Keith Battle - God's Family - Part 3

I’m in part three of a series called God’s Family, and to get us ready musically, we have Zion Music. Would you oblige us with the theme music, please? We are family! I got all my… We are family! I got all my… We all fin—hey, that’s where we are! No, familia, muchas gracias. I’m going to do the whole sermon in Spanish—how do you like that? All right, we’re going back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. If you have a Bible, I’m going to read verses 16-18, that small paragraph, that small section of Scripture. If it is our custom, and if you’re physically able to stand without harm to yourself, please stand for the reading of this passage. I’m going to read verses 16, 17, and 18. I’m reading from the New Living Translation, and here’s what it says: always be joyful. Now let me ask you a question right there—how often should we be joyful? Always! Oh, I like the way you all sound over here. Verse 17: never stop praying. God, when should we stop praying? Yeah. Verse 18: be thankful in all circumstances. Let me ask you all a question: how many circumstances should we be thankful in? Yeah, all of them! For this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. Amen. You may be seated.

I want to use the subject today: our spiritual responsibilities. Every family—well, most families—if they don’t, should have responsibilities for every responsible individual within the family. There are certain things that we expect of you if you live in this household; there are certain rules, chores, or obligations that you have as a member of this household. So it is in God’s family. We see here in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 that there are three responsibilities given to us. Those responsibilities are: be joyful always, pray without ceasing, and be thankful in all circumstances. Those are our spiritual responsibilities. Here’s the deal: at the end of verse 18, it says if we do those three things, when we do those three things all the time, that is the will of God for our lives—for those of us who belong to Jesus. If you’ve ever been confused or a bit uncertain of God’s will for your life, here’s one thing we know is God’s will for your life because He says it. He says: «Always pray without stopping and be thankful in all circumstances.» He says that’s My will for your life.

Now we’re going to unpack those three things, but before we do that, I want to revisit something I shared in part one. In part one, we talked about harmony and interpersonal relationships, which is a challenge. In part two, we discussed the leaders in God’s family. But I want to go back to what I talked about in part one when I discussed loving each other, and I want to return to a tool that I provided in that segment. Let me see if I can go back. Will it go back? They told me if I hit the arrow one time, someone is going to have to come up here and hit it for me because I don’t want to write it out again. So it’s cool if you get on camera. That’s why you know he’s a scientist. Oh, so you don’t have to hit it with your… Now, everybody’s watching you across the whole world online, and they’re watching you—your parents are watching, your siblings, your children—they’re all watching right now. You know this is not going to be good, Dad. You just embarrassed yourself! Turn around and look at the camera so they can see that it was you who did that.

All right, so I have to write the whole thing down again. All right, so it’s all good—amen. No, it ain’t good—amen. All right, so I’m going to write it again. We’re going to save it this time. Situation—it’s an SBI. I learned this from Pastor Jenkins at the First Baptist Church of Glenn, AR. It stands for Situation, Behavior, Impact. This is a tool, and the other tool that I shared with you all, that I created, is called LOUVA—uh-huh—and I’m adding an R today: LVAR. I’ll explain why in a minute. But it requires that we listen and what else? Understand. Let me see if you got your notes from last time, or maybe you remember this: understand, and then validate. Yeah, good! You’re a good class! And then apologize: «I’m sorry for the pain I caused you.» Even if it was unintentional, it still hurt you. Forgiveness—uh-huh. We talked about forgiveness. I know y’all said, «Oh, he’s stuck on forgiveness.» Remember that one? Amendments—mhm. And this one, I bet if you know this, you’re psychic because I didn’t tell you what this one was: it’s a reenactment. Yeah, I talked about that last week, but I didn’t give it a word.

Now, this is the tool. Let me show you where in the Bible this comes from. Turn to Matthew 18:15. So here’s the deal: whenever there’s conflict or tension, or disagreement, or hurt—and you don’t have to not if… when that stuff happens, because it’s going to happen in relationships, you cannot be in somebody’s space on a regular basis and not disappoint each other, offend each other, or get on someone’s nerves. When that happens, when somebody crosses you, you don’t talk about them, you talk to them. You get yourself calm enough, and you do what it says in Matthew 18.