Whole Family (Week 2)

As you're seated, take a second and I just want us to thank the Lord for this worship team and production team that week after week transform a movie theater into a space to bring us to the throne room of God.

And so love you all and thank you all for your dedication, your passion.

My name's Forrest Coleman, lead pastor here at Multiply.

My family, along with a bunch of other people, planted and launched Multiply Church just over a year ago.

And it's nice to meet you if you're new and glad that you're here.

We jumped into a brand new series this last week called Whole Family.

Turn to your neighbor and say foundation.

And we're talking about how to build a healthy foundation at home.

Um I will tell you this, uh it's kind of you know a surprise, and one day I'll get there, but I've never been to Disney World.

Maybe some of you all have.

I've never been before.

Thought I might go as a kid, but we ended up going.

And uh, whenever any of my friends, uh, their families go to Disney World, when they come back, I always ask them the same question.

Was it the happiest place on earth?

And depending on whether they go in the middle of July or they go earlier or what age their kids are, they either say yes it's the happiest place on earth, or they say no, it's a nightmare.

Don't ever go, I'm not going back.

Uh but Disney has successfully uh branded themselves as the happiest place on earth.

And at some point I'll get to experience it.

I'm trying to figure out again like when the right time is a go for my daughter as three years old, and maybe a few years yet, so that she can actually remember all the time and money spent uh gone to Disney.

Um but I think about it, it's known as this happiest place on earth, but I I wonder what's the most important place on earth?

Is it some ancient battleground?

Is it some place with a biblical significance?

And I think that the most important place on earth is inside your front door.

Now why is that?

It's because the most important people are there, you, your family, and hopefully the most important person of all, Jesus, is through your front door.

Emily and I, we we have had the rare fortune of growing up in families that have parents that have stayed together, married for decades, that that love Jesus.

But that was done through intentional decisions in our parents' life to overcome family history, including alcoholism, intense mental illness, suicide, single motherhood, racism, and abuse.

And if think about the story of Emily and I's families and what goes into it, our parents they paved a different path that we would grow up in a different type of home.

Now, there are many different types of homes.

What kind of home did you grow up in?

A Bengals home?

A fitness home, a theater home, a hunting home, a healthy food home, a TV home, a little league home, a chaotic home, a revolving door home, a poor home, a rich home, a parents never home home.

And ultimately, what we want to create with our lives and within our families is a Christian home.

Because that's the one that Jesus is invited into.

Today's message comes heavily from a book called The Most Important Place on Earth.

It talks about what it looks like for us that for me, I can say now that my parents raised me in a Christian home by overcoming many challenges.

And I want for the kids and teenagers of Multiply Church and the grandkids to be able to say the same thing about their families, their parents, and their grandparents that are in this room right now.

So when we say healthy foundation, what we mean is a Christian foundation at home, but what does that actually even mean?

What's it mean to have a Christian foundation?

What does it look like?

Today's modern culture, there may not even be pictures of what a Christian home looks like on TV or sitcoms.

The image of what that would even be.

Last week we jumped into this passage and I want us to return to it.

The words of Jesus talking about us building our life on the solid foundation in Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Jesus says these words.

He says, Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise.

Like a person who builds a house on solid rock.

Though the rain comes and torrents and the flood waters rise and winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it's built on bedrock.

But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish.

Like a person who builds a house on sand, and the rains and the flood come and the winds beat against the house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority, quite unlike the teachers of religious law.

Jesus gives this analogy.

Build our homes, build who we are, that as we go out and we use the different mediums of building our life, that we build it on bedrock.

Now, I've been to Israel before.

There's no shortage of two things.

One, rock and sand.

It's everywhere.

And while you're there, you get to choose where you build your house and then how you actually build your house.

And we think about modern home building where you just, you know, pour a slab of concrete that's been created.

There was no concrete.

There was barely any wood to be used for people's homes.

Their homes were built out of stone.

And they were, they chose foundation stones to put onto a solid bedrock that then they could build up their stone house over top of it.

And I wonder when we go to build a foundation on Christ in our homes and our lives, what are those foundation stones?

What does it actually look like when Jesus says to build your life on bedrock?

What does it even mean?

And begin to think about what are those things that that are the foundational stones that can that should be and could be in every single one of our homes in order for us to have a house that can be known for loving and following Jesus, for the transforming goodness of God, for a new path of redemption.

The first of these foundation stones, and I hope that you'll write these down as I go through today, as I give practicalities.

The first one is the foundation stone of love.

Every house has a smell.

I know that because when you leave for vacation or a trip for a few days and you come back into your front door, all of a sudden you smell, you're like, is this what my house smells like?

It is.

It smells like that to everybody else who walks in except for you.

You get used to it over time, but your house, it has a smell.

And what is that smell that is radiating from your home?

For Emily and I, we desperately don't want it to smell like our dog, Theo.

But in a larger sense, what is the smell?

What's coming off of your home in 2 Corinthians 2, 14?

The scripture says, but thank God that he has made us his captive and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession.

For now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere like a what?

Sweet perfume.

Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God.

Isn't that beautiful?

But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and those who are perishing.

What's your house smell like?

What's your life smell like?

Is there a fragrance coming off of you of love, of care for others?

I can say this for me, growing up and having friends and going to different friends' houses, and you know how it is, you know, growing up and you're hanging out with people and go over to hang out, spend the night, those kind of things.

I as an outsider coming into the homes, I could, and I'm sure that you probably could too, you could feel what level of love was in that home.

By the way that the family spoke to each other.

Was the house treated with love and order?

What was the experience that you had?

And I think that we need to start at this place.

Of our homes need to smell, need to have a fragrance of Jesus when people walk through the door.

How is that?

It's about how you show your love.

Now, what does that look like to you?

I think it's a house that's filled with hospitality, with love for one another, with kindness, with uh passion for people to be able to be redeemed, forgiveness, that there's a bedrock of love that should radiate off us.

Why?

Because Christ first loved us.

God is love.

The scripture tells us over and over again.

And I can't reiterate enough that a home that we are creating to be a Christian home, that it should be a home that is a loving place.

Now, the next foundation stone is also a house, it's the house of the Lord.

Church.

Hebrews 10, 24 through 25.

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to act of love and good works.

And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the days of his return are drawing near.

I want to remind you that the Ten Commandments, these ten statements that were given to the people of God by way of Moses and written on tablets, alongside of do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, was a command that we would keep the Sabbath.

That each and every single week, that there would be a day out of our week that is given back to the Lord for a Shabbat, a Sabbath rest for worship and for our rest.

And it's a command from the Lord.

Now we also see that it's a prescription to have a healthy foundation.

And in the passage that we just read in Hebrews to tell us to not neglect the gathering of ourselves together like some do, but for us to continue to be meeting together as believers so that we can encourage one another and lift one another up in love for good works, so we can keep going, that we can keep walking out our faith.

But along with it being a prescription for a healthy home, it's also a command from the Lord.

And the busyness of life, the travel, the games, all the different priorities that we have, I want you to realize that as a family and as a church and as a Christian home, that which you make optional, it will be not important to your kids later on.

If not going to church on Sunday or sleeping in on Sunday is a reward for your kids, that's probably not in alignment with how God wants us to see the order of our week and the rest and the worship that He deserves.

And I'm saying this so that we can orient ourselves to have a home that is built on a solid foundation.

That our kids, that our grandkids, that our nieces and nephews, that they would know that they are people and come from a people who love God and will return to Him the worship and praise that He's worthy and due of.

But for you in your house, will you be on the solid rock?

Will you follow the Lord that He would instill in you on Sundays through preaching, through the worship of God, both grace and truth?

The second or the third building block is in Foundation Stone is grace, and it it goes together with truth.

A few weeks ago we talked about our value around here.

We embrace the tension of grace and truth at the same time.

And so when we have truth in our homes, what does it look like for us to have truth in our homes?

Well, it looks like God talk.

God talk.

Now, I just want to say this as I'm talking today about how to build a healthy foundation and to build a Christian home.

I'm understanding and understand that everybody's coming from different perspectives.

You may have not had the picture of this, so thinking about having conversation about your family or nieces or nephews or with your kids, it's incredibly intimidating to think about talking about God regularly.

And I understand that it is, it can be intimidating.

But you can work these conversations in with your family with your kids, and specific truth, it can happen just in everyday life.

Something my family has begun to do.

We got this from the Wolf family, but with our young kids, when we sit down to the dinner table, we ask two questions.

Uh, one is, what's your what's uh what was the happiest thing that happened to you today?

What's the saddest thing that happened to you today?

And it's really sweet to hear that from my three-year-old of what she says is the happiest and saddest time.

John Wertberg, who has written a lot of books on modern discipleship and has really looked to, he and his family added a third question to the table.

What's the happiest thing that happened to you today?

What's the saddest thing that happened today?

And the third question, what did God say to you today?

Because they wanted to, they wanted to set the expectation that those in their family that they would be in prayer and speaking with the Lord and going to God, even their kids, throughout the day.

Now, I don't know about you, but uh you've probably had this conversation before with a grandkid or with a child.

How was your day?

Fine.

What'd you learn at school?

Nothing.

And by asking and going a little bit further into a conversation to pull out relationally, hey, what's the happiest thing that happened to you today?

What's the saddest thing that happened to you today?

How is God a part of your day?

When you're around the dinner table or you're talking with your family.

Now I want to share with you five statements that these are these are like doses of medicine or vitamins, if you will, that need to be said and truth that needs to be spoken in your home.

The first one, you all should write these down.

The first one is I love you.

I love you.

The people that you know, those family, the friends who walk through the door, that you are following Jesus and you're able to say to someone else and show them the love of God and go and actually say, I love you.

There are probably people in this room right now that grew up in a home where you heard that very rarely.

Or somebody in your house was too macho because they never wanted to say those words.

And we know that for us to walk in love, that God is love, and that we should be a picture of love as well, that we should be able to say and speak to one another, I love you.

The second thing to say is I need your love.

Almost like saying, I uh I need a hug.

Something that I thought was so weird for some time is John Weiss, the pastor of Southland, that's our friends and our ascending church.

Something that John Weiss is known to do on UK's campus is to go onto campus and to uh advertise a sign that says uh dad, free dad hugs for students to come by and to get a free dad hug.

Now I thought that was so weird until uh the the summer, um, after my sophomore year of college, my wife's freshman year of college, I had gone off to work at a Christian camp for the summer.

Emily was taking classes still in Lexington at UK.

She ended up moving into a house with brand new roommates for the summer, didn't know them.

She was away from her family, and she was working full-time at Macy's folding clothes and putting them and going to school.

And I remember us being on the phone maybe six weeks in, and Emily said, I realized that I've not had a hug in weeks now.

No one has hugged me.

Away from her family, away from her friends.

And the embrace of, hey, I need your love right now.

For you to say to your family, hey, you know what?

I need a hug right now.

Now again, I'm talking with your family.

I'm not talking about the creepy guy in high school that goes to all the pretty girls and say, Where's my hug?

Where's my hug?

Don't do that at church, y'all.

You guys don't do that.

Where's my don't be the where's my hug guy?

I'm not saying that.

That is not, that is, no, it's creepy.

Don't do that.

But when it comes to your house, when it comes to your home, a symbol, I need your love, that I I need you to show me some love right now.

I need to get a hug from you, and to have a house that's filled with that love that people don't feel left behind or lost.

The third statement that you should say, this vitamin in your home, should be, I'm sorry.

I was wrong.

Will you please forgive me?

Now there's a difference between that statement right there and just saying, I'm sorry, or I'm sorry you felt that way.

But for you to be able to say to the people that are in your home, maybe even your kids at times, I'm sorry, I was wrong.

A recognition of the fact that you did something to hurt them, you said something that hurt them, that you acted in a way that was not okay, and then asked for forgiveness.

See the recognition of the fact that you've done something wrong is the is a piece of repentance that should be followed up with forgiveness.

Your home, your Christian home, should be a home that's filled with forgiveness, not grudges and bitterness.

I have the opportunity a lot and have over my uh life and ministry to be in funeral homes with families who have lost loved ones, performing funerals, being a part of their funeral.

And it blows my mind that in the midst of these family dynamics, unknown there's always some type of family drama that one side of the family or one family in the family won't talk to other people because of a longtime grudge that's been held for years.

And it's tragic.

It's tragic to see a family that's hurting and broken because of a tragedy like a death, to be holding on to bitterness and holding on to grudges that are keeping their family held down.

Am I preaching anybody today?

Let our homes not be ones that are filled with bitterness and grudges.

Now, does that mean that you need to be reconciled and be best friends with everybody who's in your family, and everybody who's ever hurt you know it doesn't?

But it does mean that we need to walk in a way of love, and there should be an example of love and forgiveness in our homes.

It's the fourth vitamin, the fourth medicine drop is the statement, may I help?

When Emily's got uh a kid in one hand and this and there, there's that, and then the the baby needs a diaper change.

A simple, how can I help you right now goes a long, long way.

You want to know why?

Because you're actually serving the people in your home.

It's a servanthood.

It's modeling yourself after Jesus' servant leadership to look uh to your spouse or your friends or whoever's there and to be able to uh to articulate and say, may I help you?

Can I come alongside you?

Can I help you?

And the fifth statement that you should say and should be said in your home is thank you.

Marked by gratitude.

Look at what Colossians 4 6 says.

It says, Let your conversations be full of what?

Grace.

Season with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

The words that come out of our mouth, our homes should be homes that are full of grace of Jesus.

Because of how much he loves us, how much he's forgiven us, how much he cares for us, that we could walk in forgiveness and grace just the same.

The same God that forgave a murderer like Moses, forgave a murderer like the Apostle Paul, that can be redeemed and still be used by God.

That's a God that's full of grace that we need to represent.

That we need to be walking in the same way, that that we can have our conversations be filled with grace, not with offense and bitterness and anger, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Now, on to having all the answers.

Now, I know that this one in particular may be the most intimidating one of all.

I don't know how to find this in the in the scripture.

And I think it just needs to start again, starting very foundational baseline with this.

Every person in your home should have their own Bible.

Something that they know that it's theirs, that they can begin to look to.

And that you can have a Bible that can be extremely helpful.

You get online, there's Bibles for everybody.

There's Bibles for kids, there's Bibles for teens, there's Bibles for athletes, there's Bibles for hunters, there's Bibles for all different types that can help you.

And my favorite is this, I call it the cheat code Bible, but this is my uh life application study Bible.

That under every single section of the scripture, it it breaks it down, and then it has all the cheat code answers for every verse down there.

You can buy these for like 50 bucks.

I know that's an investment, but uh can you imagine if you're able to give your child a Bible like this that they can read and understand that costs the same as the game jersey or whatever you're buying for the next sports league?

Something that they can have their own that they can know?

Now, Emily makes fun of me because I'm one of these people who have flashlights in every room.

I just grew up in this home.

My dad did the same thing.

It's like if the lights go out, I need to be within five feet of a hidden flashlight that I can grab just in case I need to find it, I need to see where I'm going.

And Emily makes fun of me about it all the time.

Psalms 119.05, 105 says, Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

Don't you want your child, your grandchild, to be able to find the flashlight in the darkness, and they know that the word of God is the light for their feet and the lamp for them.

And to have a Bible that they can go to, can be theirs, they can underline, they can draw, and they can do whatever it is that they want.

Which leads to also encouraging your kids and your families to memorize scripture.

By rewards, they do these things at church, but also at home.

How can you help your kids to begin to memorize scripture?

There's a lot of different ways you can do that.

You can buy demon rewards, you can do something that's like a little project to be something that you can do at the dinner table at another time.

Thinking about verses that uh maybe special to you, that you can share with them.

Now, with all the different media and content, there's songs that they can sing and learn about God's word, and you can help them to do it.

To have the light, to find the light, that they would recognize the word of God and also that they can speak directly to God, a way of prayer.

That's the next foundation stone in your home.

Prayer.

Now I have young kids, so we have this bedtime routine, and it is long.

Have to say goodnight to everybody, have a story that we read.

Ember has her own Bible, and we get to read her Bible to her at night, even though she's so young.

But we have this bedtime routine, and many nights of our bedtime routine ends with me saying a prayer over her.

When you have prayer in your life, you and in your home, you can work it into your different routines.

One of those ways being prayer roads.

Uh, every morning, as Emily is taking Ember to school and sometimes me as well.

When we go down Shelby Street on our way to 2nd Street, at some point down Shelby Street when we pass the high school, it's time that that road turns into a prayer road.

And we say, Okay, Ember, it's time to pray for your teachers right now and for your day.

And so we, in the car I'm driving, I say, Okay, Ember, name all your teachers.

She names all of her teachers in her class and we pray for each one of them.

And she knows that that's the prayer road.

So routinely for you, there's times that you're going with your family, and there's times where you can take an opportunity when you're in the car and that you know that who you're praying for.

Maybe it's your drive to church in the morning, or maybe it's on your way when you're leaving to go on a trip, that you know this this specific road is the time that we're gonna start praying as a family.

And they're also there's these prayer hooks or these reminders that also can help you in prayer in your home.

A prayer hook being like when you're folding the laundry, you pray over the hearts that are gonna fill those clothes as you're folding those pants and shorts and shirts, no matter the size.

Maybe it's something that for you have a brother-in-law or sister-in-law, and they have a favorite food or a favorite restaurant, and every time you pass by there, you think of them, and it's a prayer hook, and you say a prayer for them.

You have little reminders that are in your life that help for prayer to be something that you are continually doing.

1 Thessalonians 5.17 very simply says, pray continually.

That's the end of the verse.

King James says, pray without ceasing.

And you think about that, could be a very daunting task.

It's like, okay, God, how in the world am I supposed to pray all the time without ceasing?

How am I supposed to pray continually?

I got a job to do, I gotta go to work, I gotta go to school, I gotta do these things, I can't be praying all the time.

But when you think about the fact that as you're going in your routine, that you can, whether you're at home or you're on your way, that you can be talking to God.

And my my three-year-old and I had a very fun conversation in the car this week as we were driving and we were talking about prayer, and I said to Ember, I said, You know, sis, you can pray to God at any time.

You know how you on the phone, we'll play phone, you know, you know how you, you know, call mommy or daddy.

She said, Yeah, I said, you know, you don't have to call God.

You can just talk to him wherever.

And she said, No, I can't.

I said, No, no, you can't.

We can do it right now.

And we took time to pray.

These are small things, but they stack up to big things.

And the last foundation stone is discipline.

Psalms 94, 12 says, Joy for those you discipline, Lord, those you teach with your instructions.

Discipline from the Lord, and also discipline in our home and of our kids is something that is very scriptural and talked about.

You can do a quick Google search and find the verses.

But when you think about the word discipline, we think about it as a verb.

That it's something that you do.

The timeouts and whatever the discipline modes are in your house, the groundings, the taking away of things.

But discipline can also be a noun, that you are disciplined, that you have discipline.

And when you have a disciplined life, you don't need to be disciplined all the time.

You know that laziness, it's a sin.

So for us to have a life that is disciplined, that is strategic, that is intentional, where we're being disciplined in ourselves as followers of Jesus, and then also in a loving way, disciplining in our home.

And all these factors combined lead to a home that has the fragrance of Jesus.

I never met my grandfather Coleman, my dad's dad.

My dad and his siblings were young.

My grandfather Coleman, a veteran suffering from bipolarism, he took his own life when my dad was eight years old.

Shot and killed himself.

And immediately, my granny Coleman had to step up and be a single mom back in the 60s, four kids, working three jobs.

My dad started working very early.

And in the midst of that hardship, the fact that my dad didn't just not grow up with a father, he grew up with this horrible, terrible, tragic trauma connected.

For me and my brother in our home that we grew up in, my dad didn't have an example of what it looked like to be a father, but he knew what it looked like to be a Christian parent because my granny Coleman, in the midst of everything else that she had going on and all of the stress and strain, taking in people's laundry to iron late at night to have a third job, she made sure that she had her four kids in church every Sunday.

She served faithfully in the Methodist Church and Daphne for years and years until she was an older lady serving faithfully.

And she brought my dad to church.

She did the best that she could to raise them in a home that served the Lord despite unbelievable challenge.

And I can't help but think and wonder, would this church be here today if it hadn't been for my grandmother and her faithfulness in the midst of a difficult circumstance to instill in her kids and for her to serve Jesus and do her very best to make her home be a Christian home.

I don't know if it would be.

Your home growing up, it may not have been a Christian home.

You may not have had a mom and dad.

You may not have had things that you feel like that you would need to chart a new course for your family, but God is inviting you into.

God is inviting you into a redemption story that your family, your kids, your grandkids, your nieces and nephews, that they can have a different story and path because of your life and because of what you build on solid rock.

And so what we need to think about doing is for each of us in our home that we would replace sand with stone.

What are the areas in your life right now, in your home, that instead of being on solid rock is on shifting sand?

What are ways that you can take these foundation stones and even if you just start so small to begin to build a home with a foundation that's on Jesus?

And I can say with confidence that for my family, my parents, they charted a new course.

What about your family?

Just imagine with me now.

Imagine with me the kids that over the years will come out of Multiply Church and are able to say, My family charted a new course.

The tragedy, the trauma, the difficulty, the challenges.

And God did that for me.

And now I get to do that for my kids and my kids after them.

Can you just imagine with me future generations who are gonna be able to say it?

I believe it.

They're gonna be able to say that my family is saved, love God, and are heading to heaven when we all depart.

The funerals that we go to, they're marked with joy because we know that the people in our family that we're gonna see them again one day.

And maybe for you, you're here today, and for you, you need to go on a totally different path that you've been going on, and you need to turn and you need to turn your life over to God, and you need to give your life to Jesus today so that you can begin to have a home that God wants you to have, that He wants to bless you, that He wants to walk with you in the troubling times when the winds and the torrents come, that your house will not fall because it's on the solid rock of Jesus.

And today you can make that decision for you to start a new course, to be saved, to ask for forgiveness of your sins and to walk with Jesus because of what he did on the cross.

Will you bow your heads now?

I want to pray over all of our families.

Father, I pray across this room today, God.

I pray, Lord, for new courses and new paths to be charted.

God, I pray for redemption over each and every single home that's represented right now.

God, I pray over future generations that are represented here by each person that's in these seats.

That God, our foundation would be on you, on the solid rock.

That Lord, we know that the storms of life are gonna come.

For some of them there this last week.

News from the doctor, loss of jobs.

But God, pray right now over each and every single family that's represented here right now.

That when the wind and the waves beat against their home, God, it will stand.

It will stand because of you.

Every head bowed, you may be in the room today, and you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior.

You've not asked for the forgiveness of your sins that Jesus bought for you on the cross.

You know, asked for him to come into your life and for him to be your foundation.

Today is the day that you can do that.

Don't wait.

There's no reason to wait.

If that's you, pray to Jesus right now.

Hey, Jesus, save me.

Pray it in your heart, pray it in your mind.

Jesus, save me.

I'm turning to you.

I'm giving you my life.

Thank you for dying on the cross for me.

Forgive me.

Forgive me of my sins.

Wash me as white as snow.

So that I can be in heaven with you one day.

I put my life on your solid rock.

Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

Nobody looking around.

You're in the room today.

You prayed that prayer for the first time for Jesus to save you.

I want you very quickly and simply just to me to be able to pray over you.

Would you just raise your hand?

Nobody's looking to see.

You praise that for the first time.

Yep, I see you.

Back there.

Father, I pray, Lord, and thank you, God, for those in the room today who prayed that for the very first time.

God, salvation has come.

Lord, I thank you, God, that you've you've you're putting folks on a new path, charting a new course their life.

We thank you, God.

We praise your name.

We celebrate you.

In Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Amen.

Church, will you stand to your feet and celebrate together?