The Local Church & Your Family

Good to see all of you here today. Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 5. 1 Timothy chapter 5 for our time of study in the Word this morning. we are just today coming back to our series through First Timothy, and as we pick up in this series we come this morning to 1 Timothy 5:3, and I'll have to tell you guys up front on Monday of this week I didn't have the slightest clue I would end up preaching the message I'm going to be preaching today.

This has totally taken me by, surprise. I, I spent the week immersing myself in verses 3 through 16 of First Timothy 5, where Paul is giving instructions on providing care for widows in the church, and as I was immersing myself in these verses, there were certain things that started leaping off the page at me, and there was a certain theme to those things that were, leaping out at me and, it's that, theme that I want to focus on today which has very little to do with widows. So the topic of the message this morning is the local church and your family.

The local church and your family.

Do I sound OK? OK. Do I look OK? the local church and, and your family, and I'll give you an idea of where we're coming from with this.

in these verses, it's not like Paul is trying to say to the church, Hey, you got to take care of widows. The problem was that there were too many widows that were on the rolls being cared for by the Ephesian Church, because there were households, there were families that had dependent widows in those households. And those households, those families had the means to provide financial help for those widows, but instead of using their own resources to meet the needs of the widows in their household, they were thinking, hey, the church has a widow ministry where they're providing financial resources and support for widows, so we know what we'll do.

We'll just go to the church and we'll sign up our widow in our household so that she can get funds from the church.

And Paul catches wind of this, and he's saying to Timothy, there's too many widows that are on the rolls receiving help, and there are widows that the church should not be extending resources to because their own family members ought to be doing that. You following me? And so in verses 3 through 16 what we have going on is a divvying up, a dividing up of responsibilities where Paul is saying, here's what the family is supposed to do, here's what the local church is supposed to do, and so there's, there's an exchange, a dividing up of responsibilities.

And so what we begin to observe in this passage in a very clear way is a relationship between the family unit and the local church.

And of course the context is widows, but some of those things about the relationship between the family unit and the local church really were striking to me and got me pretty excited. So we'll focus on that today, and that'll lay the groundwork for talking about widows and caring for widows over the next couple of weeks. Let's let's though trigger our thinking by beginning with a question which is more important? Is the family more important than the church, or is the church more important than the family?

Don't answer, don't answer. Don't even nod yes or no, just think, because we'll come back to this at the end of the message and, and provide an answer for it. But it is a topic that sometimes maybe you think about and, and you hear people talking about. There are two extremes here.

There are some who are on the extreme of neglecting their families because they're so consumed with serving the church. Missionary history, the history of missions is. is full of people that, went to serve the cause of the universal church and they left in their wake. Just, it's just littered the landscape of missions in some ways is littered with the debris of broken families and children that were neglected.

William Carey himself, the father of modern missions, neglected his four boys tragically. To such a degree that another Christian couple observed his four unruly sons and said, what, we're going to try to minister to them and provide structure and discipline for them, and they were able to provide that because Carey, William Carey had neglected his, his boys. One of his biographers said, as busy as he was, Carey neglected his children, failing to give them the parenting they so desperately needed.

Then that's one extreme.

Then there's the other extreme. Of people who neglect the church because they're so consumed with their own family. Their family is all important. Their family is like the apex of existence, and a lot of this is a noble devotion to family, but it can go awry when it gets out of, out of balance.

And one of the extremes of this is people who actually view their family as all the church that they need. And one such writer. Is this guy that I'll read to you, he says, people ask me what I do for church now. Usually people ask me if I'm in a house church.

The truth is my wife and 4 kids are my church. Most of us in our North American lifestyle only have time to maintain a few close relationships. Well, there are 5 people in my family that need me, and it is most important to me that we remain close. They are my community.

They are my church. I don't have much more to give outside of them without my family being sacrificed. that is someone on the other extreme so devoted to their family that they not only neglect the local church altogether but they come to view their family of five as all the church that they ever need. So as we ponder this question, which is more important, is the family more important than the local church, or is the local church more important than, the family, some of these truths will help us to figure out how to answer this question.

What I want to do, the time that we have today is to look at 6 truths from 1 Timothy that will help you and I to understand the relationship between the family unit and the local church. Maybe your question might be what place should the local church have in my family life or what place does my family household have in the life of the church as parents? This is like a very practical issue to figure out, and I think these truths will help us to see the church and see the family in right relationship to each other.

All right, 6 truths you guys interested?

Because if you're not, I could preach on something else. OK. one of you is interested and that's all I need. So, truth number one, is, and this is by way of review, the local church is one family, a household of God.

We've actually already learned that in First Timothy that if we're asking the question, Well, what's more important, the church or the family, well, actually, First Timothy teaches that the local church is a household. It is a family. Look what Paul says in First Timothy 3:5. I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the or a household of God, which is the or a church.

Now again, what is a household? It's family members that are living under one roof. I've got family members living in South Carolina, Atlanta, and Indianapolis. We are family.

We're even immediate family, but we're not a household because we're not living. together, so a household of God is a group of brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers in the faith that are living in close proximity to one another under one roof, as it were, with elders and deacons, and Paul uses the word household, which is the Greek word for family. To describe the local church, he says the household of God, which is the church. And so we then begin to realize how tricky that question really is what's more important, the family or the church?

Well, what we're really asking is what's more important, our family in Christ or our biological family? It starts getting fuzzy and we see how difficult of a question it is to answer. Given the fact that the local church is one family in Christ, we in the household of God should relate to one another as family members because we are indeed family in Jesus. First Timothy 5:1, Paul says to Timothy, Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but Perakaleo him we learned, which literally means come alongside of him.

And speak to him as a father, the younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters in all purity. He's saying, listen, in the church, you guys are family in Jesus, by virtue of your faith in Jesus Christ, you are a household. You are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers living in close proximity to one another under the same local roof, as it were. And I love that about the church.

Don't you? We have people in our church that are Caucasian, some Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and African-Americans and Hispanic, and I'm sure the list could go, could go on and on, and our family trees and our ethnic backgrounds and, and our family's histories are like all coming. A bunch of different directions. But what?

We have the cross of Jesus Christ in common. And when God saved us, God made us brothers and sisters of one another so we can look at each other and call each other brother and sister, not because it's like we're brothers and sisters. We are brothers and sisters in Jesus. Jesus made it happen through the cross.

We are a family, and in a local church with elders and deacons that we've been learning about in 1 Timothy, we are a household. We've got to figure out how to live together just like a family would, how to do things and what the leadership structure should be. There's a second truth that we can observe in First Timothy that would help us in understanding the relationship of the local church to the family unit, and that is that the local church is comprised of distinct family households of which its members are a part.

Yes, we are one household.

Yes, we are one family in Jesus. And yet when we read the pages of First Timothy, We see that Paul doesn't just talk about us as one household. But he, when he looks over the landscape of a church in Ephesus, and if he looked at us, he wouldn't just see men and women, boys and girls, he would see grandparents and fathers and mothers and husbands and wives and children and grandchildren, he would see households represented. We see the word, maybe more so than any other book in the New Testament, we have the word husband in this six chapter book, a couple of times, wives shows up a few times, children shows up a few times, grandchildren even, parents shows up in name and it's implied.

And a couple other passages. So when Paul looked at the church, he saw households and saw people in terms of the role that they played in their distinct family unit. And a number of times we see the word household, not just in chapter 3. 15 where he speaks of us as one household in Christ, but he often in this book speaks of people's own individual family household.

Chapter 3 verse 4. An elder is to manage his own household. That's not the church household, that's his own family. Chapter 3 verse 5, he refers again to a man in his own household.

Chapter 3, verse 12, deacons are to manage their own households well. Chapter 5, verse 4, he speaks of children in the context of their own household, which in the The American standard is translated family, which is a good translation of that, but it's all the same word. Chapter 5, verse 8. He speaks of a man and his household, and chapter 5, verse 14, he speaks of women who manage.

Their households. So just over and over again, Paul, he's not just thinking of the church as one big household in Christ, but he's also seeing many individual distinct households or family units. This is an apostolic acknowledgment of the validity of the family. It's not like Paul says, Hey, we're family in Christ, and that obliterates all family distinctions.

We're all one. No, he says we're all one, and yet we are distinct. We have individual distinct family units, and there are roles that we play inside of that. Well, there's a third truth that this leads us to, and this gets us more into some of the ground.

In these verses in chapter 5, and that is this, that the local church should honor and point to these family households as the first place where godliness is practiced by its members. All right, you want to know what the church thinks of the family? What the church thinks of the family is it points to the family, elevates the family as the very first and ultimate place where godliness is to be practiced. Look what he says in verse 4.

He says, but if any widow has children or grandchildren, they, the children or the grandchildren, must first learn to practice piety, that's the word godliness in regard to their own family. And make some return to their parents. What I want to do is I just want to lift the principle up from the text so we can stare at it, and the principle is this that they family members must first learn to practice godliness in regard to their own. Family.

Now Paul obviously takes that truism and he applies it to caring for widows in your household, but Paul would happily apply this principle in many other contexts. Also, in fact, he does in other places, even in First Timothy, even though he doesn't use these exact words. But I want this principle to sink in. I must first learn to practice godliness in regard to my own family.

I want you to internalize that the home is the birthing place where ministry and love and humility and giving and grace and forgiveness is exchanged and practiced and where we learn, not just where we practice godliness, but where we learn to practice godliness. And what, what often happens is the reverse. we're at home and we are so used to being with family that brothers and sisters treat each other with disrespect and Calling each other names, being easily irritated with each other.

Husbands and wives may do that as well with each other and maybe parents with their children or children with their parents, and they're just fussing and fuming all the way to church.

And then once we get on the campus and we're with the household, the larger household, suddenly everyone becomes more godly in the way that we relate to our brothers and sisters in Christ. And by practice what we're really saying Is that the first and ultimate place to practice godliness is with the household, the local church, family. And the home is secondary. Paul says, no, it's the opposite.

The first and the ultimate place where you practice godliness is in your home. We can say it this way The first place where you must learn to practice godliness is in your house in relation to your own family. How are you doing? How are you doing?

On that. if your faith is such that it cannot find a way to manifest itself in your marriage, in your relationship with your children, the way that you parent them, and relationship with your parents, if you are a child, if your faith cannot find a way to manifest itself in a productive way, if your faith is not revolutionizing daily, stage by stage the way you relate to your family members. You really need to examine the quality of that faith. Look honestly at that.

Paul says the family is the ultimate place, the first place where godliness is practiced. How many of you have read Pilgrim's Progress? OK. Excellent book., in one section of the book, Christian, the main character is, walking with a guy named Faith, who is his companion, and they meet up with a guy named Talkative.

And it'd be nice when we meet up with people if they had names like that, so we knew right away, this is a bad guy. Hi, my name is Evil. and we just know by their names. But somehow Christian didn't know, someone would introduce himself as talkative and Christian wouldn't know they're talkative in the storyline.

But they meet up with this guy named Talkative, and this guy was eloquent. He loved to talk about religion. This guy was a theological expert. He said to Faith, the guy named Faith, who was very enamored with talkative at first, he says, I will talk of things heavenly or of things earth.

Earthly of things moral or things evangelical, things sacred or things profane, things past or things to come, things foreign or things at home, things more essential or things circumstantial, provided that all be done to our prophet. This guy loved to talk and loved to hear himself talk and at first faith was really taken with this guy and he comes over to Christian and says this is a really neat guy. He's going to be an excellent fellow pilgrim, don't you think? And Christian says, no, he won't.

Let me tell you about him and listen to what Christian says. I've been in his family and have observed him at home. His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savor. There is neither prayer nor sign of repentance for sin.

Thus say the common people that know him, a saint abroad and a devil at home. His poor family finds it so. He is such a churl. Which means rude.

he's so rude, such a railer at, and so unreasonable with the servants that they neither know how to serve or to speak to him. Here's a guy who on the outside with everyone else seems to have the appearance of godliness, but you really know his true heart because of the way he is at home, and Christian had insight into this, having seen and witnessed this guy. At home. Guys, as, as one of the pastors here at Cornerstone, I feel really burdened to say these two things, all right?

Your most, thinking about the days of this coming week, your most important ministry to this local church will occur inside the walls of your own home. The most important things you're going to do of any benefit to Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church if you're a part of this church will occur inside the walls of your own home as you relate to your family members. Your ministry to your local church, whatever that church is, whether it's Cornerstone or elsewhere, your ministry to your local church starts in your home with your own family.

Notice also that Paul uses the word first.

he says if any widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family. Think about what that word first means. They first need to practice piety with regard to their family. They do that first.

What does that imply? It implies that there's a second place in which to practice piety or godliness. There's another location or maybe even many other locations, but this is the first. And so just looking at the wording of this principle, you would know, anyone would know the home is not to be the all consuming and only location where I practice godliness, right?

It's simply the first place. The second place would be in Paul's mind, the local church. In fact, one commentator says this Paul uses the word first, meaning before other forms of Christian service that one might, might want to engage in. Some writers suggest that what was happening is that there were people who had households and they had dependent widows who needed support.

in their households, they weren't providing that support. They had the church do that. Nonetheless, these individuals were heavily involved in the church and in ministries in the church. To such individuals, Paul is essentially saying go home.

Go home, pull away. If, if you need to do extra stuff to generate income to provide for your own dependent widow in your own house, do that because the first and the ultimate place where godliness is genuinely practiced is in the home. And notice he's not even talking about spiritual care that a household provides for a widow. He's talking about mundane physical care, financial, material care.

God doesn't look down on that and say that's not a spiritual activity. God says that's godliness. When God sees. People in the Cornerstone family sometimes even pulling away from ministry here on the campus or whatever other ministries at Cornerstone because they need to devote themselves to caring for their mom and dad in very physical, mundane, or material ways.

God looks at that and says that's godliness and that pleases me. So what we learn here is a 3rd truth, and that is that the local church should honor and point to the family household as the first place where godliness is practiced. There's a 4th truth though that we can observe in 1 Timothy that helps us to understand. The relationship between the local church and the family unit, and that is that the local church should view the family household as a necessary proving ground for church-wide ministry.

That's how important the family is that anyone in the church that wants to be an elder or a deacon. And so forth. Paul says, look at the way they are in the home. The home is the location in which they prove themselves.

They demonstrate their qualification for church-wide ministry. In fact, look at this for elders. He says an overseer must be the husband of one wife. In other words, a one woman man.

Look at his relationship with the woman he calls wife in his household. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control. You say amen. I keep my children under control.

I know how to do that. No, with all dignity. There are dads that know how to get their children under control by using dignity. Dad is on a rampage.

Dad is on the loose. Everyone gets under control. That's a tragic failure of leadership. What God wants is a man that His children respect, a godly man, a man who loves God, commands the respect of his children to where he has his children under control with dignity.

They love, they respect him. They know that he loves and respects them, and it's respect and love. It's dignity. That's the man that Paul would say is qualified to be an elder, hastening on deacons, qualifications for deacons.

These are servants in the church. That's what the word deacon means. What are their qualifications? Look at this, deacons must be husbands of one wife.

Check out their relationship. of that deacon with the woman he calls wife in his home, and they must be good managers of their children and their own households. So again, Paul's pointing back to the household. See the way the deacon is this potential deacon is in his home.

And then we're going to learn about this in the coming weeks that there were widows that it seems that the Ephesian Church provided care for simply because they needed it. And then there was another category of widows that made the list. All right, and these widows were not only provided care for financial compensation, but they were involved in some significant way in ministry in the church, like an order of widows, as it were, and Paul says those widows that make the list, look at what he says.

A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than 60 years old, having been a.

One woman man. Yes, her husband has passed away, but how did she relate to the man that she called husband in her own household when her husband was alive? And if she has brought up children? How did she bring up her children?

What mother was she in her own household? And if she has shown hospitality? hospitality is something you do with your family. It's something you do with your house and opening up your family and your house, your household to those that you have invited in.

It just seems like any significant ministry that Paul is wanting to place people in in the church to determine their qualification for church-wide ministry, he says, check out their household. The home is elevated in this apostle's thinking. to a place where it is seen as the proving ground, the testing ground for one's qualification for ministry. Badi Bakum.

you may not agree with everything that he says, but he has a way of saying it that is like a punch in the mouth, but he wrote the book What He Must Be if he wants to marry my daughter. Dads, if your daughters are of marriageable age, or they will be in the next 20 years, get this book. But, listen, listen to a couple of things that he says here that I think are really valuable. He says, Where is the church to look for her leaders?

Is it in the seminary? Is it in other churches? And by the way, a lot of churches do that. They contact seminaries whose theology they really like, and I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing.

They contact seminaries and then kind Assume that a product of that seminary must be a pretty good guy. Is it in the seminary? Is it in other churches or ministries of similar size that have been led through a growth phase and building campaign by a gifted leader? Sorry, I couldn't resist, he says.

Is it on online websites that collect resumes? No. The church is instructed to look for its leaders in the first institution, the family. That's where you find them.

He goes on to say this today churches look at resumes and never examine the home. In the New Testament church, a man's home was his resume. And then I like this. It's an overstatement but typical Vadi Baum style overstatement.

He says, I love to see the look on the faces of young men who ask me what they should do to prepare for ministry. When I stare at them intently and say, Take a wife, start a family, then see if you qualify. And he then follows that up and qualifies and says, yes, I know single people can be qualified for ministry. The apostle Paul was.

He did all the qualification, but there, there's something of this sentiment that is, is utterly valid because most guys are expecting him to say, well, check out a seminary. But what he says instead is find a wife if you don't have one, start a family. And see how you qualify. The home in the mind of Paul is is one of the ultimate locations.

It's a necessary location in which one's qualification for church-wide ministry, either as an elder, deacon, or even a widow. who's serving in the church in some significant way? Well, truth number 5 is this that we can that jumped off the page at me this week, and that is that the local church should not let a family household look to the church to do what the family members should be doing. Does that make sense?

and I'm going to warn you ahead of time, I'm still thinking about this. I have no business preaching this point, because I, got a lot of thinking to do, so I'm going to go as far as I feel like I can be confident with, in terms of what the text of scripture indicates. But let me repeat this the local church should not let a family unit, a family household, look to the church. To do what the family members ought to be doing in their households.

What we're going to see in this section of First Timothy is that the Ephesian church, local church, overstepped. And it's now engaging in areas of ministry such as providing support for widows. that family units should have been doing and the Ephesian church is encroaching into this arena. Their, their motives are good.

They're over obeying scripture to where they're, they're doing things for widows that the family households represented in the church should have been doing for those widows. And what we learn here is that it is possible sometimes. For a church to overreach itself and for a local church to start doing things that family units ought to be doing and as the church does those things that family units ought to be doing, it takes the pressure off of those family members. That they should be feeling to do what God has called them to do.

Are you following me? Paul wants these. Family members to feel the pressure, and yet the way that the Ephesian Church has been caught up in doing things, they're resting easy and not feeling the pressure they ought to be feeling. Paul says in 1 Timothy 5:8, If anyone does not provide for his own and especially those of his own household, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Paul's ticked. Not at the church and not at Timothy, he's, he's pretty upset. At some of the heads of households that are allowing the church to do what God called them to do, Paul is saying that if anyone is not providing for his own household and instead is letting the church do that, that person is denied the gospel, and he's worse than an unbeliever, someone who just abdicates their responsibility and lets the church do what God has called them. To do and I want you guys to ponder and discuss in your care groups tonight and Friday, just, this is the area of the ministry to widows, but are there other areas where we as families can A say, well, the church is taking care of this and so we feel less ownership and responsibility.

Are there ways that as a church we can be guilty of that and actually encouraging family members to abdicate their responsibility because we're doing what God has called them to do for them? There's a number of things to think about. Listen to one other thing that Vy Baum. He says he says just a few generations ago a man was considered spiritually responsible if he led his family before the throne of God in prayer, if he read and taught the scriptures at home, and if he led family devotions among other things.

Today parents are considered responsible simply if they find a church with the best staffed nursery and the most up to-date youth ministry who could do all of the above with their children. You really think about that. when the Sunday school, I took a class when I was in college and the only topic of the class was Sunday school for a whole semester. Sounds exciting, right?

And in that class we, we studied the history of Sunday school and it was interesting that when the ministry of Sunday school was started, It was not for believing children. It was not for children in Christian households. There was instruction already taking place in those Christian households. It was for children that were from non-Christian homes, children that were working in the factories 6 hours a day, many of whom could not even attend I'm sorry, 6 days a week.

And therefore they could not even attend school in many cases and so the church provided an outreach where it's like, what, we'll provide some instruction, teach these kids how to read and write on Sunday, and we'll do so in the context of Bible instruction, a brilliant idea for outreach. But when the Sunday school movement started, there were some who voiced a concern. And the concern was that if we allow this ministry into the church, It may not be long before Christian children are participating.

And if that happens, it may not be long before parents start thinking, Well, my children are getting instruction from the church, and then they will cease to instruct their children in Bible doctrine and Bible knowledge at home.

that's actually what has happened, and I'm not up here blaming Sunday school for that, and I'm not up here, ragging on Sunday school as being the cause of that problem necessarily. I'm more criticizing the mentality of parents sometimes where they can look at the ministries that the church is already doing on behalf of their children. And because their children are already having to memorize verses for Iana, they're already getting instruction in Sunday school. Well, they're getting that instruction, and so they as parents feel less responsible to do that in the home.

As a church, we can't, we should not. Paul would say don't let that happen, and he's not saying necessarily can Sunday school or I want to, but man, you've got to make sure that parents do not. in any way allow what the church is doing to cause them to feel less responsible to do these things in the home. I would love to see our Sunday school ministry and a ministry and our youth ministry as something that that comes alongside of the parents and is supporting the parents and supplementing what the parents are doing.

It is not designed to replace what you are to be doing. OK. God has not called kumi to disciple your young person. He's, that's not Kumi's job, that's your job as parents to disciple your young person.

God has called Kumi to come alongside of you and assist you in that, and to support in his ministry to your children, what you are doing in the home. Kumi recently, who's our youth pastor, by the way, he, he started a Saturday morning, Bible study, a discipleship group with young people, with young men. And he didn't just want to meet with the young men, but he invited all the dads of these young men to join them. He says that's the ideal.

I don't want to just disciple their kids and then the dad's off doing something else and doesn't have time for that. I want the dads there so we're all working together in discipling their children. That's Kumi being careful. So as not to supplement and replace the parent, but rather to come alongside of them and help them.

and encourage them in their role. But anyway, this is something that I need to think a lot more about and what the ramifications of it are. But when you see the way Paul is with widows, what we observe is that Paul is, is, is worried here that in what the Ephesian Church is doing, that the Ephesian Church is allowing family members to look to the church to do what the family members ought to be doing. And the church is letting itself get roped into that, and Paul says that's, you're basically robbing family members from the opportunity to truly practice godliness with regard to their own family as God has called them to.

Well, that leads to a 6th and a final. truth that leaped off the page this week and that will help us in understanding the role of the, local church and the family unit, the relationship of those 2 to 1 another, and that is that people should serve the members of their own family households with the mindset that they are serving the local church in doing so. People should serve the members of their family households with the mindset that they are serving the local church. In doing so, Whereas parents and, and training your children, praying with your children, teaching your children, having family worship and husbands, loving your wives in whatever ways and wives toward your husbands and children towards your parents, that whenever you do anything that is in the way of practicing godliness with regard to your own family, You are in the act of doing that, serving the local church that you are a part of, and Paul actually wants you to think that way, that I will do this for my family, not only because I'm commanded to, not only because it pleases God and furthers his purposes in my life, but I will do this also consciously knowing that in doing this for these members of my family, I'm actually benefiting the local church.

Look at this. 1 Timothy 5:16. If any woman and some Greek manuscripts have the word or man. but that's beside the point for our purposes today.

If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows in her house that she's able to provide for, she must assist them, and the church must not be burdened with needing to assist them if she can do that, so that the church, it may assist those who are widows indeed, OK. So what he wants individuals to actually be thinking is if I have a dependent widow, if I assume responsibility for this dependent widow in my household, I will not only be practicing godliness, and this will be pleasing to God, but I will unburden my local church from the responsibility of having to do this, and I will therefore free up my local church.

I will increase its capacity to get. Genuine help to widows that do not have any household.

Are you following me? This is a thinking process. Paul is wanting us to think this way, that when we minister to the members of our family, one of our motivations is in doing this, I'm, I'm blessing the Church of Jesus Christ. I'm blessing my local church.

Parent says, when I, when we do counseling sometimes with people that were raised in non-Christian, non-Christian homes, even Christian homes where there's a tremendous amount of neglect, and now this person seated in my office is, 45 years old and there's just so many wrong patterns of thinking that, that have to be untangled and, and they're married to somebody else and And now their marriage is all complicated and you look at situations like that and it's like, man, their parents claim to know the Lord.

If their parents would have invested in them and shown them the love and the care and the discipleship that this person needed at a younger age, it might have spared the church. Today of the expenditure of time and energy. Now we're happy to do that.

That's what we're called to do. But parents, by bringing up your children and worshiping with your children and training your children and teaching them God's word and being passionate about the gospel and their growth and holiness by you just investing in your children in this way, I'm telling you as one of the pastors here, you are hugely ministering to this local church and to whatever local church your children 10 years from now are going to be attending. So think that way.

Let it motivate you, man.

I'm, I'm not just serving my wife here. I'm, I'm serving the body of Christ. I'm serving the church that I'm a part of. So let's conclude with going back to this question, which is more important, the family.

Or the church. Well, let's let the family and the church answer that question. The church says, hey, let me answer that question. My answer to that question is, well, by the way, wait, don't look.

OK. Which is, which is more important, the family or the church? That's actually a bad question. It's not even a valid question.

Let me ask you a similar question. What's more important, the lungs or the respiratory system? What's, what's more important, the heart or the circulatory system? What's more important, the cornea or the eye?

What's the problem with all of those questions? I'm taking something that's a part of something else and I'm asking what's more important. You can't answer those questions, and I would say the same with this question. You can't really answer this question and give it a direct answer.

However, the church steps forward informed by First Timothy and says, I'd like to answer this question. What's more important, my answer to that invalid question would be, The church says that the family unit is a precious and vital part of the local church. The local church essentially says the family unit is the most important part of the local church. Does that make sense?

we need to, here's the picture. It's not like we got households over here, and then the church is over here, and everyone's over here saying, man, I can't wait till all those people are done with doing their thing in their households so that they can come over here and minister to the church. That's not the biblical picture. The biblical picture from First Timothy is imagine a circle and that circle represents the local church and at the core of that local church.

is a smaller circle contained in which are many households. And when households, family units are ministering to one another, They are ministering to the church. They are a part of the church. The family unit is elevated in First Timothy by apostolic decree, essentially, to be the most important, a precious and vital part of the local church.

In turn, and I say that in terms of human institutions. Obviously Christ is the most important, but it's the most important human institution that's a part of The local church. But then a godly family hears that question and said, and says, well, I, we'd like to take a stab at answering it. Here's how we would answer this.

A godly family would say that the institution that they seek to benefit and all they do as a family is the Church of Jesus Christ. Parents would say, what, we bring up our children. And nurture gifted with giftedness within them and godliness, so that they would be a great blessing to the body of Christ. Parents, you want your children to serve Jesus?

Do they belong to Jesus? If they belong to Jesus, I've got another question. Do they belong to his body? They belong to his body?

No, they belong to Jesus, but not his body. Does that make sense? If I gave my wife some chocolates filled with those cherries for Valentine's Day and gave them to her and said, Here you go, honey, and she grabbed them and opened them and she pulled one out and began to eat it and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? And she said, Well, I'm eating what you gave me.

What would you think of me if I said, no, no, you misunderstood, Donna. Those chocolates were for you, not for your body. You would think I'm crazy, right? If it belongs to her, it belongs to her body.

If your children belong to Jesus, how can you withhold them from Jesus' body? See what I'm saying? And so as parents, we bring up our children to be devoted, vibrant parts of the household, a household of God, a local church. And all they do, they say we do what we do.

So that we can do 1 Corinthians 14:12, and that is a bound for the edification of the church. That's our mission amongst other things. Well, think on these things, guys. I know I've got a lot more thinking to do, but it's been a great week just pondering these things that I didn't expect to be preaching on today, and I'm, I've got a lot more learning to do with these things, and I look forward to learning from you as we process these things together.

Let me ask you to bow your heads. And we're going to be taking up an offering in just a moment, and I would encourage you to Give as the Lord leads you to give. Prayer requests, praise items, you can put those on the back of the comment card and we'll Pray over those in our staff meeting and include them on our church family prayer sheet. Let's pray together.

Lord, We just thank you for how practical your word is, and this, this is, I believe, from your word, you've provided some light for us that just helps us to, to understand the dynamic of the relationship between the family unit and the local church, and I, I, I hope above all, Lord, that this would be a great Have a great impassioning effect upon everyone listening. of just devotion to their families and just dads just continuing and maybe increasing and excelling still more.

And loving their wives and leading their families, looking at whatever you call them to do in your word and whatever that is, they do it rather than say I can't do that. May we at Cornerstone be devoted to families and to care for them and to nurture and help them in doing what you've called them to do.

Help us not to replace the family. Help us not to replace and to, to, to do what families are supposed to do, but to strengthen the family. I pray also that you would give all of us in our families a broader perspective that when we serve our families, we're serving The church, I know it's been a blessing to me to think that way this week, and I, I'm doing something for Cornerstone. When I gather my family together to worship, yes, I'm doing something for Jesus, I'm doing something for my Heavenly Father, I'm doing something for my children and for myself.

There's, there's a whole other bunch of things I could add to that list, but on top of all that, I'm doing something for Cornerstone. And I spend time with my family and do these kinds of things and so to whatever degree that helps in motivating us to do what you've called us to do, Lord, we, we receive that and thank you for your instruction this morning. Bless this congregation, Lord. I don't know, we're on a journey.

I don't know all where we're heading, but thank you for taking us another few steps forward today. Receive our offerings that we give to you. Bless these funds that are given and may You multiply their usefulness for the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the same time, we give you our hearts.

We do so in Jesus' name. And all God's people said,