Strong Foundations for the Family
Building on a Firm Foundation
A few years ago there was a family in the Milwaukee area that was in the middle of a real crisis. They were living in a home that was literally falling apart. There were cracks in the walls, the doors didn’t close properly, the stairs leaned to one side, windows wouldn’t open, and the basement floor was full of cracks and leaks.
When
they first noticed the problems, they attacked each one as it appeared, but
soon it became apparent that there was much more going on in the home than just
normal wear and tear – there was a serious problem. They began to talk to their next door neighbors, and while their
problems were not as great, they too were having similar problems. After checking with contractors and
builders, they finally got the state to come in and do some testing, and it was
discovered that a factory across the street was creating a vibration that was
traveling through the ground and had destroyed the foundation of their home.
When
I first saw that story on the news I was just amazed. We have all seen homes that have survived earthquakes and
tornadoes as well as those that have been destroyed. We have seen homes face hurricane winds and stand strong. Yet this home was being destroyed by
vibrations from a plant a hundred feet away, by vibrations that could only be
recorded by sensitive instruments. It
was literally falling apart a grain of plaster at a time. Bit by bit, barely noticeable at first, over
years of vibration, the foundation of that home had been weakened until now it
has reached a point of rapid destruction.
That’s
just not something you fix on a Saturday morning. Our pastor over in Beaver Dam bought a home that was your basic
fixer-upper. We helped him tear out walls,
strip floors, paint rooms, replace ceilings inside and the roof outside. After a year or two there, he decided that
he needed to repair a corner of the foundation. Now it had, like many of our homes, a field stone
foundation. The foundation consisits of
stones of various sizes and shapes, stacked one upon another and held in place
by mortar. So, he put some supports in
place, and began to dig out around the corner and tear out each stone, then
replace each one with new mortar, creating a new and better foundation. It took long days and even weeks of constant
labor for him to complete the job, but he did it, and by doing so, he saved the
rest of the house from severe damage in the future.
You
see, without a firm foundation, a home will deteriorate. Even in a good home, as the foundation
settles over sometimes 10 or twenty years, cracks will begin to appear, and in
some severe cases, repairs will have to be made. Realtors will tell you that one of the things you should inspect
when buying a home is the foundation – does it show signs of decay? Are there cracks in the plaster? Does it look like someone has tried to hide
some defect?
Over
the last few weeks Carol and I have been redoing a room in our house, and it
had this 1970’s style paneling on two walls, and some of the plaster was
cracked and flaking on another wall from an old leak around the chimney that
has long since been repaired. I scraped
all the old plaster away from the chimney area, and replaced it and got it
ready for painting, and then I asked Carol, “Well, do we want to take down that
paneling?” We both knew what we wanted
to do – we wanted it gone, but we were afraid of what might have been
underneath. As it turns out, the wall
was in great shape, and we painted it and it looks much more inviting now.
But
that is not always the case. People
will put up paneling, wallpaper, wall hangings, they will put decorative
plants, shrubs, or that “pseudo-brick” covering to hide problems with their
homes foundation. You have to look closely
and be careful when you buy, because without a firm foundation, the home will
soon be worthless.
Now
this is not “Home-buying 101.” There are people here who could teach you all
about buying a home much better than I could.
But in many ways the church is the place to learn “Home-making
101.” In His word, God has given us the
only really reliable source of instruction and information on the family. For the next several weeks we are going to
be looking at the Foundations of a Strong Family. The key ingredients to having a family that is strong enough to
make it through the little vibrations and big shocks of life are found in this
book.
It
strikes me that like that home in Milwaukee many of our homes are being subtly
attacked, with vibrations that we may not even sense. And grain by grain, the pieces of plaster are beginning to crack
and fall away. And left unchecked,
eventually there will be no supporting structure, and sadly, many families
collapse under the strain. But that is
not how marriage and the family is portrayed in the Bible. It is not how God intended the family to be.
Paul
uses marriage and the family as an image of Christ and the church. The family should be the place where
Christ’s unconditional love and his never-ending patience are displayed in
visible form for the entire world to see.
And yet most of the recent research shows that Christian homes are not
much different than the homes of people who do not attend church or claim to be
Christians when it comes to divorce, teen pregnancy or abuse. In fact, in a December 1999 survey, the
Barna group discovered that born-again Christians are more likely to get
divorced than people who do not claim to be born again! The rate for born-again Christians was 26%,
while the rest of the nation was 22%, and leading the pack of evangelical
denominations was the Baptists with a 29% divorce rate.
Folks,
there are cracks in our plaster! The
doors aren’t fitting right any more, the windows don’t open and close like they
used to, and it is because the foundation of our homes is weak! In many cases the right foundation has never
been put in place. We have built our
homes on the wrong basis, and now we can’t understand why the whole thing seems
to be coming apart at the seems!
Some
of you have seen the picture in our living room of my grandparents home in West
Virginia. It was originally built on a
log foundation, but in the 1950’s my grandfather and my uncles dug out the dirt
underneath and put in a block foundation – after 50 years on logs, it simply
had to be done.
Think
about some of the things that the world tells you to use for a foundation for
your marriage and family.
Sex
– If you think she’s attractive, and she thinks you’re attractive, then go for
it! As long as you’re hot for each other,
everything else will be OK. Or the
opposite extreme – we can have a meaningful marriage while finding sexual
fulfillment with other people in an “open marriage.”
Friendship
– This is the Oprah syndrome. “If you
will be your spouses’ best friend, then it will all work out.” There’s nothing wrong with being your
spouses’ best friend, but it’s not the basis for a perfect marriage.
Independence
– “We can have a wonderful marriage and family all the while seeking our
individual fulfillment in career and lifestyle.” I read an article this week about a couple in Michigan that got
divorced, and the woman wanted to move away to California with the
daughter. The dad had joint custody, so
he fought the move. A judge agreed with
the woman that the father and daughter could keep up a “unique and meaningful
relationship via the internet and telephone.”
There is this idea that marriage is great, as long as it doesn’t get in
the way of personal goals.
Children
– I spoke to a woman this week who knew a couple that was going through some
tough times in their marriage several months ago. I asked how they were this week, and she said, “Well, they
haven’t really gotten any help, but they are trying to have another baby!” Wow!
Children are not the basis for a great marriage. They are a great part of marriage, but if
they are the basis for your marriage, watch out!
Money
– have you ever heard a hurting husband or wife say, “If I could just earn
another $10,000, everything would be perfect!”? Maybe I should ask, “Have you ever said…”
There
are lots of other materials that our society will tell you are a great
foundation for a successful marriage.
And while many of those things are elements of a good marriage, for the
most part they are the visible parts.
They are the carpet, the wall treatments, the exterior siding of the
marriage, not its foundation.
But
there are real and genuine foundation stones to a strong family. Stones like love, faith, communication,
integrity and care. But even with all
those individual stones, there is one stone that is the most important. In every foundation there is one stone that
is the most critical. It is the point
from which all the other building blocks of the family are placed. It is the cornerstone. And the cornerstone of the perfect family is
Jesus Christ. In Matthew 21:42, Jesus
describes Himself by quoting Psalm 118:22, when He says,
“The stone which the builders rejected has become
the chief cornerstone…”
Peter,
after the resurrection, uses the same quote, when he stated to the Jewish
leaders,
“Let it be known to you all, and to all the people
of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified,
whom God raised from the dead, by Him this [formerly lame] man stands here
before you whole. This is the stone
which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone’.”
Peter
uses this same descriptor of Christ in one of his letters, when he writes in I
Peter 2:4,
Coming to Him as to a living stone,
rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living
stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in Scripture,
A chief cornerstone, elect,
precious,
And he who believes on Him
will by no
Means put to shame.”
Before
we can ever look at the foundation stones of a strong family, we must first
recognize the chief cornerstone – Jesus Christ. If you are here because you think that church is a good place for
you and your family to get your act together, your only half right. The church is not a place that will solve
your problems – but this is a good place for you to start because we can
introduce you to the One who can solve
those problems!
If
you think church will do it, you are mistaken, but Jesus can!
Can
He fix a busted up marriage? You
bet! I have seen it with my own eyes,
in that room right there. A woman who
couldn’t bear to speak to her husband, who had made up her mind to end it – but
God did an amazing thing – He healed their marriage! He brought their family back together, and He has done it many,
many times.
He
needs to be the cornerstone of your personal life before He can be the
cornerstone of your marriage. The first
step to building a strong foundation for your family is to have Jesus Christ as
the foundation of your life.
This
applies to every person in this room.
You may be 8 years old, and marriage seems like a million years away –
you know what? You may never get
married, but you still need Jesus to be the cornerstone of your life.
You
may be 24, and marriage seems a lot closer, but you haven’t found the right
person yet. You can give yourself and
your future mate the greatest wedding gift of all right now – make Jesus Christ
the cornerstone of your life.
Maybe
you’re here and you’ve been married for a while, and things aren’t at all what
you’d hoped – is Jesus the cornerstone of your life? Is every other part of your life lined up with Him? If not, then before you start tearing apart
your family, or your spouse, or your self, you need to get that foundation
started at the right place.
Or
maybe you’ve already been through the storm, and the weak foundation of your
home gave way. Your marriage is a thing
of the past, a pile of cracked dreams and crumbled promises. Jesus can do a healing work in your heart,
and, possibly, in that marriage. But
first things first. He needs to be the
cornerstone of your life – the One by which all other parts of life are put in
place.
Does
this mean that when Jesus is the cornerstone of my marriage, then everything
will be bright and sunny and there will be butterflies and kittens and pretty
flowers every day? No – you should have
been in my home this week. Two trips to
the hospital, broken down lawn mowers, busy schedules, financial pressures –
it’s all still there – but you know what?
Through it all, that foundation is still there. In the midst of it all, Carol and I just hit
our knees and said, “Lord, we really need you help!” and He was there. You
see, the storms will still come, the vibrations of the world will still attack
the foundation, but when the foundation is built with the right materials, the
home stand firm.
Let’s
pray.
Lord
Jesus, how the foundations of our homes are being attacked today! How relentlessly the world hits us with
subtle and constant undercurrents that will beat against our foundations. Lord, we need you to be that
foundation. We need you to be the
cornerstone of our lives. May
everything we do, every step we take, every piece of our lives that we put in
place, be done with an eye toward you, making sure that it is in keeping with
Your will for us. Lord Jesus, bless
each one here. Bless each home here,
for some of us, we need to dig out the old, week foundations and put you in the
proper place, convict us of that need.
For others, we need to cling to that steady rock, the firm foundation,
that is found only in you…