Declaration of Dependance

Of you with us this morning.

Um, I want to say welcome to those that are watching online with us.

We still continue to minister to people that are watching online.

Thank you so much, Brennan.

And uh my name is Russ.

And if you've got your Bibles and you want to follow along, we're gonna be in Psalm, uh we're gonna be in two primarily passages, um Matthew chapter 12 and then Psalm 78.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 12 and Psalm 78.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

We begin a new series today.

And here's the question I want to ask you is if I if I asked you this question, how would you answer it?

What is the purpose for your family?

What is the purpose for your family?

Why does your family get exist?

What's the purpose you have for raising your kids?

What do you want for your children or your children's children?

What's your role?

Now, if you're like me when I was growing up and I didn't grow up in church, the idea was we're gonna provide a good enough life for you that's at least as equal or better than what we had.

That was kind of what was instilled in us in my home.

My dad had this incredible work ethic.

He worked very hard.

And he said, I'm gonna provide for you because I I didn't have that much.

And he would tell you all of the issues and problems, and we've all heard uh the older generation say, Well, we're gonna provide a better life than you than we have.

We're gonna provide you a better life than we had.

Because we've all heard him say it, right?

When I was growing up, up until I was 15, we had to walk out to an outhouse to go to the bathroom.

I mean, we've heard the older generation say that, right?

When I was younger, I had to walk to school.

And it was in the snow, uphill both ways.

I mean, we've heard we've heard people say that, older generations, and so we we would say, My parents, I mean, hear my dad, I'm gonna provide a life for you that is better than the life that I had.

And that was his life, that was that was his meaning, which for me, that that that's kind of that's kind of sad, and it's a bit shallow, and it's not biblical.

So, what we're gonna be talking about over the next five weeks or six weeks or so is intentional families.

Understanding that God has a purpose and a significance and a meaning for all of our families.

And and how we raise our kids is influenced by that purpose and through that meaning, through that significance, what we understand.

And so one of the most difficult things about parenting is that few people have intentional plans for their families.

Many of us have plans for all other areas of our life.

A lot of us would say, here's what I, here's my plan for retirement, here's my plan for for after I work, here's my plan for education, here's my plan for my business, here's my plan.

But there's no plan for the family.

It's just, it's just we're gonna go with the flow, or we're gonna go with what the culture imposes upon us.

And so we just want to make make sure we raise our kids and feed them, clothe them, and make sure that they have an opportunity to either go to school or or or or start a career or get a job.

We I think God has more for our families than that.

God has more.

So Jefferson Betke is a book that I have read for this series, titled Taking Back Our Families, um, he writes, and this is so sad, but I'm gonna just tell you how he writes it.

He says, America is by definition, and according to statistics, one of the worst places to raise a family in the modern developed industrialized world.

In the article, The Best Countries to Raise a Family, in 2020, researchers looked at 35 of the world's developed countries and analyzed six factors along the lines of safety, happiness, cost, education, time, and health.

Then they ranked them and they gave them a typical school system score.

A to F.

Only two of the 35 countries got an F.

America and Mexico.

And so the article says the land of the free and the home of the brave, the place where all your dreams can come true.

And on every single metric, we, the USA was at the bottom.

Families in the U.S.

are less educated, they spend less time with their kids, they are less safe, they have less money.

In every category, America is one of the costliest places to have children.

One thing that was noted was Americans spend over three times as much to deliver a baby than citizens in other countries.

Then we spend 23% of our annual household income on child care.

And so our view on family and American life, and when I say American life, I'm saying in contrast to what I want you to see from the Bible, largely success is about the individual rather than about the family unit, or about family as I'm going to define it according to Scripture.

And so what we do is we generation after generation, we keep doing the same things over and over.

But we would all say we want what we just sang about.

We want a fresh move of God.

We would know that our nation needs revival.

We know that we need the Spirit to do a genuine work of change in our lives, in our families.

Amen.

We would all say that.

But let me tell you what we keep doing generation after generation after generation.

We keep doing the same thing, expecting that we might get a different result.

And by definition, that is insanity.

And so the big idea today is this the family is created by God, for God, and to bless others, to be a blessing to others.

I want you to, would you read that with me?

Let's read it together out loud together.

Here, let's one, two, ready.

The family is created by God, for God, and to be a blessing to others.

That's the sermon in a sentence.

Now here's the disclaimer.

Here's what you need to know because when you think family, you're thinking about a mom and a dad and two and a half kids.

That's the definition of the Western industrialized nuclear family.

That's what we all think.

We think leave it to Beaver or Andy Griffith or whatever.

But but that's not the biblical idea of family.

The biblical idea of family, and that's why this is important for me to give this disclaimer.

Because if you're here and you're single, you think this message does not apply.

This series doesn't apply to me.

Or if you're older and you're in an empty nest kind of age, this doesn't apply to me.

This is what you're thinking.

But let me tell you, it applies to everybody because the family and biblical understanding is so much more than just mom and dad and two kids.

It's this idea of this web of relationships.

The biblical word in the Greek is oikos.

Oikos.

It's translated in the New Testament to the word household most often.

But the idea in biblical understanding is this web of relationships.

Let me give you a picture.

It's kind of like a cul-de-sac.

That's the biblical understanding of a family.

It's a cul-de-sac.

And in that cul-de-sac, you might have a couple of families that are biologically related, but some of the families are just friends who have become like family.

You see it?

And we we do life together, right?

This is my neighborhood.

This is my family.

There are people in my neighborhood that we do, we have meals together, we study scripture together, we do neighborhood events together.

We're all family.

We watch each other's dogs, we take care of each other's kids.

We're family.

We're an oikos.

It is so beyond just biological family.

It applies to everybody.

So the family is created by God for God and to be a blessing to others.

Listen to what the psalmist says, Psalm 145, verse 4.

Psalms 145:4

It says, let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts, let them proclaim your power.

And so we get a little insight into the family and the purpose of the family is to take the message of the gospel and make sure the next generation knows.

Here's three truths I want you to.

If you're a note-taker, Denise, Denise said she took notes for the first time in church.

So thank you.

I hope you take them here as well as Seattle.

Um but here's the three truths.

The first one is this the family is meant to be centered around Jesus.

The family is meant to be centered around Jesus and the gospel, the good news of Jesus.

What do I mean by that?

The gospel of Jesus is the good news.

It's this good news is that Jesus has come, Jesus has lived, Jesus has died for the forgiveness of our sins.

Jesus rose from the grave.

He has power over death and sin.

And so Jesus gives us spiritual life.

He gives us eternal life.

And so the home is meant to be centered around the truth of the scripture.

And the center of the scripture is the message of Jesus.

He lived, he died, he rose again.

And Jesus redefines family in the Gospels.

Matthew chapter 12, verse 46.

Matthew 12:46

As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and his brothers stood outside asking to speak to him.

Someone told Jesus, Your mother and your brothers are standing outside.

They want to speak to you.

Jesus asked, Who is my mother?

Who are my brothers?

And then he pointed to his disciples and said, Look, these are my mother and my brothers.

Here's what he's saying.

He said, This is my family.

Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister.

Do you know what Jesus is saying?

He's saying, I'm redefining the family to include all of the church, all of those who call on the name of Jesus.

We are all a family.

We say that in our, if you came to our membership gathering, you say, I want to join Church at the Grove.

How do I join Church at the Grove?

Well, you come to a dinner that we serve, it's for free too.

We leave and watch your kids.

And we explain our beliefs, we explain who we are, we explain our vision and our mission.

And one of the things we'll tell you is that we want to be a family.

We don't want to be like a family.

We want to be a family.

We are a family.

The church is a family.

And so the gospel-centered family is, yes, hopefully it's my wife and it's my kids, but it's so much more.

It's not limited to our biological family.

If anything, we are called to include those who've been marginalized, those that feel alone, those that have suffered, those that are widows and orphans.

We see in the book of Acts, that's the clear call to the church is to take care of widows and orphans.

We're called to bring people in.

We're called to be inclusive of those that are pushed to the margins.

The ancient picture of family was this robust, intergenerational, complex, and enormously helpful web of relationships where the most vulnerable and the downtrodden were welcome.

They were protected, and they were given a safety net.

Now, most of us have heard, we hear people advocate for the family in American life.

And a lot of times they do so under the name of Christianity.

But a lot of times what they're talking about is they're talking about the mom and the dad and the two kids that live under the same roof.

When God says, I want to advocate for the family, that's a biblical model.

Now, have you have you heard, have you ever been around people that say, I wish we could go back to the good old days?

How many of you ever been around somebody that said that?

Man, I wish I could I wish we could go back to the good old days.

So what do we mean by the good old days?

What do we mean?

We all we all basically mean what the best part of life for us growing up was the good old days.

It's the part we like the most.

And a lot of us would say, man, I let's go back to leave it to beaver.

Man, I wish I wish it was just, I wish life was simple like it was to leave it to beaver.

Or who else?

Andy Griffith, right?

The Cunninghams, yeah, the Fonds.

We all had this image.

See, and and we we say a lot of times we go back because there's this period in American history after World War II for about 15 years, it was the most financially economic prosperity time of history in our nation ever.

We rapidly had economic growth.

At the same time, television came along, and so we have this image in our mind of what the family is supposed to be, but it's not necessarily the same as the family that God has in mind that's centered around the gospel of Jesus.

Jesus says, Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, for I, my burden is easy and light.

Jesus says, All are welcome.

All of you are welcome to the family.

So the family is meant to be centered around Jesus.

The family also has meaning and purpose that extends generationally.

That extends generationally.

So at 9:15, we baptized a little boy named Charlie.

Charlie is my great nephew, I guess.

And so my niece Meg and her husband Bobby is their son.

And so it's my brother's grandson.

And so my brother baptized his grandson, and my brother's wife was here, and her 95-year-old mother was here, Miss Love.

That's Terry's maiden name, Miss Love.

I call her me mama.

That's what we all call her.

95 years old, and her faith impacted her daughter's faith.

Her daughter met my brother.

That changed the whole trajectory of our family where I would come to know Jesus.

And now I have three kids that I have spent our adult life investing.

We've spent our adult life investing in them.

24, 20, and 17.

And so this generations are affected by the faith and by the family.

Now, in the Western culture, generations have been devastated by the broken family.

I mean, we we all know somebody.

Half of the Christian marriages end up in divorce.

We look around, we don't have to look far to see the results of fatherlessness in our culture.

Here's some statistics.

24.7 million kids currently in America do not live with their biological father.

Children are four times more likely to grow up in poverty if the father is not around.

Children without fathers in the home are more likely to have behavior problems, abuse drugs and alcohol, and on and on.

These stats are no surprise to you.

So there's different ways to look at a family, how it's structured, how it works.

The most important is understand that it has to have significance from generation to generation.

Let's look back at history a little bit.

At how history has influenced the church and how history has influenced where we are today.

If you go back to the Enlightenment period, late 1700s, 1800s, the family lost significance, and all of the attention was on the pursuit of individual happiness.

Then came the industrial revolution.

And the industrial revolution, it moved the family or the center of the family from a rural perspective to a more urban perspective.

And then here we are, post-World War II, and modern families primarily have become consumers.

So let me give you a little bit of a picture of using a metaphor of a factory in contrast to a farm.

So in the past, families were like farms.

Farm-oriented families, everybody had a role and everybody had to produce.

Everything's outsourced and everything is hired out.

Do you see the difference?

Factory form families center around consumption.

Farm families pull together and work toward an objective and a mission.

They all have to contribute for the family to survive.

In the farm form family, there are rhythms and there are limits.

In the factory form family, everything's outsourced, as I said.

In the farm form families, there's ownership.

And factory form families, they forget their heritage and they forget the destiny and the purpose that God has for them.

Farm form families tell stories of the ancient past and how God was faithful.

God was faithful in the famine.

God was faithful in the storm.

God was faithful in the sickness.

God was always faithful in the good times and the bad times.

The psalm that's writes in 78, Psalm 78.

Oh my people, listen to my instructions.

Open your ears to what I'm saying.

For I will speak to you in a parable.

I will teach you hidden lessons from our past.

Stories we have heard and known.

Stories our ancestors handed down to us.

We will not hide these truths from our children.

We will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders, for he issued his laws to Jacob.

He gave his instructions to Israel.

He commanded our ancestors to teach.

Them to their children, so the next generation might know them, even the children not yet born.

And in turn, they will teach their own children.

So each generation should set its hopes anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands, then they will not be like their ancestors, stubborn, rebellious, unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.

So the family is is meant to be centered around Jesus.

The family has meaning and significance and purpose that extends generationally.

And then finally, the family was designed to contribute, not to consume.

To contribute, not to consume.

And so we need to understand this idea that the family is more than just the nuclear idea of the family.

It's the oikos.

It's extended out.

It's this covenantal relationships where we bless one another through generosity, spiritually and materially.

There's relational blessing.

And there's this interconnected, complex web of long-standing relationships, where one generation passes blessing to the next.

And I'll tell you, it is my responsibility primarily to pass blessing to my children.

So I've got a 24-year-old, I've got a 20-year-old, and I've got a 17-year-old.

So my 24-year-old, he's about to graduate college on May 7th.

Thank you, Jesus.

And so he's been telling me about how he's been working in this job, this part-time job, and where he's a sound engineer.

And so he calls me months ago and he said, Dad, the guy who owns the studio has told me he wants to hire me and give me a salary after I graduate.

And so I'm like, Yes! Praise God even more.

He's got a job.

And so I just, but I but on a serious note, I just said, Josiah, I am so proud of you.

Son, God has equipped you, He's given you gifts.

It's my opportunity to speak blessing in his life.

See how faithful God is, Josiah?

See, you've put in the hard work, man, and God is opening these doors for you.

God is blessing you.

And so my daughter graduates in December.

Man, this is a great year, isn't it?

It's gonna be better next year.

I'm not paying for two kids in college.

And so I this I told so when I speak to my daughter, I always tell her the same thing that I tell her every time I talk to her.

You're my favorite.

Kidding not kidding.

Um, but she my daughter is so talented.

Some of you heard her and sing and lead worship.

And so God's blessed her immensely.

And so speaking into her life, she's got this boy that keeps falling around.

And and but but honestly, she says, Dad, I she'll come, she's got a boyfriend.

Gosh, that's so hard to say.

But she asks for our blessing.

Dad, what do you think?

I want to know what you think.

I care.

She's asking for blessing, and then there's Caleb.

Caleb, he's the baby.

He knows he's really the favorite.

But you know, it's my role to speak in his life.

And Caleb, he's right here, he's right there behind the computer.

I'll tell him as a 17-year-old, he's one of the most productive, smartest, creative.

He has the ability to uncover and fix and and just tinker with things.

He's incredibly intelligent.

He has a heart for God.

He loves Jesus.

I watch him invest in his circle of friends, and he's the kind of friend that we would all just desire to have.

So it's our role to speak into our children's lives and to speak blessing.

Let me tell you, it's not, it doesn't have to be always confined to biological blessing.

I can look around the room and I can say, Jason, man, I see your heart.

You're one of the most encouraging people to see how God has changed your life and the man that you've become in the last couple of years specifically.

Because you you said, hey, I want to follow Jesus.

And not only do I want to follow Jesus, I want to bring my wife, and I want to bring my children with me.

And I'm telling you, son, God's blessing you now, and he's going to continue to pour out blessings on you.

You see, we continue to bless.

We bless one another.

My brother Jeff spent all of his life in business.

All of his life in business.

And a few years ago, um I think he and his wife were in the conversation, and he was asked the question if money wasn't an object, if making a living wasn't even on the table, what would you do with your life?

And he said, I would spend my life pouring Jesus into the lives of athletes.

And so he just went full time with FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, this calendar year.

And when you give, you help support his salary.

And man, if you follow, you need to follow this guy on Instagram.

He's constantly out on the fields at our local schools.

He's out investing in the lives of athletes.

And Jeff, I'm telling you, man, I see it, and you're my brother in Christ, and that is a blessing.

And so part of what we got to figure out, and we'll talk about this over the next few weeks, is we have this great big mission that God's given us.

The great commission to go and make disciples.

But what I want you to discover in your marriages, in your family, and in your life is what is your particular mission?

And how do you fit into the context of the family of God?

Would you pray with me?

Let's pray together.