The Functioning Family
The Mommy dog that lost her rear leggs in a lawn mower accident, and her children pups learned to walk like mommy walked, by dragging their hind end around the house…
Monkey see monkey do, our children will follow what we model.
Genesis 1:28 (Contemporary English Version)
28God gave them his blessing and said:
Have a lot of children! Fill the earth with people and bring it under your control. Rule over the fish in the ocean, the birds in the sky, and every animal on the earth.
28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
• Are we being fruitful – Growing and increasing: or are we consuming and destroying.
• Are we replenishing – to make holding firm to our faith – or are we allowing our faith to degrade over time. Adam and Eve to the tower of Babbel From Noah to Abraham
• Are we subduing and taking dominion, to be more than a conqueror - Or have we taken a back seat and have allowed society to dictate our lot in life.
Adam and Eve went from having security and peace in their life to complete and utter desperation.
Desperate means having lost all hope;
Within a few decades we have gone from Ozzie and Harriet to Ozzy Osborne.
Los Angeles Family therapist Jessica Simmonds found, in some ways, the Osborne’s, “live a very normal life in this upper-middle-class environment, mixed with a really strange mentality and dysfunction.” Simmonds sees a home with a “domineering mother’ and a “feeble father.” Such are major factors in the equation of dysfunction, and so says Simmonds, “it’s not all too funny…There’s a lot of sadness here.” As there is in dysfunctional families everywhere.
Dysfunctional means – It’s not functioning. It’s not the precise definition:
“Dys” actually means “dangerous.”
A dysfunctional family, then, by definition is on functioning dangerously.
So what does a family produce that is functioning dangerously? They produce:
• Teens that commit suicide.
• Teens that become addicts to drugs and alcohol.
• Teens that has no self-esteem or value.
• Teens that run away.
• Teens that drop out of school.
Dysfunctional Families are a danger to society too.
In the book, “LEADING CULTURAL INDICATORS” by William J Bennett wrote:
“Almost half the people arrested in America in 1999 were under the age of twenty-five. Between 1965-1998 the nation’s juvenile crime rate soared at a 175% rate.”
Western Culture Formula for a Functional Family:
N+K+P=FF - Needs+Knowledge+Pleasures = Functional Family.
C+BPR+BPT-CU=FF
Chris + Biblical Principals + Biblical Patterns – Curse = Brings Functional Families.
In the Garden they functioned in four harmonious Keys:
1. Unity between God and man.
2. Personal Unity.
3. Unity with others.
1. Unity with God:
This series is from a Christian Context.
This is the foundation for a consistent experience of peace and fulfillment.
Adam had this unity. Adam would walk with God…
Adam and Eve broke their dependence on God in order to have self-control and self-rule.
Through their independence from God – The Curse began.
When Christians break fellowship with God, they try to hide from God. (Adam and Eve)
Today we hear all kinds of excuses why people don’t come to church anymore…
One man stated that Sunday was his only day off to visit his pigs in the country.
• I used to go to church.
• My kids are in sports.
• That’s my only day off.
• The Spirit of God is not allowed to move.
John 6:44 no one can be saved unless the Spirit draws them.
The biggest reason people stay away from church is they really don’t want to know God and they don’t want God to really know them.
Because they don’t want to surrender their lives to Him.
2. Personal Unity – Relationship with ourselves.
Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…”
Psychotics are people who see others as the problem. – Blame Victim mode – can’t help it – out of my control.
Neurotics are those who see themselves as the problem. Given up hope, can’t believe in themselves.
We can only give what we have.
Learn to accept ourselves. Our past, our mistakes, our short-comings. New future and a better tomorrow.
A parish priest was being honored at a dinner on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his arrival in that parish. A leading local politician, who was a member of the congregation, was chosen to make the presentation and give a little speech at the dinner, but he was delayed in traffic, so the priest decided to say his own few words while they waited.
"You will understand," he said, "the seal of the confessional, can never be broken. However, I got my first impressions of the parish from the first confession I heard here. I can only hint vaguely about this, but when I came here twenty-five years ago I thought I had been assigned to a terrible place. The very first chap who entered my confessional told me how he had stolen a television set, and when stopped by the police, had almost murdered the officer. Further, he told me he had embezzled money from his place of business and had an affair with his boss’s wife. I was appalled. But as the days went on I knew that my people were not all like that, and I had, indeed come to, a fine parish full of understanding and loving people."
Just as the priest finished his talk, the politician arrived full of apologies at being late. He immediately began to make the presentation and give his talk.
"I’ll never forget the first day our parish priest arrived in this parish," said the politician. "In fact, I had the honor of being the first one to go to him in confession."
3. Unity with others – Mending and keeping relationships.
My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he’d dropped his toothbrush in the toilet.
So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage.
Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush.
He held it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better throw this one out too then, ’cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago."
John 13:34-35 (Contemporary English Version)
34But I am giving you a new command. You must love each other, just as I have loved you. 35If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.
Hebrews 12 MSG
14Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you’ll never get so much as a glimpse of God.
The quickest way to Overlook an Offense
Proverbs 19:11
11Good sense makes a man restrain his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression or an offense.
Most marital arguments would be eliminated by this principle.
1. Restrain our Anger.
2. Overlook an offense.
3. Talk about things that we shouldn’t overlook.
