Gospel Prism

Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. 20 And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” 21 But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
Luke 8:19-21

Introduction

May I suggest that quite possibly though there are many who profess Christ and who want to have families in the Lord, there are very few people who understand what the Bible has to say about the role and place of the family. So there are many well-intentioned Christians who want to do the best for the families and love Christ, but who are at a loss when it comes to bringing these two elements, love of family and love of Christ, together.

Also, God created the family as a reflection of His perfect relationship within the Trinity between Father, Son and Spirit, in their love for one another, in their perfect community with one another, and their respect of the lines of authority for one another. Therefore, the family’s ultimate purpose is to magnify God and to honor Him by doing His will in all things, and as we have learned the last few weeks, by living in light of the Word of God exemplified by the good news of the Gospel.

Luke 8:19-21 gives us a picture of these priorities. Jesus is encountered by his own family, and his response to his disciples regarding His own family helps us understand the critical balance that is needed in our families. Families are to worship the God who has providentially led them to be a family. Families are not to worship their family (I’ll explain what I mean by this later). So from this text and from the rest of Scripture, I’d like to make three points about the family and its worship of God: 1) God created the family to reflect His own character and nature, 2) The family that worships the family is idolatrously self-defeating, and 3) Jesus Christ is the only true hope for the family of joy.

The Family Is a Reflection of God’s Character and Nature

In what ways does the family reflect the very nature and character of God?

First, we see that the family structure reflects the very image of God.

According to Genesis 1:26-27, God says: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And then Moses comments: “27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Many biblical commentators and theologians take the ‘us’ in verse 26 to refer to the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit. And so when God created man, he is made in God’s image in every way, in character, in physical nature, and in his relationship with others.

We also see that the family structure of marriage between a man and a woman reflects God’s love for His people.

In fact, verse 27 reveals that something about God’s image in man inherently contains the relationship between a man and a woman. We later see then in chapter 2 of Genesis, when God creates Eve, God is the one who “brought her [Eve] to the man” (Gen 2:22). And on this basis, that God officiated over the union of Adam and Eve, the two shall become one flesh (Gen 2:24). This very text is commented on by Paul in Ephesians 5:31 where Paul makes a correlation between the marriage between a husband and a wife and Christ’s love for the church. This is to say, that the marriage relationship reflects the very character of God through Christ in His love for the church.

We also see the family structure in Genesis 1:28 as a reflection of God’s creative power and authority over all creation:

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” When God commanded human beings to be fruitful, He was granting them the privilege of doing what He Himself did, which was to reign over the earth as King and to create others by means of childbearing.

Also, we see the family structure as a reminder to us that God has placed parents in our lives in the same way God’s authority is over all creation.

This is most evident in the fifth commandment and the subsequent texts regarding this commandment. Exodus 20:12 says: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” The Bible takes disobedience and a dishonoring of parents very seriously. Ex 21:15 reads: “Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.” Ex 21:17 adds: “Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.” And then Leviticus 19:1-3 tells us that we are to base our honoring of our parents as a direct reflection of our view of God’s holiness: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. 3 Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father…I am the Lord your God.”

I say all of this to remind you of how significant the family structure is in view of Scripture. God takes our relationships in marriage, with our children, and with our parents and siblings very seriously because each in some way has been designed to reflect the very nature of God Himself. This is why the family, your family is at the very forefront of training for godliness, of spiritual nurture, and also of spiritual battle. We cannot and must underestimate how much of an impact your view of your family will have on your view and your family members’ views of the Gospel of Christ. Most of what you learn about Jesus, grace, the cross, your identity, your values, discipleship, theology, will happen first in your family, whether you realize it or not.

The Family That Worships Family Is Idolatry

I wanted to lay down this foundation on the nature of the family before I went into this next point about the family and worship of God because I don’t what you to mistake what I’m about to say next as a negative view of the family. However, we must realize that the family that worships the family is idolatrously self-defeating. And I don’t use that word idolatry lightly. The number one destroyer of the family is idolatry. Now, you’re probably wondering, how can the family be idolatrous? Isn’t the family God’s good creation? Absolutely! But sadly, sin has so corrupted human beings that even good things that God has created can be our substitute for God. Paul warns us of this is Romans 1:26: “Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” God created the family structure. But we are oh so prone to worship created things rather than the Creator. And Jesus realized this reality even within His own family.

I’d like us to go back then to Luke 8:19-21. Luke records in verse 19-20: “Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. 20 And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” This doesn’t give us that much insight into the story. So I’d like you to turn to Mark 3. Mark 3 begins with Jesus’ healing ministry over the man with a withered hand. As news of his ministry and teaching began to spread, more people began to follow Him. He appointed 12 disciples and then he made his way back home. This is where we read the interesting comment from Mark in verse 21: “And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” One commentator translates the phrase “He is out of his mind” to mean “He has gone berserk.” (Robert Gundry, Mark, 171) When His family saw what was happening, the large crowds, the reputation growing, the teaching, the ministry, perhaps the many rumors that must have been swirling about Jesus, they assumed he was going insane. Notice verse 22 follows with the scribes who see the same scene and think that He is possessed by Beelzebul, the Lord of the flies, the prince of demons. His family was taking the same position that the religious authorities viewed Him as, a man who had completely lost His mind.

Luke then records Jesus’ response in verse 21: “But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” Matthew 12:48 and Mark 3:33 both record a question before Jesus makes this statement. He asks: “And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Now why would Jesus ask this question? Most likely, Jesus knew of his mother’s and brothers’ view of him. He knew that they were more concerned with his earthly responsibilities than His heavenly ones (cf. when Jesus was lost at the Temple). And he also knew that they really didn’t believe in His work as Christ and Savior, hence their reaction to his miracles and teachings. They viewed Jesus only through an earthly lens. In this way, they idolized their family structure (which included Jesus as the obedient son who should perhaps return home to the family business) rather than having their family structure aligned with their worship of God. And so Jesus questions their premise by asking all those around: “Who are my mothers and brothers?” As important as the family is, it is not more foundational than our relationship to God through Christ. Again, I want to remind you that the family was given to us by God. The family is God-ordained and reflects the very nature and character of God. And Jesus certainly loved his mother and brothers as seen at the most painful part of his life, when with the few words he had left to give, he cared for his mother while he was nailed to the cross by saying: “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:26-27) So Jesus is certainly not advocating a dishonoring of one’s parents. Instead, He is reordering priorities to how God meant it to be, God must be worshipped before all else, including one’s parents, one’s spouse, and one’s children. Anything less will be idolatry and sin.

The sad reality is that after sin entered the world, the family has been under attack not just from outside the family (by the culture and its sin), but from within as well. Sin is terribly corrosive. It is self-centered to the core and not even family ties can prevent that sin from playing out in its cruelest and most malicious forms. That is why the first murder happens not between two strangers but between brothers Cain and Abel (Gen 4). We see polygamy (the usurping of God’s intention of marriage between one man and one woman) through Lamech in Genesis 4:23. Abraham neglected his responsibility to protect Sarah, his wife, and readily handed her over to Pharaoh when he felt his life was threatened in Genesis 12:10-20. In Genesis 19:30-38, Lot commits incest with his two daughters and bears two sons. There are many more incidences throughout the Bible and throughout human history. Divorce, while rampant today, is nothing new. Physical and sexual abuse has been all too common throughout history. Of course, we cannot miss the more subtle sins of the family, envy, anger, rivalry, unkindness, oppression, guilt-induced behaviors, etc.

And then, there is the idolatry that also comes with trying to please, love, and even worship parents, children, or spouses. Perhaps there is no greater danger to a family than the worship of one or more members of the family. Tim Keller defines idolatry this way: “Making an idol out of something means giving it the love you should be giving your Creator and Sustainer.” How many of you are giving the love that should be only reserved for the Creator to someone in your family? How many of you are looking to please someone in your family, to win approval for yourself, only to find that you’re left wanting and empty again? May I share with you three family relationships where we are tempted towards idolatry. This week, I’d like to tackle the first relationship and next week the final two with Jesus’ answer to the idolatry of family worship from Luke 8:19-21. The first is our relationships with our parents and here we wrestle with the tension of honor versus idolatry.

There is no doubt that all children, both young and old, should honor their parents. The fifth commandment makes that quite clear. However, Ephesians 6:1 gives this caveat in our honoring of parents: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Obedience and honor must always be in the context of honoring God first. We need to remember that when God created the family structure and its lines of authority, it was modeled after the Triune relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. Thus, as important as the family is, it is never to usurp what it was intended to model. God is the only one who deserves worship. This is why Jesus says in Matthew 10:34-38: “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 a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 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 his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” This isn’t a call to dishonor parents. Rather, it is a reminder that even before honoring parents, the created order of things should be that God deserves worship first and foremost. We honor our parents, but never in place of our worship of God. We must not give the love and worship that is only reserved to God to our parents. So how can we honor our parents without worshipping them?

First, we always treat parents with respect and dignity but we reserve our worship for God alone.

Worship means our hearts ultimately yield to another. And God alone deserves this type of yielding. Sometimes to follow God means going against the will and desires of our parents, but even during such times, we must be mindful of our respect of our parents, even in strong disagreement. I remember when I decided to tell my dad that I was going into ministry, I knew that he would be terribly disappointed and angry with me. But I had committed before telling him, that regardless of his response to me, that I would do all that I could to be respectful, to guard my heart against bitterness and hatred against him. When you truly feel the Lord is leading you and that you must obey Him even before your parents, and you have lived your whole life under the longing and desire to please your parents without never really getting their approval, it can be quite a challenge to honor them. But such trust in the Lord’s commands brings about blessings that you could never dream of. In my case, I have seen my dad come to fully support what I do now, but it took years of dealing with his disappointment and anger towards me in failing to fulfill his dreams for me.

You see, we need to ask ourselves, why do I do what I do? If we believe 1 Corinthians 10:31, that whether we eat or drink, we must do it for the glory of God, then working in your job cannot and must not be to please your parents. You career goals and life’s aspirations cannot ultimately be to honor your parents. That’s not what the fifth commandment is about. What you do, according to 1 Cor 10:31, must first be unto God’s glory. Honoring your parents is to give them the respect that is due their God-created authority over you. Yes, you should take to heart their advice and not readily dismiss it because you want to honor your parents. I think their counsel, especially if you know they love the Lord and want to honor His will and not their own, might be the most significant counsel you might receive. However, they are not God to you. You do not worship their opinion and you must not be held enslaved by their approval. No one in this world deserves that from you. Only God deserves such worship.

I have had many conversations with people in this church and outside of this church who currently still struggle so deeply with wanting to serve and please their parents. Often times, guilt and a longing for approval from their parents enslaves adult children to do anything they can to still gain this approval. This comes in all forms, from an ingrained necessity to provide money, to spending an inordinate amount of time and energy (helping with paying bills, setting up retirements, running all sorts of errands), to yielding to advice on all sorts of areas (career choice, marital choice, parenting methodology, educational methodology (homeschooling, etc.)) regardless of whether the advice honored God or not.

Now I am not saying that there is no place to help parents with money or other needs that they have. In fact, there are definitely instances where to withhold such help could be a dishonoring of one’s parents. But if these decisions are a result of your longing for your parents approval of you, or if they lead you to neglect or disregard an even more primary relationship, such as your biblical responsibility to your spouse or children, or if you fear your parents disapproval, rejection, or even disavowal of you as a son or daughter, or if your love for your parents lessens your desire to worship God in any way, then you are probably making a decision based on an idolatrous worship of your parents rather than an honoring of your parents in the Lord.

So second, we demonstrate our love for our parents as long as it does not contradict the order of our primary biblical responsibilities.

We should show love to our parents. We should communicate with them regularly. We must show kindness to them and the respect that they deserve because they are our parents and because God commands it. But such demonstrations of love should not subsume our primary relationships. In other words, we must remember that first we worship our God, then we are one flesh with our spouse, and then we are responsible over our children while they are young, and then finally we honor our parents in that order. May I give some counsel to those who will be married or are married regarding parents and parents-in-laws. I want to give a word to future husbands and to current husbands. Husbands, your primary relationship, before even your relationship to your mother and father, is to your wife. I had a friend when I was in seminary who believed that when he got married, he would always side with his parents before his wife. Regardless of what I told him, he refused to think. I couldn’t think of a more unbiblical idea in marriage. According to Ephesians 5:25, a husband loves a wife as Christ loves the church. The parent-child relationship, though an obvious, foundational relationship, is not one that can surpass the scope and magnitude of this covenantal love. Marital love reflects God’s very love for His people and therefore all husbands and wives must see their marriage as even more primary than their relationship to their parents and to their children. It’s also remarkable that before there was even a mother or father in the world, God brought husband and wife (Adam and Eve) together to be one flesh. Marriage preexisted parenting. Husbands we must never, ever forget this biblical reality.

Thus, husbands, we must love our wives by making certain that our wives, not our parents, are one flesh with us. If we are lifting our mother and father’s wishes over our wives, we are not honoring our parents, we are worshipping our parents. We must never fear disappointing our parents, but ask ourselves, “Is my fear a result of what God thinks of me or what my parents think of me?” In this fear, men, you are worshipping your mom and dad and not your God. Let your parents know that you will fight for their honor, but it cannot be at the cost of your marriage. By God’s grace, His created order is wise and when you trust in Him and follow His wisdom, you will have a blessed marriage and be able to honor your parents.

Now may I give a word to the future wives and current wives. Some of you are so close to your parents and your siblings. What a blessing this is. When children come, if you should have that blessing, your parents are right there to serve you and to love you. However, there will be a temptation to allow your parents to still rule your worldview, your thoughts, your patterns, your diet, perhaps even your relationship with your husband, something they should have ceded to you and your husband when you married. Thought there is something precious about the closeness of an adult daughter to her parents and siblings, ladies, you must be careful that that closeness is not in place of your primary relationships, your worship to God, your one flesh reality with your husbands, and your God-given responsibility to raise your children in the Lord. If you are more tender, more open with your thoughts and emotions, more compassionate with your parents and siblings than you are with your husband, then there is definitely something amiss. Ladies, you are in danger of doing the very thing your husband will also be tempted to do, which is to displace your primary relationship with a secondary one. By in a sense, ‘loving’ your own family before your love for your husband, you are not only in danger of displacing him in your life, but your Lord as well.

Third, we heed their advice in child-rearing graciously, but remain strong on our convictions to raise a new generation with a biblical view of family structure and worship.

Some of you have unbelieving parents and so often the counsel they give you is more about earthly success than anything else. Sometimes such advice comes from believing parents as well. They want you to be such and such a profession because it makes you more successful, gives you more comfort, and perhaps leads to more fame and fun, believing that only then will you be truly happy. I have a feeling mixed in there, because of the reality of sin, are also selfish motives. What you do for a living, who you marry, what family you marry into, makes them look good. They can tell their friends what you do, who you’ve married, how beautiful your children are, etc. And so the temptation to fulfill this dream on their behalf continues. But if you should worship your parents views and dreams more than your God, you will find the temptation to impress these same values on your own children. You will be concerned with your own glory in the same way your parents were concerned with theirs. You will be more interested in creating a legacy of yourself, a monument to yourself to leave behind, than you will be for God’s glory.

But listen to this beautiful picture of a new generation of worship of God in Psalm 78: “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. 5 He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, 6 that the next generation might know them the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, 7 so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; 8 and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.” The priority of this text is that the parents’ greatest concern is that next generation will not forget the works of God. It is not what children do vocationally, or how successful they are in anything, and not even whether their children will take care of them in their old age. No, these parents are deeply concerned that the next generation will be faithful to Christ and would not be like his forefathers who were stubborn and rebellious against God.

My dear friends, first and foremost then, how you respond to your parents today, whether you worship them or whether you honor them, whether you respect them or whether you are ruled by their approval of you, will not only impact you, but it will be the pattern upon which you will expect from your own children. When you are enslaved by your parents and their expectations of you, rather than enjoying the freedom that God gives to you to honor your parents but not to worship them, you will also pass down that same enslavement to your own children. If you provide for your parents luxuries, if you give them nice homes, the golf club memberships, expensive cars, grand vacations with money you simply do not have, if you are spending time or energies that you do not have to give, and both are taking away from your primary responsibilities of worshipping God or caring for your wife or husband or children, then you will also expect the same from your children. I would imagine that the Psalm 78 perspective of building a legacy of God’s honor and renown is not your parents’ mindset, nor will it be yours when you are in your parent’s position years later. You will feel that sense of entitlement creeping into your hearts. After all, you put in your just due to your parents, and now its payback time from your children. You’ve sacrificed for your parents, now it’s time for your children to sacrifice for you. And don’t believe you won’t be tempted to have such a heart. The child that is abused always promises that they won’t abuse other children. But sadly, that promise is rarely kept. And in this way, we idolize our parents and worship them, but actually we act also out of the idols of our own hearts. We long for comfort, approval, worth, esteem and rather than accepting our righteousness in Christ, we still yearn for others’ approval.

Parents, you can begin honoring your parents and having a right view of worshipping God and honoring your parents by releasing your kids from expectations that your parents have over you. Begin today to release them from your expectations on anything that does not have in mind your children setting their hope first in God. Release them from the future career they need to have to please you. Release them from marrying the person you believe they deserve to have. Release them from any amount of support they need to give you to upkeep the standard of living you think you need. Release them from your view of an ideal son or daughter. Release him from expectations of skills. Don’t try to live your dreams through your children. Release her from music or art or engineering. Dads, release your sons from athletics or from ‘being athletic.’ I just read that hall of fame quarterback John Elway recently stated that he understood his son, Jack’s decision to quit college football. ESPN reported: “Jack Elway, a redshirt freshman at Arizona State, decided to leave the team last month, during spring practice. He remains enrolled at the school as a student. ‘He sounds better,’ John Elway said, according to the report. ‘Just talking to him, it’s like the world has been lifted off his shoulders. So I’m happy for him.’” Oh the joy of not having to live someone else’s dreams, and the freedom to live as God allows us to live.

Instead, empower them now and for the future, to love God more than anything else, to treasure the Gospel more than anything else, even if it means at the cost of your family. Parents, you can break the cycle of previous generations that have forgotten God’s grace, by treasuring first and foremost that your children will honor you, but worship God. And by doing so, the fruit that will be borne will and the legacy of the Gospel treasured will be seen in generations far beyond your years. May all of our families honor our parents, love this, bless them, pray for them, respect them, treat them with dignity, listen to their advice and wisdom, but may you only leave worship for your God. May you believe by doing so, you will live well and also you will perhaps even lead your parents to trust in Him. Next week, I’m going to tackle Love in Marriage versus Idolatry and Parenting Versus Idolatry from this text.