How To Set Your Family Up For Success by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Building Family Intentionally

Family is the foundation of any life. Society is crumbling because people are not building families intentionally. They find themselves of marriage age, hurry into it as if getting a new wardrobe, and then reduce pastors to firefighters putting out fires all the time. If families were built intentionally, there would be far fewer fires.

In Africa, additional layers compound the problem: polygamy, idol worship, poverty — all interfere with stability in families when there is no intentionality. We have to become intentional about family. Family is where God begins to sharpen the arrows that will contend for the kingdom.

Children are raised without boundaries because the parents themselves have none. Families are set up without vision. When young people in a rehab centre are asked about their family values — blank looks. Because if family values were never established, personal values were never formed either.

Reserving the Worst for Home

Consider how you treat the most difficult colleague at work. You have never slapped them. When they pass, you smile. Why? Because your salary is at stake. What you exercise at work is a fruit of the Spirit — temperance. You control yourself because there is something at stake.

But when it comes to home, many people bring all their venom and release it on the people there — because they do not consider there is anything at stake.

The worst of us is reserved for those who deserve the best of us.

This includes not just the nuclear family. Church is a family. Extended family is home. We reserve our sharpest tongues and most miserly behavior for those closest to us, when compassion ought to flow most freely there. Even the word compassion — we relate it to the poor, to the sick, to strangers. We don't think it is something we release to family members.

Isaiah 58: God's Complaint

Isaiah 58, from the Message Translation, opens with God saying: "Shout! A full-throated shout! Tell my people what is wrong with their lives." His complaint was that they were busy, busy, busy at worship — but it was a semblance, not true worship. To all appearances, they were a nation of right-living people. They loved reading about God. But they also complained: "Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't notice?"

God's answer laid out the problems:

• The bottom line on your fast days is profit. You are not fasting for power in the spirit or to kill the flesh. You are fasting because you think it will give you an edge — a bribe offered to God through hunger. This is why prayers go six hours with no answer. The prayers are not leaving the ground, let alone crossing the ceiling or reaching heaven.
• You fast, and then bicker and fight. Your flesh is supposed to be dying during a fast, but it is very much alive. You swing a mean fist. You drive your employees too hard. You pile all the work onto your team and sit doing nothing and call yourself a Christian.
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Rev. Christie Bature
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• Showing off humility — putting on a pious long face and parading solemnly in black — is not humility. That is pride. God laughs. The one who sits in heaven shall laugh. Be real.

The Kind of Fast God Is After

God described the fast he actually wants:

• Break the chains of injustice. There are cultural practices in Africa that are oppressive, have gone on for generations, and no one speaks up. When a man dies and the women of the village come with a razor blade to shave his widow's head, force her to sit with the corpse for days, and make her drink the water used to wash the dead body as proof of her innocence — somebody needs to open their mouth. You say, "I am only one person." When Elijah said he was the only one remaining, God said there were seven thousand others who had not bowed. Open your mouth and God will bring the seven thousand. Opening your mouth and saying "this is wrong, can we stop it" is fasting.
• Rid the workplace of exploitation. Every true leader drives the team hard but is right there in front with them — not sitting crossing his legs, threatening people with their jobs, making them serve out of fear rather than joy.
• Free the oppressed. Cancel debts. Someone has been owing you for ten years. You have not needed the money. Every time they see you coming, they take a different road. Release them. Tell them: keep it.
• Share your food with the hungry. God calls this fasting.
• Be available to your own families. Availability is not just physical presence. There are people who are present but might as well be gone. There are families who rejoice when a member travels. Are you emotionally available? Spiritually available? Financially available?

Two Stories of Availability

One morning, the Holy Spirit said, "Help her" — pointing to a woman sitting on a curb, clearly suffering. There was an argument with God — if I stop, this woman will put all her problems on me — and then driving past. Coming back hours later, she was dead. The scratch marks from her dying moments were still visible in the earth. She died alone. That thing was a weight for months, because the spirit condemned: if you had stopped, she may still have died — but she would not have died alone. She may have been able to say something before she died so her family could be found. There was no handbag, no ID.

A few months later, a woman was spotted moving in a squatting position along the road, stark naked, covered in sores. The Holy Spirit said, "Help this one." This time, obedience. Food was bought. The sores began to heal as her body was nourished. One day in the rain, she could not be found in the usual spot. God said, "Look for her." She was found fallen into a puddle at a rubbish dump, unable to raise herself. She was lifted out of the water, given food. A few days later she was gone. God said: "You have redeemed yourself from the other one you didn't help."

God cannot use those who are looking for convenience or the approval of men.

The Rewards of True Fasting

Isaiah 58 promises that when this kind of fast is practiced:

• The lights will turn on and your life will turn around — at once
• Your righteousness will pave your way; God will secure your passage
• When you pray, God will answer: "Here I am"
• Your life will begin to glow in the darkness; your shadowed life will be bathed in sunlight
• God will always show you where to go and give you a full life in the emptiest of places
• You will be known as one who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again

David, after celebrating the ark of God in Jerusalem, turned and went straight to bless his household. When you come home, do you bring blessing or curse? Are you the one your family rejoices when you travel — because there is finally peace in your absence? Are you the one who terrifies the family, whose arrival makes everyone's heart beat with dread?