Jack Graham - Becoming a Kingdom Family
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There is no person that God cannot save! There is no promise that God will not keep! There is nothing that our God cannot do! And I want to invite you know to take God's Word. Such a privilege each week. We never take it for granted to say, "Open your Bibles" to Matthew chapter 6 and verse 33 and will be a key passage for us today. I'm preaching on the subject in our marriage and family series called "Kingdom Families", Kingdom Families. What is that? What does that look like and what does a kingdom family do in the world? It's graduation season. We're grateful for all the graduates. We talk at Prestonwood Christian Academy about a kingdom education. And sometimes I think people don't know exactly what we mean by that. Because we don't know exactly what is the kingdom.
What are we talking about when you say kingdom education? We say at Prestonwood that if at all possible as parents and families, you should build your family on the foundation of Christ, but with a 3-legged stool. You, of course, have the home, the family, the parents. And then you have the church, that's the second leg of the stool, and then you have education and at Prestonwood Christian Academy you have this third opportunity for preparing your students, not only with the church and we have the finest of children's ministry and student ministry, but you have the church, you have the home and then you have this advantage, this distinct advantage of a thoroughly Christian education with a biblical world view.
The primary learning lab for boys and girls and children who are teenagers, and even beyond. The primary learning lab for children is home, it is the family which is the university of life. Now because you are awake and not woke, you know that the traditional biblical family is under severe assault and attack in America. And we're seeing that in many ways along really every front. And we saw it at a graduation just this past week when the great kicker Harrison Butker, number 7 with the Kansas City Chiefs was delivering a commencement address, a graduation address at a small Catholic school up in Kansas and Harrison is married to his high school sweetheart, together they have three children.
And in his address to the students, he particularly spoke to the young ladies in the congregation or in the graduation. He said, and I quote: "For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved at this point in your young lives. And I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles that you're going to get in your career. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and your children that you will bring into the world".
And then he spoke of his beautiful wife Isabelle and her calling, the high calling of being a mother. And he said so many things regarding the traditional family, what we would call the biblical family, a kingdom family. You would think this young man would be applauded for his views and values. But not in current day progressive Americanism. No, he was not applauded; he was jeered and even protested and letters to the NFL. And by the way, the NFL did not stand up for this young man as they should have; though his head coach Andy Reid said, "If he goes, I go".
And so good for Andy Reid and the world champion! But there are all kinds of calls and catcalls and mocking because why? He dared to say that the highest calling of a woman would be to be a parent, to be a mom, to lead the children. It doesn't diminish your role in the world if God leads you to have a career, but it means that your career does not top what God has called you do as a female if God gives you children, if God gives you a husband, to lead your family. But that clash that we're seeing in the culture; that collision of world views is at the forefront of the American secular media. What is a biblical family? Well, a biblical family, if I could just put it simply is a Jesus family.
Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (which is a righteous kingdom) Seek first the righteous kingdom of God and all these things", whether it is you profession or your accolades in life or what you do with your time, all these other things, your provisions, all the things that you need in life God will provide when you put Jesus first. To speak of the kingdom, of course, is to speak of the King. And our king is King Jesus. And when Christ, when our God is enthroned in our hearts, His kingdom then, according to Jesus Himself, is within us. Now His kingdom is coming. This is why He taught us to pray "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven".
And in spite of the fact that it seems in our day that Christians and even Jesus Himself is getting the short end of a long stick, there's coming a day when our King is coming and it will be revealed to us and to everyone, to the whole world who is High and King and Potentate of all kings and of all kingdoms. We just sang about our King, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's coming again. But until He comes, His kingdom within us is to then be expressed through His Church, through His people and through the works of the witness that we have. A kingdom family is a blessed family.
Turn in your Bibles to Genesis 12, verse 3, And Scott is calling Abraham, and we do continue to pray for and support Israel in these days in their fight against Hamas and terrorism on every front. We continue to pray for them and for the hostages to be released. So God gave a promise to Abraham. He chose Abraham to be the father of a great nation and of many nations. And therefore, He said: "All the families of the earth shall be blessed", through what? Through the Abrahamic covenant, through the promises of God that He made time in memorial to Abraham, and now to the nations of the world and the peoples of the world will be blessed, not just through Israel but by God Himself.
What does it mean to be blessed? It means to be thoroughly content, to be happy, to be situated, stable. The psalmist said in Psalm 1, verses 1 through 3: "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers". There's the contrast between a cultural world view and a biblical world view. "But his delight is in the law of the Lord; And on his law he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither, and in all that he does he prospers".
So a kingdom family, a biblical family is a Jesus family that is blessed by God. And why did God give us a family to begin with? "He set the solitary in families", according to the scriptures. He gave us families in order that we would share life together, share love together, to share a legacy together of faith and a future with Him. And yet, that's not what the cultural family is about. I'm contrasting here a cultural family as compared to a kingdom family. Dr. James Dobson a great friend of ours. He's quoted as saying, "The goal of the progressives on the left, those who want to deconstruct the family, the goal is five genders. Get rid of your traditional biblical family and substitute it with five genders: male, female, homosexual, lesbian, and transgender".
And in the world today homosexuality has become the equivalent of heterosexuality. That is what the world is saying, but that's not what the Word is saying. Dobson goes on to point out this is why lesbian "love" is preferred by many females in the movement, the transgender movement as well as the gay movement. And you know why lesbian "love" is preferred? Because it overcomes male oppression, toxic masculinity. And this has been a desire of the feminist movement in America and around the world from the beginning. The world is trying to make the family in its own image, rather than in the image of God. And it's time, past time that God's people say enough is enough!
And not only to say it, not only to say it, but to do what we often challenge one another to do here at Prestonwood, and that is to engage whether it is in speaking truth to the government. And a democracy, a nation is reflection of its people. And so the only way you can change the government, the only way you change policies is by letting your voice be heard and your vote be cast! God's plan is to bless all the families of the earth including yours. That's a kingdom family. And He says he meditates, the kingdom man, the kingdom woman meditates upon the law of God. Now we can expand that to include all of the Word of God. But specifically, he's speaking of the law of God, which is what? The Ten Commandments. Though many view the Ten Commandments as obsolete, the fact is, the commandments of God are absolute! And we believe in God's Word.
Remember, the Ten Commandments... some people say, oh, that's legalism, that's legalism. No, it's life. The commandments of God are given to us, including the Ten Commandments and remember, the Ten Commandments are at the heart of the Old Testament and therefore, the Word of God, the inspired, inerrant, infallible, indestructible Word of God! The Ten Commandments are still in play! And interestingly enough, the Ten Commandments are primarily given to families and the home. It's good to post the Ten Commandments on courtroom walls or in government halls and in public places. I'm for that. But better yet, to post the commandments on the walls of your home and especially the walls of your children's hearts.
But unfortunately, many Christians don't know the Ten Commandments, that are primarily given that we would raise a generation of Christians, of believers from generation to generation. But again, it's really about the home and family, these Ten Commandments. And the second commandment speaks of the fathers and the children. In the fourth commandment God addresses sons and daughters and persons, and the fifth commandment which is the hinge between worshiping God and living out the commandments in the world, the fifth commandment tells children to honor their fathers and mothers, and with it there is a promise of longevity in their lives and legacies. The seventh commandment safeguards and protects marriage by telling husbands and wives that you should not commit adultery. That's verse 14 of chapter 20 in Exodus. The tenth commandment speaks to our hearts and declares that we should not desire or covet our neighbor's possessions or our neighbor's wives or husbands.
So through and through the Ten Commandments you have the family. So don't discard God's holy law, God's moral law. It's not legalism to live by the principles and the precepts of God's Word. And so we have these Ten Commandments and these are in effect the rules and the tools for the kingdom as we live out our life. We have these guidelines. The kingdom of God. So when are seek God, you're seeking to obey Him and His commandments. But what is the kingdom family? A kingdom family decides that no matter what the culture says, no matter what the world says, we have decided to follow Jesus. We are determined to believe and act upon God's Word. We're going to honor Him. We're going to teach and train up our children to know and love God in every way possible.
As Joshua said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord". I've been a father now over 50 years. Didn't have a clue how to be one until I became one. But now after these five decades of being a dad and now a granddad, I have some experience. And I have some confidence. I'm reminded of the preacher, the young preacher who stood up one day and said, "You know, when I was a young preacher, I had four sermons on child rearing and no children". And then he went on to confess, "Now all these years later, I have four children and no sermons".
Well, I've still got some sermons, and I have some wonderful children. I now have three happily married children, Deb and I do, eight grandchildren and plenty of experiences. I married my college sweetheart and together we have shared life and love and this legacy of our children. And I praise God for that. I've also been a pastor forever, for these five decades. Same year I became a husband, I became an ordained pastor, and I pastored churches with 30 members, and I pastor a church now with over 50,000 members reaching the world for Christ. And I've learned and I've lived in lifetime of ministry to minister and to serve families of all different kinds and places in life.
So as a pastor, I've seen a lot. Seen a lot change in the last four or five decades. But what hasn't changed is that our family maintains our focus of being a Christ-centered, kingdom family. You say, "Pastor, are you bragging"? Not at all. I'm just praising Jesus! I'm just praising Jesus for His favor and His faithfulness, and praising Him because we are blessed beyond what we could have imagined. We've simply done that all these years by endeavoring to put Jesus first in our lives, the Word of God is the rule of our home. The Word of God, God's law teaches all of us including our children and our grandchildren, everything we need to know about identity and sexuality and purity and security and success and significance. But unfortunately, the church in America today has abandoned these biblical principles and a biblical world view.
Therefore, what we're often hearing from pulpits today is superficial and weak. And the Church, as one person put it, is now playing waterboy to the game of life. The Church is no longer the most impactful and influential force in America. The essential values and virtues that previous generations grew up on are disintegrating and we are losing a generation. Parents, wake up! I love you, but I'm telling you, you need to wake up to what's happening around you and to your kids. You can't turn your head! This is a lost generation. More suicide, anxiety, depression, emotional difficulties than we've ever seen! And no wonder! When you have elitist universities and schools, public schools and even elementary schools teaching transgenderism, teaching kids that they evolved from animals.
Do we wonder why it's an animal farm today in America when we've been teaching our children that they are just an evolving animal! People start acting like animals when you tell them they're animals! But God created you as a man, a woman in His image. Though that image is broken, that image can be restored in Jesus Christ! So put Jesus first in your life! And don't let the winds of change and culture stop you from being the godly, devoted, dedicated mom and dad and parent. If you're a single mom, my hat is off to you. You've got the job of two people and we're praying for you and we'll support you in that. Maybe a single dad, as well. But as a mom, as a dad, together or just you, lead your children.
Deuteronomy 5:29 says, "O that they..." And this is when the children of Israel are about to go into the Promised Land where they would face idolatry and paganism and cultures totally different from theirs. Here's what God gave as a counsel through Moses to the children of Israel. He said: "O that they have a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever"!
That's a great mission statement for every family. That's a kingdom family. Is it well with your family? Practical things. Is Jesus first in your family? That includes the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I heard a discussion this morning on the news about how travel sports has impacted kids and families. You know I love sports. But did you know that sports can become an idol? Yes, indeed. Our children know what is really important. If you're hauling off your children schedule by every day... Could I just tell you, I heard someone says, this is a good one. Rachel on Fox and Friends. I was watching Fox and Friends. She said, "You know, there's probably less than one percent chance that your child is going to be a professional athlete, play in the NFL, but there's a 100 percent chance that your children are going to stand before God".
I agree with that. And when you put sports or anything else first, seek Christ first, and all these other things, the joy of sports and all that, it will be added to you in proper perspective. But the question is are you leading your children to Christ and to church, or is their sport's schedule leading your family? When you got the Boy Scouts, now the Scouts going in the wrong direction, we have a great organization, ministry called Awana. It's discipleship for boys and girls, and we're looking at other ways in scouting. People like to get outside. I could never tie those knots. I couldn't get out of Cub Scouts myself, but look, the battleground is in the cultural war, the targets zone is the family. It's the family.
Satan wants to devour your family, crush your children. In many cases he's been successful, because parents don't resist. Parents conform, parents go along to get along. But I'm tell you here today as your pastor and as your friend, do not despair; don't give up because there is hope for our children in this world if we will do what God says. You raise a godly family and your family will pass the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not just your faith.
I'm not interested in seeing my children and grandchildren pass my faith but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to the generations that we will never see! And I'm tell you, in spite of the fact that we have challenges and maybe it's harder than ever to be a parent in these days, a mom or a dad, there is hope! Why? Because "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world"; because "No weapon formed against you will prosper"; because "Nothing is impossible with God". And we're not going to allow Satan to have our kids! We're going to fight for our families and fight for our kids! And how are we going to fight? With prayer and the Word of God.