Blessed by Family

Today's episode contains excerpts from the following programs:
 

"A Crooked Family Tree"

"Take Your Hands Off the Wheel!"

"Body, Family, Building, Bride"

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Dannah Gresh: My twin granddaughters Addie and Zoe put me to shame in the thankfulness department. You should hear them pray at meal time. 

Addie: Thank You for my mommy and daddy and the food and Nana and Poppy and the froggy light and the calf and the toads and the watering cans and Moosey. And thank You for the refrigerator . . .

Dannah: For the record, that’s gonna go on and on and on . . . and on some more! They just start thanking God and can’t seem to stop! I wish I expressed gratitude that way, all the time.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh. We want to be more like little kids today, to stir up some “grateful” for the blessing of our families.

Now as soon as I mention the word “family,” I know that can bring up all sorts of emotions for different people. For you, family might be a happy, comforting word. Or maybe you’d rather not think about family at all.

Even if that’s true, keep listening, because guess what? You’re not alone. Even the best families aren’t perfect. I mean, the families in the Bible were downright dysfunctional!

That’s something my friend Erin Davis spoke about not too long ago on The Deep Well. The Deep Well is one of many in the Revive Our Hearts family of podcasts. Erin was talking about the family tree of Joseph, the son of Jacob and Rachel. Now Rachel was the sister of Leah. To say there was dysfunction in their family is putting it mildly!

Erin Davis: Genesis 30 is fraught with dysfunction. These sisters are always fighting!

And here’s what they were fighting over: who got to sleep with their shared husband. And to make it worse, they kept pushing their female servants toward their husband so that those women could sleep with their husband, too, and give them children.

But this is the chapter where we also finally see Joseph.

Dannah: Maybe you’ve heard the saying “God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.” That was certainly true in the case of Jacob and his wives and sons! Now, that doesn't legitimize their sin. But keep in mind, this was the family that God had said He was going to bless the whole world through. That very family was full sin, including: jealousy, backbiting, and . . . even . . . violence. Here’s Erin Davis again.

Erin: Joseph had a very crooked family tree. 

• It involved strained marriages. 
• It involved infertile women. 
• It involved deception. 
• It involved big time fallings-out. 
• It involved rape. 
• It involved murder. 
• It involved longing.

And yet, there was always a promise.

Let’s hop back to Genesis 35:11–12. This is a blessing that God gave to Jacob as He renamed him Israel. Remember, this is Joseph’s dad. 

And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” 

Our messes do not dethrone God. We see in here a command that hasn’t changed since He gave it to the first family: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:27–28). God was saying, “I’m going to do something, trust Me! I’m going to do something through your family!” 

He was telling Jacob what he had told Abraham, “A nation is going to come from you, and not just a nation, a company of nations!” Remember the promise? “Kings are going to come from your body.” And if you know your Bible, it’s not just “kings.” It’s the King of kings!

We can see that now because of the Incarnation. Jesus came, and He is the Key that unlocks all of Scripture. So we look at everything backwards, knowing who He is. But there’s no way Abraham could have understood what was being promised, but God knew.

Families are God’s idea! God is at work through our families. What is that work? What is God doing? He’s doing the work of redemption! Somewhere along the way we got this idea that Christians put the gospel on display by being perfect families; that somehow the way we display the mystery of Christ and His Bride is through perfect marriages.

When actually, this is picture: I am a sinner; I will always be a sinner. I’m selfish; I will always be selfish. Sometimes I run away from the very man who wants to love me. And the other says back to me (in my case it’s Jason), “My love for you is everlasting, Erin. You cannot make me unlove you!” So it’s our commitment in the mess that tells a lost world that Jesus will never forsake His own. 

We get this idea that our goal of parenting is to put the gospel on display—and it is. But we think the application of that is by being perfect parents who never have prodigal children. Well, I’m not a perfect parent; I never will be. Sometimes our children will choose the slop of the world over the riches of their father’s house. And that’s actually what showcases the redemption story. It doesn’t matter how far my boys run from me, I will always kill the fatted calf when they come home.

I’m not a perfect parent raising perfect sons. I am a cracked pot raising cracked pots, and that is the story of redemption in the Davis household. It is in feeling out of place in our family of origin—which all of us feel on some level or another, that “we don’t really belong here.” It’s in that feeling that we can say, “This is not my home; this not my forever family. A better home is coming, and it’s built for me by the One I belong with.” 

I’ll say it again, I’ll keep saying it: every family is broken. Our gnarled family trees are a beautiful place for God to work, to redeem, to restore, to showcase who He is!

Dannah: What a great reminder from Erin Davis that, no matter how dysfunctional your family is, God can still redeem the situation and use it, somehow, for His glory. 

Erin’s teaching on the life and family tree of Joseph makes up a whole season of her podcast The Deep Well. That season is called simply "Dysfunction." You’ll find a link to it when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/Weekend and click on today’s episode.

Erin mentioned that she’s the mom of four boys. She and her husband, Jason, just released a book called Lies Boys Believe: And the Epic Quest for Truth. At the end of today’s program I’ll tell you how you can get a copy.

Our theme today is the idea of being thankful for the blessing of family. Some couples have an added blessing. God has grown their family through adoption. Did you know that November is National Adoption Month? It is! 

I’m happy to be among those celebrating. My beautiful adopted daughter Autumn—she’s from China—just turned thirty last month! We were inspired by another family to consider adoption: the VanLieres—dear friends from our college years. Their pathway to adoption involved the heartache of infertility. Oh, I remember sitting with Donna and just crying, pleading with God. I wanted God to fill her womb with a baby so badly. Well, Donna VanLiere and I sat down to talk about that journey. She and her husband, Troy, spent many months undergoing fertility treatments, all to no avail. 

Here’s Donna, explaining how God steered them toward adoption, and some of what she’s learned since then, too.

Donna VanLiere: There came a time I was just like, “Oh, I can’t do this fertility stuff anymore.” I was done with it.

I happened to be in a grocery store near our neighborhood one day, and I saw this little girl. She looked Asian. I don’t know where she was from exactly, but she was so cute. Her dad was a white man. She just held up her hands to him, and he grabbed hold of her, and she just wrapped those little arms around his neck and squeezed her face into his face and planted a big kiss on his cheek. And I thought, She has no idea that she doesn’t look like him. No clue.

And, again, it was another puzzle piece for me. I thought, I’m stopping all this fertility madness. Enough is enough. I’m not going to do it anymore. I told Troy, “I really feel like we’re being called to adopt, and I think we should stop all this fertility medication.”

And he said, “Oh, yes. I’ve been feeling that for months.” He felt it long before I did, but he was very good to me. He let me come to that conclusion on my own, as the Lord was continuing to deal with me.

So we stopped it, and he said, “Well, where do you want to adopt from?”

I said, “I don’t know. I just really feel like God is calling us to China.”

And he said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.”

Now, the world is a big place. There are lots of countries to adopt from. There’s domestic adoption as well. But for some reason, the Lord had spoken to both of us that we were supposed to go to China.

We started all of our paperwork, and we waited eighteen months—longer than the gestation of an elephant. But that’s how long it took when we flew to China, and we picked up . . . We decided we wanted to name our little girl Grace, after God’s grace. Because, finally, after decades, I was learning about God’s grace. I was learning it is available to me, to just open my hands and receive His grace.

So we went, and we picked up Grace. Then two years later we went back and we picked up Kate. And we named Grace, Grace Zhenli, which means priceless gift—priceless gift of God’s grace. And we named Kate, Kate Meili—beautiful gift.

So we had both girls, and then the time came, again, to adopt. We felt like the Lord was leading us to Guatemala this time. I asked Gracie, who was four at the time, “Do you want God to bring you a baby brother or a baby sister?”

And she said, “I want God to bring me a baby cow.” (laughter) But was very disappointed to get a baby brother from Guatemala instead. We brought David home in 2007, and it’s hard to believe.

Dannah: It is unbelievable.

Donna: One day when we just had the two girls at the time, I was out weeding in a flower bed. Our dog, Bailey, who was a miniature Schnauzer, was very old at the time. He was where I was working. It was in the sun, and I thought, I’m going to keep him in the shade so that he’ll feel a little better. I even brought out some water for him so that I knew he would be taken care of. I had his leash, and I just kind of wrapped his leash around something that was there—the hose spigot, or something. I wrapped it around that.

I was weeding, and the girls were out there helping me. Several minutes later, here comes Bailey, dragging that leash behind him. And I thought, Oh, why did he get loose? So I picked him up again, and I took him back to the shade, and I wrapped it around there again, and went back to work. And here he comes again. And I thought, Well, he can hang out with us for a while.

But he started panting. He was just getting so hot. So I took him back again to the shade, and figured out another way to keep him there, but here he comes again. And I thought, I’m going to just have to take him in the house. So I took him in the house, and I came back.

And Gracie, who’s all of four years old at the time, said, “Mom, I know why Bailey won’t stay in the shade.”

And I said, “Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

She said, “Because he loves you so much, he just wants to be with you.”

And I thought, That’s how we’re supposed to be. No matter how hot or uncomfortable it is, I want to be where the Lord is. He’s, like, “You’re going to be hot and uncomfortable over here with Me for a while. It’s going to be pretty painful over here for a while with Me.”

But we should say, “I don’t want to be in the shade. I don’t want to be over there. I want to be over here with You.”

Our dreams are made in the shade. Our dreams are wrapped up with bows and ribbons and balloons and streamers. That’s how we wrap up our dreams. We make them in the shade.

But our purpose is found out in that sun—out in that hot sun where it can be uncomfortable. It can be hot. It can be tiring. But that’s where our purpose is discovered—down in those valleys.

Dannah: The lessons we can learn through our children are valuable ones, aren’t they? That’s Donna VanLiere, sharing just a little about her family. In their case, God gave them children through the wonder of adoption.

You may be thinking, I wish I had children. I wish I had a spouse! 

Well, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is here to remind you: single or married, if you’re a Christian, you do have a family. She was explaining some of the different metaphors we see in the book of Ephesians to describe the body of Christ, the Church. Let’s listen.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: First of all, we see that the Church is a family. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 19 says,

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

The household of God, the family of God.

God the Father, and in Ephesians 3, verse 14 Paul refers to God our Father. The Old Testament believers had very little concept of God as Father. That's a New Testament term primarily that God would be our Father; that we would be His children. Christ the firstborn son, Christ our brother, and ourselves—brothers and sisters. This is a family relationship.

That's what God says in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. "I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord almighty" (v. 18). You know what that means? If He's our father, we are His sons and daughters. What does that make us to each other? Brothers and sisters. We're blood-related through the blood of Christ shed on our behalf. We're related to one another.

So the church is a place of family relationships, like it or not. You may not like some of the people in the church. Some of the people in the church may not like you, but we are family. We have to learn to like each other, to love each other, to get along with each other. We're going to spend eternity with each other as a family.

Now families can cause pain; they can cause rejection. There can be problems in families, but families can also be the place of the most intimate possible relationships. To be a part of the Church means that we belong to each other, that we're related to each other. We're a family.

Now there's another word picture used in Ephesians and that is that the Church is a building. Not as in a place you go, but as in God is making us into a building or a temple for God. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 19, 

You are members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (vv. 19–22)

God is taking these individual members, these individual parts, these living stones as believers were called in 1 Peter chapter 1. He's assembling us together into a building or a temple, a dwelling place. That phrase literally means a permanent home for God. God's building a temple. The temple here on earth in the Old Testament was just an earthly physical picture of a great eternal spiritual reality of God's plan for the Church: a dwelling place for God. God wants to live in us.

Now there's a sense in which my body individually is the temple of the Holy Spirit, but there's another sense in which we all together corporately comprise a temple, a building that God is building to be His home. God's building a house for Himself and we are the pieces; we are the parts; we are the stones.

And who is the foundation stone? Christ Jesus Himself. God is making us a dwelling place, a sanctuary for God. We are being fit together and joined together with Christ to be a place fit for God to live in. We're building a temple.

Thirdly, we're a bride; and Christ, of course, is the bridegroom. You have this picture particularly in Ephesians chapter 5 and then a lot of it in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. Let me read some verses from Ephesians chapter 5. Paul's talking about marriage. But keep in mind that every earthly institution that God has designed is created to be a representation, a picture, of a heavenly reality. Marriage is wonderful; marriage is God-created. Marriage is designed by God, but marriage is intended to be a picture of the Church's relationship with Christ.

So Paul says in Ephesians 5 verse 23, 

The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (vv. 23–24)

There's a husband-wife relationship here that isn't just about marriage. It's about Christ's relationship with His Church.

So husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. . . . A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. [He's talking about marriage. Then he explains it.] This mystery, [the mystery of marriage] is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church." (vv. 25, 28, 31–33)

There's no question what he's talking about.

Husbands and wives, why does marriage matter? Why does it matter the way you treat your husband? Why does it matter the way your husband treats you? Because Paul says you're revealing in your marriage a mystery, a profound mystery, the mystery of Christ's relationship with His bride, the Church. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11 verse 2,

I feel a divine jealousy for you because I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

So the next time you go to a wedding and you see the bride dressed in white looking as good as she will ever look, walking down that aisle to be presented by her father to that bridegroom, what is that picturing? Our being presented to Christ as a pure virgin, to be His bride, to live forever with Him.

You come to the end of the Bible, the end of the New Testament, the end of the book of Revelation. In just the last few chapters you find four references to the Church as the bride. She's called the wife of the Lamb. Who's the Lamb? Christ is the Lamb, the Lamb of God. And so Revelation 19 says: "Let us rejoice and exalt and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready" (v. 7).

When you think of the Church as the bride and Christ as the bridegroom, that speaks of a covenant love relationship. It's not a contract that can be broken. He will never divorce His Church. He will never, not love us completely. He will never stop saving us. He is our eternal Savior and bridegroom and that is a covenant relationship, a love relationship. If you are a child of God, you are part of the Church—a body, a family, a building, a bride of Christ, our heavenly bridegroom.

Dannah: We probably don’t value the Church like we should. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been showing us the high value Jesus places on His bride, His temple, His family, His body, the Church.

So if you’re a believer in Jesus, you have been adopted into God’s family. You have a large family, and that’s a blessing. 

Why don’t you take some time today to stop and thank the Lord for the blessing of family? Express your gratitude for:

• The family you grew up in, as imperfect as it may be.
• Your extended, spiritual family—the Church, as imperfect as it is.

Earlier I mentioned the book by Jason and Erin Davis, Lies Boys Believe. You can receive a copy from us here at Revive Our Hearts. It’s our way of thanking you for your donation to Revive Our Hearts. 

To give, just go to ReviveOurHearts.com and click where you see “Donate.” You’ll be able to request your copy of Lies Boys Believe there. Or if you’d rather call, our number is 1-800-569-5959. 

So, we’re counting our blessings all this month here on Revive Our Hearts Weekend. Last week we looked at the blessing of life. Today we explored the blessing of family. Next week might sound like a contradiction. We’re going to talk about the blessing of . . . trials. How can we say that our difficulties are good? I hope you’ll join us next week to find out.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh inviting you back for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend wants you to appreciate your family as you grow in the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness of Christ.

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