Well, as promised, here is the manuscript from today's message. You'll have to look up the Scripture passages for yourself. Come on, you can do that much!
Our relationships with each other in our families impact our sense of well-being, our happiness, our self-esteem, our ability to be good parents, our performance at work. For our children, family relationships affect choices about friends, peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, smoking, sexual behavior, self-esteem, study habits, grade point average. Family is the first relationships any of us have. Our family relationships are the longest lasting relationships most of us will ever have.
So, we are going to take some time to look at how to have a healthy family life. We’re going to look at some biblical principles about families, about marriage and husbands and wives, about parenting, about disciplining your children and teaching godly principles to your children, about how to prepare for family.
If we are honest, families aren’t easy. Relationships in families are difficult. So, we are going to look for biblical answers for how to have the kind of family God wants us to have. But I also want to encourage you, if you look through the pages off the Bible, you are hard-pressed to find a good example of family life. In fact, most of the examples of family in the Bible are what we would call dysfunctional families. King David was a man after God’s own heart, yet his family was riddled with adultery, murder, incest, incredible sibling rivalry, rebellious sons, and all kinds of problems. So, if you have some struggles in your family, just know that you are not alone, that some of the greatest people of faith in the Bible had family problems also. So, we’re going to look at some biblical principles for how to have a healthy family. and I promise you we are going to have fun and some surprises along the way.
Well, today, in our understanding of family, we are going to begin with God. We’re going to develop a theology of the family. Before we look at the how to’s and principles for marriage and parenting and dating and some of those family issues, we are going to start with what we can learn about family from God. You see, God created the family. The very first human institution God created on earth was the family.
The very existence of family derives from God. It’s not just that God created family. Our very understanding of what family is all about comes from God. Eph. 3:14-15. God, the Father, is the prototype for all fatherhood and as a result for all families. Our concept of father begins with God, not man, and so every human family exists because of God. Without God, there is no family.
Think about this, the most prominent image that the Bible gives us of the very nature of God is a family relationship, Father and Son. Family is so vitally important that God has revealed himself to us in the first two persons of the Trinity as family. Jesus began his public ministry by being baptized, and after his baptism, as he is about to take on the mission for which he came to earth, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends on Jesus, and the voice of God comes from heaven, and look what he says: Mt. 3:17. God himself, in some incredible, mysterious way, reveals himself to us as family. The relationship between God and Jesus is the relationship of Father and Son. If we are to understand family, we have got to gain some understanding into why God has made himself known in this way and what it means to us.
The fact that God has revealed himself as family means that family is an experience and expression of the divine. Let me say that again, and I want you to be sure to write that down and don’t miss it. Family is an experience and expression of the divine. Through family we experience and express something of who God is.
It is an experience of the divine. In family, we are supposed to experience something of who God is. In family, we are supposed to experience relationships with other people and love and forgiveness and acceptance and mercy and compassion and tenderness and discipline and instruction. We experience the character of God in family. There is supposed to be something unique about family. If you come from a halfway healthy family, you know that you have experienced emotions and closeness and love unlike anything you have experienced anywhere else. That’s the God element in family. One of the primary means that God shows his favor to us is through family. In family, we experience provision, shelter, support, encouragement. God designed the family as the first place for us to experience him.
But, let’s be honest, we experience Satan at work in our families also. There’s a taste of heaven and a taste of hell in families. You see, Satan understands that the family is a critical point for us to experience God, so he wants to mess that up as much as he can. In fact, your family is one of two primary areas where Satan is going to try to attack you. He’s going to attack your mind, what you think, what you feel about yourself and life. And, then, he’s going to attack you through your family. He’s going to try to wreak havoc in your home, because he knows that God has designed the family as a place for you to experience the divine.
It’s an experience of the divine. It’s also an expression of the divine. In family, we are supposed to experience something of who God is. We are also supposed to express something of who God is. All those things I said you experience in family, you are also supposed to express those to other people in your family. Love, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, mercy. Family is the first place you have to live out your commitment to be a follower of Jesus Christ. If you don’t live it at home, it’s not real. You express who God is in your family, but also your family is an expression to those outside of it of who God is. People who aren’t followers of Christ should be able to look at your family and see something of Jesus Christ in the way you relate to each other and the way you respond to people outside your family.
So, because God has revealed himself to us in a family relationship, family is an experience and expression of the divine. So, today, we are going to look at a few statements by Jesus from the gospels about the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son to understand something of the family relationship of God. What do we learn about family by looking at God?
So, let’s take a look at a few things Jesus says. Jn. 3:35; Jn. 5:20. The Father loves the Son. God’s character, God’s nature, is love. God is the most loving being in existence. The Bible says we are capable of love because God first loved us. Our understanding of what love even is comes from the fact that God created us in love and so we know love because he designed us to love. But the greatest expression of God’s love is not God’s love toward his creation or toward human beings. It is his love for himself.
The triune God, three in one, has forever existed from all eternity in a perfect love relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you asked the question, “Who does God love most in all the universe?” the answer would be, “Himself.” Now, this is not a selfish kind of love on God’s part. It’s just that God is the most loving and most lovable and glorious being in all the universe, so for God to love anything more than himself and his glory is for God to be guilty of idolatry.
Think about it this way, what kind of universe would we have gotten if we had a God who was three in one, but the three didn’t love each other. I’ll tell you what we would have, Greco-Roman gods who constantly squabble with each other and human beings get caught in the crossfire.
God’s love within the Trinity forms the basis of his love for us. You see, God sent the Son to die on the cross to show his love for us and so that we might love the Son and through loving the Son, we might also love the Father. Why did God send the Holy Spirit, to point us to the Son and create in us love for the Son so that we might love the Father, and then in turn that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would show their love to us. God’s purpose was that through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he would bring greater love, honor, glory, and praise to himself. Jesus said, “Whoever keeps my commands is the one who loves me, and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I in turn will love him and show myself to him.” Jesus told his disciples, “The Father loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God.” God’s love for us comes first from the fact that there is a perfect, unchanging, eternal love relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So, here’s the point, and I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but your love for each other as a family will form the foundation of your love for others, for all other relationships that you will form in life. It is vitally important that you show love for each other. Jn. 13:35.
So, the first thing Jesus teaches us about the relationship between Father and Son is overwhelming love. There has forever been perfect love between Father and Son. And that kind of love is the foundation for family life.
Now, look at the next thing Jesus says about his relationship with the Father. Mt. 11:27; Jn. 10:15. Father and Son know each other perfectly. The Son knows the mind of the Father. The Father knows the mind of the Son. They exist in a perfectly absolute open relationship. There are no secrets, nothing hidden, no thoughts that they don’t share. They are in perfect harmony with one another. There is never a point at which they are in contention with each other. There is never any argument or debate. So, everything Jesus said was a reflection of the mind of the Father.
But it is more than just knowing facts. In the Bible, to know someone means far more than just knowing about them. It is used to refer to the most intimate of connections. So, when Jesus says the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father, he means they have the closest of connections to each other. So, the second thing Jesus teaches us about Father and Son is that they have true knowledge of each other.
And Father and Son have a common purpose. Jn. 5:19. It is natural for a son to want to please his father, to do the things his father wants him to do. So, part of the reason God chose to reveal himself as Father and Son is so that we understand that the Son is all about doing the will of His Father. The ultimate expression of that was in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus the Son says to God the Father, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” The human side of Jesus looks at the agony of the cross and says, “I’d rather not have to experience that, but Dad, I know why I’m here and I know what we’re about and I understand my mission, so I want to do what you want.” Jn. 10:18. Jesus willingly laid down his life on the cross because he understood that that was what he had come for. Jesus had a firm understanding of his purpose on earth. He knew that he had come to die. He knew that his reason for existence was to go to the cross. So, the last thing Jesus teaches us about the relationship between Father and Son is they have a common mission.
So, based on the relationship between God the Father and Son, based on our theology of family, let me give you a few take homes. First, if you want to have the family you were made for, if you want to make it through the difficult times as a family, if you want to have a family where you find happiness and fulfillment, you’ve got to start with God. Family is an experience and expression of the divine. You need God to have the family you were made for. You need to seek God’s guidance and direction for your family. You need to study the Bible to understand how to live as a family, to know some of the mistakes to avoid, to know how you are supposed to fit in as a husband, father, son, wife, mother, daughter. You need to pray, and seek God for your family. You need to make God a priority in your family. You need God.
Second, fill your family with overwhelming, undying, unconditional love. Love each other the way Jesus has loved us and the way Father and Son love each other. Lavish your love on your family. Just like God’s love for himself forms the basis for his love for us, our love for each other in families forms the basis for all our other relationships. Family should be the place where we know, no matter what, we are loved.
Third, make sure your family is a place where you can know and be known. Where you don’t have to put on a mask, you don’t have to impress anybody, you don’t have to be a certain way, you can just be you and be known. Family should be the one place where you are truly known and where you truly know the other people in your family. Our children need to know that they don’t have to win our approval. Our spouses need to know that they can be real. Family needs to be the place where we are most known and yet still most loved.
Fourth, be a purpose driven family. As a family, this is what we are about, this is who we are, and this is what we live for. Make sure everyone in your family has a firm understanding of what you are about. We’ll talk more about that in weeks to come.
Now, one last thing I want you to see. Having looked at the relationship between the Father and the Son, knowing how infinitely Father and Son love each other from all eternity, knowing that they have forever existed in perfect harmony and fellowship with each other, I want you to look at the last Scripture on your outline. Jn. 3:16. Somehow, in the infinite wisdom of God, the perfect relationship between a loving Father and His Son, resulted in the Son going to the cross that we might have life.
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