Family Life Baptist Church Sermon Audio

Let us look at our children as Jesus looked at His disciples, and emulate Jesus' example by living lives of character before them, and then by taking every opportunity to build up our children, not in self-esteem, but using discipline to develop character to build respect for the authority of God's Word in them.

In the book of Proverbs, Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, endeavors to instruct his son in the proper way to live. Instructing our children, both verbally and by example, as to specifically how they should live is, in my opinion, the most important thing that we can do to insure that they appropriately handle their academic goals and life pursuits.

Men need women and women need men. Our differing functions, strengths and weaknesses are the reasons we need one another. Simply because we have the ability to function outside of our need for one another does not mean that the need does not exist. The plan of God is that men and women combine to create children to which we can pass on our acquired wisdom and our knowledge of Him.

God designed marriage so that we could help one another and become as one. Satan introduced complaining so that we could drive one another crazy, change the oneness that God planned for us to an adversarial relationship, and become separated and divorced.

Our personal discomforts, our personal self-consciousness, and our focus on the bad experiences in our history all combine to make us defensive. Once we become defensive, we find it difficult to allow ourselves to experience the joy that the Lord has for us in our relationships. Our defensiveness leads us into adversarial relationships with our spouses and draw us inexorably toward the dissolution of our marriages that we consciously do not want.

If husbands and wives decide to focus on the desires and interests of their spouse rather than just their own interests, and if husbands and wives decide to have more esteem for the desires of their spouses than of their own, like-mindedness between the spouses will develop.

Your spouse is not perfect, but neither are you. God commands us to grow together. We can only do so by following the marital commandments that God gives us, and to have faith and trust that God is navigating the circumstances of our lives, and will gather us together under the authority of His Word.

Jesus attributed the Biblical regulation concerning divorce the hardness of the heart of man rather than to the will of God, and referred the Pharisees back to the original intention of God, from Genesis chapter 2, that being, that a husband and a wife are no longer two separate individuals, but are joined into being one by the creative action of God.

Marriage is designed to be an exclusive emotional relationship between husband and wife; each spouse has the responsibility to follow through on their commitment to meet the other spouse's emotional needs. Marriage is a leap, and exclusivity means that you are giving up your fallback position; you are putting all of emotional your eggs in one basket.

If husbands and wives decide to focus on the desires and interests of their spouse rather than just their own interests, and if husbands and wives decide to have more esteem for the desires of their spouses than of their own, like-mindedness between the spouses will develop.

The only competent advice that I can give anyone about life is based upon my experience with and understanding of the content of the Scripture. I know that the teaching of the Scripture is relevant to every situation, and if I can constrain myself to only give advice based upon the teaching of the Scripture, I will be doing the service to which God has called me.

Many of our decisions are made emotionally rather than rationally, as we illogically hope that we can escape the reality of the consequences of making decisions without regard for the Word of God. But, a Christian cannot logically and rationally justify any behavior which is contrary to the Scripture while simultaneously claiming to accept God as the Divine Supreme being in their lives.

Our disobedience to God has earned us a place in hell, and we are not worthy to talk about heaven, lest known go there. If you were to ask; ]based upon personal merit, who is worthy of heaven?^ the answer would be ]no one^. I am not worthy of heaven, but, like the thief on the cross who wasn't worthy either, I'm going to heaven anyway.

Jesus died for the sins of all men, regardless of their ethnic group, their racial heritage, their national origin or their religious affiliation. Jesus Christ is the great common denominator between men; He is the one by which we all must be saved.

We are to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. We are to do that which the Word of God tells us, regardless of our feelings about our situation. We are to govern our speech so that it conforms to that which God expects from us.

We are to think of those positive things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy. Of course, there are things in life that do not fit the preceding description, but those things that are negative are the things about which we are to supplicate, to pray, to diligently seek the mercy of God to fix and the peace of God to endure.

God is telling you today, through the words of the Bible that I am repeating, that His Word and His principles are still literally true, and that true wisdom is found by serious, earnest and honest study of, faith in, and adherence to the Divinely Inspired Written Word of God.

The major benefit of enduring trials is developing the patience, perseverance and character to recognize that neither the Plan of God, the situation in the world, nor our own personal destiny revolve around our desires of the moment.