“Character Counts - The Christian Family”
Scripture Reading: Luke 9:46-48
Sermon Transcript for January 22, 2006
By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man, and skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man
To play for Him the noblest part,
When He yearns with all His heart
To build so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Then watch God’s methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him,
Making shapes and forms which only
God Himself can understand,
Even while His man is crying,
Lifting a beseeching hand…
Yet God bends but never breaks
When man’s good He undertakes;
When He uses whom He chooses,
And with every purpose fuses
Man to act, and act to man,
As it was when He began,
When God tries His splendor out,
Man will know what He’s about!
(Dale Martin Stone, Source book of Poetry)
Character counts! That’s what we are going to talk about for the next few weeks. Character is what we become after God has shaped us and molded us. It is more than just decency. Character is a change of heart; it is a presence that is nobler and greater. It is something that we can all achieve. So as we begin to examine the character of a Christian, we must examine the character of Christ. We begin with the character of Christ as it was shaped in His childhood. And maybe by learning something about the childhood of Jesus, we’ll learn something about how our own families should function. Maybe we’ll learn something about the character of a Christian family.
We’ll begin with the only story the Bible gives us about Jesus’ childhood. I think we know a lot more about His childhood then we realize, but here is the one reliable account. And you are probably familiar with it, but let’s recall it just the same. From the Gospel of Luke, hear these words: “Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. And when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him the the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine human favor.” Luke 2:41-52 (NRSV)
Now when I hear that story, I hear it like a parent. And there are a couple of things that I couldn’t help noticing. Maybe you noticed this too. They finally found Jesus, the little twelve year old who had snuck off and worried them to death, and he says, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” And I’m thinking, we’ve got a twelve year old kid here. To which we hear the writer of the gospel say Mom and Dad didn’t get it. You know what that translates to don’t you? It means they looked at him and said, “What? I beg your pardon?” And the next line is very telling if you hear it clearly. It says he went back to Nazareth and obeyed them. Do you hear it? Are you picking up the little subtleties between lines there? They didn’t understand what he was saying but by golly he got his act together and behaved better after that.
Now, I’m not suggesting Jesus was a brat. But I am certain that Jesus was fully human. He was a regular kid. Now, I’m no great theologian so I can’t tell you how it is that he could be a regular kid yet fully divine and therefore without sin. I interpret sin at its essence to be separation from God. And so we can assume Jesus never knew separation from God. We don’t get a lot of evidence as to how he manifested that perfect relationship with God in his childhood, but one thing I think we can be sure of is that he was fully human. And this story does kind of tell us that.
The story was written after the author knew how things turned out. Some scholars suggest that Luke and Mary had a pretty close relationship after Jesus had died and was resurrected and ascended into heaven, and perhaps Luke kept her company for a long time for the very purpose of recording this account. Well, nevertheless, hidden between the lines are some very clear realities that he was a regular kid. Because what twelve year old doesn’t get a little full of himself especially twelve year old boys. I made the comment to my wife just the other day that the most trying times that I could recall of our kids growing up was when they were about 10, 11, 12 years old. Then the magic starts to fall away and they start to see their parents as imperfect. And they begin to realize that they know a thing to two too. And then twelve year olds begin to realize that they can even pull the wool over mom and dad’s eyes once in a while. But mom and dad aren’t stupid they just have a twelve year old under their care. Consequently lines like this begin to speak differently to those of us who have been through that. We begin to see this little kid who didn’t mean any harm and came out like a smart aleck and we find that he was brought in line later.
I think Nazareth must have been a good place to grow up. I think Joseph and Mary must have been pretty excellent parents. I can’t imagine that they would be much less than the best kind of parents because God chose them to raise His Son. I don’t believe they were perfect. I don’t believe there was anything immaculate about them, but I do believe that they were superior parents in many ways and wanted God’s favor. And I have a feeling that the little town of Nazareth must have been a good place to nurture this child who would eventually speak the Word of God and to live out the Word of God. You know, Nazareth was probably a little farm town in the hills up above the plains there in Galilee—a rocky place. You know, little towns in that part of the world even to this day are mainly composed of relatives. Jesus would have been surrounded by aunts and uncles, grandparents, nieces and nephews, and cousins. Everybody knew everybody else’s business. I’ve described it before here as being like my wife’s family who all live on the 100 acre farm. They practically make a little town of their own and know everybody’s business. And the only way you can escape that kind of lifestyle is to go somewhere else. But in those days the independence was essential for survival.
So Jesus must have been surrounded by fascinating people. And maybe you are wondering how I could say such a thing, but you know, you can tell an awful lot about somebody by how they turn out, can’t you? You can learn a lot about their childhood and their parents by how they appear in adult life. And we haven’t been taught a lot about Jesus the adult and it seems to indicate that even as the divine character was growing in Him there was this human nature that had been nurtured pretty well too. I believe that most of the parables and stories Jesus taught us are things that He’s witnessed in His life. I think that He has seen different signs throughout His life that His divine nature revealed to be truths about God and His relationship with people. So I do believe that looking at the outcome with Jesus gives us a very vivid picture of His upbringing.
This poem that I found by Dorothy Law Nolte kind of sums up what I’m getting at. It’s called, “Children Learn What They Live” (quoted in John W. Lawrence, Life’s Choices):
If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
He learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice.
If a child lives with security,
He learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
He learns to find love in the world.
You can know an awful lot about somebody’s upbringing by the outcome. So let’s take a look then at Jesus’ upbringing. Well, I think Joseph and Mary must have modeled humanity pretty well because Jesus seems to be a pretty well-rounded guy. He would have been brought up in the usual way through devout Jewish families, so Jesus’ childhood, his infancy ended pretty early. Most boys in those days could read from the Torah or the Bible by the time they were five years old. And he would have gone to school, probably in the local synagogue, probably taught by an uncle or some relative who was the Rabbi for their community. A typical day of school was early in the morning they would go to the synagogue to school. They would stay there until the heat of the afternoon when they would take kind of an afternoon break and then come back in the evening and stay there until dark Listen to this one kids, they went to school seven days a week. And we know all these things because the Talmud has been added to and improved for centuries so we have in Judaism a record of how Jewish children were schooled even in Jesus’ day. Girls weren’t educated in the synagogue, but they were educated. Education was incredibly important to the Jewish people. They knew that knowledge was power and security. Girls were taught by the women in their family at home. And we know that Jesus’ family was faithful to Jewish tradition simply by stories of the one we just heard that they made regular pilgrimages to Jerusalem. They were very faithful to uphold the law. And as I said earlier, Jesus’ family was his community. When He went to the market He was with family. When He went to school, He was with family. When He went to work, He was with family. Everywhere around him was family.
And I believe, as I said, that Jesus observed many of the things that shaped His character and became the stories that illustrated God. For example, you’ve heard this story and it is one of my favorites, the Prodigal Son. Remember how the story goes? Jesus tells us that there were two sons who were both coming of age. And one son said to his father, “I want my inheritance now.” And his father gave in and let him have the inheritance which he took and ran away to some far off city and blew it on all kinds of bad choices until at some point the son found himself broke, homeless, and hungry. He was feeding someone else’s hogs food that was better than the food he could get for himself. And at that moment in his brokenness and surrender, the son realized that his father’s slaves were better off than he was. So he decided to go back to his father to be his slave. But then as the son is returning, no doubt children from the community ran ahead of him to his father and said, “Your son is home, your son is home!” And Jesus tells us something profound. He tells us that the father was so glad to see his son that he ran to him. And he did something Jewish folk would consider very undignified. He raised his garment and exposed his legs so he could run a little faster to greet his son. Now I believe Jesus may have been one of those little children running to tell the father. Jesus may have been an older child, maybe a youth, who witnessed this or heard his parents talking about it at the dinner table. Who knows? But something inside his human mind was triggered by his divine nature and said, “Son, remember this. This is the way it is with the Kingdom of God.”
I believe Jesus was a keen observer of humanity because He grew up in such an intimate setting. And no wonder His family was so important to Him! No wonder the things that He said throughout His ministry were so personal. No wonder he upset some people and released others because they were intimate things, they were personal things. I believe everything Jesus taught about life in the Kingdom of God was intended to be expressed with family first and foremost. That that was assumed because of the context within which Jesus taught. Jesus taught to family and friends. He taught to a larger family—the family of Israel who God chose to express himself through and to say the word through. And this family of Israel were like wayward teens getting lectures from their father when Jesus spoke to the Pharisees for example. It was with love. It was the kind of loving admonishment that we parents have to give sometimes when our kids are growing up and they are not going to take direction. But if advice is given carefully, they’ll register it somewhere. And I hear that when I hear Jesus speaking to the critics and the ones who set themselves above the others. He says, “Don’t you know you are family. Don’t think that you are different from these people. You are part of these people and therefore you have a responsibility to them just as we all feel a responsibility to our families.”
I think Jesus says a lot to us about family as He teaches us to be the community of believers. Israel is a family but because of Jesus the Apostle Paul says we’ve become part of the family, all of us have become a part of the family. In the book of Romans, Chapter 8, Paul says that we have been adopted into the family because of Christ. And therefore we are co-heirs with Christ. That puts us on equal footing with Jesus. Paul is saying that you and I, by faith in Christ, are equal to Him in God’s eyes as sons and daughters of God.
So everything Jesus says to us about family applies to us in our church. As we move through the weeks ahead, we want to talk about how Christian character manifests itself in other parts of our lives. But the first thing we need to remember is that family was everything and we are part of a bigger family; therefore, as believers in Christ, we are called to faith in one another and commitment to one another like a family.
So here are the three things I want you to remember from this message today.
- Christ’s character in his adult life is a very strong indication of what His family life must be like – earthly and heavenly. Therefore, if you want to know how to raise your children properly and to have harmony in your home, you can look to the life of Christ as an example. Even though it doesn’t tell us much about his childhood, He has told us much about how to be with our families. In other words, you can begin practicing your Christianity at home. I don’t want to say “can”, I want to say “you must”. When I perform wedding ceremonies here in this sanctuary, the one thing I say consistently is “Remember that your marriage is the first and most important place to witness your faith in Christ.” If you cannot love your husband or wife like Christ loves the church, then please don’t try to practice it outside your marriage and your family. You must first witness your faith and obedience to Christ in your family starting with your husband or your wife, then your children, and your children’s children, and your parents. Practice your faith there and you will have no trouble demonstrating it in other parts of your life.
- Jesus calls us to that obedience for that very reason—that faith and obedience must be expressed in the home first and foremost.
- We are co-heirs with Christ. We are literally sons and daughters of God because of Christ’s work, death, resurrection, and redemption. And because of that we should try to bear the family resemblance. How are we doing? And ask that question every day of your life.
If you want to know how to have a Christian family, look to the Words of Christ. Look to the character of Christ and do your best to imitate that first and foremost in your home. And then the family resemblance will just naturally show everywhere you go. Let us pray, “Father thank you for your Word. Now burn all that is with you, from you into our hearts. Spread the rest load and change us. By the power of your Word we pray, Amen.”
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