Habits of the Household

Well, good morning.

Um, man, I'm telling you uh that summer jam is something that you do not want to miss.

Uh my name is Russ.

If I hadn't had a chance to meet you, one of the pastors here at Church at the Grove.

Um let me tell you it's Summer Jam, and what we do is investing in children along with things like summer camp that we send our teenagers to, it is the best investment that we can make as a church.

How many of you, how many of you have already signed up to volunteer at Summer Jam?

Just hold your hand up.

Hold it up for a second.

Hold it up.

You know, it's not real good.

Um, you know, um, hold it up, hold it up.

All right.

All right, now, now, how many of you have already, I mean, you you've in your mind, you signed up and you said, I'm I'm already know that I'm gonna serve.

I just haven't signed up yet.

Raise your hand up.

Raise your hand.

All right.

See, we're in trouble because we're gonna have a couple hundred kids here starting two weeks from tonight.

So let me pray right now.

I'm not joking.

So we're the Holy Spirit is working right now, Father.

God, we have no better way to see the world changed and to see lives change, and to see you work in the life of families and specifically children.

And so, Lord, I pray, God, you are gonna, I just pray for you to pour out your spirit.

God, that you move upon hearts.

There's some people here that that really they don't even know, they didn't come this morning knowing they would be a part of such an incredible opportunity to see God work in the lives of kids.

So would you would you speak?

Would you work?

God, would you would you move upon hearts?

God, we need um we we need a movement.

We need a revival.

We need we need to see refreshing, we need to see renewal.

And God, it can start with with the younger generation.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

So should I ask you to raise your hands again?

Yes, Lord, we are we are answering.

We are here.

All right.

Listen, we're we're in our final week where we're talking about intentional families.

Because we believe, right?

We believe in the family, we believe in making disciples.

We want to see God at work.

And the most basic unit for discipleship is the family.

And um and so we've been talking about that all uh the last four weeks.

And so today we're talking about habits of the household or habits of the home.

And so my family and I uh we uh we we have a unique practice.

I think it's unique.

I've never seen uh anybody else do this other than one other couple that we learned it from.

Um but when we sit down and have a meal, we sing the doxology together before we eat together.

That's our mealtime blessing.

And so, and if you don't know what the doxology is, which is very likely going to church at the grove because we are not a doxology singing, liturgical, you know, um formal church.

Um uh, and and I so I say that, but it's it's it's a it's a it's a longtime hymn uh that has been sung in the church, probably for centuries.

Um uh and I'm not gonna sing it, so don't worry.

You know, but it's praise God.

Let's see.

Let's we gotta I may have to sing it to remember it.

Um let's sing it.

Can you sing it with me?

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Pray all creatures here below, praise him above the heavenly host, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Now you see why I preach.

We took a trip.

My my wife and I took a trip to do a funeral for for a young man that that had come to Christ in our student ministry.

His name was Walt.

Some of y'all have met Walt and Mercy because we as a church have supported them.

Uh they spent several years in Pakistan.

Uh they now are back in Minneapolis working with um uh multicultural ministry in the big city of Minneapolis.

And so in 2003, they got married in Minneapolis in January.

Worst time to get married in Minneapolis, but they got married in Minneapolis, and so we flew up to do part of the wedding, I mean, to be part of the wedding, and um, and and so we had dinner with a family.

We we stayed with a family um in their home, and we had dinner, and they sang the doxology together, and we felt like that was just very interesting and very neat, and then on the flight back and then on the way back, we talked because at that point we had Josiah that had been born in '98, and we had Abigail that was born in 2001, both very young children, and we implemented that practice.

That has become a habit.

That is a habit of our home to sing the doxology.

Um, and and and it's just something that we felt like helped us stay centered on Christ, centered on the Lord.

It taught them something that they wouldn't normally learn in the style of church that we are in at Church at the Grove.

Um, and and but we we also learned that after Caleb was born, Caleb was born in 2005, and so so when he got old enough to talk about three or four years old, uh we were sitting around having dinner, and he says, Why do we sing about holy toast?

And he was as serious as he could be.

I said, son, because food is holy.

No, I said, maybe we need to talk about the Holy Spirit more.

We need to teach about the Holy Spirit.

And so um uh and so what is normal in your household?

What are what are some of the rhythms?

What are some of the things that you practice that you would attribute to habits of the household?

If you don't have them, this is gonna be a great time for you to explore.

It's never too late.

You think, well, my kids are at a certain age, or they left the house.

Well, it's never too late to start.

You can always start habits in your home.

Uh some of you might be either um uh grandparents or you are grandparents to be.

And so you can start the whole uh, you know, the journey over uh being grandparents and helping instill things in the life of your um in the life of your kids.

Have you ever um uh have you ever thought about what your kids say about your family when they're at school?

Some of you have had interesting conversations or or or had a teacher laugh because they do an assignment where they ask about mommy and daddy, and and they there's responses like this My mommy has a special drink every night, but it's just for adults.

So a child has been asked to, you know, uh about about nighttime habits or about mom and their dad.

Um it one says, yesterday mommy hit the neighbor's car with her car.

It was destroyed.

But she said, shh, don't tell anyone.

One response says, My mom and dad have date night on Fridays.

I'm not allowed of my room.

You need to have those date nights.

Some of you have the size of your family indicates that's that's the practice.

Um but here's here's a funny one.

Um picture.

Uh I just want you to look at the picture.

And so the mom writes, the mom writes a note to Mrs.

Jones.

I wish you clarify, Mrs.

Jones, that I am not now, nor have I ever been an exotic dancer.

I work at Home Depot, and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit.

I told her we were out of uh every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and they had several people were fighting over who would get uh who would get it.

Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole.

It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.

From now on, I will remember to check her homework more.

And do not email me about that.

So we are all products of habits, aren't we?

We're just products of habits.

Habits are important.

There's countless books, and I want to recommend one.

I uh I highly recommend habits of the household, um, practicing the story of God in everyday family rhythms.

This would be a great book resource for your families, um, and regardless of age.

So we're all products of habits.

There's books on habits, there's books called atomic habits, keystone habits, on and on.

But when we're talking about spiritual formation, discipleship, following Jesus, we didn't understand that habits are kind of liturgies.

Liturgies, they're they're little routines of worship, and worship changes what we love.

A liturgy in a formal sense.

And like I said, we're not a liturgical church.

When I say liturgical church, um probably mainline churches, denominations like Lutheran, uh Methodists, maybe, um uh you know, uh those formal churches that you've been to them or been to weddings, and you um uh Catholic church is somewhat liturgical.

Um there's kneeling and standing, there's recitations and the things repeated over and over.

But a liturgy, just in its in its raw sense, is a pattern of worship we repeat over and over.

And it and the hope is that it will draw us into worship and it will form us into the image of the one we worship.

And so a liturgical church has readings, recitations, patterns in their worship.

The purpose of it is to bring us back over and over to the person of Jesus.

Now, the problem with any style is it can become empty and rote and lack the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so we need to focus on Jesus, the work of his redemption, and and the practices, even going back to the early church.

What does this have to do with our families, our children?

What does this have to do with how we lead our families and our children and spiritual formation and discipleship?

What does it have to do with following Jesus?

See, discipleship always happens in the context of habits.

The habits and the rhythms that we form and that we keep.

And here's the big idea for today is this the habits of your family form the hearts of your family.

The habits of your family form the hearts of your family.

Now I'm going to read out of Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 1 through 9.

Deuteronomy 6:1–9

Our main text for this morning.

But as you're looking that up, if you would like to, and if you don't have a Bible, if you don't have it on your phone, you can follow along on the screen.

But let me give you the context here where Moses is giving the law again.

He's already given the law.

We know he gives the law in Exodus, but he's giving the law again.

I believe the word Deuteronomy comes from the word again.

It means to repeat again.

He's giving the law again right before they cross the Jordan River and they take the promised land.

They take new ground.

They're looking for victory.

They're looking for the promise that God has given them.

And so he is repeating again the law to them because they're about to encounter opposition and they're about to encounter warfare.

And so, and God's going to give them the promised land.

But let me teach you, let me share a principle.

Whenever God wants you to take new ground, there's going to be opposition.

Whatever God has for our church, there's going to be opposition.

Whatever God wants to do, there's going to be opposition.

Whatever God wants to lead you into new territory, take new ground, grab hold of a promise, there's going to be opposition.

And potentially the opposition can be idols, false worship, cultures that are syncretistic, that want you to take away the purity of your faith in God, in Jesus.

And so Moses is saying, listen, this needs to be so important as we move into the promised land.

Deuteronomy 6, 1 through 9, he says, these are the commands, decrees, and regulations that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you.

You must obey them in the land that you're about to enter and occupy.

And you, listen to this, the generations, you and your children and your grandchildren must fear the Lord your God as long as you live.

If you obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a long life.

Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey, then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

Now, verse 4 is the beginning of what is known as the Shema.

That word means listen.

Listen, O Israel.

The Lord our God, the Lord alone, or the Lord is one, and you must love the Lord your God all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.

And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to the commands that I'm giving you today.

Repeat them again and again to your children.

Repeat them how much?

Again and uh again.

I mean, you could say again and again and again and again to your children.

Talk about them when you're at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.

Tie them on your to the to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.

Write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.

And so it's the Shema.

It's the Jewish decree.

It's the it's the confession of faith in Jewish life.

I went to Israel in 2005.

I'll leave two weeks from today with Jill to go, and I'm sure that one of the things that we'll do is visit the Western Wall.

And when you go down to the Western Wall, there are Jewish people there that really don't care for Christians coming to their world, to their life, to their place.

And they, as you walk down to the Western Wall, they're yelling at you, the Lord is one! The Lord is one.

Yes, yes, you believe the Lord is one.

And we would say, Yes, yes, we believe the Lord is one.

But what they're saying is, we don't believe that you believe the same thing as us because you believe in three gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And so it's it's uh it's it's interesting how um how how they want to uh share their confession of faith with you and and try to talk you into believing exactly the same uh as they believe.

And so this this idea, this Shema, it's repeating over and talking over about God.

And so habits are important.

Sometimes our habits are taken for granted.

They're things that we do over and over.

Sometimes they're semi-conscious or even completely unconscious.

By definition, they're they're they're small aggregate activities, and even if they're small, they can have huge impact.

Habits not only occupy most of our time, they form most of our minds.

There's neurological reasons for this.

Modern neuroscience has shown us that habits occur in the deepest part of our brains.

It's called the basal ganglia.

And it's the part that basically turns on to autopilot for you.

Um and it allows your mind to think in a higher plane and and into the complex areas of your life.

This is good.

It's a good thing, is it because you can you can tie your shoe and have a conversation with your child.

You can buckle them up into the car, and it's just a habit.

And you can buckle them while you're telling them not to hit their sibling.

And that's not what Jesus would do.

And so it's it's those basic things, you know, like chewing gum and walking at the same time.

It allows your mind to think uh about the bigger decisions and things that you've got in your life.

The ancient monastic term for household habit is called rule of life.

Rule of life.

Some of you've heard of monks or monastic life.

Monastic life or monks, they would have a rule of life in their monastery.

So Benedict, Augustine, um uh, different monks known throughout church history would have different rules of life where different rules were emphasized.

These patterns and shared habits were meant to shape the community to love God more and more.

The concept of a rule of life, it gains its roots somewhat in the life and the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.

And if you don't know the story of Daniel and the Hebrew children, Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, they were kidnapped and taken out of their homes to a place called Babylon, and they lived in Babylon.

There was a whole generation of Israelites that lived in captivity in Babylon.

They didn't live in Israel anymore.

They lived in a foreign land.

And the rule of life was something that helped keep them anchored in their faith while they're living in a foreign land that is demanding them to worship foreign gods.

Let me tell you a secret you are not living in Israel.

The United States of America is not the promised land.

We are living in Babylon.

And let me tell you, something is coming for your children every day to turn your family and to turn the hearts of your children away from God.

It's a fight, it's a battle.

And we've got to wake up the reality that, hey, we can say all we want to about taking our country back.

And I am so anti-political and non-political, you know that.

What I think God is trying to awaken the church to is a spiritual revival where our hearts are turned back to God.

And it starts in the family.

And when the family is changed, a community can be changed.

When a community is changed, a state could be changed, and you never know what might happen if a state is changed, a nation might be changed.

And so we are like Daniel, and they would have rule of life.

Daniel was known for what?

He prayed three times a day.

And they said, You can't do this.

And he said, No, I'm going to do this.

This is what God has called me to do.

You see, rule of life established in the early church when the Holy Spirit fell upon the church.

They begin patterns and habits.

Excuse me.

They begin patterns and habits.

What did they do?

They met from house to house on a day-to-day basis, night-to-night basis, and they prayed and they had meals together.

They shared the Lord's Supper together.

They opened scripture together.

And so the commitment to habits and this rule of life is that there is a distinctive, set apart, called a Jesus kind of life and faith.

And when we minister to one another in the way that I'm talking about, it is attractive to non-believers and unbelievers.

When the world looks at a church, and the church is constantly fighting over worship styles and over um uh meaningless things, things that are insignificant, and they're not treating each other with the love of Christ, that's when the world says, Hey, I don't want to have anything to do with God.

And so we become our habits, and our kids become us.

That's scary.

We become our habits, and our kids become us.

One of my number one goals when I found Jill, my wife, when God brought us together and I I won her heart, I said, I'm not gonna be my father.

I'm not.

But as I have, as we have now had three kids, I would find myself in a situation where I needed to discipline, and what would come out of my mouth, something exactly like my father, would say.

And I'd say, oh, oh my goodness, that was Buddy Butcher.

And if you knew him, that's not good.

We become our habits and our kids become us.

The family, for better or for worse, is a spiritual formation machine.

And so our best parenting comes when we think less about, listen, we think less about being parents of children and more ourselves about being children of God.

Just think on that for a second.

We think less about being parents of children and more about being children of God.

So here, just to close, I want to give you something practical.

Um if you get if you wanted to dive in deeper, you could get this book, Habits of the Household, but how do we form habits?

Three times a day.

I'm that's what that's what I'm gonna give you something practical to think about.

Waking time when it's time to get up, meal time, and bedtime.

And this applies for any of you.

You say, Well, Russ, we're empty nesters.

It can apply to you.

Habits, because somebody's watching you.

You probably have an extended family.

They're watching, they're watching, waking time.

Deuteronomy 6, 7 says, repeat them again and again to your children.

Talk about them when they're at home and when you're on the road, when you're going to bed, and when you're getting up.

And so begin your day.

Begin your day with worship.

Here's something I've been practicing recently, just recently.

Rather than reaching for my phone, rather than getting up, I roll over on my knees next to the bed.

And just a short prayer.

I don't spend 30 minutes to an hour there.

I just, I just I just say, God, I want you to bless this day.

I want it, I want you to, I want you to use me.

Take my hands, my feet, my mouth.

Would you bless this day and let this day be given to you?

And so, and then I have a place where I go spend time with the Lord on the house, in the house.

I always we we say this at church at the grove, pick a time, pick a place, stick to it.

And and so, but but practice something.

Now, when we're when our kids, our our when our as our kids are at home, one of the goals we had when they were little is we we would want them to catch us sitting with the word of God open in our lap.

And and we wanted to start our day with with the Lord.

And so before you realize it, the enemy has you focused on a digital device, looking at the news, getting anxious about what's happening in the world, rather than resting in the sovereignty of a good God.

Do you see how it can change very quickly?

And so, before I get consumed with the day's events, practice something that is physical, that is tangible, that will orient your heart to the things of God.

Now, when we were parenting our kids, we would gather them in a little circle time every morning.

And we would, it was kind of ascending out.

You know, dad went to work, mom was staying at home teaching the kids.

Dad goes to work, but we had prayer, we would memorize a scripture, and let me tell you this number one, they're gonna wiggle and they're gonna be distracted.

But I'm telling you, they are going to catch everything you do.

They that's just they do, don't they?

They don't miss a thing.

And when they get to be 12 or 13, they absolutely love that circle time.

They're like, oh, we gotta do that again.

We gotta do that stuff.

We gotta, and I'm not gonna mention names, Josiah, but one of them would drive us crazy.

But it was sending out time, it was memorized first time, it was it, Jill, and listen, I'm I'm standing up here like I'm the one to take credit for all that.

Jill is the one who gets way more credit than I do.

And so morning time, how about meal time, meal time, waking time, meal time.

In the story of God, eating is not just about cramming food into your mouth.

In the story of God, eating is a time of communion, it's a time of spending time in relationship.

As a matter of fact, the Bible talks about food as spiritual nourishment.

Sometimes food is showing us that God is a faithful provider.

Proverbs 23, 5.

He prepares the table before me in the presence of my enemies.

Sometimes it teaches us that we should hunger for something more.

Sometimes it tells us that it teaches us what it will be like to commune with God.

What you know that the first thing we'll have in heaven when God establishes a new heaven and a new earth, it's gonna be what?

It's gonna be a feast, it's gonna be a banquet.

And so for the family to sit around a table and eat and not be rushed, it goes against everything in our Western culture.

For us, a meal is rushing through the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A.

And we just feel a little more spiritual because we got our food there at the Christian chicken.

Harvard research says this regular family dinners are associated with lower rates of depression and anxiety, lower substance abuse, eating disorders, tobacco use, early teenage pregnancy, it also leads to higher rates of resilience and higher self-esteem.

And so meal times are very important habits for us.

Now, when the kids are younger, I think it's a little easier.

When schedules get complex, it's it's harder.

I know that.

Are you expected to have a meal at around the table when your kids are teenagers every single night of the week?

I think that might be unrealistic.

But is it possible to protect with all your might a night or two a week, even when they get a little bit older?

It doesn't have to be a several course meal.

Right?

I think when the lady shared on Mother's Day, Sunday, they said sometimes it is something thrown together or picked up, but there's something about sitting down and eating where you're face to face.

And so waking, mealtime, bedtime.

Bedtime is important.

And so our family that was huge for our family as our kids were were little.

And so we I I brought a couple resources.

Um this has become my go-to or my favorite children's Bible book, the Jesus Storybook Bible.

This is the best.

It is the best.

I'm telling you, you read this every night, your kids.

But but I got another one that we, this is ours.

It's got taped.

The binder is taped.

Um, and um, it was given to us by Walt and Mercy.

I just mentioned to them.

They signed it, wrote a little note.

Uh, this this book is very special to me because it's what I started with when I started reading the Bible to my children at night.

And let me tell you why else it was important to me.

I didn't grow up in church.

And so Jill and I got married in 95, and I started in ministry in 1995, had not been to seminary yet, didn't start seminary until I took a couple classes in '98, '99.

But I mean 2001, I started, I started hard and heavy in the seminary.

So when the kids are little, I'm reading this book, and I'm reading stories I have never read before.

And so Jill and I routinely tell, we tell couples or adults, one of the best ways for you to learn the Bible is by getting a good children's Bible.

Start with that.

This is where I learned for myself while I was in seminary.

Jill knew all these stories because she had grown up in church.

I knew the basics.

And so as I began to read all of these stories, the Bible came alive into my life as it did at the same time with my children.

And they got excited.

Bedtime.

What do I mean by blessing?

I mean when you speak into the heart of your child.

When you speak into the heart of your child and you tell them that you love them, that you know that God has a plan for them, and that you have their best interest in mind, and that God has a vision for their life.

I love one of the blessings that Justin early shares in the book, where he you know he has a little bit more of a liturgical kind of um perspective, but but he says when your children are a little bit older, he he he talks about this bedtime blessing, and he says, just put your hand while they're laid on the bed, put your hand on their heart.

And the parent would ask the child, Do you see my eyes?

The child says yes.

Parent says, Can you see that I see your eyes?

The child says yes.

Parent says, Do you know that I love you?

Child says yes.

Do you know that I love you no matter what bad things you do?

The child says yes.

Do you know that I love you no matter what good things you do?

The child says yes.

The parent, who else loves you like that?

The child, God does.

The parent, even more than me, yes.

And the parent says, rest in that love.

You do that night after night.

You pray with your kids, you read with them.

It's something that they will cherish and grab hold of.

Have you ever been out with your kids and and and they fell asleep in the car?

And and you're you're getting them out of the car praying.

God, please don't let them wake up.

Please don't let them wake up.

Please don't let them wake up.

Anyone with me?

And you want to you want to get them in the bed?

And so we we've done that.

We've got them in the bed and laid them down, and and you go set in the in the den and you're like.

And then Josiah would yell, we didn't pray.

Listen, Jesus established habits with his family, his disciples.

His habits were up in and out.

Luke 6 says he would pull away and he would spend time with his heavenly father.

Then he would come and he would invest in his disciples.

And then he would take his disciples and they would go out to the masses and they would heal and teach and share the gospel of Jesus, the good news.

And so the habits of a community of Jesus are the up, in and out.

Do we want to make a difference?

Do we want to invest in the next generation?

Then we've got to carry out these habits.

We've got to model what it means to give our time to the Lord.

We've got to model what it means to love one another and invest in the word of God and each other.

And then we've got to go out into the community.

And so part of that is investing in ministry like Summer Jam.

And I know I know we laughed a little bit, but I'm encouraging you to listen to the Holy Spirit.

So would you pray with me?

Would you pray with me?

And let's just spend a moment with the Lord here.

God, would you speak to us?

Would you work in our hearts?

Would you draw us by the power of your Holy Spirit into a place where we can hear your voice and not just hear your voice, but obey your voice.

I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna ask you to do something with me.

I want you to um if you've got your family together, if your family's here, I'm gonna ask you to stand up.

Everybody stand.

Let's all stand together.

Maybe grab hands, put your arms around each other.

I just want to pray over you, Father.

God, I speak Jesus over these families.

God, we commission them to be families and households that develop habits that point to Jesus, that form us into the image of Jesus, that call us to Jesus, that keep Jesus the focus of anything and everything that we are.

Father, I pray for the people that are here this morning that maybe have yet to step into faith with Jesus.

And maybe their practical response is to say yes to Jesus for the first time.

It's to it's to repent and believe the good news, the gospel of Jesus, that Jesus came, that Jesus died, that he rose again on our behalf.

He sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, and he is interceding for us to be a family that has habits, habits that launch us out into mission, habits that form our hearts.

So, Father, I pray and speak the name of Jesus over these families this morning.

May the power of God rest upon these families.

And may we as a family unified together in mission have impact in a world that is full of opposition.

Where it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.