When I say, “It’s time to build” you automatically have a picture in your mind of what that means. Some people thought of construction and things along the lines of assembling materials and putting up a structure. Others probably thought about strengthening our church. Some may have moved to the idea of molding people, as in building boys into men. One other option might have led some to focus around building relationships.
Let me encourage you to join me around a set of blueprints that invite us to focus on the same project. It’s time to build and reconstruct traditional family values. Author Mim Ford illustrates the missing values in most families today. They are cohesion (sense of belonging, being loved and nurtured), flexibility (need structure but not too rigid, a sense of joint decision-making) and communication. Mim says “A lack of communication can rip a family apart and destroy them.” (http://www.essortment.com/all/wahtarefamily_ralm.htm)
Fathers significantly impact the family values. It is alarming however to learn that fathers are missing in the home and it continues to be a growing concern. There are studies to support many facts about the absence of fathers at home:
- The absence of fathers results in children grieving as if he had died (http://missourifamilies.org/features/divorcearticles/divorcefeature14.htm)
- The absence of fathers contributes significantly to early sexual activity and teen pregnancy for their daughters (http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2003/06/dodge605.html)
- Dad’s absence is “the primary cause of many of…most serious social problems, including poverty, high school dropout, teen pregnancy, and delinquency
(http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/macarthur/working%20papers/wp-mclanahan2.htm)
We need to get the family back on track and to do that fathers have to rise up to the challenge to be the men of God they need to be for their families, communities and churches. Today’s blueprint talk focuses on the role of men in this critical blueprint and how your relationship with God has a huge impact on how well you fill your role in preserving and building family values. 1 Corinthians 3 teaches us key lessons of how we can build on the foundation already laid – Jesus Christ.
The first step to building on the foundation of Christ involves:
1. TRUST
Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who trust in him!
Tom Hansel, in Holy Sweat told an interesting personal story. “One day, while my son Zac and I were out in the country, climbing around in some cliffs, I heard a voice from above me yell, "Hey Dad! Catch me!" I turned around to see Zac joyfully jumping off a rock straight at me. He had jumped and then yelled "Hey Dad!" I became an instant circus act, catching him. We both fell to the ground. For a moment after I caught him I could hardly talk. When I found my voice again I gasped in exasperation: "Zac! Can you give me one good reason why you did that?" He responded with remarkable calmness: "Sure...because you’re my Dad." His whole assurance was based in the fact that his father was trustworthy. He could live life to the hilt because I could be trusted.”
So much of our understanding of God is based in our relational experiences with people. Our family relationships play an important part of how we understand God. If your relationship with your parents was negative and confrontational, your understanding of God is probably similar. If your dad was authoritarian and somewhat of a dictator you will have a similar picture that characterizes God as someone who stands over you waving a big stick. If your parents broke your trust you probably find it hard to trust God. Those feelings and experiences flow into your relationship with your spouse and children. On the flip side, if those relationships were positive and wholesome you likely tend to be more trusting and accepting of people, seeing only the good in people and are probably shocked when people behave in ways you didn’t expect.
If you want whole relationships it must begin with the basic building block called TRUST. Learning to trust God is foundational to all other relationships being healthy. If we want to “live life to the hilt” we have to learn to trust God. We cannot lay another foundation. Jesus is the foundation to having wholesome relationships.
Building on the foundation of Christ starts with (trust) and leads to:
2. TRANSPARENCY
John 1:4-5 “Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. 5The light shines through the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.
Authors who wrote the Scriptures used darkness to illustrate the horrible nature of sin and they used light to provide a counter-balance to get rid of it.
They do something else. They go further to use light as a metaphor to paint a picture of how light exposes us – 1 Corinthians 4:5 - …When the Lord comes, he will bring our deepest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. And then God will give to everyone whatever praise is due.
Have you seen the commercial that advertises health issues by using computer generated images of people being completely transparent? There’s one where a guy walks in a store and his friend, seeing his internal organs asks, “What’s that behind your colon?” and they discover he may have colon cancer and he should get it checked out. Now that’s transparent!
In the journey of my life in the last 25 years of being a pastor I met some interesting people. The one experience that is among the most heart-breaking is the person who tries to cozy up next to you because they seem to think there’s an advantage to the relationship. Once that doesn’t materialize you become 24th in the pecking order of important relationships. They don’t seek friendship for the sake of friendship. They seek to impress you with the people they know and the influence they have. If you can get underneath the peacock strutting you’ll see a person who is insecurity, afraid of failure or afraid people won’t like them and a deep longing to be valued. In the process of trying to “have it all together” they are afraid to risk being transparent.
Author, John Kehoe wrote an article called Authentic Relationships. I quote, “I have a good friend who is the most authentic person I know. People love being around her because she is so real, with no pretence. She makes everyone feel special, not in a phony way; she makes them feel special because she is genuinely interested in them. She values people. She values relationships, knowing that even the most causal relationship, a moment with a stranger, has the potential to gift them and us in some way. And so she lives her life day-by-day, moment-by-moment open, honest and receptive to others. It sounds simple but it’s actually revolutionary, given that most of us approach others with an agenda of our own.
“Do you value relationships? Are you willing to be authentic yourself in order to have authentic relationships? Are you prepared to change, grow, open your heart and show yourself to others? Unless you can answer yes to all three questions, it’s futile to hope for authentic relationships with others.”
The arm of the church that is growing faster than we can count the members, are those pockets of people who are in real relationships and real community. People who will admit to their coaches, mentors, spouses, children or family, “I’ll sorry, I really screwed up.” People who can admit they don’t have it all figured out and sometimes don’t get it right.
If you’re going to build on the foundation of Christ, you have to be real – totally exposed and transparent and be a real person. This is a very big challenge for men but we have to stop pretending; stop having to be right; stop pretending you know where you’re going, admit to your wife that you’re lost and be humble enough to ask for directions! One problem plaguing a lot of families today is the resistance to admission of failure (this applies to the kids as well). Even though there is some realization that “I was wrong” we find it very hard to walk up to a family member and say “I was wrong, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” We might even try to express our regret by doing thing to try to impress the other but we won’t come right out and say those wretched words.
Building on the foundation of Christ requires being transparent and honest to the people closest to us.
Building on the foundation of Christ involves (trust) (transparency) and:
3. TRACKING YOUR RELATIONSHIP
John 8:12 Jesus said to the people, "I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life."
This is all about being in relationship with God. When you learn to trust God and then be real with God, you can handle the light and expose “The Dark Side” (Star Wars).
My wife is more like her mother every day! When she’s walking to the vehicle from the house, she resembles her mom in the way she carries her purse and even how she’ll get a glass of water before heading out the door. Often times she’ll do or say something that prompts me to respond with, “Very good Ruby!” Glenys’ mom is a wonderful woman. I love being around my mother-in-law!
Our girls have made comments of how certain things they’ve done or ways they’ve behaved remind them they’re “turning into mom”! They didn’t say if that was good or bad, just stating a fact!
We cannot alter our biological make-up and prevent becoming a protégé, in some respects, of our parents.
When we were born into God’s family Jesus came to live, not just with us, but also within us! To “follow” Jesus is not simply walking behind him but is a result of being in active relationship with Him and watching His practices. His heart influences us and we become just like Him! We can no more control having a heart like Jesus that we can change some of the inbred realities of our biology. The more you hang out with Jesus the more he’ll rub off on your spirit and you’ll become like him!
Men, we need to track that relationship. Too often our failures at home and in our relationships are the result of the distance between God and us. We don’t know his heart, we’re not influenced by his attitude and we don’t feel his nudge when things need a little TLC. Instead we become the “bull in the china shop” of our families’ feelings and trample their need for a big-hearted man, just because we don’t “follow” closely enough.
Building on the foundation of Christ involves (trust) (Transparency) (tracking your relationship) and being:
4. TIGHT (Inseparable)
1 Peter 1:8 “You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him, you trust him; and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy.
It is a challenge for families to have strong relationships in the best situations. Distance is a big problem to having healthy family-life. Another barrier is the “empty nest syndrome” where children move their alliances to another person, usually their spouse and parents take a secondary role to those relationships. While that is a healthy sign of reproducing family-life it is still hard to stay connected. But a healthy family requires its members to understand its new role in expanding the family unit and demands intentional efforts to call, visit, email and be together if the family will keep growing and be in meaningful relationships. The most heart-warming and lonely time for Glenys and me are holidays. We leave church at Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter time to drive back to our house and find neighbourhood streets flooded with vehicles from visiting relatives. There’s nothing more wonderful than the celebration of family! Being officer with our extended family in Newfoundland and B.C. and all points in between, it’s a sacrifice we’re often reminded of as we drive by neighborhood houses.
Building on the foundation of Christ requires a growing relationship. You need to call Him often, sit with Him many times and simply rest in the relationship all the time. It’s the picture Peter paints when he says “you love him…you trust him…you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy.”
Men we need to allow ourselves to be intimate. That’s a word most men avoid as if it’s a disease or something. But the man who is not intimate with God does not understand how to be intimate with his spouse or how to embrace his children and even pet the dog. If relationship with God is authoritarian and harsh, so are other relationships. If it involves proving to God I’m worth something, it means I spend most of my time trying to prove myself to other people. And as long as we’re busy trying to prove ourselves we keep our guard up and refuse to let people see we’re vulnerable and have flaws, weaknesses and even sins. The answer to these problems is to fall deeply in love with Jesus and rest in relationship with God. It creates a culture of intimate relationship with the people I love.
We have to be jealous of protecting our relationship with God and stay close.
WRAP
Family life and values are fragmented and falling apart. The only foundation for living successfully and repairing broken relationships is by building on Jesus Christ. Being right with God requires building a life of trust, transparency, tracking the relationship and finally keeping it on track.
