Bittersweet Farm
Series: Ephesians 2017
Sermon: Marriage: Follow the Directions
Test: Ephesians 5:21-33
Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
Pastor Ken Pierpont
Marriage: Follow the Directions
Ephesians 5:21-33
Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
March 12, 2017 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANAfBEjTnU4
Series: Ephesians 2017
Title: Walking Tips
Text: Ephesians 5:1-21
Place: Evangel Baptist-Taylor, Michigan
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Date: March 5, 2017 AM
Series: Ephesians 2017
Title: Walking Tips
Text: Ephesians 5:1-21
Place: Evangel Baptist-Taylor, Michigan
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Date: March 5, 2017 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHworSZRBM4
In the busyness of life and the continual distraction of daily responsibilities it is easy to allow vital relationships to go unattended. That error is as common as it is tragic.
The last word left ringing through the silence of four centuries before the voice of Christ’s forerunner began to cry out in the wilderness was this: “And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” This is also a warning of what happens when a father fails to give his heart to his sons and daughters. The result of this failure is a curse on the earth. The daily paper and the evening news spill out the graphic details of this continually. I want my home to be free of that curse. I want my home to be saturated with the blessing of God. I want my children to experience the blessing of God. I want my wife to enjoy it. I want the world to see it.
But how does a busy dad do that? How can I turn my heart toward my children when there are so many distractions and so many responsibilities? I have thought long and hard on this. One reason is because I am always looking for ways to show my four sons and four daughters that I love them. I have to deal continually with the temptation to allow my heart, my time, my attention, and the devotion of my heart to be directed to other good things to the neglect of the best things.
Another reason this is important is that people often ask me how to win and keep their child’s heart because they have not experienced a father’s love. They have never seen a pattern up-close and sustained. They are unsure of themselves. They are lacking a pattern .
I have spent some time considering that question. “How do you turn your heart to your children?” I have come up with some simple steps that may help you give your heart to your children. Here are the three steps. Remember back, imagine forward and seize the day. Let me explain that to you.
Remember Back
First, Remember Back. One way to trigger memories is to get out the old picture albums for the evening. You may enjoy working on memory books as a family. Shuffling a deck of old photos is sure to stir up memories and touch your heart. It is vital that we learn to number our days if we are going to see life from God’s perspective. One has defined wisdom as seeing life from God’s point of view.
God’s point of view and the scriptures say “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” So think of the first time you held your little son. Think of his first haircut. Remember back. Remember teaching your daughter to ride a bike. Do you remember when you took your little girl home from the hospital? Do you remember when you put her on the school bus for the first time? Remember back.
Imagine Forward
Second, Imagine Forward. Think forward to the day they go away from home. Imagine forward to the day you walk that little girl down the aisle and kiss her good-bye. See the car drive away with the eyes of your heart. Go to her room in your imagination. The closet is empty. There are no shoes on the floor there. The walls of her room are bare. Think forward to the time when the back door doesn’t slam closed anymore. The house stands silent. Bikes and skates no longer clutter the drive. Grass is growing over the place where home plate used to be. Imagine forward to that time.
Imagine even further forward to the time of your death. What thoughts will course through your son’s mind when they lower the lid on your coffin? What memories will he cherish in his heart of the time you spent together? Will he know in the deepest part of his soul that you were delighted in him?
This is the way we have to train our hearts to think if we are going to give our hearts to our children. Remember back, imagine forward, then.
Seize the Day
Finally, Seize the Day. Don’t waste a day. Act on this right away. Make your priority relationships a priority. Leave something else undone but never neglect this. The best way to show love is sacrifice. The ultimate sacrifice is to lay down your life. The way to lay down your life for someone is to devote your time and attention to them. It is a powerful thing to give attention to someone. It is a discipline and a rewarding one.
Here is a bonus idea, an additional tip. Make a life-long study and your child. Think through a series of good questions to probe the heart and bring the secret treasures of their heart out into the light. What do they really love? What is at the peak of their hierarchy of values? What do they spend most of their time thinking about? What is their favorite food? What is their spiritual gift? What is their “love language?” What are their longings? What do their hearts long for? What do they crave?
They may not be able to tell you. You will have to devote time and attention to them to come to understand each child.
Never Let Anything Come Between You and Your Child
Finally, make up you mind that you will never allow anything to come between you and your child. Once you have turned your heart to your child determine to draw your child into a covenant arrangement that you will never allow anything to come between each other. Go to a special place and create a special setting and enter into a covenant with them. This should be continually renewed. Watch over your relationship with that little heart. Tend the garden of that relationship. Know that each day as the sun sets the way is clear between your heart and theirs. You will have to seek forgiveness. You will have to probe and care and take time. You will have to listen with your eyes and with your hearts.
Just this warning. If you don’t give your attention to your children now when they so want your love and attention, they will find someone or something else to give their attention to. They will invest their heart in someone or something. God says when a father turns his heart toward his sons and daughters the earth will be blessed. The hearts of the children will delight in their fathers once again.
Kenneth L. Pierpont
ken@kenpierpont.com
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
January 20, 2003
Lynn was recently widowed. She and her husband Phil were members of Evangel. I baptized both of them and helped them deepen their walk with God. They had a sweet and loving marriage. She told me how Phil would tend to her needs and help her. He would dance with her in the kitchen as they would prepare meals together. Lynn told me they loved to hold hands. That was one of the things she missed most when she came to church. He was not there anymore to hold her hand.
A few weeks ago I gave her a copy of A Man Called Peter, by Catherine Marshall and a sequel that she wrote—an autobiographical account how she dealt with her own widowhood call To Live Again. Lynn had written a passage from the book on a card to encourage her as she worked though her grief. It was a description of how the Lord assured Catherine Marshall that her husband was still very much alive in the presence of the Lord. Here is what Lynn wrote on the card:
“I thought of an incident that had taken place seven days prior to Peter’s death. He and I had been visiting friends in a nearby city. Their guest room had twin beds. Sometime after the lights have been turned out and we had gone to bed, long after the house was quiet, suddenly I had put out one hand toward the other bed, and found Peter’s hand stretched out in the darkness waiting for mine.
He had whispered, “How did you know that my hand was there?”
And I answered, “I don’t know I just knew.”
So now the space between us was wider, much wider greater than the distance between any twin beds. It’s stretched all the way across the eternities that divide the world of the seen from the world of the unseen. Somewhere out there in that emptiness, an outstretched hand was waiting for me.”
When you lose a believing love one in death, for those of us who know the Lord, we can be confident that they are waiting for us to celebrate a reunion in the presence of Christ that will never, never end.
“The hope (confidence) of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began.” (Titus 1:2)
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
March 1, 2017
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