The Family | Part 1 | Kim Miller

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Direction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, everyone. We greet you in the precious name of Jesus. Conrad, it is very good to see you guys back. Welcome back. And uh welcome to Mom and Dad. You're here this morning. Appreciate you being here. It's Monica's parents. I don't know if you know them or not, but Paul and her mother are here this morning. So appreciate your support. This morning for a sermon, um it's been on my mind for a while already to do a little series on the family. So that's what I'm kind of this is kind of the first of the series. And um this morning the title is The Family, God's Design. I'll probably also be doing one on the family, which would be maybe God's call to the family. And then also I would like to do one on the husband's role and on the wife's role, and not sure where it's all gonna leave yet, but at this point I'll probably for sure be doing four. Um, so pray for pray for these. Um, the family is something dear to God, and Kevin, that picture this morning just uh that to me looked like a family that um Satan does not like the family unit, and he is out to destroy it. And we'll be doing a little history lesson this morning as far as what has happened over the last 400 years to the family, and um raising a family, doing family in this time of life is not easy. Um there's things that I didn't even think about almost that uh as I was studying it that came to light, where we just kind of take for granted, it's just normal for us. And um, so those are some of the things. So I I guess some of the goals for this series for the family, just to renew our appreciation for the family, it's God's design. And as we uh, when I say God's design, God wants to express his goodness through the family to the world, and he asks us to do it through the family. And as we look at the kingdom of God, it's his family. So, God, the original origin of the family is from God, and we'll be seeing that this morning. So, this are some of the goals for um for this series. Stirring our mind a little bit,

Why The Family Matters To God

SPEAKER_00 2:33

this might surprise you on some of the things I'll be talking about this morning. Just for instance, our workforce system is not family friendly. Our workforce system is not family friendly, but it's basically all we know. What a difference, what differences would it make in how we would raise our families if the father could work at home and together with his wife, they would teach their children how to work, how to live at a young age. It's almost hard to imagine this for all of us fathers to actually work at home with our family every day. Our kids would be with us. How would that be? Today, we're trying to lead a family in a world that has systematically removed every structural support that was supposed to help you do it God's way. And we'll be talking a little bit more about that.

God As The Original Family

SPEAKER_00 3:30

As we look into the Bible, we see that God was the original family. It was the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Before every anything was created, before earth, before time, before any bush, beast, or man, God had already existed. His family already existed. Not three gods working together, not not three gods working together, but one God in three persons. Whoever, who whose very nature is loving, relational, and familial. Familial is family-oriented. So family is very dear to God. As we said, this means the household is not a human, not a human invention. It's not us that came up with the family structure. It's not a social structure we came up with or to organize ourselves, it's a divine reality from God. God is the original family, and everything he created flows from that reality. That's his purpose for the family. We see a lot of family metaphors in the Bible. I'm just going to mention a few. In John, we see, I'm sorry, in Matthew, first, first of all, in Matthew, he teaches us how to pray. He says, Pray then like this, our Father in heaven. We're supposed to call him Father. We call God Father. Hallowed be your name. In John 1, it says, God gives believers in Jesus the right to become children. We are children of God, and they are born of God. Ephesians 1 teaches us that God predestined us for adoption to himself. As sons, we can be called sons through Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2, there's a few different ones in Ephesians, declares that we are members of the household of God. Another one in Ephesians 5 stresses the church is his body, and we are members of his body. Another one in Ephesians 5 reminds us that Jesus relates to the church as a loving groom, to his bride. Paul instructs us to relate to older Christian men as fathers, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. So we see that the family, God's family, is all through the Bible. And that is how He what his purpose is. And as we talked this morning in Sunday school about, you know, Christ, Israel was to be the light to the world. But they couldn't do it by themselves. They needed Christ, they need a God. And we'll see that. Us men have a mandate that we can't fulfill. And the woman saves us. Not spiritually, but is there to help us? So let's do a little history lesson.

Six Shifts That Weakened Families

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This is kind of a it's not a fun here's a history lesson, but I think it's reality, and we need to face reality sometimes. We have the Bible accessible to all of us, and we see men and women all through it. I get a lot of this information. This history lesson comes from actually Man Year, one of the guys that um helped come out with Manyear, and these are thoughts from him that I thought were very good. God created us male and female on purpose with purpose. And yet the world can't clearly define what a man or woman is. The world can tell us what an animal is, a duck or a beaver or you name it. They can tell us what an animal are, but they have a hard time deciding what man or woman is. That's when the world starts to fumble. The reason you can't answer that question is because something evil has been done to us. Over the last 400 years, six specific shifts took place that removed things from the way we understand manhood and family. Each one was achen to a load-bearing wall. In other words, these shifts took away some structure from the family. And now that they have been dismantled, the structure is collapsing. Phase

Enlightenment And The Self As King

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one is called the enlightenment. Before the 1600s, it was almost universally assumed that human beings existed under some kind of divine authority. Everyone knew there was a design that to life that you didn't choose. Most people just attributed that to their own God. In other words, before the 1600s, everybody, it was just assumed that there was a higher power, that you weren't your own God, that there was a higher power. Maybe some people didn't think he was actually truly God, but they did believe in a higher power. It's called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment brought things into the mix that changed that. It helped promote the lie that the individual is sovereign over himself. You determine your own meaning, your own identity, your own rules for living. There's nothing above you that gets to tell you what you are. This took the impulse that has existed since Genesis 3, the desire to be your own God, where it was Satan tempting in the garden. Decide for yourself, seek more knowledge and turned it into a formal philosophy, and then became the operating system of Western thought. Everything that followed was built on this foundation of what was taken away here was the assumption, the universal assumption that you that you live under a design that comes from a higher power.

Industrialization And The Absent Father

SPEAKER_00 9:37

So phase two was the industry industrialization. Before the factory, the household was where a family lived, worked and worshipped and trained together. The father was present. Children were at his side from age five, watching him, learning from him. Child rearing manuals were written to men, not women. In the event of more rare divorce in those days, custody went to the father, not to the mother. Then the factory came. Industrialization told men that the best thing they could do for their families was to leave. Go earn wages somewhere else. Send money back to the house. Your value is what you produce out there and not who you are. With a single generation, most fathers disappeared from the home for the majority of the day. Children lost access to the father as an example. The household went from being a place where a family was building something together to a place where they consumed things. And men's skills went from a broad array that are well needed for the household leadership to narrow specialization. They were no longer diverse, capable leaders of a household. They were just workers. So here we see what was removed through this phase in history was the father's necess have the necessity to have the integrated father in the family. In other words, the father there most of the time. His presence in the household. Phase three was the first wave of feminism.

Feminism And Role Confusion Begins

SPEAKER_00 11:10

The disruptions from industrialization often created real injustice because it was installing a broken system into society. As a result of men being pulled out of the house, there was a real suffering for women and children many times. The old system was built for an intact household with an integrated father. When the structure broke, women were left exposed. So first wave feminism emerged as a response, seeking out independent property rights, legal standing, voting rights, access to education and employment. And given the injustice, it made sense. But every major gain in this season moved a woman's identity and rights from inside the household structure to the outside of it. And most importantly, for the first time, the question was on the table is the stated difference and roles between men and women itself our problem. In other words, the question that came out was men and women complement each other in the home. So all at once, now was are those differences the problem instead of the strength. So the consensus that was removed here, what was removed here was the consensus that distinction between men and women was natural and good.

Sexual Revolution Redefines Marriage

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Phase four was the sexual revolution. Before the 1960s, the majority view, the majority view across virtually every civilization in human history was that intimacy, which I'm referring to sex, marriage and procreation was a paggage deal. Intimacy created children. Marriage bound a man and woman together for life and protected those children. You couldn't have one without the other. The birth control pill changed everything. For the first time ever, intimacy could be decoupled from children. And once that bond was severed, everything else followed more easily. No fault divorce dismantled the lifelong nature of marriage. In other words, when it calls a div a no-fault divorce, it's called you can divorce for no you used to have a really good reason to have a divorce, but it dismantled that. The culture began to say that intimacy is recreation, marriage is optional, and children are a lifestyle choice. In 1960, 72 of American adults were married. Today it's barely 50%. Young adults were married then, about 80%. Today, 20%. The average woman now has 1.7 children. In the 1800s, it was seven. The act that was designed to bind men and women together and seal their covenant became casual. Marriage went from being the assumed foundation of adult life and a strong society to something nearly half of all people considered unnecessary. So what we see was removed in this phase was the inseparable bond between intimacy, marriage, and children. Phase five was the second wave of feminism.

Gender Theory And Identity Untethered

SPEAKER_00 14:48

The first wave said women deserved legal equality now that many men left them hung out to dry. The second wave said the roles themselves are the problem. The distinction between men and women is oppressive. The household with a father who leads and a mother who builds alongside him was reframed as a prison. Women's liberation meant liberation from the home, from depending on men, and from the idea that motherhood was a woman's highest calling. The complementary design of two different people with different callings and different strengths, building something together that neither could build alone, was replaced by two individuals competing in the same marketplace for the same job. I just want to point this out. So as we look at here, the complementary design, which means the man and the woman complement each other, and that brings a tremendous strong bond, is now in competition with each other in the marketplace. Totally fighting against each other for what was designed by God. So the complementary design of two different people with different callings and different strengths building something together that neither could build alone was replaced by two individuals competing in the same marketplace for the same jobs. So here we see what was removed in this phase was the complementary and distinct roles of men and women in marriage, child rearing, and biblical households. So the last phase here was the homosexuality and gender theory. So as you remember, the Enlightenment said divine authority is optional. Industrialization said the father is optional. The sexual revolution said the bond between intimacy, marriage, and children is optional. Feminism said gender roles are optional. Homosexuality started the next phase by saying sexuality is optional and quickly created a landslide, resulting in gender theory that now says gender itself is optional. And I think we can see that today. Identity is no longer something you receive from God or your created body, it's something you construct from your desires. A man be a woman, a man can be a woman, a woman can be a man. The categories that every civilization in history, human history treated as foundational are now called arbitrary or optional and oppressive. So we see here in this phase, what was removed was the creational basis for identity itself. So in less than 400 years, design became optional, the father's presence became optional, the distinction between men and women were women was questioned. The bond between intimacy, marriage, and children were severed, the roles were erased, and the sex and gender categories themselves were dissolved. Each one of these phases was like it was like taking down a load-bearing wall, and now we're living in it. Trying to lead a family in a world that has systematically removed every structural support that was supposed to help you do its godly work, it's God's way. And there is a real important reason why the enemy would want this to happen. There are three voices out there right now to try to tell, and this was an email to us, men, so that's why it's talking about the men here. There are three voices out there right now trying to tell you what a man is. The first is the godless sector culture that we just unpacked. The second is the overcorrection of the men that think if your only way to be a man is if you're a macho. So overpowering. So that's not that's not right either. And not biblical, not at all. The third voice is the church, and the church either deconstructed how it viewed and taught about the roles of men and women in marriage, family, and the church so that it could align with culture or didn't. And it just was quiet. So it was either the church, the modern church, either kind of aligned with culture, or they just didn't say anything. Just they didn't want to make a ruckus about it. But just went silent on the topic entirely so that as not to stir up the beehive. Either way, when the church stops talking about what a man is, the culture doesn't stop, and it finds a way into the minds and formation of men and women. So that's how our lives got split into pieces. We didn't choose to be born in this mess, but here we are. And that's kind of depressing. So that's why I was like, this is not really a fun history lesson, but over the last 400 years, that was the agenda. That's Satan. Satan's agenda is to uh tear down the family. And what I've come to decide in my life, if if there's something that I feel Satan is trying to do in my life, it must be something good that I'm doing, right? So if Satan's trying to destroy the family, it must be a powerful tool for Christ, for God and his kingdom to spread his kingdom, to build his kingdom. So Satan is trying to destroy the family.

Returning To God’s Blueprint

SPEAKER_00 20:35

So we have the godly blueprint. What God designed from the beginning for work, family, marriage, intimacy, wealth, and kingdom, expansion to be one integrated calling. And this is where I get excited about this whole thing is that work, family, marriage, intimacy, wealth, and is and kingdom expansion should all be together. All be one. That should be all the same goal. But when that gets distorted is when things start to fall apart. Under a father's leadership, that design has been in our Bible the whole time, hidden in plain sight. So we're gonna look now. What is God's design for the family?

Genesis 2 Work Before Marriage

SPEAKER_00 21:29

So I'd like to uh I'm gonna be the text today is out of Genesis 2. I'm gonna be starting in Genesis 2, verse 4. God gives Adam a mandate that he can't fulfill himself. And as we we're looking at the Old Testament, it's all through the Old Testament. We just see that we can't do anything by ourselves. I mean, that that is we always need help somewhere. God gave Adam a mandate that he could not do himself, so he needed a helper, he needed a A support, a savior, somebody that would help him. So he gave him a woman. Then we're called to be a light. The children of Israel were called to be the light to the world. They couldn't, they needed help. It all points to the Savior. It all points to the Savior. Points all forward. So let's just start in Genesis 2. Um, in verse 1, it says, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. Here we see that there was no man to work the ground, so God held off the rain. So things wouldn't grow, because rain would have caused growth without someone to manage it. So God creates man first. In verse 6, and a mist was going up from the land and was watered, watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. Now I realize, I think I've preached this, used this text before, so I hope you don't get bored with this text, but it is such a foundational text. That's why I went back to this uh text because of the family. Verse 8. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon. It is one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. Now this is kind of interesting. I never noticed this before, but they pointed it out here while I was studying. The gold of that land is good. Let's remember that. It says, the gold of that land is good. Bedalum and Onyx stones are there. Verse 13. The name of the second river is Gion. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. So here we see God created man first, then he plants the garden. Then he takes man and places him in the garden. And the first thing he does is he gives Adam a job. He's like, work it and keep it. In other words, cultivate it. And keep it means also guard it. And it's interesting because as you read on in um when Adam and Eve sinned and they were thrown out of the garden, he put a cherubim there to guard the to guard the garden. It's the same guard. It's the same meaning. This this keep it is the same meaning as guarding the garden. So what God wants Adam to do is to work it, cultivate it, build it, and then also to keep it, protect it, guard it, and and so on. And here we see also some of these verbs that are in Hebrew here. The two verbs that would have been here would have been um Abad and Shamar. And these are the same word verbs that would have been used later on when the priests were doing their duties uh in the tabernacle. So Adam's job was kingly, he was kind of God gave him dominion over this, so he and priestly. So it was a divine, divine calling here. But we notice the order here. Before Adam has a wife, before he has children, before he even has a commission to fill the earth, he is told to build and protect. So work came first. So sometimes we almost like to look at work as a villain, but work isn't a villain. Work is actually uh something that God wants us to do. Verse 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. Remember, this is the first time in Genesis in the Bible that God says, It is not good. Everything up to this point was, it is very good. It is good. God liked what he did what was done, and God's goodness, he wants man here to share his God's goodness to for others. Verse 18. Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called, every living creature, that was his name. The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the heavens, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So here we see God does something fascinating. He brings the animals to Adam and lets him name them. God could have very easily given all these animals names. So, in some, you can kind of look at this as a little bit of chaos, no order. The animals didn't have names. So God gave Adam the responsibility to bring order to the animals here. So he actually, we name our children, right? Because there are our children. We take ownership of our children. So God is giving Adam ownership of the animals here. Because he told them, he told them to take care of them. So Adam names them, and as God very well knew that there was no one there. There was no animal there that was that would that would fit Adam. So we see that naming something was an act of authority and discernment. It was creating order out of chaos. Exercising dominion. Sorry, I kind of got ahead of myself here. If I don't get stick to my notes, I get confused. So I'm gonna stick to my notes here. This is the first picture of what the image bearing responsibility looks like in practice. It's a man looking at raw, unordered reality and bringing structure and meaning to it. So this is our first hint of what God wants man to be. What man, what God wants a man really, uh, what his job is. And through the process, something becomes clear to Adam that God already knew. There was no creature suitable for him. Man can't fulfill the mandate I'm about to give him alone. God knew that. And so Adam, I used to think maybe Adam was alone uh more lonely when he was like naming all the animals, didn't find anyone that would be a partner. You know, we're creative for relationships, man. We are relational. But I think it was more the task was too great for Adam. Maybe, maybe a lonely was as well. But the task was too great for Adam for what God had for him. So we see here, God said it was not good that man was alone. And this is the first something that is identified in creation as incomplete. So we see here the mission God is about to give is too large for Adam. It requires more than him, it requires fruitfulness, which as humans to produce need two, it takes two multiplication, filling the earth. One person can't do all that. So the Lord, in verse 21, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

The Strength Of Helper Ezer

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So God, we see God puts Adam in a deep sleep here and builds the woman from his side. And the Hebrew word for this helper is Ezer. I think it's E-Z-E-R. And this is more than when I think of a helper, I think of an assistant type of person. This is much more than the assistant. This Ezer word is used at least 20 times in the Old Testament. Sixteen of those times, it's when it's it's when God it refers to God Himself as a saving power for over Israel. That's the same definition God is using for the woman. She has the saving power for the man. So the world looking at the woman wants to act as if we're the world wants people to think that biblical understanding of the woman's role is like lesser. It is not. Ask some of the married women, they'll tell you. When I look at a couple, don't ever, singles, don't ever expect to marry a woman and change her. It won't work. She might change you. But there's truth to this. I'm serious. There is truth to that. You you you don't you don't you don't after women are in their 20s, you don't change them a whole lot. Not that they're stubborn, it's just reality. But you you do see that a woman is a very powerful partner. So don't let the world tell us that the woman's role is suppressant. The same verb as God saving power over Israel. She is the essential complement without whom the mandate cannot be fulfilled. She is the equal opposite strength, like two sides of an A-frame. It's like a structure, an A-frame, you take the one side down, that whole thing will collapse. The woman is that strong, is is is is just like she's part of that structure.

The Genesis Mandate For Dominion

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So we let's go to Genesis 1, 26 through 28. Now, here he gives a mandate to Adam and Eve. In verse 26, then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him. Male and female, female, he created them. Now here's the mandate. And God blessed them. And God, this is what he told them to do. God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant, He's giving them dominion here. I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit, ye shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to every thing that creeps in the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. This mandate is for us today. This mandate isn't just for Adam and Eve, but it is for you and I today. He blesses them and commands them be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, rule over it. This is one commandment with five dimensions. And when God says to do it, it's it's not a suggestion. That's really what he wants us to do. In other words, be fruitful, have children. God's original intent was for two created beings to make kids who make kids who make kids. It's multiplic multiplication. He's like, fill the earth. It's not addition. So children are not an optional accessory, it's in God's plan. The world wants it to be a lifestyle, a social lifestyle. But that's not God's plan. They are the original multiplication strategy of the kingdom is to have children. God wanted more people who would experience his blessings and goodness and glorify. That's the whole point. God wants people to experience his goodness. And it takes more than just it takes many people to He wants the whole earth to be filled with His goodness. So He's doing it through the family. He says, fill the earth. In other words, geographical and cultural expansion. Go into new territory. Maybe we need to get out of Holmes County. I don't know. Don't stay comfortable in the garden, in other words, where they were in the Garden of Eden. This was never meant to be a settled, safe place totally for them. It was where it was, it was not, they weren't just to stay in the garden, but they were to um they probably went out of the garden, but it wasn't what uh the original uh it was because of their sin. The garden was the place where man walked with God, a place where heaven met earth, which would later do to our sin, be continued in the tabernacle, the temple, and now in all all the people of God in Christ. So we are called to expand the experience of the garden out into all the earth. So another part of this command was to subdue. The Hebrew here is kabash, and it's literally means to tread down, to conquer, to bring into subjection. Isn't that amazing? God wants us to to conquer the earth as uh as as man. Put your food. This is just part of the notes here. Um basically take chaos and force it into order. And the and the last here part of the command is rule, govern, govern wisely under God's authority. God makes us little kings under the Supreme King. God wants us to be little kings. On behalf of the Supreme King. So what we see laid out here for us before sin enters into the equation is God's original intent for humanity. Before the fall, it was work, family, marriage, intimacy, and kingdom expansion. We're not going to get deep into some of that. I like to later on in another sermon touch more on that. But when this, when these, how do I want to say these categories of God's kingdom expansion are separated, that's when things get distorted. In other words, when these separate categories are out of balance, when work gets out of balance, when we lose the framework of work and we use it for our own glory, for our own, for just fulfilling ourselves, it that is when it breaks down. These are all one, these are all in one, these are all for the one reason, and that is to build his kingdom. It's a very strong unit, but when that breaks down, it's when things get distorted. They were not separate categories to balance, as modern world would often suggest. The world wants those to be separated. They were one integrated calling issued to a man and a woman. Two people, man and a woman, standing together in a garden with a God who said, Take what I have built here and expand it into all the earth. There's also one other detail I'm just gonna bring out a little

Wealth As A Kingdom Resource

SPEAKER_00 40:53

bit. We talked about it just a little bit in in chapter 2, verse 12, where it talks about the gold being good. And I and I I talked about a little bit about when work becomes distorted. Just outside Eden, there was a land called Habilah, and the text says the gold of that land was good. There was onyx stones and precious stones, and there were out there ahead of Adam in the territory, God was sending him into to subdue, rule, cultivate, and expand into. The resources for further building were embedded in the mission. In other words, you might think to yourself that you're not sure God would have intended to have man built with God or precious stones. But as we see in Revelation chapter 21, they were building with stones there. Provision and material blessings were intended to be one of the byproducts of faithful expansion into new territory. Seek first the kingdom of God, Matthew 6 says, and all these things shall be added unto you. So the principle started here in the original in Genesis 2 about when we build, when we work, it's all about building the kingdom of God. Wealth and work are not villains, ambition is not a villain. Paul discusses godly ambition versus selfish ambition. It was God who put gold into the ground and called it good. But it was always meant to be a blessing of the Lord that would resort, that would resource God's mission. The moment wealth gets disconnected from kingdom purpose in our host, well, it distorts everything. So the moment that man starts provision without a framework, in other words, doing work outside of that framework, what God has, for what the provision is actually intended for, he will likely drift into idolatry, and that is so easy to do. But there's also an opposite spectrum where if you seek kingdom expansion without recognizing the use, the usual need for financial resources, you will likely drift into a poverty mindset. In other words, the Bible does tell us men should work. If a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat. So there's two two two opposite spectrums there. So as we look into the future, I'm gonna end the sermon there.

Fight For Your Family Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 43:38

The primary the goal of these um of this series of sermons is simply to get us to value, to see the picture that God has for the family. And also for Us men to see our families are worth fighting for. To lead. It's so easy sometimes to be at home but yet not leading. If you know what I mean. Or something like that. I've experienced that myself. So I would just encourage each one of us as we go through, as we go through life in this world of where Satan is trying to and has pretty much destroyed or in culture, pretty much has destroyed the family unit. Let's continue to be determined not to let it affect us. Let's bow a word of prayer. God, we just want to thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your teaching, Lord. Help us to be able to grasp what you what your intent is for the family. And that as we go through life, that we can keep this structure together and live in this structure for your honor and your glory. Just thank you for this church, Lord. Pray your blessing upon it as we work together for your kingdom and for your honor and your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.