This document discusses redeeming family relationships through turning hearts toward God and each other. It explores how Genesis depicts family ideals and their fall, but promises restoration. Key points include: 1) Redeeming paradise involves turning parents' hearts to their children and the disobedient to wisdom, to prepare people for God. 2) Genesis models centrality of God, worth of women, and redemption following humanity's fall. 3) Relationships can be redeemed through affection, intellect, and will being turned from self to others. 4) Both parents and children are called to turn their hearts to each other through love, understanding, and building connections.

1. Redeeming Paradise
(Luke 1:17)

2. Fulfillment of Malachi 4:6
• And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit
and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the
parents to their children and the disobedient
to the wisdom of the righteous—to make
ready a people prepared for the Lord. (Luke
1:17)

3. Paradise Lost
• Marriage vs Divorce
• Extended Family vs Nuclear Family
• Life Balance vs Digital Addiction
• Sexual Purity vs Sexual Immorality
• Father Presence vs Fatherlessness

4. Paradise Revisited
• Genesis 1
– Centrality of God and His glory and the call to
consecrate the world
• Genesis 2
– Worth of the woman and the pursuit of oneness
• Genesis 3 – Fall of humanity and the work of
redemption

5. Restoration of Family Relationships
• Ephesians 5:21-33 – a direct reversal of the
effects of sin in marriage in Genesis 3
• Malachi 2:15 – connecting oneness in
marriage to godly offspring
• Ephesians 4:32 – redemptive act of
forgiveness in redeeming all relationships

6. A Wholesome Family is a family
marked by the redemptive work
of God in their lives and
relationships with one another.

7. Redeeming the Next Generation
• Goal – “to make ready a people prepared for
the Lord” (a voice crying in the wilderness –
Luke 3:4)
• Luke 1:76-79 – to prepare the way for the Lord
(generation after generation knows how to
come back to the heart of the Father)

8. Redeeming the Next Generation
• Turn the hearts of parents to their children
• Turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the
righteous

9. Turning the Hearts
• Raising the next generation is heart work
• “Heart” – used more than 900x, almost never
literally with the exception of Ex. 28:29-30
• Heart – often signifies the innermost being
(Genesis 6:6)
– Seat of affections (Psalms 62:10)
– Seat of intellect (Genesis 6:5)
– Seat of will (Psalm 119:2)

10. Fathers
• Turn your affections, your intellect, and your
will to your child
– Fathers, do you reflect the unconditional love of
the heavenly Father to your child?
– Fathers, do you attempt to lead your children with
understanding?
– Fathers, do you make decisions of love (not blind
love) in favour of your child?

11. Mothers
• Practically impossible for mothers to forget
their child (Isaiah 49:15)
• Mothers – role and enduring image of comfort
(Isaiah 66:13)
• Experiences of gentle nurture and fond
affection (1 Thessalonians 2:7)
• What does it mean to turn your hearts to your
children?

12. Like Fathers and Like Mothers
• African proverb – It takes a village to raise a
child
• What does it mean for a faith family to turn
their hearts (understanding, affection,
decisions) to the young ones?

13. Turning the Disobedient
• The folly of the disobedient needs to be
challenged by the wisdom of the righteous
– Age-based formation vs Trans-generational
formation (Proverbs 22:15; Titus 2:1-6; Ephesians
6:1-4)
– The “wisdom” of the disobedient is often built on
the stumbling of the “righteous”

14. Redeeming the Next Generation
• He will turn the hearts of the parents to their
children, and the hearts of the children to
their parents; or else I will come and strike the
land with total destruction. (Malachi 4:6)
• Proverbs 23:26 – “My son, give me your heart
…”

15. Children
• Turn your heart to your parents
– Do you unconditionally love your parents the way
God has loved you and them? Do you seek
avenues to express that to them?
– Do you attempt to understand one of the most
misunderstood persons at home and probably the
least equipped to do parenting?
– Do you intentionally decide to build bridges of
connections with your parents who are struggling
to lead the family?

16. Reflection
• What is God calling you as the faith family and
as parents to be and to do with the next
generation in the work of His redemption in
your lives and relationships?