AM Sermon preached at Syria Christian Church January 9, 2005
"Your First Family: Minister Well To Them"
[TITLE SLIDE]
When Americans hear the words first family---their thoughts typically race to the occupants of the White House---the president and his family. And some of you reading the words “first family” in the title of my message this morning---knowing that my ministry here is winding down--- may have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Some of you may be thinking “Oh great. Darren’s going to preach politics.” Folks, as much as I appreciate President Bush’s open declarations of his faith in Christ---and as much as I believe we are obligated to pray for him, his family and all others in positions of leadership---I assure you here at the start of my message I’m not going to be trying to force my political opinions upon you this morning. As I outlined this final sermon series I decided that for the first four weeks of January I would preach on the relationships we Christians ought to be most concerned about. I believe the Bible teaches us that in our relationships we should focus first on God, then family, next the church and finally unbelievers and so that’s the order in which we will consider them.
And so last Sunday morning I began by focusing on our most important relationship, our relationship with God as I shared with you my challenge to keep Christ as your first love. Today I want to share a few thoughts with you on what I believe the Bible teaches us is the second most important relationship area of our lives---family. Chuck Swindoll said of the family, “Whatever else may be said about the home, it is the bottom line of life, the anvil upon which attitudes and convictions are hammered out. It is the place where life’s bills come due, the single most influential force in our earthly existence.”
Now I know that sometimes we refer to the fellowship of believers or the members who make up the church as the family of God. But this morning our primary focus is there. Rather the focus today is upon our relationships with our natural family, our blood kin, especially those living under the same roof with us. We’ll talk about how we’re supposed to relate to fellow church members next Sunday.
Let me share with you very quickly some reasons why I’ve concluded that of all of our human relationships, our relationship to our family should come first. I believe the precedent is seen in the ten commandments. When you study the 10 commandments closely you realize that they’re really about relationships. The first four help us to understand how we are to relate to God and the last six how we are to relate to one another. By divine design the fifth commandment, the first of the commandments which deal with how we humans are to relate to one another is a commandment concerning family relationships --children are to obey their parents.
The precedent is seen again in Mark 5. A man possessed by demons was healed by Jesus. Many of you can recall hearing the story of how the demons left the man and entered into a herd of pigs....how the herd then rushed headlong off a cliff and died....and how the people who observed the healing instead of rejoicing over the man’s being healed were upset at the loss of the herd. But there’s an oft overlooked detail in that story which speaks to the priority we are to give our families. Here’s what verses 18-20 of Mark 5 say: [SCRIPTURE SLIDES]
18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.
19 Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." 20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. I see in these verses the idea being taught get right with God then go and minister first to your family.
Hebrews 11---it’s know as the great faith chapter of the Bible---it’s sometimes refered to as the Faith Hall of Fame because it lists for us men and women of great faith. The list begins with Noah---describing him this way: [SCRIPTURE SLIDES] 7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Noah the man of faith God put at the head of the list was commended for responding with a faith that expressed itself first in the building of an ark to save his family.
1 Timothy 3 discusses the ministry roles and qualifications of church leaders. A quick read through that chapter reveals God thoughts on the priority those who want to be church leaders need to give to their family relationships. Verses 4 & 5 in fact make it clear that a man who has a poor homelife should not be made an elder. Those verses read--- [SCRIPTURE SLIDES] 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)
Perhaps though some of the strongest support that can be offered concerning the priority we should place upon our family relationships comes from 1 Timothy 5. In that chapter Timothy is given instructions concerning the care of widows in the early church. I don’t want to take time this morning to explain all the verses of that chapter. Nor do I want to go into all of the background details. I’ll just say that the priority and responsibility of family relationships is woven throughout the chapter as it gives us no less than five reasons to focus on them. The hardest hitting verse in that chapter, verse 8, reads like this: [SCRIPTURE SLIDES] 8 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 we could look at even more verses that speak about the priority we’re to give our family relationships but I want to move on to something a little more practical and take a few minutes to examine the pattern for success in family relationships found in Ephesians, at the end of chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6.
Picking up at verse 21 of chapter 5 we read: [SCRIPTURE SLIDES]
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--
30 for we are members of his body.
31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."
32 This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church.
33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 "Honor your father and mother"--which is the first commandment with a promise--
3 "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."
4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
There’s not only a lot of wisdom and specific directives for different family members in these verses, they also contain four key ingredients to great family relationships---a pattern if you will for everyone of us to follow. Husbands, wives, children, grandparents the first key to having great family relationships is to [FIRST SERMON POINT SLIDE] make sure you as an individual are in a right relationship with God. I know it seems as if I keep harping on that point---maybe because I am ---for our relationship with God is the foundation upon which all our other relationships are to be built. Verse 21 clearly states this principle when it says [SCRIPTURE SLIDE] “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Great relationships begin when we’re in a right relationship with God, when we act out of reverence for Christ. Much more could be said about this but since this was the focus of last’s week’s message let‘s move on....
[SERMON SLIDE WITH SECOND POINT] Another key ingredient to great family relationships is to understand that our home life is the first place we should put our faith into practice. If you were to read on in chapter 6 of Ephesians, in the verses that follow the ones giving instructions on how children should relate to their parents and fathers to their children, what you’d find is that Paul writes about how people should relate to one another in the workplace. Paul could have written about workplace relationships first but he didn’t. I believe God directed him to write first about family because home is to be the first place we put our faith into practice.
Earlier I mentioned how 1 Timothy 5 give instructions on how to care for the needy widows in the church and how it points to Christians’ responsibilities to care for family. That the home is to be the first place people see our faith merge with Christlike conduct is the heart of verse 4 in that chapter. It reads...[SCRIPTURE SLIDES] 4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. [NO SHOW] It’s also pleasing to the family members you help and to your own conscience as you do what you know is right to do.
Theodore Roosevelt said in 1917, “No other success in life-not being president, or being wealthy, or going to college, or writing a book, or anything else-comes up to the success of the man or woman who can feel that they have done their duty and that their children and grandchildren rise up and called them blessed.”
Home, friends, is where the changes Jesus is making in our hearts and lives should first be recognizable.
[SERMON SLIDE IWTH THIRD POINT] A Third key... Learn how Jesus lived and showed His love for others and imitate His ways. In this Ephesians passage husbands are told to love their wives the way Christ loves the church. Now how could they do that if they have no idea how Christ loved the church? For any of us to have the types of relationships God wants us to have with our family members we must learn how Jesus lived and showed His love for others and then after learning those things put them into practice.
Imagine for a moment you’re watching the last game of the World Series. It’s the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded. There are two outs and the game is tied. A time out is called. The manager of the team on the field makes a pitching change and brings in the best closer in baseball history. At the same time the manager of the team at bat decides to make a batting change. He doesn’t call in his best seasoned clutch hitter. No he sends to the plate a guy who has never held a bat in his hands before. In fact the new batter has never watched a baseball game before. What do you think the chances are that this new batter will be successful? Slim to none?
Listen, I think a lot of young married couples today are like that new inexperienced batter that I just described---they start out with the odds stacked against them. Particularly lacking in their lives has been good role models. We all know that it’s not at all uncommon these days because of divorce situations to read a marriage announcement in the paper which lists three or four sets of parents for the bride and groom. And sometimes you know or you come to find out that mom or dad isn’t in a second marriage but a third or fourth. There’s no doubt in my mind that many young adults who enter into marriage for all the right reasons have a lot of difficulty keeping their marriage together because they grew up without any good role models and they’re pretty clueless as to how to make it work. Among other counsel I might give young struggling couples I’d be sure to point them to Christ’s example.... but they’re not the only ones I encourage to look at and follow Christ’s example---I point all married couples to the example of Christ all married couples---in fact I try to point every person to the example of Christ. His is the greatest example of love known to man. No matter the relationship---spouse to spouse, parent to child, child to parent, even friend to friend...every relationship we have in life can be successful, fulfilling God-honoring and rewarding by following Christ’s example in relating to and loving others.
Lastly a key ingredient to success in our family relationships is to Immerse ourselves in all the Bible’s teachings and do our best to apply them. As important and helpful as it is for us to study the life of Jesus and apply what we learn from it---we don’t want to write off the other passages of the scripture we can learn from.
Merle Mees concurs...in his sermon Investment Tips for Growing Family Relationships, he shares these thoughts---
Warren Buffet is one of the richest men in America. In 1997, among the 70 or so people in this country who were worth 1 billion dollars or more, Buffet was the only one of only a few who acquired his wealth through investing. Many investors look to him for investment advice. His firm Berkshire Hathaway has one of the most widely read annual reports issued. And a book has been written about his investment strategies; it’s called The Warren Buffet Way.
If you could sit down with Warren Buffet for a while and get some investment tips would you?
Imagine for a moment that your family is your greatest capital. If you could get some investment tips on how to grow it in quality would you be interested?
MEES CONCLUDES: We hold in our hands a treasure of investment strategies for growing our family relationships. The Bible, God’s Word in written form, contains countless pro-family principles and precepts. If we learn and practice them they will make our family’s relationally wealthy.
I hope you noticed as I read from Ephesians on family relationships how Old Testament scriptures passages were being used. When writing about marriage the Genesis verse about the two becoming one flesh was quoted--and when writing about how children should obey their parents, the fifth commandment was quoted. I bring these things to your attention because they remind us how we need to know and apply scriptural teachings in our family relationships. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
Today as we approach our hymn of invitation and decision I hope you will give prayerful thought to your home life. I hope you will allow the Holy Spirit to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses in your family relationships. And in response to His voice I hope you will commit to improving what are already your strengths and to making progress in your areas of weakness. If you have any public decision you’d like to make for Christ this morning we invite you to come forward as we stand and sing ______________________...
NOTE TO THOSE WHO READ AND OR CHOOSE TO MAKE USE OF ANY OR ALL OF THIS SERMON: I am sharing this sermon with the hopes it will be an encouragement to others. I try to give credit where credit is due, noting writers and or sources to the best of my ability. I have for years been drawing from a wealth of sources including this website. I recognize that my mind and writing processes are fallible. I may occasionally fail to properly identify a source. Please do not take offense if you see anything of this nature. I never intend to plagiarize. Having said that I want you to feel free to draw from my message. When appropriate I hope you will give credit as I do. But most of all I hope Christ will be lifted up and God will receive the glory in all things.
