In this end of Advent series, I have been putting forth the idea that we find the peace of God in our family by putting God’s priorities even before our family
This includes both prioritizing God's word in our famiies and now,prioritizing Christ’s Call in our Families.
Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 are at first glance confusing and troubling.
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Huh? We ask scratching our heads, “I have not come to bring peace?” I thought that was exactly what he came to bring.
But finish the rest of the section: 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Jesus is using a very common first century literary form of exaggeration to make his point that is, once again, about priorities. He is reminding us that we humans cannot attain on our own strength the things that only can God give. So we are called to seek God and put his son, first as the Lord and Savior of our lives. Again, like the way that the person who is desperately trying to be happy is usually the most unhappy person in the room, Jesus says that if you try to find your life, you’ll lose it.
If you try to secure peace in your family, you’ll wreck it. Peace is granted by God to those who make Jesus the center and focus of their lives. We secure God’s peace in our families when Christ’s call is the first priority in our families.
This is why as a church we don’t just offer programs for children and youth, but continually seek to minister to the whole family. It is why we offer worship for the whole family, and why we value our multi-generational fellowship.
Let me also stress that this emphasis on the family doesn’t mean that at our church we have nothing for those who are single or who don’t have kids in the home. Quite the opposite. Because everybody has a family of origin and every person needs to relate to others in this church as brothers and sisters. Our goal is that in our church would be the kind of large multi-generational Community that God intends his people to be. That our church would be an extended family that puts Christ’s call as the first priority of our lives, and helps each of us to experience and pass on to others the peace that comes when Christ is at the center of a family.
We find the peace of God in our family by putting God’s priorities even before our family.
• We open ourselves to God’s peace in our families by making God’s word a priority in our families.
• We secure God’s peace in our families when Christ’s call is the first priority in our families.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”
I would have to agree. There is nothing quite so divinely peaceful as when a family is at peace in a home. Growing up, I was raised in a family where I was deeply loved but where we experienced a good deal of family pain. I still remember what it was like to suffer through my parents’ divorce and especially the painful Christmases of adjustment that followed. Like so many people who have grown up in broken homes, I often worried whether I would be able to provide my own children with the kind of peace that I lost as a child.
But one year at Christmas time, I had one of those moments that reminded me that God can do anything. Beth and the kids and I were in Mammoth on a Christmas week ski trip. We were skiing down to our condo on the last run of the day and I began thinking about what a great trip we were having together. I had woken up early that morning and sipped a latte while Beth and the kids slept. We had all stayed up late watching a movie while piled into the big king-sized bed. I don’t remember who had said what, but during dinner the night before all of us had laughed so hard that Brooks fell off his chair.
On that last ski run of the day, when I didn’t think I could be any happier, a little girl all dressed in pink skied up next to me, humming as she flew down the slope. Ali and I exchanged smiles and I could finally make out the tune that was unconsciously coming from within her as she skied with her family and next to her Daddy.
“I’m so happy, so very happy. I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart. I’m so happy, so very happy.
You could have taken me to heaven then.
I am not a perfect father and we are not a perfect family, but I do know that the more our family prioritizes and seeks to live by God’s word; the more our family prioritizes and obeys Christ’s call, the more pervasive the peace of Christ seems to grow within our home. The God whom we trust and follow wants us to have peace and happiness in our families.
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