You Were Created to Be God's Family

Created to Be God’s Family

Inspired by Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life"

Relationships Are Part of Our Nature
Have you noticed that the one thing we all have in common is our fascination with relationships? Our friends or our desire to have friends is so incredibly important to each of us. If you really think about it, on those times when you were a little depressed or upset, it probably had something to do with a broken or troubled relationship! Well there is a reason that we are drawn to relationships, it is something that has been designed into our very being by the God that created us! We all have a desire to fit in and to be accepted. Tragically, many of us have problems in our own families and we look for acceptance in other relationships. After all, God has designed us to search for acceptance. And when we feel the rejection of our friends, life can be very difficult. There is a story of a young lady who felt this kind of rejection and depression, and sadly, it came not from the world, but from her youth group:

Annie was a large, rather unattractive girl. Actually, Annie was fat. A member of a youth group, Annie regularly attended most of the youth functions and Bible studies. During one of those meetings, the youth leader introduced a situational learning game called, "The Lifeboat." He instructed the dozen high school kids present to form their chairs to resemble the seating on a lifeboat. Then he said, "You twelve are the only survivors of a shipwreck. You have managed to make it to this lifeboat. Once you are aboard, however, you find to your horror that there are only provisions for eleven. Also, the boat can hold only eleven survivors. Twelve people will capsize the boat, leaving you all to drown. You must decide what to do." The group stared blankly at each other for a few moments before bursting into lively discussion. They decided that for the good of the majority of the members of the group, one person must be sacrificed. But who? As the group discussed who would be left to drown, they eliminated various individuals perceived to be of value to the survivors. The strongest and most athletic boys couldn't be sacrificed-their strength would be needed to row. Naturally, the boys wouldn't think of letting any of the pretty girls become shark food. Slowly each individual in the group, with the exception of Annie, was mentioned and then discarded as a candidate for sacrifice. Some were too smart, too talented, or too popular. Finally, Annie, who may not have been attractive but who was not dumb, blurted out, "I’ll jump." "No, no!" protested the group. But when pressed, they couldn't think of one good reason why she shouldn't jump-so they remained silent. When the time to play the game ran out, the group members announced that they couldn't reach a decision on what to do. The youth worker went on to teach a lesson using the example of the lifeboat. But Annie had already learned a lesson. The next day, Annie jumped. Her youth group had affirmed her worst thoughts about herself. She truly was of no value. Her "friends" in the youth group were baffled and deeply saddened by her death and couldn’t figure out why she would do it.

But of course we know why she did it. The church is a family. Youth group is a family. It’s the family of God. And this is the place where you should be everything that God has created you to be. What a pity when we lose sight of this purpose for our lives.

It’s A Part of God’s Nature
It really shouldn’t surprise us that we are hard wired for relationship. We are created beings who reflect the nature of God, and God is also hardwired for relationship! God is described as having a relationship within the Godhead. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit together describe the mystery of God. One God, three personalities, three dimensions, three truths. For the beginning of time and from all eternity, God has always been about relationship. Art through the ages has tried to describe this mysterious divine relationship in human terms that we can understand, but so much is still a mystery. One thing for sure, God is all about relationship. So it shouldn’t surprise us when we find him designing us to be part of that relationship. Look at what Scripture tells us:

Ephesians 1:4-5
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will

James 1:18
In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures.

1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

God is pleased to bring us into a close relationship with Him and with other believers. When we believe in Jesus and surrender our lives to Him, we become “children” of God and are united by a common father, God Himself. Even if our earthly father has disappointed us, God wants us to see that He is our real father and will never let us down. God wants us to remember that even when people and parents let us down, and we think that these bad situations are defining us, it is really God Himself who has designed us to be a part of his Holy family, set apart and destined for home. We may feel like we are frail and undeserving at times, but God has a plan for us.

1Corinthians 1:26-31
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Galatians 3:26
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

It has always been part of God’s plan to call you home and adopt you as His own children through your faith in Christ. God wants you to enter into a relationship with Him and with his family of believers. It is what you were designed to do and designed to be. You were designed to be part of God’s family

Ask yourself: ‘what is one thing you don’t like about your family’

No Hurt Feelings, Selfish Desires Slide
Yes, most of us can testify to the truth that families can often be less than perfect, wouldn’t you agree? If we cannot satisfy our God given desire for relationship in the family setting, we often look for it in our friendships. We try so hard to belong to a group of friends, don’t we? But have any of you experienced rejection or disappointment at the hands of your friends as well? Ever felt like your friends were harsh or uncaring? Ever found yourself doing something really stupid just so you could fit in? You are simply responding to a God given desire for fellowship. And when friends let you down or hurt you, it’s usually because these relationships are not within the family of God, and are not following the commands of God. And when relationships within our youth group are hurtful, it’s also because we are refusing to follow God’s guidelines for relationship.

Ten Commandments
Let’s face it; if you look at all the commandments of God as they are given to Moses, you can easily divide the laws of God into two relational groups. Four of the laws found in Exodus 20 describe our relationship to God and tell us how to have a proper attitude toward God. In essence, they tell the ancient Jews how they can join God’s Family:

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below…

You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God…

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy…

Six of the laws, then deal with how we are to treat each other. Isn’t it interesting that most of the Ten Commandments talk about our relationship to each other! In essence, they teach us how to love God’s Family:

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Jesus understood the power of relationships and the fact that all of us have been designed by God to become part of His Family. He told us that LOVE was an incredibly important part of the equation and affirmed the fact that all of the commandments of God could be summarized easily:

Matthew 22:34-40
But when the Pharisees heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

God is challenging us to see what we could become if we would embrace this aspect of our original design. What could we be if we would become a part of God’s family, and then love this family with all our heart? If we do this you will become the best YOU that you can be. So the question remains, what does it take to love the Family of God?

Choose to See What We Have In Common
First you have to do your best to stop seeing yourself as an isolated individual. Power comes from our relationship to each other! People have discovered this throughout the ages.

As the pioneers moved west, each was given 40 acres of land. At first, they built their houses in the middle of their plots. But later, as more settlers moved in, they built on one of the four corners closest to their neighbors. The pioneers learned through experience that fellowship and community were more important than space and individualism.

God knows that you will not be the best YOU, until you learn to see what we all have in common. That means finding points of agreement and celebrating them!

1 Corinthians 1:10-11
Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.

Choose to Have Realistic Expectations
Most of the reason why we don’t always get along with each other is because we have too high of an expectation of others. It starts with too high an opinion of ourselves! We think that our way is the best way, our opinion is the most important opinion. Then we begin to believe that everyone else should come up to our standard. When we do this, and start off with an unrealistically high standard, we are always going to be disappointed and along the way we actually hurt others around us!

An ancient story is told about a father and his son who were walking along a road one day with their donkey. Soon they met a man who saw them and had his own expectations of how they should behave! He told them how foolish they were to walk when they had a donkey that could be ridden. So the father and son hopped on. They hadn't gone very far when another man criticized them for both riding on the donkey. He too had his own expectation. They were too heavy for it, he contended, and were being inhumane. So the boy got off. It wasn't long before a third traveler accused the father of being inconsiderate because he made his son walk while he rode. So the two switched places. Soon they met another person who charged that the son was not being thoughtful of his father, who was so much older than he. All these folks had their own expectations for the boy and his father and tried to force these expectations on the pair. When last seen, the two were trudging down the road carrying the donkey.

God wants us to lower our expectations and accept each others differences. Sometimes this takes patience and that is exactly what God wants us to have!

Ephesians 4:1-3
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Choose to Encourage
As you talk to your friends, you are either going to be in one camp or the other. You are either a criticizer or an encourager. And you don’t realize how important encouragement really is! Each of us has been encouraged by someone in our life, and this encouragement has done so much to shape us! Even the smallest and seemingly insignificant word of kindness can have an astronomical effect on someone’s life:

When Cheryl Prewitt was four years old, she hung around her father's small country grocery store. Almost daily the milkman would come into the store and greet her with the words, “How's my little Miss America?” At first she giggled, but eventually she became comfortable with it . . . and even liked it a little. Soon the milkman's greeting became a childhood fantasy. . . then a teenage dream. Finally it became a goal. . . and in 1980, she stood on a stage in Atlantic City and was crowned. .. Miss America.

God wants us to be encouragers, not criticizers, especially when it comes to His Family!

Romans 14:10-11
But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.

Choose Not To Listen to Gossip
I’ve learned something about my fallen nature. I’ve learned to keep conversations relatively short, do you know why? I know that if given enough time, I will find myself saying something that I shouldn’t say! I’ll become critical, judgmental, start bragging, you know, start talking in a way that does not honor God! It’s been said that:

Nothing makes a long story short like the arrival of the person you happen to be talking about.

God hates it when we Gossip, and he wants us to STOP LISTENING to gossip! Sometimes we listen to others gossip, sometimes the gossip we hear is coming out of our own mouths!

1 Peter 2:1-2
Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation

Choose to Support Leaders
I mention this last, because God’s Family is somewhat different than your earthly family in that there are several leaders here in our youth group and in the church as a whole! And sometimes these leaders have to make tough decisions or deal with outside forces that make life difficult for them. It can be a really tough position to be in! Not only that, God has a much higher standard for leaders and it can be tough to live by this standard. It’s really easy for us to become critical of leaders when they either have to exercise their authority or do something that we don’t agree with. God wants you to be patient with us, and support us, understanding that sometimes we have a goal in minds that you amy not see or understand right away!

An old saint kept grumbling because a preacher did not come to see her often enough. Finally, he said, "Sister, I am too busy trying to save the unsaved among us to spend too much time with the saints. But I promise you that when we get to heaven, I will drop in some morning and stay a thousand years!"

Try to be understanding of us as we try our best to accomplish God’s will in our ministry and in our world as we build the Kingdom.

Hebrews 13:17
Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

Most importantly, as you try to figure out how we are to love each other in this family and become all that God has designed us to be, try to remember one thing…

LOVE = TIME
Love is best expressed through the gift of TIME. You cannot say that you love someone unless you are willing to pour out your time to that person. So many people have come to this realization too late:

Paul Tsongas was a young and rising member of the U.S. Senate. Learning he had cancer made him reevaluate the time he had been spending with his wife and children, compared with the time he spent at work. After spending a rare evening at home with them, he realized that with the schedule he was keeping, the next night like this would probably be several years in the future. After this sobering realization he made this observation: "Nobody on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I had spent more time on my job.'"

So What Has God Designed Me To Be?
Sometimes we get concerned that we will lose our individuality if we blend into God’s Family and become a part of a larger whole. But the reality is that YOU will be the best YOU, if you are part of God’s Family!

Your individuality is clearest when your family is strongest

God wants us to love each other as he has loved us. God created you and sees you as his own incredibly special child. You mean more to him than you mean to your own parents, and if you could just treat each other with the love that God has for you, we would become a vital and rich group of Christians, ready to change the world.

There was once an old monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Centuries earlier, it had been a thriving monastery where many dedicated monks lived and worked and had great influence on the realm. But now only five monks lived there, and they were all over seventy years old. This was clearly a dying order. A few miles from the monastery lived an old hermit who many thought was a prophet. One day as the monks agonized over the impending demise of their order, they decided to visit the hermit to see if he might have some advice for them.

"Is there anything you can tell us," the abbot inquired of the hermit, "that would help us save the monastery?" "No, I'm sorry," said the hermit. "I don't know how your monastery can be saved. The only thing that I can tell you is that one of you is an apostle of God." The monks were both disappointed and confused by the hermit's cryptic statement. They returned to the monastery, wondering what the hermit could have meant by the statement, "One of you is an apostle of God." For months after their visit, the monks pondered the significance of the hermit's words. "One of us is an apostle of God," they mused. "Did he actually mean one of us monks here at the monastery?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one of them might actually be an apostle of God. And on the off chance that each monk himself might be the apostle spoken of by the hermit, each monk began to treat himself with extraordinary respect. Because the monastery was situated in a beautiful forest, many people came there to picnic on its tiny lawn and to walk on its paths, and even now and then to go into the tiny chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out of them, permeating the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, people began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends. As more and more visitors came, some of the younger men started to talk with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. Within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the hermit's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality throughout the realm.

Each of you is that special gift from God, created for a purpose, cherished in the kingdom. We need to treat each other as God has created us. Special. Cherished. Important. Loved… I pray that God would use you to strengthen His family.