BFM 2000 Salem Study: The Family

Introduction

After a great weekend of studying God’s Word as a church body and engaging with Pat about discipleship and evangelism strategies, it’s timely that our BFM study takes us tonight to the article on the Family. I’ve shared this statistic before but it bears repeating tonight: If you are able to “catch” a child and they begin to faithfully attend your church, you have a marginal at best chance of “catching” the rest of the family. Many parents are content with dropping their child off at church and coming back a couple of hours later. If you catch a mom, you have a 13% chance to catch the rest of the family - maybe you’ll catch a child or two if they have them, but many father’s are content with their wife taking their kids to church so that they can have peace and quiet for a few hours or because they’ve been burned by a church in the past. Here’s where statistics get crazy. If you can catch the Father… If you get Dad actively coming to church on a consistent basis then you have a 90% chance of catching the rest of the family. If dad comes, participates, worships, and serves, the family usually follows.

What we are seeing in our country and in other countries around the globe is a shocking development of men who don’t attend, participate, or care about church. Back in 2005 the statistic was that 35% of men in the United States attended church. In the 17 years since, that number has nearly slashed in half and those totals don’t include people who actually attend but only those who claim that they attend regularly - you and I both know that people overestimate things at times. The fact of the matter is that we are living in a world where God designed men to lead their families to study Scripture and worship with God’s people and men left and right have dropped the ball and, worse, don’t think there is anything important about church in the first place. This is true in the United States, it’s true in Europe where less than 5% of men attend church, and it’s true in Guatemala where we ministered to many families where the men were absent from church. What has happened? For all we talk about how good things are in our society and nation, our society and nation has led the nuclear family astray and nearly to the brink of collapse.

In a world where over 60% of adults have ever or are currently cohabitating with their significant other, marriage is often thought of as selling oneself short. We’ve all heard the statistic of half of marriages ending in divorce - Barna research shares that for committed Christians that percentage is actually closer to 30%. We might think that this isn’t a big deal because it only impacts grown adults… Stats reveal something far worse: Nearly 40% of students from 1st-12th grade in our country grow up in homes without their father. Those students are 4x more likely to end up living in poverty as they get older than households with a father and mother. Church, the family matters! God’s design isn’t outdated… In fact sociologists, even atheist sociologists, share that the best way to help your child succeed is to put them in a home with a father and mother who will love on them and encourage them as they provide needed structure and guidance as they grow. It’s almost as if God’s plan is perfect. The family unit is changing, but it is of utmost importance to us as Christians and to our society as a whole. We must hold fast to what the Bible tells us about the family and the roles in the family. Let’s read the BFM article (number 18) and then turn to Scripture to help us see the purpose of the family and the roles within the family.

“God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.

Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God's unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God's pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.”

Let’s spend some time looking at the Old Testament to see God’s design from creation and then look to the words of Jesus and Paul in the New Testament

Genesis 1:26–28 CSB

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

Exodus 20:12 CSB

12 Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Psalm 139:13–16 CSB

13 For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. 15 My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.

Matthew 5:31–32 CSB

31 “It was also said, Whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. 32 But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Colossians 3:18–21 CSB

18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they won’t become discouraged.

There are numerous other Biblical places that talk about the family unit and the responsibilities that every party has and we’ll address another key passage in a little while, but as we see in Scripture, God has a design for the family. His design, just like His creation, is good - it’s unimprovable and perfect! We must take God’s Word seriously whenever He lays out His design and command. Let’s begin by looking at the roles within the family as given in Scripture.

The Roles in the Family

We look around our world and we see the family in disarray and some in depression. We see others who have attempted to change the definition of the family in the first place to be something that it was never designed to be. So often we think that we know better than God or that we’re the exception to the rule. Take creation, for example, Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden… Why? Because they wanted to be just like God. We like to think that we’re different, but we’re not that different. We continue to think that we know and that we’re the exception. We value our thoughts and feelings above everything else. Here’s the problem that brings: God is perfect. God gave us His Word. His Word is perfect. Meaning this: If God says that marriage works this way, your opinion or feeling about the matter is irrelevant - it’s true because God created it that way! Do you think that an omnipotent, sovereign God knows what He’s talking about whenever He said that marriage is to be between one man and one woman? 21st century secularists would argue that God is a bigot and intolerant because that’s not very compassionate toward the feelings of other people who disagree… The God of the Bible has some strong words for people who disagree with Him

Hebrews 10:30 CSB

30 For we know the one who has said, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, and again, The Lord will judge his people.

Nahum 1:2 CSB

2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is fierce in wrath. The Lord takes vengeance against his foes; he is furious with his enemies.

So many think that they get to define the boundaries and rules and guidelines but that’s simply not the case . The God who created all things sets the boundaries. He gets to define what good is - not us! Why? Because He has all authority. Think of it this way with school starting this past week. What if a 5 year old went to their teacher and said that 2 + 2 = 6. The teacher encourages the student to think through it again but the boy is adamant that 2 + 2 = 6. The teacher corrects the student and says that 2 + 2 = 4 but the little boy says that the teacher is wrong and that he is right. Sure, we know that the teacher is right and the boy is wrong… But how do we know that the boy is wrong? How do we know that that won’t change? Because there is order in our world. 2 + 2 has always = 4 and will always = 4. You can’t change something just because you don’t like it or just because you want to do it your own way… There is order in our world and that order is good. The teacher has the authority in the classroom to correct the boy and inform him of the right answer. See, you can think that marriage can be between 2 men or women, just like a 5 year old can think that 2 + 2 = 6, but just because you feel that way it doesn’t mean that it’s accurate. Why? Because we’re not the one in a position of authority to get to define it. God alone has that authority. Therefore, we simply stand on His perfect design. We simply stand on God’s Word as it proclaims clearly that the family is one man and one woman and God’s design is that it would be a lasting relationship that would span the entire lives of those involved. That is God’s design in both the Old and New Testaments. Inside of that family unit there are respective roles that have also gotten tossed to the wayside.

The BFM shares with us that you have several parts in the family: Husband, Wife, and Children. This is what we find in the Bible and there are roles for each person. Contrary to our world, a man is not a woman and a woman is not a man. They are unique and have separate roles and responsibilities. This doesn’t mean that a man can’t care for his kids or make dinner, destroy those secular stereotypes for the glory of God and this doesn’t mean that a woman can’t have a job or mow the grass, destroy those secular stereotypes for the glory of God. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at a man and woman and realize that there are some differences. This isn’t a bad thing - it’s a beautiful thing! Just because man and woman are different it doesn’t mean that they are of different value before God, either. Did you know that in other ancient religions, often there was a distinction between the value of a male versus female? There were cultures who so valued males that they would essentially discard unwanted females because they believed that one was more valuable than the other - this isn’t what we see in Scripture though. In the Bible men and women have different roles but are of the same value! We read in Genesis 1 that humans are made in God’s image - that includes males and females. We are equal in God’s eyes. Just because we’re equal doesn’t mean that we don’t have different roles and responsibilities, though.

What are these roles?

The Bible shares with us that the Husband is responsible to care for and protect the family. He is to lead the family to be like Christ.

Ephesians 6:4 CSB

4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

In reference to pastors in 1 Timothy 3, Paul shares this

1 Timothy 3:5 CSB

5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?)

The Wife is responsible to care for her family. She helps her husband as Genesis 2 calls Eve Adam’s helpmate - this doesn’t imply that she is inferior to Adam… Quite the opposite, in fact. Every single thing in the Garden was good - wasn’t it? God said so! But in Genesis 2 God says something different

Genesis 2:18 CSB

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.”

The woman is the solution to this problem. The woman is the answer. She is good! The wife in a Christian marriage is not inferior - quite the opposite, she completes her husband and their union is good.

If a family is blessed by God and has children, guess what? The Bible has roles for the children to play as well! Primarily, children are a gift from the Lord and they are to be trained up in the Lord by their parents so that they grow and glorify Him in all that they do. Children are not the boss of the house like they seem to be in our culture… Children are to submit to their parents. They are not equals when it comes to authority - but this doesn’t give parents a license to treat them as anything less than image-bearers of the most high God!

Husbands and Wives and Children all have roles to play in the family and if they don’t play their respective role, it will lead to conflict. If a Father doesn’t lead his family to grow to be more like Jesus, that will lead to problems. If a Wife does not care love or respect her husband, that will lead to problems. If a Husband does not love his wife as Christ loves His church then that will lead to problems. If children do not respect and honor their parents, that will lead to problems. What’s the ultimate problem in the nuclear family? Sin. The problem has always been and will always be our sinful heart and that we so often want to do our own thing and rather than care for and submit to someone else, we want to follow our own heart and do what is right in our own eye rather than trusting in God’s perfect design. What we need in this time and age is a renewed focus on the purpose of the family and this is what we’ll spend the remainder of our time tonight looking at

The Purpose of the Family

So if these are the parts of the family, some wonder why the family exists in the first place. Why is the family a big deal? Because the family is a picture of God and His love. Old Testament, God and Israel, New Testament, Jesus and His Church.

The purpose of the Christian marriage is for the husband and wife to be a billboard for Jesus Christ and to show His love to the watching world. To point people to the creator of marriage and the Savior of our souls! The purpose of the family is not to simply be happy or make earthly alliances. The purpose of the family is not to simply be comfortable and make money. The purpose of the family isn’t even so much about us! The purpose of the nuclear family is to honor God’s design and to bring Him glory as we point people to Him.

Tonight let’s look at the love that God has for us as His children in Ephesians 5, one of the most common passages dealing with marriage and family relationships

Ephesians 5:21–33 CSB

21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

This passage gives us the background for how the Christian marriage should function - the husband loves his wife and cares for his wife just as Jesus loved and cared for his bride, the church. What did Jesus do for His church? He died for it. So many husbands say that they’re willing to do this… Men, don’t tell me that you’re willing to die for your wife when you’re not even willing to do the dishes to help your wife. Husbands are to love their wife as they love themselves - this is the biggest problem in marriages, husbands failing to love their wife as much as they love themselves. As husbands do this, wives are to respect and submit to their own husband. We could spend an hour exegeting this text and uncovering its context and meaning for us today… But I want to focus specifically at the last 2 verses. This mystery of submission in the marriage union is a picture of Christ and His church. What has Christ done for His church? 2 things: He has justified His bride and He has adopted His bride.

Justification - love of Jesus for His bride as His sacrifice makes us innocent

Adoption - God brings us into His forever family

On the cross, Jesus died in our place. He bore our sin and shame and suffered our punishment we deserved because of our sinfulness.

Galatians 3:13 CSB

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

Jesus became a curse for us! As Romans 3 tells us, He is our propitiation and not only does He take upon Himself what He didn’t deserve, He gives us something that we could never deserve either! His perfect righteousness. Whenever God looks at you as a born-again Christian, He see’s the perfect blood of Jesus and you are credited with Christ’s righteousness. You are justified. You are innocent. You are free in Christ! But justification, as great as it is, doesn’t lead to a new family. That’s adoption.

Adoption is the greatest picture in the New Testament about our spiritual condition. We were lost. We were dead. Yet, God adopted us. He plucked us out of the kingdom of darkness and put us into His kingdom of light. Not only are we declared innocent, we are now declared apart of His forever family. The judge of the universe has become our Father who welcomes us with open arms just as the Father of the prodigal Son welcomed him home with open arms and a warm embrace… That’s great news! This is the picture of the New Testament family of God - we are adopted sons and daughters not because of our goodness or works or last name or church attendance… But because God in His infinite wisdom chose to love us and adopt us and bring us into His family. That’s grace, church! Even if you didn’t have a good home/family experience growing up or even if your family isn’t what you’d like for it to be today… The great hope in Scripture is that as a Christian, you are now a part of an everlasting, loving family and God is your heavenly Father and you have millions of brothers and sisters. This family isn’t perfect here and now, but through Jesus we have the hope that one day we will be perfected and through His grace, we can experience unity and love and forgiveness unlike anything this world has to offer. Even if your earthly family is rough, you can find belonging and satisfaction in your heavenly family today!

This should be the picture of the Christian home in our secular and cold world. We should be a beacon of joy, grace, and light. We should point people to Jesus as we love on one another and as we share the joy of our adoption with those around us. Having been adopted I can tell you this - not a day goes by where I don’t think to myself about where I’d be if I weren’t adopted by my parents. There’s a chance I wouldn’t even be alive… There’s a high likelihood that I’d have more problems than I have. There’s zero chance I would’ve met Lindsey. There’s zero chance Gabriel would be here. There’s zero chance I’d be at FBC Salem as your senior pastor. How did all of this happen? Because of God. Because a husband and wife chose to adopt a 4 month old child with a long list of problems and they said they’d love that boy like he was their own. See, an adopted child might not be born in their mommas tummy but they’re born in their parents’ heart.

What about you? Do you think about how different your life would be if you weren’t adopted by God? How the whole trajectory of your life would look different if you weren’t saved by grace through faith in Jesus? The greatest news in the world is that Jesus saves sinners and we have the opportunity each day to share that truth with others and we start doing this in our family. We love one another as Christ loves us. Husbands, you love your wife and you’re called to die for her as Christ loved and died for His bride. Wives you love your husband. Parents you love your children. Children, you love your parents. Why do we love?

1 John 4:19 CSB

19 We love because he first loved us.

The family points the world to Jesus. The purpose of the family is to grow in our walk with the Lord. Parents train their children up in the way they should walk, the fear and admonition of the Lord. Discipleship happens at church, but it must be a priority in the home for the Christian family too. Are you pointing your family to Jesus in the way you live and the things you say? Is your family pointing your neighbors to Jesus Christ and His love and Gospel?

Ultimately the family might be under attack but Christ has already won the victory for His bride. As we grow in our knowledge and understanding of who He is and what He is calling us to do, we will stand in this fight and make a lasting impact on this world through our family and through this church. Let’s continue to trust in Christ and give Him thanks for what He has done for us!