“I’m So Glad I’m a Part of the Family of God”

Recently I was able to spend some time with my parents in Florida and we were reminiscing about the beautiful congregation we were able to pioneer and shepherd in the ‘70s and ‘80s. (Yes, we’re old enough to reminisce.) When we were a young congregation we used to end every gathering by joining hands in a big circle and singing the old Bill Gaither tune, “I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God.” And we really were a family, and we really were glad. So many of us were permanently marked (in a very good way) by our experience of life together as the family of God.

And it wasn’t just a matter of sentimentality; the Bible refers to the local church as a family or household. Jesus referred to his followers as members of his “household” (Matthew 10:25). Jesus was appointing certain leaders who were responsible for “the servants in his household” (Matthew 24:45). In John 8:34-36 Jesus refers to himself as “the Son” in God’s family. Many of the early congregations were centered around believing families/households:

·         The household of Lydia (Acts 16:14-16)

·         The household of Justus & Crispus (Acts 18:7-8)

·         The household of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 16:15)

·         The household of Apphia & Archippus (Philemon 1:2)

Paul encourages us to “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6:10). He rejoices in the fact that we “are no longer foreigners or strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Ephesians 2:19). He commended the Thessalonian congregation for loving “all of God’s family throughout Macedonia” (1 Thessalonians 4:10). Paul also instructed Timothy on how he ought to conduct himself “in God’s household” (1 Timothy 3:15). Jesus is not ashamed to call the members of his family “brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11). Peter exhorted believers to “love the family of believers” (1 Peter 2:17; see also 4:17 & 5:9).

It’s clear that from God’s perspective, the local church is a family. And as the old saying goes, “you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your relatives.” Family is family! We are not members of a club – we are brothers and sisters. But as you well know, there are a lot of dysfunctional families these days. Thinking about your family (or families you might know) and God’s family, have you ever heard family members say something like this?

I’ve been disappointed (or hurt) in a family so I’ve decided to not be in a family. The big problem with all families is that there are human beings in them, and if you hang around a human long enough, they will inevitably do and/or say something stupid. And you will be disappointed (or hurt). However, our commitment to family is based on the simple fact that family is family, and you can’t choose to not be in a family.

I’ve not spoken to my (mother/sister/father/brother) for years. When someone fails to meet the expectation of another family member, some just cut them off. Just leave. I’m not speaking to them again. I will pretend they are not part of the family. They’re dead to me. Really?!! Other than a little problem called “hatred,” this kind of response is unrealistic. To ignore family is to live in a fantasy land.

I’m not participating in any more family meals because I’m not being fed any more – in fact, I may not come back and eat ever again. Parents (and pastors) are especially fond of this one. Mom worked hard and put a healthy meal on the table – you just refused to eat it. And don’t you have some level of responsibility to participate in the provision of healthy meals, and to even occasionally feed yourself?

I’m not comfortable here any more – I’m taking a break from this family (and may not come back). I don’t know about you but I’ve never thought that the purpose of my family was to provide me consistent comfort. In fact, sometimes family is very uncomfortable. However, being uncomfortable could be a growth opportunity for me. Feeling uncomfortable and bailing may just be a sign of my immaturity.

I’m not going to help pay any of the bills this week because I mowed the lawn (or did the dishes, or some other volunteer act of service) last week. To be realistic, families have practical needs that have to be systematically and consistently met, and it takes all the member of the household to adequately meet those needs. As members of our family we can’t just assume that some other family member will take care of it and then assume a passive attitude toward those needs.

Family can be irritating. Family can be disappointing. Family will never meet all of our needs. But we need family; in fact, we simply are family. Our commitment to our brothers and sisters is on a much higher level than our commitment to neighbors or co-workers. Family is God’s gift to us. All of us have a variety of “family” relationships, covenant relationships that form a vitally important bond and foundation for the rest of our lives. While I can’t choose my family I can repeatedly renew my commitment to my family, and try to make a positive contribution to everything my family needs and does. I don’t know about you, but I’m so glad I’m a part of my family – my Asplund family and my NCC family. They are God’s gift to me, and they fill my life with joy and challenge. 

The Missing Ingredient

Today is Father’s Day! We’re all clear about the importance of Mother’s Day – it’s one of the most sacred days of the year, preceded only by Christmas and Easter. We’re not so clear about Father’s Day. On Mother’s Day we honor, wine and dine our mothers, send gifts, make long phone calls, and put motherhood on a pedestal. We’re not as clear about Father’s Day. When I recently took an informal survey with the question, “What are you doing for Father’s Day?” I received a variety of blank looks and – I don’t really know. We honor what we value. So what’s up with fathers?

I think we’re all aware of the facts by now. Currently 50% of children in America live apart from their biological father and 41% of all children are born to an unmarried mother (as high as 80% and 70% respectively in some communities). 63% of all teen suicides involved kids living without a father; 85% of children exhibiting behavioral disorders; 71% of high school drop-outs; 70% of youth in juvenile detention. The crime rate is much higher for fatherless kids: 73% of all teen murders and 80% of teen rapes are committed by fatherless kids. 85% of all those in the prison system grew up without a father. The educational achievement is much lower for children without a father in their lives. Kids who grow up without a father are much more likely to engage in sexual activity, to have drug and alcohol problems, to have confused gender identities and psychiatric issues, and to be divorced as adults. Fathers are the missing ingredient in the American family.

The Bible very clearly raises the value of fathers and fatherhood:

·         Fathers are to “direct their children” and establish a godly legacy in their family (Genesis 18:19).

·         Fathers are to show compassion to their children (Psalm 103:13).

·         Fathers are known for their generosity and for being faithful providers for their family (Luke 11:11-12).

·         Fathers provide important role models to their children (1 Corinthians 4:14-16).

·         Fathers are to encourage and comfort the members of their family (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

·         Fathers are the ones charged with teaching, training, and disciplining their children (Hebrews 12:9).

Being a father is considered a blessing from God (Psalm 128:1-4). A father who fears the Lord provides security for his family (Proverbs 14:26). Fathers have the ability to “exasperate” and “embitter” their children and are therefore warned to not do so (Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:21). A father who does not provide for his family is “worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

Recently considerable research has been conducted on the values provided by a father. Here are some examples:

·         Fathers provide love

·         Fathers provide support

·         Fathers provide comfort

·         Fathers teach children values

·         Fathers teach children problem-solving

• A father's involvement in children's school activities protects at-risk children from failing or dropping out
• Fathers who are more involved with their children tend to raise children who experience more success in their career
• Involved fathering is related to lower rates of teen violence, delinquency, and other problems with the law
• Father involvement is associated with positive child characteristics such as empathy, self-esteem, self-control, psychological well-being, social competence, and life skills
• Children who grow up in homes with involved fathers are more likely to take an active and positive role in raising their own families

It’s not just an issue of absent fathers, it’s also an issue of passive, uninvolved fathers. Active fathering is certainly complicated by divorce and blended families. Godly fathers will explore ways to provide the benefits only they can give to their children no matter what their life circumstance.

Today we are declaring that fathers are our heroes. We are celebrating fathers who have who waited until marriage to bring a child into the world and who have remained faithful to their wife and children. We also celebrating fathers who are committed to being actively involved in the lives of their children even in situations that are not ideal. We are also celebrating men who are committed to providing fathering relationships to kids who don’t have an active father in their lives. After all, nothing can replace a godly father. You are our hero! Happy Father’s Day!

"Worship God!"

I remember praying for a newborn believer who was trembling in fear. When I asked him why he was so terrified he told me had started reading the Bible, beginning with the book of Revelation. When he got to chapters 8 and 9 he started to have horrible nightmares and needed prayer. I prayed for him and advised him to start his reading in John’s Gospel, not John’s Apocalypse. But then I thought about all the weird ways Christians read the Revelation; it is, after all, God’s Word and therefore designed to have a message that will reveal God to us and draw us closer to God.  Taking a fresh look at the book I concluded that the theme of the Apocalypse is very clear, simple and powerful: “Worship God!” (Revelation 4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 11:1, 16; 14:7; 15:4; 19:4, 10; 22:9).

In fact, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that our highest calling as human beings is to be worshippers, to celebrate Jesus, to bring honor and glory to God in every area of our lives. The word for “worship” (Greek proskuneo) in the Revelation (and the rest of the New Testament) simply means “to do homage by kneeling or prostration; to kiss the hand; to make obeisance and express respect.” It is a combination of intimate love and reverend obedience. We “worship” whatever we assign great “worth” to. Everyone worships something or someone. Not everyone worships God. The worship of anything or anyone other than God or in addition to God is what the Bible calls “idolatry.” To be honest, our instinct is to worship ourselves, putting ourselves at the center.

The issue of worship was central to Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness when Jesus responded, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Matthew 4:10). Jesus also exposed the phony worship of the Pharisees when he said (quoting Isaiah), “They worship me in vain, their teachings are merely human rules” (Matthew 15:9). When the New Testament church elders were asking God for direction, they gave themselves to fasting and prayer and worship (Acts 13:2). Paul’s confession of faith was simply this: “I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way” (Acts 24:14). To the Romans Paul pointed out that when humans begin to worship created things rather than the Creator, it results in a self-destructive lifestyle (Romans 1:25). “True and proper worship” involves offering our whole concrete selves to the Lord (Romans 12:1). The ultimate goal of spiritual gifts is worship (1 Corinthians 14:25).

There is such a things as false worship and false worshipers (Colossians 2:18, 23; 2 Thessalonians 2:4). However, Jesus called out “true worshipers.” Remember the conversation Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well? The Samaritans were a “mixed-race” people despised by the racially pure people of Judea. They also had a less than orthodox theology, disagreeing with Judea about the role of the Torah and the best place to worship. The Samaritan woman wanted to engage Jesus in a debate about theology, and almost succeeded when Jesus responded, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). However, the subject was not theology but worship. The heart of the matter was this: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24). God was seeking for “true worshipers,” not religious sects or theological debates. And what is a true worshiper? Because “God is spirit,” true worshipers “must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” It seems as though worshiping God “in your own way” is not necessarily true worship. True worshipers worship God in God’s way, and that way involves “Spirit and truth.” The Holy Spirit is to be our real worship leader, and the worship the Spirit will lead will conform to God’s own truth.

In fact, the Bible has a lot to say about worship and praise. (“Praise” is the outward celebration involved in our worship.) Here are a couple of simple, biblical outlines pertaining to praise and worship that might be helpful:

Why do we praise the Lord?

1.     God is worthy to be praised. Psalm 18:2-3

2.     It is good to praise the Lord. Psalm 147:1

3.     We are commanded to praise the Lord. Psalm 9:11; 22:23

4.     It results in spiritual freedom. Acts 16:25-26; Jonah 2:8-10

How do we praise the Lord?

1.     Praise with the mouth. Psalm 47:1, 5-7

2.     Praise with the hands. Psalm 141:2

3.     Praise with the body. Psalm 149:2-3; 150

So if our highest calling is that of a worshiper, and if the Father is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and in truth, then let us dedicate ourselves anew to worship God! Let us judge everything by the extent to which it will bring honor and glory to Jesus. 

I Love Roses

One of the things I enjoyed most about living in Portland was growing Hybrid Tea Roses. Portland is known as the “City of Roses” because the climate (not much good for anything else) and soil are ideal for growing fabulously beautiful roses, many of them developed in Portland. So I decided to go all out and grow a variety of specialty roses in our backyard. The problem with hybrid roses is that they are very persnickety (a Swedish word meaning “picky”) and need a lot of attention. They have to be inspected on a regular basis for a variety of possible diseases, especially fungi and mildews (encouraged by the cool, wet climate). It’s important to give the roses plenty of water (but not too much water) and good rose food. Most importantly, roses need regular, systematic, and vigorous pruning. Those unfamiliar with growing roses question why it is necessary to cut so much back on those beautiful plants. However, if there is going to be any chance of having a healthy, beautiful, productive rose, it must be pruned.

I remember my first year pruning my roses. The need for pruning was obvious in some cases. If a “cane” was dead or diseased, made obvious by it being dark and bearing no fruit, it had to be completely removed. If that cane was not cut out and thrown away it would eventually spread disease and even destroy the entire plant. The second need for pruning was more difficult. When a rose has borne a beautiful flower, as it begins to stop blossoming the flower itself must be cut off. And not just the flower but the cane must be cut back to the next place of potential fruitfulness. On a rose the beautiful flower is the “terminal bud,” the ultimate product of a season of fruitfulness. However, that terminal bud sends a signal back to the roots to stop the growth on that cane. It’s OK to pause and admire the blossom but before long, unless you want all growth to simply stop, it must be pruned back.

That memory brings to mind my “life verse”: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The life and nutrients of the plant travel from the roots through the vine and finally, into the branches. The branches exist solely to produce the fruit that demonstrates the dynamic and nature of the vine. If you separate the branches from the vine they are meaningless and worthless, capable of producing nothing at all, ultimately becoming a source of disease and death. Jesus uses a double negative (not good English grammar) to emphasize his point – “apart from me, independently of me, separated from me, you can do absolutely nothing at all.” So if we function like a “cane” on a rose, it only makes sense that our health and fruitfulness requires consistent, systematic, vigorous pruning.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (John 15:1-2). Fortunately our gardener, our vinedresser and pruner, is our Father God. Because he has created each of us to be entirely unique, he alone know what kind of pruning we need in order to be increasingly fruitful. Unfortunately, some branches are either so diseased or even dead, to keep the vine from being destroyed those branches have to be cut off and thrown away. “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:6). However, even those branches that bear the most beautiful blossoms, if they are to continue to grow and bear more fruit, must be pruned. It’s OK to pause and admire the beauty of all God has done in and through the branch, but the time will come when that “terminal bud” will need to be removed.

The word (Greek kathairo) Jesus uses for “prune” means “to cleanse from impurity, to make pure; to make free from corruption, sin and guilt; to make genuine or blameless; to prune.” That’s why Jesus said, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you” (John 15:3). (This word is also related to the one translated, “pulling down” strongholds and “casting down” imaginations in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.) The reality is that the seeds of disease and death are present in every accomplishment we experience in life. If we take too much time to focus on those accomplishments, and maybe even build a monument to them, they will inevitably become corrupted and may even become a source of disease and death rather than life and blessing.

Lately I’ve been meditating on one of the “hard sayings” of Jesus: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me” (John 12:24-26). The goal of our lives is not to be important or honored, to have a place of privilege and status; the goal of our lives is simply to bear fruit – good fruit, abiding fruit, increasing fruit – fruit that reflect the life of Christ flowing into and through our lives as a result of our abiding relationship with him. Fruit that is not just admirable but rather fruit that is a source of life and health to others – fruit that is good to eat. “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:8). That will mean submitting to the Father’s pruning, but we can rest in the confidence that the Father loves us and has only purposed good in and through our lives.