It’s difficult to grow spiritually while remaining emotionally immature. Instead of paying attention to the deep places of our life needing transformation, believers often focus on external matters- attending church, small groups, and busy work for the Lord. Everything looks okay on the surface, but what lies beneath?
Family of Origin | Embracing God's Perfect Plan and Our Imperfect Family
Speakers
Jackson Wilson
Executive Students Ministry Pastor
Worship
Notes
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GENESIS 45:4-8
4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God.
We vow, ‘I will never be like my father or mother or grandfather or that weird aunt on my mother’s side.’ But then, to our dismay, we see the exact same dysfunctional patterns resurface in our own life. Some of us just can’t escape our last name.
John Mark Comer
Part of the process of growing spiritually/emotionally is acknowledging we are INDIVIDUALS who are products of FAMILY and designed FOR family.
Discipleship, then, is the putting off of the sinful patterns and habits of our families of origin and being transformed to live as members of Christ’s family.
Peter Scazzero
ADDRESSING THE LIE OF “SELF”
Individualism: the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant.
- “I don’t need family to be happy.”
- “My actions don’t really effect my family.”
WE WERE CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF A FAMILY
There is a fascinating tension at just this point in Islam. Traditionally, Allah is said to have ninety-nine names, titles which describe him as being the eternal god. One of them is “The Loving.” But how could Allah be loving in eternity? Before he created there was nothing else in existence that he could love (and the title does not refer to self-centered love but love for others). The only option is that Allah eternally loves his creation. But that in itself raises an enormous problem: if Allah needs his creation to be who he is in himself (“loving”), then Allah is dependent on his own creation, and one of the cardinal beliefs of Islam is that Allah is dependent on nothing.
Michael Reeves, “Delighting In The Trinity”
JOHN 17:24
24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
The most foundational thing in God is not some abstract quality, but the fact that he is Father. Since God is, before all things, a Father, and not primarily Creator or Ruler, all his ways are beautifully fatherly. It is not that this God “does” being Father as a day job, only to kick back in the evenings as plain old “God.” It is not that he has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top. He is Father. All the way down. Thus all that he does he does as Father. That is who he is.
Michael Reeves, “Delighting In The Trinity”
WE WERE CREATED TO DEPEND ON OUR FAMILY
WE WERE CREATED TO MULTIPLY OUR FAMILY
ADDRESSING THE ROLE AND POWER OF FAMILIES
EXODUS 34:6-7
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord [Yahweh], the Lord [Yahweh], a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands,[a] forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
A PATTERN OF LYING
- Abraham lied twice about Sarah
- Isaac and Rebecca’s marriage was characterized by lies
- Jacob lied to almost everyone; his name means “deceiver”
- Ten of Jacob’s children lied about Joseph’s death, faking a funeral, and keeping a “family secret” for more than ten years
FAVORITISM BY AT LEAST ONE PARENT
- Abraham favored Ishmael
- Isaac favored Esau
- Jacob favored Joseph and later Benjamin
BROTHERS EXPERIENCING CUTOFF
- Isaac and Ishmael were cutoff from one another
- Jacob fled his brother Esau and was completely cutoff for years
- Joseph was cutoff from his ten brothers
POOR INTIMACY IN THE MARRIAGE
- Abraham had a child out of wedlock with Hagar
- Isaac had a terrible relationship with Rebecca
- Jacob had two wives and two concubines
There are no perfect families.
ADDRESSING REALITY
Emotionally healthy spirituality is about reality, not denial or illusion. It is about embracing God’s choice to birth us into a particular family, in a particular place, at a particular moment in history.
Peter Scazzero
1. DENY
2. DEMONIZE
3. DEFER
Defer: submit humbly to a person
GENESIS 45:4-8
4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God.
“The hope of ‘to the third and fourth’ is that we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. We can get off the hamster wheel. Reclaim our humanity. WE don’t have to stay stuck. If you’re living under the shadow of generational sin, you live in terror that you’ll grow up to be like your father or mother. Listen, what was true of your parents doesn’t have to be true of you. You can change the trajectory of your family line. Here. Now. With Jesus. You can bring your sin to Jesus, repent, and watch the handcuffs of porn, or lying, or gossip, or greed, or envy, or bitters, or whatever it is for you, fall off your wrists and clang to the floor.”
John Mark Comer