The Power And Purpose Of The Family by Dr. Myles Munroe: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Family is the Most Important Institution

Whenever there is stress in a society, the first thing to be affected are families. The family is the most important institution on planet earth — not the government, not the church, not the schools. The most important person in our lives is God himself. And the first institution God created was not the government, not the school, not even the church. The first institution God created was the family.

The family is also:

• The first community — when you were born, you were born in the context of a community.
• The oldest institution on earth — older than government, older than the church, older than schools, banks, and all other institutions.
• The key to national success.
• God's ideal institution — which means the family is really the cure for all of our social ills, all of our psychological challenges, all of our emotional problems in a country, and all of our spiritual ills.

The family is the solution to all problems in our community, and to all our national problems.

Jesus and the Family

When Jesus came to earth, his entrance into this planet was through a family. He came in the context of a mother and a father. God refused to come to earth as an angel or drop from the sky. He made sure that he established the importance, the value, the priority, and the necessity of the family. The one who created the universe, who spanned 500 million galaxies and created over 50 billion planets — he chose to come to a planet through a family.

Luke 2:51 — Jesus went down to Nazareth with them, his parents, and was obedient to them. He grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man — in a family. That is what God intended for us.

John 7:42 — Christ came from David's family and from Bethlehem. Your family is your history and your future.

Defining the Family

The dictionary definition: a group of individuals living together under one roof, usually under one head. But in the Bible, the Greek word for family means a dwelling, a house, to dwell together, to be at home. The Hebrew word for family is beet, meaning household — including servants and dependents. If someone is looking after your children in your absence, according to God they are considered part of your family. They don't teach your kids what you don't teach your kids, don't use words in your home that you don't use, don't teach values that you don't teach your kids.

A full scriptural definition: a family is a dwelling created as a result of marriage between a male and female who become parents that produce or adopt children committed to parental care and nurturing of the same to reproduce themselves in character, values, and conviction through love, discipline, and example.

The Ideal Principle

When the ideal is replaced by the ordeal or our own deal, then the deal is no deal. We have taken the ideal family structure and because of the ordeal we have gone through, we attempt to reduce the ideal to our own experience.

Never teach the ordeal as the ideal.

We have fallen so far from the standard of God's definition of family that we try to drive God's definition down to our experience. Even if your marriage didn't work, if you are divorced, if you are a single parent — this is not God's will. Tell your children the truth. Tell them: when you grow up, marry and stay married and have a father.

Your predicament is not God's purpose. It's your predicament.

If God forgave you, make sure it's clear that what happened is not normal and is not God's standard. Psalm 68:6 — God places the lonely in families. Never lower the standard to the circumstances. You are supposed to take your circumstances and lift them up to God's standard. Compromise of the ideal devalues the original.

The Family is Not a Product of the State

The family is not a product of the state. The government doesn't create the family. The family produced the state — everyone in government came from a family. The family is a product of natural law, preceding government, legislation, social science, and even religion.

The family is not taught in the Bible as a principle — because family is defined naturally. God made Adam, God made Eve, they got together and produced a child. Nature defines it.

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• The family is the foundational unit for the reproduction of children — the only qualified unit for effective and total development.
• The family is a prototype of society. If you want to know what a nation looks like, look at the families. Society is only as strong as the family.
• The dissolution of the family is the dissolution of the state. When you unravel the family, you unravel your whole country.
• Every social, mental, psychological, moral, and emotional problem can be traced back to the family.
• The sanctity of the family is the bedrock of human survival.

Mark 5:18-19 — When Jesus healed the demon-possessed man, the man begged to go with him. Jesus said, "Go home to your family." He was restoring a citizen to productivity. He sent him back to the family, not to social services. You are as safe as your family.

Exodus 12 — God said, tell the whole community of Israel that each man is to take a lamb for his whole family, for each household.

1 Timothy 5:8 — if anyone doesn't provide for his family and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and has become worse than an infidel.

Poverty is a sign that there is no family. That crisis will test whether you are in a family.

The Father as Foundation

The word husband comes from two words: house and bonded — that which bonds the house together. A husband is not just a male. A husband is a bonder of the house, like the glue that holds everybody and everything together. This is why a single parent struggles so much — there is no glue in that environment.

The family is like a business. The man is the president. The wife is the vice president and the children are the board members. When you make a decision as a man, you must consult the vice president. Management of the home is the greatest test of leadership.

Malachi 4:5-6 — God said he would send Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest he curse the land. God is saying, "I have to put the foundation back."

Ephesians 6:4 — Fathers, do not provoke your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. God charges the man to discipline the children. If there is no man in the home, connect yourself to a man who is a good male figure representing God in your life and send that kid to that man.

Train Your Children

Training: when you look at a train, the train is only the piece up front — the engine. Everything else is the cars. The Bible says fathers, train your children. The only way the cars can follow the train is to hook themselves up to it. Wherever the train goes, the cars go. As a father, you don't point your kids in the right direction — you lead them in the right direction. Wherever you go, they go. Don't ever tell your kids, "Don't do what I do."

Father, thank you that healing is in this place for families. We pray for families wherever they are. For the hurting women, the frustrated men, the woman who has been abandoned, the young woman who has been abused, the children on the streets — Lord, restore the family. Not just the family as we know it, but restore the ideal family. Let it begin with us. We come to grips with our past and dedicate ourselves today to perfect our lives, to strive for your standard. Thank you in Jesus name. Amen.