Flip This House

For many of us as we look at the priority in our homes we see something like this:

• Children
  • My children come first
  • I would do anything for my children
• God
  • I Love God
  • We believe in God
  • I want to be involved with God’s work

Today I want us to change our perspective and actually flip it upside down.

(LIKE BEFORE: I warn you this is much better in video. These is really just the outline of what was laid on my heart.)

If we built our house the way we built our priorities how would that hold up?

• Foundation: Children
• Occupant: God

That makes for a very unsafe structure for everyone involved.

Let me make a case for the “more excellent way”, as Paul would put it.

• Foundation: God
  • Matthew 7:24-29 (NIV) 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
  • The focus of the home
    • Has God has become a lucky charm or an idle we keep on the mantle
  • God needs to the direction of the home; the basis for how we live.
• Occupants: Children
  • In the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) there is an odd comparison to the modern day person. They compare that child to an occupant of the city.
  • Ephesians 6:1-4 (NIV) Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
  • 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
  • Served by the home, but not the foundation of or the protectors, leaders, of the home.

Something is missing in this picture… the House!

• The House:
  • Parents – we live in a mistaken reading of John 13:1-17.
  • Jesus is not making himself less than these men. He is explaining that in order to be the leader they need to be at the service of those they lead.
    • The protectors
    • The Leaders
    • The Teachers
    • The Servants?
    • The 2^nd priority of the home

If our children are the focus and the foundation of our homes we build unhealthy children and unhealthy homes.

• T-shirt now: “I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tutors, enrichment classes and Baby Einstein CDs and all I got was a neurotic kid.”
• Soccer, Baseball, volleyball, museum trip, favorite DVD’s, All the right clothes, All the right clubs… But when did you actually talk to them last?
• Psychiatrist Michelle Goland agrees: “The mistake many moms make is they believe that if they are a good mother, their husband will be fine and he will understand, but in reality, the husband may feel pushed out of the parenting role and begrudgingly gives up trying to have a relationship with his wife.”
  • This goes both ways

The danger is making our children our God’s. THEY BEGN TO BELIEVE IT

The danger is letting the occupants destroy the house and this nether protects that occupants or the house.

• Trouble being or keeping friends because they can’t focus or accept others being important
• Trouble keeping a job because they don’t get that the job is about the customer or employer
• A perception that all things that they do not like will or must be removed
• An inability to be married
• Trouble accepting the Lordship of Jesus Christ because they are the Lord of all.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10), but these people fear no one and to tell them they should is to insult their 21^st century soul.

Proverbs 13:24 NIV “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”

I would tell you the one who put the rod in their child’s hand has created a monster.

If instead we teach our children to serve others.

• Take them to help in the community
• Teach them that the world is for them to serve and grow
• Teach them to help the hurt

If we teach them that then we have truly made followers of Christ.

The alignment of this home we need to strive for is to put God at the foundation. To make our children the beloved occupants, and to for the parents to be the home.

• Foundation: God
• The House: Parents
• Occupants: Children