Home - Part B

Were not dealing with a house built on vanity, but a home built on value relationship.

If you boil life down to its irreducible minimum you have that base layer one thing only notice relationship relationships good ones and bad ones. That's what you have.

Life is that's how God created us to have connectivity communication relationship, God never created anybody to be independent created us all to be interdependent. There's a big difference between managing your house and building up your home. One is far more important for your family today on connect with high-tech scriptures.

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Expand this Bible teaching outage. Your copies when you get online securely connectwithskip.com/offer or call 892 1888, Psalm 127 skip. I took starts to look at first it's praying for you to get up early in the set up like the breath of sorrows when not when you see that word here. It said ring a bell for you because it's a very specific Solomonic word that's an adjective or not. Solomonic word.

It's peculiar to Solomon. He wrote a book called Ecclesiastes in which you use that word a lot right.

22 times using the word vanity two times he uses the word vein two more times in the book uses the superlative phrase vanity vanity all is vanity. He wrote that little book of Ecclesiastes when he was at a very dark period of his own life.

Everything.

It lost its luster. He seemed to be going through lots of activity, lots of motions and no accomplishments. The word vein means empty, fruitless, vapid, whatever word you want to assign to it all of that has the idea of just nothingness, nothingness matches up.

Do you ever slow down long enough or stop long enough to evaluate yourself. You do slow down enough to evaluate the activities that you are doing and simply ask yourself, are these activities significant are they significant are these vein activities are valuable activities ever feel like you're in a rat race and the rats are winning the race. I have a lot of hobbies there's a lot of interest that I have, and because of that I know my tendency to get distracted and and him and and off course and I have to evaluate myself regularly because my distraction levels are much higher.

There are some people who just love to build and organize and work and accomplish but just slow down long enough to ask why give you three questions to ask yourself three little questions that help in self-evaluation to see if something is of value or something's vein question number one. How has God most gifted me to meet the needs of others. How is God uniquely gifted me to meet the needs of others.

Now I'm turning my focus on others by the question.

Once I have the answer to that question how I'm uniquely gifted to meet the needs of others, ask yourself this question how my exercising and honing those gifts, according to God's plan for my life. And then the third question is this. Am I trying to build something God doesn't want me to have.

Those are good questions for self-evaluation so that your labor and your watching is not in his words, for nothing vein.

So reject empty activities. Number one is the second decision, avoid unnecessary anxieties would you look more carefully at verse two. It is vein empty, worthless profit less.

It is vein for you to rise up early to sit up late to eat the bread of sorrows for so he gives his beloved sleep.

What that little verse describes in poetic fashion is the artificial lengthening of the day by adding more hours to your workload and then on top of that, adding worry to the hours that your lengthening your day with. That's the idea of eating the bread of sorrows. It's anxiety. It's worry, the living Bible translates it it senseless for you to work so hard from early morning to late at night, fearing you will starve to death. Some of you have discovered that anxiety is a tireless tyrant back in 1851. Can you remember that far back. Good some of your laughing. I was a joke.

For those of you weren't back in 1851 in in London, England and Hyde Park there was an exhibition called the Crystal Palace exhibition and it was basically people gathering together showing off their inventions and in 1851. Steam was all the rage, not iPhones.

Steam because I was what powered things and so they had on display there.

Steam plows steam locomotives steam looms steam organs and even a steam cannon that shot real cannonballs all based on steam, but what got everybody's excitement up was one machine, one machine that had 7000 moving parts when you switch this machine on with steam power all sorts of things began to happen. Police began to pull whistles began to whine bells began to ring gears began to turn 7000 parts. The ironic thing is that machine did absolutely nothing.

It made noise and it turned around and around inside of itself, and everybody who did not.

Because, listen to that. Look at that, but if you asked him what does it actually do the answer would be.

It does nothing well. Worry is like that you expend so much mental energy but you accomplish nothing. Solomon wants to point out that there's a few things about personal anxiety. First, it is unproductive. Just like that machine. It is unproductive.

Notice what he says it is vein.

It is vein. It is empty for you to rise up early in the sit up late. I felt a little study from the University of Wisconsin about about worry about anxiety. It did a study and it looked at what people worry about in life and here with her findings. They found that 40% of the things that most people worry about never will happen. They never actually happened.

So that's pretty vein right your 40% of all that activity about things that will never happen. 30% of the things most people worry about our things regarding the past that you can change anyway is pretty vein and empty to worry about that right. So now you're up to 70% 12%. Worries over the criticisms of others leveled at us. Most of it is untrue, but we worry about it. 10% of the things we worry about is about personal health issues which last time I checked doesn't improve. When you worry but actually gets worse, they discovered only 8%, about 8% of all the things people worry about things that will actually occur and are legitimate concerns so you get his drift is vein.

It is unproductive. Second thing Solomon wants you know it's unhealthy because he says to eat the bread of sorrows.

That's a pretty poor diet is the bread of sorrows waiting for breakfast rule broadest sorrows are toasted blue butter and jam on some thank you. It's on unhealthy diet eat the bread of sorrows medical science for years over and over again proves the point that anxiety, worry is bad for your help. I looked up on the web MD the other day and at this little statement worry will affect the body. When worry becomes excessive it can cause you to become physically ill. Here some examples, a clinic in Great Britain examined 500 patients and they made the statement that one third of the visual problems exhibited by those in this study were due directly to worry and stress. Another study from Northwestern University, said that worry restricts the flow of saliva in the mouth. That's important because saliva neutralizes the acid in the mouth. So when you restrict the flow of saliva in the mouth. Tooth decay increases.

Another study of 5000 students from 21 different universities yielded this worriers get lower grades so I suppose if you want to be a flunky with poor vision and no teeth. Be a warrior. It's unhealthy. It's unproductive. It's unhealthy and here's 1/3 it's unbecoming of a child of God.

It's unbecoming of a child of God that seen in this little phrase for so he God gives his beloved sleep.

I don't want you to walk away misunderstanding this. I'm not saying that if you have insomnia, it's because you don't have enough faith or you're not really a mature Christian. There's lots of reasons for that. Lots of physiological reasons, but the point that he is making is this person who adds to the workload. Worry on top of that is simply showing a lack of trust in the wisdom and the provision of the God he or she says he trusts it's unbecoming of a child of God. So the first two decisions reject empty activity. Second, avoid unnecessary anxiety. And here's the third cultivate relational priorities cultivate relational priorities verse three behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The Fruit of the Loom is a reward. You'll notice that there's a turn in the song were not talking about building anything anymore. Were not talking about guarding anything anymore work were off of building a house and now were talking about shaping a home, and the relationships within it. There's three words I want to draw your attention to in the Psalm versus the word Lord, and if you saw it's mentioned three times that word he is mentioned three times that title. Lord, he's also implied another three times, or total of six times.

This Psalm either directly or indirectly speaks about the Lord and the relationship with the Lord then noticed the word womb. In verse three.

Womb can only refer to one person in a family and his wife, mother, right the Fruit of the Loom, not the Fruit of the Loom. The Fruit of the Loom is a child that comes from the woman and then children is a word mentioned two times so here were not dealing with a house built on vanity, but a home built on value relationship. If you boil life down to its irreducible minimum you have at that base layer one thing only and that is relationship relationships good ones bad ones. That's what you have, that's what life is. That's how God created us to have connectivity communication relationship, God never created anybody to be independent.

He created us all to be interdependent as soon as God created Adam first time God ever said something was not good is after he made man and he said it is not good that man should be what alone is not good time to make a helper that is comparable to him so he raised up a life and now there's this couple relating to each other but then we read that God came to them in the cool of the day while they were in the garden God was walking in the cool of the day that section seems to imply that this was a regular activity that God would walk with his creation. Day by day that's what he wanted fellowship relationship. So the idea from that and from this Psalm is that our spiritual commitment should affect our relational activities. Our relationship with God vertically. Let's look at it in terms of a plane are vertical relationship with God should affect our horizontal relationships in all areas. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary said if your father and mother, sister and brother. If the very cat and dog in your house are not happier for you being a Christian that it's a question whether you really are. Cultivate relational priorities. We struggle in this area.

All of us to every human being does because this will be spend her life relating well or not very well with other people. Years ago I wrote a book on relationships and the reason I did was because it was based upon a pole that I took in this fellowship, I asked people in this church to write a little note to me about what they wanted. The next series to be on what are issues you are dealing with.

You want answers to. From the Bible nine thinking most of Morgan to be eschatological questions about the millennium or the second coming or 90% of them were better maybe 95% dealt with relationships. How do I get along with my husband, my wife raise my children settle the dispute with a friend or coworker. It was all dealing in this area with relationships. These are some tender issues. Some of the loneliest people I've ever met live under the same roof together but they don't know how to relate to each other godly relationships is what turns a house into a home professor Nix Stennett. Maybe you've heard of him from the University of Nebraska some years back, did a study of families from five or six different countries including America, but outside our borders down into South America and all over the globe. He studied families and this is what he said his conclusion all together, we studied 3000 families. We collected a lot of information, but when we analyzed it all.

We found six main qualities were in strong families.

He said strong families number one are committed to the family. Number two strong families spend time together. Number three strong families have good family communication number four strong families express appreciation to each other about each other and provide they have a spiritual commitment and finally number six they are able to solve problems in a crisis want to turn the house into a home get better at relationship if you say will how do I do that Vince start with some simple ideas, listen more, ask better questions when settling the dispute.

Encourage people more frequently about this is so easy smile more.

This is a far better this just a whole lot better. This goes along a long way prayed together, prayed together, read scripture together cultivate relational priorities. Here's the fourth and final value or final decision to make and will close with this shape future destinies shape future destinies verse four later this like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. You can picture that can you not a warrior, grabbing from behind in the quiver of the pouch and arrow out to put in the bow to launch it and he's going to aim and heat you really can't tell you where it's going to end up precisely what he wants to make sure the launch is nicely shaped just at the right angle with just the right pole. It's all about the launch of that arrow. So it is with children happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. Children are a heritage from the Lord. That's the future generation one translation puts it this way, children are God's best gift. Now every parent I've ever met will question this attitude at least two times in the child's development. The first is the baby stage. The first few months since their first child bring the baby home and after a few months he thinking my goodness this is a lot of work and noise and responsibility.

It weighs heavily during those first few months, 11 creative individual describe the baby as a digestive apparatus with a loud noise at one end and no responsibility at the other end and that creative this second place that they will challenge that children are a heritage from the Lord is when that child becomes a teenager and now the well is becoming fully developed and that child now teenager almost adult looks at the parent and thinks that you are not all that you're not so much as you think, and you don't have the same esteem that you once had when I was younger and they're trying to relate to on a different level and and we struggle with that sometimes his parents. I thought teenage years were fabulous. By the way, but but parents, many of them will disagree with me or Mark Twain if you heard his advice right.

He said everything goes fine until the child turns 13 and that's the time you want to stick him in a barrel and hammer down the lid nice and tight and feed him through the knothole and then he said when the child turns 16.

Close up the knothole better advice children are a heritage from the Lord.

It's his best gift. Why picture the warrior they are on the loan from God to shape their destiny and launch them correctly. It's a home. Home is where life makes up its mind. Home is where our convictions are hammered out.

The greatest influence for good or bad happens in the home, 16% of the child's time is spent at school 1% at best is spent at Sunday school, 83% of the child's time is spent at home. That's why, as soon as Samuel was born, his mom, Hannah and her prayer of dedication said, I have lent this child to the Lord. For as long as he lives, or you've given me this child, I'm giving them back to him loaning him to you.

I want I want to shape this destiny by praying for this child right off the bat. So if you spend energy in life and we all do make sure it's about people that you're building up not just projects that your building because your kids are the only earthly possession. You can take with you to heaven. So let me sum it up by saying these three things these three take away points if you are trying to build your life apart from God. That is what is it's a vanity vein.

That's vanity.

If you're adding really on top of all of that energy that's insanity. But if you are building up words to God and out words to people and building up those relationships. Now you have a valuable commodity that's value that's not vein which will it be a life of vanity a house, activities, organizations structures, teams, lot of energy lot of vanity or people that's value that's value that's community and that's value message from the series.

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