Sermon Tone Analysis

7-12~/13-08

Love Correction (Parenting)

It is God’s plan and desire for every home and family to be healthy and happy, and this month I am presenting some of those plans God has communicated to us through the His Word, the Bible.

He wants homes built on Godly values and teaching.

Last week I talked about marriage, and the idea that we become disappointed and disillusioned in our marriage when we have expectations that our spouse doesn’t meet.

The truth is that only God can fully meet our deepest needs and this is true whether or not we are married or whether or not we have children.

The truth is that God created us in such a way that real fulfillment for every single one of comes only as a result of putting God at the center of our life and everything in it including marriage, home, family and everything else as well.

This principle applies whether you’re single, widowed, divorced, or married.

Life works best and only really works when God is #1.

Today’s message is specifically addresses the role this principle plays in parenting.

God needs to be at the center of our families--not your mate and not your children.

God expects our love for Him to be even more than our love for our children.

The reality is that when you build your life and home around God, your family becomes the primary beneficiary--better off for loving God first.

I don’t know whether or not you are families with the website, “Yahoo Answers.”

It’s kind of an interesting site.

They ask a probing question and then they document the answers they receive online.

So here was a question posed a couple of months ago.

“Do you really put God above your spouse and children?”

Here are some of the answers posted.

I think they’re pretty representative.

Someone said, “Never.

God would not want it.”

Someone else said, “No, but then my religion does not require it.”

Someone else said, “If you put Him up there, He’ll likely squish them.”

Then someone said, “My deity would understand coming after my loved ones.”

Someone else said, “So far I haven’t had to choose.

I’m blessed to have it all.

I hope I never have to.”

Listen to this last one.

“Some especially religious people claim that they do, and they actually expect us to be impressed by that.

Personally, I doubt it.

I’m sure that if there were actually some kind of test of this, it would turn out that they love their children more than the particular figment of their imagination that they call God.

But, maybe not.

I mean, Abraham was willing to kill his son for God, and he made the Bible.”

That is the first time I have ever seen back to back statements in print where someone denied the existence of God and then affirmed the existence of God in the very next sentence.

This person’s answer is actually a good segue into the passage of Scripture I want us to consider today.

"Some time later God tested Abraham.

He said to him, ‘Abraham!’

‘Here I am,’ he replied.

Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah.

Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.’"

[Genesis 22:1-2, NIV]

 

The next morning Abraham obeyed.

He got up.

He chopped wood for the fire of the altar.

He saddled his donkey.

He took Isaac and 2 servants and started off to the place where God had told him to go.

On the third day Abraham saw it in the distance.

“Stay here with the donkey,” he told his servants, “Isaac and I will travel up to the mountain and /we will be back/.”

Abraham then placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders while he himself carried a knife and the flint for starting a fire.

And, the 2 of them went on together.

“Father,” Isaac said, “We have wood and the flint for the fire.

But where’s the sacrifice?”

And Abraham probably turned his face away as he answered in a choked voice, “God will provide Himself a sacrifice.”

(And, by the way.

In the Hebrew language that is literally the way that statement should be translated.

“God will provide Himself a sacrifice.”)

And they went on and they reached the place that God had told them about.

And Abraham built the altar and he deliberately arranged the wood on it, and he forced himself to obey God’s instructions even though they went against every instinct within his being.

He tied up his own son.

He placed him on the altar.

Then he reached his hand for the knife and he drew the knife back to plunge it into the chest of his only son.

Now, let’s push pause.

How could Abraham do that?

How could anyone be willing to take the life of his only son whom he loved so deeply.

I have 3 sons and.I would like to believe that I would give my own life for them, but would I be able to literally sacrifice one at God’s command?

That’s a different question.

I have 5 grandsons, 1,3,4,5, & 8.  I love these little guys so much.

I am amazed how Abraham found the strength to take his young son up the mountain and be willing to kill him.

You can’t help but wonder.

Did Isaac cooperate silently?

Did he know what was about to happen?

Did he look at his father in wide-eyed terror when his father tied him up and placed him on the altar?

Did he cry out for his mother in this terrible moment when the knife was raised?

It’s a heart-wrenching story, but it’s one that has a principle and it has an application and it has a promised blessing.

The spiritual principle is simply this:  Our loyalty to God has to take precedence over our love for our family.

The first of the 10 commandments is...

 

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me.”

[Exodus 20:2-3, NIV]

 

God requires our primary allegiance and affection to be for Him.

That’s what God was teaching Abraham by this command.

He told him to sacrifice his only son.

To sacrifice means to give up something you love for something you love even more.

I don’t think God wanted the death of this boy.

He wanted the heart of the father.

God never asks you to love your children less.

He asks that you love Him with all your heart, soul,  mind and strength.

Your love for God as a priority will actually expand your capacity to love your children more than if you put them first.

Jesus said the same thing.

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;" [Matthew 10:37, NIV]

 

It’s not that we love others in the family too much.

It’s that we need to love God even more.

Through the years professed godly people have had this kind of love for God--this kind of devotion to God to the extent that many paid the supreme price.

One of the most amazing stories of the depth of commitment to God is found in the writings of Josephus.

Josephus tells the story in 200 BC about the Grecian general, Antiochus Epiphanes, who decided that the best way to destroy the Jews was to destroy their faith in God.

So he sent his soldiers into the villages around Jerusalem to command that the people violate Mosaic law by eating pork which was forbidden.

In one village a mother and her 7 sons were brought out and lined up and the soldiers commanded the eldest son to eat pork, and in that way deny God.

The young man refused.

He was scalped.

Both hands and feet were cut off and he was thrown alive onto a fire.