Good morning! Today we take on one of the most beautiful and difficult issues in all our life on earth - that of family and human relationships. Nothing gives greater joy, peace, security, and significance than the love of a healthy family. And nothing brings greater pain, sorrow, conflict, turmoil, and fear than when God’s model for the family is twisted, broken, and distorted by the world, the devil, and our own sinful nature. Whether it be by sin, or death, or divorce.

 

Sociology is the study of human community and relationships. Human community has its origin in the nature of God. But when we push God out of the picture, our relationships become twisted and distorted. We were created for community. Let me illustrate: In the story of creation, God created light and it was ... He created sky and it was ...  He created sea and dry ground and it was ... He created plants and animals and it was ...

And then, he created Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life and behold it was – not good.  Something was missing. What was it? It was community, relationship. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”  How did God know that?  Because God was not alone.

 

God was one, yet in 3 persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These 3 in 1 had co-existed from eternity.  Each one of the 3 was unique, each one was “other” than the other, yet there were not 3 but one – diversity, unity, trinity, community, accountability - a profound mystery.

 

And God knew from his own nature that it was not good for the man to be alone, so he made him a partner. One who was other than himself, yet the two would be as one. So there were 3 in the Garden - God, man, woman.  Each unique, other than the other, not 3 but one – diversity, unity, trinity, community, accountability - a profound mystery.  Modeled after God’s own self.

 

Why didn’t God make Adam an identical twin to be his partner?  Why not just bud Adam like yeast? Why make a woman, for heaven’s sake! Same but different – (boy howdy) Different!  It’s precisely this otherness that is exhibited in the Godhead.  Diversity, unity, trinity, community, accountability - a profound mystery.  Modeled after God’s own self.

 

But a problem developed.  Satan, once a leading angel, refused to accept this model. He wanted to exalt himself to the highest position believing he could go it alone. No diversity, no unity, no community, no accountability needed. Evidently, he saw community as a threat to his independence, a hassle. He, too, was part of a trinity made up of creator, angels, creation. But he rejected his place in this holy trinity for the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I.

 

He came to Adam and Eve with a proposal. “You don’t need this relationship with God. You don’t need this community. You don’t need to be limited by this trinity of accountability, you can be alone, independent! You can be whole all by yourself. And they bought into his lie.”

 

With that in mind, let’s go back and look at how God has revealed himself in the Trinity. One God in 3 persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father sends the Son, loves the Son, exalts the Son. The Son glorifies, obeys, submits to the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit points to the Son and brings glory to the Son. Each member of the Trinity supports, cooperates, and works together with the others. It is not a hierarchy of power, but a dance of love, each lives in, with, and for the other.

 

We see this same Trinitarian image in every human social structure.  And we see the great anguish and destruction the twisting of this image has caused.

 

Husband, wife, child form a trinity of otherness. Each unique, yet together one.  A unity modeled after the image of its creator. A husband is to love his wife and give his life for her. He is called to leadership and authority, not as a license for selfishness, but responsibility.

 

Wives are to submit to their husbands, just as Christ submitted to his Father. Not resentfully or begrudgingly, but with joy and trust as Jesus did.  We see Jesus’ prayer in the Garden, not my will, but Thy will be done as a precious and holy. The same model is to be a work in the family. Children proceed from the father and mother as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son. Each member serves and exalts and submits itself in the love and service to the other.  

 

The Apostle Paul sees this image of God’s Trinitarian nature in the church as well. Jesus is the head of the church, the church is the bride. The elders of the church and the laity of the church complete trinity. Paul says that elders/leaders aren’t to lord it over the church anymore than a husband is to lord it over his wife. The same model is to exist in the social/political realm.

 

But the world, the devil, and our own sinful flesh has distorted and twisted, misused, abused this model. Instead of completing and cooperating, we compete and struggle for control. God’s model is sound; it has held the Holy Trinity together through out the ages. It is no less than the very image of God. But we rejected God’s model in favor of one built in our own sinful image.

 

James picks up on this when he says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4:1-3

 

So where has having it our own way gotten us? Husbands are neglectful, unloving, abusive to their wives who the Lord told us we are to give our lives for. Wives are resentful, disrespectful, abusive of their husbands, scorning, scolding, accusing, treating them like children. Children are abandoned, parents are defied and dishonored, authority is ignored and distained. The unity of the family is destroyed. The image of God in our relationships is destroyed.

 

Can you imagine such behavior within the Holy Trinity?  We’ve been made in the image of God.  How is it that we have the audacity to treat one another, husbands, wives, parents, children, persons created in God’s image as if they do not matter? As if they were our enemy? Where does this craziness come from? We have an enemy of our souls!

 

Satan works overtime to destroy every social order he can, every place he finds it.  He starts with our family. He trashes the authority of God’s word and attempts go convince us God’s model no longer works.  We’ve progressed beyond it. He promotes pre-marital sex and shacking up as the way to avoid divorce, yet all the research indicates these things increase the likelihood of separation and divorce.

 

Satan works overtime to convince us that pornography is harmless, that adultery is normal, that the morality of lying, cheating, stealing are situational. They are not. They are sin. These things always end in death. And the first casualty is the unity of our marriages and families.

 

The Bible is clear; we are lost and cannot save ourselves. When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God in the Garden, their relationship with God and with each other was shattered. Unless God acts on our behalf, we are without hope. But God has acted to rescue us. Jesus came to save sinners, and restore our relationships with God and with each other.

 

Through the power of the cross, God can change our hearts so that we can live together in the unity we were designed for. In Jer. 29, the Lord says, “I know the plans I have for you, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

 

This plan is recorded in the Bible. Will we read it, submit to it, obey it? Or will we reject it in favor of our own ideas of what marriage, family, church, community should look like? 

 

The place to begin is in repentance, on our knees, side by side, mother, father, sister, brother, parent, child, pastor, flock, politician, citizen asking God to forgive our selfish ways, and help us fulfill the role we’ve been given. We’ve been created in his image, created for relationships. What a privilege! What a responsibility!  We should approach it with fear and trembling.

 

We need to ask God to show us how to love one another with the same unity, the same dance of love that holds together the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever.

Will you pray with me?

 

 

Next Sunday we will examine the hope God offers to those who suffer the agony of loneliness.