The Biblically Functioning Family

I want to encourage you to take out your Bibles and go ahead and make your way to John 14. This morning we are not going to be looking at one text in particular, but we're going to be looking at a couple of different texts.

But the first one we will be looking at is John 14 and 15 when we get there. So if you want to go ahead and have your Bible open and ready. A few years ago, I gave a series of messages on the subject, a biblically functioning church that actually became somewhat revolutionary within our congregation as it was the impetus for us to revamp our church constitution.

We changed our church name and our identity within the community was changed. We demonstrated that we were a church which was focused on Scripture and had a desire to be what we called it a biblically functioning church.

It actually even became a book. We now have a book which was put together as a result of those messages entitled a biblically functioning church. Well, as we now look into the future, I see yet another important thing, an important battle, if you want to call it that, which we need to engage as a congregation.

We have fought the battle for the biblically functioning church, and we continue to understand what it means and continue to grow in that direction. But what we must understand is that the church itself is not a singular group, but rather it is a group of groups which come together as the body of Christ.

The groups within the church are the families which make up the church. The church itself is a family, but it is a family of families. We need desperately to understand what it means to have biblically functioning families because biblically functioning families will promote a healthy biblically functioning church.

The family is a microcosm of the church. If a church is filled with unhealthy families, the church itself will be unhealthy. Conversely, if the church is filled with healthy biblically functioning families, then the church itself will also too be healthy.

One will grow out of the other, or one will be held down and stagnated by the other. It is the natural outgrowth of life. So, that is the subject of today's message. We are going to be talking about a biblically functioning family.

I want to ask that before we go any further, we stop and we ask God to bless this time of study, that He bless me as I preach and keep me from error. So, let's bow our heads. Our Father and our God, we thank You for this opportunity to study Your Word.

I pray that You would keep me from error as I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error. And I pray that You would also open the hearts of Your people to the truth and put a hedge of protection around them.

And Lord God, protect them from any error. For God, we want to know what Your Word says. And we pray that our church would continue to be a biblically functioning church and that the homes which make up this church would seek as well to glorify You.

Be with us now as we study Your Word, O God, as Your Holy Spirit is our teacher, in Christ's name, Amen. Over the last few years, I get emails all the time from different ministry groups, all of them trying to give the latest and greatest thing that is the surefire way to grow your church.

It's always something, you know. I get four or five emails a week from Sermon Central or Sermon Audio or Sermon This or Sermon That or ChristianityToday .com, all of these different things that I have inevitably signed up for over the years unknowingly because I'll go to download something or something and I'll end up getting emails from these places.

One of the things that wasn't, isn't really recently, but over the last maybe ten years, that really has taken hold is the idea that the way to really make a church work is through the ministry of the small groups.

That you've got to have small group ministry that, you know, that occurs in homes and you've got to get people in their homes and you've got to have these small group ministries going on with the church.

And I'm not opposed to that in any way. We've done different types of small group ministry here at the church and we continue to want to see those things happen. So I want to make sure from the get go that I am not in any way being negative about small groups, small group ministry or small group fellowship.

I'm not. However, what I want us to think about this morning is that the genuine small group of the church are the families. That's the small groups in the church. Each family, no matter how big or small, each family represents in and of itself a small group within the church.

Some people break their backs to have church folks come to their homes, have Bible study and prayer time, but they never have Bible study and prayer time with their own families and their own children in their own homes unless they have an audience.

They're more than willing to feed their Christian friends while their children's starving for the Word of God. Instead, we cart our children off to youth groups and the parents outsource their responsibility for ministry of their children to someone else.

It's like preparing a gourmet meal for our friends and then taking our children to McDonald's. You say, well, the kids love McDonald's. Yes, but it's not healthy. They do love McDonald's, but it's not what's best for them.

I've been waiting all week to say that. I really haven't thought about that. I was thinking about gourmet meals and I thought, you know, we do all this work to have these small groups. And yet, what are we doing with our families?

What are we doing when no one else is around to see what we do? What are we doing when we're not doing it as a show unto men, but as a work unto God for our kids? That's the focus of today's message. Each of our families constitute the small groups which make up this church.

And while we need inter-family fellowships, we first need to be concerned about whether or not our homes are seeking to live for Christ. Are our homes being the small discipleship groups that they are supposed to be or are they just the places wherein we are living like the world between Sunday services?

I'll ask the question again. Are our homes being the small discipleship groups that they're supposed to be or are they just the places where we live like the world between Sunday services? That is a vital question about the health of our families and it will affect the health of the church.

The Three Pillars of a Biblically Functioning Family

So we ask the question, what is a biblically functioning family? What is a biblically functioning family? Well, if you like to take notes, here's the outline. It's very simple. Three things. There are three pillars.

If you think about the way something is necessary, it has to have three pillars to stand, three legs for a stool. You have to have these three things for it to stand or else it will fall over. The three things that are necessary in a biblically functioning family.

Number one is the proper love for Christ. Number two is the proper love for your spouse. And number three is the proper love for your children. Now I know some of you do not have spouses, so at the point at which we get to that part of the sermon, I am going to address those of you who are single in your situation because I know it is different.

And I don't want to simply leave you out or make you think that I wasn't concerned about your situation because I am. Some of you are widows, widowers. Some of you are not yet married. And everybody's in a different situation.

I don't want anybody to feel left out. So keep that in mind. That will come. But the focus is going to be our love for Christ, our love for our spouse and our love for our children. Because those three pillars are the things that are going to undergird a biblically functioning family.

Notice I say proper love. I have done so because I know a lot of people who would claim they love their spouses, that they love their children and they even love Jesus. But the question is not do we have an emotional love because emotional love is easy.

Love, my friends, is not an emotion. Love is a verb. Love is something you do. It's not something that you feel. You feel it. Well, let me back up. It is something that you feel, but love itself is an action.

It's something we do for one another. We love each other. It is a verb and we need to think of it that way. So let's look first at the proper love for Christ, the proper love for Christ. What do we mean when we say proper love for Christ?

Well, as I said before, many people claim to love Jesus. I mean, think about it. We just got out of the Christmas season. A lot of people, they shout, you know, Merry Christmas and they use the name of Christ in various ways.

And people of all types of religious backgrounds will claim some type of fidelity to Jesus. It's amazing. In Islam, Jesus is a prophet. In Judaism, depending on who you speak to, Jesus is considered to be one of their prophets.

And even unbelievers talk about Jesus's teachings on forgiveness and his teachings on tolerance and love. And they lift up Christ. Oh, we love Jesus. We love Jesus. But according to him, who in, by the way, gets to determine what the love of him constitutes.

According to him, love for Christ has one very distinctive quality. Obedience. Now we go to our text, John 14, verse 15. Now, John 14 is that very powerful passage. Most of us are familiar with it. If you've ever been to a Christian funeral, you've heard this.

Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me and my Father's house and many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? You know, that passage.

And then verse 6 of John 14. I am the way, the truth and the life. And no one comes in the Father except by me. That important passage of exclusivity in regard to Christ is there in John 14. Well, then in verse 15, he says this.

He says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. This is how right away we know that many people who say they love Jesus simply do not. Because Jesus tells us that love for him involves one thing specifically, and that is obedience to him.

He uses what we call the if-then principle. It's a linguistic principle most of you are familiar with, especially if you have children. You know the if-then principle. The if-then principle works like this.

If you go outside and get mud on your clothes, then I am going to punish you. Right? If-then. We know that. We have kids. We know how that works. We say, if you don't go clean your room, then you cannot go and spend the night with your friend.

If-then. Right? Well, that same linguistic principle is here used by Christ. Even though he does not use the word then, it is implied within the context of the verbiage. Because what he says is, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

If you think of it as if-then. If you love me, then you will keep my commandments. It is the natural outgrowth one to the next. He is saying it is the necessary result of love toward him. If you love him, you will keep his commandments.

Now the thing is, we have jettisoned this in our modern culture. We have jettisoned obedience. All you have to do is believe. It doesn't matter how you live. And such a thing is nonsense. And not found in Scripture.

That it doesn't matter as long as you believe. The Bible says that if your faith does not affect how you live, then your faith is dead. It is not real. James chapter 2, if you want a reference for that.

We say we have faith and have not the works to accompany it, then our faith is dead. Our faith must affect how we live or it is not real. It is a dead faith. It is words and nothing more. So Christ says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And just in case we think that maybe that is a one time thing. You know, anytime something is only said once, we have to compare it to other Scripture. And that is true. Analogium Scriptorum, the Latin is the analogy of Scripture.

We must compare the Bible with the Bible to make sure that our interpretation is correct. Well, he says again in verse 21 of the same chapter. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

That is saying the same thing, just in a different way. The one who keeps my commandments, it is he that loves me. He then goes on in verse 23 of the same chapter to say, Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him.

And we will come to make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me. You see, Christ, then he turns it around.

He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. The one who doesn't love me won't. It's a natural thing. John was so convinced of this idea. Remember, John is the one writing. Jesus is speaking, but John is writing.

He's so convinced by this idea, he continually makes it a point to reiterate that Christ said this. Look at chapter 15. Go over one chapter. Shouldn't even have to turn a page. Go down to verse 10. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

Just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. Again, he's telling him this. He goes on to say in verse 20 or rather, he says, I'm sorry. I looked at two places at once. He goes on to say, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him.

That's the point. If we love Christ and we say we do, we will keep his word. And again, I said John makes this point. Turn over to 1 John. Remember, 1 John is toward the back of the Bible. 1 John chapter 5 and verse 2.

1 John chapter 5 and verse 2 says this. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome.

Right there. This is how we know we love him. That we want to do what he commands. This is what's so frustrating to me. Especially when I speak to people who are unbelievers. And they'll say, well, I love Jesus.

And I'll say, but Jesus said that, you know, we should be doing these things. Well, I don't want to do those things. But you say you love Jesus, but I don't want to do those things. I don't want to change.

I like my lifestyle. I like that I'm living in sin. I'm happy living in sin. Well, then you don't love Jesus. It's not hard. It's so clear from the text of Scripture. Somebody says, well, pastor, do you think you're perfect?

No, not at all. I battle sin just like you do. The question is, do you love it? Do you live in it? Do you yearn for it? Or do you yearn for holiness? That's the difference. I always use this analogy, but enough new people here never heard it before.

You got the dead fish analogy. The water's going down the river and the fish are going down the river because they're dead. If one of them comes to life and he starts going back up the river, it's a fight.

But he's alive. That's us. When we're dead, we go right along with the world. We go right into the sin. We flow with the flow of the world. When Christ gives us new life and our regeneration of the spirit occurs, we then have a battle.

Because the world, the flesh and the devil want us going with it, not against it. Since you're already here in 1 John, turn over to 2 John. 2 John's really short. Only one chapter, but look at verse 6.

And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. This is love. We walk according to the commandment.

That's love for Christ. So when you ask me first, Pastor, what's proper love for Christ? Obedience to Him. We have to, in our lives, in some form or fashion, come to the point where we realize that life for the Christian is a life of obedience.

It's obedience to Christ. So that's number one. How do we have a biblically functioning family? It begins with love for Christ. And proper love for Christ is obedience. But now let's look at number two.

Proper Love for Your Spouse

Number two. Proper love for our spouse. Where else would we go except for Ephesians 5? I mean, really, I mean, I've looked around. I looked for different passages, but I mean, just go to Ephesians 5 and you will see the great exposition of what love between spouses is supposed to look like.

Ephesians 5 and verse 22. I mean, it begins up further than that, but we'll start at verse 22. If you've ever been to a Christian wedding, you've heard this one. Wives, submit unto your husbands, ask of the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and He Himself is Savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also let wives submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, 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.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. The Bible here gives a beautiful exposition of what marriage is supposed to look like. Mutual affection demonstrated by two people wherein both understand the needs of the other one and seek to fulfill them.

And it is a relationship which is supposed to last perpetually. Just as Jesus tells us in Matthew 19, what God brings together, let no man separate. That is supposed to be the way it is. Yet in our society, marriage is not given the respect or the reverence which it deserves and possibly once was given.

I think there was a time in American culture where marriage was given a certain respect and a certain position within society and it has slowly and slowly devolved and degraded into what it is today. And for many, it is an institution that they consider to be dead and lost to history.

It is not worth anything except for redefinition. That is the only thing that it is important for now is that we must redefine it. As Al Mohler said, the president of Southern Baptist Seminary, he said, we are now living in a society which has decided to declare moral rebellion against the very notion of a normative marriage.

It has declared rebellion against a normative marriage. What is a normative marriage? A man leaves his father and mother, joins to his wife, the two become one flesh, that that relationship goes on in perpetuity.

Now, of course, Mohler is talking about the recent decisions in courts across our land to recognize homosexual couples and marriages and polygamous relationships and things like that as legitimate. That is what he is referring to.

But these are not the only problems. Marriage has been under assault for better than 40 years. It has been under assault by a cancer called divorce. Couples no longer are long-suffering with one another, but rather they look for any occasion to jettison the relationship for greener pastures.

Oh, Pastor, this is hard. Well, that is OK. Should we not say it just because it is hard to hear? Should it not be brought up just because it is hard to think about? Everybody talks about traditional marriage and how marriage is important and everything.

The church has forever sanctioned divorce after divorce after divorce and now we are mad about gay marriage? Now, I do not think I am supporting gay marriage in any way. I am not. It is a sin. But why did we just give up on divorce?

I recently saw a cartoon where an elderly woman was being asked by her very young granddaughter, how were you able to survive 60 years of marriage? And the grandmother responded, she says, well, when I was a child, when something was broke, we had to get it fixed.

We did not just buy a new one. I thought that was powerful for a cartoon. But that is the thing. We live in a throwaway society. Many people believe their lives, they live their lives ready to throw away anything that is inconvenient, anything that is a perceived unhappiness.

Think about the abortion epidemic. Thousands of babies a day. Why? They are inconveniences. And so we throw them away. Now, I am not saying divorce is the unforgivable sin. It is not. What I am saying is that it is a symptom of a very larger problem in our world.

We no longer appreciate the great responsibility which marriage is. A man whose responsibility it is to love his wife and the wife whose responsibility it is to respect her husband. We do not understand these positional placements that God has given us for marriage.

And they are no longer exalted. And as a result, marriage has lost its place. Beloved, by the way, I always like to point this out. The Bible multiple times tells the husband to love his wife. Do you know it never tells a wife to love her husband?

It never does. It says wives respect your husbands. And husbands love your wives. The reason is very simple. Men need to be told to love. Women don't. It is a natural nurturing part of maternity that a woman would love her husband.

But respect is harder. It is harder to understand the position that is given to the father, the husband and the home. And that is what she needs to be commanded to do. Thus, the two are given the commands that are most needed.

Husbands, do not overlord your wife but love her. And wives, do not seek to overlord him but respect him. It is a powerful thought. But the Bible gives it to us. One of the pillars of the family is the love that exists between a husband and a wife.

And let me tell you something. Some of you, again, I mentioned earlier. I was going to bring this up. So I will do it now. Some of you may be thinking, I am not married. So this doesn't apply to me. So I will talk to you now.

Your turn. If you are one of the ones that aren't married. And I am not rolling my sleeves up for you. I am just getting hot. Some people say, I am not married. So it doesn't apply to me. So let me speak directly to you if you are not married.

And let me tell you something. I don't ever want to be accused of oversimplifying a situation. But in my mind, single folks can be broken down into two groups. And that is that they are either trying to find someone to love and marry or they are not.

If you are single, you are either trying to find someone to love and to marry or you are not. And I kind of say it to you, you are either single and seeking or single and satisfied. And really, it is one or the other.

So if you are single and satisfied, that is actually a blessing. The Apostle Paul tells in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 8, he says, to the unmarried and to the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.

But if they cannot exercise self-control, then they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. That is where the Bible just gets straight up real. It just does. That is just real.

The Apostle Paul, it just did me. Listen, if you are unmarried and that is good for you and you can do that, God bless you, use all of your energy to worship Christ. Because that is what you do. If you are single, you don't have that partner that you have to spend time focusing on.

So you can now focus all on Christ. As Paul said, that is what he was able to do. So if you are single, that is a blessing. But not everybody is built for that. I know I am not. I tell you what, my wife and I, I thank God for our relationship.

I couldn't do this alone. And that is the Apostle Paul. He is not making people, I think some people say, well he says if you cannot exercise self-control, people take offense to that. That is not, don't take offense to that.

Listen to what he is trying to say. If this is not what you are gifted to, then you need to get married. You need to find somebody to love and get married. Because you know what? Not everyone is gifted in that way.

So to those of you, I want to speak to those of you, and I know there are precious few in the room. I am not going to look at anybody. I don't want to make anybody uncomfortable. But for those of you who are single and you are seeking a person to be in relationship with, let me give you a consideration.

I am looking right at the ground, so nobody thinks I am pointing at them. The most important component of a godly relationship is not just that we love the person and that the person loves us. The most important component of a godly relationship is that you and that person can love Christ together.

So when you are looking, you need to look for someone you can love and will love you back. But you also need to be looking for somebody you can love Christ with. Pastor, I found a great woman. But she is an atheist.

Keep looking. Well, I can change her. The apostle Paul says don't. Befriend her. Share the gospel with her. Do not marry an unbeliever. It is not good to be yoked together with one of unlike faith. So find somebody you can love Christ with and that is the foundation of a strong family.

So the first pillar is love for Christ. Proper love for Christ. The second pillar is proper love for your spouse. And again, if you are looking for a spouse, then you have to find somebody you love Christ with.

And if you are not, then you just keep focusing on the first one. Love Christ. You are not looking for somebody you are happy and single and that is great. You keep loving Christ. Number three. Last one.

Proper Love for Your Children

Proper love for children. If it is right to say that marriage has been drug down into the mud by our modern culture, then child rearing has been trampled and spit upon. Parenting used to be considered a blessing and a gift from God.

But now it is considered a burden from which many people shrink from and are unwilling to bear. The Bible calls, this is not mine, this is from another man, but I am quoting him on this. The Bible calls debt a curse and children a blessing.

But in our culture we apply for curses and we reject the blessings. Yeah, I see some people writing that down. I did too when I first heard it. We apply for the curse of debt and yet we reject the blessing of children.

And the Bible says the other way around. It says debt is a curse and children are a blessing. Turn with me and we'll look at a few scriptures on child rearing real quick. Just turn to Psalm 127. Psalm 127 verse 3.

Psalm 127 verse 3 says, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.

He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gates. Beloved, notice that this text says that children are a heritage and a reward and that there is a blessing for the man whose quiver is full.

Now if you don't know what a quiver is, an archer is a person who shoots a bow and arrow and the quiver is where he keeps all of his arrows. If you remember the old Robin Hood, he would have that leather sheath on his back and it would have all the arrows in the sheath.

Well, that's a quiver. And the idea here is that your children, each one of them is a blessing. And he says, Blessed is the man whose quiver is full. Blessed is the man who's got all these arrows, all these children.

But our modern culture, it rejects that idea. The idea of having multiple children and many children, we just reject it out of hand as unnecessary and irresponsible. Modern parents go by the mantra, A boy for me, a girl for you.

That's it for us. Thank God we're through. Parents with multiple children are often looked at with great disdain. Consider the Duggar family. Now I'm not a big reality TV guy and I don't watch this show very much, but my wife's been watching it recently.

There's a family out somewhere in the Midwest like 19 kids. Somebody says, Oh, that's irresponsible. That leaves a huge carbon footprint. Really? Don't bring me that nonsense. But anyway, the whole thing about, Oh, they got this big family.

They take care of them. They're responsible with them. They train them. They teach them. Who are we to say that that is bad? The Bible says it's a blessing. But you get online and you see the things, the evil things that are said about these people because they've exercised their God-given ability to have children and many children and have their quiver full.

Now here's the reality. Not every parent is called to raise 19 kids. Hallelujah. But however many children God has given to us, whether it be, you know, we have three now and we pray God might one day open Jennifer's womb again.

We don't know. The three is good. We're happy. We know we have the Frazier family has multiple children. We have the Stoddard family that has a bunch of kids and they've been sick for weeks because when one of them gets sick, it goes all through the house.

But, you know, when we look around and we see these families, it's a blessing. But it doesn't matter. Even if you only have one, you have a responsibility and a reward from God. And your responsibility as a parent is to take care of that child.

You might be saying some of you, I know some of you. Well, I'm a grandchild. I'm a grandparent now. It's over. No, no, it's not. You just got a generation down. You don't have to change diapers anymore, but you're still a responsible party in the raising of this child.

So you don't get off the hook just because you're a grandparent today. We cherish the reward that Christ has given to us. How? How do we cherish it? How are we responsible with this thing that we've been told that we have to properly raise our children, properly love our children?

Well, there's three things. And this is the last. I know some of you are getting kind of nervous, so I'm going a little long this morning. Don't get too nervous. It'll be all right. Three things very quickly.

Number one, how do we love, how do we properly love our children? Number one, we model Christlike behavior. What you do in front of your children will always weigh more than what you say to your children.

Always. What you do in front of them will always be more important than what you say to them. Because if your words do not match your actions, all you will have is hypocrisy to give to them. I remember one time, many years ago, when I was, but a wee lad, I was youth director in this church when I was 19 years old.

And there was a family that was coming at the time. And the father was a very difficult man. I know they're no longer here. I know none of you would know them because it's been a long time ago. But the son, he was a broken young boy because the father was a very difficult man.

And I knew this because I had difficulties with him. But the thing that hurt most was when the son and I would try to talk about the gospel, that we would try to talk about Christ. And I would try to share with him and his sister the glories of Christ and the truth of the word of God.

The only thing that he could tie himself to was the fact that if my dad is a Christian, then I don't want to be one. And he and his sister both are to this day living as unbelievers. And it breaks my heart.

The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 be imitators of Christ. I'm sorry, excuse me, let me say that again. He says in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 1 be imitators of me as I imitate Christ. Be imitators of me as I imitate Christ.

That is a word for parents because that is what we are supposed to be able to tell our kids. I am working to imitate Christ. There was a song a few years ago, a Christian artist. Don't look at me if you're looking for perfection.