CALLED: GOD’S VISION FOR THE FAMILY
Families are the source of our greatest joys and our greatest frustrations. They are the people who know us best and allow us to be ourselves. Or sometimes they put burdens and expectations on you that weigh you down. They cut you slack and are there for you. And they are the ones who drive you crazy.
Clearly, the reviews are mixed. The word that became popular a couple of decades ago regarding family is “dysfunctional.” It means that something is not operating normally; in this case, it means that there is an unhealthy family dynamic. A lack of communication and a dollop of misunderstanding make it hard for us to love our families.
This summer, my brother and sister and our spouses are taking a trip together. We haven’t done this in over 50 years, and I am praying fervently for peace and harmony. My brother and I like to joke about our sister: we each call her “your sister.” Most of the time we are able to laugh together. But then there are the other times. You know what I mean.
Every family is shaped by something. The question is “What?” Depending on who you ask we have a love-hate relationship with our families. It would be nice if it was love-love. Is this possible? Can our families be more like God intended them to be? What is God’s vision for families?
Deuteronomy 6 is the clearest biblical blueprint for families. God’s vision for the family is a way of life where our love for him shapes every moment and is passed on to the next generation. What does that family look like? Moses gives us four commands for building a healthy family.
1. A Family that Fears the LORD (Deut. 6:1-3)
For forty years the people of Israel had been wandering around the desert because they had disobeyed the LORD. On the verge of entering into the Promised Land, the people waited for instructions from God. Here’s the thing: Canaan was a pagan nation with godless people – they oozed dysfunction – and they were not a model for Israel’s families. So, Moses told the Israelites what God expected of them and what he wanted them to teach their children. He was preparing these families to live in a pagan, godless culture – one that was not family-friendly. Sound familiar? Sounds like southern Manitoba.
If we review the first three verses of Deuteronomy 6, the words that stand out to me are “that you may fear the LORD.” Families are to fear the LORD. But fear does not sound like it belongs in a love relationship. Or that’s what we are told anyways. I think that “fear” is misunderstood in terms of relationship. We may have in mind the kind of fear that a child has when they are abused. That’s not what we are talking about here. There are couple of ways to understand this fear.
To fear the LORD is to fear what will happen if we reject him. We should fear the judgment. Jesus in Matthew is stronger than Moses on the fear aspect. Matthew, Hebrews, and Revelation warn us about rejecting Christ. Fear God. Let’s put that in perspective: If I flirt with other women and make suggestive overtures to them, I should be afraid of what that will do to my relationship with Sharon. It will destroy something beautiful. If I risk my relationship with God by dancing with the devil, I should fear God’s response.
Related to that, to fear God is to make him a priority in life. This is what families are called to do: Make God a priority. God comes before other things. And if other things get in the way of God, they have to go.
As a child, I wanted to join a baseball or hockey team. My mother resisted this strongly for two reasons: we didn’t have the money and if practices were on Sunday, church came first. I resented this at first, but when I had my first real job at a restaurant, I was told I had to work on Sunday. In my heart, this felt wrong. The conviction engrained in me by my parents was that worshiping God on Sunday was a priority.
A family that fears the LORD makes him a priority.
2. A Family that Loves the LORD (4-5)
These next verses are called the “Shema” and are very important to the devout Jew. They would recite these words every morning. Late in Jesus’ ministry, a Jewish teacher asked him what the most important commandment was and Jesus responded with these words. Shema is Hebrew for “listen.”
“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
In a culture of many “gods” – things that demand our attention – we are reminded by the Shema that there is only one God and he is unique. He alone is God. But what does “loving God” mean? How do we do that?
Very simply, what you love you give yourself to. When you love God, you give yourself to him, you obey him, you trust him. Obedience is a natural expression of love. Jesus explained to his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” (John 14:15). “Obey” used to be in our wedding vows, but modern sensibilities didn’t like that. To obey is like submitting and that’s what we are called to do in a love-relationship – submit or obey one another. To love God is take his commands to heart as instructions for our good. We do this willingly because he first loved us (1 John 4:10).
We are to love him completely. This is what we get from “all” in reference to heart, soul, might. Do we do this? What does it look like? What would you do? What would you start? What would you stop? How would we know when we are really loving God? If I get up at five and read my Bible for an hour and pray for another hour; if I fast for two days?
Moses was not asking for anything heroic, but in the “ordinary” and daily activities he said, “Don’t forget about God!” Reading the Bible is good. Praying is good. Mission trips are good. But loving God is done in the ordinary stuff of life. Jesus said, “Love God…and love your neighbour.” That’s not so far out of reach, is it?
In a “Morning Out for Mom’s” meeting in another church there was a discussion on the theme, “How early in a child’s life ought one to begin to influence him toward God?” After a lively conversation, a visiting grandmother was asked for her thoughts. She replied, “I began with my first child twenty years before she was born by giving myself to Jesus Christ!” A family that loves the LORD is most impacted when the moms and dads are committed to loving the LORD.
3. A Family that Follows the LORD (6-9)
Loving the LORD is intimately connected to following the LORD. Following is discipleship. Moses instructed the people to teach these truths to their children. “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them whenyou sit in your house, and when you walk by the way…”
The Hebrews had a term for making a formal proclamation – a lecture. This isn’t it. This is “just talking.” Moses is saying that talking about God should be a dialogue in the home. I have heard of some families where Sunday lunch is a review of the sermon they just heard (not shepherd’s pie where they critique the sermon), a discussion of how to live it out. It should be as easy and as passionate as talking about the Jets.
God’s vision for the family is that the home be a training place for faith. It is a laboratory for experimenting (trying out) the faith, where prayers are spoken for each other to see how God will answer. The home is the place where a child can comfortably explore the difficult questions of faith.
In these difficult times with challenging philosophies in the schools, parents begin to fear what their children are being taught. We put our children in school for 40 hours a week and get the exhausted version of them at home for a few evening hours. When do we get to shape their faith? We may send them to private Christian schools or to Bible camp to get some “faith” into them. My mother wanted to send me to a Christian school in Winnipeg to rescue me from the evils of the public-school crowd. But what I discovered was that parents had sent their delinquent children to these schools to straighten them out. There was more “bad influence” in private school than in the public.
We can’t outsource spiritual formation – not to schools or programs. The point that Moses makes is that the home is the training ground for faith. It is here that the children need to hear their parents talk about faith and loving God. It is in the home where they see faith lived out, modelled in how we “do life” and respond to crises. Paul emphasized this modelling or discipleship training in Colossians 3:12-17:
12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
These are the qualities we our children to see in us. It is no wonder that Paul follows this challenge up with a word to the family unit in Colossians. The family that follows God is a family that makes God a priority, loves God fully, and expresses faith in action in the home.
4. A Family that Understands the LORD (20-25)
As an adolescent, my persistent question was “Why?” It must have annoyed my parents. That question stayed with me to this day. Why do we do the things we do? Why do we love God? Why? And Moses anticipated the “why’ questions.
This whole passage has been about passing on the faith to our sons (read “our children”). And in v. 20 Moses encourages answering the questions your children have about the faith, “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD your God has commanded you…?”
It all begins with a child coming to the parent and asking about all God’s rules. Where did this rule come from? And this is not just so the children know how all this works, but it is so the parents will know too. See how the parent is to answer in v. 21-22? The answer reflects how the Ten Commandments began in 5:6, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Our love and obedience starts with God’s rescue.
We were not slaves in Egypt, so we do not relate to this culturally. But we were slaves to sin, and death was hanging over us as a result. Our rescue is described in Hebrews 2:14-15 14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. We were enslaved to sin, but God in Christ rescued us.
Israel’s rescue is a historical event. The LORD led the children of Israel out of Egypt. And our rescue comes from a historical event, the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That’s how this all started. That’s why we do what we do.
When your child asks, “Why do we live this way? The answer is not: “Because we’ve got it figured out,” or “Because we’re a good family,” or “Because we try harder than others.”
No, the answer is because God rescued us from sin. That’s where it all starts. Our story is similar to the Israelites and both stories lead to Jesus. Jesus lived the life we could not live, obeyed where we fall short, and went to the cross taking our sin with him. And he rose again to deliver us from slavery. That’s our story.
Do your children ask these questions at home? Do you give them space to explore the “why” of our beliefs? It is in the home where these questions should be asked and answered and, dare I say it, not the church.
Ultimately we want to pass on a story. Not: be better. But: Let me tell you what God has done for us.
The concept of the home as a little church was made famous by the Puritans, a group of English Protestants in the 17thcentury. They believed the father should be the pastor in the home. One writer called the home “the seminary of the church.” The Puritans even printed material for families to worship in the home. They were so serious about this that if a father neglected the spiritual training of his family, he could be disciplined by the church elders.
The Puritans may have been extreme, but they had a great idea about the home as a little church. My own spiritual formation in the home was largely due to my mother’s influence. She taught me to pray. She modelled regular Bible reading. She led me to the Lord. She prayed that the Lord would one day use one of her children in his service.
God’s vision for your family is that your home be a place of spiritual formation for your children. We are in the fight of our lives for our families in this generation. The battle is for the hearts and minds to be shaped by the love of God and our love for God. If we want our children to know the truth, it must begin at home. Parents, you are spiritual influencers more than anyone else.
Some of you parents may think, “We’re doing okay, then.” That’s good. Others of you may feel, “That’s it. We’ve failed.” But the good news of Jesus meets you in both places. God is not looking for perfect families. He wants to redeem them. By his grace, we can shape the future for our children.
A family that learns to love God in the everyday moments will become a family that tells his story for generations.
AMEN
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