Building Family Gods Way Part 2
Building Family Gods Way • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Family Focus
Family Focus
So, traditionally when it is Father’s Day the preacher is supposed to bring a message that focuses on fathers. And on Mother’s Day, it should be a given that we would hear a message that focuses and exalts mothers. Well, the truth is we are to honor our fathers and mothers every day. But we are to always exalt Jesus above all.
When fathers and mothers exalt Jesus in the family, the children grow seeing Jesus as exalted. And when Jesus is exalted, who He is in the eyes of the children shapes how they grow.
The hardest part is not letting self be the one exalted. As a ministry family we have to ensure that “ministry” is not exalted. As God blesses us we have to ensure material things are not exalted. You must maintain Christ as the exalted one in all of your life above all else.
Who Jesus is in your eyes, is often reflected in your response to Him.
The Gospel of Mark begins very interestingly.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The Jesus is the beginning of the gospel in Genesis. The word Genesis means “beginnings”. The word in Hebrew is reshith רֵאשִׁית and also means “the head,” “the chief,” and the “first fruit”.
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
In Mark 1:21 we see Jesus beginning His ministry.
And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching.
And immediately the demonic spirits seek to distract and draw attention to themselves. So, Jesus takes authority over them. And the people exclaimed:
And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
Often we see Jesus healing people but their names are not given. This is relevant because the intent is not to focus on the healed but the healer. Some doctrines focus on the one seeking to be healed. But everyone Jesus healed, their focus was on shifted from their infirmity to the healer, Jesus Christ.
This should be the same in parenting and our relationships in the Family of God. Focus on Jesus and healing comes to the family, the marriage, the children. Broken families are most often the result of either someone’s focus never being on Jesus in the first place, or at some point it shifted to self.
Self is always at the root of sin. Sin is always the result of a shift of focus from Jesus to self. But if Christ remains exalted in your life, your response reflects your focus.
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus cast out the demons with extreme prejudice and then exits immediately from the public spotlight. He then goes to Peter’s house where there lies Peter’s mother-in-law deathly sick.
And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.
First, let’s look at Jesus’ response then we will look at the mother-in-law’s response.
And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
Jesus just took her hand and lifted her up. Jesus just gets right to it. But look at the woman’s response. She gets up and immediately focuses on serving the Lord. Her response to Jesus’ healing was to serve Him without hesitation or reservation. She got up and was all in from that point forward. Her serving shifts her focus from her healing back to the healer.
The Hebrew word for serve here is pa-lah פלח meaning to devote oneself to; to be separated and marked; consecrated; to worship with a devoted life.
The best parental advice and spiritual advice I could give you, is let Christ be exalted in all of your life. He came to heal the hurt, lost, captive, and broken hearted. He came to redeem and restore us unto righteousness and relationship with the Father. Let Christ be exalted in all of your life.
Through this nameless woman’s illustration we see Jesus lifting us by the hand as we turn all of our hope and trust towards Him.