Stormy Seas and Strength in Parenting
Sermon Notes
The home is on stormy seas.
1. God made you and your world. He made you (male and female) for Himself (Genesis 1.26, 27).
2. God made you to work together for Him, His world, and His purposes (Genesis 1.28).
3. God made the two of you to become one (and the pursuit of that oneness begins with the man [Genesis 2.24]), and He made the two of you for intimacy (Genesis 2.25).
• Sharing of the body, soul (mind, will, emotions), and spirit
The process of parenting is to help our kids to keep growing so that they become just like us (their parents) in all the above.
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deut 6.5-9).
Train up a child in the way he should go,
Even when he is old he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22.6).
4. Satan will do His best to destroy all the above, but he will not win (Genesis 3.1-15; 4.1-26).
• He captures her imagination about the possibility of disobedience
• He engages her in debate as to the Word of God – he makes the command a question
• He causes her to doubt the truthfulness of God’s Word
• He causes her to doubt the will and goodness of God
Marriage: a lifelong commitment of unconditional love toward an imperfect person.
Parenting: a lifelong commitment of unconditional love toward imperfect persons.
5. Don’t forget that this all is rooted in God’s great love (“Our Father” [Matthew 6.9]; “Abba! Father!” [Romans 8.15]).
To live life fully, to love yourself like God loves you, to become the best you can be, to be filled with joy and to help others is His plan for you. He created you to succeed, to be triumphant – not to fail. He created you to know that He loves you. There is nothing you and He can’t do together. Marian Stock
So what?
• Parenting is all about making God’s agenda our agenda as parents – personally and together. Pray together about it.
• Talk about it together – consistently.
• Grow deeper into it together.
• Embrace the challenges and hardships – process them together.
• This is love – “not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4.10).