Kuyperianism and the Household

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well this evening we’re going to continue then in the circles and circumference series by taking a look at a kyperianism and the household and by way of remembrance We all have heard this famous quote more than once now From Kuiper that there’s nowhere in the universe of the Lord Jesus does not declare it is mine But I would say that of all the spheres of of responsibility there are, the sphere of the home gets far less consideration than it should. And in fact, when you think of all the square inches out there in the universe, those square inches actually start in the home, right? And yet that is the one place that probably doesn’t get as much consideration or thought as it should, given its relative importance in life.

So this is true.

It’s pretty tragic because the home is foundational to who we are and how we interact with the larger world. As goes the home often predicts how goes the individual and the community at large. Many of our issues in society can be traced right back to what’s going on inside of the homes. For many home is just simply a place where they go to escape the obligation of society. It’s a retreat and a fortress against the world. We laugh at the saying that everyone wants to save the world but no one wants to help mom do the dishes because it hits so close to home, pun intended. It’s not surprising that homes mean a lot of different things to different people. Perhaps some were in Plato’s discussion of forms and ideas. He has a perfect home out there. For a lot of us in the American culture, when we think of a perfect home, sort of a Norman Rockwell picture comes into our head. And I suspect that if we were to sit down and survey everybody in this room tonight and ask you what is a home for, I I suspect we would get a lot of different answers.

I would suggest you even later this week, even think about that question yourself, what is a home for? It’s not easy to come up with a concise answer to that question, but that is what we need to discuss. You might say a home is for the glory of God, and you’d be right, but that answer is so broad as to be vague in the details, which in turn allows us then to set a pretty low bar for meeting it. Sometimes our definitions are so all-encompassing that basically it allows everybody to slide in under that bar. But I think we need to be a little bit more precise in our definitions. The question, when you start pondering it, and I’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple months thinking about this, what is a home for, generates a whole other list of questions itself.

Questions like, what is a family? Is it just a social construct? What’s a family for? How does the sovereignty of God affect home life? What does it mean for Jesus to say that every square inch of our home is his? How does being an image bearer of God manifest itself in the home? What’s a husband for? What’s a wife for? What are kids for? Some parents wonder about that all the time. What does it look like to take dominion in a home? Where does a home’s obligation begin and end? In regards to its members, its neighbors, its community. And this is just me sitting down thinking for about 15 minutes, how many other questions come out of what is a home for?

Don’t be too hasty to assume that you have an answer for all those questions. When you think about each one, you begin to realize that we don’t come close to realizing the full potential of what a home is for. Now in addition to the scriptures, there’s a plethora of reading material out there that tries to scratch at the question. These are just some of the books that you should probably be familiar with, at least three of them. We’ve been using these in Men to Men and Titus 2. One that you probably don’t recognize up there is on the left by Abraham Kuyper. It’s called When Thou Cittest in thine House written in 1929. And it’s a collection of essays on the home that Kuyper compiled all into one volume.

He had been asked back in that day if he could pull together some thoughts on the subject of the home and what’s the home for. And so he tried to do that. And so it’s worth a read. There’s a lot of parts in there that are just Kuyper’s opinions. And some of them would sound a little bit odd to us today. But I think he did a good job of thinking more deeply about what a home is for, then a lot of modern authors usually do. But I’ll be referring to this only briefly during the message. I haven’t extended a quote in a moment, but then a lot of this won’t be Kuyper’s material.

One point Kuyper makes that I’ll mention here is how little thought newly married couples give to the new home that they’re starting. And I’d extend that observation to include many homes that have been in existence for years. Any of the pastors here who have done premarital counseling realize that that’s a very true observation he made is that just we fall in love, we get married, and we just sort of magically assume it’s all gonna go awesome and we don’t give a lot of thought to what it means to establish a new household. So bear with me now then while I read an extended quote from the book where Kuyper makes this point.

He writes, it cannot be sufficiently deplored that so frequently, most important beginnings are made so thoughtlessly and without God. This is especially noticeable at the beginning of a household. Two people fall in love with each other and propose to marry, and after they are married to begin a household, one may say that few things can be begun of so preponderant and so all-dominating and important. Founding a household is instituting a family, laying the foundation for common living together until death, the creation, if you will, of a small domestic circle in life of one’s own, of which everything is to be expected, and by which the future of man and wife and presently of children and children’s children is governed.

But when you ask whether in such days or at such moments, it is sensed, felt, and realized what it means to make an extremely important, all one’s future dominating beginning, we put an interrogation mark upon which all too frequently follows a disappointing answer. Basically he’s saying, we ask that question, they say, huh, and never thought about it. When’s the wedding? Alas, of how many it must be deplored that they let themselves be married more for the sake of others and after the rules of tradition than that they themselves made a beginning, the beginning of a new life of an altogether new future. For from that first beginning that is formed on the day of marriage flows all sorts of other beginnings.

A beginning is made with the household, a beginning of the life of the husband with respect to his wife, a beginning of the life of the wife with respect to her husband, a beginning of their living together with respect to their several relatives, a beginning with a way in which together they shall serve God. Together we’ll care for the poor, together we’ll order their day’s work, Together we’ll act on occasion of difference, of different, we’ll act on occasion of difference of insight. Together direct their finance. Together make measure with respect to their servants. That’s a little different. Together regulate the style of their life.

Much of this begins on the very first day, while in the days that come after, ever and again, they face new choices, new crises, the adoption of new habits and usages, which once begun presently becomes silent law and order. For though blessing is invoked, how can that blessing come when such important moments and days are spent, not as by two human beings who take thought and accept God’s word as rule, but as by two birds that build a nest together. Seek the blessing, it is well, but seek it from him who himself has appointed a beginning to all things, when he made heaven and earth, and for this reason called you as created after his image to the sacred task of appointing in a human way a beginning in your life to form it and to do it with all the seriousness which so wholly a matter demands.

And we’re almost done. Who will be to blame when presently the consequence of the unmediated, unmeditated, and playful beginnings bring bitter regrets? When there’s confusion instead of order, waste instead of stewardship, anger and dissatisfaction where there might be happiness and domestic joy. And where in this way, far from building you up, edifying, comforting, and sanctifying you, the home life spoils your character, inflames your passion, and quickly ruins your heart. So that’s a little pokey, but I think it was spot on in some of his observations.

I mentioned earlier that it’s easy to set a low bar when determining what a home is for. The Bible has lots of verses that imply the importance of the home, but there really isn’t a step by step, one size fits all guide in the scriptures. There certainly are high level instructions in the scriptures, such as husbands, love your wives, wives, honor your husbands, children, obey your parents, raise your children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. But there isn’t a lot of detail that’s given us to what all that means. We’re also told that the believer who doesn’t provide for his household is worse than an infidel.

So that gives us a little bit of guidance regarding some of the duties that having a household entails. But while the Bible lacks specificity regarding the home, Christian authors have gone overboard telling us how to do home God’s way. I went out on Amazon and into the book section and I said Christian family search. And I got dozens and dozens, many dozens of pages of suggested book titles. They covered the gamut. They went all the way from this house is blessed to the dangers of growing up in a Christian home. All of them taking a swing at some aspect of the Christian home, but most of them again fall short of helping us grasp what kyperianism in the home looks like.

So I’ve been thinking and reading in preparation for this message, and the more I contemplate the topic, the more I realize that I, and I suspect you, have a lot to do to really apply Chiperianism in our household. So for the rest of the time, I’m going to share one way to think about the question, what is the home for? This isn’t inspired, but it’s just one way to look at it. And as I go through these thoughts, I’m gonna give you a lot of mental hooks that you can start hanging your own ideas on, perhaps make you think of some more hooks you can create. But a way for you to evaluate, to think about your home, what’s going on in your home, and to hopefully challenge you that there’s a whole lot more work to do than most of us have even considered in the home.

So in thinking about the home, there’s three broad categories that I think need to be considered. And those are faith, fellowship, and fruitfulness. Then if you drill down on those a little bit deeper, I think you can further break them down. Under faith, we can talk about doctrine, obedience, and what it means to be a servant. Under fellowship, we can talk about oneness, thankfulness, and gladness. And under fruitfulness, we can talk about stewardship, provision, and generosity. And so that’s what I’m going to be camping on, is those nine elements. And again, because this isn’t inspired, you could probably add a lot more things to think about.

But I think if we get these nine right in our homes, we’re probably doing pretty good. So again, just as I’m going through this exercise, just keep thinking to yourself in these areas, these nine things, and I’m going to flesh each one out a little bit for us. But how is my home doing in those matters? Now, if these nine areas are reasonable expectations for a home to fulfill its purpose, then it’s clear that any home where Christ is not the center can at best minimally meet its purpose. These obviously imply that Christ is the center of your home, and so non-believers are already at a deficit and able to have, fulfill what a home is for.

But how would you say most Christian homes are doing, practicing these nine criteria? If we consider just the area of faith, I think there’s some reason for concern. There’s a company called LifeWay Christian Resources, and they’ve got a branch that runs various polls trying to assess the trends that are happening in the church in America. And in one recent study, they took a look at young adults who were raised in Protestant homes, And they wanted to know, of those young people who were active in church during their high school years, how many were still active as they got into their young adulthood life. And the results were not all that encouraging.

They actually found that only one in three young people in that group had been actively involved in high school and now they’re young adults. Only one in three were actually still regularly participating in church. And the chart they had here just was some of the reasons the young people gave for not being actively involved. Some of them, well, probably all of them are lame, but these are the reasons they’re giving. But the point that I want to emphasize is what happens that only one third of the youth continue to practice the faith when they reach. And as always, there’s problems with trying to make broad-brush conclusions.

They largely lump Protestant. I would say there’s a lot of Protestant churches today that are apostate out there, but still I think, anecdotally I think we can all confirm that there’s a lot of young people that do not continue to walk with the Lord after the high school graduation.

One of the saddest events ever recorded in scripture is found in Judges chapter two, starting at verse seven. And it says, and the people serve the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work he had done for Israel. May you do the math. So during the days of Joshua, And then the leaders that were under Joshua during their lifetimes, all the people were following the Lord, but by the time they all died off, then a generation came that did not know the Lord.

We’re talking less than 100 years. That’s all it took for 100 years for Israel to go blank and not know of their God. That’s pretty frightening when you think about how fast they can be lost. I suspect that there are not many in this room who have a Christian heritage that goes back for multiple generations. And if you do, that’s awesome, but how stout were those Christian ancestors? Were they a spirit-enabled force to be reckoned with, or were they easily dismissed either because of timidity or weak faith? Some of us, I can’t, some of us can go back a generation or two maybe, but even doing that, what kind of believers were they?

were the kind of believers that were really taking dominion or fairly feeble Christians. Of all the things a family’s for ensuring the continuation of the faith to the next generation is at the top of the list. But with all that said then, let’s take a deeper look at what these nine criteria entail.

Under faith, we have again a doctrine, Thankful, doctrine, obedience, and being a servant. Now I derived those three as I pondered two particular scriptures specifically. One was the Great Commission, Matthew 2820, and then also Jesus’ words, interestingly enough, in Matthew 2028. So we have Matthew 2820 and Matthew 2028. In Matthew 2820, Jesus instructs the disciples to teach others to observe all that I have commanded you. Observe implies obedience. All that I’ve commanded you implies doctrine. And I’ll talk a little bit more about doctrine in a minute. In Matthew 2028, Jesus said, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.

Even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. This means that being a servant is a cardinal characteristic of a believer. Now I wanna reiterate again that as I go through these nine criteria, I’m not gonna break new ground. I’m not gonna say something that you’re gonna say, wow, I never thought about that before. Except that when it comes to our homes, I’m suggesting that we don’t think about them enough in our households and are we really living them out. So under doctrine, by doctrine I mean sound teaching. I’m thinking of Paul’s instructions to Timothy and 2 Timothy 1.13 where he wrote, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit who dwells within you, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

I often run into believers who say things like, I don’t like to talk about doctrine, I just read my Bible, or doctrine divides, just loving Jesus is all that matters. Or some will say, I just don’t really like reading, I’m not a good reader, so I just let other people tell me what I need to know. I run into that pretty frequently. I was talking with one of my adult kids about their church’s life-to-life groups, and one of their members in their group had commented that they don’t think that their group should spend its time talking about theology or doctrine, but just read the Bible and talk about the Bible, but not get into doctrine and theology, whatever that meant in their head.

Now that sentiment would almost be cute if it wasn’t so blessed ignorant. I asked my child if their friend would agree that there is a God, and they answered yes. And I said, well, that’s theology. And then I said, would your friend agree that a person is only saved by faith through Christ alone? And again, they said yes, they would. And I said, well, guess what, that’s doctrine. So it’s nonsense to say that you don’t, you’re not interested in doctrine and theology. The point is, is if you don’t have any theology or doctrine, you don’t have religion, let alone Christian religion. You can’t have religion without theology and doctrine.

To those who poo-poo theology and doctrine, the Bible says, be ready to give an answer to those who ask what is the hope that is in you. Hold firm to the trustworthy word is taught so that you may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and able to rebuke those who contradict it. Present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

And to be fair, in that context of that last verse, he does say don’t be fighting about it, but be ready to debate it. How about let the word of Christ dwell on you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. These other versions make it abundantly clear that it is the obligation of every Christ follower to study the word of God to the best of their ability so that they understand it and can pass it on to others. Teaching the word to our children and modeling it are perhaps the most important things we as parents should be doing in the home.

And you know, in our church model here, the way our programs run, You may have noticed if you’ve been around for a little while, we don’t have a Sunday school. And that’s on purpose. But that’s a risk. The elders are banking on our people catechizing, instructing, training, teaching, their children at home, the word of God. They’ll get some of it as they’re sitting here listening to the preaching. But if we parents are not doing it at home, we’re gonna raise a generation that at best is gonna have a very fuzzy, feeble understanding of what the Bible’s all about. So it’s paramount that we as parents learn to do that.

Relying largely, if not solely, on Sunday school and other external religious endeavors for your child’s training and doctrine is a failure of the first order of a home’s purpose. It is a home’s primary job to be inculcating the faith in their children. the church and other religious Moana programs, those kinds of things, they’re secondary. If you’re relying on them, that’s a problem. Now if you’re unsure how to go about teaching the Bible in your home, ask others what they do. With all the resources at our disposal today, there’s just simply no excuse for anyone to not be growing in Bible knowledge. So some of the questions that should be going through your mind right now is, Where’s my family, where am I at, and where are my kids at in their knowledge of the Bible?

Could they give a decent articulation of the faith? Let’s talk about obedience. The necessity of obedience to the word of God is so obvious that I don’t really need to camp on it very much. I would remind us that there is a wrong kind of obedience and a right kind. The wrong kind is obedience that’s motivated just simply by the threat of punishment or the promise of reward. it’s an externally driven obedience, and that’s of not much use. The right kind comes from the heart and brings life with it. Love of obedience is what you’re working towards. If you find, and this is important, if you find in your home that joy is decreasing even as obedience is increasing, then stop what you’re doing and reevaluate.

I’ve seen too many cases where dads were checking the box and saying, hey, I’m doing all these awesome family Bible times, totally oblivious of the fact that their children or their wife were absolutely resenting every minute of it because the dad was not somebody they could look up to and respect in so many areas of his life. He was a hypocrite and they just detested sitting down for family Bible times. Obedience for obedience sake is not the goal. Obedience for the sake of right fellowship with God and others is. In developing the right kind of obedience, be sure to demonstrate the right attitude towards all the various authorities that God has placed in your life.

When it comes to civic leaders and employers, it’s easy to foster an attitude that is not in accordance with obedience. When we grouse about our political leaders or bosses or allow our children to grouse about their teachers, we cultivate a rebellious spirit, even if technically everybody’s obeying the rules of the household. So we have to be very, very careful with that. I know this body of believers really believes in obedience, especially with our children, but do we convey a contrary message about the way we’re talking about, especially in this day and age, with the restrictions being placed upon our life. And I’m not saying there’s not a place to appeal to authorities and ask questions, but if we’re sitting there just taking pot shots there are authorities all the time in a critical tone.

Don’t be surprised if that attitude works its way into our kids and then we have a problem with obedience. Third attribute there is a servant. We already saw in Matthew 2028 that the path to greatness in God’s kingdom is via the route of a servant. If you wanna be great in heaven, then be a servant on earth. Could the members of your home be characterized as servants. Husbands, don’t take the easy road and say that you’re a servant to your family just because you go out and work every day. There are men that do that. Hey, I serve my family by going out and bringing home the bacon. Job done. You know, everybody else, I came home, it’s not everybody else’s time to continue to serve, but I’m done. That is is the bare minimum for men to be a servant.

Further, if you complain about your work, you really then don’t have the heart of a servant. Attitude is as important as the act of serving. Also, it isn’t enough if the family members only serve when asked to. That too would be a minimum. The kind of serving we’re talking about is the kind that actively looks for the opportunity to serve others without any expectation if we would like to give every word your praise. It helps to remember the words that we all are hoping to hear some day when we get to heaven, which is what, well done, thou good and faithful servants, is what we wanna hear.

I find then these three aspects of faith taken together helpful when considering the level of a person’s spiritual maturity. As you consider the members of your home, think about their knowledge of sound teaching, their obedience to that teaching, and whether or not they are exhibiting a servant’s heart. Those three questions serve as a useful evaluation tool to anyone trying to grow as a disciple or who is discipling someone else in their life. Very simple test.

You really expose a lot when you just ask those three questions. How they doing in those three areas? How am I doing in those three areas? Am I continuing to grow? Okay. Let’s talk about fellowship. Under fellowship, we have oneness, gladness, and thankfulness. I chose to emphasize these three because they are key communicable attributes that we see exhibited by the Trinity. And by communicable, I mean they are traits, the triune God exhibits that we can possess as well. And since we’re image bearers of God, it follows then that these should be common in our home. So under oneness, that’s a term that we hear used often, but again, what does it really mean?

Whole books on marriage are written talking about oneness. And by the time you’re done with them, you’re not always sure what they were actually saying. I’ll mention briefly a few points about what it does and doesn’t entail. Oneness, we could start off by saying it’s a unity of our spirits that comes from a unity in the Holy Spirit. Unity must be important, otherwise Jesus would not have prayed that we would be one just as he and the Father are one. It would be one thing for Jesus to ask us to be one, but he throws in that comparative just as he and the Father are, that is a very high bar. Again, you think about the application for our home.

Husband and wives as you’re sitting there in a pew. Do you have the kind of oneness that Jesus and the Father has? Obviously it won’t be exactly the same, but what kind of oneness do you have? Within the home, that oneness starts with the husband and wife, and then it flows out from there. It should come as no surprise, but men and women are different. Does that surprise anybody here? Was it men and men are from Mars or women or from Venus or something like that? Should not be a surprise, but when a couple doesn’t understand that, and actually appreciate it, they’re headed for trouble. A common mistake made when thinking about unity or oneness is that it means uniformity, that’s a mistake, to think that oneness means uniformity.

The thought is that you can’t have oneness unless you both think and feel identically. This wrong understanding leads to any number of problems, overbearing boss husbands, or resentful, checked out husbands when nobody’s listening to them. Or naggy wives trying to keep continually changing the husband’s mind. Or cold and distant wives when they’re tired of nagging because it never seems to move him.

Unity does not mean uniformity. Unity allows for diversity. Unity does not mean equality of function. You have to look no further than the trinity to see these truths at work. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one, but they function in different roles within the Godhead. When Jesus came to earth, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself and took on the form of a bond servant. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son and the Father and does the bidding of their bidding in the lives of men to point them back to Christ. Each member supplying a unique role while dwelling in oneness.

We would all agree the members of the Trinity are one, right? And yet they function differently. Now the comparison of the Trinity to earthly relationships does have limits, of course. The members of the Trinity don’t have different ideas about what they want. They are perfectly synced up in that way. But we can still learn from their example. I’m reminded when I have a different opinion than Gail does, that the same Holy Spirit that resides in me resides in her. We’re both finite creatures and when differences of opinion arise, it’s likely that the resolution to our differences lies somewhere between the two opinions.

As the head of our household, I don’t ever, honestly, the only, was it once or twice? Once or twice in our 40 years of marriage where I played the, I’m the head of the house card, and that was after I asked her for her permission. because she was waffling and couldn’t make a decision. I said, you need me to tell you what to do. And she said, yeah, please. So then I stepped in and said, okay, here’s what you gotta do. But the point I’m trying to make is that if a husband gets bossy and he thinks he’s the only one that can discern what God is saying, that’s a mistake, that when your wife has a contrary opinion, that may very well be the Holy Spirit trying to get your attention.

And you need to really perfectly consider that. And that again, usually the Spirit’s trying work both through both of you to get to the right answer. And so, appreciate the fact that she thinks differently, she feels differently. I mean, there’s times I walk away, scratch my head, saying, how can you possibly think that? I’m sure she does the same thing. But the reality is is we’re both limited finite creatures and we both have the Holy Spirit. And so we gotta figure out how to, in the spirit of oneness, work together to work out those differences. The one that Jesus prayed for us calls us to worship the same God, love each other as he loved us, and get this, viva la di fronce.

Worship the same God, love each other as he loved us, and viva la difference. Allow for the difference to exist. That is okay. That is good. That’s the way God designed it. But to do that, to viva la difference, that last part requires mutual respect and humility and a willingness to compromise. It also requires living with each other in an understanding way, which means to really know the other person and why they think the way they do, rather than just simply be annoyed that they think differently. When an exasperated spouse or parent tells me that they just don’t understand where their spouse or child is coming from, it just means that they have more work to do.

It’s not okay to throw in the towel and conclude that the person they’re at odds with is the problem. The real fun begins when you add little ones to the mix with their own thoughts and their own ideas. I remember with Chris when our first born, he came in one day, rather exasperated to Gale and I, and he just said, and he had siblings at that point. he says, what are we gonna do with those kids?

The pursuit of oneness doesn’t mean you give them equal voting privileges, your kids, when they’re young. But it does mean you demonstrate the same appreciation for their differences within the scope of what is allowed biblically. And then love them as Christ loves them. So, you’re two imperfect people, you’re gonna produce imperfect kids, and they’re gonna sometimes be real different than you are. again, rather than letting that frustrate you, celebrate that difference, appreciate it, study them, get to understand what makes them tick, and then work with that.

As many of you know, Jonathan likes hand making his own bows and arrows. And Jonathan, I’m pretty sure one of the steps that you follow when you’re doing that is you study the grain of the wood that you’re working with, and to make sure that you work with it, that you carve accordingly. Ignoring the grain will usually result result in a bow that’s going to snap the first time you draw it. You’ve probably had that happen. He’s nodding vigorously back there. In the same way, building real oneness requires studying the grain of the other person and learning how to work with, not against it. My analogy does not imply that we accept sin as a part of the grain, though, that we’re working with.

There’s always these analogies always break down at some point. So if we see sin in people’s lives, we get in there and deal with that. That’s not what I’m saying we should accept. There’s much more that can be said on oneness, but we need to move on. The point I want to leave you with is the requirement that all family members work towards a unity of the Spirit that allows for and appreciates diversity within the members. The only restrictions to that diversity would be the word of God. It is not acceptable to settle for a pseudo-peace where everyone pretty much stays in their own corner so as to avoid fighting with each other.

That is not oneness. Hey, our home is calm, we just don’t talk to each other. Let’s talk about gladness. Another aspect I’ve included under fellowship is gladness and you can substitute the word joy there if you prefer. You’ve probably heard the saying or you maybe have sung the psalms, The joy of the Lord is my strength. Isn’t there one of those kind of earworm songs? I don’t recommend you put it in your top 50 choice for your playlist, but the concept is so true. The phrase actually comes from chapter eight of the book of Nehemiah. In that chapter, the prophet Ezra has gathered the people who have come out of Babylonian exile to help rebuild the walls around Jerusalem.

And so it’s basically Sabbath day, they’re taking a break. And the scene is this massive worship service with all the people standing for hours and hours as Ezra reads the book of the law of Moses. Now keep in mind, it’s been a long time since that book had been read. For many of the people, it was the first time he’d ever heard it. And their response was a mixture of praise and sorrow. Starting in verse six, we read, and Ezra blessed the people, the great God and all the people answered, amen, amen, lifting up their hands. and they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. And elsewhere it says they were actually weeping because they had never heard the word before.

Following the worship service, Nehemiah and Ezra send the people away with these words. “‘This day is holy to the Lord your God. “‘Do not mourn or weep, for all the people wept “‘as they heard the words of the law.’ “‘Then he said to them, “‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine “‘and send portions to anyone who has nothing already. For this day is holy to the Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. That’s where we get that verse from.

There is something about being joyful in the Lord that produces strength in us. Jesus himself very much wants us to be joyful. In John 15, 10 through 11, he said, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandment and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. Notice from these two scriptures that we’ve just looked at, that joy is not just some emotion and we conjure up out of nothing. Joy is the fruit you can expect from a life rooted in the soil of knowing the Lord and watered by obedience to Jesus’ commands.

That joy has to come out of a love for God and an obedience to his word. This shows again the connectedness there is among these nine traits that we’re talking about. So what is the fruit like in your home? Is it bland, fretfulness, grumpiness? Or is it the fruit of joy? Is joyfulness the default disposition of your home, or does it only show up occasionally when something out of the ordinary happens that pleases everyone? Everybody can have moments of joy when something really good happens, but these days with with all the restrictions going on and running out of toilet paper and all these real problems we have.

What’s joy like in your home? Would people walk into your home and would that be a first impression, the joyfulness? Let’s talk about, okay, yeah, thankfulness. Let’s talk about thankfulness. Related to gladness then or joy is thankfulness. Now I’ll admit that this one is hard for me to maintain. There’s a lot of not cool things that happen in life, and I was born with a very sensitive, not cool meter in me. I can detect not cool pretty fast. And so maintaining a thankful attitude is not easy. Now the problem with that last sentence is that my not cool thing was a thing that God ordained to happen. The sovereignty of God keeps trampling on my right to point out what’s wrong.

I keep bumping up against that reality. If we believe, if we really believe that God is sovereign over all the universe and that Jesus says every square inch is his, then nothing produced in God’s factory of eternity past and delivered to our porch this day needs to be returned. It’s good for the purpose that he’s made it. To whatever degree we’re not thankful is the degree to which we do not understand or believe the sovereignty of God. I often hear people urge others to be thankful using a comparative test. You’ve seen this too. They say be thankful because it could have been less or it could have been worse, right?

You’ve had people tell you that, they try to encourage you, well be thankful. It could have been a whole lot worse. So we should be thankful, right? Be thankful. You have cancer, it could have been something better. I know that’s not a real word. Shawn does it all the time, so I thought I’d throw one in. Personally, I don’t find that helpful, that comparative test. It causes me to put what God gives me on a scale compared to what he hasn’t given me. It implies that what he has given me is better than what he hasn’t given me. The problem with comparative thinking is that I could say just as equally well, I could say that, well, he gave me something less good than he might have given me.

I believe the right mindset is to thankfully receive what he’s given me as the most perfect thing he could have given me in order to accomplish his good plan for my life. Thankfulness to God does not need a comparative test. We are thankful to God simply because it is the right thing to do. We don’t need to be reassuring ourselves by saying, well, it could have been a lot worse. the aroma of thankfulness permeate your home like turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving Day? Again, if you walk in here, it smells like Thanksgiving in here. What’s in your home? All right, let’s talk about fruitfulness. Under fruitfulness, I’ve got provision, stewardship, and generosity, which again reflect core attitudes of who God is. By provision, I mean all the things necessary to sustain the members of the home and to grow them to maturity.

This does not mean that dad or even mom are the only ones who contribute in this area. Providing for the family’s basic needs is actually a test of a genuine believer. First Timothy 5.8 seems to specifically address men when it says, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for the members of his household, he’s denied the faith and it’s worse than a non-believer. that we shouldn’t restrict that verse just to men. Proverbs 31 commands women who through their work provide for their family’s needs as well. This principle of provision flows from the command to take dominion found in Genesis. Taking dominion leads to productivity, which leads to provision.

Many Proverbs speak directly to the topic of provision along the stewardship. We’re told to learn from the ant and not be lazy. We’re warned that too much idleness leads to ruin. Proverbs 26 humorously warns against laziness with four examples. It says the lazy person’s always making excuses. There’s a lion outside. I can’t go out there. The lazy won’t get off the couch. As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed and you can just see that. A lazy person barely lifts his finger to do any work. The sluggard buries his hand in his food, but it’s weary to bring the food up to his mouth. The lazy person is full of himself.

The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can give him a sensible answer. I think we get the point. The Apostle Paul would not make a very good welfare worker if you thought about it in today’s culture. You wouldn’t want Paul to be in charge of welfare. He said things like to able-bodied individuals who are taking advantage of the system, Paul said, if anyone will not work, he shall not eat. I think that’d be really good if we had welfare workers or social workers like that. To sum up the point, the members of a family should grow in their capacity to work and be productive. We live in a culture that tries to figure out how to minimize work.

If we don’t love work, then our attitude is counter to the one whose image we bear. So again, self-examination. What are the attitudes around your home regarding work? Chores, dad’s job, mom’s job, kids’ school work, all of it, what’s the attitude about work?

Let’s talk about stewardship. Closely related to provision is the topic of stewardship. Stewardship is taking the gifts, talents, and resources that God has given us and using them to bring about greater flourishing within the home and the community. We need to remember that our home is not meant to be an island set apart from the mainland. Our homes have a role to play as a part of the community. What impression does your home give when neighbors drive by? When they observe your comings and goings? When they hear the sounds coming from your open window or your backyard? How your family greets them when you encounter them?

When you think about it, the list of things to be stewarding in the home is pretty long. Personal relationship with Christ, husband-wife relationship, parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, relationships in the church, relationships to neighbors, the household finances, the care of the home and the yard, personal health and fitness, the education of the kids, the continuing education of the parents, the development of individual talents. Are you tired yet?

And I’m sure I’ve missed a whole bunch of other things. Now again, I’m not breaking new ground here by offering this list of stewardship responsibilities. What I want us to consider is how many areas we are stewards of and ask how well we’re taking responsibility for them. I dare say that many of us have an attitude of it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I will give it attention when a problem presents itself. But that’s not the true idea of stewardship. Stewardship is how can I take this thing and make it flourish and produce even more.

Modern life has brought with it many elective opportunities and or distractions that can drain our time and energy and keeping us from being effective stewards of our homes. If I’m correct that being a good steward is part of what a home is for, then we need to consider if we have settled for less and or ignored these areas of stewardship responsibilities. I would suggest you take my list as a starting point and spend some time asking how each item on the list is doing and what the next step is and to make could flourish even better. Generosity. Generosity is another cardinal trait for the Christian. The Bible is full of exhortations to be generous with others. It’s the evidence of a true believer.

But if anyone has a world’s goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and to be filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead, generosity pleases God. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Without going into the name it and claim it or blab it and grab it crowd, it does bring blessing to the giver. Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord and he will repay him for his deed. Proverbs 19-17. There are many more verses about generosity, but you get the point. Everyone can be generous at some level.

Think how much more generous we could be if we were good stewards with the finances and talents that we have alone. I believe we miss a lot of opportunities for generosity because we’ve not been good stewards with our money or with our talents, and therefore we don’t have as much to offer when the opportunities present themselves. Generosity goes beyond just giving money. Several of our men gave time generously yesterday to help to move the Durden’s in. The Deacons generously came in early today before both services to wipe down the high touch areas to help keep us safer. The point is generosity manifests itself in lots of ways.

It’s the opposite of hoarding. If all the people in our community were as generous as the Bible expects, there really wouldn’t have been and they shorted just a toilet paper or hand sanitizer. Did you read about the guy in Tennessee who, him and a friend went out and bought 18,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, thinking they could then sell it afterwards, and they tried to put it on Amazon, but Amazon said no. So now they got a garage full of hand sanitizer they can’t offload. Every parent knows that the second word that children learn after no is mine. Sinful man isn’t born generous. is something that has to be taught.

Now, I’ll leave it up to you to consider ways to instill a spirit of generosity in your home. But I can guarantee you there won’t be any lack of teachable moments in that arena. I’m thankful for the other elders and their disposition to err on the side of generosity. It shows up in their willingness to bust the budget when a surprise need comes up or when a family needs a tuition break in order to attend ECS. So far, we have never yet turned away a family because of money and Lord willing, we’ll be able to keep that policy in place for a long time. A truly generous disposition goes beyond a willingness to respond when asked.

It has antennae, if you will, up, looking for opportunities. It’s again, if you’re the kind of person that will respond when asked, that’s great. But again, I would say that’s sort of like a minimum, that’s the starting gate of generosity. A really truly generous spirit just has this feelers out and just is looking for opportunity. And I want all of us to get in that habit of looking for opportunity. There’s a lot of behind the scenes things that go on that most of us don’t even stop and think about. Who’s doing the set up and the clean up every time we meet? Who’s hosting all the special events we enjoy? Who’s helping our senior saints as they get older?

Whose car looks like it’s on its last mile and needs some financial help? I know for a fact that this church will go overboard with generosity when a need is presented. My exhortation is for us to develop the habit of making generosity happen before the need is presented. The training for this habit, and of course, starts in the home. Perhaps a simple way to do this, then, is to purposely set aside some money, save some money or set aside some time, and then go look for a way to give it away, look for opportunities. That could be a family project. Let’s save $50 or let’s carve out a couple hours and then go look for an opportunity to spend it.

Just a final note on fruitful before I leave it. You may have noticed that of all the things I said what a home is for under fruitful, I did not mention having children. I hope we all realize that if we choose not to have children then we have really missed the reason for a home. Everything I said previously assumes we are having children. Children are a blessing from the Lord. I’m thankful that our TEC peeps get that. We are having really an awesome baby boom going on right now. What do we have now with the Korean crop in womb that’ll make what, 15, 20 kids in the last two, two and a half years? That’s awesome.

I can see it on the little charts I plot, the attendance charts. So it’s going up. That’s a good problem to have. I have encountered even recently young marrieds who wonder, I mean recently, very recently, The unmarried who wonder if having kids is worth it from an affordability standpoint as well as a concern with bringing them into such a messed up world. As to the affordability question, I’ll tell you from experience, Teresa, she’s nodding, she knows what I’m going to say. You can’t afford kids and you will. Just don’t ever worry about it. Don’t trust what the economists say. what’s the 250,000 bucks per kid or something, it’s bogus, as to a messed up world, it’s been a mess since Adam and Eve took a bite.

There’s never gonna be a better time to have kids than now. And it’s a great time to have kids because that’s what God wants us to be doing. So in summary, I realize again that much of what I presented tonight is not new or profound. What I’ve attempted to do is grab your attention with the question, what is a home for, and milk it for some practical applications. I doubt many of us are ignorant of what I have said, but I do think there’s room for improvement for all of us. Our culture in general has set a very low bar for the home that anyone with a pulse can hurdle. Perhaps this low bar explains why the traditional nuclear family is really not honored like it used to be in our culture.

So there’s possible responses you can have to a message like this. One, because of my poor communication, you can be saying, what’s he talking about? Hopefully that’s not the case here. Two, well I’m a total failure. I mean I just might as well go home, burn my home down. Don’t do that. And I’m given a profile of what a home and what a home is for over a lifetime. Not like what you have to accomplish next week. So, if you’re freaking out like, oh, I just, somebody’s sitting there with a task list and just added 800 more tasks, don’t do that to yourself. But be thinking about these things and how can I continue to grow and expand in these areas.

I’m just giving you lots of things to think about. But if you can step back after having had established your home for 30, 40 years, can you say, hey, these things, we have seen steady progress. There could be a response, if I’m fine, no need for improvement. I guess I just say repent. There’s always room for improvement. Think hard about these things. Don’t just blow it off because, yeah, I’ve heard all these principles before, but really think deeply. How am I doing in these areas? And then fourth response could be, I’ve tried this, but my spouse or my kids or whatever, it just ain’t working. Nobody cares. I’ve given up.

again I would just encourage you not to give up and get back in there. Even if all you can change is yourself and the things you control in the home be working on those and pray and trust in God eventually. Hopefully motivate the other people to get with the program. So in closing I’d like to turn back to some thoughts that Kuyper shared almost 90 years ago in that book. I sort of stitched together a bunch of several thoughts he had and this won’t be as Lonus the first thing I read. He wrote, the family is the wondrous creation of God from which all our human social life has of itself unfolded. However one may read the signs of the times with respect to home life among us, it is still the exception where human greatness in its best sense does not trace its beginnings to the home of the opening years of life. To the reported saying of the Jewish Rabbi, God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers, may properly be added that for a similar reason God made fathers, for with the fathers and the mothers rests the

future of the world. In our quiet, substantial domestic social life is the strength of our middle classes and the nerve of strength in our national life. And then after he makes these comments on the home, he then laments a cultural shift that he was seeing happening even then.

At present there is no, at present there is less to boast of however along this line. A wayness from home has increased, life in public interest and by night sitting in the clubhouse in the bar room has gained ground. And therefore the confessors of Christ in the land are called by God by heroic confession and seriousness of life to save the security once confided to our keeping and which threatens to be lost for our own circles and thereby for the Fatherland. Again, it’s coming out of that book, When Thou Sit Us in Nigh House. We talk a lot here at TEC about changing the culture and loving our city. I think it could be argued that the best tool that we have in our toolbox, humanly speaking, to do that is our homes.

And if that’s true, then I suggest we all need to go home and make sure those tools are sharp, that we’re ready. So again, a simple message, nothing profound. But take some time this week. Think about it. Do a self-evaluation in your home. And how are we doing in these areas? And how can we do better? And I think you’ll find there’s lots of room for improvement. OK, that’s great. Father, we thank you for, again, these challenging words, even as I went through various verses reminding us of what a home is for. We thank you for the gift of our home. Each of us in this room today probably have different reflections, what they grew up in, what they’re living in.

But nonetheless, the home is a gift from you. It is the, such a key component of what you’re trying to accomplish here on earth. Where we have done well, may we find encouragement, where we have room for improvement, may we humbly accept that responsibility. For those, anyone here who may have given up, would you change their hearts and cause them to renew their efforts to again continue to strive to make their homes better? Father, our desire is that you would be glorified, you’d be honored in our homes. And again, that one we do You get to see you finally face to face that one with regards to our homes that we can hear well done now good and faithful servant.

So may you by your spirit just affect the changes that you want for us in this matter. Pray in your son Jesus name. Amen.