TONY EVANS HOUSE
Tony Evans - Portrait of a Christian Family - Part 2
This summer, saddle up with the only sports book where you can bet on horse racing, FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get a no-sweat first bet up to $500. Just download the app or go to fanduel.com/horses to score your no-sweat bet up to $500. 21+ in present in Colorado. Offer valid on first real money major of $5 or more. Verify FD Racing account required. Bonus issued and non-withdrawable racing site credit that expires seven days after issuance. Max refund $500. Restrictions apply. See terms at fanduel.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gambler. If you would like to make a difference in this city, start with your own family through your own church. Dr. Tony Evans says we can only begin to build up our communities when we fix what's wrong at home. Until it works that way, there is no government program, no financial grant, no political caucus that can fix what's broken. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and President of the Urban Alternative. There's no question the traditional family is being targeted for dismantlement today by a society in fierce opposition to God. But Dr. Evans reveals how the faithful can build or rebuild healthy families as he begins our lesson from Psalm 128. Let's join him. A Christian family is developed within the proper atmosphere. You've got to have the right atmosphere. First of all, you start with God, but then you create an environment for the family. Verse 3, "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive plants around your table." He obviously is focusing on the man first because he says, "Your wife," which is always where God starts. It is always where God starts. I don't apologize for that. God starts with the man. Now, the wife has a responsibility, as we'll see too, but it doesn't start there. A man is responsible for setting the tone by which his family functions. So it starts with you men, and that's why Satan is after men. It's not that he's not after women. He just knows that he can get men out of the picture. He knows that he can keep men from being responsible. He knows that he can keep men being baby makers rather than being children lovers and fathers and husbands. He knows that he can keep men away from being committed and dedicated. He's destroying the whole family, which destroys the whole church, which devastates the whole culture, so he's after us men. As a priority, he says, "Your wife will be a fruitful vine in your house." Notice this is your wife, not somebody else's wife. Your wife will be a fruitful vine in your house. Now, he uses two imageries here for the family, vine and olive. Those are the two images, because this was a culture that grew vineyards and used olive oil quite a bit. Your wife shall be a fruitful vine. Oh, there's a lot in that. Three things about a vine you need to know, men. First of all, that a vine that was a grapevine always cleans. The vine always cleans. It would take hold of whatever it was attached to and it would cling to it. The atmosphere in the home is that a wife should be able to wrap her branches around her husband. She must be able to cling leech onto. Isn't that what God said? A man shall leave his father and mother and they shall cleave to one another. That's because she is being what God has told her to be, a clinging vine. If she wants to wrap you around her so that you are totally, completely sold out to her, that's exactly what God wants, because she is too cling. That's what vines do. Let me tell you something else vines do. They not only cling, but they climb. In other words, once a vine gets attached to something, it not only cleans to it, it spreads out on the thing it cleans to so that one moment it's just got onto the quarter of a wall, then it will spread and take over the whole wall because it will climb. Its branches will begin to spread out all over the place. In other words, when a man is the right kind of man, the wife wants to cling to him and not let him go. And she grows, she develops strengths and abilities, skills, she becomes a better woman than she ever was. If you have a stunted wife, a non-growing wife, if you have a wife that's no better next year than she was this year, if you have a wife that's no more intelligent next year than she was this year, if you have a wife that's no more affectionate next year than she was this year, the problem we have is that there's nothing to cling to or once she cleans, there's nothing on it worth growing in. In other words, you've got to create an environment of growth. [applause] Your wife should be able to say, when I cling to my husband, stuff starts shooting out of me that I didn't know ahead. Things start dancing and things start expanding. Why? Because the vine not only cleans the vine climb. But let me tell you something else a vine does. A vine doesn't only clean. And a vine doesn't only climb, but a vine clusters. In other words, grapes start popping up everywhere. Little groups are grapes. Let me tell you what grapes were. Grapes were grape juice, but you just let it sit for a little while. And grapes became wine. And when grapes became wine, you drink it. And when the grapes become wine and you drink it, you start getting intoxicated. You start staggering when you walk, because the wine make you feel good. The wine make you feel up, because when you drink enough of that grape juice, it begins to do something to you. Your wife, when she cleans, if you let her climb, will begin to cluster so that you'll become a staggering man. You'll become a drunk man. You'll become a happy man. You'll become a fulfilled man. You'll become a successful man. Why? Because she's going to make you drunk with her love. Because it will naturally overflow. You're saving my wife's not clustering. Why? Because you're not letting her climb. And the reason she can't climb is you won't let her clean. So if you let her clean, so does she climbs, so does she clusters, you'll become a staggering man. You'll become a drunk man. You'll become a happy man. You'll become a fulfilled man. Because that's what a vine does. Vine makes you happy. And we've got so many women today who've been stunted. The man has gone to college. The man has gotten his career. The man has gone off. But he lets her stay barefoot and pregnant. He doesn't make sure she gets her education, develops her skills, ignites her abilities before a vine can grow. It's got to have the right atmosphere. That's what it needs. Men don't expect a summer wife if you bring home winter weather. Don't expect a vineyard to grow if it's snowing and hailing when you come home. You say, but what am I supposed to do? I have the one simple answer. I'll serve her. Ball down on that. Every man should out serve his wife. You have to out serve her. But you say, but you don't understand. That's wrong with your preachers. You're not practical. All you do is preach. I'm tired when I come home. When you come home, that's your second job. You come home and serve. You come home and you wrap in your arms and say, I've been away from you all day. Couldn't wait to get home and let you know, can't get my mind off of you. You come home and say, how can I support you, help you, serve you? How can I help with the kids that have been driving you crazy all day? Tell you what, why you cook? Let me set the table. And why you wash? Let me dry. And the thing is to out serve your wife. It's as simple as that. To out serve, it says your children shall be like olive plants around your table. Olive plants. Notice not olive trees, olive plants. Olive plants brew in rocky soil. Olive plants took 15 years to mature. Olive plants had to be nurtured. That's what he's saying. Olive plants were used for a lot of different things. Olive plants were used on the one hand for medicine. They were used on the other hand for massages. They were used for cooking because what olive produced was oil. And the oil could be used in a lot of different ways. But the plants had to be nurtured. The plants had to be nurtured. What does he say? He is saying that we must provide a nurturing environment for the children if they're going to grow up to be olive trees. If you want the plant to become a tree, it must be nurtured. It won't grow by itself. Or if it grows, it will grow wrong and not produce good oil. The beauty about an olive plant was that when it grew up, it grew up to become a tree and once it became a tree, it would produce oil ongoingly for another 40 years. That's what God is saying. That we ought to be olive plants or the children are olive plants, but notice where they're olive plants around your table. In other words, if the parents are never with the kids, don't expect the kids to grow up. We have a generation of children a day who are being nurtured by somebody other than the parents. Nobody should raise your kids, but you. Anybody else is an extra, a bonus, an addition. They're not an essence. School teachers shouldn't be raising your kids. The pastor shouldn't be raising your kids. You must raise your kids or nurture your kids around your table, which means you've got to be at the table with them. One of the great places to do family rearing is around the table. To eat dinner together, to have lunch or breakfast together, because it means that you are nurturing them. You're using those teachable moments. Now both in the case of the wife and in the case of the children, it is their attachment to the home that produces the environment, which means wife, if you're not at home, don't blame your husband for you not having anything to cling to. If you love your career more than you love your home, then it will be your fault if your home fails. If your husband says we need to spend more time, but you say, but I'm climbing the corporate ladder, you may be walking away from your home, and when you do, guess what? Those olive plants are now in trouble to disease and to disaster. This doesn't mean your children won't sin. It doesn't mean your children won't error. It doesn't mean your children won't stray. But because you've nurtured them, the Holy Spirit will have something to bring them back to. In fact, some of you are here today because you are raised in church and your mother loved you and prayed for you and supported you and you may have gone astray in college, but you're back in the family of God today because you are nurtured in the fear of the Lord. Listen to me, you must be committed to your home. You must be a wife in the home. If you're going to become a cluster, you must be children in the home around the table. There must be times that we set aside so that our families are together and so that we are reinforcing spiritual principles. Dr. Evans will come back to explain the link between the health of the family within the home and the strength of the community outside the home. As a believer, God has given you the spiritual authority you need to build a stronger, happier home. Dr. Evans has put together a package of resources to help you do that. It includes the six-part message compilation today's teaching is drawn from, as well as his best-selling book called Kingdom Marriage. These resources take an in-depth look at God's blueprint for husbands and wives and what couples are intended to accomplish for the kingdom. You learn how to break down communication barriers, rekindle romance, and solve problems that can become obstacles to a healthy and fulfilling home. You can get all the messages in the best of Tony Evans on marriage and the Kingdom Marriage Book as our gift. And thanks for your contribution toward Tony's ministry here on this station and around the world. Just call us at 1-800-832-22 or visit TonyEvans.org today to get your copy of the special marriage offer. Details are right on the homepage. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. Well, Dr. Evans will return with part two of today's message right after this. Thought too many of us want to throw in the towel before we've thrown up the prayers. Dr. Tony Evans says Christians have a habit of underusing or overlooking our most valuable spiritual resource. Grace is available, but only at the throne, and you can only approach the throne through prayer. You can deepen your connection with the Lord through our in-depth course on Kingdom Prayer at the Tony Evans Training Center. You'll discover how God has wired the world to work by prayer and experience for yourself how it connects heaven with earth and time with eternity. You'll not only gain a new understanding and appreciation for prayer, you'll actually pray in transforming ways you've never experienced before. The course is intense, but you can work through it at your own pace and get all the help you need through our online forum. And of course, there's custom content from Tony not available anywhere else. Connect with the Tony Evans Training Center at TonyEvans.org. It's like having a seminary on your smartphone or other device. Start today, TonyEvans.org. A Christian family is maintained in the community of believers. He says in verse 4, in the first part of verse 5, "Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion. Shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord." So it all goes back to fearing the Lord. But then he says, "May the Lord bless you from Zion." Zion was the city of God. Zion was Jerusalem. It was the place where a father would lead his family to the worship of God in Zion. The author of Hebrews picks this up in Hebrews chapter 12 and says, "When you come to worship, you come to Mount Zion, the city of God." What is Mount Zion for us today? It's not the city of Jerusalem, it's the church or the living God. That's what he says in Hebrews 12. "When you came here this morning as families, you came to Mount Zion." What was Mount Zion? It was the place you met God. It is a true statement that the family that prays together stays together. And what he means by that, the family that has God at the center and who gathers with God's people to be affirmed and reaffirmed in the things of God. In other words, listen, if you miss a serious about having a long-term family, then you better equally be serious about leading your family in worship. My father worked like a dog for 35 years. He had to tote that box and lift that bail. He had to go there as a longshoreman and he had to lift these heavy boxes. My father would be dead tired when he came home because he had to carry all this stuff on his back before they had all the fancy equipment that they have today. Oh, but on Sunday morning, even if he had to work, all night Saturday on Sunday morning, he'd come wake us up and I'd say, "But Dad, I'm tired." He said, "No, son, I'm the one that's tired, but we are going to church." Because as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. On Wednesday night, he'd come in at five o'clock, five thirty, six o'clock, dog tired. After all that he had done, he said, "Let's go." I said, "Dad, but you just got home from work, yeah." But the only reason I could work was because God gave me the strength. So I'm going to prayer meeting the night and ask him to give me more strength than I normally had, more power than I normally had, and he made us go to church. And when he didn't walk, when he didn't, when he had to work on Sunday, or he had to work on Wednesday, he'd call the house and say, "Now go to church." You're belonging to the church of the living God. And the reason why we have so many failed families is that they're not involved in a maintenance program. And the maintenance program is in the family of God with the people of God. Listen, mister, if your wife has to wake you up and tell you it's time to go to church. If your kids have to tell you, "Dad, how come you never prayed with us?" If they have to ask you the question, you don't fear the Lord. Because if you knew it was the Lord that was going to maintain your family, you'd be waking them up. You'd be leading them on their way. You would be leading them in prayer. You would be making sure they learned their Sunday school lesson. Your wife would be helping. Your wife would be assisting, but it is your job to carry them to Mount Zion. Finally, he says, "The Christian family is powerful in its impact on society." He says, "The Lord bless you from Zion from his gathering place." And may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Indeed, may you see your children's children and get the last line. Follow me now. Peace be upon Israel. Shalom, well-being in the city, in the community. Because this family was right with God. They were right with each other. They were right with the church. And guess what? Peace be upon Israel. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see the community get better, the prosperity of Jerusalem. And may you see your children's children. Because there's peace, some of us won't see our children's children because there's no peace. There's violence. There's corruption. There's corrosion. And we won't even get to live longer enough. Many people want to fix downtown who haven't fixed their own home. How are you going to help the mayor? How are you going to help the city council? How are you going to help the school board? How are you going to help the governor? If you're not willing to help your wife? If you're not willing to help your husband? If you're not willing to help your children, it starts with your wife with God. It moves to your relationship to your family. You're embalming through the church. And guess what? The city's not the same. Peace be upon Israel. There's impact. Impact. This large gathering. It doesn't start with me. It starts with a man and a woman back in Baltimore. He would have come in my office right across from my death as I looked down at the other end of my office. It's a picture of a man and a woman, author in Evelyn Evans. And they're staring right back at me. And when you look at the picture closely, you will see them smiling. Both of them cupped with a Bible in their hands. Because when I was an olive plant, they gave me the Lord. And they raised me in the fear of the Lord. And they told me, "Son, don't forget the Lord." And the olive plant grew up and became a tree. And whatever God has done, for which I thank Him and give Him all the glory, it was because of Mom and Dad, insisted that as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And whatever families I've impacted, and whatever difference you've made, has come because I had a family that made a difference in me. And the world gets better when we have those kind of parents who have the Word of God. Now let me ask you something, Mother and Father, when you die, will your kids remember that you raised them in the fear of God? Or will they only remember they fought all the time? They cost all the time because my Mother and Father were very unhappy people. If you would like to make a difference in this city, start with your own family through your own church until it works that way. There is no government program, no financial grant, no political caucus that can fix what's broken. You get right with God, Mr. If you've not out-served your wife, then I want you to commit the out-server today. If you've dishonored your parents who did the best they could, you ought to deal with that if your family is not a dynamic part of this church or whatever church you are a part of, that ought to be remedied today, that there might be peace in Jerusalem. Listen to me. Whenever you buy something that's very expensive, you always want to know what the warranty is. You want to know does the manufacturer stand behind the product? You want to know if something goes wrong, he'll take care of it for you. One of the things we loved about shopping at Sears is you could always take it back. Years later, you could take it back because they stood good by their products. Family is God's product. He's the only one that can give you a warranty. Many of us have families, but want somebody else to be the warrantor of it. How can somebody else warrant your family if they didn't make it? Warantees are only given by the manufacturer and God manufactured family. He's got to stand behind the warranty. And if you want him to stand behind you and your home and your family and your children, then you better take it back to him because it's his product. I believe right now in the sound of my voice, there are so many women who have been thinking about divorce, but you heard this message today. And you decided I want my family. Yeah, I don't know how it's going to work. I don't know how God you're going to do it, but I want my family. Some of you haven't thought about divorce, but you might as well be divorced because you're living in the same house as strangers. But you heard the data, what God wants for the family. And that remedy begins by asking Jesus Christ to forgive your sins and take up residence in your heart. Dr. Evans will explain how that happens when he returns in just a moment. But first, if you'd like to review this lesson on your own or pass it along to a friend, copies are available on CD or digital download. Don't forget, if you contact us right away, it'll come to you as our gift, along with all six messages in the best of Tony Evans on marriage, along with a copy of his best-selling book on the topic, Kingdom Marriage. All we ask is that you make a donation to help keep this program coming your way. You can make all the arrangements at TonyEvans.org, or by calling our resource request line at 1-800-832-22, where team members are ready to assist you day and night. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222, or online at TonyEvans.org. Society puts the idea of sexual purity somewhere between old-fashioned and impossible. But tomorrow, Dr. Evans will explain why God's idea of sanctified sex still makes sense in our morally confused culture. Right now, he's back with this important invitation. One of the great things all of us need in life is hope. Hope is expectation about the future. That things will be better where I'm going than where I am or where I've come from. And the greatest hope that's given to us by God is the hope of eternal life. That when this life is over, we immediately enter into God's presence and don't have to worry about the scourge called death. So if you want to bypass death, you can do that because there's the hope of the gospel. The good news that anyone who comes to Christ for salvation, recognizing their sinfulness and their need for forgiveness, will be given that salvation when they come to Jesus forward. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you. [Music]