Future Family: Ideally Speaking

Future Family: Ideally Speaking Click here for the message

When the ideal is hard to attain, it's tempting to just lower the bar and redefine the ideal. This can be especially true when it comes to Jesus' teachings about family, which many of us have already fallen short of. In this message, Andy Stanley explains why aiming for God's ideal is still worth it, even when our reality makes reaching it impossible.

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Stanley explores the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament in terms of marriage and family. In the Old Testament there aren’t a lot of great examples of how a family unit should behave. Some examples:
• Adam chose Eve over God. John Eldridge http://ransomedheart.com/ put it like this, in the Garden of Eden man chose woman over God and it has been happening like that ever since.
• First ever homicide was a brother killing brother.
• The first civil war was David and his son.

The New Testament shows us something different. During a time when women and children were about as important to men as livestock (if not less important.) Jesus came and set a new standard.

Jesus died for ALL people, not just men. Women and children were citizens of heaven just as men were. With the cross Jesus brings freedom to women and children. I love the point Stanley makes about our new world culture where marriage is less valued women and children are the ones who suffer the most. 2000 years ago Jesus gave us freedom and as we get further and further away from the values of Jesus we suffer again. Eye opening.
The New Testaments new rules are:
1. Husbands, love your wives and be considerate
2. Wives, submit to your husbands.
3. Children, obey your parents
4. Fathers, don’t irritate your children

Ephesians 6:1-2 - Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—

Colossians 3:18-19- 18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (I know I struggle with this one too. But in the context of another couple verses, it doesn’t seem that hard.)

19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Colossians 3:21- 21 Fathers,[a] do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
Embitter is when you say something to your kids to encourage them but it may come across as more of putting pressure on them or throwing a weight on their shoulders. This is address to fathers because we can all identify how much more weighty a father’s words are than a mother’s.

1 Peter 3:7 – 7 Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. This is telling a husband to take into consideration how your wife is feeling. Heirs- when Jesus died on the cross he died for BOTH of husband and wife, husbands are not to elevate their needs above their wives’. Makes it a little bit easier to swallow that submissive pill.

Jesus always taught toward an ideal, he pointed toward it and raised the current standard, but didn’t condemn those who fell short. As the standard got higher, the grace of God got deeper.

Are we able to embrace and ideal that may never come a reality or will we abandon it all together so we never have to feel bad about not living up to it. We can feel better about our situation if we make the rules, instead of following the standard Jesus set for us as Christians.

Matthew 19:3-8 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

The Pharisees at this point wondered “What are you going to do about all those people who got divorced, what are you going to do to them “ Jesus instead of condemning them gave his life for them.

There is tension between what’s real (biblical standard) and what’s actually happening… Will we embrace the standard that we fall short of or will we redefine it to feel better about ourselves. Even though I might not obtain it I’m still going to keep my eye on it. As followers of Jesus we don’t get to dismiss the standard. We must always strive to achieve it and remain in God’s grace.