Building Faith in our Family
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Building Faith in Our Family April 25, 2010
Texts: Mark 7:9-13; 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17; Eph. 5:25; 6:4
Ken Shigematsu
Big Idea: Our family is the furnace in which our faith grows.
Prop: back pack, rule of life half-sheet
In the movie Up in the Air George Clooney plays the role of a guy named Ryan Bingham, the consummate corporate soldier. He works as a hired gun helping companies downsize by carrying out their firing.
He also works as a motivational speaker (show photo here). In one of his set speeches he asks the question:
How much does your life weigh?
Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack.
I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. Feel them?
I want you to pack all the people in your backpack…
Start with your casual acquaintances... friends of friends…. and then (gradually) you move the people you trust with your most intimate secrets, brothers, sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. Get them into that backpack. Feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are not those animals.
His message: you can live free, without a commitment to people. And he does. He’s single, he has no kids, and according to his sister Kara he’s never been present for the family he comes from.
So, it’s ironic, when his younger sister Julie’s fiancé Jim gets cold feet on their wedding day, Ryan is asked by his sister Kara to approach Julie’s fiancé, and to approach Jim and persuade him not back out of his wedding with Ryan’s sister.
Ryan reluctantly agrees. He enters a children’s Sunday School room in the church to talk to Jim. Jim says, I was laying there in bed last night and couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about the wedding and the ceremony and all—us buying a house, moving in together, having a kid…having another kid. It begins to snowball. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Spring break. Football games. All of a sudden they are out of school. Getting jobs. Getting married. And then, you know before I know it, I’m a grandparent. I’m retired. Before you know it, I am dead.
I was just thinking, What’s the point? What is the point?... What am I starting here?
Ryan says, Marriage is the most beautiful thing in the world…What everyone aspires to.
Jim says, You never got married. That’s true. Ryan replies. Jim adds, You never tried.
Ryan replies, Well, it’s hard to define try. I am not going to lie. Marriage can be a pain in the ass, and you’re kind of right… I am not the guy you normally want to talk to about all this stuff. Think about it. Your favourite memories? The greatest moments of life? Were you alone?
Jim says, No, I guess not.
Ryan continues, I don’t want to sound like a Hallmark card, but life is better with company. Everyone needs a co-pilot.
Life is more complicated with a co-pilot, a family, a community. There are strings attached. It can be a pain in the posterior. But, as even Ryan concedes, it’s also better. Life is better with a friend, some kind of family, some kind of tribe, some of kind of community to do life with.
If we are followers of Christ, we are not called to a solitary journey. We are called to a group outing. Today as we conclude our series on the rule (or rhythm) of life (prop: the trellis that supports the growth our relationship with God) we are going to look at how our rule relates to our family life. We will survey not one, but several scriptures in the process.
Pray:
If we are followers of Christ, one of our highest calls is to love our family. In Scripture, family does not mean just our nuclear family or family in sense of shared blood, but people we walk most closely with.
The writers of Scripture assume that family is much more broadly defined then just the nuclear family. Theologian Rodney Clapp, points out in his book, Families at the Crossroads, that the picture of a family that most of us take for granted is not something that springs from Scripture, but streams down to us from the nineteenth century European bourgeoise family. While the average household today in North America today is between 2 and 3 people, the average Hebrew household was typically 50 or 100 people.
Sometimes loving our family and those we are closest to can be very difficult: As Ryan Bingham (George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air), family can be a pain in the _____. Life in many ways is simpler without a backpack of people…
But if we are followers of Christ, one of our highest callings is to love our family.
Jesus taught in loving our parents we are loving God (Mark 7:9-13). 1
Jesus, though he himself was single, called on married people to love their spouses. In Jesus’ day a man could divorce his wife for any and every reason. On matters of divorce most Jewish people followed Rabbi Hillel’s teaching who allowed divorce under a wide range of circumstances, even as minor as a wife burning dinner. Unlike today, a divorced woman in Jesus day would not be able to support herself financially. So Jesus God’s teaching on divorce in a more robust way was protecting the well-being of women.
In Paul’s day men treated their wives as chattel property. Men treated regarded their wives as little more than servants, in many cases physically abusing them. Husbands also assumed that it was their right to roam sexually. In the Roman Empire, Paul’s call for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church would have also been completely radical (Ephesians 5:25).2
5 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
The New Testament’s call for adults to love children would have also been radical. In a culture where children were socially powerless, Jesus welcomed and blessed them (Mark 10: 13-16; Luke 18: 15-17). In a time when a father in the Roman empire was allowed to punish his children in any way he saw fit (including selling them into slavery or issuing the death penalty), Paul calls on parents to not exasperate their children, and to nourish them3 in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).4
4 Parents, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
The Scriptures call for us to love members of our family (and remember family in Scripture isn’t simply referring to our nuclear family, but the community of people we are called to do life with).
As we respond to God’s call to love our families—we are not promised that all of our “personal needs” will be met, or that it will always emotionally be fulfilling, or that the people we love will change in the way we want them to change, but we are promised that as we faithfully love those right around us, we ourselves will be changed.
In 1 Peter 1 we read that we are called into places of suffering and struggles so that our faith is of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine. In James 1 we are told to welcome trials and challenges so that we grow in perseverance so that we become mature, not lacking in anything.
2Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4
Gary Thomas in his book Sacred Marriage asks, “What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?
What if the purpose of family was more to make us holy, more than to make us happy? What if the purpose of family was more to refine us, than to have all our personal needs met?
(Of course, we want to happy in marriage and in our family, but what if the higher of those two goals was holiness?)
What if God designed family ideally as a place of unparalleled joy, but also as a furnace to refine us… to humble us, shrink our selfishness, help us to love well?
I’m not suggesting this is easy. When we run into relationship challenges with our parents, families, our spouses—we naturally want to cut and run. But when we cut and run we remain unrefined. With God’ grace, we are to live out our faith in the furnace of our family.
Generally speaking, parents, and mothers in particular, can persevere with their kids. Mothers don’t typically look at their young children and say, “My needs aren’t being met. I want out.” They tend to patiently work things through. We can be much more forgiving of our young children, than we with our parents, siblings, and spouses.
Now, let me be clear, there are times when we have no choice. For sake of our survival we have cut things off with a spouse, and sometimes separation or even divorce is the lesser of the two evils. If we are experiencing ongoing abuse from a family, we must separate from that family member or family.
But we are also called to engage in the struggle of family and community life—not with the mindset of “You’re here to make me happy,” but with heart that says, “With God’s grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.” Family is a furnace that can burn us, even led to the fire of hell, but it can also lead us to heaven. But, let’s say, “With God’ grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.”
For example, let’s live out forgiveness in the furnace of our family.
Forgiveness
Jesus, when teaching us to pray, said , “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6). Paul in Colossians 3:3: “Forgive, as the Lord forgave you.”
Recently I was at a Living Waters ministry fundraiser called A Thousand Whys. During the evening a man named Dave came to the microphone and said, “My wife and I were both committed Christians, but were separated for two years.” He shared that while they knew in their minds that God intended them to stay together as a married couple, because they had hurt each so deeply, they had lost hope in the viability of the marriage. Finally, in a last ditch effort to save their marriage they took Living Waters. Many think Living Waters is ministry that focuses only on sexual addiction, but it helps a person experience working through wounds they have received from their family of origin. With the help of God (working through Living Waters) they were able to forgive each other and they are now back together again.
Marriages and family furnaces are where we can get burned. It’s never easy and it’s almost always a process, but family is a place we can exercise our faith by forgiving others. Paul in Colossians 3:3 said: “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” As we exercise forgiveness with God’s help, we are refined and become more like Jesus. (David Bentall?)
(Optional alternative illus: A week ago Friday I heard David Bentall at prayer breakfast downtown. When David Bentall was in Grade 5. His dad came into the den and told me, “Turn off the television and do your homework.” I said, “Dad, I am watching Casper The Friendly Ghost. Leave me alone!” My dad didn’t threaten to spank me. He didn’t threaten to take away my allowance. He just simply said, “Son, you just can’t be president unless you do your homework. Turn off the TV.”
Beginning that day it was just assumed that I would one day be president our family company. His dad and uncle were senior leaders of the company. David officially joined the company right out of UBC. For the next 10 years he worked hard to succeed his uncle as president. He had been willing to give his life for the company. Then all hell broke loose as his dad and uncle had a bitter falling out. David was caught in the middle of the crossfire. He felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him. My career at our company was arbitrarily cut short. He was surgically removed.
Several years later he met this gentleman who said that he was there when they were plotting everything they did to him. He said, “You are the only person I know who wouldn’t have committed suicide based on what happened to you.”
David said, “During this horrifically painful time, my career and my self-esteem were literally in tatters. I often felt it was not fair what was going on. Like an animal caught in a trap, the more I tried to wriggle free, the worse the jaws of futility tightened around me.”)
Let’s say, “With God’ grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.”
Family is also a place for us to love others. On the night he was betrayed Jesus said to members of his spiritual family, “A new command I give to you, Love one another as I have loved you.” Our society thinks of love as feeling. Something we can’t control. Love is a hole in the ground, something we fall into, but God calls us to stand into love, to make a decision to love. I know its well-worn phrase, but love begins at home.
I may have graduated from a great theological seminary and be the senior pastor of a dynamic church, but if I don’t love my family and those right around me, it doesn’t mean anything.
When I was a single person, I typically traveled on an average of once a month to speak or serve as a consultant. That rhythm altered slightly when I got married, but had to change significantly when our son Joe came into the world. Six weeks after the birth of our son, I went on a week-long ministry trip to Mexico City. My wife pleaded with me not to go, but at the time I felt like my role as the leader of the group that was about to convene in Mexico City made my presence essential. Besides, I had told the group I would be there, and I was too vain and embarrassed to pull out at the last minute. I was hoping that Joe’s sleep habits would magically improve at week six when I was gone, but it tanked. He became colicky--screaming through the entire nights. It was the hardest week of Sakiko’s life. As I look back it was one of the worst decisions of my life (I have made many bad decisions, but that ranks as one of the worst).
After I returned, we had a long talk about my schedule (appropriately, she was doing most of the talking). As a result, I cancelled my work-related travel schedule for the next year to be able to spend more time at home. I set new rhythms for when to be home from work by 5:15 p.m. (Fortunately we live a 13 minutes walk from Tenth.) As you know, if you care for young children, the hour before dinner is one of the hardest of day. I set new guidelines on how many nights out per week (there may be exceptions to the rule, but an exception is by definition an exception, not the norm).
There’s a part of me that loves to travel and serve in various ways (and as Tenth rises in its profile, more invitations seem to come from further afield), but there’s also a bigger part of me that wants to be stay and be present with my family and to be present to what God is doing here. Last week, I was with my son Joey, aka buddy-boy. I was looking at him. Thinking he’s a year and ¾ now. How much do I remember of his face as new born, as a one year old? Some of those memories are fading. I wish I could freeze those precious moments, but I can’t. Time is marching and I don’t want to miss his childhood.
Some of the pastors I went to school with are now on the speaking circuit, pursing national ministries on the side--I don’t feel called by God to that now. Other people can do that. As a person with workaholic tendencies, I would be less than honest if I didn’t at times I feel conflicted, but I feel at peace with the direction I am pursuing. I am not doing it perfectly by a long shot. If you ask me, I’d say I’ve cut back a lot. If you ask my wife, she’s very supportive of my work here, but still I am working an awful lot. I am in process. (But here’s a little secret--I’m discovering that family life is more fulfilling that trying to climb the proverbial achievement ladder.)
With God’ grace, you are I are to live out our faith in the furnace of our family.
Affirmation:
Family can also be a place of affirmation. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up… As a staff a couple of years ago, we decided to stop sending birthday cards from our staff to someone on their birthday. Instead, as a staff during our lunch time we would offer a spoken word of affirmation about our colleague. I know that sounds a bit corny. But, it’s meaningful both for the birthday boy or girl, and also meaningful for those who share the affirmation.
I grew up in family with five siblings. We grew up in a family where we experienced regular, meaningful affirmation from my mom. My dad is person of few words. When he doesn’t want to talk someone, he says, “I don’t speak English.” But, his affirmations when expressed carry a lot of thought and weight. My siblings are in California, Montreal and Vancouver, and we have family conference calls every month or two. At one of our family conference calls a few years ago one of my younger sisters said, “I know it’s sounds stupid to say this, but all of us kids have felt free to pursue risky careers because we were always encouraged by mom growing up, and because we know that even if we fall on our faces and fail, we will always going to be welcomed home.”
We are stronger because we’ve had strong affirmation from our parents. Even if you’re not a parent, through your sincere, affirming words to others in your family you help to build a more positive family culture. For example, let’s say you’re a daughter in your family, and let’s say you affirm your mother (mother’s day coming up in two weeks), she may be empowered to become a more loving spouse or more caring mother to your brother.
Let’s say, “With God’ grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.”
This is the closing message of a rule of life series (which we began around of life since the Olympics for just over two months now and we’re closing the series today).
The rule of life can be and is best lived out in a family or in a smaller spiritual community. It is lived out with and for others. I don’t mean for this to sound burdensome, but every part of our rule of life can be lived in a family or community. Here are some examples. Perhaps pick one or two to begin to live out with others.
(use half sheet and hold up)
Sabbath:
A household can practice the Sabbath together. Ideally, this will include the practice of unplugging for 24 hours, worshipping together in community, praying, and playing.
Ideally, Sabbath is a day worshipful, joyful, refreshing day where we pray and play.
Prayer: Families that pray together stay together. As we know 1 in 2 marriages break up. According to one study cited by a respected Christian ministry, among couples who pray together every day that number jumps to 1 in 2000. I don’t how they can verify that number, but I do know I’ve been seen a lot of couples break up, but not one where the couple in daily pray to God broke up. I’m sure there are some couples who pray every day and break up, but I’m sure it’s rare. (If you’re a single follower of Jesus, and if you marry one day, it’s so important to marry a fellow follower of Jesus so you can seek God together).
Care for our Body: According to my friend Dr. Martin Sanders, 80% of all exercise equipment is purchased in the 2 weeks before Christmas and the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but typically by spring 85% is no longer being used: it typically sits idly for a year or two then is eventually posted on Craig’s list or e-bay.5 A great way to share life as a household and to sustain one’s physical conditioning is to stay in shape together. One of the number one factors in whether people get into good physical conditioning is their whether their peers are in good shape or not.6
Money: The household is an ideal place to live out a rule of life around money and simplicity. Generosity can be taught, but it can also be caught. Part of the reason, I have tithed from the time I was 15 is because as a follower of Christ, I saw my parents faithfully tithe and go beyond the tithe. Part of the reason, I have been averse to unnecessary debt is because of my parent’s example. (If you’re a single follower of Jesus, if you marry one day another of the reasons it’s so important to marry a fellow follower of Jesus is so you’re on the same page with money).
Study: According to one study, in the typical home in North America the television or radio is on for 7.9 hours a day (see Adele Calhoun), this doesn’t mean people are watching or listening for that many hours), but these media are on. A friend named Sam I’m in a small group with tells me at their home as a family they don’t watch television at night. They instead read. Some households are asking not only about where and when to watch television, but also whether to have a television in a place where people eat or would otherwise engage in conversation.7 They have books everywhere so they can read together.
Sexuality. In the healthy household, we can live a life-giving sexuality. No abuse. No pornography. I’ve talked to a number of men who struggle with sexual issues because as boys they found their dad’s pornography under his bed. A family ideally is a place where this is healthy affection and touch.
Work: We didn’t specifically have an entire message on work, but in the older agrarian societies family members worked side by side. Most of us today, do not live on a farm, but we can work together. It can be something as simple as doing chores, or something as big as going on a mission together. Which leads to our last point.
Missions:
I know this is just off the radar for a lot of family in the larger culture, but why not consider using some of vacation for mission locally or in Cambodia or some other place. (Club Med family?)
Matthew Chan was a part of our church when he was studying at UBC. Matthew grew up in a Christian family. When he was 12 years old, he went on a missions trip with his parents to China. He and his parents were visiting a poor province in northwest China. There, Matthew encountered dirty and sick children, many of whom had bellies swollen from hunger and malnutrition. I remember talking to Matthew about how deeply it affected him and made him want to pursue a vocation in helping to improve the health of children in the developing world. At end of UBC he was selected as a Rhodes Scholar. There he pursued master’s degrees in global health science and another in international development during the second year to prepare to serve the world.
The goal of the family life is not happiness, but holiness. But as we pursue wholeness and we love each other, we will be happier. The paradox is that if we are looking for happiness in family, we may not find it, but if we look to love and serve others, we likely will. Mother Teresa has said, (Mother Teresa No Greater Love 131). People who truly love each other are happiest people in the world. They may have very little, in fact they may have nothing, but they are happy. In a family there are strings attached; sometimes the straps on our backpack feel heavy, but in family we also experience many of God’s greatest gifts.
In this series on a rule of life I’ve talked about balance from time to time. Balance is important, but that’s the goal of the rule. The goal of the rule isn’t even the rule itself—as if that were an end in and of itself. The goal of the rule or trellis (hold up) is to support the growth of our relationship with God. We can’t always lead a balanced life, but with the help of the Holy Spirit we can always lead a Christ-centered life. That’s the goal.
When younger Christian leaders ask me, “What one piece of advice would you give me?” I find myself saying, “Live by a rule or rhythm of life that enables you to keep Christ at the center. If you do, you’re never going to stop growing. You’ll be fruitful. And you’ll finish well.”
So it is with you, if you live by a rule with Christ at the centre (where each event of your life draws you to Christ--even your work, exercise and play) then you’ll never stop growing, you’ll be fruitful, and you will finish well.
The path to the rule of life for me was birthed as part of a contemplative journey on while on a pilgrimage to the holy places of Ireland. So I want to close this message and series by offering a blessing from Saint Patrick:
As you live by the rule of Christ…
may the strength of God pilot you,
the power of God uphold you,
the wisdom of God guide you.
May Christ be in on your right, Christ on your left,
May Christ be in front of you,
behind you, under you, above you, and within you.
Building Faith in Our Family April 25, 2010
Texts: Mark 7:9-13; 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17; Eph. 5:25; 6:4
Ken Shigematsu
Big Idea: Our family is the furnace in which our faith grows.
Prop: back pack, rule of life half-sheet
In the movie Up in the Air George Clooney plays the role of a guy named Ryan Bingham, the consummate corporate soldier. He works as a hired gun helping companies downsize by carrying out their firing.
He also works as a motivational speaker (show photo here). In one of his set speeches he asks the question:
How much does your life weigh?
Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack.
I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. Feel them?
I want you to pack all the people in your backpack…
Start with your casual acquaintances... friends of friends…. and then (gradually) you move the people you trust with your most intimate secrets, brothers, sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. Get them into that backpack. Feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are not those animals.
His message: you can live free, without a commitment to people. And he does. He’s single, he has no kids, and according to his sister Kara he’s never been present for the family he comes from.
So, it’s ironic, when his younger sister Julie’s fiancé Jim gets cold feet on their wedding day, Ryan is asked by his sister Kara to approach Julie’s fiancé, and to approach Jim and persuade him not back out of his wedding with Ryan’s sister.
Ryan reluctantly agrees. He enters a children’s Sunday School room in the church to talk to Jim. Jim says, I was laying there in bed last night and couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about the wedding and the ceremony and all—us buying a house, moving in together, having a kid…having another kid. It begins to snowball. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Spring break. Football games. All of a sudden they are out of school. Getting jobs. Getting married. And then, you know before I know it, I’m a grandparent. I’m retired. Before you know it, I am dead.
I was just thinking, What’s the point? What is the point?... What am I starting here?
Ryan says, Marriage is the most beautiful thing in the world…What everyone aspires to.
Jim says, You never got married. That’s true. Ryan replies. Jim adds, You never tried.
Ryan replies, Well, it’s hard to define try. I am not going to lie. Marriage can be a pain in the ass, and you’re kind of right… I am not the guy you normally want to talk to about all this stuff. Think about it. Your favourite memories? The greatest moments of life? Were you alone?
Jim says, No, I guess not.
Ryan continues, I don’t want to sound like a Hallmark card, but life is better with company. Everyone needs a co-pilot.
Life is more complicated with a co-pilot, a family, a community. There are strings attached. It can be a pain in the posterior. But, as even Ryan concedes, it’s also better. Life is better with a friend, some kind of family, some kind of tribe, some of kind of community to do life with.
If we are followers of Christ, we are not called to a solitary journey. We are called to a group outing. Today as we conclude our series on the rule (or rhythm) of life (prop: the trellis that supports the growth our relationship with God) we are going to look at how our rule relates to our family life. We will survey not one, but several scriptures in the process.
Pray:
If we are followers of Christ, one of our highest calls is to love our family. In Scripture, family does not mean just our nuclear family or family in sense of shared blood, but people we walk most closely with.
The writers of Scripture assume that family is much more broadly defined then just the nuclear family. Theologian Rodney Clapp, points out in his book, Families at the Crossroads, that the picture of a family that most of us take for granted is not something that springs from Scripture, but streams down to us from the nineteenth century European bourgeoise family. While the average household today in North America today is between 2 and 3 people, the average Hebrew household was typically 50 or 100 people.
Sometimes loving our family and those we are closest to can be very difficult: As Ryan Bingham (George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air), family can be a pain in the _____. Life in many ways is simpler without a backpack of people…
But if we are followers of Christ, one of our highest callings is to love our family.
Jesus taught in loving our parents we are loving God (Mark 7:9-13). 1
Jesus, though he himself was single, called on married people to love their spouses. In Jesus’ day a man could divorce his wife for any and every reason. On matters of divorce most Jewish people followed Rabbi Hillel’s teaching who allowed divorce under a wide range of circumstances, even as minor as a wife burning dinner. Unlike today, a divorced woman in Jesus day would not be able to support herself financially. So Jesus God’s teaching on divorce in a more robust way was protecting the well-being of women.
In Paul’s day men treated their wives as chattel property. Men treated regarded their wives as little more than servants, in many cases physically abusing them. Husbands also assumed that it was their right to roam sexually. In the Roman Empire, Paul’s call for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church would have also been completely radical (Ephesians 5:25).2
5 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
The New Testament’s call for adults to love children would have also been radical. In a culture where children were socially powerless, Jesus welcomed and blessed them (Mark 10: 13-16; Luke 18: 15-17). In a time when a father in the Roman empire was allowed to punish his children in any way he saw fit (including selling them into slavery or issuing the death penalty), Paul calls on parents to not exasperate their children, and to nourish them3 in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).4
4 Parents, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
The Scriptures call for us to love members of our family (and remember family in Scripture isn’t simply referring to our nuclear family, but the community of people we are called to do life with).
As we respond to God’s call to love our families—we are not promised that all of our “personal needs” will be met, or that it will always emotionally be fulfilling, or that the people we love will change in the way we want them to change, but we are promised that as we faithfully love those right around us, we ourselves will be changed.
In 1 Peter 1 we read that we are called into places of suffering and struggles so that our faith is of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine. In James 1 we are told to welcome trials and challenges so that we grow in perseverance so that we become mature, not lacking in anything.
2Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4
Gary Thomas in his book Sacred Marriage asks, “What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?
What if the purpose of family was more to make us holy, more than to make us happy? What if the purpose of family was more to refine us, than to have all our personal needs met?
(Of course, we want to happy in marriage and in our family, but what if the higher of those two goals was holiness?)
What if God designed family ideally as a place of unparalleled joy, but also as a furnace to refine us… to humble us, shrink our selfishness, help us to love well?
I’m not suggesting this is easy. When we run into relationship challenges with our parents, families, our spouses—we naturally want to cut and run. But when we cut and run we remain unrefined. With God’ grace, we are to live out our faith in the furnace of our family.
Generally speaking, parents, and mothers in particular, can persevere with their kids. Mothers don’t typically look at their young children and say, “My needs aren’t being met. I want out.” They tend to patiently work things through. We can be much more forgiving of our young children, than we with our parents, siblings, and spouses.
Now, let me be clear, there are times when we have no choice. For sake of our survival we have cut things off with a spouse, and sometimes separation or even divorce is the lesser of the two evils. If we are experiencing ongoing abuse from a family, we must separate from that family member or family.
But we are also called to engage in the struggle of family and community life—not with the mindset of “You’re here to make me happy,” but with heart that says, “With God’s grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.” Family is a furnace that can burn us, even led to the fire of hell, but it can also lead us to heaven. But, let’s say, “With God’ grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.”
For example, let’s live out forgiveness in the furnace of our family.
Forgiveness
Jesus, when teaching us to pray, said , “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6). Paul in Colossians 3:3: “Forgive, as the Lord forgave you.”
Recently I was at a Living Waters ministry fundraiser called A Thousand Whys. During the evening a man named Dave came to the microphone and said, “My wife and I were both committed Christians, but were separated for two years.” He shared that while they knew in their minds that God intended them to stay together as a married couple, because they had hurt each so deeply, they had lost hope in the viability of the marriage. Finally, in a last ditch effort to save their marriage they took Living Waters. Many think Living Waters is ministry that focuses only on sexual addiction, but it helps a person experience working through wounds they have received from their family of origin. With the help of God (working through Living Waters) they were able to forgive each other and they are now back together again.
Marriages and family furnaces are where we can get burned. It’s never easy and it’s almost always a process, but family is a place we can exercise our faith by forgiving others. Paul in Colossians 3:3 said: “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” As we exercise forgiveness with God’s help, we are refined and become more like Jesus. (David Bentall?)
(Optional alternative illus: A week ago Friday I heard David Bentall at prayer breakfast downtown. When David Bentall was in Grade 5. His dad came into the den and told me, “Turn off the television and do your homework.” I said, “Dad, I am watching Casper The Friendly Ghost. Leave me alone!” My dad didn’t threaten to spank me. He didn’t threaten to take away my allowance. He just simply said, “Son, you just can’t be president unless you do your homework. Turn off the TV.”
Beginning that day it was just assumed that I would one day be president our family company. His dad and uncle were senior leaders of the company. David officially joined the company right out of UBC. For the next 10 years he worked hard to succeed his uncle as president. He had been willing to give his life for the company. Then all hell broke loose as his dad and uncle had a bitter falling out. David was caught in the middle of the crossfire. He felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him. My career at our company was arbitrarily cut short. He was surgically removed.
Several years later he met this gentleman who said that he was there when they were plotting everything they did to him. He said, “You are the only person I know who wouldn’t have committed suicide based on what happened to you.”
David said, “During this horrifically painful time, my career and my self-esteem were literally in tatters. I often felt it was not fair what was going on. Like an animal caught in a trap, the more I tried to wriggle free, the worse the jaws of futility tightened around me.”)
Let’s say, “With God’ grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.”
Family is also a place for us to love others. On the night he was betrayed Jesus said to members of his spiritual family, “A new command I give to you, Love one another as I have loved you.” Our society thinks of love as feeling. Something we can’t control. Love is a hole in the ground, something we fall into, but God calls us to stand into love, to make a decision to love. I know its well-worn phrase, but love begins at home.
I may have graduated from a great theological seminary and be the senior pastor of a dynamic church, but if I don’t love my family and those right around me, it doesn’t mean anything.
When I was a single person, I typically traveled on an average of once a month to speak or serve as a consultant. That rhythm altered slightly when I got married, but had to change significantly when our son Joe came into the world. Six weeks after the birth of our son, I went on a week-long ministry trip to Mexico City. My wife pleaded with me not to go, but at the time I felt like my role as the leader of the group that was about to convene in Mexico City made my presence essential. Besides, I had told the group I would be there, and I was too vain and embarrassed to pull out at the last minute. I was hoping that Joe’s sleep habits would magically improve at week six when I was gone, but it tanked. He became colicky--screaming through the entire nights. It was the hardest week of Sakiko’s life. As I look back it was one of the worst decisions of my life (I have made many bad decisions, but that ranks as one of the worst).
After I returned, we had a long talk about my schedule (appropriately, she was doing most of the talking). As a result, I cancelled my work-related travel schedule for the next year to be able to spend more time at home. I set new rhythms for when to be home from work by 5:15 p.m. (Fortunately we live a 13 minutes walk from Tenth.) As you know, if you care for young children, the hour before dinner is one of the hardest of day. I set new guidelines on how many nights out per week (there may be exceptions to the rule, but an exception is by definition an exception, not the norm).
There’s a part of me that loves to travel and serve in various ways (and as Tenth rises in its profile, more invitations seem to come from further afield), but there’s also a bigger part of me that wants to be stay and be present with my family and to be present to what God is doing here. Last week, I was with my son Joey, aka buddy-boy. I was looking at him. Thinking he’s a year and ¾ now. How much do I remember of his face as new born, as a one year old? Some of those memories are fading. I wish I could freeze those precious moments, but I can’t. Time is marching and I don’t want to miss his childhood.
Some of the pastors I went to school with are now on the speaking circuit, pursing national ministries on the side--I don’t feel called by God to that now. Other people can do that. As a person with workaholic tendencies, I would be less than honest if I didn’t at times I feel conflicted, but I feel at peace with the direction I am pursuing. I am not doing it perfectly by a long shot. If you ask me, I’d say I’ve cut back a lot. If you ask my wife, she’s very supportive of my work here, but still I am working an awful lot. I am in process. (But here’s a little secret--I’m discovering that family life is more fulfilling that trying to climb the proverbial achievement ladder.)
With God’ grace, you are I are to live out our faith in the furnace of our family.
Affirmation:
Family can also be a place of affirmation. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up… As a staff a couple of years ago, we decided to stop sending birthday cards from our staff to someone on their birthday. Instead, as a staff during our lunch time we would offer a spoken word of affirmation about our colleague. I know that sounds a bit corny. But, it’s meaningful both for the birthday boy or girl, and also meaningful for those who share the affirmation.
I grew up in family with five siblings. We grew up in a family where we experienced regular, meaningful affirmation from my mom. My dad is person of few words. When he doesn’t want to talk someone, he says, “I don’t speak English.” But, his affirmations when expressed carry a lot of thought and weight. My siblings are in California, Montreal and Vancouver, and we have family conference calls every month or two. At one of our family conference calls a few years ago one of my younger sisters said, “I know it’s sounds stupid to say this, but all of us kids have felt free to pursue risky careers because we were always encouraged by mom growing up, and because we know that even if we fall on our faces and fail, we will always going to be welcomed home.”
We are stronger because we’ve had strong affirmation from our parents. Even if you’re not a parent, through your sincere, affirming words to others in your family you help to build a more positive family culture. For example, let’s say you’re a daughter in your family, and let’s say you affirm your mother (mother’s day coming up in two weeks), she may be empowered to become a more loving spouse or more caring mother to your brother.
Let’s say, “With God’ grace, I will live out my faith in the furnace of my family.”
This is the closing message of a rule of life series (which we began around of life since the Olympics for just over two months now and we’re closing the series today).
The rule of life can be and is best lived out in a family or in a smaller spiritual community. It is lived out with and for others. I don’t mean for this to sound burdensome, but every part of our rule of life can be lived in a family or community. Here are some examples. Perhaps pick one or two to begin to live out with others.
(use half sheet and hold up)
Sabbath:
A household can practice the Sabbath together. Ideally, this will include the practice of unplugging for 24 hours, worshipping together in community, praying, and playing.
Ideally, Sabbath is a day worshipful, joyful, refreshing day where we pray and play.
Prayer: Families that pray together stay together. As we know 1 in 2 marriages break up. According to one study cited by a respected Christian ministry, among couples who pray together every day that number jumps to 1 in 2000. I don’t how they can verify that number, but I do know I’ve been seen a lot of couples break up, but not one where the couple in daily pray to God broke up. I’m sure there are some couples who pray every day and break up, but I’m sure it’s rare. (If you’re a single follower of Jesus, and if you marry one day, it’s so important to marry a fellow follower of Jesus so you can seek God together).
Care for our Body: According to my friend Dr. Martin Sanders, 80% of all exercise equipment is purchased in the 2 weeks before Christmas and the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but typically by spring 85% is no longer being used: it typically sits idly for a year or two then is eventually posted on Craig’s list or e-bay.5 A great way to share life as a household and to sustain one’s physical conditioning is to stay in shape together. One of the number one factors in whether people get into good physical conditioning is their whether their peers are in good shape or not.6
Money: The household is an ideal place to live out a rule of life around money and simplicity. Generosity can be taught, but it can also be caught. Part of the reason, I have tithed from the time I was 15 is because as a follower of Christ, I saw my parents faithfully tithe and go beyond the tithe. Part of the reason, I have been averse to unnecessary debt is because of my parent’s example. (If you’re a single follower of Jesus, if you marry one day another of the reasons it’s so important to marry a fellow follower of Jesus is so you’re on the same page with money).
Study: According to one study, in the typical home in North America the television or radio is on for 7.9 hours a day (see Adele Calhoun), this doesn’t mean people are watching or listening for that many hours), but these media are on. A friend named Sam I’m in a small group with tells me at their home as a family they don’t watch television at night. They instead read. Some households are asking not only about where and when to watch television, but also whether to have a television in a place where people eat or would otherwise engage in conversation.7 They have books everywhere so they can read together.
Sexuality. In the healthy household, we can live a life-giving sexuality. No abuse. No pornography. I’ve talked to a number of men who struggle with sexual issues because as boys they found their dad’s pornography under his bed. A family ideally is a place where this is healthy affection and touch.
Work: We didn’t specifically have an entire message on work, but in the older agrarian societies family members worked side by side. Most of us today, do not live on a farm, but we can work together. It can be something as simple as doing chores, or something as big as going on a mission together. Which leads to our last point.
Missions:
I know this is just off the radar for a lot of family in the larger culture, but why not consider using some of vacation for mission locally or in Cambodia or some other place. (Club Med family?)
Matthew Chan was a part of our church when he was studying at UBC. Matthew grew up in a Christian family. When he was 12 years old, he went on a missions trip with his parents to China. He and his parents were visiting a poor province in northwest China. There, Matthew encountered dirty and sick children, many of whom had bellies swollen from hunger and malnutrition. I remember talking to Matthew about how deeply it affected him and made him want to pursue a vocation in helping to improve the health of children in the developing world. At end of UBC he was selected as a Rhodes Scholar. There he pursued master’s degrees in global health science and another in international development during the second year to prepare to serve the world.
The goal of the family life is not happiness, but holiness. But as we pursue wholeness and we love each other, we will be happier. The paradox is that if we are looking for happiness in family, we may not find it, but if we look to love and serve others, we likely will. Mother Teresa has said, (Mother Teresa No Greater Love 131). People who truly love each other are happiest people in the world. They may have very little, in fact they may have nothing, but they are happy. In a family there are strings attached; sometimes the straps on our backpack feel heavy, but in family we also experience many of God’s greatest gifts.
In this series on a rule of life I’ve talked about balance from time to time. Balance is important, but that’s the goal of the rule. The goal of the rule isn’t even the rule itself—as if that were an end in and of itself. The goal of the rule or trellis (hold up) is to support the growth of our relationship with God. We can’t always lead a balanced life, but with the help of the Holy Spirit we can always lead a Christ-centered life. That’s the goal.
When younger Christian leaders ask me, “What one piece of advice would you give me?” I find myself saying, “Live by a rule or rhythm of life that enables you to keep Christ at the center. If you do, you’re never going to stop growing. You’ll be fruitful. And you’ll finish well.”
So it is with you, if you live by a rule with Christ at the centre (where each event of your life draws you to Christ--even your work, exercise and play) then you’ll never stop growing, you’ll be fruitful, and you will finish well.
The path to the rule of life for me was birthed as part of a contemplative journey on while on a pilgrimage to the holy places of Ireland. So I want to close this message and series by offering a blessing from Saint Patrick:
As you live by the rule of Christ…
may the strength of God pilot you,
the power of God uphold you,
the wisdom of God guide you.
May Christ be in on your right, Christ on your left,
May Christ be in front of you,
behind you, under you, above you, and within you.
posted by Shigematsu at 5:57 PM
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