Over the last few weeks, we have looked at the Home. We’ve searched the scriptures about fathers, mothers and children. We’ve looked at the Heart, Head, Honor, Heritage, Heartache and Healing of our homes.
Today we will finish our look at the Home by understanding the HOPE of our homes.
If there is any hope for our homes, we must…
NEEDS TO BE
I would like to address a few areas of scripture that sometimes get put on the back burner in our society. These scriptures can become difficult to understand, but I believe that they hold the keys of truth that our homes need! Especially within the leadership of the home.
So before everyone gets mad, makes picketing signs and burns their undergarments in a riot, let’s
1 Timothy 2:1-15 says:
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.
I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
“The two important roles within the family are filled by TWO people who function as ONE! The roles of spouse and parent are filled by one man and one woman who have become one in God’s design for the home.” —Steve Abney
Although the roles we carry are different, they do not take away from one another, but rather compliment one another. If we only knew our positions…
There is a great price to be payed for leaving our post or deserting our positions:
BATTLE AT FIVE FORKS (WHITE OAK ROAD - APRIL 1)
Some of our GREATEST FAILURES in the home come from leadership
It is the first family before they sinned. You see, the roles were clear in the beginning, but have become very distorted since the sins of humanity. While we have looked at the family of Isaac to see what NOT to do, God says we should look to the family of Adam and Eve (before their sin) to see what we SHOULD do. This is God’s design. Two becoming ONE, standing guard at their post and fulfilling their roles.
NEEDS TO BE
Even in the title of our first book of the Bible, it declares that God is the beginning of all things (Genesis). What God has
There, in the Garden of Creation, God birthed the home and set the standard for all future homes. Husbands honor/love your wives, Wives submit/reverence your husbands, be fruitful and multiply. God seems to have established
But
AT THE CROSS…
Can you hear Jesus as he presses His feet against the nails driven through His body, and into that wooden cross? Gasping for another breath of air as the fluid is building around His heart because of the suffocation and lack of oxygen… “Father forgive them…”
But then through the agony and pain of crucifixion, through the laughter and mockery, through the loud cries of the crowd, through the gambling of the soldiers at His feet for His garment… His love and compassion for the HOME that His father created is sounded out. In a gasp, He takes in a breath and says,…
John 19:25-27 says:
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
It was certain that Jesus came to restore the Home
1 Timothy 2:12-15 says:
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
Mary stands before her son grieving. Possibly as a widow because we read no where of Joseph at this time. No brothers and sisters of Jesus at the cross because of their unbelief. Alone, losing her son to the vilest death possible. And Jesus’ heart was moved, just as His Father’s heart in the Garden of Eden with Adam’s loneliness. What
1 John 4:7-11 says:
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
O, the