious.

And they were my neighbors and they were a little bit older than me. But we were neighbors always played together. And the one time we played hide and seek in the corn.

And it was getting dark. And then my dad said, he went outside and he whistled and he said, Children, come in. And right away, me and my sisters and my brothers, we got ready.

We said, hey, dad wants us to come in. We have to go see a sea of children. And they looked at me and they said, why do you listen to your dad? Why do you listen to your parents? That was so foreign to them that we would even listen to our parents.

And then we were, we didn't know what to say because it took us by surprise. We never heard such a question. But we said, because we have to.

Like, duh, right? That's a funny question. Because we knew if we wouldn't listen to dad, we would get a correction. And that was, it hurt sometimes.

But you know what? That correction taught us to honor our dad. Taught us to respect our parents. And I look back and I would rather have received correction than not.

So children, if mom and dad have to give correction sometimes, just know that they love you. And they want you to be a good man one day. They want you to be a virtuous woman one day.

And that's why sometimes when we go a little bit the wrong way, we need to be corrected in the right way. Children honoring mother and father, it is God's design. And within all of this framework that I just explained, there are blessings that I believe will reach to the uttermost parts of the earth.

When there's families that are knit together in love and are operating in God's design, there will be blessings. The family as designed by God is supposed to be a safe place where children can feel secure. Where children can learn by the good examples and good teachings of their parents.

Where children can be taught about faith in God, and prayer, and obedience, and love, and joy, and patience. About controlling the tongue. About doing that which is right in God's eyes.

This is what the family is for. This is what parents are for. And I would say outside of this God-ordained family framework, the children are lost.

The children will wander. And they will do that which is right in their own eyes. And imagine what that would be.

A child who grows up without parents, without direction, and decides to do that which is right in his own eyes because he has no teachings. It's not going to go well. Human instinct will kick in.

Self-preservation, survival of the fittest, whatever it would be. But if it's not steered and directed and guided by God-fearing parents, it wouldn't be good. They say that even in the womb, the child knows that if he or she is not wanted.

And that's interesting. I believe that to be true. And I believe that that does something to that child emotionally, even in the womb.

And imagine a child in the womb having emotional stress, just created, started being formed, not even fully developed, and starts feeling emotional stress in the womb. What would that do to that child? Does stress affect the body physically? From my experience, I've noticed that it does. Stress affects the body physically a lot more than working hard or running.

It affects it in a negative way. And so when are children most often not wanted? In what circumstances are children not wanted? Most of the time, children are not wanted when they were conceived illegitimately, outside of the framework of marriage. U.S. statistics say that out of 100 live births among unmarried women, how many of them are aborted? Who wants to guess? Close? 38.

You imagine 100 live births, 38 of them are aborted. In comparison, the rate of abortion per 100 for married women is 4. So you can see, outside of this God-ordained structure, it's chaos. It's really bad.

4 out of 100 is still far too many. But something tells me that those 4 marriages are probably not prospering marriages. Right? This is not a Christian statistic that I looked up.

I'm going to read an article later on. It's not a Christian article. But from me perceiving, yeah, marriage is good even outside of the Christian community.

It's spared, here we see, 34 lives, 34 abortions. But something tells me that even those 4, out of those 4 abortions within married women, there was probably something broken in that marriage. We just read the verse this morning, Children are an inheritance of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is His reward.

It's a gift, it's a reward. Children are a reward for us. They're a gift, they're a blessing.

This is something very special, very nice that God gives to us. And it says, happy is the man that has his quiver full of them. We know this.

And I think it's good for us to be reminded again. And it's good for the world to understand this too. And an article that I'm going to be reading here soon, it seems like they were starting to understand.

And we can be a living testimony of this to our communities. If we embrace our families, if we love and cherish each other and our marriages and our children, and without saying a word, our actions will go very, very far in our communities. When a baby is born, the mother is encouraged to have skin time with her baby.

And it's because the baby needs to know that mama is there. And the mama forgets all about her prior birth pains, once she has the child on her bosom. You think about the extreme stress that that baby just went through.

Being pressed through that tiny little canal. And then the doctors take the baby and pull it away and put it on a table and rub it and sometimes smack the baby a little bit to get it to cry. It's stressful.

It's stressful for the father to watch. Imagine that baby coming into the world and the stress that it goes through. And they say the best thing is for mama and that baby to have skin time.

And if the baby could speak, what do you think the baby would say? Mama, I just went through so much. Comfort me, mama. I need you, mama.

And then just cuddle. Isn't that a blessing? What do you think the baby would say if he could speak? And then when that baby is secure and comforted by mama, then the father is also encouraged to have skin time with his child. I've never done it, per se, but they encourage the father to do it too.

What's being communicated to that child without words? You have a mother who loves you and cares for you and will nurture you. You have a father who's watching over you, both of you and your mother. And you are safe and you are secure.

That's what's being communicated. And without words, that child feels and knows that he is safe in the arms of his or her parents. Something very, very deep happens here that will affect that child for the rest of his or her life.

This came to my mind. I want to share something that I think will be a blessing, but I would never want any of you to go where I was to learn this. I wasn't raised in a Christian home or anything like that, and so I want to give an example of a movie I once seen.

Please don't go figure out what movie it was. I don't even know. I didn't even want to figure it out.

But I seen a movie once, and I remember one scene. And I don't remember what the movie was, but there was criminals, and it was in jail. And there was big, bad, strong criminals.

Hard-hearted men. And the one specific criminal, he was on death row. He was going to get the electric chair.

And this was a big, hard, strong, mean-looking man. He had muscles bulging out of every corner of his body. He was 6'7", probably.

And he was on death row for doing some bad things. I forget what it was. But there was a scene where he was in the corner, crying like a little baby.

And he said this, Mama, why didn't you love me? Mama, why didn't you love me? And he was bawling. And he was on death row for doing some criminal things. I forget what it was.

And here's this big, strong, hard-looking man. And he's weeping. Mama, why didn't you love me? There is some hard, hard reality to that.

Broken homes reap havoc. Broken homes destroy the potential for human beings. And they cause severe emotional stress that will create lifelong damage, if not saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And I take comfort in the fact that God is the judge of the fatherless. I believe He will judge differently with those who never had a proper upbringing, who never knew right from wrong because they weren't taught. I don't know the depths of that.

I'll leave that there. Samantha and I went on a mission trip one time doing prison ministry. Right after we got married, and we were able to go inside the cells and share with the inmates.

And what I learned there opened my eyes, and that was that 99, probably, percent of the inmates didn't have a father figure in their life. Their fathers had abandoned the home. And that was plain and clear for us to see.

That was the testimony of most of the inmates. They did not have a father figure in their home. And here's that article that I was talking about.

I want to go through some things that even the unbelievers are starting to see. Broken homes result in criminal behavior. Over the past 30 years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families, parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.

High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentration of families abandoned by fathers. I want to look into that a little bit. And so one thing that we came across last week, Samantha and I were coming out to West Lorne, and we wanted to know what the crime rate was in West Lorne.

And we looked up, we Googled it. What is crime rate in West Lorne? 37% less than the national average. That's nice.

We're going into a safe place. Raised my curiosity, okay, what is crime rate in Tilbury? 17% less than national average. Okay.

What about Lakeshore? That's where we live, and that's where the Pilgrim Church is in Comber. 67% less than the national average. Lakeshore is the best place to live in Ontario or Canada as far as being the safest place.

That's where Comber, yeah, it's Comber. It's a blessing. Okay, what about Leamington? We all know what's happened to Leamington in the last 10 years, at least those of us that are from Leamington.

What's happened to Leamington? An influx of migrant workers have come in, and what are most, a lot of those migrant workers are fathers who have left their families, even though you might say for a good reason, but fathers have left their families. Okay, what is Leamington's crime rate? 5% more than the national average. And so we can see it parallels those communities that have families whose fathers have abandoned them.

Crime rates go up. And just last year, there was in the LCH where the migrant worker teachers preach every Sunday, there was a man that got stabbed in the Leamington Centre of Hope. There was, after the migrant worker's teaching, our people went home, and then they were feeding the homeless.

And Henry Neufeld, he was one of the, he's one of the owners, and he's also part of the church that's helping with feeding the homeless. He was sharing the gospel or trying to help one of the homeless people to understand the truth. And in the background, there was another homeless person who comes.

He was watching the person who Henry's speaking to, and he comes and he stabs him in the throat. And they took him to the hospital, and Henry never knew what became of this man. And he was in our church a few months ago.

Who remembers the man who came in with the harsh voice? He had a scar right here, and he couldn't talk anymore. And I haven't told Henry yet, but that was him. And I guess my point being, that's in our own town.

We never would have thought of that 10 years ago. We had one of these communities, you know, that's 67, 50% less than national average crime, but Leamington, quickly, the crime rates have rised because of fathers who have abandoned their homes. State-by-state analysis by heritage scholars indicates that a 10% increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes leads to a 17% increase in juvenile crime.

That's interesting. So we have 10% increase in broken homes leads to a 17% increase in crime. And you'd think that it would be 10 and 10, but what happens to that 7%? And I believe that's just bad influence that spreads.

And Brother Cornelius, you mentioned something at the brothers' meeting last Wednesday, how one failure can lead to another failure. That's what I see happens here. It's like a snowball effect.

One failure leads to another failure, and before you know it, it's out of control. The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers. The type of aggression and hostility demonstrated by a future criminal is often foreshadowed in unusual aggressiveness as early as 5 or 6, often seen in the foster care system.

And why would that be? There's no father, no mother oftentimes. We had the experience with a young man named Wesley when my in-laws were trying to adopt a young man. And John and Tina, I'm sure you could share more about these types of stories.

But my in-laws were trying to adopt a young man. His name was Wesley. He was 4 maybe, 3 or 4. And this kid was wild.

He was wild. And I shouldn't say kid, child. He was a lot of work, and he didn't have a father, and he didn't have a mother.

And they were trying to put him in different homes, and nobody could handle him. And my in-laws took him in, and they really had a burden for him and his sister Alana. And I have a picture of him.

Maybe I can show him to you later, and we can pray for him. One time they brought Wesley over. Mom and Dad, my in-laws, needed a brick.

Okay, yeah, we'll give him a brick, right? Me and Samantha. Our house was upside down with this one little boy. Cupboards were a mess.

Everything was out. We had honey on the table. He dunked his whole hand in there and started eating it.

We closed the gate to go downstairs because we didn't want him to mess at least that part up. And he jumped over the gate, and it was chaos. And before you know it, he had his hands on our fireplace.

And he started screaming, and he burned himself pretty bad. And we feel horrible, but he calmed down. We had him upstairs.

In-laws come home, and he's got toothpaste all over his hands. Cry. We love that little man, but Mom and Dad couldn't handle him either.

And another person tried to take him in. And we found out a year later that they couldn't handle him either. And he's back in the foster care system.

And these are the characteristics you see in future criminals. And it wasn't their fault. Mama was a drug addict.

Daddy was not around. Mama couldn't handle it. What do you do? God is the judge of the fatherless.

The future criminal tends to be an individual rejected by other children as early as the first grade, who goes on to form his own group of friends, often the future delinquent gang. On the other hand, neighborhoods with a high degree of religious practice are not high crime neighborhoods. I think that would be a blessing even just to bring another church into Westlawn, another community of believers into Westlawn.

I think it would be a blessing to the community. Without doing a lot more than just being here, praying, being here, being an example as salt in the community. I believe it would be a blessing, brothers and sisters.

Even in high crime inner city neighborhoods, well over 90% of children from safe, stable homes do not become delinquents. Delinquent is somebody who commits crime. By contrast, only 10% of children from unsafe, unstable homes in these neighborhoods avoid crime.

Are you following along? So 90% of children from safe homes, even if they are in a bad city, will remain safe. 90% of children from unsafe homes that live in a bad city will become criminals too, or at least get involved with crime. This is an interesting one to me.

Criminals capable of sustaining marriage gradually move away from a life of crime after they get married. Is there a blessing in marriage? I have seen this firsthand. Most often, however, criminals who get married can't sustain marriage.

But those who do start to realize that it's either one or the other. It's my horrible lifestyle or my marriage. I'm going to lose one.

Which one am I going to lose? Smarten up? Shape up? Or lose your marriage? Viewing this from a Christian's perspective, why do you think a criminal would begin to value marriage so much? I think it's because God is doing a work in his heart. From a Christian perspective, I think that's what's happening here. God does a work in someone's heart.

They choose a good marriage over a life of crime, of drugs. The mother's strong affectionate attachment to her child is the best buffer against a life of crime. The father's authority and involvement in raising his children is also a great buffer against a life of crime.

It sounds like it's a Christian article, doesn't it? And we have all these answers, don't we? If only people would read and believe the Bible, they wouldn't have to suffer so much the hard way before finding out. The scholarly evidence in short suggests that at the heart of the explosion of crime in America is the loss of the capacity of fathers and mothers to be responsible and caring for the children that they bring into the world. This loss of love and guidance at the intimate levels of marriage and family has broad social consequences for children and for the wider community.

The empirical evidence shows that too many young men and women from broken families tend to have a much weaker sense of connection with their neighborhood and are prone to exploit its members to satisfy their unmet needs or desires. This contributes to a loss of sense, of community, and the disintegration of neighborhoods into social chaos and violent crime. If policy makers are to deal with the root causes of crime, therefore, they must deal with the rapid rise of illegitimacy.

That's as far as the article goes. I would rather say that we, as Christians, could help the world see what a family is supposed to look like. And so that there would not be illegitimacy.

There would rather be solid, stable families. Show them by example what a family looks like when it's ordered by God's principles. As goes the family, so goes the nation.

That was a... One of the popes wrote that. And I believe that to be true, but I want to bring it a little bit closer to home, and I believe this to be true. As goes the family, so goes the church.

The best thing that we can do for God and His church is to keep a personal relationship with Him and to keep our own families within the framework of God's design for our families. That's the best thing we can do for the church. Build a strong family.

Go on those anniversary trips. Josh and Sharon, God bless you as you go. Embrace it.

Go on those family trips. Pete and Anna, God bless you as you go. Embrace it.

Take those... that time away for just you and your family. Build your families. Build those connections.

Then come back and bring that blessing into the church. A strong family, a stable family is the church's greatest asset. A lot of times we look at the command of a bishop or the call for a bishop.

I looked at that in 1 Timothy 3. It says there that they should have their house in order. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? But I will say that the command is for all of us to have our house in order. Because the commands go more than just having your house in order.

It says husband of one wife. Well, that's me. That's you.

That's all of us. We need to be vigilant. Just the bishop or all of us.

Right? We need to be sober. We need to be of good behavior. Not a striker, not a brawler.

That's me. That's me. Not given to wine.

All of us. Me. Have his children in subjection.

That's all of us. That's me. And I will say that most of the issues that arise in the church first started with issues in the family unit.

Most of the issues that arise in the family, where did they first start? Maybe somebody has the answer. Most of the issues that arise in the family started with issues in the marriage. And as a minister, I tell you that that's true.

I have seen it as a consistent pattern. Somebody might ask, why are my children rebellious? The question is, how is it between me and my wife? That's the answer, actually. Oftentimes, that's the answer.

They're insecure. They don't feel like they're in a safe place because the marriage is shaky. Do my children see mother respecting and honoring father? Do they see father loving mother laying his life down for her? Is there a happy marriage? Is headship order in order? If not, if headship order is not in order, then what have I done to lose my authority in the home? You know, a lot of times men lose authority in the home because they've committed some immoral sin where they don't have the respect of their wife anymore.

How do you lead a home when your wife doesn't respect you? Do you blame your wife for not respecting? So then the question goes even further back. How is it between me and God? Have I sinned to a point where I've lost the respect? Of my spouse? How can I lead her if she doesn't respect me or trust me? How is it between me and my children? Why are my children rebellious? How is it between me and my wife? How is our marriage? How is it between me and God? How is it between us and God? I'll close with a few thoughts here. A marriage that is thriving because it is Christ-centered, focused upon our love and devotion for God, is a rich fertile ground for raising a godly seed.

And a family that is bound together in this design of God's is a tremendous blessing to the church. It is a tremendous blessing. And a church that is made up of godly families is a tremendous blessing to the community and the world around us.

What type of salt and light effect wouldn't it have to those who observe a godly family or a godly couple when they themselves know nothing of it? Maybe an unbeliever that never really understood anything spiritual or about God. They don't know what it's like to have a stable godly family or a good family or a solid stable upbringing. And then when they see a godly family, they see a godly couple, maybe walking through a grocery store with a handful of children.

The one man came up to me the one time. I was in Mississauga and we got to talking and he told me how he had one child and I told him I had three and he took off his hat and he said, hats off to you. I don't know how you do it.

He had one. Okay. We weren't planning on stopping at three yet.

It makes, they look on and they wonder. What about a mother with her teen son, you know? Most teen sons are embarrassed to walk with mother or a lot of times from the world. But here you have mother and a teen son with a good relationship.

Will that not be a light? Will that not be salt to the world around us? What about a father who's working with his son? Or a father and a son together and the world looks on and says, you got a good relationship. How can I do that with my son? I overheard Nellie Jansen sharing an example about, if somebody knows the story a bit better, you can correct me. But the moral of the story will be good still.

Was there a man in a grocery store getting chicken wings for his son who was at home playing video games? And the only time the son would come out was to ask dad when the chicken wings would be ready or when the supper would be ready? And what did the father say? The nerve of the boy. That doesn't sound like a good relationship. So what if they see father and son together, working together, respecting each other.

Son learning from the father at a young age, taking on responsibilities. Video games at the age of 25. Unheard of in the Christian world.

Unheard of. But it's pretty normal in the secular world. It's pretty normal.

You see a 14, 15 year old boy with some responsibility, maybe even in a telehandler raising some trusses. That's not unheard of in our circles. I think it's a blessing.

There is a salt and light effect that we have when we raise a godly home and responsible young men and women. We could give many more examples, but I believe it would cause a thirst and a longing within them for something more. And we have the answers to that, don't we? We have the answer.

Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer. Jesus said in Matthew 5, Ye are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. I believe a godly family is a light that cannot be hid.

It shines the light of Jesus into dark places so that others can find hope too. So if we focus on our families, if we raise godly homes, this will be pleasing to the Lord. Finally, brothers and sisters, I want to encourage each one, and I hope it has been an encouragement, that we would invest into our families.

Invest into our children, into our spouses, because that's eternal. We were listening to a story on the way in, and one comment was made on that story, that children is one thing you can take to heaven with you. Your wife, your husband, your family, is one thing that you can take to heaven with you.

It's eternal. And it's worth investing time into. Time spent into our family is time well spent.

May God bless each of you richly with prosperous marriages and families.