Relationships Are Everything
The Family of God
1 Timothy 5:1-2
Did you hear about the guy who was called into his doctor’s office? The doctor sat him down and said, “I’ve got some good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” “Give me the good news first.” “Ok,” the doctor said. “Your tests are back and you only have three days to live.” “That’s the good news?” the guy exclaimed. “For heaven’s sake, what’s the bad news?” “Well,” said the doctor, “my receptionist has been trying to get a hold of you for two days!”
How many of you have been confronted with a good news, bad news conversation before? I think most of you have at one point in your life. Well, this morning is no different. I have good news and bad news for you this morning. The good news is that the church is like a family. Here is the bad news – the church is like a family.
It’s like this other gentleman who went to see his doctor. The doctor came in and said, “You are in terrible shape and you’ve got to do something about it. First, tell your wife to cook more nutritious meals. Then, stop working like a dog. You must also inform your wife you’re going to make a budget, and she has to stick to it. Then, you have her keep the kids off your back so you can relax. Unless there are some changes in your life, you’ll probably be dead in a month.”
“Doc,” the patient said, “this would sound more official coming from you. Could you please call my wife and give her those instructions?” When the fellow got home, his wife rushed to him with tears in her eyes.
“I talked to the doctor,” she wailed. “I’m so sorry you only have 30 days to live.”
This man expected to find comfort and help from his family, but that was not the case. Now, we all know that family should not be selfish like this wife was. We know that families should be there for each other and care for each other. We know that family is to be the closest relationship we can have here on earth. That is good news. The bad news is that this is not always the case. One man described his family this way. “Families are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts!” Sometimes, even our family system gets out of whack, and it distorts our view of what a family should look and act like. Why is this so important? It is important because the body of believers that worship at the Leatherwood church is supposed to be like a family. In order to do that, we must know what a healthy family is intended to look and act like according to Scripture. This morning, I want you to turn with me to 1Timothy 5:1-2 for our key Scripture.
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with absolute purity.
Paul is giving these instructions to the young Timothy on how he should treat the people in his church. It is obvious to me by the terms Paul uses that we are to treat others like family. This morning, we are going to take a look at the Scriptures to see what this means as we uncover four pillars of a healthy family and apply it to how we should treat each other in the church. Before we do this, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Pillar #1: A Healthy Family Puts God First.
A pastor of a very successful and growing church tells the following story in one of his sermons. He says this: I was in the supermarket one day, and a lady came down the aisle toward me. I could barely see her head over the top of her groceries. I got somewhat frightened because she seemed to be headed straight for me. She screeched to a halt within a few feet of me, peered over her load, wagged her finger and said, “I left your church. I left your church.”
So, I responded by saying, “Well, if it’s my church, I think that was a very wise decision. If it’s my church, I think I am going to leave as well.”
She said, “Don’t you want to know why I left.”
I said, “I think I am going to find out no matter what I say!”
She answered with the following familiar phrase, “You weren’t meeting my needs!”
Now, this pastor had never seen this lady before, and he came to find out that this woman had never even shared her concerns with anyone in leadership. With over 5000 people in his congregation every Sunday, how was this pastor to know what her needs were let alone meet them. I began to feel sorry for this lady who was lost in the crowd until I remembered the Scripture we used the last couple of weeks in Mark 12:30-31. This is what is says. “The most important one is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second one is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.”
You see, this woman had her priorities all mixed up. The first thing we should be doing as a church is putting the needs and wants of Jesus first. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord and we are told that we love Him by obeying what He commands. Then, we need to look out for the wants, desires, and needs of our fellow brothers. Then, we can begin to focus on ourselves. This woman did not have this mentality. Instead, she used the Burger King slogan as her personal motto. She wanted it her way right away.
It should be obvious in a family of God that we should put God first, but the truth of the matter is that does not happen all of the time. How can I make such a bold statement? Well, if we truly put God first in our body of believers, we would see Him at work in miracles, conversions, and the like on a daily basis, but when we don’t we get a church that is void of these signs. Then, it is not far until the church becomes like an opera singer warming up. It’s all about mi, mi, mi, mi, mi. Then, we start coming to church to get our needs met. We start coming to church for what we can get out of it. We want to worship in the way we personally prefer, in the seat we are comfortable in, and get out in a timely manner so we can get other things done that make us happy on a Sunday. This is not how it was intended to be.
First of all, we must seek to put God first in this family. We have to be tuned in through prayer to find out what He wants of us. We have to seek Him and join Him in His work even if it is not our favorite thing to do. Then, we have to seek to meet the needs of others especially if they are less mature in the faith or going through tough times. We have to put our personal preferences aside sometimes to make sure they are getting their needs met. Then, guess what happens. When we seek God first and each of us look to meet the needs of the others, our needs will eventually be met either by the blessings of God or by unselfish church members seeking to meet others needs. We must seek to keep things in this order if we are going to have a healthy family. God comes first, then others, and finally, ourselves. I think you will find that when you stick to this format, everything will fall into place for you before you even try to meet your own needs.
Pillar #2: A Healthy Family Has A Specific Structure.
A friend once asked a woman the following question. “If you had it to do all over again would you have children?” She promptly responded, “Yes…but not the same ones.” How many of you have had days where you would answer the same way? I also wonder if God would give a similar response if we asked Him the same question.
In a family, we have a certain structure. We have grandparents, parents, and children. Grandparents are to be respected and revered because of the life experience and wisdom they have. Parents should look to them for guidance and wisdom, but parents are able to take care of themselves. Children, however, cannot take care of themselves. The parents and grandparents must feed and care for them. After all, children make mistakes and need the older generations to help them through these times. The good news is eventually children grow up and mature and become parents and grandparents themselves.
The same holds true in the church. We have spiritual “grandparents” that have been in the faith for years that give us guidance and wisdom. We must respect them for the life they have lived. We should also have spiritual “parents” that help us grow up and mature in the faith. Finally, everyone has been in the child stage of spirituality in which you learned and grew and needed the help of others to get you to maturity. This is the structure our church family should have.
There is a problem with this model however. In a regular family, you have to grow up to a certain extent. After all, the older you get, the more mature your body and thoughts become. Some people progress at faster rates than others, but you cannot stop yourself from getting older. In the church family, however, you are in charge with your spiritual growth and maturity. If you wish, you can remain as a child in your faith for your entire Christian walk. This was the case in the church at Corinth as told to us by Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:1-2. “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.” When this happens, multiple problems occur.
I want to talk to you mothers here for a moment. What happens when you get a bunch of children together with very little supervision? In a word, you get chaos, and it is not long until you get burned out from trying to meet the needs of everyone. However, when you get more supervision, things begin to get much calmer and order is easily restored. That’s what we need in the church. We need more parents and grandparents to step forward to take care of the children and restore order to the church. We need more people prepared to teach. We need more people prepared to take leadership positions. We need more people to mentor and set the children in the right direction. We must choose to mature and start to take care of ourselves and others, or it will not be long until chaos ensues.
Pillar #3: A Healthy Family Cares About the Whole Group.
Chuck Swindoll tells a story about what happened one day while aboard a 727 about halfway back in the coach section. The plane had three seats on the left side and three on the right side of the aisle. He was seated halfway back on the aircraft when a family of three came aboard. Apparently, they had purchased their tickets late and were unable to secure reserved seating in the same row. The airline attendant assured them that there were several empty seats. Surely someone would be willing to swap seats so they could all sit together.
As they boarded, they found a row that looked promising. The row had four empty seats. The aisle seat on the left was open and the two seats closest to the window on the right were unoccupied. There was one man sitting in the aisle seat on the right side that would only have to move across the aisle to sit and they could all be together. The family, all of them friendly and courteous, asked the gentleman on the aisle if he would be willing to move from the right side aisle seat to the left side aisle seat. That’s all. Just stand up, take two steps to the left, and sit down. Just swap seat 17 D for 17 C.
Do you think he’d do it? No way. He wasn’t even courteous enough to answer verbally. He just stared straight ahead as he shook his head no firmly. And, when a flight attendant tactfully tried again, he unloaded a piece of his mind he couldn’t afford to lose. The guy absolutely refused to budge. This was his “space”. He had paid good money for it, and there was no way he was going to let anybody, for any reason, take it away from him.
I guess we can’t expect this man to act like a family member to people he does not even know, but we should expect those who are Christians to act differently than he did. We should expect them to care about the whole group and not just his or her own interests. This is not always the case. How many times do you see people who claim to be Christians walking around with scowls on their face and they are mad at the world. Somewhere along the line, they forgot that part of being a Christian is being nice! Christians are supposed to be people who are marked by their love and selflessness.
1 Timothy 5:8 tells us the following. “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Now, Paul wrote this to talk about natural families, but since the church family is suppose to emulate this, we must make this happen in the church as well. We must provide for others. We must look out for the entire group. This will involve sacrifice. This will involve doing things contrary to our personal preferences. Sometimes, we must give up our ambitions and make some concessions in order to benefit the church as a whole.
Pillar #4: A Healthy Family Sticks Together In All Circumstances.
Winston Churchill once gave a rather stirring speech during World War II. In it, he said, “We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills.” Now, to some of you, this quote sounds like a description of past family vacations.
Every family has their tough times and difficulties, but the family was designed to stick together in all circumstances. Many times, this is not the case anymore, but it is how God set it up at the beginning. When Jesus was taken to the cross, it was a tough time. All of his friends deserted Him, but there was one who was by his side through it all. His disciples ran for the hills, but one watched everything happen even though it must have been torture to her. Who stuck it out despite the tough circumstances? It was Mary, his mother and beloved family member.
Healthy families always put others first, and that allows them to stick together no matter what happens. As a church, we must bond together to put up a united front to fend off those outside the family of God who seek to tear us apart. The sad fact however, is that we don’t always stand together. In fact, some times we are so far apart that the attacks come from within the walls of the church. Causing division in the family of God is not of God and must be condemned. We must take Paul’s instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:20 to heart and “Turn away from godless chatter.” We must agree to disagree in some situations and stand unified with the leadership of the church and with God so that the devil cannot gain a foothold into our family. We must put pride to death and stand shoulder to shoulder with our brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers in all circumstances.
When she turned 21, Tammy Harris from Roanoke, Virginia, began searching for her biological mother. After a year, she had not succeeded. What she didn’t know was that her mother, Joyce Schultz, had been trying to locate her for twenty years. According to a recent Associated Press story, there was one more thing Tammy didn’t know: Her mother was one of her coworkers at a convenience store where she worked! One day Joyce overheard Tammy talking with another coworker about trying to find her mother. Soon, they were comparing birth certificates. When Tammy realized that her coworker was in fact her mother, she fell into her arms. “We held for the longest time,” Tammy said. “It was the best day of my life.”
Each week we rub shoulders with people whom we barely notice. But, if they share a birth in Christ, they are our dearest relatives. They are precious family members. We all belong in a healthy family relationship with each other in which we put God first, stick to a specific family structure, care about the group as a whole and stick together in all circumstances. And, you know what; I started to see great signs of this during the LIVE Weekend. We bore each other’s burdens. We sought after God. We laughed and cried together. We shared from our hearts and entrusted our brothers and sisters with personal information. We communicated. We stood in the gap ad prayed for those going through hardships. We ministered even to the ones who came to minister to us. It was a precious time for our church family, and I ask you to make this commitment. Don’t let this family atmosphere leave with the Weekend. Let’s turn this church into the family that God intended it to be. Let’s pray.
