Text: Matthew 28:16, Title: RRB 2: Strengthening Families, Date/Place: NRBC, 6/21/09, AM
Opening illustration: "A family is not a collection of individuals who happen to live at the same address. They are people who share an intimate and complex connection with one another, being related by marriage, birth or adoption. Together they form something larger and more significant that the contribution of each person taken singly. That association, locked together by love and lifelong commitment, must have a secure place in the American legal structure. To continue to undermine its foundations and erode its authority is to destroy the very fabric of American life." –James Dobson, According to 2005 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, only 32 percent of Newark children are being raised by their parents in a two-adult household. The rest are distributed among families led by grandparents, foster parents, and single parents--mostly mothers. An astonishing 60 percent of the city’s kids are growing up without fathers. It isn’t that traditional families are breaking up; they aren’t even getting started. The city has one of the highest out-of-wedlock birthrates in the country, with about 65 percent of its children born to unmarried women. And 70 percent of those births are to women who are already poor, meaning that their kids are born directly into poverty.
B. Background to passage: The primary unit for going through life together is the family. Many of us run the risk of idolizing the family. But our culture at large is seeing the complete disintegration of the family. And we must realize that if we are to have an effective ministry, we must train our families how to go through life together in a culture that screams that family is unnecessary. They will not learn to practice family biblically from the culture, and by and large they will not learn it from the church, as most statistics from society are not significantly different from the church. In general the church struggles with divorce, adultery, debt, fatherlessness, out of wedlock births, alcoholism, pornography, premarital sexual activity, child abuse, etc. And if you disagree, it is only because you are ignorant to the truth. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that it doesn’t exist; else we wake up in a few years, and the family is the exception not the rule. This was the way it is in Maine right now. Discernment is necessary, but you already know of most of the evils, so no need to further curse the darkness. Let’s bring some light, for the solution ultimately is the same for every one of these vision messages and issues: we must be revived in our absolute loyalty and love of Jesus Christ before tangible results will come.
C. Main thought: So how do we protect the vehicle of the family at New River?
A. Encourage Genuine Fellowship
1. One of the ways that the disciples kept their focus between the initial appearances of the resurrection the subsequent meeting in Galilee on the appointed mountain was to journey together. This seems like a stretch, but that’s what they did. They were a band of believers sharing life together. They had formed, and continued to maintain close personal relationships that reminded them of their commitment to Christ.
2. 1 Tim 5:1-2, Matt 12:49-50, Gal 6:10, John 13:35, 1 John 3:18
3. Illustration: tell about the church in WF that spent the whole weekend together at a church wide campout, Bonheoffer’s book on the church was called, Life Together,
4. Just as a family is not a group of individuals that happen to live at the same address, a church should not be a group of individuals that just happen to meet together at the same address on Sundays and Wednesday nights. Families need to have close relationships with other families. And close relationships are not simply formed at “church events.” Fellowship is more than food. They should learn to share life together. And really this should be our mode for discipleship as well. And it is a great model for our families to see members taking genuine interest in the well-being of another. Our transient world offers less commitment to relationships with depth, because we will only be here for a while. Be even in a society like that, we MUST be intentional about forming relationships. Dads need good ideas about being better dads. Moms need input about how to be better moms. We have a wealth of wisdom in our older generations, but due to the failure of the generations to interconnect, it doesn’t get passed on. Within genuine fellowship there is not only knowledge and wisdom, but accountability and security, which we all desire and need. Therefore we need to strive to end fakeness, engender real concern with tangible expressions of care, and begin to prioritize our time to build relationships in the church and in our family lives.
B. Equip Dads and Moms
1. Secondly we must intentionally train moms and dads and grandparents. Disciples are made, not born. Why? The examples they are seeing may be “good” or “bad,” but rarely are they “biblical.” And more and more are we forgetting as a society the biblical prescriptions for rearing children, being married, managing money, etc. And we are not born with such knowledge, but must be taught. And certainly the world doesn’t offer much good help in this area either. And if the job of evangelizing, training, equipping and sending out falls on the shoulders of parents, we must better train them to do it (for neither parents or youth groups are doing a very good job right now).
2. Argumentation
3. Illustration: I see it in pre-marital counseling, and in some marriages, where one spouse insists on doing things the exact way they did them growing up, and disagreements arise over family traditions, some of which have biblical principles, and some that don’t, “Parents are not so much unwilling to provide more substantive training to their children as they are ill equipped to do such a work. According to research, parents typically have no plan for the spiritual development of their children, do not consider it a priority, have little or no training on how to nurture a child’s faith, have no related standards or goals that they are seeking to satisfy, and experience no accountability in their efforts.” –Barna, VB arguing that youth ministries are necessity because not all parents disciple their kids, saying that reasoning doesn’t work, “This type of reasoning would have the church establish ministries in charge of picking baby names for parents who aren’t good at it. How about this radical idea: Teach families to do what the bible says to do, and then hold them accountable for it.” “The church can best minister to children by equipping the father, and assisting his helper, his wife.” –Tom Eldredge,
4. Equipping has a lot of aspects. We must provide opportunities to be trained in various areas of family life. We must give them the tools to take responsibility of their children’s spiritual development. We must reinstruct about forming and maintaining intimate relationships; about knowledge of theology and worldview; about rights of passage and mentoring; about how to set up and maintain family worship; about priorities of children’s development and roles; etc. And more and more this applies to grandparents, as more and more parents abdicate their roles as primary disciplers, and some even abandon the faith (if not in belief, in practice). Grandparents are forced to step up and fill the roles that even parents should be playing. So why not have training that equips these grandparents for a difficult role. We also must change expectations for parental (and grandparental) involvement in the youth ministry. The relationship must be fostered by parents for any real measure of success. Objections.
C. Model Biblical Roles
1. Thirdly, to strengthen the family, we must model biblical roles within the home and church, as they are mutually edifying. We live in a culture that has overturned Judeo-Christian gender roles. Satan has convinced our society, and most of “the church” that these “traditional” roles are outdated, oppressive, and deprive people of their full opportunity. When the truth is just the opposite. People are most fulfilled in life when they are operating within the scope of their God-given responsibility. And families and churches are strengthened when churches, husbands and wives, and grandparents operate biblically.
2. Argumentation
3. Illustration: “No wonder (men) pour themselves into their work, looking for something to challenge their male long for importance and purpose,” –David Black, “telling a man to show up to a weekly meeting is not a challenge worth attaining. Asking him to cook eggs for the monthly men’s breakfast will not provide him with the sense of accomplishment he seeks. But unleash him to evangelize and disciple his family, and he will have his mountain to climb,” –VB, “For men to abdicate their role as a humble servant leader of the house and church is just as much of an affront to biblical teaching, as women rebelling against submission.” There is no career more noble than that of motherhood at its best. There are no possibilities greater and in no other sphere does failure bring more serious penalties. To attempt this task unprepared and untrained is tragic, and its results affect generations to come. On the other hand, there is no higher height To which humanity can attain than that occupied by a converted, heaven-inspired, praying mother. “The essence of femininity is surrender” –Elizabeth Elliot p. 398 in RBMW, someone told me one time that “my husband must earn the right to be submitted to,”
4. And we didn’t even speak of children. They are to be obedient and respectful. We must encourage, exhort, and train our men to do the three things that God has called us to do: lead, love, learn. Men, you are called to be the spiritual director of your home. You are to chart the course, blaze the trail, and bring the vision of Christ-exalting passion to your home. You are further called to love your wives as Christ loved the church! What a lofty responsibility! And you are to dwell with them according to knowledge and understanding, counting her as a co-heir in Christ. By and large, men fail at this. And the church has failed men here too. We are the weakest link in modern evangelicalism. We must offer training and mentoring to get men to do what the bible expects them to do. Women are called to love their husbands and children, submit to their own husbands, and transform a house into a place of refuge. Explain submission, and especially what it is not. To rebel against this is to tell God that you have a better way. For a woman to dominate her husband through manipulation, nagging, or harshness will undercut her role, and his, and lead to terrible examples to our children and other families.
D. Remind of the Purpose
1. To keep from committing family idolatry and from taking the instructions for family too lightly, we must instruct on the purpose of the family. Our culture is not helpful in this area in the least. Popularly, the family is now seen as a vestige from a bygone era, and everyone is trying to figure out other ways to do life. Culturally here in the south, we exalt it higher than Jesus sometimes. A temporary intimate association for the glorification of God, modeling of Trinitarian and redemptive relationships, passing on of the truths of the faith, and production of Christian ballistic missiles for the advance of the gospel into hostile territories.
2. Jesus regularly put the gospel over families in His evaluation of importance. But He also affirmed God’s purposes and plans for the family. Titus 2:5,
3. Illustration: talk about feuds that have gone on in families for generations, and only end at the deathbed. Tell about Andrew Macdonald now discipling his family,
4. Explain this definition. 1) Families are temporary; not in a bad sense, but in heaven there is no marriage between people. They are lifelong, but temporary. Kids are supposed to grow up, move out, and have families of their own. 2) Families are close. It is really sad when kids and parents can’t stand each other. We must encourage and train families are maintaining closeness. We must provide opportunities to strengthen the bonds between. Some question whether dividing families up age-wise actually hinders family strength. 3) As will all things, its design is to glorify God. Others should see your family and think well of God. Dysfunctional families could be a hindrance to people knowing God. 4) One of marriage and family’s primary functions is to demonstrate inter-Trinitarian relationships, and redemptive ones—adoption, father/children, Bridegroom/bride. 5) The family is the primary mode of discipleship and passing on the faith, not the church. To heap that responsibility upon SS or worship is to shirk parental responsibility. 6) In conjunction with that, families are the primary hotbeds for the growth and production of Christian soldiers who will advance the gospel to the ends of the earth.
A. Closing illustration:
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
