The Benefits of a Christian Family

Today I want to continue my journey of “loving God’s way” by addressing the truth about the benefits of being part of a Christian family.  When we think about family we are forced to use language that is common to human beings.  We know father, mother, children, parents, in-laws, stepchildren, orphans, adoption and so forth.  God uses these words also to tell us the story of His relationship to us because they are familiar but not because they do justice.  The Family of God is not exactly like your family, similar but not exact.  In the Christian family, God is our parent and we are His children.  

Did you get it clearly?  In an authentic Christian family the real father is God.  Unlike our natural fathers He has never made an error or broken a promise.  God has never failed us or abused us.  He has never lead us astray or wounded those we love.  We may think He has, but we would be wrong.  God as father always has the right plan and the correct course of action for us to take.   He can be trusted implicitly and given full access to our lives.

What we call the human family is the place where we learn to practice being kids of our spiritual father.  We learn to trust our human parents so that we can grow in our trust for our real father who is God.  We learn to love and follow our human parents so we can someday courageously and consistently follow our heavenly parent.  We learn to love mom and dad so we can love our God.  Remember the scripture from last week?

We love because he first loved us.  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-21)

In contrast, the world around us has measured fatherhood by a human’s ability to provide the substance of procreation.  Today we even eliminate the need for the human interaction and use just the seed of a man to fertilize the egg of a woman.  The headlines are full of this right now with the octuplets being born.   Dad was just a friend and donor with no role to play in these children.

The world tells us that mothers are baby carriers who should be able to dispose of the life that is in them because it’s their body.  Embryos are considered just the building blocks of people and not really people.  Interestingly we spend hundreds of thousands to rescue a baby born premature in one room, while abortions are performed in the next room.  

As for children, the world describes them as some entitled entity that parents must feel obligated to serve.   We are driven to give them everything they want, even if it causes them harm.  We feed them destructive food or destructive quantities just because we feel guilty if we refuse any wish or desire.  We see parents going into financial crisis because they feel obligated to follow a certain educational path or social experience.

None of these descriptions of mom, dad or kids are representative of the family that God has designed.  God as Father is the giver of life and His loving arms reach out to embrace His offspring at all cost to Himself but with no compromise to Himself.  The Father loves His children, that’s you and your neighbor as we learned last week, with an unconditional way of loving.  God doesn’t love in a male way of loving or female way of loving.  He doesn’t reflect us; we should chose to reflect Him.

“Though I (Jesus) have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father.  In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf.  No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.  I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” (John 16:25-28)

You see God the Father loves you personally because you have come back home to Him through Christ’s sacrifice.  You are not an obligation or toy to be investigated and controlled.  As part of God’s family you’re valuable!  This is our model from our heavenly parent.  If you’ve never opened your heart to God in this way, then receive Christ as your savior today.  Walk away from your way and chose to let Christ into your heart.  You will be rescued and brought into the family of God.

Let’s get back to the benefits of being part of an authentic Christian family.  We must allow God to transcend our limited perspective and for a moment let us use His lenses to see what He sees.  Authentic Christianity changes the landscape of a home.  I’m not talking about religion with it’s rules and dogma but rather Christianity with its capacity to love even the broken members of a family.  A Christian home has the possibility of seeing its members as children that God cares about.  It sees others with compassion because of the amount of compassion it’s received.  Christian families are challenged to focus on those outside their individual lives because God loves humanity.  Christian homes have the ability to forgive and show mercy instead of judgment and condemnation.  

Children in an authentic Christian family have the ability to honor authority because they know it comes from outside the home (in God).  They understand that parents are subject to leadership themselves and are not independent of consequences.  These kids are taught by words and actions that God is in charge and we have made a decision to submit to Him.

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers (3600) served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  (Joshua 24:14-15)

The benefits of an authentic Christian Family are:

• Peace and harmony in the home, not disquieted contention
• Shared responsibility, not one burden bearer
• Safety and joy, not fear and endless sadness
• Access to God and truth, not just your friends or my opinions
• God becomes the source of finances, not the breadwinners
• The scripture becomes the standard for correction, not somebody’s set of rules
• Pleasing God is the focus over performance for others

We started the year with this verse, let’s not loose sight of it already.

Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.  (Psalms 103:1-5)

Notes from Pastor Pasch's February 15, 2009 message; to get a free CD of the complete message, contact Christ's Family Church at (651) 437-2340.