Family: A Blessing or a Curse

Introduction

I don’t do a whole lot of sermons on the subject of family, although that may change in upcoming months, weeks, and years, or the other way around, weeks, months, and years. And so tonight I had this idea a few weeks ago to talk about family and whether family is a blessing or a curse. And I realize, as I ask that question, that everybody has a different perspective about family. Some people absolutely love family. Family’s been a wonderful thing in their lives. Some people, it’s been a disaster. It’s been something that they associate with tremendous pain. And then there are those that have a mixture of the two, and I would say maybe one outweighing the other a little bit. But family, is it a blessing or a curse?

It can be a source of tremendous fulfillment and joy in our lives when the family operates as God designed it to. But it can also be a source of tremendous pain and problems. And so I realize when I preach on the subject of family tonight, that probably everybody in this audience has somewhat of a different experience when it comes to family. And so there will be something in this lesson for everybody. Family. Blessing. Or a curse. And perhaps because in our times, families often go through a lot, a lot of negative things. Perhaps what we need to be equipped with in our times is a family survival kit. And I don’t know if I’m going to accomplish that tonight or not, but I’m going to give it a shot as to give you some things to work with in your family, whether the case is good or bad.

That’s all I sort of like this graphic. Just imagine that what’s inside is the will of God in this case. And applying all the principles of the will of God to our immediate families, we will be equipped to face whatever comes our way. But I must tell you, as I saw this graphic, perfect for tonight’s lesson, the verse that was associated with the graphic is Luke 3, 1 through 6. And I’m going, ah, that seems odd. And I start looking at Luke chapter 3, 1 through 6, and I didn’t see anything about family. And so how could that relate to the family survival kit? The only thing that I saw was in verse 1, where it mentions Philip and Herod. And then I thought, although it’s not told in Luke chapter 3, the story of Mark chapter 6, where Herod has married his brother Philip’s wife.

Well, you might need a survival kit with that. But I didn’t see anything else except for the fact that John is introduced, and his business, as we will see in Malachi, was to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children. I guess there’s a family aspect of that, but I don’t really see that in Luke 3. Okay, so I’m moving on from Luke 3 with some quotations tonight. One from the 1800s, George William Curtis. It is not observed in history that families improve with time. Now that’s somewhat of a negative outlook on things, for let’s search for something else. Mark Twain said, families breed contempt and children. And then there’s George Burns. Now he’s passed on, a comedian from the previous generation, who said, happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

And I don’t know the context of this one from Rick Riordan in the Sea of Monsters. I don’t know, kids, help me out with this. I don’t know where this is from. But he says, families are messy. And yes, they can be that. And this is probably the sea of monsters part. Immortal families are eternally messy. He says. So got some things going on with that I don’t know about. And he says, sometimes the best that we can do is to remind each other that we’re related for better or for worse. And try to keep the maiming and the killing to a minimum.

In such close proximity for a long time, varying personalities, ideas, and behavior can lead to upset and conflict. You know, I don’t even need to ask for a show of hands tonight. Has there ever been upset and conflict in your family? Don’t raise your hand. It’s not necessary. Everybody’s hand would go up. And if not, would you please realize the treasure that you have in your family? Upset and conflict. You know, if you rub elbows with anybody for an extended period of time, there is bound to be some of that because people have different ideas about things. We already talked about politics and not talking about that at the Thanksgiving dinner table a couple of months ago. And then there’s extended families. The immediate family is one thing, but start bringing in the cousins and the aunts and the uncles and everyone else.

1. A Positive Approach to Family

And then it gets even more harried, the experience of families and not to mention the in-laws, those very odd people. And they always will be very odd to you. We were talking about this Thursday morning when we were awaiting the birth of our grandson about in-laws. And that they’re different people. Maybe this was Friday night. I don’t know. We were talking about it sometime around the birth of our grandson. Did I just mention that? Yes. So, and I might mention that one more time since we’re talking about families. Here’s the first point of three that I want to make tonight. I want to approach this positively in regard to our families. And I realize a bunch of negative stuff happens. And I will say a word about that in a minute.

But I want to talk about a positive approach to family that every one of us as Christians can and should develop. Now, this is the part where I say I may not understand the troubles that you have experienced or will experience in your family. And I apologize to some degree that I had such an idyllic childhood. When I look back now, knowing what I know, after dealing with brethren and the things that they’ve endured in their lives, I look back now at my childhood, and man, though it was up north. I guess that was one negative. Indiana’s not that bad. Southern Indiana, especially. I had about as perfect of a childhood as you could have. No major trauma. No untimely and unfortunate deaths of loved ones.

I saw my grandparents get old and age and die, but that’s the experience of everyone. But I look back now and I even preached the funeral of my mom’s dad. And my cousin said the prayer, and he’s now a gospel preacher in Seymour, Indiana. So I have even a special memory about the passing of one of my grandfathers. And I even met my dad’s parents, one set of great-grandparents. Now, we had to go out into the country out past Gordon, Indiana to visit them, and it was a little bit scary when Great Uncle Lawrence came in. Great Uncle Lawrence did not have a wife. I’m not sure that he could have ever secured one because he was a mountain man. And a lot different than yours.

I spent my summers playing baseball and wiffle ball with the neighbor I mentioned last week who was a better athlete than me, Mark Moody. And I would ride my minibike, my Honda 70 mini bike, all through the woods around my house. I tried to provide that for my children, but just never was in a place to do that. Of course, they were cheated as a result. But then there’s things that happen in your life that never happened in mine. I was going to talk to Blake and Jamie about are there kids too young yet to say, to be told, that not everybody gets to go to Hawaii. Now I know most of our kids get to go to Disney World, and that’s huge, maybe just as good as Hawaii in the mind of a kid.

I don’t know, but they got to go to Hawaii. Preacher Tony has never been to Hawaii. And seen a real volcano. Oh, did I mention that I had a grandson born in the last 100 hours? You talk about developing a positive approach about family. When you have your first grandchild. I came home, and of course, you’re on cloud nine. You can’t wait to share it. Your sheriff with anybody. But there was my neighbor Peggy. She was out working in her flower bed, which we so desperately need to do. And we started talking, and I just had to throw it out there. I’ve just been up the hospital and held my grandson, my first grandson, and she knows Brett. So, oh well, she was very happy for me.

She goes, Oh, there’s nothing like being a grandparent. She’s got grandchildren. And I said, Yeah, it’s it’s one of God’s great blessings, isn’t it? And of course, she agreed with that. Okay, enough about my grandchild. That’s it. Now I want to talk to you for a minute about Dabbo Sweeney.

Now, if you don’t know who Dabbo Sweeney is, he is the head football coach of the reigning national champions. The Clemson Tigers. Dabbo has an interesting story. You ever met anybody named Dabbo before? I mean, I think it was the first thing I ever was impressed with. Being a college football fan, I’ve known Dabbo Sweeney for a long time. Well, about a decade. And so Dabbo, it’s like, well, that’s an interesting name. Read an article, read it again Thursday morning as I was awaiting the birth of. Oh, I said I wasn’t going to mention that anymore. Awaiting that precious moment. How did he get his name? He had two older brothers. One was named Tripp, the one closest to him in age, so he was a toddler.

And so when he was born, his brother Tripp just called him Dat Boy. That Boy. And that became Dabbo. But what a great story about the life of Dabo Sweeney. His mother. Now Carol McIntosh. Was born with polio. She spent time as a youngster in an iron lung. Endured a number of surgeries that kept her from being disfigured for life. In fact, went through treatment for about a decade before normalcy came. And she married Irvin Sweeney. Irvin was an Alabama football fan. Now, this is the real interesting part of the Dabbo Sweeney story is the connection to Alabama football. Dabbo would always tell people, and I had never heard this, and I lived in Alabama for three years, but Alabama was the smartest state. Did you know Alabama was the smartest state?

Because in Alabama you got four A’s and a B. Yeah. Got that from Dabbo. Irville’s, and I think I said Irvin earlier. Irville was his name. Irville’s appliance repair business started to struggle. He got two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt, and that’s a lot, especially in the eighties. And he turned to the bottle. And Irville was an angry drunk. Dabbo got the worst of it of his three siblings. He sometimes would have to escape to the backyard or to the roof of his house. Or even sleep in his car. Finally, his mother divorced his dad. His brother Tripp, who had named him that boy, was in a car accident, changing his life. And he would follow ultimately in his father’s footsteps. When Dabo became a high school graduate, he enrolled at the University of Alabama.

He loved football, played football in high school, was a hard worker, good student, despite all the troubles of his family life. He didn’t go to Alabama with a scholarship. And so in his freshman year, he tried to walk on to the football team. And he was one of two left standing. But he would be a non scholarship player, his sophomore year. And just as school was beginning to start, he discovered that his Pell grant had been denied, and that he had to come up with $150 the next day, or he could not stay enrolled at the University of Alabama. Now, in the meantime, when he moved to Tuscaloosa, he was renting an apartment with another young man, and his mom stayed with them in the apartment.

She had nothing. They shared a bed for three years in that apartment because they had so little. And so when he needed to come up with $150, they go to the bank together, mom and son, to get a loan, and they were denied. And he goes to the mailbox that day, and there is a letter from Discover. He calls them. There are two checks in this letter. He discovers that he has a $1,000 credit limit with Discover. He wrote a check to the University of Alabama for $550 and another $450 check to pay his rent.

Gene Stallings, who had replaced Bear Bryant, was the head football coach at the time. Says of walk on Dabo Sweeney. He was an average player. Maybe you can relate to this. I know some of you young guys as athletes, you probably can’t. He was an average player. He wanted to be a great player. But he just wasn’t blessed with a lot of talent. Now he made the team as a walk-on. That’s something, isn’t it? To play collegiate football as a walk-on. But to have your own coach, say you weren’t blessed with a lot of talent. He did have a lot of heart, Stalling said. I knew he was extremely poor, and I gave him a scholarship.

Because he needed one.

He started at wide receiver. He didn’t do much, but he started.

After that, he became the graduate assistant for the Alabama football team. Then the coach got fired, so he was without a job. And he went into commercial real estate for a couple years till he landed a coaching position at the University of Clemson under Tommy Bowden. And when Tommy Bowden was fired in 2008, he was named the interim head coach. And let me just tell you don’t get named the interim head coach unless somebody knows you got something going on. And the interim tag was taken away, and now here we are, Dabble Sweeney, and the Clemson Tigers, eight years later, are national champions. I wanted to finish the Dabo story with this. He said, You just do what you have to do. I loved having my mom there.

It was a little different at first. But when you’re in the middle of situations in your life, you just make the best of it. That’s kind of how I’ve always lived my life. And that’s to me what true peace and happiness is all about. And I got to tell you, every press conference I’ve ever heard from Dabbo Sweeney, whether it was about football or the way his players had played, or even about politics. Dabbo Sweeney is a stand-up guy.

I know that families can produce great troubles, can emotionally scar us. I hear about victims of abuse these days. It is rampant. I hate it. I deplore it, and I certainly wish that no child ever had to be the subject of any kind of abuse. And if that has been your experience, I can’t relate to it. I can’t say I understand it, and I deplore that you had to endure that. That is despicable that someone would take advantage of a child. But some have experienced that. Some have been the victims of divorce. Oh, they may have been the ones who put away an unfaithful mate, but in essence, they’re still victims. People have gone through all sorts of tragedies and pains. And so it might leave you with this question.

What good is it? All my family’s ever done is hurt me. And then there’s conflict that arises, and family members that you’re estranged from, and whether it be over some argument or some choice in regard to morality or some spiritual separation that has taken place. Someone who has chosen to not serve the Lord and all the ramifications of that. There is upset and difficulty, and sometimes we’re wondering what’s the good in this. Let me tell you, even if you’ve had the experience that I have had, that maybe is better than most, I don’t know how we rate it. But whether you’ve had a good experience or an awful one, this point is for you. It occurs to me that there is very a very important thing that we have to learn about family life that could help us in every other sphere of our journey.

Whether it be the local church, whether it be our work environment, or the communities in which we live. One of the things we need to learn in our families is the ability to adapt. And we need to adapt in a number of ways. Learning to love, sacrificing and serving, developing commitment, appreciating companionship, and nurturing friendship. And so often we take these things for granted. Perhaps it’s a sibling that you’re really close to. Be grateful for that. Nurture that friendship that you have with that brother or sister in your family, or even with your parents, your mother and father. And develop commitment. Especially is this important in regard to your marriage? Sacrificing and serving. And I don’t care what life has dealt you. You can learn to model the perfection that we talked about this morning in regard to our heavenly Father’s character.

You can learn to serve and sacrifice for the benefit of others. I would tell young people, because I’ll tell you when you’re firstborn, it is all about you and your needs. And I’ve said that before, I think just recently. As you grow into maturity, and I’m talking to a group here, who is growing into maturity. Learn now to put self aside for the benefit of others. Learn to sacrifice, learn to serve, learn to elevate the circumstances of those who are closest to you in the world. Say no to yourself and yes to what benefits them. Learn this model. It will help you spiritually your whole life. I wish somebody had told me that. Oh, I did pretty good with the two honri sisters. I mean, I did pretty good with that.

They weren’t honri, not any more than I was. I’m just throwing them under the bus. But I wish somebody had told me these things. Maybe they did. Maybe I just wasn’t listening. That’s possible. I tried to listen to every sermon, but you know, it’s two times a week every week, right? But I wish it would have been impressed upon me. That in this environment, no matter how good or her bad, here are the objects. They’ve been placed around me, this family, and I need to learn to love them. The 1 Corinthians 13 recipe. And that means learn kindness and patience. Do not seek your own. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Eckhart soul is a prominent, I don’t know what you would call him.

He’s a philosopher, is what he is. And he said a lot of things I don’t agree with. In fact, I did a sermon a while back where I talked about some things Eckhart Tole had said that I don’t agree with. But I like this statement that he made. You find peace, and Dabbo talked about this. You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life. Now let me just say, if you can rearrange them for the better, do it. But he says that’s not where peace is found, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level. Now, I like that if you’re looking at that from a Christian point of view. No matter what the circumstances are, if you realize who you are at the deepest level, I am one who is about the business of imitating Jesus and imitating the Father, and I pursue these things, and I learn to adapt, I can approach family with a more positive view.

So that’s an important point, maybe the most important point tonight. Now I want to go through a couple of other things quickly. Number one.

2. Seek First the Kingdom of God

In the Sermon on the Mount. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. As close as you might be, and I’ve seen this so many times, as close as you might be to family, physical family. And that varies in a group like this. Some of you maybe aren’t close to family at all. Maybe you don’t have a lot of family to be close to. Maybe there’s this estrangement that I talked about. Let’s say you have a very good family life, and sometimes we can develop these ultimate bonds in family that are so very strong. Realize there’s a proper place for those bonds. And they must not go beyond this instruction. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Because I’ll tell you what I’ve seen on far too many occasions.

Blood is thicker than truth. You ever heard that? That when push comes to shove. Family was more important than what was right. What was right was set aside because family was loved more. And you know why I need to say that to you right now? Not because there’s anything going on in this congregation that is of this type. And sometimes I think I said something a couple weeks ago. Somebody said, Boy, is there something going on I don’t know about? No, I’m preparing you for when it does go on. Nothing going on. There’s no secret underlying thing happening, at least not that I know of. But I talk about stuff like this because I’ve seen it before, and it’s going to happen again. I hope it doesn’t happen here, but it is going to happen.

3. When the Family Model Lacks

Where family is exalted above what is right. You need to be on guard against that. Right is right no matter what family does. And I’m going to blend this into the final point. When the family model lacks, family can fail us in a number of ways. The lack of a family member, someone who perishes. Poor behavior, upset, division, even outright repudiation. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Is the question in Amos chapter 3. Of course, God is talking about his relationship with his family, the nation of Israel, the family that he has chosen, and he says, you know, we’re just not walking together here. And I think that’s what happens in our physical family. Sometimes we find ourselves not walking the same path. And you know what?

There’s limits to what you can do about that. If some family member voted for a candidate you could never vote for, and that became a cause of upset in your family, you may never convince them of that. And to talk about it would only create further conflict and division. But it could be more severe than that. It could be conflict over what the scripture teaches is right. And how we ought to practice our faith. And those can be the kinds of divisions that separate families for the rest of their lives. I mean, I’ve had cousins who have been withdrawn from for their immoral behavior, and they have not repented. That affects families, the rest of your days. And then there’s the issue of not having a family.

Perhaps it is a marriage status single. Your whole life. Perhaps you never find and are able to create your own family unit for whatever reason. Or perhaps you become divorced. Perhaps it’s a cause not other than fornication, and it is other than fornication. And so you can never have a scriptural right to marry again. Marriage is God’s arrangement. He governs it. And these are the situations in which people find themselves. But remember, even if you’re in that lonely single status, there is always spiritual community to bring up the slack. Isn’t that amazing? And Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 7, especially in light of the present distress that was going on, whatever that was, that it was actually better to be single. And if that you were single at the time, it would be better not to seek a wife or seek a spouse.

Because a spouse, and I’ve always loved this as far as marriage goes, as we’re talking about family, really what makes marriage work by God’s design is the husband cares about the welfare of the wife, and the wife cares about the welfare of the husband. But that means, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, that we are distracted because that’s a part of our responsibility. But the single person can secure undistracted devotion to the Lord. It’s not necessarily a curse to be single. And even if there are moments of loneliness and sadness because of the loneliness, and you would like to have more of a sense of community, that’s what we’re all about.

As the local church, and Jesus really says as much in Mark chapter 3. When he was told, hey, your family’s outside. They’re wanting to talk to you. Now, you look at the context of that, it’s sort of interesting. At this point in his ministry, his family has thought he has lost his mind. We’ll be reading that this week. Mark 3, verse 21. He’s lost his senses. And so he knows that. They’re not getting it. John, in the John narrative in John 7 and verse 5, it says, even his brothers were not believing in him. And so there was a time. Now they would ultimately be with those in Acts 1 who were assembled together. But at this time, they weren’t believing in Jesus. And you think about that.

Jesus, he’s your older brother. Okay, he’s James’ older brother. He’s all of them. Joseph, Simon, Judas. And his sisters. He had more than one sister, we don’t know how many. But here’s their older brother. And guess what? He’s the best brother anybody could have ever had. He’s never sinned. So you have the sinless older brother. And yet, though he was the perfect older brother, and he was the older brother, that’s got some respect built in right there. And Dad, it seems, is gone. So everybody’s looking to Jesus. And yet, because of the way this ministry was going, the things people were saying about him, fake news and stuff. What is that? Because of the fake news, people thought he’s lost his mind. And that’s why Jesus wasn’t in a big hurry to leave the room.

He says, these people here that are listening to my words, this is my family. My mothers, my brothers, everyone who hears the word of God. I have enjoyed through most of my life this spiritual community, this family. I’ve been in a number of local church families. And they’ve been a great blessing to my life, but I gotta say, this place, this group, has been the greatest of the greatest blessings. And if you if you have not experienced that, if you feel isolated and alone, may I just tell you, there are people here that will help you with that. But you have to reach out. They’re not mind readers. I mean, some people are more visible than others in local churches. You know, I looked here this morning and that pew was empty, and that meant Stephen Terry wasn’t here.

But unless you’re sitting in a conspicuous place, you might be missed. Or you might not. Sometimes people, I haven’t seen them in a couple, oh, yeah, I see them like Joanne this morning, even though that’s somewhat conspicuous. You know, it’s like, oh, Joanne hasn’t been here. It just hit me this morning. We’re a bigger group now. It’s hard to keep track of everybody. Let me just, and I’ve said this before. Don’t expect people to be mind readers. They can’t know your pain if you don’t reveal it. And so if you’re struggling, if you’re alone, if you need help, you’ve got to utter that to somebody. And let them know what to do when the family model lacks. Well, let’s wrap this up tonight. Isn’t it interesting in the Psalms that says, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who built it.

Conclusion

Make your family always a place of God involvement. That’s family as God designed it to be. And then I would say this in conclusion. Realize the precious gift that God has given us and family. And remember that God calls us to a certain kind of behavior in the family. It is so easy to take out our pain and our weariness on other family members. We’ve all done that because they’re the people closest to us. We want them to feel our pain. But sometimes we end up inflicting them with pain in the process. We’ve all done it. Remember that we were called to a certain kind of behavior and that the spiritual is to be the priority in our lives. I want everyone here who’s interested to be a part of our spiritual community.

But that’s only a byproduct of being a part of God’s heavenly community. You need to be a citizen of heaven. And so if you’re not in Christ, you need to remedy that this hour and have your sins cleansed in his blood. Let’s stand aside.