Married Life and Raising Children — Zac Poonen

I want to emphasize what we have often referred to in the church, that our ministry in the church is dependent on our life at home. Now, it was not like that in the old covenant. In the old covenant, husband-wife relationship was totally unimportant.

Old Covenant and New Covenant Standards for Family Life

There was emphasis on bringing up your children in good ways, teaching them the word of God when you're lying down, when you're walking on the road, and when you sit up, etc., in Deuteronomy. But there's very little about husband-wife relationship in the Old Testament, except in the Song of Solomon.

And the great men of God in the Old Testament, either they were unmarried, like Jeremiah, or they were, we don't know very much about their family life, like Ezekiel, or they were like David, who had eight wives, and Moses, who did not marry an Israelite.

And the only thing we read about him and his wife is they had a fight over their son being circumcised, and his wife did not allow his son to be circumcised. But that did not affect his ministry. We never read about, after that, about Moses and his wife.

But still he was perhaps the greatest leader of Israel there. So the ones whom Israel today considers their great leaders, like Moses and David, they had a pretty messy home life. But when it comes to the new covenant, we're told that a man cannot be an elder if he doesn't have a good testimony at home, a good testimony in the neighborhood.

He's brought up his children well. All those things are mentioned in the New Testament. It's a very high standard when you look at it. And since it is my desire that all of you have a ministry in the church, you know, some type of ministry, even if you don't have a lot of public speaking, if you have some type of ministry in the church, the principle still applies.

Qualifications for Elders and Church Servants

As we read in 1 Timothy chapter 3, of course it's referring to an elder, but the principle applies to all public ministry. An elder must be, 1 Timothy 3 .2, must be above reproach. That means he must have a good testimony in the neighborhood, in the locality.

There must be no reproach in relation to his particularly financial dealings and relationships with the opposite sex. And that he must be a peaceful sort of person, not one who is known in the neighborhood to kick up fights and quarrels.

And he must be the husband of one wife, meaning he must not be a divorced person to be an elder. He must be temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, and able to teach, not addicted to wine or quarrelsome, but gentle, peaceable, and free from the love of money.

You read through that, you see the qualifications to be an elder. Able to teach is just one thing out of many things. In other words, it must be a life that backs up his teaching. And he must be one who can manage his own family well, keeping his children under control with all dignity.

Because it says, if a man cannot manage his own family, how will he take care of the church of God? Because the church of God is a bigger family. So if a man cannot manage his own family, how will he build the church?

That's why I've often said that the ground floor, the first story of a church is our personal walk with God with a good conscience. On top of that, the second story is our family life, and the third story is our church ministry.

So the church ministry can only be built on a personal walk with God and our family life. Whereas in the old covenant, that second story was non-existent. It was just two stories. Your personal walk with God and your ministry, that's all.

And in some cases, even personal walk with God was not there, like with Samson. Just ministry. So old covenant, you know, you cannot look at those men as examples of new covenant servants. All of us are called to serve the church as new covenant servants, and you're young now, but you must grow up quickly.

Like I've said before, I was only 35 when we started the church here, and Ian was 34, 34 and a half, 35 and a half, and we were the elders. So many of you are going to get to that age pretty quickly if you're not already there, and you should be mature enough, even if you're not called to preach, to take responsibility.

It's one of the sad things I see in a number of churches that where you have really good leadership, the others tend to be sluggish and don't come forward to share some responsibility where they can grow up one day to be elders in the church.

It's not that we covet that, but there is a need in the church for strong leadership, and that's why it's very important that our family life is good. In the same way, even if you're a servant in the church, you're not an elder, an elder is those who have spiritual responsibilities, and it speaks in verse 8 about deacons.

Deacons are those who are, the deacon is just, that's another word brought in from the Greek. It's not an English word. You go into the world and talk about a deacon, they won't even know what you're talking about.

Deacon is a Greek word, it's exactly a Greek word which means servant. So I translate it as servants. The servants can be men or women, and they have the other ministries, like many ministries we have in CFC, like a web team, or treasurer, or taking care of conferences, or organizing food, and so many ministries which are not the spiritual leadership of the church are called servants, and they can be men, they can be women, taking Sunday school classes for the children.

They also must be people of dignity, you know, and not double-tongued, etc. They must also be without reproach, and there must be women servants also, verse 11, who must be dignified and not gossips.

There also, verse 12, their married life must be good. One wife, they cannot be divorced, good managers of their children and their families, etc. Now when you come to Titus, where Paul says, I want you to appoint elders in the church in Crete.

He says, I left you in Crete, Titus chapter 1, verse 5, so that you can appoint elders in every city, as I directed you, and again he says, first thing, an elder must be above reproach, husband of one wife, not divorced, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion.

He doesn't say that the children must be preachers, but they must believe, because, you know, our children know us better than anybody in the church. The people who know you best are your children and the servants who work in your house, and the testimony of your servants and your children, let me tell you, is far more important than what anybody in the church thinks of you, even what the elders think of you.

Because they see you every day, many hours a day, and they see you when you are not singing, not praying, not preaching, when you are living. So, if they see you, and if they see Christ in you, they will be drawn in some way, even servants, and our children will be drawn.

I felt like that about anybody who worked in our house, whether as a servant, I never called them servants, helpers, or our children, that if they did not see Christ in me and my wife, there was something wrong.

Repentance, Discipline, and Imperfect Family Life

What did they see then? Did they see us? I'm not saying perfection. I made many mistakes in bringing up my children. I've often punished them in anger, and I would always, almost immediately after punishing them, rush off to the bathroom, lock the door, and really repent and weep before God.

Over a period of time, my children discovered what I was doing. I didn't feel that they were old enough to understand an apology from me, because if every time I punished them in anger, I apologized for my anger, it would become a joke to them that they would think that I was apologizing for disciplining them, which I was not.

But they wouldn't know the difference. So, I gave them one consolidated apology when they were 18 years old, when they were leaving home, for all the years when I punished them in anger. They were old enough then to understand the difference between anger and discipline.

But I really felt bad about it, because I knew the anger was wrong, the discipline was right. And because I repented and wept before God, it became better. And that applies to not only discipline, but any other area where you fail as a father, or a mother, or a husband, or a wife.

If you are quick to repent, there's great hope for you. I want to tell you that. None of us come to perfection like that. We press on to perfection. See, one of the accusations people make against CFC is, you guys think you're perfect, and the rest of Christendom is not.

I said, just come to our church building and see what's written on our pulpit. It's written, we must press on to perfection. That is the clearest testimony on our pulpit that we are not perfect. I said, it's you guys who don't preach press on to perfection, who think you're perfect.

Do you ever preach on pressing on to perfection? No. Well, you must be thinking you're perfect. We are preaching all the time on pressing on to perfection. We are the guys who think we are imperfect. So, it's a misunderstanding.

It's because of the casual, careless way in which Christendom reads the Bible. And that's why there's so much of shallow family life. You find elders, pastors, their wives separate from them and divorce them.

All types of things. Famous pastors and preachers. Because that's not emphasized. It's not important. The main thing is how do you preach and how many people come to listen to you. To me, that's all garbage.

And these are the people about whom Jesus will one day say, when we cast out demons, we preached, we had such mega churches. He said, I never knew you. Get away from me. Remember this. I believe you're really going to see it.

And if you're not, I won't be surprised when I see some of these today's famous pastors in India and other countries, great preachers. The Lord telling them in that day, get away from me, go to hell. I will not be surprised.

Some of you may be. Some of you may be listening to some of these television preachers, men and women, and not valuing life over ministry. So be careful because we live in an age where ministry and preaching and gifts are valued much above life and family life.

And this is started in the West and is crept over to all westernized churches in the East and gradually to non-westernized churches also, where family life is unimportant and hardly ever spoken of because usually the pastor doesn't have a good family life.

And there are pastors who write books on family life who end up divorcing their wife or living separately. So there's all type of confusion in the day in which we live. And that's why in our church, we emphasize family life such a lot.

It's not something new. We emphasized it 37 years ago and we have continuously emphasized it all these years, saying it's very important how you live with your wife and how you bring up your children.

Because everyone must have a ministry in the church, either if you're not an elder, at least some type of servant, some type of service in the church which every one of us can do. And for that we must have a good family life that backs us up.

So don't find a satisfaction that others in the church think you're okay. It means nothing. Throw that in the trash can, their opinion. And the other thing I want to say to those who are serious about following the Lord, don't ever get discouraged because you find yourself repeatedly falling.

Overcoming Anger and Discouragement by Depending on Christ

Whether it's in anger, to overcome anger, I think for some people it is much more difficult than for others. It's a problem, serious problem for some people, just like discouragement. It's a very serious problem for some people but not so much for others.

I had a problem with both, I'll tell you that, anger and discouragement, both in my personal life and in my family life. I mean even when I was riding a scooter on the roads, I had a problem with anger and I had to battle it.

But I never excused myself, that was my salvation. I never said, oh, that's okay. I want to tell you this, if any of you get angry and you say that's okay, you are doomed. I'll tell you right now, you're doomed, you'll never get victory in your life because you said it's okay, it's not okay.

Every time I lost my temper, I would say it's not okay. Every time I got discouraged, I said that's not okay. It's not right, I haven't got there, but because I kept saying this is not okay, this is not the way I should be living, I got there.

And I believe God has delivered me from, Jesus keeps me now, from getting discouraged and getting angry. I used to say in a more immature way once that I got victory over anger and discouragement. But the Lord corrected me and said, don't say it like that.

Say, Jesus keeps me from getting angry. Jesus keeps me from getting discouraged. Same thing, but a completely different smell about it. Completely different tone when you say it that way. And that is the truth because I remember certain situations where I could have very easily been discouraged or angry or fallen into some sin.

And I can absolutely certainly say that it was the Lord who kept me. Otherwise, I would have fallen. So if you ever get victory in any area, be sure to give the credit to God and to say the Lord keeps you.

Money, Contentment, and the Temptation of Greed

But this is very important. And you know, there's another thing mentioned here about not, you know, in all these places we see in Titus 1 verse 7 also, not fond of sordid gain. That means not eager to make money, not money hungry.

That's how it says in the Message Bible, money hungry. Are you money hungry? You know, always hungry for more and more. Therefore, if you are without a job or you're not earning enough to meet your family's needs, then to eagerly look for sources of income, maybe even more than one source of income is perfectly right.

That's like a unmarried man looking for a wife. He looks at this girl, that girl, he's always looking at to find out is this one suitable for me, that one suitable for me. Like that to look for money and job to support yourself is absolutely right.

But if you are already earning far more than what you need for your family income and you're still seeking for more, then I'll tell you what you're like. You're a married man who's still looking around for other women.

Are you like that? You're a married man. You've already got a wife but you're still looking around for other women. It's exactly the same when you earn far more than enough for your earthly needs and you're still looking around for more and more and more and more.

Because what happens is there's nothing wrong in earning more money but it can sap your usefulness to God because you've got to spend time for that. So I say it's perfectly right for a single man, single woman to look for a marriage partner and it's perfectly right for a person without a job or who's not earning enough to support a family to look for any more sources of income.

There's nothing wrong in getting a better job. I always tell people when you apply for jobs, go for the one that gives you the highest salary. If you don't have to sacrifice your soul and your family life, look for a good salary.

There's nothing wrong in that. Like I always encourage parents to give their children the best education possible. Let them go as far as possible in education. But we have to make sure we are not money hungry.

In-Laws, Financial Conflict, and Honoring Parents

And I'll tell you why, because that affects your family life. The first two problems in family life is one, in-laws and the other is money. These are the two areas where maximum conflict arises in a family and that's why we have to be very careful in these areas that we have a scriptural position in relation to our in-laws.

Sometimes it's a very complicated situation in relation to in-laws where there may be some who are dependent and who need help and then of course we must help them. I remember one man asking me, one brother, many years ago in our church asked me, my parents are poor, they've done a lot to educate me and bring me up and now they are in need.

But when I try to help them, my wife says no, we can't give them money. So what should I do? I said, obey the word of God which says your left hand should not know what your right hand is doing. So just give them some money without your wife knowing about it.

It's perfectly right, because it is right for you to help your parents. And you know, it's a little more difficult to answer a question when a wife's parents are needy and she's not earning anything. I wouldn't make a rule on that, but if you can, you can help them too.

Peter was a good man, he had his mother-in-law staying in his house. We know that from Matthew chapter 8. And he was concerned when she was sick that he told Jesus about it. And Jesus came and healed her.

See, in all these things there is no law. There is no law which says you must keep your mother-in-law in your house or you must not keep your mother-in-law in your house. There is no law in all these things.

And why doesn't the Bible lay down rules? It just says emotionally we must be detached from our parents. And if your wife knows that you are really one with her, that every decision you will take with her and you are one with her, I believe the average wife would be considerate towards helping your in-laws financially or even taking care of them if they are in physical need.

And you will never regret that. Of course there are some very evil women who want to be completely free of their husband's parents. But you will see that they will suffer in the long run. Have you heard that story, I mentioned it once, of a man who had his old widowed father staying with him.

And his wife just was a very, I would say, an evil woman and she didn't really want to care for the husband's father. And you know how that can be a big struggle. And she finally told him, listen, you are going to have either him or you are going to have me.

There are many wives who have spoken like that. And the husband is torn between a father who cared for him when he was a baby and brought him up or it could be a mother. And a wife whom he has to be united with.

And it's a very difficult decision. So they lived near a forest and the wife suggested, why don't you put your father in this wheelbarrow and push it out in the middle of the forest and leave him there.

Let him die. He is old in any case. He is not going to live another year or two. So he finally had to do it. And he put his father in a wheelbarrow and said, I want to take you for a walk. He was an old helpless man.

And his little son, his eight-year-old son said, Dad, where are you going? He said, Oh, we are just going for a walk with grandpa. He said, I want to come with you. So they walked together into the forest.

And then the son saw the father leaving his father there, old grandfather there in the middle of the forest and walking back. Then the son understood what was happening. And so he said, Dad, don't leave the wheelbarrow there.

Bring that back because when you're old, I'll need it to take you also into the forest to leave you there. Also like this. It takes a little boy sometimes to put sense into a selfish man or woman. So honor your father and mother.

If it will go well with you, I'll tell you that. Learn to honor your father and mother. And learn to honor your husband's father and mother. It will go well with you and your children will see it. And they will respect you.

I'm not preaching what I have not practiced. And I would suggest that you hear that. So in-laws is a big source of problem and sometimes there is no definite answer because a wife can be very stubborn.

And it's selfishness basically. It's not understanding that Christianity is meant to be a life of self-denial and sacrifice. And what is it that such wives don't like? The self-denial, the sacrifice.

That's what they don't like. And that's why they never become godly. They can live comfortable lives without any... They can run their own life, go where they like, go when they like. Their program is not disturbed by an old, sick mother-in-law or father-in-law in the house.

But watch such wives. They never develop spiritually. I've seen it in every single case. And I've also seen those who have sacrificially and in a self-denying way denied themselves time, money, energy to serve.

And I've seen the result in such people. So don't think Christianity is a life of ease. And if God has decided that your father-in-law or mother-in-law should live long and you should look after them, you can be sure he will not allow you to be tested beyond your ability.

And he will know exactly when to take them home or take them away or somebody else to care for them. It's a test of your faith in God. And very few people have faith in God. I tell you, a lot of people in CFC who seem to understand the doctrine so well and who think they are very, very spiritual, who imagine themselves, they are not.

Don't follow their example. So I'm not here to make rules on what you should do. All I say is do not think that the best Christian life is one where your convenience is never disturbed. No. I've seen parents who got retarded, mentally retarded children, saintly mothers.

And I've seen other mothers who are proud of their smart children. They may not be so spiritual. I'm not saying you can't be spiritual if you have smart children. It's a question of attitude. And God has to allow for our sanctification, God has to allow some type of self-denial in our life somewhere.

Suffering, Self-Denial, and Spiritual Growth

Otherwise we'll never grow spiritually. Those of you who have a very comfortable life and nothing to disturb it, you have no difficult in-laws, plenty of money, nice house, and drive along on Sunday morning in your nice car to a church and attend worship, sing the songs and listen to the message, come home.

You can imagine that you're highly spiritual. I want to tell you, you may not be, even if you're in CFC. It's those who've gone through trial, particularly through years of self-denial and sacrifice for the Lord's sake, who are spiritual.

Some of you may feel sorry for some of those other wives who have to deny themselves so much with difficult in-laws or difficult children perhaps. But in the long run you'll find when our true glory shines forth through us in eternity, you'll find that those are the ones who are really godly.

And those of you who escaped that path and chose the easy path, you missed the glory that you could have had, that God gave you an opportunity to have, but when you came to that fork in the road, you chose the easy path.

I remember reading a poetry, it's a secular poetry, which says two roads diverged in the wood and I chose the road less traveled. That means there was grass on that path. The other path was well trodden.

And I chose the road less traveled and that has made all the difference in my life. I can believe that. Very often, my brothers and sisters, you will find in family life you come to a place where there's a choice you have to make to go the way of self-denial and sacrifice or the way of ease and comfort where your convenience is never disturbed by any other human being or by any other requirements, where you can run your own life and it's not the path that will make you spiritual.

You will imagine yourself spiritual, but you will never acquire those values of true Christian values that come through suffering and self-denial. God has ordained that path for his children and some of the greatest saints in the world have gone through very serious areas of sacrifice and self-denial.

You may not know all about it because a godly man and woman will never reveal the areas where they had to deny themselves or sacrifice. They'll keep quiet about it mostly, but wherever you see a saintly man or a saintly woman, you can be absolutely sure 100 that there are areas in their life which you know nothing about which made that man or that woman what they are today.

And you can admire them and say, I wish I could be like them, but then you have to make the same choices that they made in different areas in their life which you know nothing about. And such opportunities will come to you also in difficult situations and God doesn't force you to choose that road less traveled, the road of self-denial.

You can choose the easy path, which is a well-trodden path which most Christians walk on, but you'll never come to the fulfillment of character and ministry that God wants you to have in the church. So if some of you are going through difficult situations in relation to your children or in-laws, some have problems with children who are sick or frequent sickness or mental sickness is a terrible thing, it's a lifelong thing.

And people who have such things, don't feel sorry for them. They may be far ahead of you in God's eyes. And I admire such people. If they can take it in a good way. Of course, there are some who have such problems, who go through it, but will go through it with grumbling and complaining right from day one till the end.

They get nothing out of it. They have wasted it. Well, they get some credit for going through it, but they would have got far more credit if they had said, Lord, I believe that you will never allow me to be tested beyond my ability.

And here is an area where my husband and I are one and I want to be sympathetic to his struggle with his parents and I want to help where I can. And I believe that God will honor you for it. And so, sometimes God tests us like that.

You know, there are verses in the Proverbs which says, don't despise your mother when she is old. Or your father. I told you in-laws and the other problem is with money. If you are married to a very covetous, greedy wife, that can be a real problem.

You know, where she is always wanting new clothes, even though you have piles of them hanging in your cupboard. Why do you want so many new clothes? Isn't it just to impress people that you are not just the same person that you are pretty well off?

No, I thank God for the days when, I mean, even when I was in the Navy, I used to discipline myself very severely in my expenditure. I earned a very good salary way back in 1965. And, but I was single and I didn't have much expense.

And I would hardly ever buy any new clothes for myself. I had very few shirts and pants. Very few. Just about two or three perhaps. Even though I was a naval officer. And I would wear them and if they got torn, I would, I remember wearing pants which were stitched in the knees where I fell off a scooter or something.

I would wear that, I was okay. I didn't care what people thought about me. I was neatly dressed. I didn't feel I have to follow the latest fashions. I didn't need more than one or two pairs of shoes. And I had all that spare money with which I could help poor people and give for God's work and buy Bibles for those who could not afford to buy Bibles and buy Christian books and give it to people.

I did that for all those years. And well, I believe that God has rewarded me far more than I can ever think. I mean, you can never give to God and come short. He'll give you a hundred times back. And I can say that.

And even in those early years when I, out of necessity because my income had dropped 85 when I left the Navy and quit my job to serve the Lord and the devil would constantly harass me when I got married saying what a fool you were to leave your job.

Now you're struggling. You don't have enough money. And I refused to use my gift to make money. I said all the great preachers go to the cities. Lord, send me to the villages. And so even in those days before my marriage I used to go to the villages, to the poor villagers where hardly anybody went to preach to them.

This is in 67. And that's why I married Annie who was wanting to work among lepers. And I remember when we were married it was a very, very sad and heavy thing for me that to my newly married wife I could not give her a home of her own.

That's not easy for a husband that I could not give a home to my newly married wife. Not even a hut. I just did not have enough money to pay house rent. Not even for a small little house. So what to do?

We had no alternative but to live in one little room 10 feet by 10 feet with our parents for 2 -3 years. And we said fine, if God has permitted that we'll accept it. And it was not difficult for it was not easy for Annie.

But it was in the midst of those struggles when she was desperate and discouraged that God baptized her in the Holy Spirit. And I believe she would not have come to that place of need if I was a rich man and I had my own house and I could go around with her comfortably.

She would never have come to that place of need where she had to cry out to God for help and receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It's only when we are in need that we cry out to God. And that's the reason why God allows us to come to a place of need.

It was the same with me years later when I came to such a desperate place of need in my own life that God filled me with the Holy Spirit. It changed the direction of my life completely. And I want to say to you my dear brothers and sisters what you need more than anything else is the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire.

Seeking Daily Renewal by the Holy Spirit

And don't just sit back and imagine that you have it. I hope you have the real thing. And if you are baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire do what I do. Seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit every single day.

Seek for a renewal of that. That will affect every area of your life. Pray together as husband and wife for the power of the Holy Spirit. And you will not pray for that if you are not in desperate need.

If you are sort of satisfied and comfortable with what you have thinking that well I'm in a good church and everybody thinks highly of me and I've got some type of ministry there and everybody respects me and I'm okay.

Well brother I feel sorry for you. It's all I can say. I pray that you will have some situation in your life that will drive you to need. Financial need or in our case it is financial need. And I hope something will happen in your life that will drive you to need.

Because it's when we are in need the Lord says in Isaiah I will pour water upon him that is thirsty. The poor and the needy will cry out to me and I will meet with them. So that's so important. And that's why God allows financial difficulties.

He will test you to see whether you are extravagant in the way you spend on yourself and miserly in the way you give to God. God saved me ever in my life from being extravagant on myself and miserly to God.

I never want to be like that one single day of my life. Because God has never been miserly towards me. He's always been extravagant towards me. And I want to be extravagant towards Him. I don't mean just in terms of giving money.

Some of us may not have much money to give to God. That's okay. But extravagant in your willingness to deny yourself and sacrifice you know your comforts. I remember reading the testimony of a great servant of God called Charles Spurgeon who lived 160 years ago in England.

He was a great preacher. He started preaching when he was about 15 years old. And I think after he was 55 or something he became very sick and he had to be in bed most of the time. He could not preach.

And when he was lying in bed and he couldn't preach after he had already been preaching for 40 years he said this He said, I thank God that in the years God gave me health I served Him with all my heart so that now when I don't have health and I lie in bed I have no regrets.

I hope you'll be able to say that that in the years when you had a lot of freedom and a lot of opportunity to be extravagant towards God you were extravagant. Build your family that way. Your children will see it.

Modeling Scripture and Faith for Children

And that will affect them. It's not just teaching them. I remember one of my sons telling me He said, Dad it was not just preaching but you know when I got up in the morning from bed as a little boy and came through the sitting room I always saw you there every single morning with your Bible.