Families of Grace
Ephesians: Speaking the Truth in Love • Sermon • Submitted
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Vision for the Church
Vision for the Church
Grace
Story
Hearing others stories and being able to tell as much as you can of your own well helps you to know and follow Christ.
Cultivating grace = Sermons that focus on the Word…Community Groups that explore God’s Story together...
Picking up trash
Speaking the Truth in Love
Marriage can be challenging
Family can be challenging too
Family of origin issues
Personality conflicts
Describing an ideal that is more concerned with the direction needed to go than the challenges that might exist. The space we need to cultivate is one of grace. Heading this direction helps cultivate that.
God has made your family story one of His grace and mercy in the midst of brokenness.
Submitting to your Relationship
Submitting to your Relationship
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
Fathers...
Your story did not start with you and it will not end with you. But you have been given a responsibility that only you can fulfill.
Live Honor
Live Honor
22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
1 “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Children - honor your parents. create a space for grace
They tried to teach you about life. They sacrificed their life for yours most likely.
They tried to pass on what they knew... They at least gave you life.
Honor what you can. Don’t blame them for your own issues. Realize the grace you have received.
Nourish Instruction
Nourish Instruction
Parents - bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord
nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord
Not provoking anger - when you don’t do what is expected
Not just teaching them the rules - Camping in the Boundary Waters
Living it yourself
Proverbs vs Ecclesiates
Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:4
9 Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. 10 Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. 1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, 3 in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, 4 and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low—
1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. 2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. 3 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. 4 He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
The two sides of evil - illustrated by the Hobbit
The sides defeated - analogies from the hobbit & C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia
Christian school vs homeschooling vs public school (and the two sides)
Life without God isn't satisfying (answered prayer and adventure)
Maturity for boys vs girls - Independence vs attachment
Authority - What’s the motivation behind the rules in your home? Provide opportunities to talk about God’s Word in your home together.
God’s authority is a good thing. Teach them that. Help them see what good authority and bad authority looks like.
Funerals
When do you do these things? When you feel it’s appropriate… Consider your community.
God’s Word is our sole and sufficient rule of faith and practice.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
It’s not about getting “the rules down” nor is it about having every experience possible.
The messy place is the space for grace and the cultivation of a heart for instruction.