Transcript

The Family

I’m excited today to begin a new series with you on our families and family relationships.

It’s interesting to me in the creation account in Genesis that God waited to create man until the sixth day, after He had created the fish in the sea and the birds in the air, after He had created the animals. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Verse 28 says, “God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

From that early beginning family, order, and structure were born. Everything at the time was perfect. God looked on what He had done and every day closed the day by saying, “it was good.”

Boy has a lot changed since then in the family. The whole definition of what a family is has morphed into something other than what God originally created or designed.

It didn’t take the twentieth century to bring that about. No, from the very beginning man disobeyed God; sin, sickness, and death came into the world, as did envy, strife, and even murder, as Cain killed his brother Abel.

To say the first family was dysfunctional is an understatement, and nothing from then until now has changed that description of dysfunction very much.

I can remember when I grew up that a family generally consisted of a father, a mother, two children, a dog or a cat, a car in the garage, and a home to live in.

We don’t have time to talk about the negative influences and pressures on the family like divorce; unmarried living relationships; single-parent homes, mostly leaving it up to the mom to work, raise the children, and care for the home; absentee fathers, which have been a curse to the family unit; and same-sex marriages or families. Unit—there isn’t much of a unit left. The consequences of these negative influences have torn the family apart. Who is there for the children to look up to, to emulate, to learn from when in a large percentage of the homes dad is absent? Mom can’t do it all, but she tries.

We’ve pretty much destroyed God’s original intention and design of a family. But we still have hope, the hope we can get back to the pattern God intended and hear Him once again say, “it is very good.”

There’s a lot for us to share in the coming days. I hope you’ll be back to join me each day as we take a deeper look into the family—what we can do to see the function, design, and relationship as God intended, and also bring you, me, and our families the joy, peace, and happiness we long for.