The Blessedness of Family

Opening Thoughts

Holy Discontent: The family unit is under attack today.

Every nation, state, city, and community are built upon the single unit of the family. Family is not man-made but created by God to bring Him glory and honor.

There is a fight for the family today, and everyone knows it. Since the beginning, Satan has been chipping away at the family unit in every way he can. Why? Because he knows that the strength of any society is found in its basic building blocks of family.

I could give you statistics on divorce, homelessness, the fatherless, and the motherless. We could talk about foster care, child abuse, drug abuse, and incarceration but all of them will relate to the state of the family today.

That’s why we, as Reliant Church, focus on the family. We understand how precious and fragile it is and how wonderful it can be to have a good family unit.

As we minister to our community, we have coined the term “generational transformation,” which speaks of breaking the sin cycles of the family that cause its ultimate demise. We have committed ourselves to build a community center to facilitate the programs necessary to rebuild and strengthen the family.

So, we are starting a new bible series this morning that we are calling “Family Life.” Between now and Father’s day, we will be covering the essential aspects of guarding the family unit and setting a godly course for your family. Here are the topics we will cover:

Family Life Series Topic:

The Significance of the family

Learning to communicate

Setting godly priorities for your family

Guarding family time

Breaking generational curses

Leading for the success of the next generation (Ending on Father’s Day with Church on the Lawn. One big outside service with lunch and games Dad’s like to play.

Defining Biblical Family

God clearly defines marriage and family in the Bible.

If you are one that prays, “God please bless my family.” He will only do so if it is a family he has designed.

Last week we spoke about the way of God vs. the way of humanity. The biblical way of marriage and family is not the only way but it is the only way God will bless.

God’s creation of marriage and family.

Genesis 2:21–25 ESV

21 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. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 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.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Jesus confirms God’s creation of marriage and family.

Matthew 19:3–6 ESV

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Moses, Jesus, and Paul all make room for the entrance of sin.

Matthew 19:7–11 ESV

7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.

Moses allowed divorce because of the hardness of Man’s heart.

Jesus allowed divorce due to sexual immorality.

Paul describes the aftermath of a world riddled with sin.

1 Corinthians 7:25–28 ESV

25 Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. 26 I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.

Sin causes divorce.

Remarriage is not a sin.

Any other kind of marriage is an abomination to God’s creation.

Abomination is not unforgivable just against the natural order of things.

hook-ups: sex outside of marriage.

Shacking up: Living together outside of marriage.

Adultery: sex outside the bond of marriage.

Homosexual marriage.

Abomination does negate God’s blessing.

What is the significance of a Biblical Family?

Earthly marriage is not a heavenly thing.

Matthew 22:23–30 ESV

23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” 29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

There is no marriage in heaven.

Earthly marriage is for peace, structure, and procreation.

Earthly marriage is a picture of our heavenly marriage to Christ.

The picture of the wife.

Ephesians 5:22–23 ESV

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

the wife is a picture of the body of Christ submitted to Him.

The wife is the glory of her husband as the Church is the glory of Christ.

The picture of the husband.

Ephesians 5:25–27 ESV

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

The husband is a picture of the Lord.

The husband is to illustrate the love, sacrifice, and protection of the Lord.

Steps to ensure blessed family.

Agree with God’s way of marriage and blessing.

Make the adjustments necessary to be blessed of the Lord.

If your committing adultery stop it.

If your hooking up: quit.

If you shacking up get hitched.

If you have same sex attraction don’t act on it.

Play your role and reveal the love of Christ to those around you.

It will seam odd to the world. (people are amazed when I tell them I’ve been married for 32 years.)

The way of the world and the way of God are never the same.