#206 Revival in Your Home (God's Order - Part 1)

God loves order because He knows what disorder brings, and He knows what it brings to your life, and He knows what happens to your home when things are not in order, when they're just in total chaos and total disarray.

Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening. The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports. Welcome to the One Cry Podcast. We are always grateful that anybody listens to these, and people do. That's so wonderful. In fact, what's been exciting is I think we've finished over 200 of these over the last few years. And people, believe it or not, are listening around the nation and many around

the world. It's amazing how podcasts can just go anywhere and it just stays. So you can go back and listen to it. If you find one that you like, you can call a friend and say, hey, listen to episode number, you know, 122, whatever. And I hope you do that. I hope you invite friends because it's just a ready, easy source of spiritual truth. And our goal at One Cry is for a movement of revival and spiritual awakening.

It's happening, Holly, around the country. And we're so grateful to just play a small part in that. And your listening plays a part in that. The last few weeks, we have gone down a really important direction, and that is how to have revival in my home, in my marriage, in my family. And because the truth is, if you say, well, man, I've had a great revival. God's just really changed my life. but it doesn't reflect in your home something's wrong.

It may be because if you knew better, you'd do better. And that's what we're about in these podcasts. We want to give you some practical tools about how to cooperate with God and seeing revival come to your family and through your life. Sometimes we know better and we just need a reminder. And sometimes we know better and we dig our heels in and we say no. Well, it doesn't happen overnight. No, no. There are a lot of choices about that.

Oh, my stars. And we find ourselves, we've been married 52 years next week, I think, or next two weeks. Do you remember what day? Yes, I do. I'm not going to say it because I kind of don't remember. But it's the 16th. That's right. 16th. We were in 1973. We were juniors in college the summer before our senior year. So there, boy, that's a long time ago. Seems like yesterday. So, and God has taught us a lot. And what's crazy is what Holly was saying right

there. He has to teach us those same things. I mean, we come back to these same truths over and over again. We've got to forgive. We've got to love with the love of God. We're going to talk about that in a few weeks. Hopefully, we get progressively better. A little better. A little quicker. Listening to the Lord. Yeah, and responding to the Lord. Yeah. I would tell you that just before we go off of that to where we're going to go today is you can get in habitual patterns.

You can get in a rut, you know, in the way you communicate and what you do and the way you respond. And this is why learning as many truths about marriage and family revival is important early and how critical it is to respond quickly. You know, every time God convicts you, respond. Every time you learn something, respond and begin to build a new pathway, a new habit, because they can get entrenched in your in your home. And it's harder and harder because it's become more habitual.

So this truth that we're going to talk about is absolutely critical. Now, I used to have a deal. Holly, you remember this? We had eight kids. And for 10 years, we lived in one house when all eight kids were at home. Then they started peeling off to go to college and stuff. And we moved. But in those 10 years, all of our eight kids lived in bedrooms upstairs and we were downstairs. And that's in our house on Windy Heights.

And they would kind of go, they would kind of live a little bit under the radar. Except that baby was in the closet. Yeah, yeah. When we have a new baby, we fix the closet up in our bedroom and that was our baby room, which was just a whole nother story. But anyway, so, but they would live up there and sometimes we get so busy with life is their rooms would kind of go under the radar and they just get a mess. I mean, you know, you can imagine eight kids, what they could do to rooms.

And I would go up there because it was time to clean. And I walk, I couldn't see the floor, you know, and I'd say, oh my goodness. Well, I, over the years, I developed a genius method. And the method was I would take a stack of lawn and leaf size garbage bags upstairs. And I would say to them, children, today is the day of reckoning. And we're going to stay here till this gets done. And this bag is for trash. Every bit of trash we're going to put right in here. This bag is the garage sale. bag.

Everything that you don't want to keep or that I deem is not worthy is going to go into that bag. And then anything else will put up in its proper place in your room. And this will be fun. This, you know, I kind of... Lied to them a little bit. It was going to be great. But really, by the end, they were loving it because they had their room back. And what they loved was what I was after, and that was order. There's something about order that's really refreshing.

Do you notice my expression here? No, I'm not even looking at you. I'm not even going to look at you. This system worked real well until one day with my last little daughter. I don't know how old she was. Actually, it was Bethany. I thought it was Jessica. Anyway, one of them. It was Bethany. Yeah. And they had this habit of taking a sheet of paper and scribbling on it or doing something on it and keeping them. And she had it seem like thousands of just random pieces of paper.

Well, there were masterpieces to her, and she looked over and caught me, instead of keeping those, throwing some into the trash basket. And she's rather dramatic. And so she said, Daddy, you're throwing away my memories. I never will forget that. And so for a few minutes, I didn't, and then I did again. But anyway, well, God loves order because he knows what disorder brings and he knows what it brings to your life.

And he knows what happens to your home when things are not in order, when they're just in total chaos and total disarray. So you look at creation. God made it orderly. He made it diverse and beautiful and different, but there is an order and a design to it. Look at man and his family in the garden, and you see order. They had a plan, and they worked that plan. And then the fall came, and suddenly that order was lost because they're no longer listening to God and following his plan.

And so the truth is that God wants to bring heavenly order to our earthly chaos in our homes. There's an incredible passage. It's one of my favorite passages in the Bible in Colossians chapter three. And it's a great passage on prayer, but it's a great passage. It just teaches us how to live. And it says this in Colossians 3, 1. If you have been raised up with Christ, which we have if we're true followers of Christ, If we're a believer and we've been resurrected in Christ and we're new in him.

Keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above. And then to emphasize that more, he gives the negative, not on the things that are on the earth. So listen to what he says. That word set your mind doesn't mean to have an occasional thought about heaven. It says, I want you to be looking into the heavenly realm. I want you to watch what's going on in the presence of God in heaven.

And we can, because we have the word of God and the spirit of God, and we can know the mind and the heart of God. Now, he goes on to say why this is possible. He says, because you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. In other words, when you came to Christ, your old life died, who you were without Christ, and you have Christ and he has you and he lives in you and you have a capacity you never, had before. There's an old film movie that.

Holly and I didn't see when it came out, and I think I've seen one of the sequels, just part of it, and it's called The Matrix. And there was Matrix 1, 2, 3, 2000, you know. And the premise of that movie is really fascinating. The premise is that there's this earthly realm, and you have all these people that all they have, their whole orientation is just physical. What they can see, feel, taste, touch, and hear.

But there's another realm that they don't see, and it's a spiritual realm or a metaphysical realm, you could say. And in that realm, in this movie, there's good entities, beings, and there's evil beings, and they're at war. And these beings can be in both worlds. They come down to the earth sometimes and have battles and affect men, And then they go back up to their spiritual, their heavenly, if you want to set like that, domain.

And it's such a picture of the reality of us before Christ and after Christ. Before Christ, our only orientation, we're dead in our spirit. And our only orientation is what we can see, feel, taste, touch, and hear. But Christ comes to live in us. He raises us up. We have him in us, and the Bible says our life is hidden with Christ and God. And where's Christ? He's seated at the right hand of God. So we literally have the ability to set our mind on the things above.

Now, God gave us a perfect illustration of how this is to work. He sent Christ. And Christ became a man. He laid aside all of his rights and privileges as God. He had to do that to be the right sacrifice. And then also you can read this in John 6, the New American Standard translation, six times from John 5 to John 14, John 16, I think, Jesus uses this word. He says, I do nothing on my own initiative. You say, what? I do nothing on my own initiative. Then he says this.

Now, remember, he's operating as a man. What I see my father doing, that's what I do. How did he see that? What I hear my father saying, that's what comes out of my mouth. Well, he was a man who was living in perfect union with his father. And he was setting his mind on the things above. He was listening to his dad. And he says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And he says, this is the way I want you to live.

So God wants to bring, and that's why Jesus said here, pray like this, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it's being done in heaven. So we as Christians, we have the ability now to bring heaven down to earth through our prayers, through the way we live, all of that. In this passage, Jesus says, now don't get this. Don't miss this. He says, I want you to set your mind on the things above. And then in the next verses in Colossians 3, he gets real practical.

And he's saying, now, see what's going on in heaven? Bring that down to earth. And he begins by talking about the home. I remember the first time I was teaching through this passage as a pastor. I thought, why does he talk about setting your mind on heaven? And then he talks about the home. And he says, wives, verse 18, be subject to your husband as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and don't be embittered. Children, be obedient to your parents.

Fathers, don't exasperate your kids so they'll not lose heart. Well, the laboratory for bringing heaven down is your family. And if you don't get it there, you'll probably never get it anywhere. So what do we need to do to bring heaven into our home? And another way to say that is to bring revival to our home. Well, in the verses here, it says, Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

And let the peace of Christ, in which you were also called in one body, rule your heart and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you In all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and sing to God with gratitude in your hearts and whatever you do in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father through him. So he is clearly spelled out what his plan is.

And that's what heaven is. If you set your mind on the things above and you just look at heaven through the word and by spirit and in prayer, what you see is a heavenly father that loves his children perfectly. What you see is the Lord Jesus, who is our groom, who has a bride, and he loves his bride even to the willingness to lay down his life for her. What you see is a bride in heaven that perfectly respects her husband and perfectly submits to her husband in the most appropriate ways.

And what you see is a heavenly father who loves his children and who trains them and cares for them. I mean, you see a family in heaven that is what God wants to bring to earth. And when we cooperate with that process, we move from a home of chaos to a home that has heavenly order. Let's just look at this for a minute, honey, and these particular roles that give real structure. And let me first say this. God wants to bring heavenly order into our earthly

chaos, but it always starts with you. It always starts with me, right? One of the great problems in our home is we sit around and we point the finger to the other end of the couch and we say, if he'd just get better, if she would just pull her way, then we could have some order in this home. And you don't get anywhere that way. That's a mind game you play that allows you to just sit and do whatever you want to and blames the other person.

And I've had so many times in counseling that I started beginning my counseling with couples like this. Okay, here are the ground rules. And the ground rules are, are we going to be honest? And secondly, you have to quit pointing to the other end of the couch. You have to just look at you. This is about you. So don't use your finger. I was pointing at you. I was illustrating. I was illustrating.

So the premise of this, if you want revival, if you don't want revival, just keep blaming your mate. Just keep blaming your kids. Just keep blaming your parents, and you will never have revival. You will continue to have chaos in your home. But if you want revival and you want God's order, you look inside yourself, and then you look to heaven. And say, Lord, what does heaven teach me that I'm to be doing in my home? Well, first of all, let's start with the husbands.

And first of all, it says in this passage of scripture. Husbands, love your wives and don't be bitter against them. Now, every time the Bible talks about what a husband's role is in the home, God always says love. But it's not the word eros or the word phileo in the Greek. It's the word agape, which is the God love. It's that God quality that always responds in self-sacrifice. And we're going to talk about that in a podcast here soon.

But it is a strong word. In fact, in Ephesians 5, he says, husbands, I want you to love your wives just like I love the church. and gave my life for. I had a group of 50 men one time on a men's retreat, and I got a whiteboard, and I said, Okay, I want you to, guys, let's just think together all the ways that Jesus loved his disciples. And they kind of sat there looking at me, and then I prompted a little bit. They got going, and we ended up writing, I think, 40 ways.

He spent time with his disciples. He stayed at night praying for his disciples. He sacrificed for his disciples. He took the brunt for his disciples. He led his disciples. He taught his disciples. And ultimately, he was a cross for his disciples. And then I looked at those men. We were just listing these things. And I said, okay, I want you to look at those things. In every way, it's listed there. That's the way I'm to love my wife. Boy, it got dead silent. I would imagine. Yeah.

But it's true. And that's why he only had to use one word, you know, because that's what that word means. And then the little qualifier, like I love you, just like I love you, you're to love your wife. Then he says something else here, and don't be bitter towards them. And that's really...

Why did he say that? He could have said a thousand things. Well, bitterness comes when we feel like in some ways we've been hurt or wronged and we get unforgiveness in our heart toward our mate or towards anybody. But bitterness comes when we hold on to that. And it grows and grows and grows. And it becomes Hebrews talks about a root of bitterness that always springs up. In other words, you can't push it down and it's all going to manifest itself.

Always springs up, always causes trouble and always defiles many. In other words, bitter people, hurting people, hurt people. And so what he's saying is when you've been hurt legitimately by your mate, or when you feel like you've been hurt by your mate, you've got to learn how to instantly forgive and not hold that. And you've got to be quick on forgiveness or you'll get bitter. And as a husband, if you get bitter towards your mate, you can crush them.

You know, you can be an unbelievably destructive force in your home. So the one side is the positive, love them aggressively. The other side is the negative. Don't let bitterness root in your heart. And if you look up in heaven, you see a husband, Jesus, with his bride, the church, and he loves them perfectly. And he forgives them completely and fully. And let me just pause right here and say to every man in this room, whether you're married or not.

Are you willing to love your mate, whether it's your wife or it's maybe a future mate that you might have? Love them with the love of Christ. Now, you can't do that without Christ and without his help. But you can do all things with him. You can love them regardless. You can love them in spite of anything. And are you willing to lead the way in quick forgiveness in your home, quick forgiveness, and so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and harms everybody in that home?

That's how you begin to bring heaven to earth. That's how you begin to see a revival in your home.

You know, I could go on, but I want to stop right there. I just sense that's enough for this podcast. And we're going to come back and pick this up next week. And honey, we're going to talk about the rest of this for wives and for children and for fathers. And but I just want to stop and I want to I want us to pray for our husbands. They're listening and just for the men. And I wonder if you would you would pray for that and then and then I'll pray.

And then we'll come back and pick this up next time, and we'll concentrate on the last part of this, bringing revival in our home. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that we can come to you with every single thing that we need. I pray specifically for the men that may be hearing this podcast. And, Lord, that you would teach them step by step to honor their wives, to forgive quickly, because that is huge in the home. And the children in the home will learn that by watching their dad.

That's right. So, Father, I pray that you would teach these men who are listening how to follow you in your steps. And it requires that you lay down your life a little bit and give forgiveness to your wife, your children, and wherever that tension is coming from. So I pray that that would happen in your life, in your home. And Father, we can't love like this without looking to heaven and seeing it pictured and modeled for us.

And then crying out to the Spirit of God who lives within us, who is love. You don't just have love. You are love. And the Bible says, Lord, that the love of God can be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We can't work this up, particularly when somebody does an unlovable thing, particularly when it's hard to love. And it is at times.

The Bible says, Lord, that love is the fruit of the Spirit. And so if we're not filled with your spirit and walking and following your spirit, we can't have the love of God. So help us realize as men that if we're not loving our wife and if we're not forgiving our wives, Lord, we are bringing chaos into the hole. Lord, I pray that we would, as we're praying right now, we would take personal responsibility. Responsibility.

Lord, we don't have to take responsibility for everything, but we have to take responsibility for what we're responsible for. And we're responsible to love and we're responsible to forgive. So, Lord, if that's not happening, I pray that we would start there and we would start now. And I pray that through the men on this podcast, that, Lord, a revival would begin to come right to the doors of our home.

And I pray, Father, when we walk into our home, that our children, our wife, would sense and hear and feel Jesus in us, flowing through us. And Lord, they would hear the words of heaven, and they would feel the love of heaven, because what we're doing is God initiated.

So we pray that and we ask it for your name. Amen. Well, again, we're always grateful for you listening. I just feel like this is a really important podcast today. And I want to encourage you to, it's short, listen to it again, particularly the men, and pray it through.

Study it in the scripture, study Ephesians 5, study Colossians 3, and next week we're going to talk about the wives' role in bringing heaven down and bringing heavenly order to earthly chaos and the children's role and the father's role as they teach the children. So I hope you join us and I hope you tell other people about the podcast and we'll see you next time.