Dream Home Series / Sermon 1: Dream Home / August 11, 2013

Transcription

1 Dream Home Series / Sermon 1: Dream Home / August 11, 2013 So apparently HGTV has this sweepstakes every year where they give away a dream home valued in excess of $1 million. It includes furnishings, decorations, an SUV, and a half million dollars cash. Pretty cool! Now personally I kind of hate the shows that tour these houses, because they give Julie all these expensive ideas, but here are a few of the dream homes: 2004, Georgia. A little small for my tastes, although I like the watchtowers. 2007, Colorado. Now I ve got to tell you, just the setting of this house blows my mind, and that house is gorgeous. 2008, Florida. To tell you the truth, I really don t like this one much especially since it s in Florida but if it was free 2009, California. My wife would kill for that porch. 2011, Vermont. Now that one I like. I love the setting, I love the wood beautiful! It s kind of fun to imagine winning the HGTV sweepstakes and taking one of these homes home, isn t it? But in reality in the real world, what makes it a dream home is not bricks and mortar; it s not about the lot, the view, the square footage, the furnishings and all that. Anybody with a lick of sense would trade one of these dream homes for a dream family. Architects and builders don t build the real dream homes, husbands and wives, moms and dads do. Anybody with a lick of sense would give up any one of these fancy houses for a family that loves each other and treats each other right. And that s the kind of dream home we ll be focusing on in the next few weeks. Now we re starting a brand-new series this morning called DreamHome. We have stolen the titles for the sermons from TV shows. Don t let that throw you off, this series is not about TV shows, we just wanted the titles! Today is Dream Home. It is introductory, and I ll try to give you one huge principle that kind of underlies all these sermons. Next week is Game of Thrones. It s not about the show, it s about the power struggles you find in so many homes, and how to resolve them. I'll give you one of the best questions you could possibly ask within the context of family. If you can get everybody in your family to ask this question it could change your home. Page 1 of 10

2 Week 3: Real Housewives of Franklin County. That s not actually a show, but it could be. It s really not about housewives, it s about fighting, quarreling, and back-biting which is, from what I can tell, what those Real Housewives shows are all about. Now, just to show you how many people need this sermon, how many of you have been in a family fight? Okay, the rest of you have already lied you really need to come back! We ll talk about why families fight, and what we can do to make our fights more civil. You don t want to miss week 3. Week 4: Extreme Makeover. We ll be talking about when family relationships that get so strained, so bad, that you just don t want to be around each other anymore, you don t want anything to do with a dad, a mom, a brother, a prodigal child. Most of us have been there, felt that. This is a big one. Week 5: Parenthood. Now, since I have actually parented, and I know that I am clueless, and since Chris Dove (our Children s Minister) has not parented yet, and has no idea how clueless he is, he s going to preach that one. Actually, since he deals with more kids and more parents than about any of us, he brings a very unique perspective to the table. You won t want to miss it. I think this series is going to be pretty rich. And here s the deal, whether you are a Christian or not, whether you are one family #1, #2, or some higher number, whether your family is doing okay or maybe you just wish you could trade with someone there will be stuff here for all of us. And I am just asking you you have some family, you have some friends, you have some neighbors who need this stuff as much as you do. Bring them along. We ve got more chairs! We ll pull them out if we need them. Now I am not going to try to give you my vast wisdom on how to do family, we ll be digging into the owner s manual. What does God say about how to do family? After all, he invented it! But here's where it gets challenging: when you open the Bible and you try to dig out what you can learn about family, it is really kind of odd because there are almost no good examples of family in the Bible. In fact, in almost every story about the families in the Bible, they are really messed up. Right from the very beginning. Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve? How long did that one go well? Right in the middle of their perfect dream home, a place called Eden, Adam chose Eve over God. John Eldredge said, in the garden of Eden man chose woman over Page 2 of 10

3 God, and men have been choosing women over God ever since. And whenever that happens, guys, life with God is messed up, and our life with each other gets messed up too. As you turn the pages of the Bible, there are messed up families all over. Cain murders his brother, Abel that s pretty dysfunctional, I think. Noah, the most godly man of his generation, gets drunk and curses his own son. Do you think that will leave some scars? Abraham rejects his bastard son. Isaac plays favorites with his sons, Jacob and Esau, and they become bitter enemies for 20 years. Ever seen that? Done that? Jacob tries to manage a blended family and does it so poorly the brothers sell one of their own into slavery. Judah slept with his daughter-in-law, who seduced him by dressing up like a prostitute. David King David, the one they called a man after God s own heart David s family is a mess. He sleeps with another man s wife, had the husband killed, and later went to war with one of his sons. Hosea, one of the greatest prophets, married a prostitute, saw her relapse, and then went out and brought her back home. Do you think there were some awkward silences at their dinner table? Even Jesus family was messed up. Think about it: there is this great story about Jesus family going to Jerusalem when he was 12. Joseph and Mary packed up their donkey and leave town, leaving Jesus behind! And he may have been their only child at the time! How do you do that, leave a kid behind, when you only have one? I know I left Alathea or Andy behind a time or two, but I had two kids, and my leaving them behind was almost always intentional, and they always found their way home Guys, the families in the Bible are just messed up which kind of gives me hope. If God kept loving on, and if God kept working through their messed up families, then I suppose he can keep loving on and working through ours. You see, there are a lot of great principles in the Bible about how to do family right, how to do family God s way, but the separation between God s principles and our doing life God s way is often a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon. Page 3 of 10

4 Now something fascinating happens when people start listening to what Jesus and his followers teach about family. You see, there is this turning point with Jesus. Now I m can t express to you how radical Jesus words were, but in the New Testament, when Jesus taught about how to do life with God and how to do family God s way, and when the apostles took the teachings of Jesus into their their world, you have to understand: these ideas were so foreign, so new, they had never been tried, they had never been tested. In a moment I'm going to give you a really fast overview of what the New Testament has to say about family. And when you hear this summary, you are going to think, That sounds a little old style. That s the kind of stuff my grandparents might have bought into, that s old school. But listen (this is hard for us to get) what Jesus taught about family, what these apostles began to say about family this was brand new, it was radical, it was way beyond what anyone had tried before. Now it doesn t sound radical to us. You see, the teachings of Jesus pretty much permeated our culture generations ago. That doesn t mean we practiced what Jesus taught, but we knew these ideas, and pretty much accepted them as right even though we didn t live them out. But in Jesus world this stuff was revolutionary especially what he said about women and children. Because in their world women were just slightly more valuable than cattle. A wife could be beaten, raped, or verbally abused by her husband and that acceptable, normal behavior. She could be divorced and put out on the street on a man s whim. And children well, if parents didn t want their babies they would just put them outside to die. Some people wouldn t even leave their inheritance to their own kids; they would adopt kids they liked better and give the inheritance to them. I m not recommending, guys And then here is Jesus, he is teaching some adults, and he pauses and he says, Let the children come to me. Now we read that and we think, That s so sweet, that s so cute! Guys, that was wrong! In their world you would never allow a child to move into the place of an adult. And then Jesus says, The kingdom of heaven is kind of like these children. Guys, that was wrong! You don't learn anything from children, in that world. So Jesus radically elevates the status of women and children. It was revolutionary! Page 4 of 10

5 Guys, there had never been a culture that operated under the assumption that women and children have the same value as men. Now, here's something you need to know. If you don't believe it, check this out. In every culture since then that has embraced a Christian worldview, women and children have fared better. And in every culture that has either moved away from, or failed to embrace a Christian worldview, women and children have suffered. And here s the flip side, as our culture pushes further and further away from a Christian worldview, the group that will suffer most will be, the group that is suffering the most, is women and children. Already, in the segment of our society that is abandoning marriage, well, the group that is thrust below the poverty line the quickest are women and children. You see, 2000 years ago Jesus breathed life into our world when he said that women, children, men all of us, all of us at the foot of the cross are equal. So here's a summary of what the New Testament teaches about family. Children (now we parents like this one), children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. (I like that!) Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise. (Ephesians 6.1) Isn t that one cool, parents? Wives, submit yourself to your husband, because that is fitting in the Lord. (Colossians 3.18) And some of you ladies are thinking, Hold on, you don't know my husband! Well, hang on, we re not done yet. Husbands, love your wives, and don t be harsh with them. (Colossians 3.19) Now, why would he say that? Because, in that culture being harsh with a wife was perfectly acceptable. And Paul says, We re not doing it that way. We don t own our wives, we don t take advantage of them, we don t use them we love our wives. It matters to God how we men treat our wives now, that was radical; that was new. Fathers, do not embitter, or exasperate your children or they will become discouraged. (Colossians 3.21) Don t treat your child like a slave, or a bother. Don t wear down your kids with poorly chosen words. Hear this: when a mom speaks, her words weigh about 25 pounds. Dads, your words weigh about 100 pounds. A mom and a dad can say the same thing to their kids, but it can feel very different. Fathers, learn how to speak to your kids in a way that doesn t crush their spirits, Paul says. Page 5 of 10

6 Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives. Now that just sounds like common sense to us. We don t do it well, but we accept it as wise. But in the first century, this is radical. And they would push back, You mean, be considerate of the wife I didn't even get to choose, the wife my parents bartered for, because their best friend had three daughters and nobody wanted to marry the middle one, and they d give us a cow if I would marry her? You are like, Seriously? No one was considerate of me; I have to be considerate of her? And Peter says, Absolutely and treat them with respect as the weaker partner, and heirs, as co-heirs. This isn t about the money kind of heir; this is a Jesus dying on a cross kind of heir. Peter says, When Jesus died on the cross, he died for your wife. Your wife is not only your wife, she is your sister. You are joint heirs. She is God s little girl, so do don t do anything to her that will hinder your prayers to dad. And guys, that is pretty much it. Here it is, in case you can t come back the next couple weeks. Husbands, love your wives, and be considerate. Wives, submit to your husbands. Children, obey your parents. And fathers, don't irritate your kids. So let's close in prayer and go home, right? It is simple, it is revolutionary, it is ideal. It sounds good on paper, until you start trying to live it. And then you realize there is always this gap, this tension, between God s ideal and our real. Jesus did this in just about every part of life: he set the bar way, way higher than has ever lived, likely higher than anyone could ever live. But here s where it gets so cool: Jesus taught an ideal, he points us toward an ideal, he sets the bar high, he never compromised God s dream, and he refuses to condemn those who fall short. That s the paradox, that s the gospel. You can see it all over the gospels. Let me show example: It was against their law to commit adultery. And everybody knew what adultery meant, it meant you had sex with someone else s wife. And Jesus comes along and raises the bar, really high. Jesus said, No, it s not just about sex. God s standard is higher than that. If you even look at a woman lustfully, you have committed adultery. Which means, in that moment Jesus made an adulterer of every man. And we push back. We think, That bar is impossibly high. No one can live by that standard. What's going to happen to all of us who have commit Page 6 of 10

7 adultery in our heart? And Jesus answers, Well I'm going to forgive you. Really? Yeah. Well which is it? It's both. The standard got higher, and the grace went deeper. The standard got higher, and the forgiveness became richer. And this was how Jesus did it. This is what throws people off. You see, Jesus embodies grace and truth. He pointed people towards an ideal (God s truth), but he forgives those who fall short (that s grace). So there is this tension: strive for God s ideal, but know that if you fail no, when you fail God forgives. And during these next few weeks we will see this tension over and over as we apply God s principle to real families. And we will have to make a choice: Will we embrace an ideal that will never become fully real for our family? Or will we be tempted to take our eyes off God s ideal to feel better about where we actually are? Will we embrace God s ideal, knowing that we will never live up to it (in this world); or will we do the easy thing and give up, I won t even try; I m just going to be content with how things are. Let me take you one more place where Jesus applies this tension between God s ideal and our real to our families. Some Pharisees came to Jesus to test him. They weren't there to learn, they were there to trap him. And they asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? any and every reason! Now, they had a version of no-fault divorce that was wild! If a man didn't want to be married to his wife anymore, all he had to say was, I divorce you. That s it. No attorneys, fees, depositions. Just: I divorce you, and she has to pack up and leave. If a woman wanted to divorce her husband, well, life s tough. Women simply had very few rights in this Jewish culture. She was stuck. Well, it seemed to these Pharisees like Jesus was teaching something different. In fact, he seemed to be contradicting what Moses taught. And guys, you can t contradict Moses, you can t change God s law, they thought. So here's what Jesus says. He says, Haven't you read Now these are well read men; so Jesus words are a body slam! He says, Haven't you read that at the beginning (way before Moses, way before the law) You see, they are talking about the right now, the real. Right now Jesus, there are people who don't get along. Right now things don't always work out in marriage: people get older, people lose interest, people meet other people, and so, can a man divorce a woman for any and every reason right now in the real world. And Jesus says, Let me take you back to the beginning, Page 7 of 10

8 let s focus on God s ideal, God s dream home. And suddenly there is a tension. Because if you take me back to God s ideal, and it conflicts with my real which it will -- what do I do with the tension? And Jesus says, Live with it live with the tension. He says, Haven't you read, at the beginning, the Creator made them male and female 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. So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what has God has joined together let no one (including Moses) separate. So Jesus takes them back before Moses, before the law, all the way back to the garden of Eden, back to God s dream and he says, God made these two people one. And you're trying to un-one what God made one. And they are like, Wait, wait, wait. In the real world marriages break, and Moses gives us a way out. And Jesus says, Yeah. But you are so obsessed with your real world, that you have lost sight of God s ideal. He says, Figure out how to live with both. Jesus says, I understand people, I know that things don't work out, I know people divorce, I understand there has a way to protect people when someone in the marriage refuses to do marriage God s way. I get that. But I'm not going to lose sight of this: in the beginning divorce was not God s plan. It still isn t. In the beginning God created marriage in such a way that two people become one. And you cannot un-one what God makes one. And they are like, Then why did Moses command a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? Why did Moses come up with this divorce thing if what you are saying is true? And Jesus replied, Moses permitted you to divorce your wife because your hearts were hard. But it was not God s dream from the beginning. Now this is tough, isn't it? God s ideal is that two become one till death do they part. Our real is that our marriages can get really messy. So, Jesus, what are you going to do to all the divorced people? And he says, I'm not going to do anything to them. I'm going to do something for them. I'm going to give my life for them. But, that looks like you are just letting them off the hook! Which way is it? Is it a rule, or is it not a rule? And Jesus says, Yes. There is a tension. Guys, this is really important: we all live in the tension between God s ideal and the reality of our mixed up messed up lives in a mixed up messed up world and we dare not resolve it. Because if we resolve it we lose something incredibly important. Truth, and grace. Page 8 of 10

9 ** Introduce visual ** Guys, God has a dream for your family, for your home. It is amazing! And instead of pursuing God s dream we build these little shacks. Guys, if you really lived physically in one of these shacks, you d dream of one of those, you d work for one of those. Well, this is what most of our families look like. And instead of dreaming of one of those, instead of working towards one of those, we convince ourselves that this shack is perfectly fine, this is normal. Well not us. We re going to spend the next few weeks trying to make some renovations on our shacks so they look a little more like God s dream. It will be worth it! So here s the big question: Will we embrace standards that all of us will fall short of; or will we reject God s standards, so we can feel better about where we are? Are we willing to embrace God s ideal in our fallenness, knowing we will never reach it. Are we willing to say, That's what an ideal family looks like, and even though we will never live it out perfectly, we will not take our eyes off that North Star of guidance as it relates to family? Or, will you say, I going to change the rules so I feel better about where I am? Our culture will try to convince you that these standards are old fashioned, antiquated, archaic. They will tell you that they don t apply anymore. Our culture will try to tell you to move the bar to a place where we are more comfortable with our failures. And if we listen, our marriages will continue to disintegrate, and those who will suffer most will be our women, and our children. Guys, Jesus sets the bar so high, don t try to lower it. I m telling you, sometimes we hate God s dream for ourselves, but you want God s dream for your kids, and your grandkids, don t you? Have you ever met a divorced man or a divorced woman who says, I want my kids, when they grow up and get married, I want my kids to experience divorce just like me. Guys, when a loving parent goes through the pain, the loneliness, the isolation, the desperation and the hopelessness of divorce, they want better for their kids! We want God s ideal for our kids, we want their home closer to God s dream home than ours is so we dare not lose sight of the ideal for ourselves. Living God s way will be a whole lot tougher, but it s a whole lot better. So Jesus, in his amazing mercy and grace, invites us in the 21st century to re-embrace some first century values. No, they aren t 1 st century values, these go back to creation itself this is what God wanted for us when he Page 9 of 10

10 made us. He s challenging us to embrace some values that changed the world, and that can change your world. You will never live them out perfectly that s where grace comes in. But don t settle. Never settle for less than God s dream home. And so as we go forward in this series, that is the context for everything were going to talk about. We are going to look at some of God s impossibly high standards, because we don t want to settle for less. Some of what we re going to talk about is so practical, and you're going to be able to go home and start implementing it immediately. Some of what we ll talk about you are going to wish you had tried years ago, or decades ago. But for all of us, there is grace. And for all of us, there is forgiveness. God s truth, God s grace. Never abandon God s dream home, and settle for our real because the future of our families depend on it. Let me pray for you. Page 10 of 10