FAMILY, GOD’S DESIGN
09/08/2013
The new Pope Francis’ first talk
was entitled, “The Church as the Family of God. Pope Francis exhorted Catholics
and Christians all over the world of the importance of belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ
Sadly, the fabric and the morals of the family
in this country and the world over have been eroding in the past few decades. This affects all of the society including the Church. In
the midst of these devastating trends it was appropriate for the pope to call
the world back to the importance of family and especially the Church as the
family of God.
After God, if there is one thing I
am passionate about, it is my marriage and my family. I am a family man. I love
my family. My family means the world the world to me. But my passion doesn’t end there, I want to
see other marriages and families thrive.
Why is it such a big deal you may ask? Today I would like to make a case
for families in general ever more so for healthy families. Later on we will talk about the Church as the
family of God. But for today let us look
at the Bible says about families?
I. THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF A
FAMILY.
Can human beings survive without
relationships? A small boy once asked, “Who did God love before there was a
world? He knew that God is love, and he
wondered how God could live without someone to love! None of us can live
without relationship.
It forms the very core of our
humanity, and it is core of who God is too. He always lived in a joyful, loving
relationship of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us that we are
made in his image; we are also designed to live in relationship.
God’s highest model of human
relationship is marriage. These days several people are trying to redefine or
rather reinvent a new definition of marriage. Can a few individuals or the
Supreme Court really change what God has ordained and established since the
ages past? As futile as their attempts may be they are bound to fail in the
long run. What is God’s definition of marriage? We have to go back to the first
marriage that was ever performed where God himself was present. In fact He
alone orchestrated it (in those days there was no Christian singles.com) as
well as performed it. Let me take you to the first wedding scene.
After creating everything God saw
it and said it was good, for the first time he ever said that something was not
good was after he created man. It was not that man was not good but it was not
good for him to be alone. So he fashioned the woman out of his rib and brought
her before Adam. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh; she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.
Then God pronounced the wedding
blessing with these words, “For this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Thousands of
years later Jesus reaffirmed it saying, “For this reason a man will leave his
father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let
man not separate.” (Mark 10:7)
This is what Mathew Henry the 18th
century, most trusted and widely quoted commentator said of the first marriage:
“Marriage is honorable, but this surely was the most honorable marriage that
ever was, in which God himself had all along an immediate hand. Marriages (they
say) are made in heaven: we are sure this was, for the man, the woman, the
match, were all God’s own work; he, by his power, made them both, and
now, by his ordinance, made them one. God, as her Father,
brought the woman to the man, as his second self, and a help-meet for him. When
he had made her, he did not leave her to her own disposal; no, she was his
child, and she must not marry without his consent. The wife that is of God’s
making by special grace, and of God’s bringing by special providence, is likely
to prove a help-meet for a man.”[2]
We know the rest of the story:
Adam slept with his wife Eve and she gave birth to her first Child. This was
what she said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man. Later she
gave birth to his brother Abel. That was the beginning of the first family. The
structure of families runs throughout the pages of the Bible. The word family
occurs 205 times in the Bible in comparison to the word community which occurs
only 85 times. The term family is much more personal and intimate than
community. Several scriptures explain that God wants people to live in families
not as lone rangers.
Psalm 22:27, “All the ends of the
earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the
nations will bow down before him.” Psalm
96:7, “Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord Glory
and strength.” These two scriptures indicate God’s intentions for all the
families of the earth.
Does that mean that there is no
place for singles in the over all plan of God?
No! Singles too can find their satisfaction, fulfillment
and purpose in God, the Bible gives us superb examples of such singles. I think of the apostle Paul and the widow
Anna, in fact the apostle Paul throws out a challenge for singlehood in 1
Corinthians chapter 7, he states that an unmarried man or woman is concerned
about the Lord’s affairs –how he can please the Lord- But a married man or
woman is concerned about the affairs of the world, how he or she can please his
wife or her husband. What do you think?
I do believe that some remain
single and celibate due to a special call of God on their lives, others become
single due to divorce or death of their spouse, many are single not out of choice
while others do stay single out of choice. Whatever the cause for singleness
may be, God’s design and intention is that people don’t remain lonely and
isolated. It was never good for a man to
be alone then and it is never good for man to be alone now.
The following scriptures explain the
heart of God for the single and lonely. God
sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” Psalm 68:6, if not in a family
of their own, in the family of God which we will look at later. How about the
orphans, widows and who have lost their families? Does God care for them? God
has made special provisions for this category of people: Ex 22: 22-24, “Do not
take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I
will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you
with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.”
By reading these scriptures we come
to realize that God’s general intention is that men and women will make a
family and create a loving, and nurturing environment for the over all well being
of each other and the children they may receive. In return they will go out and
build their own families where love, acceptance, forgiveness, peace and harmony
are hallmarks. Families are the places we learn how to love, give, share,
accept, forgive and serve one another. That is how God wants us to function. Yet
many families are not functioning at all as God intended them to function.
Selfishness, pride, anger, un-forgiveness
and bitterness have disrupted families and caused us to be alienated from God
and each other. The bitter conflicts and
broken relationships we see, all too often reveal how far we’ve strayed from
his original design.
God longs for us to have healthy
relationships, and he gave abundant insights in his Word on how to keep them
strong and healthy. What are the building blocks for healthy marriages and
families? The building blocks are, love, trust, respect, forgiveness, honesty,
clear communication and understanding. Where we see these principles operating,
we see healthy families; and the lack of them makes a family unhealthy and dysfunctional.
The longer I am in ministry the
more I realize how much brokenness there is in this world. So many families are unhealthy and
dysfunctional; which I believe grieves God’s heart. He grieves because the devil has been destroying
marriages and families.
Some of you may have grown up in
homes there was abuse or conflicts were not well handled. As a child you may
have been traumatized and abused by parents, other adults, leaders, teachers
including spiritual ministers. You have been carrying those wounds all
along. You carry those hurts and
unhealed wounds into your marriage, family, work place, society and even into
Church. You may have seen therapists and received a lot of counsel, yet seem to
never get over your childhood traumas. In the process you are hurting, you are
hurting your loved ones and if you are in the church you are hurting the church
as well.
However you don’t have to remain
hurt an unhealed. God in his love and mercy has made a way to find healing for
your brokenness. He invites us to come to him and then to one another, through
repentance and the healing grace of Jesus Christ. Nothing else will fully heal
and restore relationships. If you are in need of healing, and want your
marriage and family and other relationships to be restored then come forward
for prayer as we sing this song. Amen.
