Keith Battle - Rock Solid - Part 6

Back on Mother’s Day, I started a series called «Rock Solid: Building and Remodeling God’s Homes, God’s Way.» The big idea in this series is that our families are important, they matter, and they should be a priority for us. We should make whatever adjustments we need to prioritize them in our lives. Since it has been several weeks since we did this series, by the way, if you have a seat on the row near you, please raise your hand; people are coming in trying to find somewhere to sit.

One of the things I want to do now is give a quick summary of what happened in the first five weeks to bring us back up to speed. I don’t know how long this series will go, but I won’t let it continue until we’re done. In the first part, we talked about the importance of listening to what God says and obeying Him. This is key to building a rock-solid house. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7, verse 24, that a wise person builds his house on the rock. The rock, He says, refers to a person who listens to His teachings and obeys them. That person does not avoid storms; instead, they survive storms. The winds come, the rains fall, and the floods rise against that house, but it will not collapse because it is built on the rock, which is God’s Word. The importance of hearing God’s Word and obeying it is critical to building a rock-solid house because every house will face storms.

In today’s world, we listen to about 25,000 words a day as human beings. Statistically, it has been proven that we listen to a minimum of 25,000 words a day through radio, television, conversations, and music. Most of those words are not Jesus’s words, so we must be intentional about mixing God’s Word with everything else we hear because it is the only Word that can solidify our homes.

In the second week, we focused on what I call «wisdom bricks» in building our house. The two I want to focus on today are fun and laughter. I believe every home should be fun and filled with hilarity; any home where nobody laughs is a scary place to live. I am not saying we should laugh every day, but if it is always sad, serious, tense, structured, and disciplined, the people inside of it will be desperately trying to escape. Whenever they go to work, they might just drive past their exes, thinking, «I’m not going in there; I’ll work overtime if I must.» They might want everyone asleep when they get home or hear their children say, «I’m hanging out with friends.» People often want to avoid going home because of the environment. Sometimes, they even choose an ungodly environment just because it’s peaceful. Therefore, we must intentionally create homes that are fun, pleasant, and joyful.

One of the impacts of the pandemic was turning our homes into workplaces; we work, educate, and do school from home. While all that structure is necessary for productivity, we also need intentional, spontaneous fun and laughter.

The third part addressed the fact that marriage is a covenant, not a career. Many people treat their marriages as if they were professions or jobs, like gigs. What we often do is stay in our marriages as long as the circumstances are favorable, just like with a job—we stay as long as the pay is good and the treatment is nice but constantly work on our resumes and look for better opportunities. This might be acceptable in your career, but that’s not how covenants operate. Marriage is meant to be with one person for the rest of your life, and that is what marriage is supposed to be. I’m not here to judge if you’ve done this several times already and have one for every week; there are some biblical reasons to get divorced.