PART FOUR: HOW TO BE EFFECTIVE IN SHARING THE LORD IN THE FAMILY

1. Example is the most important tool that we have in sharing the Lord with the family.
 

I don’t know if there were children in the home of Zaccheus or not. But suppose for a
moment that there were. Suppose that two or three children sat on the couch the night that
Jesus spent with the Zaccheus family and listened to the conversation between Jesus and
their father. All their lives, they had been ridiculed by their peers, ostracized by
polite Jewish society and not allowed to play with proper Jewish children. Here was Jesus
offering salvation to their father – the hated tax collector. And they heard their father
say in Luke 19:8, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the
poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the
amount." Do you think what they saw that night would have any bearing on how they
viewed Jesus and the gospel? Of course it would.

2. But example can only be effective if you spend time with the family.

The picture that emerges in Deuteronomy 6 is one of family togetherness. Dolores Curran
in her book, _Traits of a Healthy Family_ says the lack of time is the most pervasive
enemy the family has. You might set the best example in the world, but if you never spend
time with your family, they don’t see that example. Ours is a busy world and we can only
find time to be with our families if we make it a priority.

 3. The church and the family should be strong allies.

Jesus loved the church and died for it. Paul called it the pillar and ground of truth.
There’s nothing in the New Testament to suggest that it’s the nature of things to drive a
wedge between the church and the family. When Paul wrote to the church at Rome, he
concluded his letter with a number of greetings and when he did he often thought about
families. In Romans 16:7, he said, "Greet Andronicus and Junias my relatives, who
have been in prison with me.  In verse 10, he said "Greet those in the household
of Aristobulus."  In verse 11, "Greet the household of Narcissus". In
verse 13, "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother," In verse 15,
"Greet Philologus, Julia Nereus and his sister and Olympas and all the saints."
The church was made up of families. Paul honored those families. He even thought of the
mother of Rufus as a mother to him.

An educational institution that specializes in the training of future ministers and
church workers had invited the preacher from a strong church to speak about the role of
the church in society. He spoke very favorably about the church. Some of the young men in
his audience didn’t quite agree with him. They were suspicious of all the institutions of
society. They were critics of the establishment and they were not overly fond of the
church. The speaker gave these students the opportunity to ask questions. One very angry
young man stood up and said, "I appreciate your viewpoint, but I don’t  share
it.

From where I stand, the church looks like the old gray mare."  What do you do
when you get a response like that? I don’t know what I would do, but I know what the guest
speaker did. He said, "I agree with you. Sometimes the church looks like the old gray
mare to me too, but I want you to realize that the church is one of the few institutions
in world which is going to pass along to the next generation, those values that, when
lived by, make life more worthwhile."

 4. Families need to make the entire home environment one that upholds and
reinforces the values it holds dear.

That"s what Lois and Eunice did when they directed Timothy in the right paths. I
heard a child behavior specialist in our city suggest that we need to make our homes
trophy rooms. He said that what we hang on the walls says a lot about what’s important to
us.

I got to thinking about that. Every day, the wall decorations provide a visual aid
communicating to your family and to visitors what your values are. I don’t have any
pictures on the wall of me going down to the bank to deposit my check. We don’t put the
appliance warranty agreements on the wall. We don’t have the car title framed and posted.
We’ve got pictures in our house, pictures going back several generations, pictures of
significant events like weddings and graduations, pictures of grandchildren of course and
these pictures tell the story of the continuity of our family. We’ve  got artwork,
most of which was given to us by friends and the friends who gave it are more important
than the picture.

We’ve got sayings on the walls that communicate something about our values. My favorite
is "The House Beautiful." 

"Where there is faith, there is love,

where there love, there is peace,

where there is peace, there is God,

where there is God, there is no need."

Take a look at your walls. What do they say to the members of your family?

CONCLUSION

As I observe the children who walk through our doors, I sometimes wonder what will
become of them. At this point, perhaps, no one can tell. In 1809, people had their eyes on
folks like Napoleon Bonaparte, who was busy fighting wars and made the decision that year
to divorce his wife, Josephine. Or maybe they were talking about the inauguration of James
Madison to the presidency. They were reading Washington Irving’s new book, _Rip Van
Winkle_. Nobody paid any attention to Tom and Nancy Lincoln’s new baby in Hardin County,
Kentucky, but he would eventually become the 16th president of the United States. It was
also the year that Alfred Tennyson, Edgar Allen Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Cyrus
McCormick, and Louis Braille, the man who invented the reading system for the blind, were
born. Nobody, outside their families paid much attention, but they would all grow up to
influence the world. That little fellow in your home – the shy little girl that hides
behind Mama’s apron- who knows what they’ll become? James A. Garfield once said, "I
never meet a ragged boy on the street without the feeling that I owe him a salute, for I
know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under that shaggy coat."

What I do know is that there is something of God in those young lives and it’s our job,
as those who know the Lord, to share him with them.

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All About Families Newsletter

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