Over the past few weeks, we have been looking together at ways that we can be better stewards of our time here on earth. We’ve talked about how some people work hard at setting New Year’s Resolutions…BUT, only about 12% of those who actually set these resolutions actually complete them.
So, we’ve talked some about being more purposeful and setting goals that are manageable and we’ve talked about bringing others along on the journey with us as we try to make a difference in what December 2011 looks like as compared to December 2010.
I’ve heard from several people that you’re in that process of working on changing some things in your life…just like I am. That’s encouraging to me! I pray that together, we’ll see God do some amazing things in each of our lives as we seek to follow after the Lord more closely and as we interact more with others around us.
As I have been working on these messages in January, I keep being drawn back to the final message from our Advent Conspiracy series on Loving All. In looking at these ideas about setting goals for ourselves…and by extension to Goodfield Baptist Church, I think that Love could be the unifying glue that ties our desires for change together.
Think about it… excellence in Loving the Lord and others as we improve the…
Spiritual
Financial
Mental
Physical
Familial and
Emotional…
Aspects of our lives.
Today, I want us to look at these two additional aspects of our lives as we think about setting goals for the coming year: goals for our interaction with our families and the regulation of our emotions.
All of us have families! Some of them look like the traditional families of American entertainment or maybe it’s of American urban legend. You know the kind: A mother and father who met in high school or college, had a perfect dating relationship, got married, a few years later had a little baby boy, and then a couple years later completed that “perfect” family with a little baby girl, and everything went perfect…nobody ever argued, nobody yelled at anybody else, nobody got mad and ran away, nobody committed a major sin, nobody died early, nobody got divorced, nobody lost their job, and on and on…everything was perfect, and they lived happily ever after.
OK…do you have that picture in your mind? How many of you grew up in that kind of family? Mom and Dad, 1 boy, 1 girl, and everything was perfect? As adults, how many of you have provided that perfect environment for your kids?
You know they say that one of the most important issues to address when you have a problem is to admit that you do have a problem! So, now that most of us have admitted that maybe life wasn’t and isn’t perfect in our lives, we can move forward with how we can do what we can with where we’re at.
The Scriptures are full of admonitions about how families are supposed to interact. And, in fact, the Scriptures are pretty honest about how families actually function.
Think about some of the families in the book of Genesis:
What did Adam and Eve’s precious boys Cain and Abel do?
What did Isaac and Rebekah’s precious son Jacob do to Esau?
What happened to Jacob & Rachel’s precious son Joseph at the hands of his brothers?
That’s just a small sampling out of the book of Genesis. In other parts of the Word, there are stories of brothers killing brothers, children kicking their father out of being king, brothers with such a temper that they had the nickname “Sons of Thunder”, and on and on.
So, God is very well aware of the kinds of issues that can come up in families. And maybe, some of your families resemble some of the messed up or as we call them today, dysfunctional families, that are recorded for us in the Bible. Hopefully, some of your families have more positive aspects to them as well.
Against the backdrop of these realistic families portrayed in His Word, the Holy Spirit gives some directions in the New Testament for ways that we should relate to one another in family situations. One of the well-known passages about families is located in Ephesians 6.
Eph. 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
It seems that many parents and many Bible memory systems do a great job of helping kids memorize verses one and two about the need of kids to obey & honor their parents; however, verse four is not recited nearly as much as it relates to the job of parents to not “poke” or to agitate their children to the point that they are provoked into an angry response.
The second part of that verse is more positive as it does give clear instructions about the need of parents to raise kids to love and follow the Lord.
Over in 1 Timothy, Paul gives his “son in the faith” some tips for working with people in the churches.
1Tim. 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
The implication here is that inside families, younger members are to treat the older members with respect and that peers in a family are to treat each other well.
What are some ways that we can avoid the struggles that we see in many families…both inside the Bible and inside our neighborhoods or places of work? How do we set goals for 2011 to improve or to at least build on the relationships that we have in our families?
Let’s look at various potential relationships within families. I realize that not everyone fits into all of these categories, but each of us will fit into at least one of them!
Parents:
The verse we looked at is clear that one of our primary jobs as parents is to raise our kids to love the Lord.
Some of the ways those of us who have kids at home might work on this include:
· Spending time praying together at home
· Spending time doing some kind of family devotion time
· Talk about spiritual matters with them
· Do a service project together with them…as part of the Advent Conspiracy series, we bought some gifts for a family I know who wasn’t going to have much of a Christmas, and as a family, we worked to demonstrate God’s Love as we “Gave More”
· Make sure that your kids are getting involved in spiritual training…maybe that is something like going to youth group, participating in a children’s ministry somewhere on Wednesday night.
· Provide Godly reading and viewing materials for them
Some of the ways those of us who have grown children who aren’t at home might work on this include:
· As kids go off to college, the military, or work, to help them investigate church options close to where they’re going.
· Continue to pray with and for our children
· Invite them to come to church with you when they’re home or for special events like Christmas Eve
· Send spiritually enriching materials to them…in a proper way. My parents both subscribe to different email lists, and they forward things like Biblical parenting suggestions or things about faith to us
· Give gifts of Spiritual significance…one year, my dad gave me his Bible and his daily journal that he had used to read through the Bible and to preach from for a particular year
· Continue to model Jesus…even for kids who are not walking with Jesus. Our kids continue to watch us and evaluate whether our faith is real and whether it’s just something we “put on” for Sunday mornings.
· Encourage them to consider getting involved in full-time ministry by using their gifts and skills to make an eternal difference
· Do a ministry project together…instead of springing for an all family trip to Disney World, find a missionary that you could go and help out for a week!
Some of the ways that Grandparents can impact their grandchildren for the Lord are similar to those above.
· Keep modeling your faith…no matter what. When I would go to my grandparents’ house, I knew that before dinner, Grandpa would get out his huge black leather KJV Bible and read words that I didn’t always understand, but I KNEW that Grandpa and Grandma LOVED Jesus!
· If your children aren’t attending church, see if you can bring your grandkids with you to church!
· The kinds of presents you give to them can also show your passionate faith…a Bible or a popular book? A new video game or a biography of a great Christian?
· Keep praying for them
OK…what are some goals that children can set for their relationships with parents?
If you’re still at home:
· Obey your parents
· Do what they say…without grumbling and complaining
· Make it easy for them to not provoke you
For those of us who are no longer at home, it may be little more difficult.
Do we have to OBEY what mom says…even if I’m 65 myself?
I think this is where more of that honor your parents part of the verse applies…and some goals we might set for ourselves this year:
· Thank them for their influence in your life
· Work out ways to visit our parents more
· Help in taking care of them if they are in declining health
· Communicate with your parents more…call, Skype, text, send a hand written note…
· Help your parents out…give them a ride, provide tech support, get their groceries
· If it’s appropriate, encourage your children and grand children to spend time with your parents
What about those sibling relationships that Paul writes about to Timothy?
I know many families where due to some problem, siblings don’t get along well…whether they’re 15, 45, or even 65!
· Work at building bridges with your siblings…again, some basic communication back and forth is helpful.
· Honor your siblings by asking for their opinion on subjects they are more knowledgeable about
· Apologize…is there something between you that has been there for years…get it out into the open and deal with it…life is too short to live with conflict!
· Work together to bless your parents
So, those are some of the various family issues that we can set some goals about. One final area that I’d like to review is that of our emotions.
The Bible is one of the most emotional books ever written…think about the various emotions:
· Joy: Creation; entering the Promised Land; building of the temple; returning from captivity; the birth of Jesus; celebrations around the eternal throne of God
· Sorrow: various death’s; Saul’s failure to follow God’s plan for a king; sin in the churches
· Despair: captivity; Joseph in jail; the ruins of Jerusalem; the early believers being pursued by Saul of Tarsus; Jesus dying on the cross
· Anger: God towards idol worship; Haman towards the Jews; Pharisees towards Jesus and Stephen; believers who weren’t getting along in various churches
· Guilt: David for his time with Bathsheba; Judas for betraying Jesus; The Apostle Paul for his injury and killing of Christians
· Embarrassment: Mary trying to explain how she was pregnant; the apostles for turning kids away and then being publically rebuked for it by Jesus; Peter after denying Jesus
And the lists of various emotions could go on and on. However, in American Christianity, it seems that emotions are an area that we don’t talk about too much…let alone something that we’d set goals about for a coming year.
I know this has been an extremely emotional year at Goodfield Baptist Church both personally and corporately! This may be the year that you need to specifically address some of your emotions and move on. Whether these are emotions towards people in your family, your work place, your school, your community, or even here at church, how are you going to deal with your emotions?
As I read through that list of emotions, did any jump out to you? Did any of them make you cringe? Did any make you tune me out to think about the Bears game because they hit too close to home?
I’m really not sure where people are at with each other or with your kids or your family or the person sitting closest to you here in the sanctuary. But in my years of ministry and my years of just being a person myself, I am confident that many or maybe all of us are struggling with some aspect of our emotions. How do we address that?
Some of our emotions need to be adjusted by our own choice! Am I going to choose to obey the Lord and love someone else that I don’t really like right now? Am I going to choose to forgive someone…even if they have done something wrong to me? Am I going to allow something from the past to control me, or am I going to choose to let it go?
My dad started pastoring his first church when he was 19. It was in a small community smaller than Goodfield, but in a congregation about this size. He would come home every weekend from Chicago where he was going to Bible school to work in that church. He quickly found out that two women didn’t get along…AT ALL! After doing some investigative work, he discovered the critical issue…at a church potluck some 20 years earlier, the son of one lady took the last piece of pie that the other lady thought belonged to her son! For decades, these ladies endured conflict that they should have just chosen to forgive and then moved on with their lives.
Others of you might be dealing with something much deeper that may take a friend to help you with as you talk things out…or it may be something that is so tough that you need to see a professional counselor about.
Again, in the American Christian culture, we have no problem going to the doctor for a broken arm, a bad gall bladder, or to have a baby; BUT, we have a strange aversion to accepting that we might have some issues that we need some help with…people might think we’re crazy…people might think I’m not spiritual enough to just pray through it…people might think I have a really bad problem.
Time is short…each of us are an hour closer to eternity than when we started this service this morning. Time is too short to be controlled by negative emotions!
As you think about goals for this area of your life for 2011, you might need to jot down some initials of someone you need to forgive or someone you need to go to and ask forgiveness of. You might need to make the determination that you’re going to contact someone to get some professional help for something that’s been dragging you down for a long time.
You may need to set some positive, Biblically based, emotional goals for this year…I won’t let the sun go down on my anger, I’m going to rejoice always, I’m going to give thanks in all situations, I’m going to live in peace with my brothers and sisters in Christ, if I’m wronged…I’ll go to that person first and try to work things out instead of talking about it to everyone else, I will choose to Love All.
I’m not sure where you’re at in this process of setting goals for this year, but I’m confident that if you work on these two areas of your life…your family and your emotions… that you’ll look back on 2011 and say that it has been a good year!
Think about the incredible joy you’ll feel if you see the relationships in your family grow stronger…both with other people, but most importantly with God! Likewise, if you’re feeling the struggle of negative emotions that are dragging you down, imagine the release and joy of being able to let those things go.
Of course, as we reflect on all six of these areas, I’m full of excitement to see what our amazing God will do in our lives as individuals and as a congregation over the next year!
Let’s work together this year to set…and to achieve at a much higher rate than 12% some goals in the Spiritual, Financial, Mental, Physical, Familial, and Emotional areas of our lives.
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