Introduction: Jim Patton was trying to put his life and his family back together. Jim had been divorced from Floye for over two years. He had married someone else in that two years but that marriage failed also. He and Floye had two children together, James who is 15 and Jennifer, 20. Two weeks ago Jim and Floye decided to give it another try and Jim came home. To celebrate their joint attempt at beginning again as a family they decided to take a trip to Hot Springs. Last Sunday they left their home in Russellville, had lunch in Hot Springs and decided to take a boat tour of Lake Hamilton. In ten minutes after their boat entered the water it began taking on water. Thirty seconds later it went under, nose-diving sixty feet to the bottom of the lake. Jim, Floye and Jennifer all drown. Fifteen year old James lived but lost his entire family. His youth minister, Steve Pyle, said James told him that "he wasn’t hopeless. He still had hope." (Arkansas Democrat Gazette 5/4/99)

That story of grief and hope is a parable of where we find ourselves today concerning families. Our families are desperately hurting, broken and beaten, yet at the same time there is hope ultimately in God. There is no question that family is important to us as a society but we have not spent the time to demonstrate that importance. Some of the most recent research shows that.

• When asked whom they would want to have with them if stranded on a deserted island, 66% said their family or spouse!
• Adults identify their relationship with their spouse as their most important personal relationship; but 60% of all new marriages are ending in divorce.
• More than 4/5 of all adults say marriage is a cherished institution; but America has the highest divorce rate in the world.
• Most parents say they derive their greatest joy in life from their children; but most parents voluntarily admit they have no idea what they’re doing as parents.
• An overwhelming percentage of Americans contend that if the traditional family falls apart, America itself will collapse; but 2/3 have redefined that traditional family to be those people whom they "deeply care about" or who "deeply care" about them.
• Adults submit that it is important to give a child every opportunity to succeed; but 1/3 of all children born this year will be born to an unwed mother, and most of them will grow up in poverty.
• Four out of five adults describe family as one of their top three priorities in life; yet, they spend less time with family than they devote to television, their jobs or their hobbies.
• We claim it is a family’s responsibility to introduce values and beliefs to our children; but we forfeit the opportunity to do so to our children’s peers and schools.

Today I have struggled with the best way to present this message. On the one hand, this is an especially joy-filled day. We are worshipping in this beautiful place, it’s Mother’s Day and we need you to be motivated to give and pledge $800,000-1.5 million to pay for the renovation as well as allow us to continue to make the improvements needed to shape the future of our church. Yet with the crisis of family within our own culture, community and church, the news is not all good. In spite of the problems and pain, though, there is hope!

The message of grief and sorrow over the critical needs in our families is found powerfully dramatized in the passage from Lamentations. "This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed" (Lam. 1:6). Those words of the prophet Jeremiah were penned in 586 BC. They are words that describe the sorrow at the loss of the city of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587. The once proud city was devastated on a scale unimaginable. All that once reminded people of the blessings of God were destroyed, the people driven from the city (those who weren’t were slaughtered) and now there is only the smoldering ruins of what was left. So Jeremiah sees all of this and gives as it were a voice to the city of Jerusalem itself. As he writes he weeps. He weeps for the loss of what was and grieves that there seems no way out.

As a people we have been exposed to an enormous amount of grief recently. Our own community has yet to recover from the murders of five at Westside in 1998. All of that grief was revisited as we joined the community of Littleton, Colorado as they morned the murder and suicide of fifteen. We see all of that, recall all of that and want to deny the fact that these are desperate times for families. The failure and fatigue our families face confront us with the truth. What is the truth? The truth is that as a culture we are sick, as humans we are helpless, and as families we’re beaten.

The truth hurts and the truth is as a culture we’re sick. (Lam. 1:16a). The voice of Jerusalem cries out in verses 12-22 as she faces the truth of her sin as a city and as a people. God’s justice had fallen upon them and there was no denying the truth.

There are just some things we cannot deny or excuse in our culture. It is difficult to know where to begin. Let me give you two examples that typify the sickness in our culture. Shock radio jockey Howard Stern commented on his radio show about the attractiveness of some of the female students who ran for their lives from Columbine High School and then made disgusting suggestions about the relationships the killers could have had with the co-eds. While that is sick, it is even made more reprehensible by the fact that CBS, who owns Stern’s show, did absolutely nothing because his show is the number one seller on CBS Radio. Another example is that the video game "Doom" that the two assailants in Colorado were so fascinated with has already been superseded by a newer, more violent game that promises even harder carnal gratifications. The advertising promises "multi-player gang bang death match for up to 16 thugs" and you can "target specific body parts and actually see the damage done, including exit wounds." What’s even worse is that the video game industry topped 6.3 billion last year. A game like this is sick and you can’t deny it. The truth hurts.

It is even made more despairing to realize there really is no way out. As humans we have proven ourselves to be helpless. The prophet writes, "No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit." In the area of teen pregnancy and chemical use and abuse we have seen some strong signs of improvement. Yet did you know that forty teenagers a week are murdered in this country and that this has not changed for years? That is the equivalent of 150 Littletons a year. It is not that we are insensitive to the problems. There are scores of programs, many of them effective. Do you understand, though, the need? Today there are 19 million kids under three. By the year 2010 there will be 35 million between the ages of 12-19. What solutions do we have? How can we expect schools to solve the problems that we send them? How can we expect churches to fix things in less than 1-3 hours a week? How can we begin to believe that city, state and national government fix our kids as well as fill our potholes and send us our Social Security? The scale of the need is greater than the scope of the solution.

I know the truth hurts, we’re sick and I know you realize we have run out of solutions to fix it all. The bottom line is we think that it just can’t get any worse—as families in America today we’re beat. Jeremiah’s voice cries out, "My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed." Our families, my friends, have become the victims of the Enemy of all of God’s creation—Satan himself. Whether directly or indirectly, we have been attacked and assaulted by the forces of Hell. The reason I say this is not to excuse or deny our own human depravity. I say it because our culture says to us the solutions to solving our problems begin in the home, yet it is within our homes where we find the greatest destruction. If the homes are weak then the sickness in our families will continue to spread, only further weakening our society. Who else would use such a plan for crippling the possibility of good in our world but our ultimate Enemy. I have lived long enough to see the result of the Serpent of Eden in the lives of our families.

If the truth is that as a culture we are sick, as humans we are helpless, and as families we’re beaten, then what else is there? God. You say, "Bruce, that’s is the most simplistic, trivial, shallow excuse for an answer." Doesn’t matter, it’s still true. The reality is that the restoring and renewing our families need points to only one solution: God. He is our first, last and only hope for our culture, humanity, and ultimately our families. There's hope because the prophet Isaiah points us to three promises of hope--God cares, God can, and God will. (Isaiah 40:27-31)

We can hear all of the negative such as I have just given you and think that God doesn’t care. Like those that Isaiah wrote to who imagined God didn’t see their troubles or was disinterested in their lives. He says, "Don’t you understand the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not get tired of caring for you or stop understanding your needs" (Isaiah 40:27-28). Now we can see that we are as desperate as we ever need to be. We can throw up our hands. We can cry our eyes dry. That has not even begun to diminish the concern that God has for our families. Your family—husband, wife, kids, parents and on and on. God cares! He joins you in your failure and fatigue. He grieves with you over your marriage, children, problems and pain. Hear the truth: God cares.

Not only does God care, Isaiah reminds us that there is a way out. He writes, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak" (Isaiah 40:29). As families, our strength to withstand our culture, our own weakness and the forces of evil is easily depleted. Yet for the home that will lift hands that are weak and a heart too weary to go on there is strength and there is power. I listened to the story of one family whose house was destroyed in the deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma City. The father said that as the tornado kept getting louder that their family just prayed. As the tornado grew closer they prayed louder and louder, drowning out the sound of the fury all around them. With their home gone, they were alive and said it was by grace that they survived. Sometimes prayer is all you have or can do when the storms are ravaging what once was your home and family. Only God can give you strength and power to survive. God can!

God cares, God can, but also God will and it doesn’t get any better than that! Isaiah said, "Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:30-31 NIV). These words promise us the ability to have our strength renewed, to rise above the circumstances, to endure in spite of weariness and to keep going in the face of exhaustion. Who, though, are those who qualify for such provisions? "Those who hope in the Lord." Can you believe that? Not those whose lives portray the perfect ideal. Not those who are problem-free. Not those with all the answers. None of these! It’s those who hope, wait, trust and believe in the Lord! Those who with whatever last bit of emotional life left in them look away from themselves and say, "My hope for me, my home and my family is in God!"

It is time, my friends, for us as the people who claim Jesus Christ as our hope to confess that the only ultimate hope for our families is God, the God who cares, the God who can, and, best of all, the God who will!

Is that it? Is that all you have, Bruce? No, I have this to say: Since God’s compassion, power and promise are the source for our families, it is inexcusable for us as a church to fail to do all we can to enable, equip and support our families. Our families deserve that their church provide the resources to cultivate intentional family spirituality. That our families are able to share Christian values, teach the Bible, develop strong relationships, develop Christian lifestyles and that families worship God as family.

One of the crosses on the hill above Columbine High School is dedicated to Dave Sanders, the business teacher and basketball coach who died in the shooting. He died trying to save other students. As he died the students around him prayed. With his last breath he told the students to tell his girls he loved them. A father and husband sacrificed his life saving others. Jesus’ cross outside Jerusalem is a reminder of even greater sacrifice. We are the ones who have been entrusted to tell the story of this sacrifice.

Today I am asking you to sacrifice as a family for the future of our families. This place has been the place where for almost 150 years families have found faith and hope. This place of solid foundation has an investment in shaping the future families of the next generation. I invite you to give today so that families today and tomorrow can know in spite of the sickness, helplessness and defeat that God cares, God can, and God will enable us to find restoration and renewal.

"My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed"—it’s not the last word. The last word is: God.

May 9, 1999

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org

(Resources: Newsweek May 3, 1999 and May 10, 1999)