Family Relationships

Recap

Collin and Katie did a fantastic job two weeks ago of teaching about relationships in your season, whether that be in a time of singleness, dating, or marriage. They did an incredible job of talking over many ways to put God first.

Above all, we must listen to God’s will for our lives, him first, and love well. I got to preach at a youth group last week and I read a passage out of Luke chapter 10, where a lawyer, a man who studied the Jewish Law and was well acquainted with scripture, sought out Jesus to put him to the test, and he said this in

Luke 10:25–28 “And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.””

The man sums it up perfectly, we are to love God with all of ourselves, in doing that, we are naturally going to want and desire his will in our lives above our own. And we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is how we love well, we first put God first by obeying his words, and out of that we love people the same way he loves us.

This week we are going to talk about Family Relationships, as we get closer and closer to Thanksgiving and the holiday season in general, we are going to be surrounded by family more and more, I hope that all of you are excited for it and are going to use this time to love on your family. For some it may be a time of grief or struggle and we don’t exactly know how to navigate these times, I hope that through the working of the Holy Sprit and His Word, you are encouraged and can navigate these times Spirit led.

Family Is God’s Idea

Family Relationships are where we first learn to love, to forgive others, and give grace, but also where many on us may have experienced pain. God’s design for the family reveals His heart, and through His Word we learn how to honor Him through every relationship, whether it is parents, siblings, or our spiritual family.

I want you to think about a time that you have learned from your family, good or bad, it is those experiences that have shaped who you are today.

From the very beginning, God’s plan was a family, before the church, before government, before schools, God created the family.

Family was God’s idea

It wasn’t invented by culture

It wasn’t created by society

It was originated in the heart of God

Genesis 2:18–24 “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

This is the very first marriage, the beginning of a family, God saw that it was not good to do life alone, but rather we must have help, someone to help life the weight off of our shoulders. God had created the world, and all that was in it and said it was good, yet the one thing he said that was not good, was for man to be lonely.

Psalm 68:6 says that God sets the lonely in families. It was from the beginning that his intention was that family would be the first place we learn to love.

Even Jesus grew up in his own family and Luke 2:51 says that Jesus obeyed his parents and grew in wisdom, If the Son of God submitted to family, it tells us how important and seriously God takes it.

But we live in a broken and fractured reality, where we skew the original plans that God had for us, where we choose to be disobedient. What then, what about when family doesn’t work out the way that God designed it?

Family can be Beautiful… but it can also be broken

Some of your hear “Family” and immediately think of tension, or even feel it in your heart.

Distance

Divorce

Abuse

Unrealistic Expectations

Feeling like you are never enough

Psalm 27:10 “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.”

God does not ignore suffering, God does not ignore family pain, he doesn’t pretend it doesn’t exist or tell you to get over it.

Instead he makes a promise, that he will come close

It is the hope of the Scriptures:

Through Jesus, God adopts us into his family

Ephesians 1:5 “he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,”

Romans 8:15–17 “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

Martin Luther, the founder of the German Reformation says this, “

“Abba” is only a little word, and yet contains everything. It is not the mouth but the heart’s affection which speaks like this. Even if I am oppressed with anguish and terror on every side, and seem to be forsaken and utterly cast away from your presence, yet am I your child, and you are my Father. For Christ’s sake: I am loved because of the Beloved. So this little word “Abba”, Father, deeply felt in the heart, surpasses all the eloquence of the most eloquent speakers that ever lived. This matter is not expressed with words, but with groanings, and these groanings cannot be uttered with any words of eloquence, for no tongue can express them.

Our Father is not distant, not angry, not disappointed, but a Dad who wants us, welcomes us, and calls us his.

Some of you have spent your entire lives trying to earn the love of people who never gave it freely, but God says “You don’t have to earn what I freely give”

Honoring God doesn’t mean ignoring Pain

This is where a lot of young adults get stuck, The Bible says that we must honor our mother and father.. but what if my father or mother hurt me?

What if they weren’t there for me?

What if they still aren’t there?

What if our relationship is tense or complicated?

Here is the truth:

Honor is not pretending that everything is fine, honor is choosing to treat someone the way that God calls you to, even in difficulty.

Romans 12:18 “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

I want to highlight the part where it says “so far as it depends on you”

That means

I can choose forgiveness even if reconciliation is not possible.

I can create healthy boundaries and still be loving

I can refuse to be bitter even if the situation never changes.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean trust.

Forgiveness does not mean access.

Forgiveness does not mean agreement

Forgiveness means you stop letting their actions own you heart.

God’s Family is now our Eternal Family

The good news of the Gospel, is that we are now not alone, we are a part of a spiritual family.

At Life Church Youth, there is the memory verse of the year and it is Ephesians 2:19 “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,”

You are not an outsider, uninvited, you are not an accident, you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

The Church is not just a service, it is a family, LCYA is not just an event or a life group, it is a family

We are brothers and sisters carrying each others burdens

It is people showing up for you even if your biological family doesn’t

It is people who love you enough to challenge you, sharpen you, and walk with you.

It may be the person that you are sitting next to now that might be who you stand with during the hardest moments of your life.

Your family story doesn’t have to be your future story

Joshua, one of the forefathers of our faith, declared “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”

He was not speaking of his family that he came from, but rather the family he would build.

You may come from brokenness… but you can build something different

You may have inherited cycles… but you can create new ones

You may have grown up in dysfunction… but you can pass down blessings

Your past family story is not your destiny in Christ. God is raising up young adults who will lead like Christ, love like Christ, forgive like Christ, and create families both physical and spiritual that look like his heart.

This week: Challenge

Pray for your family by name

Reach out to someone in your family simply to encourage them

Thank God for your spiritual family and choose to be a part of it.

Closing

You were made to be in relationship

You are made for belonging

You were made for family, both the one you came from and the one that God is forming around you now.

Joshua 24:15 “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.””

Questions:

Which part of your family story has shaped you the most—either in a positive way or a painful way—and how is God inviting you to grow, heal, or respond differently because of it?

What would it look like for you this week to live out Joshua’s declaration—“as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”—in your own context?