The Circus – Family
Family Circus

Transcript

All right. Good morning, church. It's been a great week. We've spent this week at both of our campuses in Rocky Mount and Wilson serving your children and talking to them about Jesus. And I'd like to share a couple of the details about what happened this week between the two campuses.

We served 214 children and that's pretty awesome, right? 214 kids between our two campuses. And it took over 134 volunteers. And so thank you to all the volunteers who served at both of our campuses. And on Wednesday night, we gave a clear presentation of the good news about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

And we had 32 children indicate that they wanted to pray to receive Jesus as their lord and savior. We gave information for them to carry home to their parents. Plus we sent out emails to inform the parents. So 32 kids, can you believe that? That's awesome.

We talked about baptism on Thursday night and what it means to be baptized. 19 said that they want to be baptized. So that's why we do what we do, right? It's for the glory of Jesus and it's to reach these children. And in reaching these children, we pray that we would also reach those families.

And that's why we started this series today, this five-week series called, “Family Circus.” And some of you are here this morning, thinking, I don't have to come to church to talk about a family circus. I can stay home. I can stay home and have that.

I already have one of those at my house. And you're not alone. I don't care who you are. None of us are perfect and none of us have perfect families. You're not going to want to miss this series.

Today, we'll be talking about the family. Next week, we'll be talking about marriage, “the flying trapeze.” Next,
“the lion cage” of parenting. You can't turn your back on those kids. August 11, we're going to be talking about what it means to be single in the family of God – “the tightrope.”

We often hear our singles say, ‘You know, when you do these family series, I always feel left out.’ Well, you're not going to be left out this time. And then here for the very first time, we've been getting requests for this over the years. We're going to be talking about grandparents, what it looks like to be a grandparent in the family of God - “the safety net;” that's who you are.

Whether you're being grandparents or sometimes you are the ones because of a family difficulty, you actually are in the parenting role. But what does that look like? So that's what we're going to be doing over the next five weeks. And we're glad you're here. Now look at this cartoon.

This is from the cartoon series, “The Family Circus.” And maybe you've asked this question, “Who dealt this mess?” Maybe you've looked at your spouse and you said, “That one's just like you,” right? You know, you're the reason, you know, who dealt this mess. But the truth of the matter is, no one has a perfect family.

And we say these kinds of things, “Who dealt this mess?” Well, you probably did. It's probably your fault. It's probably our fault.

The Family Circus cartoon series was founded in 1959 by Bil Keane. Bil Keane was working from his artist studio in his home in Arizona, and he was a self-taught artist and cartoonist and a man of faith. And he had five children. And he decided that that would be the best for the subject matter, just to write stories in cartoon form, to be syndicated newspapers, just talking about his kids. And he said this.

He says,“If there is a philosophy behind the feature, it is that a home filled with love and laughter is the happiest place in the world.” And so that was his vision for the cartoon series. Now, Bil Keane passed away at age 89 in 2011, but the cartoon series continues by his son, Jeff Keane, who continues it to this day and continues the positive family themes that his father first envisioned. Now, let's go back to the question, “Who dealt this mess?” Well, it might be because we're aiming at the wrong thing.

We might be aiming at the perfect family. Everybody wants a perfect family. And when you're single, especially, you've got in your mind, Okay, I want a perfect family. And maybe you want a family different from the one you grew up in. Often that's true.

I want something that's like the opposite of what I grew up in. Or maybe you want a family like the one you grew up in because you had a great family. But regardless, we have to all admit, when we aim at perfection, we always fall short. And what we usually end up with is a chaotic, crazy mess. And even though you have good days, sometimes where it just seems like, well, everything's going really good, all it takes is just one second later and all of a sudden, somebody spills something, somebody punches somebody, somebody starts yelling, there's always something.

I mean, try to have a family devotion around the table and watch; even your dog goes nuts. There's always something that keeps you feeling a little crazy, a little exhausted, frustrated about trying to aim at the perfect family. But what if that's the wrong goal? What if aiming at the perfect family is the wrong aim?

What if there's a better goal? And I would suspect that the better goal is to aim at a blessed family, a family that comes under God's blessing, because there's no such thing as a perfect family. What if we prayed this? What if we prayed, “God bless our mess,” because we all have one? How could we come under God's blessing?

Well, let's look at the book of Ephesians today, where the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus, to the believers there, and he says to them that he's praying for them, that they would come under the blessing of God for their family. And I believe today that we can pray that we will come under God's blessing for our family. As we look at the text, we'll see four steps towards experiencing this blessing of God for our family. So let's dig in.

Ephesians 3:14-21 (ESV) 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.” This is God’s word. Amen.

We're looking for four steps on how to experience God's blessing on your family. Here's the first step.

1. Bow to the Father’s Authority.

Do you see that in verse 14, Paul says, 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

He's saying, “For this reason…” That refers back to what he's been talking about, really for the first couple of chapters. What's the reason that he's thankful to God? It’s God's grace. God's grace and mercy and forgiveness, that God no longer is judging us according to the law, but according to the grace revealed through Jesus. And so he's thankful for that.

And he says that,
as a result, we ought to just bow to the father's authority. He says, “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” Now, when he's talking about the family, he's talking about the family of God. But don't you want to have a family that comes under God? That's what he's praying for.

In fact, he says that the origin of the family, the foundation, the idea of the family, was always God's idea. You might miss it if you're just reading it in English, as we just did. But if you could read it in the original New Testament language of Greek, you would notice that the word, “Father,” in Greek is “patēr”and the word, “family” is
“patria.” And so it's a play on words. He's telling us something here.

He says, “For this reason, I bow my knees before the “pater” from whom every “patria” in heaven and earth are named. He's making a little play on words there, but he's basically saying the family was God's idea. And so in our culture today, we're experimenting with different definitions of the family. Let's try this. Well, let's try this other version.

And there's all these cultural ideas about the family. But what I would say to us today, if you want to come under God's blessing, it begins by saying, “I bow my knees to the father's authority for myself and for my family.” That's the starting point, is to submit your will and say, “God, I don't want my plan. I want your plan. I don't want my will for my family.

I want your will. I want to come under your authority. Because, after all, the family was your idea.” When Joshua was leading the Israelites into the promised land, and as they crossed over the Jordan river and they came into the land of the Canaanite, they encountered all kinds of views about the family. It was all wrapped up in idolatry and wrong thinking about sexuality and wrong views about

everything. And so Joshua was concerned for his people, Israel. And as they were coming into the land, he made a declaration. He said, ‘You need to make a choice, people of God. What kind of family are you going to have?’

And here's what he said. He said, Joshua 24:15 (ESV) “... choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” You have to decide who's going to be in charge. And I'm not saying that you should say, “Well, I'm going to be in charge.”

No, quite the opposite. I'm saying to say, “I'm going to surrender to let God be in charge.” Who remembers this tv sitcom called, “Who's the Boss?” Do you remember that it came out in 1984? It ran about eight seasons up through 1992. If you were a child who grew up in the eighties, you remember it.

If you were a parent during that time, you're probably thinking, Well, that was a silly show. What was the show about? Well, it was just as the title implies. It was about who was the boss.

Who's going to lead the family? Is it this person? Is it one of the children? Who is it? And that's the question that you are asking today, that you must answer.

Who's going to be the boss of my family? Who's in charge? And if it's you, well, there's the reason for the chaos. Because we are all a mess. The Bible says we're all sinners, and so we bring our mess to the family.

We bring our baggage in. If you want to leave the baggage behind and have a family that's under God's blessing, it begins with bowing your knees to the father's authority and saying, “God, I want you to be the boss. I want you to be in charge of my family.” Have you done that? Have you given your life to Jesus?

Have you bowed your knees to the father? That's the first step. Here's the second step:

2. Depend on the Spirit’s Power.

Depend on the spirit's power. If you want to come under God's blessing for your family, depend on the spirit's power.

We've looked at verses 14 and 15. Now we're looking at 16. He says, “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,”
And then in verse 20, he mentions the word, “power,” again. He says, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,”

So that word, “power,” is in the text twice. It's an interesting word in Greek. It's the Greek word, “dunamis.” It's where we get the word, “dynamite” or “dynamic” when we see the scripture talking about how God raised Jesus from the dead by his power. It's the Greek word, “dunamis.”

So “dunamis” is resurrection power. It's dynamic power. And so we need God's power in order to have a family that lives under God's blessing. Remember how I was mentioning earlier that one of the things that so many parents come to me and say is, ‘Pastor, I'm just exhausted and I'm just worn out. I've got such a busy schedule.’

If you have three or more kids, I hear this with two parent families, and they're outnumbered when they have three or more. This one's got soccer, this one's got gymnastics, this one's got violin lessons, and they're all tag teaming, trying to get them everywhere. Plus, they work, both mom and dad both working jobs, and it's go, go, go all the time, and they're just tired and frustrated. Or maybe you're a parent of a toddler and you say, “It's not go, go, go. It's me saying, no, no, no, all the time.

I'm tired and I'm frustrated. I don't know if I'm doing a good job.” Who tells you if you're doing a good job? Are you doing it in your own strength?

You've surrendered your life to God, but then you're living like a “christian atheist.” You believe it, but you're not receiving the power. You're doing it in your own strength. And so we need to depend on the Holy Spirit's power. In the book of Acts,

this is Jesus speaking to his disciples. He says, Acts 1:8 (ESV) “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” You will receive power. “Dunamis” power. The power to be a good mom, to be a good dad, to be a good uncle or aunt or grandparent, or to be a child that supports your parents. To be a teenager, to live for God in your family, it requires spiritual power to live under God's blessing, and he offers it.

And Paul's praying that the church at Ephesus, the family of God there, would have this kind of inner power. In the book of Psalm 127, it says, Psalm 127:1 (ESV) “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Do you feel like your work's in vain? Feel like you're working with not getting anywhere? Give your house to the Lord.

Say, ‘Holy Spirit, empower me.” Now, I've been doing a lot of Greek with you today. I've got a little bit more. And the Greek word for “spirit” and the Greek word for “breath” is the same word, “pneumatos.” It's where we get the word, “pneumonia,” which has to do with the breath or the lungs.

It comes from the Greek word “pneumatos” and it's the same word. And so spirit or breath. And in the Hebrew, in the Old Testament, it's the same spirit and breath, same word. That's of interest, I think, because let's say you wanted to improve your physical health, and you say, ‘I'm going to start doing more push ups, or I'm going to do more sit ups, or I'm going to swim laps at the pool.’ If you want to grow in your health, to be able to do these kinds of exercises, proper breathing is a necessity.

If you don't breathe, you're not going to swim many laps with your head underwater. You'll have to breathe. You'll have to learn to breathe. And so breathing, we know this, right? Physically, we know we must breathe in order to have energy, in order to move and be and “do the things.”

But we neglect to recognize we must breathe spiritually, that we must draw in the holy spirit and depend on him. It's available to us as believers, yet we live as if we can do it on our own. We believe in our heads, but we don't depend on the spirit's power. I would suggest to you that spiritual breathing might be a good idea for your spiritual life. You might think, What does that look like, Gary?

Well, what if you confess your weakness? So you exhale, which means you let out the bad air. You confess, “Lord, I'm frustrated, I'm exhausted. I just feel like I'm getting nowhere.” You just confess your need, you exhale and then you pray.

”But, Lord, you're good. Lord, you're awesome. I draw on your power because you promised in your word. You said, as Paul prayed here, you said that according to the riches of your glory, that you would grant strength with power through the spirit in my inner being. You said that you'll do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us.

You said that, Lord, I'm breathing that in.” Well, how often do you need to do that? I don't know. How often do you need to breathe? The Bible says to pray without ceasing.

Dial him up in the morning and leave it off the hook all day. I mean, just talk to him all day. All day long. Hey, Lord, help me. Help me with little Johnny right here.

He's throwing a temper tantrum and I'm so tired. I've told him “no” a hundred times. And there he goes again. But, Lord, would you work on this little heart? And would you work on my heart?

Because I'm really frustrated right now and I just want to knock him out, you know? And I know that's probably not the right thing to do. And so you're drawing on the spirit. You're having this ongoing conversation. It's almost like spiritual breathing, that kind of constancy in walking in the spirit.

So we bow our knee to the father for his authority over our lives. We come under his blessing. We draw on his holy spirit that comes to dwell in us, and we say, “I'm going to live according to that.” As the apostle Paul learned when God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for in weakness, I am strong.” Paul said, and so we admit our weakness, and we depend on his strength.

Now here's the third step:

3. Dwell in Christ’s Love.

Dwell in Christ's love. We're at verses 17 through 19. We're just working verse by verse through our text today, right?

These are not my thoughts. These are God's thoughts from his word. And we're just “unpacking” it together. And so we see the word, “love,” here two times in verse 17, and then we see it again in verse 19. And he says,17 “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,”

And so that your house, he says, first of all, you personally, your foundation that roots you and grounds you should be love. And what kind of love? The love of Christ. And so that you dwell in it, you live in it. And then he goes on to say, down in verse 18, he begins to describe its dimensions, of how high and how deep and how wide and how long.

And it seems to be that he's describing something that has no limit, this limitless love, this kind of love. And then he says, ‘I pray that you would know the love of Christ, that you would comprehend it, that you would receive it and know it, and be, if you will, that you would be bathed in it, surrounded by it, rooted in it.’ And this is what he prays for. Paul prays for the family of God, and I pray for you right now, and I pray for my family, that that would be your family, that your family would dwell in Christ's love.

Now, what kind of family did you grow up in? Would you characterize your family atmosphere as one of love? Now, I'm talking about God's kind of love. It's the Greek word, “agape,” both times, there's several Greek words for love. We've only got one “love”in English, but Greek has several.

But here we're talking about God's kind of love, which is unconditional, sacrificial love. Or did you grow up in a family that was more characterized by anger or addiction or the unpredictability of your parents or of your siblings? Did your house feel dangerous, like you didn't know if you could talk or not? Or if you would get swatted. Was it a legalistic house or was it a house of freedom? Because a house of love is a house of freedom.

What kind of house did you grow up in? What kind of house do you want today? Oh, I want a house ruled by love. Now, those of you that have been coming to our church for a while know that my daddy died when I was eight years old. I'm the oldest of four children.

I grew up in a single family home, primarily. We had a daddy for my first eight years. He was a wonderful, wonderful man. But he passed away.

And so my mother raised us and we didn't have a lot, so we wore a lot of “hand me downs.” We wore our cousin’s “hand me downs;”our cousins would pass down \clothes. We had “hand me down” furniture and “hand me down” cars. We couldn't wait till the third day of the month when the Social Security check came in. We didn't have a lot.

But my mama loved the Lord and she had the love of Jesus in her. And we didn't have a lot of material things, but we had love. I wouldn't do it over for anything. I wouldn't change it.

You might have grown up, you had a lot of material things, but you didn't have love. And I guarantee you'd change it. You'd say, ‘I wish I hadn't had all that. I wish I'd had love.’ Dwell in Christ's love.

Do you have that love and that freedom? Is your house rooted in that? There's this consistency. You don't have to guess what kind of mood your parents are in or so forth. You know that they are going to respond to you in love.

Now, they're not perfect, but they're going to respond to you with the love of Christ. Because the love of Christ roots your family and it roots your mom and your dad. And it's the part of you. What is this? Here's what we read in

1 John 4:10 (NLT) “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” So this “agape” love that we're talking about is sacrificial. It's a giving kind of love. You know that famous verse, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave…”

It's a giving love. It's not a taking love. It's the kind of love that sacrifices; it gives. And Paul goes on to tell us in 1 Corinthians what this love is like. He says, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV) 4 “Love is patient

and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Is your family marked by this love? Oh, I pray that it's so. I pray that you know the breadth, the height, the length and the depth of Christ's love for your family.

It'll change everything. If you could only have your family bathed in the love of Jesus, it'll change everything. Remember what Bil Keane said about his philosophy for “The Family Circus?” He said, “A home filled with love and laughter is the happiest place in the world.” It just so happens that Bil Keane was a believer, and he said he didn't want to be a preacher, but he did want to be salt and light and just let his faith kind of leak into his cartoons.

I like this cartoon here. This is a good one. He's reading from the Bible here. “What does that story of Adam and Eve teach us?” And little Jeffy here says, “Not to eat fruit.” That's pretty good.

Right now. I don't have to eat fruit. Can I just eat candy bars? Now, “Jeffy,” by the way, was Jeff, and he always said that he thought he was the star of “The Family Circus.”

And at any rate, he is the Jeff Keane that now continues his father's legacy of doing these little cartoons that are in the newspaper and other places. He has done the cartoons since 2011, and he still has that same impetus to do these cute little cartoons about the family that from time to time, he just allows his faith to find its way into. That's a family of love, isn't it? You can kind of feel it. I think that's the reason that this cartoon has been so successful through the years.

The love kind of leaks out. Is that the mark of your family, or is your family marked by bitterness, anger, unpredictable addictions, brokenness, resentful? Or is it filled with love? Oh, I pray that you would have the blessing of God's love of his son over your family. Now here's the fourth step.

4. Reflect God’s Glory.

Reflect God's glory. To experience God's blessing begins with bowing your knee to the father, coming under his umbrella of protection, of blessing, and then asking the Holy Spirit to energize you so you have the energy and the power to do what he's called you to do. And then you pray that the love of Christ would be the mark of your life and the mark of your family. And then finally, you recognize that the purpose of your family is not just to have a great family, not just to have a blessed family, but that your family would give glory. It would reflect God's glory to a world, to a darkened world.

In other words, God wants your house to be a lighthouse for him, reflecting his glory to the world. We're down to verses 20 and 21 now in our study today, and really what we have in 20 and 21 is a benediction. And Paul enraptures us with these beautiful words. He says, 20 “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.” He climbs to the heights with this benediction, and you can almost see it's a “two-hander.” He's got both hands up as he blesses the church of Ephesus. The family of God, may we give glory. See, this is what God created the family for, is that we would be a lighthouse to this world, that we would reflect his glory when he made us.

It says in the book of Genesis that he made us in his own image, in the last Imago Dei. He made us so that we would be image bearers. And then the family is to put on display his glory. This is the calling, the glory of God and to all generations. Do you see that?

Throughout all generations. Oh, my goodness. I've lived long enough now and we have ten grandchildren. And so I began to see God's calling. Is that my goal now, and my job as a grandparent is to give God glory in such a way so that my children, that the generations that follow me even after I'm gone, after the Lord calls me home, that there would be a family that continues to serve God, a family that continues to give God glory.

God wants your house to be a lighthouse, to shine as stars, as lights in this darkened world. It says in Philippians 2:14-15 (ESV) 14 “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

Maybe you're starting to see the changes in your family. Maybe you're one of those families; you've come under the umbrella of God's blessing. You came out from where the world was beating your family to death, and you've bowed the knee to the father, and you've started seeing the change in your marriage and in your parenting and in the way your kids behave. And somebody comes up to you, maybe they saw you at Walmart and your kids were behaving for a change, or maybe they saw the way that you and your spouse were caring for one another, and they ask, “Where did you get a family like that?

I wish I could have a family like that.” Do you say, “Well, we went to a seminar, we read a book, we go to church.”You could say any of those things, but none of those things would give God the glory. Here's what you say. “We don't deserve it, but God's been merciful.

And we just decided to bow our knee to the father and put him in charge and give our lives to Jesus. And he's done this work in our family. We're still kind of a mess. You just saw us on a good day. But if you were to see what we used to be and where God has brought us, then you'd know that he deserves all the glory.”

That's what God's calling us to, to give him the glory. If you look up in the sky at night and you see a full moon, it looks like the moon is lighting up the darkness, doesn't it? But the moon has no light of its own. It only faces the sun. And as it faces the sun, it reflects the light of the sun onto the darkened earth.

And that's who we are as a family. We have no light of our own. We're kind of a “family circus,” aren't we? We're kind of a mess. But when we have Jesus and we have his light shining on us and we're just willing to reflect it, we become like lights in the world.

That's what God calls us to when we heed Paul's prayer. We don't end up with perfect families, but we do end up with blessed families. Don't you want your family to experience God's blessing. Here's what Paul said in the first chapter of Ephesians as he opened up this conversation about God's family. He said, Ephesians 1:5 (NLT) “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” Can you believe that? God wants you, and it gives him great pleasure to offer you a seat at his table, to be a member of his family, of his household. He wants to adopt you into the family through faith in Jesus Christ. The whole idea of the family was God's idea.

Would you bow before him? Would you depend on his spirit to energize you to be what he's called you to be? Would you ask that the Lord Jesus would bathe you in his love so that the atmosphere of love permeates your house? And would you say, “God, we give you all the glory for all the blessings you put on our lives?” Would you give your life to Jesus afresh today and depend on him?

Let's pray.

Lord, I first of all pray for that one that came in today. And they've been hurting. They've been frustrated.

Their family's a mess. They're a mess, and they're willing to admit it, “Lord, my life's kind of messed up right now, and I'm tired of trying to run it myself. Lord, I surrender, and I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for me. I believe that.

I believe that he was raised from the grave and that he lives today. And I'm a sinner that needs a savior, and I trust him right now. Lord Jesus, I trust you to save me. Forgive me of my sin. Come into my life, fill me with your holy spirit and adopt me into the Father's family.

I want it. Would you come and save me?” Now, if you're praying that prayer by faith right now, the Lord says he'll save you and he'll adopt you into his family and make you a child of God. Others are here, and you're a believer.

You're a follower of Jesus, but you haven't been living under God's blessing. You're a believer, but you haven't been depending on the spirit or you've given up to frustration or to anger, and you haven't been experiencing the love of Christ in your life right now. Would you just confess that and say, “Lord, you know I'm a follower and that I love you, but would you forgive me right now, afresh, of the way I've put other things ahead of you. I want to live under your blessing, Father. Bless my family.”

I pray it now, in Jesus’ name. Amen.