Week 3: Family

SESSION GOALS
The point of every session is a main idea with the goal of informing our knowing, feeling, and doing.

MAIN IDEA: Your family needs you to slow down and make time for them.

Head Change: To know that measurable duties will vie for your time and attention, at the expense of your family.

Heart Change: To feel grateful that God wants imperfect you and yours to be part of His family.

Life Change: To ask God to help you see each person in your biological and church family for who and what they really are.

OPEN
Who in your group would win the prize for Most Framed Photographs of Family Members in their home or office? Do you have any photo albums in your house, or are all your photos stored digitally? What are your criteria for posting a photo of your family on Instagram or elsewhere? Talk about one of your childhood photos you wish could’ve filtered or deleted entirely.

Photos of smiling people on holiday never give the full picture of any family. In this session, Anthony dares us to be real about our deficiencies as family men and the challenges our families face. Thankfully, he also shows us God’s heart for the family and the hope we have in Him.

VIEW
As you watch, write down how Anthony answers these questions.

• Why didn’t Anthony write the article he was invited to write?
• According to Anthony’s daughter, what should members of a family remember about one another?
• Why did Jesus take the blind man away from the crowd?
• In what ways was the first human family flawed?
• In what ways was Jesus’ earthly family flawed?

Show SESSION #3: Family (14 minutes)

REVIEW
Anthony opens this session by explaining why he turned down an opportunity to write an article on the subject of family. Did he decline the invitation because the subject matter wasn’t important to him? Do you find it difficult to turn down work opportunities in favour of your family? Why, or why not?

Anthony says, ‘The problem is, I can quantify how many hours I put into my job, but I can never quantify how well I’m doing as a dad, or as a grandad, or husband.’ Do you tend to pour more time and energy into your work (rather than your family) because your work delivers tangible, measurable results? If you had a line manager who monitored your performance as a family man, do you think you’d be getting a raise this year? Why, or why not?

When Anthony asked his family, ‘What do you think the most important thing about family is?’, his daughter replied, ‘We need to remember that the other people in the family are actually people themselves – not just roles in relation to me.’ Discuss the idea that every person in your family has a unique identity which is broader than just the role they play in your life. Does this concept change how you think of your spouse, kids, or others in your family?

In Mark 8:22–26, we read the story of a blind man brought to Jesus by his friends for healing. Jesus leads the man out of the village and away from the crowds. He gives the man his undivided attention and takes time to talk to him and pray with him. The healing unfolds over a deliberate, unhurried interaction. If this story is overly familiar to you, imagine how you’d react if a friend or co-worker told you they’d met with Jesus and He’d healed them in this miraculous way.

Anthony points out that Jesus wasn’t satisfied to do half a job – as we so often are. He didn’t want the blind man to only be able to see other people looking like trees. Jesus wanted him to see other people as people. Unrushed, He prayed a second time. Jesus wants to touch our eyes too, so we see people as they really are – especially those closest to us. What blurs your vision when it comes to those you know and love best? What are the biggest distractions for you during time with your family? Do you agree that you can’t love in a rush? What would slowing down for your family look like in this season of your life? Can you start tomorrow?

Genesis tells us family was God’s idea. After He’d created the earth and the man, He called them good. What was not good was the man being alone (Genesis 1:31, 2:18). What does Adam’s unsatisfactory solitude, despite a perfect environment, tell you about how he’d been created?

God created a companion for Adam, but Adam and Eve weren’t the perfect couple. What kinds of dysfunction do we see on display in their family? Did God give up on them? Does God give up on us? How do you know?

Jesus stepped onto the pages of history to introduce us to a family in which God is the perfect Father. God isn’t in denial about the imperfections of every earthly family. Still, He invites us into His family, and He’s unchanging in His promise, unstoppable in power, and perfect in love. Does the Bible gloss over the familial dysfunction of its earthly characters? How does God respond to the unfaithfulness and feuding of His weak, unloving, undeserving people? Do you tend to portray your own family as perfect and fully functional, or are you pretty real about the struggles and quirks of your nuclear and extended family?

The snapshots of Jesus’ earthly family life are far from perfect. He’s not born in a palace but a feeding trough. He’s comforted at the breast of one who’s nearly a single mum because of a troubled stepfather, in circumstances that mean the legitimacy of His birth will be called into question from the stable to the grave. A jealous king wants to kill Him. His parents lose Him for a few days. His cousin eats locusts and His younger brothers and sisters say He’s crazy. Why do you think God didn’t orchestrate more sanitary and satisfactory circumstances around Jesus’ birth?

God says the church is family too, which means we shouldn’t be surprised if it has its share of strange and annoying people we’d rather not hang out with. Does this match your current or past experience of being connected to a spiritual family? What might it look like for you, this week, to love those people anyway? How would choosing to love those who are different from you expand your heart capacity?

BIBLE EXPLORATION
Joshua says to God’s people, ‘But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord’ (Joshua 24:15). Who or what might be the equivalent, in your life, of the ‘gods your ancestors served’, or ‘the gods of the Amorites’? How would things change in your home over the next month if you re-declared, or declared for the first time, ‘As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord’?

Paul writes to Timothy, ‘But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers’ (1 Timothy 5:8). Are any of your relatives in need? What’s your next step? Do you feel you have a particular responsibility towards a person or group of people in your church community?

God’s Word is full of stories about His family. If time allows, read some or all of the following passages: Genesis 9:20–25, Genesis 12:10–20, Exodus 2:11–13, Joshua 6:25, Judges 16:15–17, and 2 Samuel 11:1–27. What kinds of imperfection and dysfunction do we see in these unfiltered snapshots of the lives of Noah, Abram, Moses, Rahab, Samson, David – and so many others? What is God’s comment on these family members in Hebrews 11:16?

LAST WORD
It’s not too late for you to make the changes you need to make in your family. Ask God to start with you. Your schedule needs to show your family that you love and prioritise them, and the time to begin making diary decisions that reflect this is today. Whatever your relational past, present, or future, you have a Heavenly Father from whom every earthly family derives its name (Ephesians 3:15). He sees the generations before that led to you being born and alive now. He holds in His hands plans full of hope and a bright future. God also knows no family is perfect. Not yours. Not His. But He delights in miracles, and He wants you, and yours, in His family album.

DEEPER WALK
Select at least one activity below to complete before watching the next session.

Read: Read Ephesians 3:14–21 in a different Bible translation from the one you usually use. Meditate on the truth about who formed your family, and who has the power to transform it.

Write: If you’re not into journaling, sketch your family tree. Have any branches of the tree broken off? Which branch are you on? Where is the tree budding or bearing fruit? What story would you love to tell your grandchildren or great-grandchildren about how you cultivated your family tree?

Pray: Set aside five or ten minutes during your lunch breaks this week, or take time on your commute, to surrender your family to God. Ask Him to increase the love and laughter in your home. Pray for extraordinary time-management wisdom as you seek to prioritise your family.