Taking Back Family Part 2
Taking Back Family • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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What We Traded It For
What We Traded It For
Part 2 What We Traded It For (The brokenness and dysfunction)
In Genesis God gave us the amazing gift and perfect model of family. But man accepted a deceiving perversion of that gift and model. As a result, the family dysfunction, due to their sin, quickly set in. In Genesis chapter 4 we find that Adam and Eve finally multiply as God had commanded. Cain and Abel are born. We are not given timelines or even their ages. But how long did Cain hate his brother? As long as he was Abel.
The truth of the matter is that we traded a perfect gift for a perversion. What did we get for our trade? We got hatred for one another. We got disunity, jealousy, and envy. We got separation from the Father. We got confusion and death. We lost our identity, our purpose, our reason for existence. We lost our place in creation, our authority, and our dominion. We were left with a broken and dysfunctional existence.
As a culture, often even in the church, we now seek to normalize dysfunctional family as the new modern-day family. The hit show with over 12 million viewers is an example. The creators brag that the shows popularity has proven the cultural shift to normalize gay marriage and other modern family models as healthy progressive environments for child development. They brag that shows, like Modern Family, slowly but surely desensitize people to the idea of gay families and cause them to become more acceptable and normal. Today, they slip in almost every commercial this new modern view of family trying to force us and our children to accept it as normal. Every break in a show has at least one erectile dysfunction commercial because we are a society obsessed with sex. Basically, the intent is to slowly poison you with their ideology so that it eventually assimilates into your worldview as an acceptable concept. The problem is that even though you take low douses of poison it still eventually brings death.
As a church we must not accept as normal the modern cultural models of family where normal includes justified hatred, selfishness, perversion, hurt, anger, addiction, abortion, pornography, divorce, confusion, oppression, depression, and basically, brokenness, dysfunction, and a sinful family environment as normal. The dysfunctional family is the family whose normal function is outside the design of God. The family where sin has been common place; where improper or immature behavior damages the relational, spiritual, emotional, relational, or physical health of members of the family. Proverbs 11:29 tells us, “He who brings trouble on his family will inherit only wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise.”
Whoever troubles his own household will inherit the wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise of heart.
The functional family is one where proper and mature behavior cultivates, promotes, and provokes growth in Christ spiritually, emotionally, and relationally for each member of the family. It provides a safe, nurturing, and healthy environment for development through every phase of growth. In the functional family, when problems or difficulties are encountered, the ability to face them with confidence, sound judgment, integrity and courage are cultivated and support is sure to be present. Proverbs 14:26 tells us, “He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.”
In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.
And Ephesians 6:4 commands us, “Fathers, do not exasperate (to belittle; provoke to anger or resentment) your children; instead, bring them up in the training (hands on demonstration and application) and instruction (knowledge and understanding) of the Lord (Jesus Christ).”
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
1 Timothy 3:4-5 challenges us, “He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?”
He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?
Your ministry, or service to the Lord, will be as functional as that of your family. Throughout Scripture we find where one generation served the Lord, then the next did not, then the next did, and so on. God gives grace to get it right with each generation.
Apart from Christ’s Lordship and complete assimilation into every area of our families, we cannot be the spouse or parents our families need. Our parents were not perfect, theirs weren't perfect, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. The only perfect Father is the Heavenly Father. Therefore, we cannot even begin to restore our families and lead them without following the Father.Two key things Father provided for the first family: 1. A healthy environment in His presence to grow and be cultivated; 2. A divine purpose, identity, and function.
In the garden, humanism was birthed through materialism. In Genesis we find there were two environments in which man could live: 1. Within the presence of God with the material world as a gift from God; or 2. Outside the presence of God with the material world as a reminder of his idolatry.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
In Genesis 3:6 the woman’s lust for the material things superseded her obedience and trust in God for that which He had provided. She began to look at the tree as a means of self-gratification, self-preservation, independence from God, and her own reasoning. Materialism is more than just a lust for things, it becomes a way of thinking that perverts and promotes a way of living outside God’s design. The one tree they could not have was perceived as God holding out on them. This seed of discontentment is often at the root of family destruction and dysfunction. Our families foundation must be that of Adam and Eve before they rebelled. It must be a trust in the goodness of God; a trust in the provision of God; a trust in the heart of God; a trust in our identity and purpose in God. In other words, the foundation of our families must be Father based. We must honor Father with our families. There is more to the command to “honor thy father and mother” than we have understood. You cannot have a family founded on Father if you do not honor Father with your family. We cannot expect our children to grow in the ways of the Lord if the ways of the Lord are not our ways. We cannot restore family identity if we do not know the true identity of the Father of family.
The Ten Commandments were not mere suggestions. The Ten Commandments were given to show us how reality works. Gravity can either bless you or curse you. In the same way, the Law of God can either bring blessings or curses.
So, where do we begin restoring the functioning of our family where it is a family that honors Father. The first thing to do is resolve to start. Regardless of how your family functioned yesterday, choose to redefine the atmosphere of your home. Church on Sunday is not a substitute for the presence of God in your home. Choose to restore integrity in your home and remove those things that feed contradiction to a biblical worldview. Next, choose to initiate new family patterns. Families that pray together, grow together. Praying together keeps families’ hearts sensitive to the important things of Father’s heart. Reading the Bible, having spiritual discussions, and posing ethical questions mold and shape the way the family thinks and eventually the way family members behave, resolve issues, mature, function, and also reveals where they are morally and spiritually. Attending church together as an essential part of the family’s function, with the right motives and response, helps mold and shape a different heart within the family than those of the world.
Read Joshua 24:14-15.
“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Will you resolve today to lead your family in a way different than the world? Will you resolve to lead your family in a way that provokes them to righteousness; is nurturing in the ways and heart of the Lord; that molds and shapes them to think as Christ; in a home where the presence of the Lord dwells; as a family that functions in a way that honors Fathers?
