The Five Traits of a Healthy Family | Dr. Gary Chapman

Today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, Five Traits of a Healthy Family. Uh First characteristic of a healthy family, there will be an attitude of service. You imagine what would happen in this country if every family had this concept that we're here to serve other people? It could revolutionize a culture.

Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, New York Times best-selling author of "The 5 Love Languages" . Today we're going to church. That's right, we're going to hear a message Dr. Chapman gave last fall at a church in Chicago about helping your family become all it can be.

This is going to be a special opportunity because usually you hear Gary in his studio asking questions or answering them. And today he's in front of members of the New Life Community Church in Chicago. And Gary, I have to say, whether it's a conference, a day-long seminar, or a church setting like we're about to hear, I think you thrive in that setting as you speak to people and get their reaction to what you're saying. What do you think?

Well, Chris, I have to agree, you know, I love to share practical help for people on marriage and family relationships. I mean, it's my passion. You know, it's my place in the kingdom. And this particular sermon that we're going to air today, I had led a marriage conference the day before from 9 o'clock in the morning until 3.30 in the afternoon. And then I stayed over and preached three different times this sermon because they have three different services.

It's a large and very active church, as you know. But yeah, I love speaking, and then I love, you know, hanging around and interfacing with people, you know, after services and answering questions or hearing their comments. And that's where a lot of the ideas for your books and the stories that you tell come from is those interactions in between, right? Yeah. It's an easy place and it's a comfortable place to share if they're struggling with something or to ask a question about something they've heard or read in one of my books and want further explanations.

So, you know, I just think the personal thing, I love interfacing with people. Our featured resource today is the book that Gary wrote titled Five Traits of a Healthy Family, Steps You Can Take to Grow Closer, Communicate Better, and Change the World Together. Just go to buildingrelationships.us to find out more. That's buildingrelationships.us.

Well, New Life Community Church in Chicago has 23 locations throughout Chicagoland and northwest Indiana. The senior pastor of New Life is also the 10th president of Moody Bible Institute, Dr. Mark Job. Gary gave his message toward the end of September last year at the New Life Midway location. Here's Dr.

Chapman with the beginning of his message, Five Traits of a Healthy Family.

Well, thank you, Pastor. It's great to be with you today. We did have a great day yesterday and really enjoyed all the folks that were here yesterday. You know, there's a whole generation of young adults. You haven't the foggiest idea.

of what a healthy marriage looks like. Or they didn't grow up in one. A number of years ago I was directing a college ministry. at our church. And a young man who was a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina, I live in North Carolina, in case you're wondering, what's that accent?

He graduated. He moved to our city because he had acquired a job to be teaching in a public school, in the high school. And he came to me and he said, Gary, I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic, and my mother was depressed most of her life. And you said I I'm an only child.

And I have no idea what a healthy family looks like. And I was just wondering. If I could move in with you and your wife and family for a year, and discover what a healthy family looks like. And I said what every wise husband would say.

Well, let me talk to my wife about that. I talked to Carolyn and she said, Well, Gary, I think it's a great idea, she said, but we don't have any rooms. We've got two kids and we only got a three bedroom house. And so I said, but she said, There is a, you know, the basement's empty. We're not using it.

And we could put a wall down there. And, you know, I said, well, let's talk to the kids.

So we talked to the kids, and they liked the idea.

So John came and lived with us, and we just worked him into the fabric of the family. 'Kay. You know, he had chores like the other kids had chores. He was with us in the morning around the table. As we started the day with a scripture verse, he was with us at night when we had our devotional times.

He saw us take those kids and go to the bed and pray with each one of them. He told me yet later, he said, you know, Gary, I hate to think what would have happened in my life. If I had never spent that year with you all. I was just reflecting on that, and I was thinking to myself, I'm so glad that John didn't come to live with us the first two years of our marriage. If he had, he probably never would have gotten married.

But my wife and I had a lot of struggles in the early years, and that may be why I've invested my life in trying to help other couples.

So, I want to talk with you about the five traits of a healthy family, and I want to begin by reading a very familiar scripture passage. Ephesians chapter 5, it reads like this: He's talking to the church. Do not be drunk on wine. Good advice. No family was ever helped by that.

But be filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, Make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. He's talking to the church. And then he moves to the family.

Wives, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband's the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, So also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her. by the washing with water through the Word. And to present her to himself as a radiant church. without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish.

But holy and blameless. In this same way, the Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church. for we are members of his body.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church.

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself. and the wife must respect her husband. Children Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise. Here's the promise.

that it may go well with you. And that you may enjoy a long life on the earth. Fathers, Do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction. of the Lord.

A very familiar passage. And I want to try to make it practical for you today. It's simply sharing these five things. And I'm going to encourage you, if you have pen or paper, write these down because when I get through, I'm going to give you a take-home exam.

Okay? Dr. Gary Chapman and the opening of a message titled Five Traits of a Healthy Family. That is also the title of our featured resource, subtitled Steps You Can Take to Grow Closer, Communicate Better, and Change the World Together. You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us.

Let's go back to the auditorium and hear those steps you can take to grow closer, communicate better, and change the world together. Once again, Dr. Gary Chapman. First characteristic of a healthy family: there will be an attitude of service. The husband will have an attitude of serving his wife, she'll have an attitude of serving him, they'll serve the kids, the kids will learn how to serve each other, and then they will instruct the children.

The parents will instruct the children. You know, it's very hard to reject. an attitude of service. I remember a young husband who said to me, he said, Doc Chapman, he said, the first month of our marriage, my wife served me breakfast in bed. He said, it took me a month.

to get up the courage to tell her that I don't eat breakfast. And I did a little research on my own and found out that not a single wife in the history of this nation has ever murdered her husband while he was washing dishes. Not one.

So how do we develop an attitude of service? Let me give you some suggestions on how to make this practical. One is to talk about it. because some service is already going on. If you came to this place this morning and you were in a family with somebody living in your house with you as a family.

Somebody served somebody this morning.

So you just say, you know, one way I served you this morning was I made your oatmeal. And the other person says, I really appreciate that. It's just acknowledging what's already going on. We're talking about what's going on. Another is to say to a family member, You know something I'd like for you to do.

And they tell you something. And you say, I'll try to remember that. You're not making them do anything, you're just giving them information. If you'd like to do something for me, here's something I'd like for you to do. Again, it's just talking about it.

And then, once we're talking about it, how about a daily sharing time in which we talk about how we serve people outside the home?

So maybe it would be at dinner at night. And little Johnny's in kindergarten. And so he says, Well, Mary dropped her crayon and it broke, and she was crying. And so I took it to the teacher, and the teacher gave me a new crayon, and I gave it to her, and she stopped crying. And everybody says, Yay, Johnny, way to go.

And then Daddy gets to tell some way he served somebody today. And mother gets to tell, and sister gets the tale. You imagine what would happen in this country if every family had this concept that we're here to serve other people? It could revolutionize the culture. And so in a healthy family, that's what it'll be like.

And then we can also plan a family service project. Together, go out and do something to serve the community. I remember when our children were 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. In the fall, when the leaves are about ready to fall, Our facts had already fallen. I'd get my kids in the car.

We just had two, boy and a girl. and I'd put rakes in the back of the car. and I drive through the neighborhood looking for a yard where the leaves had not been raked. And I'd knock on the door. I said, hi, I'm Gary Chapman.

I live down the street here. And I'm trying to teach my children how to serve other people.

So if you don't mind, we would like to rake your leaves for you. And they would say, say what? And I'd repeat my little speech. And they say, oh, I will pay you to rake my leaves. I've been trying to find someone to rake my leaves.

I said, no, I don't want your money. I'm just trying to teach my children how to serve other people. I never had any one that would not let us rake their leaves. And the kids loved it. What they really liked is when you get them in a big pile down on the road, jump in the pile.

But I'm just trying to teach the kids. Our family is about serving other people. And so, whatever at the age group, you can find ways to do that.

Okay? So, a healthy family, there will be an attitude of service. Secondly, In a healthy family, there'll be intimacy. between the husband and the wife. This passage that Paul quotes here.

Really was also found in the book of Genesis, where God said about Adam. Not good for this man to be alone. I'm going to make a helper. And the two are going to become one flesh. God's plan for marriage was a deep, deep intimacy.

And sometimes people think only of physical intimacy, but it's far more than that. It's intellectual intimacy. We're sharing our thoughts and our feelings and our desires and our dreams with each other. And some couples have lost this. Because they would share something, maybe a dream or whatever, something that they were thinking about, they'd love to do someday, and the spouse says, Well, that won't work.

You may as well get that out of your mind. And so they just stopped sharing. Mm. They don't know what people each either are thinking anymore. And then it's not only that, it's emotional intimacy.

It's sharing our emotions with each other. It's saying, you know, honey, this morning, I kind of felt discouraged, to be honest with you. And they tell you something had happened either in the family or out of the family that just gave them a feeling of discouragement. It's sharing our feelings with each other.

Somebody you can trust to share how you're feeling, whether it's positive, whether it's negative. And then also it's social intimacy. It's doing things outside the house with each other. I don't know if you read this story. Number of years ago in a Midwestern town, It was really in the country.

the two story farmhouse. and a tornado came through. And lifted the roof right off the top of the house. And the couple was upstairs in the bed together, and it lifted their bed with them right out of the house and set them in the field. And the wife was just crying hysterically.

And the husband said, Honey, honey, we're safe. We're on the ground, honey. We're safe. We're safe. And she said, I'm not crying because I'm afraid.

I'm crying because I'm happy. This is the first time we've been out of the house together in six months.

So I asked you, have you been out of the house together? You know, coming to church together, really, there's a social aspect to this because you're meeting people, you're doing something together. Or you may be going with them to something that they enjoy. I had a wife tell me the other day, she said, Dr. Shaman, my husband's into this car racing stuff.

And she said, I don't get it. They just go round and round and round and round. She said, but I go with him because I just want to be with him doing something he likes to do. That's it, social intimacy. And then their spiritual intimacy.

They share in their walk with God together. Yesterday I taught the couples how to pray together. Because many couples, married Christian couples, don't pray together if you don't say, don't count, thank you for the food, God. Yeah. And so I just taught them how to pray easy.

Hold hands. Close your eyes. Pray silently. And then say amen out loud. And then they say, Amen.

You come into God together. I'm telling you, it'll revolutionize your. You can't come to God like that and it not begin to affect the way you treat each other. And it's sharing something you read in the scriptures together. Or you read it alone.

And I don't mean you say, honey, I read this this morning and you really need to hear this. I don't mean that. I mean, honey, I read this this morning. And it was so meaningful to me, I just want to share it with you. It's just sharing our walk with God, with each other.

And then also physical intimacy, to be sure. In a healthy family, this is what the marriage will look like. There will be intimacy between the husband and the wife. Third characteristic The parents will teach and train the children. You know, in this passage where it says that the father, it says, fathers don't provoke your children.

I I don't know why he said that. to fathers and not to mothers. Unless we do it more than the mothers do. You know, just kind of push our kids and Frustrate them. But we have this responsibility to teach and train.

And those two must always go together. Teach means use words. Train means use accents. And in our culture people tend to go to one or the other. The people who go to words have the concept.

that your children are intelligent because they're your children. And all you have to do is explain to them what you want them to do. And because they're intelligent, they'll do it. But if they don't do it, those parents say, Now I'm going to explain this to you one more time, honey. And they explain it one more time a little louder.

And then, if they don't do it, they say, Now I'm going to tell you one more time, and they're yelling at the kids, and they verbally abuse their kids. And then there's those over here. They just lean totally to actions. I don't need to tell you why I told you to do it, now do it. And if they don't, they whack them on the bottom.

and before long they're physically abusing their children. No, no. Words and actions must go together when we're raising our children. Yeah. I remember E.

V. Hill. He was a black pastor in the Watts area of Los Angeles. He said, I was 14 years old. I never had a beer, never had any alcohol at all.

But I was out with my buddies and they taught me in the drinking of beer. And then a second beer. and then a third beer. And I got drunk. And I finally made my way home, and I went in my room and threw up on the floor.

and I fell in bed. And my mother came in and smelled it. She knew what had happened. She just closed the door. But the next morning she came in and said, E V, Get out of bed, clean this mess up on the floor.

Get yourself a shower. You and I are going to take a trip. He said, I said, Mama, I don't want to take a trip. She said, E. V, I'm not asking you.

I'm telling you, we're going to take a trip. He said, I got up and cleaned up the mess. It was awful. I had my shower. We walked out the front door and I said, Where are we going, mamma?

She said you'll see. He said, We got on the subway and we drove a long ways. And then we came up on the street and he said, I had no idea where we were. But we were in Skid Row. And my mother every Thursday night had been going down to the rescue mission for years and cooking on Thursday night.

So all the men on the street knew my mother. And they would say to my mother, Mama Hill. What are you doing down here so early in the morning? And my mother would say, This is my son, E. V., he wants to live down here.

So I brought him down here to see what it's like. He said, all day long we walked Skid Row. That night she took me to the rescue mission. I went through the whole deal. He said, Never drank another drop of liquor in my life.

You understand? Words and actions. Words and actions. Well, my son was a teenager. I've been going down to the juvenile detention center once a month.

On a Thursday night. And playing ping pong, and just talking to the guys and letting them share their story. And so I started taking my son down there when he turned 13. and we'd play ping pong and we'd talk to the kids. And then driving home, I'd say, Derek, isn't that sad?

That young man is your age, or he's two years older than you. and he's incarcerated. Because he broke the law, didn't that say it? And I'd clip out articles about somebody killing a teenager while they were driving under the influence, or maybe a teenager that was driving and killed somebody because they were under the influence of alcohol. And I'd say, Derek, you might want to read this, son.

But as you say, And so, what I'm doing is using words and actions, words and actions to teach our children whatever it is we're trying to teach them.

So parents will teach and train the children. I don't know if you mothers have ever had this experience. But you got dinner almost ready. And you go to the and little Johnny's playing next door in the yard with his friend. And you go to the door and say, Johnny.

Dinner And little Johnny just keeps on playing. And you go back in three minutes and repeat: Johnny, dinner. Little John, just keep some player. And you do that a third time. But the fourth time you go, you say, Johnny, get home.

Little Johnny comes home. Why did Johnny come home on number four and not on number one two three? Because he's learned if he doesn't come home. When his mother says, get home. She'll come down there and take him by the hand and lead him home.

And he does not want mother in the neighborhood.

So he comes.

Now it's okay with me if you want to call your child five times for dinner. But if you want them to come home on the first time, All you have to do is take the action that you used to take on number four and move it up to number one. But tell Johnny you're going to change the paradigm. Went to church today, Johnny. Got an idea.

From now on, I'm going to call you one time. And if you don't come home, I'm going to come down and walk you home. You will not walk him home, but one time, I'll guarantee it, and he'll come the first time. It's words and actions that go together. for children, teaching and training our children.

Okay? Now, number four. In a healthy family, husbands will be loving leaders. Don't ever separate those two words. Notice all those words it said about the husband.

He's the head, he's the savior, he's to love and give himself, he's to feed and care for his wife, he's to leave his parents so he has time to do that, he's to lead the children. Ew. But a lot of people through the years have misinterpreted the word The husband is the head of the wife. They try to put in the contemporary words and they say, well, yeah, here's an example. I think what that really means, for example, would be that the husband is the president of the company and she's the vice president.

No And I've had military people say to me, well, I think what that means is he's the general. He tells her what to do. No The Bible tells you the model. He's the head of the wife, like Christ is the head of the church. What did the head of the church do?

He died for the church. Phew. No woman's going to walk away from a man that's willing to die for her. And that's our responsibility. That's our role.

were to take the lead. Let me let me try to make it practical for you. It would mean that the husband Well View his wife as a partner in the relationship. That's the concept God had in the very beginning. He said about Adam, it's not good for this guy to be alone.

I'm going to make him a helper, suitable for him. And he created Eve and instituted marriage. And so the husband will see his wife as an equal partner in the relationship. He wants to have her input on everything and walk together. And then number two.

A husband, a loving husband, will communicate with his wife. One of the most common complaints I hear from wives is, I don't ever know what he's thinking. He just doesn't talk to me. And no, no, no. If he's a loving husband, he's going to share with his wife what he's thinking, some of the things he might be thinking about, and get her input as well.

I've said to men, why do you want to make a decision based on your own intelligence when you have a person made in the image of God? Let's get all the help we can. And let's share. decision making. This is Building Relationships with Dr.

Gary Chapman, author of The New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Find us online at buildingrelationships.us and you'll see our featured resource, Dr. Chapman's book, Five Traits of a Healthy Family, Steps You Can Take to Grow Closer, Communicate Better, and Change the World Together. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. We're taking you to church with Dr.

Gary Chapman today, New Life Community Church, to be exact, in Chicago. Gary spoke there on a Sunday morning in September and he's going through the five traits of a healthy family. Just a quick recap. The first trait is an attitude of service. Number two is intimacy between husband and wife.

Number three is parents teach and train children. And we're just about to wrap up number four, husbands as loving leaders. And Dr. Chapman is encouraging men to examine their priorities. Again, here's Dr.

Gary Chapman. And then a loving husband will put his wife at the top of his priority list.

Now, I've had people say, well, wait a minute, Gary, wait a minute. God should be at the top of our priority list. You're right. But if a husband reports for duty to God, God is going to say, you're married. Your first priority on earth is your wife.

Not your vocation, not your interest in sports. The first important thing is your wife. And then A loving husband will love his wife unconditionally. Because he's to love his wife as Christ loved the church. And the Bible says in Romans chapter 5 and verse 8 that God loved us while we were dirty, rotten sinners and sent Christ to die for us.

And so he's to love his wife even if she's not lovely.

Sometimes wives are not lovely. Let's face it, they're human, just like we are. Yeah, we're to love them whether they're loving us or not. And so, if you, this is where the love language can really help you. You understand her primary love language, and she's being unlovely to you.

You start loving her in the right love language, and her love tank starts to fill up. I'm telling you, love stimulates love. And she's drawn to you because now you're loving her, even though she knows she doesn't deserve it. Powerful. And then a loving husband is committed to discovering and meeting his wife's needs.

I've had men say, Doc, tell me, how do you know what a wife needs? And I've sometimes said, well, you could read this book of mine here.

Well I say or you could just ask her. I'll guarantee you if you ask her, she'll tell you. Honey, what what do you need from me that I'm not giving to you? Yeah, she'll tell ye. He He seeks to meet her needs, just like God meets our needs.

And then a loving husband will seek to model his spiritual and moral values. You know The greater the distance between what a man says he believes. and how he lives. The greater the distance between those two. Will make it very difficult for his wife and children to respect him as a leader.

But the closer those two are together, what he says he believes, his moral and spiritual values, and the way he really lives. makes it easy for them. to believe in him. I had a man say to me the other day, he said, Dr. Salmon, When I was growing up, everybody at the church would have said that my father is a saint.

Because he just greeted people on Sunday morning and he smiled and he was so friendly, and everybody just thought he was great. They had no idea how he treated my mother and how he treated us. You understand? the distance between what he said he believed and how he lived. Made it difficult for this son to even to respect his father.

And guys, let let me just be honest. We're not going to be able to live this kind of life and be this kind of leader without the help of God. That's why he started this whole thing off by saying: don't be drunk with wine, don't be under the influence of wine, but be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. God can give us the power to have the attitude of Christ. and be the same kind of leader that Jesus modeled for us.

And then, number five. The fifth characteristic of a healthy family: children will obey. and honor their parents.

Well, how do we teach children to obey? Obedience is a healthy word. Let me say this first. Obedience is a healthy word. And obedience implies respect for authority.

Children are not supposed to be in control of households. For the most part, parents are older than children. And there's a good chance that with advanced age we have advanced wisdom. I'm amazed. Oh, on Sunday morning?

How long it takes some parents to dress a three-year-old daughter. Honey, let's put your dress on. Time to go to church. The three-year-old says their favorite word: no. Oh, honey, grandmother gave you this dress.

No. Honey, look at the pretty ducky wuckies. No How do you get a dress on a three-year-old? You stuff her in it. There's one hole for the head and two for the arms.

It takes three seconds. I've seen people take ten minutes to do that.

So, children are to obey their parents. You know what I hear public school teachers tell me the most common complaint they have, public school teachers. You see, Dr. Chapman, it takes me half of my time just to get discipline in the room so I can teach. Because the kids are talking to each other, doing this, and doing that, and they don't respect the teacher's leadership.

You see, if they don't respect the authority of the parents, they won't respect the authority of the teacher or anybody else. And that's why they end up doing crazy things. And obedience also builds responsibility into the child's life.

Well, a responsible adult is what we want. And uh and then obedience also uh It builds character into into the child's life.

So How do we teach? Children to have obedience. Let me give you three specific things. Number one, we teach them. by our own model.

That is, we teach them obedience. by obeying the laws that we live under.

So it's at 10 o'clock at night. You've got your 10-year-old son with you. You've just been to an event where he's been involved in some athletic event. You're going home. You stop at the stop sign.

The sign says no left turn. But there's nobody looking and nobody anywhere. What are you gonna do? You turn left. You're teaching them.

If nobody's looking, it's okay to break the law. You go straight? Maybe the 10-year-old's going to say, Daddy, why don't you turn back there? It's a lot closer that way. You say, son, didn't you see the sign?

It said no left turn. But, Dad, there was no cars anywhere.

Son. We obey the law whether or not there's anybody watching. See, they learn by our model. And they also learn by letting them suffer the consequences when they do wrong.

So you have a rule. We don't throw the ball inside the house. We throw the ball outside, but not in the house. If you throw the ball in the House, you're going to lose privileges for two days. We'll have to put the ball in the trunk of the car, and you won't get to play with it for two days.

You understand? Yeah. If you're going to make a law, a rule, tell them what the consequences are. And then when they throw the ball in the house, you don't have to yell at them. I told you not to do that.

Now you know better than No. They know the rule, they know the consequences. All you have to do is to say, Johnny. I'm so proud of you. Because you almost always keep the rules.

But you know this time you broke the rule. You threw the ball in the house.

So you know what we're going to have to do, right? And he knows you see it. Yeah, he knows.

So I'm going to walk with you. Let's go out to the trunk of the car. And you can put it in the car. and he made me crying by nay. But then you say, Johnny.

I just want you to know. I'm so proud of you. Because most of the time you obey the rules. And two days from now you can play with the ball again. You see, let them suffer the consequence.

I had a man call me one night on Saturday night late. He said, Dr. Chaman, my teenage son has been picked up for driving under the influence, and he's down at the jailhouse. And he said, Would you go with me down there and let's see if we can get him out? And I said, Well, I can go with you.

I said, But if you want my advice, I'd say, let's just let him stay in jail tonight. And then tomorrow we go down and talk about what what the consequences are. You understand what I'm saying, folks? Let them suffer the consequences when they make a poor decision. That's the way we learn how to obey.

And then We also teach it by rewarding obedience.

Now I've had people say, well, I don't think you ought to reward a child for doing right.

Well, God does. Listen to this. This is Psalm 19, verse 11. David is talking about God's law. And here's what he says: By them, that is, by your laws, is your servant warned, and in keeping them, there's great reward.

If you want the best possible life on earth, if God said don't do it, don't do it. If God said do it, do it. Every command of God flows out of His love for us. Just like as parents, the rules we make should be flowing out of our love for our children. And so God rewards us when we do what is right.

We have the best possible life.

So Honor, he says we're the children to honor mom and dad. I want to suggest that honor is caught. more than talked. That is, they're likely to honor us. By the way, they see us honoring our parents.

My mother lived to be 99, but she had dementia for the last eight years of her life. And The last seven years or so I had sitters with her around the clock twenty four hours a day. And I'd go down and see her every week. And uh and and you know, she al she always Recognized me, but toward the end, she never said my name. She would j I'd walk in, she'd say, My son.

But I made sure that my two adult children knew what I was doing for my mother. Because I'm thinking some day I might be there. They likely to honor me by the way I honored my mother. Are you with me? Dr.

Gary Chapman speaking at New Life Community Church in Chicago on the five traits of a healthy family. That's the title of our featured resource today. If you go to buildingrelationships.us, it's subtitled Steps You Can Take to Grow Closer, Communicate Better, and Change the World Together. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. We are right at the end of Gary's message that he gave in September to the congregation of New Life Community Church in Chicago, and he has one final suggestion for the families gathered there.

And maybe you can do the same thing today as you listen. Here again is Dr. Gary Chapman. All right, now here's your assignment. If you didn't write these down, I'm going to ask you to write them down now.

Mm-hmm. Because I want you to take these home, and whoever's still living in your house, I know we've got all kinds of families here. I want you to Write these on a sheet of paper and give each person living in your house right now. A copy. of these five things.

If it's just the husband and wife still there, all the kids are gone, okay, just each of you have a copy. They don't want you to get in separate areas. And everybody gets to grade the family on how we're doing on a scale of 0 to 10. Put a number beside each one of these. Ten means we're doing wonderful.

Two means we're not doing real well. You just put a number, everybody. Little children, big children. As long as they're old enough to read, little children, big children. Everybody gets to do it.

Then we come back together. And we take them one at a time, and everybody gets to tell the number that they gave and why they gave that number.

So you might have a teenager. That when you get to intimacy between the husband and wife, They gave you a two. And you say, okay, why did you do that? And they say, well, All I ever hear is y'all yelling at each other. That doesn't seem like intimacy to me.

You might get some good input as to where other people, how the rest of the family is perceiving where you are. And then you'll know the ones you really need to be working on, okay?

So I want to challenge you to do that. And then, if you really want to dig into it, if you really want to make this life-changing. The book on this topic, they've got them out there this morning. It's called Five Traits of a Healthy Family. And you don't have to read it straight through.

You can go right to the one where you feel like you're the weakest, and you can begin to work on that. A lot of ideas in there to help you do that, okay? But I want to admit, I want to say this. I don't think you'll ever have a healthy family without the help of God. We are not by nature.

Loving people. We are all self-centered. And that can lead us to be selfish. We want our way. And that's why the whole passage I read to you starts out with saying, Don't be drunk with wine, but be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Don't be under the influence of wine, but be under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

So our relationship with God. is gonna Determine largely whether we have healthy families or have growing families in that direction or whether we don't.

So I want to challenge you wherever you are in the journey. And then the other book, there's many books out there, but the other one I want to really, really emphasize: if you have a teenage son. It's called Choose Greatness. Eleven wise decisions that brave young men make. Folks, we're losing far too many young men before they get to be 18.

because they make poor decisions. And if there's a father in the home, I suggest the father read it with the son. He reads it, you read it, and then discuss it. And you can talk with him about whether you did that growing up when you were his age. It can be a wonderful discussion.

If there's no father in the home, let the teenage son read it by himself. Or if you've got an other, somebody else in the family, an older adult male that you trust, they can just work use it with him, okay? But I want to encourage you. To at least, and there's a lot of other books out there if you're interested in those, but especially those two. And so, I hope that you'll be different because you came to church today.

That's my hope, okay? Gary, that assignment that you gave at the church, that is something our listeners could do here today, right? Absolutely. If they listened carefully and noted those five traits of a healthy family, I would encourage them to do that assignment and put the numbers there and let everybody in the family tell you why they gave that number. It's a good way of getting your finger on areas where you probably need some growth.

Yes. And everybody's different. Every family is different. As you looked out at the faces of people that day or any other time you've given this message, are there times when you see them the light going on, them connecting with it? Yes, and there have been times also that I've seen wives kind of give an elbow to their husbands as if to say, I hope you're hearing this.

Yes. Well, you know what? I felt that way right before the midpoint break on the program today. Because there's an awful lot of hope in here. But you talking about the husband expressing what's going on in his heart, revealing what's going on.

I can't tell you how many times the wife of my youth, I have done that, you know, and I've just shared something off the cuff and it's like she responds, she's like, I didn't know you were thinking that. I had no idea.

So that can really turn the light on for your spouse, right? Absolutely, because we are not mind readers. We do not know what's going on in the mind of our wife or the mind of our husband. And that's why we need to make it easy for them to share. And if they do share something that's painful, then we need to be listeners and hear what they have to say.

Okay, so you didn't know they were feeling whatever it was. But tell me about it, honey. I'd like to hear more about that. Explain that to me. And I think revealing and then listening, the other one listening, I mean, that's a real essential in having a growing relationship.

Yes. The other thing that I picked up all through that message was, you are not saying you have to do everything right in order to have a healthy family. If you make a mistake here, it's all over. In fact, in some ways, as you were talking, it's almost with the mistakes that we make and that we're going to make, it's how you respond when you do something wrong that makes the difference. Talk about that.

Yeah, uh that that's so true, Chris. None of us are perfect. I I don't even talk about perfect families. There is no perfect family. They're either growing families and there are families that are drifting apart.

And what I'm trying to say is, let's have a growing marriage relationship and a growing family relationship. And if we realize that we have failed at some point, then let's apologize. You know, apologies restore the relationship. Because we apologize, they choose to forgive us, which means they're not going to demand justice. You know, they're going to show mercy.

And it also means they're going to take away the barrier, the emotional barrier that was created by what we said or did or failed to say or do. And so in a healthy family, there will be apologies made from time to time because none of us are perfect. But we deal with our failures. And when we do, then the relationship continues to grow. I heard a response in there from parents.

When you started talking about that book that you wrote with Clarence Schuler, Chu's Greatness, that we're losing too many of our young men, that touched a nerve in a lot of parents, I think.

Well, I'm sure, Chris, because it's so unfortunate that there are many young men in those teenage years, you know, between 12 and 19, in which they end up making poor decisions because they have not felt loved at home and they haven't had the guidance they needed at home. And they're just trying to make it in a world that's confusing. And then they often are pulled into doing things that are detrimental to the rest of their lives. Yeah. The other place where they really responded there at the end was when you said, I don't think you have a healthy family unless you have the help of God.

Talk about that here as we conclude the program today. What part do you think the Almighty plays in his love and grace and mercy? How does that play into a healthy family?

Well, you know, first of all, God is the model because he loved us when we were unlovely.

So we need to love our children and love our spouse when they're unlovely. But I think by nature, we are not lovers. I think I said that in the sermon. We are by nature self-centered. And often that leads us to be selfish, which means in a marriage, I'm in this relationship for you to make me happy.

And if you're not making me happy, I'm out of here. You know, that's a common thing that happens in relationships. But if you have a relationship with God and you know that God ordained marriage, and you know that God can give you the ability. To be a loving person and to have a heart of service, because the scriptures say we're to have the same attitude Christ had, and his attitude was one of service. Just look at his life.

I mean, his whole lifestyle was serving other people. And then, The biggest service he ever did was dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins so that we could be forgiven because he paid our penalty.

So, you know, the relationship with God has a tremendous impact upon the nature of our marriages and families. Mm-hmm. You know what I'd love to do? I'd love for you to call our phone number, a listener line, Gary's listener line, and respond to what you've heard today. If there's something that has surfaced some point that really touched your heart, touched a nerve there, and you say, I need to work on this, let Gary know about it.

We'd love to hear from you or maybe have a question about your relationships. 1-866-424-Gary is the number you can call. 866-424-Gary, and you might hear a response on a future broadcast here on Building Relationships. Gary, thanks for sharing your message with us today. And if you go to buildingrelationships.us, you'll see that book.

We've talked about Five Traits of a Healthy Family: Steps You Can Take to Grow Closer, Communicate Better, and Change the World Together. Just go to buildingrelationships.us. And next week, I want to hear your questions and comments about your relationships. Again, call our listener line at 1-866-424-GARY. Leave your question or comment for Dr.

Chapman, and you might hear a response on a future Dear Gary broadcast. 1-866-424-GARY. Our thanks to our production team, Steve Wick, Janice Backing, and special thanks to Daniel Sanchez at New Life Community Church. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.