A Forever Family - Partners In Faith

5.24.15
"Partners In Faith: The Family and Church"

What is the purpose of the family biblically? How does this purpose intersect with the purpose of the church? I believe that above all else, the purpose that God had originally intended for the family and for the church is one and the same: to raise up individuals as future saints. Paul references believers as saints throughout his writings. It is a descriptive name given to those who were once enemies of God (sinners) who now stand redeemed and righteous (saints). Throughout the Old Testament God directs individuals and finally nations to instruct others about Him and His ways. In the New Testament we read that God sent his son Jesus to be the living example of what He pictures as fulfilling that instruction. We are commended to imitate Jesus and be like him. In essence, to be saints. I present three questions to explore the partnership between Family and Church.

Before we explore those questions, let me preface the discussion with an understanding from Ephesians 4:11-12. In these verses, Paul writes that Christ gave different gifts and abilities to different individuals. No one person or group has them all. And Christ did this for the purpose of equipping his people (the saints) so that the body of Christ (the church) may be built up. If this is true, then the church and the family both have parts to play in development of future saints.

Question #1

How should the family and the church equip these future saints?

Answer: Through the revelation and application of God's instructions.

Two ways we can do this. First, through instruction from God's Word. In 2 Timothy 3:16 we read that "all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness." Ah, study the Bible. Teach the Bible. Be the Bible. I feel a Mr. Miyagi montage approaching. This seemingly simple directive is actually difficult to complete. Who among us feels intimidated by scripture? Who has not feared the raising of a hand with a question about some obscure or even well known bible passage?  Over the years I have learned to face that question with the secure knowledge that I do not know everything. And if the person who is asking does not know, then we are on equal ground. But, and this is a huge change in my thinking, if we both recognize that we do not know, then we can begin together to seek out the answer! And if that person and myself are both Christians, filled with the Holy Spirit, then we have the clear advantage of knowing the author of the scripture and can seek him out for explanation.

Besides an issue of feeling inadequate to teach scripture, I believe that we approach the Bible like we do a math book. It is hard to understand, filled with truth, and seems to have little application in our daily lives. I have an eighth grade daughter and together we suffered through Pre-Algebra 1 and 2 this past year. Calculating angles and unknown variants seems at times pointless, frustrating, but in the end truthful. I was asked on more than one occasion from my daughter why she had to learn this, since obviously we do not use it in our daily lives. And I would agree, except the other day I was trying to figure out how much rock to buy to fill my landscaping. I had the measurements of the area, which inconveniently did not fit the traditional square, circle, triangle shapes that are easier to calculate. Instead, I stood at the home improvement store with my smart phone searching math web sites on how to calculate the area of odd shaped landscaping. My daughter was not with me, but I wish she would have been. It is an example of the second way in which we can share the revelation of God's instruction: demonstrate it.

In 1 Corinthians 4:6 and in 11:1, Paul tells the believers in Corinth to do what he did. He is telling them, "Hey, you wanna be like Christ? You wanna know how to act and think and love? Then act and behave like me. You saw me and how I did it, now you do it."  How should the parents and leaders of the family and church teach the Words of God? We should live it out in our daily lives. Do we know about God's grace, or do we act on it? Did we read about forgiveness, of do we actually forgive? Do we sing about God's peace, or are we at peace when the storms of life hit us? Our future saints are watching and learning. Would you want your children acting and thinking like you in the future? Are we behaving in such a way that like Paul we could instruct our saints in training to "be like us"?

Question # 2

Why should the family and church equip these future saints?

Answer: To promote unity and maturity.

In verse 12 of Ephesians 4, Paul writes that the body of Christ should be built up. He tells us why in verse 13: "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Unity and maturity, no commonly seen in our families today. Flip a coin, take your wedding vows, either way you have a 50% chance of guessing correctly how it will turn out. Sadly, the statistics do not tell us all of the hurt and future ramifications the split in a family can cause. But if we are about the business of preparing future saints, then we must learn to be united. Paul's comparison of the human body to the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 is spot on. The foot needs the hand, and the ear needs the eye, and the whole body needs the head. It is true of the body of Christ. We need to stop idolizing "prominent" members of the body (think celebrity pastors and authors) and realize that the true body of Christ are those who sit in the pews and chairs of sanctuaries around the world every Sunday. We must not see the "professional minister" as the one who is out there doing God's work. We are all growing to fullness of Christ. Long before I became a vocational minister, I was ministering. My vocation changed, not my purpose.

Having future saints united is well and good, but God desires for them to be mature as well. I recall on numerous occasions as a child conspiring together with my brother and sister to be united in aggravating my parents. When we would be misbehaving in the car and my mother would tell us to "act right". We three kids would break out into a song and dance routine we had developed for just the moment: We would begin by wiggling in our sits as though we were dancing and point our thumbs to the right. Along with our choreography we would chant the line "Act to the right. Act to the right." We would then proceed to mimic the same motions but to our left followed with the chant "Act to the left." We found this very humorous. My mother did not. In this example, we were united. But we lacked maturity. As a parent now myself, I see why my parents were trying to instruct us in proper behavior in various situations. Over the years I have encountered new and sometimes awkward settings that I was able to navigate because of the maturity my parents poured into us. We as the family of God owe it to the future saints to prepare them for being mature in Christ.

Question #3

How can we measure our effectiveness?

Answer: We grow and do our part! 

Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:16 that if we all do our part to equip the saints, in order to promote unity and create maturity, then we can be joined with Christ while the body "grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." My son is taller now at age 9 than he was at age 7. I know this because I can see it, and because we began marking the kitchen door frame with dates and lines indicating his height at various stages in his life. This does not work for grown ups. My line does not change, except to eventually shrink a little as I get older. So how can we as "grown up Christians" measure our effectiveness?

a.) Model works of ministry at home and in the community. Do we just "do church" inside the building on Sunday morning or are we "being the church" in our daily lives?
b.) Model biblical fidelity in family roles. Men should be husbands. Leading. Loving. Protecting. Praying. With this role comes great responsibility. Women should respect her husband and follow him as he follows Christ. This is not a position of submission to the point of objectifying the wife. It is a position of partnership where both parents lead, but one must set the course. As a woman is loved and protected by her husband, she is more likely to follow and trust in his leadership. And finally, and this is a big one: children do not run the house! Parents must be parents. They are the ones leading and instructing and doing so for the purpose of developing future saints. If we let the kids lead, we will all be singing and dancing along to "Act to the right, act to the right."
c.) Model a biblically defined marriage. We must strive to model for our future saints how a biblically based marriage is the healthiest, most loving, and safest place to be in the world. If we are meeting each others needs as we can and seeking to serve God the best that we can, then we will be modeling a better tomorrow.

It is my prayer that this week you will seek someone to share this with. We must act now to turn the tide of broken families, fractured youth, and a dismal future. We seek to have forever families that will promote the Christ-centered lifestyle for the world to see. We seek to develop future saints.