Setting the Course // Building a Godly Family, Part 5

This week on A Different Perspective, we’ve been chatting about building a godly family. Well, at some point – the talk has to turn into action, otherwise nothing’s ever going to happen. The question is – are you ready? Well, are you?

This week we've been talking about building a godly family on the program. The whole gist of it has been this – it doesn't matter how dysfunctional a family ours is at the moment, all it takes is one member of that family to turn back to God. To honour God and God can and will make some awesome and mighty changes.

It will probably take time. Maybe longer than you or I would prefer. But God’s timing is perfect. He's a God of grace. His heart is to bless our family to a thousand generations. All He's looking for is one Godly man, one Godly woman, one Godly child to take a stand and say, "enough of this! It is time for me to build a Godly family." 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 20, in the message translation says this:

God’s way is not a matter of mere talk, it's an empowered life.

That's why the ministry I'm involved in is called Christianityworks, because actually, it does. Christianity does work. So today, today we're going to chat about making that happen, an empowered life that sets about building a godly family.

You know what I've noticed, we can talk about a lot of stuff but most times nothing changes unless we actually do something. It's true at work. It's true at home. I mean how often have I been in a meeting at work and people talk about this and that and a whole bunch of stuff – We'll do this; we'll do that – but then, after the meeting everyone goes back to their work and their office. No-one does anything and guess what, nothing happens. I mean, nothing changes.

We're talking this week and again over the next few weeks, about building a godly family and it's important because our families, truly, our families really matter to us. These are people we love. These are the people who, most often, we live with. And yet, because we come home tired and we need a rest and we ignore things like, like the badly behaved child for example. We actually don't invest anything in building up the family.

There's a great proverb, Proverbs chapter 29, verse 17, says this:

Discipline your children and they will give you rest. They will give delight to your heart.

Now you and I have seen this down at the local supermarket. There's a mother with a young child, a seven year old kid, and this kid is just grinding her down with bad behaviour. But, well, she's tired. She's too tired and exhausted to do anything about it. So she lets this kid run riot. He causes her grief. He causes everybody else grief too.

Why does that happen? I'll tell you why, probably because dad is too tired when he comes home at night to discipline the child. So this kid walks all over his mother. She's exhausted and he's only seven. I mean, wait 'til the little terror becomes a teenager. I mean, just wait.

There is fruit in building a godly family, tremendous fruit. "Discipline your children" says the proverb. What do you get? Peace and a delighted heart. You sow what you reap. The problem is the sowing is such hard work sometimes. And reaping seems such a long way off doesn't it?

Let me tell you something. We've been talking about building this godly family but it ain't going to happen unless we step out in faith and start making it happen. Sure, it's about God blessing our efforts but if He's got nothing to bless then He's got nothing to bless.

I mean, imagine I'm 20 kilos overweight (40 pounds) and I decide I want to be trim and taught and terrific. Now I pray and pray and pray and pray and believe and believe and believe and believe that God will give me a breakthrough. But I keep eating and drinking the same old rubbish. I don't exercise.

Let me ask you, is God going to zap me out of the sky while I'm lazing on the sofa and miraculously remove my excess weight? Well, He could and with God I'd never rule anything out but I've never quite seen it happen that way, have you?

Why would we think it's any different in building a godly family? We behave our families into a bad place by what we say, what we do, what we fail to do, what we fail to say. We behave ourselves into that bad place. And yes, we should pray but God expects us to start behaving ourselves out of that place. He's going to bless that but we have to do our part.

So, do you want a godly family; a family where each family member is living out a dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ; where each one is actually living that out into their lives; where the husband and the wife have a warm, intimate relationship; where the kids are honouring their parents; where each family member respects and honours and understands one another; where there's real blessing, Gods blessing, flowing out of our families into the lives of others? Is that the sort of family that we really, really want?

Well if it is, we're going to have to decide that it is what we want and plan it and start doing it and start living it. We're going to have to decide that some changes have to be made, and you know, changes are never easy. This easy, comfortable, lollipop type of existence has to change. Discipline is painful. Kids don't like discipline much. They don't like being told, "No, you can't watch television because you have to study. No, you have to clean up after yourself. No, you have to dry the dishes." They don't like that.

It takes strength, it takes perseverance but it pays dividends. So let me ask you, how much do you want to have a Godly family? And if the answer is, "YES, YES, I do!" then some tough decisions have to be made. If you're family is one with a husband and wife, then it's up to both of you. If it's a single parent family, it's just up to you to think and talk and dream and decide what's important; to set priorities; to figure out how to do this; what steps to take first and so on.

Mum, Dad, you are the leaders and I happen to believe that, ultimately dad, you're responsible for the spiritual growth and nourishment and development of your family.

The buck stops with you Dad. This isn't a sexist thing. So many women would give their eye teeth to see their husbands step up to the plate and take on that leadership role. So many kids would love to have parents who are interested in them, who spend time and effort setting boundaries, enforcing those boundaries, nurturing them within those boundaries.

I have to tell you, as a person I'm naturally an isolationist. I prefer my own company, oft times to the company of others. I really enjoy retreating to my own space after a hard day at the office. So for me, given who I am, getting involved with the family and the kids and listening to what happened to them at school and at work, it's not a natural gig but, we have to start somewhere. You can't build a godly family if there's no relationship and there's no interaction.

We're going to talk about how some of that happens later on in the next few weeks. In fact, one of the godliest family's I know, there are some friends of mine who live in Lincoln, Nebraska. Just between Lincoln and Omaha. Mum, Dad and 9 children. They've given me some of their pointers, both the parents and the kids. So we're going to have some fun and look at that.

But right now we have to decide, each one of us, do we actually want to have a godly family? Well, do we? And if we do, what are we going to do about it? Maybe that's something that you can pray about and think about and talk about over the weekend. We're going to talk about it some more next week on the program – this whole thing of building a godly family.