Tips on Marriage and Parenting (Growing in Isolation Week 5)

[0:00] Hi everybody, this is Tom here. I'm one of the pastors at One Harbor, which is an amazing privilege. And then I have the amazing privilege to do the next episode of Growing in Isolation, which is episode five. And today we're going to talk about marriage and parenting. I mean, we've all been stuck in our homes for a whole bunch of time and I'm sure it's got a little crazy there. And so I want to try and help with a few things. I'll give you a couple of tasks to do, but before we even get to that, I want to lay some theology there to help us understand what creation is about, what God did right at the beginning, what his plan was. We all know the story of Adam and Eve, but Adam and Eve didn't just float around going out on dates and having food and making children and all the rest of it. He had a plan for them. He had a mission for them. And that is still exactly the same today. And so I want to talk about some of those things that could help us over this time of social isolation. So let's read scripture, Genesis 1 from verse 26. This is what it says. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them and God blessed them. And

[1:24] God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdued and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over everything that moves on the earth. And then we jumped to verse 31 and it says this, and God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day.

[1:44] And so we see in this little passage that we've read, and I'm just going to open it up really quickly. Number one, we were created to have fellowship with God, to enjoy him. And I'm going to give you a task of how to do that a little later on. We were created to enjoy each other in marriage and the enjoyment of a man and a woman in a whole bunch of different ways. That would be for a whole another episode at another time. And then we were created to have kids and create families.

[2:11] And then we were created to change the world. It was very clear in that passage that part of our mandate from God is that we ought to change the world, make it a better place. We to be outward looking and doing that. And those things are still the same today. So marriage, I want to talk now more specifically about that. Marriage is about being on mission. It's not about Jerry Maguire, where he says, you complete me. No woman can complete a man and no man can complete a woman. Only God completes us.

[2:38] But together, we're on mission. We are this team with different roles to play. And if you look at how different men and women are, you think, God, were you crazy when you did this? But God actually knew what he was doing. We call to care for each other. We call to help each other grow, to disciple each other. We call to raise kids that actually are passionate about Jesus and are outward looking kids. They want to go and touch the world and change the world as well. And our homes are this amazing training place, this amazing launch pad where that mission can happen and where we can be outward looking families. And so here are the three tasks. Number one, I want you to pick a day and towards the end of the day, you switch off all social media, TV, Netflix, whatever's going on. And you're going to call that day rest and feast. And you're going to rest from everything that you normally do. You're going to create a feast and then you're going to sit around that table or you make a fire outside and you gather around that table. The only media you can use is to put on some good Christian music or some good, just good music and sit around that fire and laugh and tell stories. Dads, moms, tell how you came to know Jesus. Tell stories about when your kids were born and why you gave them the name that you gave them. Put some music on and dads, do some dancing around the fire pit with your family and laugh and create some wonderful memories. So one day of rest and feast. The second thing I'm going to ask you to do, and this is more for moms and dads, husbands and wives, if you haven't got kids, is to pray together. Now I'm sure many of you do pray together, but I'm asking you to up the game so that when this whole Corona thing is over, our pre-muscled as a couple is much stronger. Not just grace at breakfast, but you find some space away from the kids and you start praying for your kids, for the church, for what's going on in the nation, for your family. Husbands, do you know how meaningful it is to your wife when you pray for her and she hears your words, asking God to touch her and love her and care for her? And wife, when you pray for him, that he would be strong and all the things that he's got to do. These are amazing things. Prayer muscle, praying together is the second thing I'm going to ask you to do. And then the third one and the last one is to create some outward focused moments.

[4:56] And I know some people have already done this and I've known people who've received the blessing of the story I'm about to tell, but families have got their kids together and dads included have got in the kitchen and they've been making cookies and all the rest of it. Then they put it in a packet and the kids write a little story or they draw a little picture and then they get in their cars and they take it to someone's house without someone knowing, stick it in the post box, put it outside the front door, ring the doorbell, run off into the distance. And these kids are learning together as a family to be outward focused, to be on mission. And then the amazing thing is the people who've received these gifts are so overwhelmed by God's kindness, God's goodness that flows back towards the kids. And those kids are little by little learning that to serve Jesus is not about what I can get, not about everything going my way, but it's about what we can do for him as we love other people in the earth today. So at the end of this little video, which is about now, I want you to discuss this in your

[5:59] Zoom groups and then to go and do these things. Thanks so much.