Good morning, everyone. Let's pray together as we go to God's word. Heavenly Father, this is the day that you have made. You say that we should rejoice and be glad in it, and so we do that today with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and I pray that you would feed our hearts and our spirits with your word right now, especially as it relates to expanding our vision for living for Christ in our homes. and in our family relationships. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for inviting me to preach these two weeks. We're gonna continue to talk about growing in faith in our families, in our private lives, in our family relationships. Now when I say family relationships, I mean all of your messed up family relationships, all my messed up family relationships, your relationships with your parents if they're living, siblings, spouses if you're married, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, All of our families are struggling in one way or another. We've all got these complicated relationships. And sometimes you have relationships in your family that these are going okay, but these are a mess. So you sort of work on the ones that are a mess, and maybe there's some progress there, but because you're working on those, the ones that were going okay are there now a mess, and you're going back to take care of those. I think our amazing tech guys were working hard this morning on getting my slides in. Do we have that video ready? I have that video illustration of feeling overwhelmed. Here we go. Maybe, sorry, that was some serious volume on the video I gave you. That was my fault. Can we try that again? Here we go. This guy's boat's out of control. He's got to stop that. But he forgot to put the forklift in park. So he's got to jump back in that thing. He's got to put that in park. Got to fix that. Now the boat's out of control. Yeah, but he didn't put that thing in park. It just... It just keeps getting worse. I felt like, how many of our families feel like that? Put your hand up sometimes if you guys, that's exactly my life right there. Well, today is really an application message from my sermon last week. Last week, we were in Psalm 145. We were talking about multi-generational vision for our lives, how God wants to use every Christian to have a multi-generational impact. Last week, we looked at Psalm 145, verse 4, where it says, one generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. So God created our families with all of the struggles and all the problems to advance the gospel from one generation to the next. And today, We're gonna look at some scriptures that call our attention to obstacles to faith in the home. Obstacles to faith in the home. Obstacles that we need to be aware of and that we need to intentionally do battle with if we want to see the gospel spread through the generations of our family. Obstacle number one, we're gonna talk about four today. The first one we're gonna dive into is the obstacle of anger. Let me show you some scriptures on this. We're gonna begin in Ephesians 4, 31 and 32. I'm gonna be covering a number of different passages with you this morning. It says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. That is such strong language up at the top. Let all bitterness, all wrath, all anger, all clamor, all slander, all those things be put away from you. Then look at James 1.20. It says, the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. I have had some parents over the years, it's usually dads on this one, come to me and they say, well, you know, God gives us the example of what it means to be a good parent, right? He's the heavenly father, we are his children. And sometimes God parents us in righteous anger. And therefore, sometimes I need to parent my children in righteous anger. To which I've often responded, have you read James 1.20? James 1.20 says, the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. My interpretation of that passage, and this took considerable study and exegesis, my interpretation is that the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. Maybe you have a different interpretation on that, but I think it's pretty straightforward. That God has a corner, if you will, on unrighteous anger, and we don't get to claim that corner. So many other scriptures, 1 Corinthians 13, 5. Love, it says 12 up there, that's a typo, 1 Corinthians 13, 5. Love is not easily angered. And then Proverbs 27, 4, anger is cruel and wrath is like a flood. When it says anger is like a flood, I don't want you to think Wheaton, Winfield, DuPage County flood. We have floods here, but basically what that means is your basement fills with six inches of water, and it's a big deal, not minimizing the trauma of all that. But you need to think more in terms of North Carolina flood. You've all seen these videos, and I hope that you've been praying, and I imagine you have friends and family in that part of the world. but you've seen these videos, people are out on their deck. It's a 40 mile an hour flood of boulders and trees and shredding everything in its way. When God says anger's like a flood, that's the kind of flood you need to be thinking of. Anger really is a destroyer of relationships. A sermon series that Amy and I have been very helped by over the years, and I would commend it to you, is a series called Anger the Destroyer by S.M. Davis. S.M. Davis is a pastor here in Illinois. You can find that online. Just search for Anger the Destroyer by S.M. Davis, and we would commend that to you. Part of the problem with this obstacle of anger in our homes, because anger is gonna break heart connections, part of the problem with anger is that anger is self-deceptive. Self-deceptive. Amy and I will be in a conflict, and she will say to me, you seem really angry right now. And I'll say, no, I'm not angry. She said, well, your eyes look angry. And I'll say, I'm not angry. She says, that edge in your tone of voice sounds angry. And I'll say, I'm not angry. Well, I'm angry now. But the only reason I'm angry now is because you said I was angry. And I'm not. And I wasn't. So there. Here's the point, we don't have good self-insight when it comes to our own anger. Your son or daughter may be dealing with anger and not be able to admit it or acknowledge it because we don't see it very well. So I think an area that we need to grow in is that when we have a loved one who is telling us we're angry, we probably ought to give a little bit more attention to that. And consider the possibility that maybe we have a struggle with anger in our hearts and it's blind to us. Look with me at Ephesians chapter four, verses 26 and 27. It says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. So look at this, it says, be angry and do not sin. In other words, when you are stirred up, when you're stirred up, be careful. That anger that you're feeling is like the warning light on the dashboard of your car. You know, you have your car dash, all these little lights will turn on when things go awry. Usually it's the little yellow light, the tire, which means you need air, or the little yellow oil change, hey, you need oil. But sometimes you get one that looks like that. Okay, it's red, it's not yellow. And it's the engine, I think that's the engine. I don't know what an engine looks like, but that looks right to me. And it's like red, check. So this is, you know, stop driving, pull over, get to your repair shop. You've got a serious thing that you need to look at. And so imagine I had the red check engine light come on in the dashboard, and I said, that is just so annoying. Maybe at nighttime, right? I'm out in some rural road. So annoying. I'm just going to put a little piece of tape over that so it doesn't flash in my eye. Or take a screwdriver and bam, bam, bam, just knock that bulb out so that red check engine light will go away. Everything will be fine. Foolish decision. Just because I got rid of the little warning light doesn't mean I solved the problem. So this text here, do not let the sun go down on your anger. My mom applied this when I was growing up. My brother and I weren't allowed to go to bed at night with unresolved conflict. If we had a fight during the day, which we probably did, we had to talk about it and confess and ask for forgiveness. And I can honestly say, I don't ever remember going to bed with unresolved conflict with my brother. Now, I'm not saying we went to bed happy every night. because some of the hurts and wounds that happened were very deep and significant. But think of it like this, if you got a serious wound, parents, if your child got a serious cut, okay, you would never send them to bed without cleaning it out, maybe getting it stitched up and bandaged. It's not healed when you put them to bed, but it's been cleaned out, it's been addressed, the steps have been taken toward healing. The scripture we looked at earlier in Proverbs, the warning about anger is warnings like a flood. It can come and destroy. The warning here, I'm gonna go back to that passage in Ephesians. The warning here about anger is even more significant than a flood. Be angry, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. And give no opportunity to the devil. If you don't deal with anger in your family, you're giving special access to your heart, life, and home to the devil and the demons. How about that for a warning? I don't wanna give them any more special access. Okay, the Bible says that God has put a hedge of protection around us as we follow Christ, so think of that like a wall or a hedge. So not dealing with anger in the home, the older translations of this passage say don't give the devil a foothold. So that's sort of like God's got a wall around you and you're throwing rock climbing equipment over the wall to the devil. You don't want to do that. So there's this serious warning about dealing with anger. So how do we overcome this? We have to overcome with repentance. Asking God, and repentance on two sides, asking God to help us repent of our anger quickly to him and quickly to our family. And something that I've had to learn over the years is when I'm angry, lose my temper, and I yell, I'm harsh with one of my kids, there's something very particular that I have to say. So if it's with Rush over here, he's getting picked on a lot in sermons. I think I have more illustrations from him in a few minutes. But let's say I lose my temper and I'm harsh with Rush, and I go to him, Rush, I yelled at you. That was wrong of me, I'm really sorry. And this is the key phrase, it was not your fault that I got angry. It was not your fault I got mad and yelled. That was totally my fault. None of this, I would not have had to yell at you if you had not da-da-da-da. So you see, now I'm blaming my child for my anger, blaming my family member for my anger. Repentance has to be, I'm sorry, and I'm asking God to help me. Number two, and this is actually the other side of the same coin, another obstacle we're gonna talk about is a critical spirit. If you have a critical spirit in your home toward your family, this is going to become an obstacle to your family thriving in Christ. Colossians 3.21, this speaks to fathers specifically, but it applies to parents, I think it applies to our family relationships. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Fathers, parents, don't provoke your children. Don't arouse anger and bitterness in their hearts toward you. And the warning, the warning is if you provoke your kids, if you harden their heart toward you, if their hearts get hardened toward the Lord, what's the big Risk, what's the warning? What's the danger? Fathers, don't provoke your children or else what? They'll become discouraged. They'll lose heart. This principle applies to sibling relationships. Amy and I just shared during the Sunday school class on sibling relationships. If you're an older sibling and you have a critical spirit toward your younger brothers and sisters, If you're constantly negative, putting them down, overly competitive, guess what? Your younger sibling will become discouraged. They'll lose heart. They'll check out in their relationship with you. A story from Russia, I have permission to share this. God saved me from what would have been an epic, parenting fail. This is just a few months ago. We were back at Monroe, and we were sitting in our customary spot front right. You know, I was that kid in kindergarten that, you know, if that's my seat on the first day, well, that's my seat. You know, and if you sat there, I'd be like, what are you doing? That's where I sit. Okay, it's just one less thing I have to think about. So we're down there, and I think it was Pastor Michael who was preaching that morning, and Rush had brought a little journal with him, and Pastor began to speak, and Rush opened up his little journal and began to take some notes from Pastor Michael's sermon. Now at home, Rush works on handwriting, and he has a handwriting book. And sometimes I am overseeing the handwriting or checking in on that. Usually Amy's in the lead, but every now and then I'm there. And Rush has been learning to get his lowercase H's, like down and lowercase, not like five times bigger than any other letter on the page. So at home, and he's got a R-U-S-H, like that's in his name, so it gives him ample opportunity to work on that lowercase h. So at home, if I'm overseeing his handwriting, I'm kinda like, hey, lowercase h, like that thing's, you know, get that down. So I look over at his sermon notes, and I see three egregious examples of this handwriting crime. And I kid you not, my hand started to move like this, and I was about to tap those H's. Just thank God he stopped me from doing that. 10-year-old boys taking notes in church. What am I gonna do, I'm gonna point out a stupid H? So you know what happened? God helped me, because that was not my instinct. Okay, hand goes over, Holy Spirit's like, Rob, what are you doing? Proud of you, son. It's good. And afterwards, I think we went and got ice cream, and I told Rush what was going on, you know, even in my heart. But I think it's so easy for us to miss opportunities to encourage and take opportunities to shame or to criticize. Give you an illustration. Our boys enjoy baseball. We have four boys and three girls. Millie played softball for a year in third grade, but she retired. She accomplished all she came to do in the sport. So I have had 45 seasons as a baseball dad, 17 seasons with my first son, 13 seasons with my second, that's 30 seasons. Nine with Ray and now six with Rush. Baseball is a terrible game. Children should not play it. Parents should not coach it. You know, kids don't cry in the middle of soccer games. Nobody cries in the middle. If you lost, maybe you cry at the end. Kids cry multiple times throughout a baseball game. It's a horrible, horrible sport. Because baseball is a game of failure. Kids who can't absorb failure can't play baseball. Because if you come up to bat 10 times, and you get out seven times, and you get three hits for every 10 times up, are you succeeding or failing? You are succeeding. If you do that for like 30 years, you'll make millions and millions and millions of dollars. But you have to fail seven times out of 10 and you have to be fine with that. It's the game. The game is a game of failure. So, My eldest son, RW, there's so many hitting coaches, like online, YouTube, instructional videos, and we latched onto a Christian guy named Steve Springer. And Steve Springer, he does these messages for parents, baseball parents. He says, your child is playing the most discouraging sport in the world. The game will provide all the discouragement necessary. All you need to do is encourage them. That's all you need to do. And I thought, what a principle for life. Your kids are playing the most discouraging sport in the world. It's called life. You don't need to add any extra discouragement to them. They're gonna get plenty from the world. Our job is to pour in the encouragement, and that's the overcoming this obstacle is overcoming with encouragement. In our counseling ministry, something we hear from kids all the time is, my parents are always on me for everything. 90 plus percent of the parental communication is corrective. It's you're not living up to expectations. You're dropping the ball. This needs to change. And that's, you're starting to see then, each time there's that critical, and I'm not saying we don't have to correct our kids. Of course we do. And we have to disciple them and we have to discipline them. But they need lots of I love you's, lots of I'm proud of you's, lots of I'm with you no matter what. All of our family relationships need that. Your siblings need to hear that. I love you, I'm with you, your spouse needs to hear that. I love you, I'm with you, your parents need to hear that. I love you, I'm with you. To counteract what has come so easy for us to have this critical spirit. Now this next one I don't have a scripture for, but it is a very practical application of this principles we're talking about today. Obstacle number three is tech, our gizmos. And I wanna talk to you about how they can be an obstacle to faith in the home. Now, I am on the spectrum of nerdiness and geekiness on the nerd end, okay? 8.5 out of 10 nerd scale for me. So I like the tech, I like the gizmos, but they can be a real obstacle to my family relationships. How often are Amy and I having a conversation, and she's talking to me, and I'm like, Yeah, uh-huh, yeah. You remember, I was really upset with Pastor Michael going through that Ephesians series. We were at Ephesians 5, 25, like the sermon for husband's day. And he had this phrase, he said, Christ laid down his life for his bride. Husbands, can we lay down our phones for our wives? It was a horrible thing to say to us. But man, how convicting. I did some research. I went to Google and I typed in studies on the benefits of screen time for toddlers. And this is what I found. There is no evidence to support introducing technology at an early age. For children two to five, limit their routine. Okay, so that's what, that's from the people who are trying to sell you the technology. So I'm like, all right, maybe Google doesn't know what they're talking about. I went to ChatGPT. On ChatGPT, I said, you can do this at home for yourself. I did, are there studies on the dangers of eating dinners as a family without phones? dangers of eating dinner as a family without phones. ChatGPT says there aren't studies that suggest dangers specifically related to eating dinner together as a family without phones. In fact, the overwhelming body of research generally supports the benefits of having family meals together without the distraction of phones or technology. Here are some brief benefits documenting the research. Okay. I'm not anti-tech. We have a family group chat. We FaceTime with grandparents. We have family movie night. There's amazing ways that tech can bring our families together, but it's way too easy to allow the tech to separate us. So, we gotta overcome with a plan. What's the plan? Whatever your plan is. In other words, have you ever had a family conversation about how, you know what, it's really easy for us to all be in the same room together, but all still just be on our phones? How do you think we could work together as a family to have less time with the gizmos and more time face-to-face? What could we do to have dinner be screen-free? Just talking about it together as a family. A couple of weeks ago, Amy and I did a seminar for parents and teenagers called Tech, Faith, and Family. And you can get that for free just as a download if you weren't able to make it at the link here, visionaryfam.com slash Grace Tech. Got that? Type all that in, you put your email in, boom, the MP3 comes your way. One more obstacle to passing faith through the generations of our family, and that is hopelessness. I was preaching in North Carolina two weeks ago in the Charlotte area, sharing some stories of families who were healed, families who forgave each other, families who reconciled. And during the break, talked with an older gentleman. He said, I didn't notice him leaving while I was talking, but he said, I'm sorry, I just had to get up and leave. It was too hard to hear the healing stories. He hadn't talked with his son in five years, and he had lost hope. It was like the light of hope or the light of the miraculous was too hard for him to be around, because he had been experiencing darkness for so long. And that, for some of us, may be an adult child, far from God or out of relationship with us, maybe a sibling that we haven't talked to in years. It could be, for some of us, trauma from our childhood that is still having an effect in our lives now or being in the throes of the aftershocks of a separation or a divorce or the loss of a child, all of these things. I had another friend who told me that she had made a choice to come to a family seminar, a family discipleship seminar, and she said, I came knowing that it would be really hard for me to be there, given the state of things in my family right now. But I really appreciated what she said. She said, I knew that I needed to keep hearing a positive vision, even though I'm not experiencing that right now. So what's the battle plan here? You have to soak in scriptures of hope and scriptures about the sovereignty of God. Scriptures of hope and scriptures about the sovereignty of God. You overcome with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And we're gonna put that into practice here a little bit together, look at this first passage, Romans 5, 5, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Can we read that together? Let's do that now. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. By reading that out loud, speaking scripture out loud, you're taking the sword of the Spirit, you're transferring those truths from God into you. Psalm 33, 22, let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. Let's do that one together, here we go. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. Again with me. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. God loves family, and he loves your family. Satan hates family, and he hates your family. This is not the end of the story. You're right in the middle, and God's not brought you this far to abandon you now. I'd like to invite you to pray with me as we close. Heavenly Father, thank you for the scriptures of hope that we just read. And God, as we think about living for Christ in our family relationships, each one of us brings struggle and pain and discouragement from the past or present into that conversation. And I thank you that your love's been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We ask for your steadfast love, O Lord, to be upon us, even as we hope in you. And Lord, as we press in to these family relationships, perhaps that need healing, or we press in to taking steps of repentance in our home over anger, or just making some new decisions about technology, And confessing to you, Lord, our critical spirit toward our family, maybe that's caused so much damage. Lord, we humble ourselves before you. We thank you for the forgiveness that we've received through Christ. And with all of the future of our family, the future generations of our family, we wait for you. Our soul waits. And in your word, we put our hope. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.