John Dixon in his book, Humilitas, talks about an acquaintance of his in Australia that owned a boutique jewelry store and they had a big convention near his store and while he was there, his wife was actually operating the store that day, operating the cash register. Some American businessmen came in and one of the guys bought an Argyle diamond, like the most expensive thing they had in the shop.
He bought it. So she's so excited about making this sale and she's trying to ring him up and all of a sudden the computer just froze. And she says, I get so frustrated with Microsoft.
I don't know how to do this thing. And the businessman said, Well, have you tried these keystrokes? And she tried the keystrokes and the computer fired back up. And she said, Oh, you know a little about computers, don't you? He said, Yeah.
He quietly left the shop. That evening, she told her husband about the diamond that they had sold. The businessman that helped her get the computer unfrozen. And he said, Well, let's look at the receipts and see who that was.
And they go back through the receipts and the receipt for that diamond said, Bill Gates. Bill Gates knew how to fix Microsoft because he invented Microsoft. Our families in America are in a mess today. God knows how to fix our families because he created families.
He invented families. We don't get to redefine and reinvent. You do understand that you can call gay marriage all you want. It's not gay marriage. It's gay mirage.
It's a mirage. It doesn't make any sense in the mind of God, because God says, I know how I designed families. And when your family is broken, I know how to fix your family. Get around. Ask for the I like this, the old godly way. One version says, ask for the ancient paths and walk in it.
Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, No, that's not the road we want. You see what God's saying? God said, you can keep doing it your way. You keep doing marriage, your way. You can do family, your way. But I'm telling you, if you'll stop and come to me and ask for the old ways of doing it, you're going to find rest for your souls. And so just for a few moments today, again, as we're kind of springboarding into our next study here in a couple weeks, I just want to go through some very basic old paths, some old ways that God says, if you and your family will do this, you're going to find rest and peace for your marriage and your family.
Now, let me say this. This is not a guarantee. Hey, you do these five things, and your kids are always going to turn out great. I've seen families do what I'm about to tell you to do, and their kids went off the rails.
I've seen families ignore this, and the kids turned out great. And so I've just come to the realization that kids make their own minds up. They make their own decisions. You do the best you can, and you do God's way in the end.
They kind of make their own decisions. But if you'll do this, I guarantee you, it will help you exponentially increase your chances of having a solid, happy, healthy family. Would you like to hear what God has to say about these old ways? Well, God says, number one, let me give you a couple things here.
Number one, why don't you start with this one? Tithe your income. Look, you need to say to your kids, in this family, 10% of everything that comes in, we automatically give it right back to God. You need to teach your kids.
Do people still do allowances or is that passe? If you do allowances, you need to say, I'm giving you this, but 10% automatically goes to God. And when they ask why, you got to take them back to Malachi chapter three, verse 10, bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there'll be enough food in my temple. If you do, says the Lord of heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great, you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it, God says. Put me to the test. Now, look, why start with the tithing thing?
Here's why. Y'all remember Larry Burkett, the Christian finance guru? He did a study, he said, the number one cause of divorce among young families today is money problems. In fact, a Gallup poll was taken fairly recently and this question was asked, what is the biggest problem you face as a family? 56% of families responded, money is the biggest problem we face as a family.
Here's what I found. Tithing begins to bring God's order to your family finances. That's why Randy Alcorn, who did a survey of families, who said that they had had major spiritual breakthroughs, when asked when do those breakthroughs occur, seven out of 10 said when we started tithing as a family.
So if money issues are the biggest challenges with families today, the number one cause of divorce among young couples, then we need to bring God's wisdom to our finances and the number one cause of divorce among young couples. The number one way to do that is through tithing, 10% of our income going to God. And I've been doing a lot of study on, I don't know why, cause I tithe, I've always tithed.
But I've gotten into just studying this lately. And I found out that early church fathers like Irenaeus and Jerome and Augustine, you know they all taught tithing, it's kind of interesting. All right, so number one, tithe your income. Here's a second, God says, hey, stop doing the modern parenting, the modern family. God says, go back to the old way. The old ways. What's the second one of those old ways?
Jot this down. One of the old ways is to set aside Sunday. You set aside Sunday. Deuteronomy 5, 12.
Here's what God says. Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy as the Lord your God has commanded you. You have six days each week for your ordinary work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest dedicated to the Lord your God.
On that day, no one in your household may do any work. Have you noticed this? Our society is running you ragged. They're dragging you along. They're wearing you out morning to evening. They've taken up six days of your week wearing you out. You know what society now is doing? They're taking your seventh day as well.
The most difficult things you as a family are going to do, and it's probably going to be the best thing you and your family can do, is say we're getting off the hamster wheel. We ain't doing this stuff. I ain't going to be sick like the rest of them. Why are you all looking at society and trying to be like them? I want to be as sick as they are and as messed up as they are.
No, no. You ought to be counterculture. You say family, what we're going to do is say Sunday is the day that belongs to the Lord. We do two things on Sunday. We worship and we rest. That's what we do on Sunday.
We worship and we rest. Incidentally, for those of you who volunteer on Sunday, man, when I was leaving last week, we had to leave early to get to the airport. Man, that parking team was incredible. They were like robots.
They're absolutely amazing. Do you know what Jesus says in Matthew 12 that the priests, I think it's Matthew 12, somewhere in Matthew, the priests serve on the Sabbath and they don't violate the law of God. Here's what Jesus is saying is serving in worship on that Sabbath day is considered an act of worship because you're not violating. We need you. Traffic people and whatever, don't quit and say I'm not going to do anything on Sunday.
We need you. In this family, we do two things. We worship on Sunday and we rest on Sunday. When you're leaving the neighborhood Sunday morning driving, your kids are fussing. Why do I have to get up early on Sunday? Why can't we sleep in?
I don't want to hear that guy slobber and yell at everybody. Why do we have to go to church? All the other cars are there.
They're not getting up. We worship on Sunday. That's what we do.
We're doing it the old way. We're setting aside Sunday for worship and rest. You worship and you rest. Don't redefine rest. People say this, mowing the grass is restful for me and that's why I do it on Sunday.
You can't do that. Cleaning the house, I just find it relaxing. No, no, no. You worship and you rest. That's what you do on Sunday.
This is hugely counter-cultural. You families start doing this. It's going to take you a while to get into it, but you start doing this, you're going to reap major benefits. Can I get in your business for just a second?
One of the biggest hindrances to this thing is going to be sports. That's restful for us. It's restful for us to get up at 8 o'clock in the morning and go stand out in 90 degree weather until 8 o'clock at night doing sports. I have families tell me this. If this is you, please don't come up and tell me this. You're probably not going to see us for the next couple of months, pastor. Why? Because it's soccer season and we do soccer on Sunday. Let me lead my family the way I want to lead it. You don't get in my business, not getting in your business, but I'm preaching. I'm just telling you right now, if you get to the point where you say to your kids, Sunday is optional, worship is optional. They're going to grow up to think worship is optional. We shut down the churches during COVID and told everybody Sunday was optional. Now we have a society of Christians who think Sunday is optional.
The old way of doing it says Sunday is for two things, I rest and I worship. In fact, y'all know who Ben Shapiro is, the social commentator. Ben Shapiro says this. Somebody asked him, when are you the most happy, Ben? He wrote every week.
He's a Jew. He says, every week I drop everything for 25 hours. As an orthodox Jew, I celebrate the Sabbath, which means that my phone and television are off limits, no work, no computer, no news, no politics, a full day plus an hour to spend with my wife and children and parents and my community.
The outside world disappears. It's a high point of my life. On a personal level, I feel the most social connection on the Sabbath. I go to synagogue and I hang out with my friends and my family. I spend literally the entire day being part of my community on the Sabbath.
I shut everything else out. Christians, we can learn from that Jew right there. He knows how to do it right. And so you want to do it the old ways, tidy income. It's very simple. Sunday belongs to God. We worship and we rest. Here's a third one of the old ways.
Jot this down. Follow biblical family roles. Do it the old way. Follow biblical family roles, traditional roles. We are seeing the disintegration of traditional family roles. We're watching that fall apart before our very eyes and it ain't working. My problem's not with the outside world.
Let them do all the social re-engineering they want to do. My problem's in the body of Christ. We had one of our missionaries.
Dora stopped showing me stuff on Facebook. She says, I know you get so mad you're going to bring it out in the pulpit and I don't want it. But unfortunately, she showed me this. One of our missionaries, single missionary, she said, husband's not the head of the family. That's not biblical. That's a misinterpretation of scripture.
No, it's not. But see, even in the body of Christ, we can't get this thing right. And this disintegration of the traditional marriage and the way we raise our kids ain't working.
And even secular society now is recognizing it's not working. People like Bill Maher, do you know who he is? He is not a Christian. He's the farthest thing from a Christian. But even he recently said, I'm watching the traditional family disintegrate and I'm seeing everything else is falling apart. Isn't that interesting that a lost person saw that?
He said, something's wrong. We had helicopter parenting for a while. Did you hear about that? We had helicopter parenting. Then it went to child-centered parenting. Now we have, have you ever heard of this term? Gentle parenting. We used to call it negotiating with a terrorist. Now we call it gentle parenting.
And it's not working. Y'all have heard my stat, I've said this before, that the average high school student today has the same level of anxiety as a psychiatric patient in the 1950s. The average high school student today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s. A recent study, this is going to blow your mind, a recent study of employers, 20% of employers said a recent college graduate had brought his or her parent to the job interview. Our kids are crippled with anxiety because they have not been properly prepared for a world that doesn't revolve around them. The National Institutes of Health now say half of all adolescents will have some type of mental disorder sometime in their lives.
Now watch this. Study after study, I know what the Bible says, study after secular study says that traditional parenting, traditional families, traditional marriages fare much better than this social re-engineering we've been doing. Let me give you some examples. There's a 2012 study published in the American Sociological Review that showed that those in traditional marriages where the husband leads and the wife follows his leadership, this 2012 secular study said those kind of marriages are much happier than egalitarian marriages. Another study from 2012 out of New Zealand found that both men and women reported higher marriage satisfaction when they operated within a traditional family structure.
Interesting. Society says you do it God's way, you're going to be miserable ladies. This study out of New Zealand says no, men and women both say we're happier when we do it the traditional way.
What's the traditional way that you keep talking about here? We find that traditional way in Ephesians 5 and 6. Verse 22, for wives this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church.
He is the savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands this means loving your wives just as Christ loved the church. Chapter 6 verse 1, children you obey your parents because you belong to the Lord.
This is the right thing to do. Honor your father and your mother. This is the first commandment of the promise. If you honor your father and mother things will go well for you and you will have a long life on the earth.
The Bible is clear. Husbands you lovingly lead the family. Wives you support his leadership and then kids you obey your parents. You submit to your parents.
Abigail Shrier, she's a brilliant sociologist. She's done a study on this thing of gentle parenting where the kids get to make the calls and you just do what your kids tell you to do. She says that is causing an incredible level of angst and anger. Kids, listen to me, kids need to know somebody's in charge. It's very disconcerting for kids to be thrown out there on their own and you're in charge. You get to make the decisions. There's something biological in kids they need to know somebody's in charge that gives them a lot of confidence and assurity.
Then Abigail Shrier says this, when parents don't provide that the kids will start to lash out. That's their way of saying I need to know that somebody's in charge here. Daddy, it's your job to answer that question. Somebody is in charge.
Let me show you how in charge I am. At some point, parents, we're going to have to understand God knows better than we do how to raise our families. Let's return to the old ways, the old roles where the husband leads, the wife supports his leadership and the kids submit to their parents. Parents, it's okay to do it the old way. It's okay to say, I'm about to use some profanity right here. You ready, kids?
You all ready for the pastor to use some profanity? Okay. It's okay to say, because I said so. I know you can't say that in our society.
Oops, he said it. It's okay to say I said so. Parents, it's okay to say, be quiet.
The adults are talking. It's okay to say, put down the iPhone. It's okay to say, don't make me come back there.
It's okay to say that. So 1950s, you know the 1950s that had a 5% divorce rate, a very low teen pregnancy rate, and when society was a lot more stable. Yes, that 1950s.
While I'm on it, you got a few minutes. While I'm on it, in this crazy society where we're starting to blend gender roles, I might be wise, mothers teach your daughters how to be women and fathers teach your sons how to be men. You know, maybe 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you can kind of play around with that. You can't play around with gender roles now. I actually heard a father that said, you know, I'm trying to not superimpose gender roles on my son. I want him to think outside of traditional gender roles and so I let him wear pink and I let him play with Barbies.
Okay, just tell your son how much you love her. But I think we just probably need to go back to the old ways of doing things. Where men were men and women were women.
Were those perfect days? No. Again, Bill Maher said we don't want to return to the 1950s where fathers were psychopaths who never told their kids they loved them.
They beat them with a belt. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is, maybe God has some wisdom. Maybe there's a reason that there's a divine structure to the family relationship. And so the old ways say, number one, tie the income to the Lord. Number two is just very basic. Sundays belong to God.
It's for rest and it's for worship. Number three, we go back to the biblical gender roles. And then number four, here's a good one.
Look, I will give you a fourth one. Unfortunately, I don't have a Bible verse for this, but I'm going to give it to you in a way. Eat supper together. A study out of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. They studied kids and families and these families that were successful. The kids graduated, they didn't get strung out on drugs, they didn't have all the meth. They said, what were the successful families doing that the unsuccessful families were not doing? One of the biggest factors in successfully raising kids was eating supper together. Adolescents whose parents ate dinner with them five times a week or more were the least likely to be on drugs, to be depressed, or to be in trouble with the law. Another study out of Harvard followed 65 families over an eight-year period. Eating dinner together was one of the most important things they found a family can do.
As unspiritual as that sounds, there's something powerful about that. And only one-third of U.S. families eat dinner together most nights. This is what I just told you. Society is running you all ragged. We don't have time to eat together as a family.
Yes, you do. If you'll say no to some things, you do have time to eat together as a family. And that's one of the most important things you can do to keep that family together. And then let me give you a fifth one here. And a fifth thing, just a very basic, and I could give you a lot, I could talk about prayer together, reading the Bible together, I can give you all that stuff.
I just had a short amount of time today. So let me give you this fifth one. As a family, start speaking life and blessings over each other.
Proverbs 18, 21 says, death and life are in the power of the tongue, the words you speak. I love y'all, but some of your homes are war zones. Mama's criticizing daddy, daddy's criticizing mama. Kids are fighting with each other all the time. I know all kids fight. Our kids fought when they were young.
It happens. But is the overall environment in your house an environment where you're speaking blessing and life or death and curses? Again, it's as very simple as, no, no, we don't talk to each other like that in this family. We build each other up.
Look, we don't have a perfect marriage, but we affirm mom and we affirm dad in front of the kids because we believe there's power in the words we speak. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. The first thing that happens when you go to the doctor, he says, stick out your tongue because he can tell a lot about somebody by looking at the tongue. If it's coated, kind of greenish, you probably have a fever. If it's yellowish, you probably have poor digestion.
If it's bright red, you've probably been drinking too much cherry Kool-Aid. I can tell how healthy your family is by looking at their tongue, by looking at the words they speak to each other. One of the quickest ways, you say, I want change almost overnight in my family. Can I tell you probably the quickest way to bring a change in your family is by changing the words you speak to each other?
The effects are almost immediate. We've got kids today and I don't want to prolong this thing. Having shared all this with you, again, I'm going to tell you, I've seen parents do it right. Kids went off the rails because God has no grandchildren. Each person is going to make a personal decision to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're a parent and you have failed in this area, or you've not done these things and things didn't turn out right, or you're a grandparent and you're seeing a next generation of grandkids coming along and their parents are ignoring this stuff, I'm going to say this, grandparents, you can step in and be a spiritual influence. The longer I live, the more I'm seeing the power, we've seen it in this church, of godly grandparents who step in when parents aren't doing what God's called them to do.
Here's my point. Challenging times are going to come. If your family is strong and solid, when, not if, those times come, you're going to be in a lot better position than families who have not done it God's way and they have no foundation.
Y'all remember the story Jesus told in Matthew 7 of one house that was built on the rock, Jesus said, incidentally, that rock represents my teachings, doing it my way, and the other house was not built on the rock? It wasn't that a storm came to this one, but it didn't come to that one. Storm came to both of them. I don't know how good and godly your family is.
There's going to be a storm. The question is, are you built on the rock of Jesus Christ? Are you doing it God's way, or are you going to a bunch of society people who have no idea what they're doing with PhDs and dissertations in theory talking about here's how you should do your family? Are you going to them for advice, or are you going to Jesus for advice?
I'm just telling you, you do it God's way, there's going to be some stability in your life, but the tough times, tough times are going to come. Reminds me of a story one time of a man named Elmer. Elmer's dying, and his wife of 60 years is right there beside him. Her name is Ethel. Elmer said, Ethel, you there?
She understands this is the end. She said, yes honey, I'm here. He said, Ethel, remember I was in that car accident years ago? Ethel, you were there. She said, yes honey, I was there.
He said, remember back in 1964 when our house burned down to the ground and we lost everything? But Ethel, you were there. She said, yes honey, I was there. He said, Ethel, remember when I lost my job at the factory, I went bankrupt, we lost everything? Ethel, you were there.
She said, yes, I was there. Elmer said, Ethel, I'm starting to think you're bad luck. Tough times are going to come, challenges are going to come. But you do it God's way, you handle your money God's way, you honor the Sabbath as a family, you observe biblical gender roles, you eat supper together, you speak blessings over each other. You do it the old way, you travel its path, there's going to be some stability. I'm just telling you, I've seen families in this church do it both ways. The old ways that I've just shared with you or the new ways, I'm just telling you, anecdotally, my experience this way, it doesn't compare, it's so much better. Let me close with this.
It's a very challenging time to try to raise a family. Again, people are relying on the experts. Here's what I'm about relying on the experts. The experts change.
Have you noticed this? I got into this thing called intermittent fasting because the experts are saying it is great, you've got to do intermittent fasting, it is so healthy. And then they had a study that just came out last week, intermittent fasting is horrible. Experts said one thing a couple of years ago, now the experts are saying something different. Experts said one time, butter is horrible for you, you've got to eat margarine. Now the experts are saying, margarine is horrible for you, you've got to eat butter. They said, eggs will kill you, don't eat eggs.
Now the experts are saying, no, eat eggs, they're good for you. They can get their act together. In a book by Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner, they talk about how experts even differ on raising kids and doing your family. One expert says, you must train a baby to sleep alone at night. Let them cry themselves asleep, you can't mess with the baby. Let them sleep alone at night.
Another expert comes along and says, no, that's harmful. You've got to bring the baby into the family bed. Don't let them just cry there.
Listen to it. This expert says, let them cry. This expert says, no, bring them into bed. One expert emphasizes the fact that you need to constantly interact with the child.
It's good for its brain, it's good for its development. Did you know 100 years ago, another expert says, children should not have that kind of interaction, it's bad for them. One expert said this, one expert says that. One expert says, only breastfeeding, no bottle feeding.
You don't want to kill them. Then another expert comes along and says, no, bottle feeding is not that bad. Who do I listen to, this expert or that expert? One expert says, only let a baby sleep on its back.
Another expert says, no, only let a baby sleep on its stomach. I'm not saying ignore these questions. They're important questions to ask. Here's my point. My point is we live in a world that speaks authoritatively but doesn't really know what they're doing. When it comes to raising your family, why don't you rely on something that has about a 4,000 year track record and that's the word of God?
Why don't you just do it God's way? Listen, families, it's challenging. This has never been, I've never seen a more challenging time to raise kids than right now.
I've never seen a more challenging time to try to have a marriage that works than right now. Some of you all are like, I don't know what to do. I'm kind of wandering around trying to get somebody to help. You've got somebody to help. His name is Lord Jesus Christ.
If you ask him, he'll come in and help. In fact, that verse, I love that verse. Again, go back to Jeremiah 6, 16. Ask for the old godly ways, walk in it, travel its path, you'll find rest for your souls. Here's what God says, but you said, no, that's not the road we want.
That's what he says in verse 16, Jeremiah 6, 16. No, thank you. I'll do it my way. God's like, oh, I'm right here. I'm ready to step into your family, step into your situation, step into your marriage.
I'm ready if you just ask me. I had my mom's father, my grandpa, tough guy. He's a short, skinny little guy and he's a tough fighter. He's kind of a man's man. He loved, I'm going to call it wrestling, he called it wrasslin'. If you want to get him mad, you tell him, this wrasslin' you're watching on TV, it's fake. Some of it might be fake, but it ain't all fake. He'd just get so mad if you said wrasslin' fake. He'd watch this thing. One of the things he liked would be tag team wrasslin'. You know what I mean by that? You got a partner beside the ring and you're getting beat up and you're getting pummeled and you're getting choked out and you're there and you're tired and you can't fight anymore.
You know what you did? You'd tag your partner and he'd jump in and he'd beat up the bad guy for you. He's just there putting out his hand like that. All you had to do is tag and he'd jump in.
I thought about that this week. Some of your family's getting beat up, torn up. It's a mess.
It ain't working. And according to verse 16, God says, I'm right there ready to tag in. If you'll just reach out and touch my hand, I'll step into your family's situation and I'll do what the experts can't do. I'll help this family's situation. So I want you to stand with me right now. Can we do this? I'm going to ask you if you are, if you're a husband or wife, a father or mother, and your family is going through maybe a challenging time right now. Can you bow your head?
Maybe lift up your hand. Tag God in right now. So Father, I give you my family. I need your help right now. I've tried doing this marriage my way. It ain't working.
I've tried to do it the experts' way. It's not God. I need you right now. And God will not stand there with his arms crossed. When you got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out of it. That's not how God works. God says, stand in the way and ask for the old paths. You'll find rest for your souls. He said, what frustrates me is you say I don't want it. That's what God says in that verse.
That's what bothers me is I'm offering you my help, but you don't want it. So Father, as we lift our hands and lift our families, we say we just trust in you, God. We reach out and we touch you and we say, Father, step into this situation. Father, step into this challenge. Send your Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, and give our family wisdom.
Give us direction. Show us, Father, what we're supposed to do. We trust in you, God. We've trusted in our wisdom. We've trusted in experts.
We've trusted in the latest article we read, and it's not working. So God, we just now trust in you. God, we give you our family situation. We give you our marriage situation. We give you our kids right now. Father, rise up, step in, and do what we cannot do.
Man, that's an outward sign of that inward commitment that you have just to tag in God and let him come into this situation. Let's raise our hands and raise our voices. Let's sing this to him. And I trust in God my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail. And I trust in God my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail. And I trust in God my Savior, the one who will never fail. And I trust in God my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail. And I trust in God my Savior, the one who will never fail.
He will never fail. Man, I love this old Christian word we throw around, and we don't even know what it means. The word is grace.
Here's what it means. Some of the mess you're dealing with, with your family, your kids, your spouse, you got yourself into this. Grace is God's saying to you, yeah, you messed up. But I'm still God, and I still love you.
Let me step in here and see what I can do to fix this. That's God. He doesn't twist the knife. He doesn't call you names. You reach out and you tag him. God says, let me step in.
Let me see what I can do with this. That's the kind of God we serve. Somebody needs to hear this today who's living with guilt and a sense of condemnation. If you're in Jesus Christ, you're born again, God's for you.
And if God is for you, who can be against you, church? Raise your hands and receive this blessing from God right now. God says to you, The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his countenance to you and give you shalom, peace, wholeness, mind, body, soul, and spirit. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen and Amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ. God bless you.
