Nathan Rambeck - The Christian Family: God's Design & Purpose for the Family

[0:00] On the other side of the world, sometimes it's hard to know what's reality, what's the truth, what's really going on. I actually work in a small team. I'm a software engineer, and I work with people all over the world. And on a small team of about seven or eight people, we have one Ukrainian and one Russian. And so it's been interesting during this whole thing, you know, but they've actually gotten an opportunity to kind of talk about their perspective.

[0:30] And really, you know, with this whole thing, there's so many victims. You know, there's the people in charge, and then there's the people that are like, what is going on? And so, you know, we can pray for Ukraine, we can pray for Russia and the people in Russia, because a lot of people in Russia are also hurting and don't want the things that are going on to be going on. But that was just interesting. I thought I'd share that. By the way, how's our yard sign sheet going? Did everybody get a chance to look at that? Is that still going around? Okay. I love what we're doing with this evangelism stuff. Evangelism is one of my passions. And, you know, this is kind of a small church, you know, we're not like a mega church. But we can do something, right? And have a little impact or a big impact, and whatever kind of impact, we'll take it, right? And I appreciate that. Sometimes I think, you know, even little churches, we can be the little church that could, right? So you notice everybody's got a uniform on here. What does this t-shirt say?

[1:40] So the t-shirt says, created equal, which is the group we were with. And it's a group that is a education group for working on college campuses and talking to students and working outside of Porsche Mills to try and save babies. But the created equal, you know, we all believe that we're created equal and that no matter whether you're in the womb or you're outside the womb, that all humans are created equal.

[2:06] That's great. Where does that phrase come from? Well, specifically, I guess I won't put you on the spot. So not the U.S. Constitution, but what came before the Constitution? The Declaration of Independence. And what does the Declaration of Independence say?

[2:25] All humans are created equal. Yeah, so that phrase, I think, so I'm friends with the leader of the group out in Columbus. And so I'm familiar kind of with the history of how the group started and all that. But created equal comes directly from our Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal.

[2:44] They are endowed by their creator with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So that right to life, it doesn't come from the Declaration of Independence, right? But the Declaration of Independence did recognize that. But where does that right to life come from? Right? It's from the God who created us. So what was, where did you go and what was the trip? What was like the purpose? Right. So the purpose was to go to several different colleges in Florida to do outreach and to talk to college students about abortion and to try to change their mind and educate them that, you know, these people that are being murdered are actually babies and that it's a problem. So that's the purpose of the trip.

[3:29] And where did you, did you say where you went? Yeah, Florida. Yeah. And college campuses, I think you went to, we went to an abortion mill. Okay. And we also went to a high school. And a high school. Yeah. Okay. There was also some training involved. Can you talk a little bit about what the training was about and what they shared in the training?

[3:48] Yeah. So we had, um, a bit of training the night we got there, they trained us with some videos. Um, they went through what our, our main of main thoughts were our line of thinking and how we should always direct the people we're talking to around the central ideas that you are a human, like that a fetus is a human and elective abortion intentionally kills a human. Therefore, elective abortion is wrong.

[4:21] And so those are just the points you have to guide people around. Cause if you believe that an unborn person is a human and that abortion kills a human, then they have no other choice, but to believe that abortion is wrong. So that was the main point of our training, um, just how to talk to people and how to get conversations started and, and guide them. Did they, I think you had shared with me that there were certain tactics that they shared as far as different people and the kinds of people come from kind of different worldviews or different, um, mindsets maybe. Yeah. So we talked about, um, specifically how to talk to atheists. Um, so someone who believes there is no God, um, moral relativists.

[5:08] Um, they were probably the hardest to talk to. So there's no objective moral truth. Um, and then we also talked about how to talk to people who were convicted by their sin and knew that they were in need of a savior, um, and who were looking for truth, um, and how to, you know, point them to the cross. Um, so yeah, those were, those were the three people we, we focused in on how to talk to them. Um, so.

[5:37] All right. So you also stopped somewhere along the way at a memorial. You want to share about that briefly? Yeah, I can. So we, um, we stopped at the national memorial for the unborn in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and that was just a really powerful experience. So the memorial is actually a former abortion clinic. Um, and they like bulldozed part of it and they turned part of it into a memorial and they have a wall and on the wall there are plaques with the names of the babies that died.

[6:08] Um, and family members or people that knew about the abortion put the plaques on the wall and they had shelves around the wall and they would put like, parents would put notes or they would put stuffed animals or just different stuff and they would write to their babies. Um, and yeah, it was just a really powerful experience. It was really convicting, uh, especially reading the notes. You just get very emotional and it became a lot more, um, it became a lot more personal and it became a lot more real. Um, because I know for me personally, um, like I always grew up like knowing that abortion was wrong, but it was always very logical in my mind. It was always just like, of course it's wrong.

[6:49] Um, but it became like more personal, like more, um, deep, more, I don't know, like, uh, yeah, more of a heart issue than a head issue for me. Yeah. Once you got down to Florida, I think the first event you did was on a university campus, University of Florida in Gainesville. What did that outreach look like? What did you, what did you do? What was the setup? So one thing that's unique about our ministry is we like to use graphic images about abortion. That's one of our strong convictions.

[7:22] So we set up our signs. We set them up in a tripod formation so that we can stand next to them. We don't have to be holding onto them. And we had about 80, 80 people. So we split up into two teams.

[7:38] So we were on one section of the can campus and the other team was on another section. So like we had multiple signs, uh, lining a walkway and we would have our pamphlets and we would go up to people who walked by and we'd be like, what do you think about abortion to try to get a conversation started? So University of Florida was not very open to us being there. They, not many people stopped to talk, but the people who did, it was like, it was meaningful for those people and for us.

[8:12] But they had a free speech zone, right? Because the rest of the campus is not free speech, I guess. Um, but, uh, what was I going to ask? So this is, this sounds kind of like somewhat confrontational.

[8:25] You have signs here that are kind of in your face. They're displaying what abortion looks like, which is, uh, you know, like you said, it can be something that we think about. It's a word, you know, and sometimes you choose one side or another, but when you actually see a picture of what something is, when you see a picture of war, when you see a picture of lynchings, or you see a picture of genocide, it becomes more than just a word or a debate or an argument. It becomes something very real, something very tangible. And so the pictures really help to bring home what we're talking about. But it is somewhat confrontational. Does that, did that make you nervous when you went out?

[9:07] Not for me personally. Um, I'm, I'm used to seeing those signs, um, and working around those. For, for me, it was natural. I think for you guys, it was probably a little bit more natural. There was a lot of people. But talking to strangers. Talking to strangers. Yeah. I thought I would be more nervous, but after the first conversation, I didn't care anymore. It was like, yeah. Um, yeah. So there was a lot of people who either, they would not look at the signs. And so they just looked straight ahead and walked through, um, didn't want to talk to you. You had people who hated you and were, you know, flipping you off. Um, and why are you here? Go back home. Um, and then you did have, there were very few people, but there were some people who had never seen abortion before and were completely shocked. Um, and they, they couldn't believe it was real. Um, and completely changed their mindsets. Yeah. So you shared with me a few of your stories. So I've got, I wrote down a few, Ethan, you mentioned talking to somebody named Charlie. You want to. Yeah.

[10:10] So, uh, we were on a walkway and there was a guy, uh, named Charlie. He was walking down and he was looking at our signs. A few other people had tried to talk to him, but he sort of walked past him. But as he was walking, he was looking at the signs and just everybody could hear him saying like, is this real? I like, he could not believe that it was real. So I started walking with him and I got him to stop. Um, and we started talking about it and he, it blew his mind that this is what abortion was. He'd always heard the word, um, but he'd never seen the pictures.

[10:40] Um, and so I just had a conversation with him, but he was so horrified. Um, he, he couldn't believe it was real. Uh, it just shocked the daylights out of him. Um, and so I had a great conversation with him and by the end of it, he was like, yeah, this should not be happening. This is always wrong. Um, and so that was really encouraging to hear because there aren't a lot of people who will voice their horror. Um, many people will just ignore it and walk right by. But for him, he, he voiced his horror and he just, he couldn't believe that it was happening as often as it is. All right, Noah, you, um, you had, uh, uh, I think a 42nd, you said, uh, yeah, yeah, experience. Tell us about that. So that was interesting. Yeah. So when we were at the university of central Florida, we had these really long walkways and we put signs on both sides so we could kind of get people as they walked down and we were allowed to take our pamphlets and we could walk with people as they walked. Cause you know, a lot of people wouldn't stop and talk to us. So yeah. So I just started talking to this guy and it was just really interesting. Cause I just started talking and I was like, so you think abortion is okay?

[11:50] And he's like, oh yeah, of course. And it's funny. I actually, I remember more of the story from last night cause I was kind of tired last night when I said it, but I, um, and you know, and I'm remembering and, and you know, we're just going and we're walking and I was like, so wait, do you think that those are humans? And he's like, well, yeah, they're humans. And I said, well, so if that's a human, but you said abortion is okay. And abortion is the intentional killing of a human. Doesn't that make abortion wrong? And the guy just kind of paused for a second and he was like, oh yeah, I guess so. And it just showed like, he never really thought through it like at all. And it was just really powerful because like, yeah, it was 40 seconds and it had just completely changed his entire mind about this like genocide that was happening.

[12:40] Yeah. You know, the pro-death, uh, uh, kind of stream in the worldly culture, um, has a very good marketing strategy. But when you start to look at the arguments that are put forth, oh, it's just a blob of cells. Well, that's not very scientific, is it? Um, and the, the arguments just, you find out are very shallow and if you just take the time to think about it, it's actually not that difficult. Did you, what do you think? Is it, is it really difficult? Did you find a lot of really good arguments that made you kind of have to think really hard as you were talking to these students? No, not at all. Um, yeah. A lot of them would hammer, just hammer about rape. Um, just like, yeah, that's the one thing that they just kept on coming back to. It's the hard issue. And, um, the other thing was just consciousness. They're like, well, it's not conscious. And you're talking about, well, does consciousness give you value? Is that what makes you a valuable person? Uh, like a newborn is less conscious than we are, but that we don't give them any less value.

[13:40] Uh, yeah. So those are the two big things. Yeah. So I, in this country, it was the kind of the difficult issues, if you will, um, that kind of opened the door to the whole abortion holocaust that we have in this country. Um, it didn't start out with, well, let's just have abortion for everyone. It was, well, here's some really difficult cases and we really need to allow abortion in these cases.

[14:06] When you go back, what is abortion? Abortion is an act of violence against an innocent human being. That's what it is. And, um, if you go back to that, is there any good reason why we should commit an act of violence against an innocent human being? And there is not. There's no good reason.

[14:26] And so in the cases of a difficult issue, uh, the one that you said rape comes up a lot in that, that's an issue where we ought to as human beings by love and by law protect and love the victim, both the victims, right? You, you protect and love the victim and the baby, both, right? But the, uh, but the pro-choice view is that you love the victim and then you commit an act of violence against the baby. And that is wrong. Um, what was it? Ethan, you had another one, um, that you shared.

[15:03] Uh, where is it? Uh, oh, this was the moral relativist about the pig. Yeah. Okay. So I talked to a guy, um, who was a moral relativist. And so he was like, you know, personally, I think abortion is wrong, but I'm not going to tell anyone else that it's wrong because I'm not going to tell them what to do. Um, and so we started having a conversation about truth and objective truth and value. And his claim was basically that, um, humans and animals are on an equal, uh, plane of value that, you know, we don't have any more value than they do. Um, and so I asked him, I was like, so would you say that you don't have any more value than a pig? Um, and he paused for about 15 seconds and he wouldn't answer the question. He was like, well, what do you mean by value?

[15:58] And I was like, well, no, do you have more value than a pig? Do you think that you have more worth and value than a pig? And he was like, well, you're not defining what value means. And so he, he refused to answer the question of whether he thought he was more valuable than a pig.

[16:13] And I know that deep inside of his heart, he knew the answer was yes, that he does have more value than an animal. But to say that is then to admit that it's wrong and that people should not be allowed to kill babies because all humans have equal value. So, yeah. So we'll go ahead and, and finish up, uh, if there, unless there's any, any other stories you really want to get out? Okay. So kind of my final question, you know, you went out there, you were out there for, I think eight, eight days or so and kind of doing ministry for maybe five or six. Um, a lot of people say, you know what? You're not going to change anybody's mind. Um, you know, people are set in their ways. Uh, this kind of ministry is not going to be really effective. What do you say to that? Um, I think it's, it's really effective. You know, the signs, even though there's a lot of people, 90% of people you talk to won't, won't talk to you. They just keep on going. Um, but you can tell just by looking at that, that the signs do affect them, um, and that they are thinking. Um, so you may not get to see most of the people whose minds, who will change their minds, change their minds. Um, but on this trip over the course of the five days that we were doing ministry, um, at the end, we counted it up and we changed a total of 209 minds. Um, so 209 people, uh, changed their minds and said that abortion was wrong. So that was really encouraging. Um, yeah. Amen. All right. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

[17:51] Uh, if you, yeah, go ahead and give them a hand. Um, Um, Oh, okay. Hey, come on back up. Uh, I did forget to have you introduce yourselves.

[18:07] So, uh, and some of you may not know who my son is and who everybody else is. So who are you? Hi, I'm Ashley. I'm from, uh, central Illinois. I'm 18 and I am homeschooled.

[18:20] All right. Yeah. I'm Noah. Um, I'm also from central Illinois. I'm her younger brother. I'm 16 and I'm homeschooled and I am Nathan's nephew and Ethan's cousin. So.

[18:33] And I'm Ethan. Um, I'm 18. I was homeschooled. I graduated last year. So. Yeah. And so I, I have a twin brother and these are my brother's kids or two of them anyway.

[18:47] So, all right. Thanks so much. Thanks. Thanks Ron for saying that. So actually these cousins, when was the last time you saw each other? Was this been like two years since you've seen each other?

[19:00] It had been a couple of years. So it was neat for them to be able to go on this trip together. Some, uh, cousin camaraderie. John. You're an identical twin. I am an identical twin. Yeah. So there's another one of me out there somewhere.

[19:12] So if you're ever out in the country and you see somebody that looks just like me, it just might be my twin brother. Um, well that's great. And by the way, if, uh, these guys have pictures that they took.

[19:25] So if you're interested in more about what they did, um, and the, the literature, I think you guys have some samples of the literature you handed out maybe. Or at least I think I do. If anybody's interested in, in that, um, feel free to talk to them afterward.

[19:38] All right. Well, let's open up the scriptures. I'm excited. Uh, and this kind of ties in this whole, all these testimonies and talking about this life issue and the Holocaust of abortion that we have in this country.

[19:50] And it's not just in this country. It's, um, a problem all over the world. And you see every once in, once in a while in the news, um, battles going on outside of this country.

[20:02] There are certain laws, I think, or certain countries. I think I saw Hungary was trying to outlaw abortion in their country. And in other countries, it's already against the law, uh, to some degree or another.

[20:12] And people are trying to legalize, uh, that kind of thing. But it's, it's a, it's a battle that we're fighting. And there are lots of battles to fight in the world in which we live.

[20:26] There's a never-ending, uh, amount of battles. And sometimes it can seem overwhelming, uh, all the battles that there are to fight. One of the things, one of the things I appreciate about the life issue is that when it comes to that issue, it's, it's one of those fundamental battles that is, that is at the foundation of, of our existence.

[20:49] The right to life. The right to live. Because we were created in God's image. And I think it's an important battle to fight. I want to start with a verse in, in the book of Psalms.

[21:00] And it's in Psalms chapter 11. If you have a Bible, open to that. And we'll read a, a few verses from Psalms, or from Psalm chapter 11. There are many Psalms, but this is one of the Psalms.

[21:12] Psalm chapter 11. It's a short one. And we'll just read a few verses. We'll start in verse 1. In the Lord I put my trust.

[21:26] How can you say to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain? For look, the wicked bend their bow. They make ready their arrow on the string, that they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart.

[21:43] If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? And so that's kind of the, the, the point where I want to start from.

[21:56] This idea. If the foundations are destroyed, what do you do? And does it seem like the foundations have been destroyed in, in our country?

[22:09] We were just looking at this issue and some of the stories we heard from these guys. We have a college student, somebody who is in a, a, a, a place of higher learning, right?

[22:23] Who doesn't know, he's not sure whether he, himself, not somebody else, whether he, himself, is more valuable than a barnyard animal.

[22:36] He's not sure. Can you say that's, that's a, that's evidence that the foundations have been destroyed? The foundations have been destroyed. People don't know their worth and their value.

[22:49] Much less the worth and value of their neighbor. And it seems like there's one crisis and one new insanity after another. In this day and age, we've talked about some of these things just in the last two years, right?

[23:05] It seems kind of crazy. But this question, what can the righteous do? If the foundations have, have been destroyed, what can the righteous do?

[23:18] Where do you start? If you have a house and the foundations are destroyed, what do you look at? Do you start to fix the roof? The leaking roof?

[23:30] No, that's not going to do anything, is it? I mean, it may fix the roof, but then ultimately, that roof isn't going to stay up if the foundations are destroyed. If the foundations are destroyed, we have to go back, we have to look at the foundations.

[23:43] And so, this series that we'll start is looking at one of the most fundamental foundations that God has designed for the world. And it's the foundation of the family.

[23:56] And the family is under attack. The family has been under attack for a long time, and it's not like it's something new. But I think there are different times where it becomes more obvious than others.

[24:09] The family has been under attack since the beginning of the family. But I think in our day, there are times, sometimes there are certain things that happen that kind of open our eyes to what's going on.

[24:22] There are, I think, more attacks on the family than at any time. Of course, there's attacks on individual families. But in our day, there's this attack on what is a family?

[24:33] What does it mean to be a family? And the definition of a family.

[24:43] How is a family designed? We visited the mom gardeners at their house probably a couple years ago.

[24:55] I don't know when this was, for the first time. And they have a poster up in their house that I saw. And I'd never seen this quote before, but it's a quote from Mother Teresa.

[25:09] And it says this. It says, If you want to change the world... Does anybody want to change the world? Yeah, especially right now, right? If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.

[25:26] Isn't that a powerful idea? It's not something that's necessarily intuitive. What can we do to change the world? You know, there's war over in Ukraine and Russia. And there's all kinds of nonsense going on here in the U.S.

[25:37] And we need to fix all these things. And there's a lot of things that need to be fixed. But one of the things that, you know, we want to do something that's going to fix everything right away.

[25:49] And it's not always possible to do that. But one of the things we can do is we can go home and we can love our families. And we can do family the right way.

[26:02] The way that it ought to be done. But the family is under attack. Why would the family be under attack? You know, you think the family is the most, like, wholesome thing that people care about, right?

[26:19] I mean, everybody loves moms and dads and brothers and sisters and grandparents and grandchildren. Doesn't everybody love those things? But the family, it turns out, is a threat to, really, to Satan, right?

[26:38] Satan, the Bible uses as a figurehead, right? Of evil and the battle against good and evil. But the family as God designed it has a certain structure to it.

[26:54] A certain order. Certain responsibilities. Certain roles. And a framework for how we ought to live.

[27:06] And when it comes to the world, and really, rebellion against God, kind of, a lot of times, the answer the world gives to what God designed is, well, you're not going to tell me what to do.

[27:21] Right? And so, you say that this is how we ought to have family, this is how we ought to do things. Well, I'm going to come up with a better way. Now, God created us to actually be co-creators with him.

[27:36] If you look in Genesis, he wants us to create. He wants us to be creative. But when it comes to certain things, we don't need to be messing with God's creation.

[27:50] Right? God created the family to be a certain way, and we don't need to be coming up with our own new ingenious ideas for how these things ought to work.

[28:02] As far as I can tell, there are three institutions. So, God created man and woman. He created us individually. But then there were three institutions, groups, if you will, that were God's idea.

[28:19] And we, as individuals, as creative people, we can create other groups and institutions on our own. And we can be creative in those things. You can have a, like we are part of a homeschool co-op.

[28:31] We can get together and decide how that's going to work and who's going to be in charge and who the officers are going to be or if we're going to have officers and how the money's going to work and all that kind of thing. And we can be creative with those kinds of things.

[28:43] But when God designs something, we don't need to become creative. The three that I see in the Bible is God created the idea of a nation.

[28:54] Right? He created the idea of the church. The church. And he created the idea of this group called the family. The family unit. And the family unit is the foundation of all of our culture.

[29:08] And if the family is destroyed, if the family is destroyed, there goes the nation. And I think that's what we see. There are new ideas today about what a family should be like.

[29:24] How it should be different from the way that God designed it. Some of the examples that I can think of is, you know what, this whole idea of fathers.

[29:36] Fathers are kind of, they can be grumpy sometimes. Anybody identify with that? Grumpies can be kind of, wait a second, my daughter just raised her hand.

[29:48] And, you know, men can be difficult to deal with. So maybe here's an idea. We can replace fathers with a well-trained government bureaucrat.

[30:04] Right? And maybe some welfare checks or some other kind of handouts. And that would solve that problem. You'd get rid of, you know, some conflict and that kind of thing.

[30:16] And we'll do an experiment and we'll see how that works. And have we ran that experiment in this country? We've been doing that for a long time.

[30:27] And have we seen how that works? It actually doesn't work that well. It actually doesn't work that well. Well, what about this whole concept of patriarchy?

[30:39] Anybody hear that word a lot these days? I usually hear it with, down with the patriarchy. Right? And what does patriarchy mean? It means father rule.

[30:50] Father rule. So maybe we'll keep the dads around, but we certainly don't want them to be in charge. I mean, masculinity is pretty toxic anyway. Right?

[31:01] So, maybe we'll let the ladies be in charge or at least have, you know, a nice, like, a business partnership. Right? And how we do things.

[31:12] And we've tried those things to see how they work. How about where we take the family and we almost get rid of the nuclear family where it's a mom and dad and the kids.

[31:28] And we have this idea of more of a village where it's not the mom and dad who raise the children, but it's the community. And some people might call this socialism.

[31:43] But there was actually a book that came out a few years back and the title of it was It Takes a Village. Does anybody remember that one? And I think there was a subtitle.

[31:54] What was it? It Takes a Village to Raise an Idiot. Is that what it was? No, I think it was It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.

[32:06] Right? But, and is the community, you know, do we completely isolate our families from the community? Well, no. That's not the case. But what does it take to raise a child?

[32:20] It takes a family. And so, that would have been a better book. But of course, you know, we know that there's kind of designs and intentions and motivations behind that.

[32:33] And now we're getting to the place where we're going completely off the rails. And so, a family is not just a mom and a dad, but a family can be two dads.

[32:46] Why not? Let's get creative. A family can be two moms. Or even nowadays, I'm hearing, well, we can have two moms and a dad. We can have three parents. And that's all fine and good.

[33:00] These are some of the new ideas. These things have been going on for a long time, though. These ideas, this creativity around the family. I think about Karl Marx and Ingalls, both who promoted this idea of communism.

[33:13] They despise the family. They wrote about it because, in their view, the state, right, is the highest valued thing. And families kind of get in the way of the state.

[33:25] You know, they thought, well, the state can design how things work, how children should be raised, how they should think. And so, the families kind of get in the way of that. Plato and Aristotle, back thousands of years ago, they had these ideas where, well, parents shouldn't raise children.

[33:41] We should have professionals who raise children, right? And so, as soon as the babies are born, then we give them to the professionals and they raise the children kind of in a community.

[33:52] When all these things have been tried, it's just caused utter chaos. So, here's the question. What is God's design? And I have to tell you that it's, that it's fairly embarrassing for me to, to talk about this because it's something that should be so obvious.

[34:18] What is a family? It's a simple thing. But, what I've found is that when you're in an insane asylum and the inmates are running the asylum, sometimes just saying the simple truth makes a big difference.

[34:38] and so, that's where we're going to start. We're just going to start with the simple truth. Let's turn to the book of Genesis, to the book of the beginnings. Let's start at the very beginning.

[34:49] I feel a song coming on. Does anybody like the sound of music? Let's start at the very beginning.

[35:02] It's a very good place to start. How does it go? When you read, you begin with A, B, C.

[35:15] When you sing, you begin with A, B, C. Oh, good job. All right. That sound of music has got to be one of the top five movies of all time.

[35:30] All right. Where are we at? I've got to find. I've got to find the verse. Okay, chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2, verse 23. All right.

[35:45] Let's start with verse 21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken for man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man.

[36:02] And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

[36:14] Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And this last verse, this verse 24, is kind of an aside.

[36:26] It wasn't part of the story, but it was this emphatic statement that this is what God did, and because God did this, we ought to know how things ought to be because of the way that God set things up.

[36:43] This is instructive. Because God gave Adam, gave Eve to Adam, then we should know that when young people grow up, that they are supposed to unite together in marriage, and leave one family, and form their own family, another family.

[37:08] Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife. And this, we call marriage, and marriage is the core, the nucleus, if you will, of a family.

[37:24] If we go back one chapter, to chapter one, Genesis one and two may read a little bit strange to some people because it might seem that things are kind of out of order.

[37:37] As we'll read here, he's actually talking to both Adam and Eve, both. But then in chapter two is when he actually makes Eve from Adam's ribs, so what's that all about? And you'll see this sometimes in the Bible where you'll have a kind of a summary of events, and then maybe later on it'll go into the detail, which goes kind of as a flashback, if you will.

[38:03] And I think that's what's going on here. But in Genesis chapter one, verse 28, or we'll start in verse 27. For God created man in his own image.

[38:14] In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And that's even controversial today, isn't it? Then God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply.

[38:28] Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So God had this man and this woman, and it was his idea that through them, the man and the woman, together as a team, he wanted them to fill up the world, to multiply, to create new people.

[38:57] And what an amazing responsibility. Have you ever thought about that? We have this ability to make people. God, and if you think about it, God could have, could God have just filled the earth with people, and that was it.

[39:12] He could have done that, but he decided, no, I'm going to actually give, I'm going to create two people, and I'm going to give them the ability, the power, if you will, to create more people.

[39:25] And he, there was good in that, and he called that good. That's what he wanted. We call this the dominion mandate, take dominion. But it's more than just taking dominion, it's filling the earth.

[39:40] And so God expects these married couples to have children, to fill the earth, to not just create one family. Adam and Eve didn't just have children, and God could have designed us this way, right, to where Adam and Eve just kept on, their family kept getting bigger, right?

[40:00] They could have had maybe like hundreds of kids. But instead, the idea was this, Adam and Eve, you'll have kids, and then those kids will grow up, and then they'll start their own family.

[40:13] It'll be a different family. Now, it'll be, you know, somewhat related to their parents' family, but they're actually starting their own family with all new responsibilities and authorities and order and that kind of thing.

[40:26] Pretty neat. So every son is a potential father, every daughter a potential mother. And I like the idea, families are small, right? You think, I think, you know, in this world, you have like big companies and big government, and those things go well.

[40:42] Usually, it's like things kind of get off base pretty quick. When you keep things small, I think about all the small businesses. I think, you know, small business, they say, is the backbone of, you know, American society.

[40:54] And, you know, you can kind of stay nimble and agile, and, you know, I think about the big corporate world, and there's a lot of messed up stuff, right, going on in these big companies. I've worked for some of them.

[41:07] But God wanted these small little units, multiplied all over the earth. And that's, that's what a family is. But I think, in thinking about the purpose of a family, the purpose of family is to fill the earth, and to subdue it.

[41:27] But I think the Bible indicates that eventually that's going to come to the end, to come to an end. You know, Jesus was talking to, he was challenged by the Pharisees, or somebody, I can't remember who it was, about, I was, it was the Sadducees, right, because they were challenging him about the resurrection.

[41:44] They said, there's not really a resurrection. And there's this big debate, right, between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, and you know which ones were against, were against the resurrection, right, because the Sadducees were Sadducee because they didn't believe in the resurrection.

[41:57] So that's kind of how you remember it. But, they challenged Jesus and they said, well, you know, if a man, he gets married, or a man and woman gets married and the husband dies, and then she marries the brother, his brother, and then he dies, and then she marries, what, five more?

[42:15] I think there were seven brothers, and ultimately they all die. Well, who's she going to be married to in the resurrection, huh? Gotcha! And so that was kind of their, their kind of gotcha moment for Jesus.

[42:28] and he explained, he said, well, actually, you're off base here because in the resurrection there's not going to be people getting married and being given in marriage, but man will become more like the angels.

[42:45] And so it seems that one day this whole concept of the nuclear family like we know will cease to be. The earth will be populated, there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

[42:58] But there won't be any more bearing of children. That's the way that I read it. So we have this tremendous opportunity right now where we can fill the earth and we have this opportunity to do that.

[43:11] Ultimately, eventually, the family that we'll be part of is the family of God and that will take precedence over anything else. But let's just look real quick at kind of a history of what happened with the family from the beginning.

[43:26] and just a quick run through of history. And we won't necessarily look at the scriptures because we will look at Genesis 18. So if you want to open up there when we get there, Genesis 18.

[43:38] But in the very beginning, there was a family. There was a man and a woman. There was this event called the fall and that was the first fracture in the family.

[43:50] Husband and wife, the order got all messed up between husband and wife, the order between both the man and woman and God, you know, got messed up because of their sin.

[44:03] Did it start getting better after that? No. What was the next big event? Sibling rivalry. Brothers. And two brothers very early on, right?

[44:17] Cain and Abel. and envy came in. Jealousy, envy, whatever you want to call it. And we have the very first murder.

[44:28] And was it some stranger over here murdering another stranger over here? It wasn't. It was a brother murdering his own brother.

[44:42] And we finally get to the place where we get to the flood. And it got things got so bad. And people were, there was this fulfillment of the dominion mandate, right?

[44:53] People were starting to fill the earth. But what were they filling the earth with? What does it say in Genesis there? They were filling the earth with violence.

[45:05] Filling the earth with violence. And so this wasn't going so well. God eventually destroyed the world and he started over with Noah. And he eventually found a guy named Abraham.

[45:20] And if you turn to Genesis 18, there's this, it's kind of a little bit of a, not a side, but part of this story when there was this time where the Lord basically visited Abraham Abraham.

[45:38] And was going to look at Sodom and look at, look about destroying Sodom because of all the wickedness there.

[45:52] And let's see, where is it? Chapter 18, verse 19. Let's start just to get a little bit of context.

[46:05] And the Lord said, this is verse 17, and the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.

[46:20] For I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him.

[46:33] The King James I have right here says this a little bit differently. For I know him, this is verse 19, for I know him that he will command his children and his household after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

[46:52] So, one of the things that God really liked about Abraham is he was going to point his children in the right direction. He was going to raise them right.

[47:03] He wasn't just going to be a believer himself, but he was going to pass his faith, the ways of the Lord, on to the next generation. And that was important to God.

[47:14] Why? Because he wanted to build a nation of people, a group of people. And you can't do that unless those values, those ideas, those beliefs get passed on from one generation. They get multiplied.

[47:26] Right? God wants the same from us. There was a t-shirt I saw on Facebook the other day, just this last week.

[47:37] I don't see the renters here, but this was Taylor Renner. And she had a shirt and it said Raising Believers. I thought, I gotta get one of those.

[47:48] I gotta get one of those t-shirts. But that's what God wants us to do. He wants us to raise believers, not just children, not just children who are, you know, well-behaved and all those things, even though those things are important.

[48:03] He wants us to raise new believers, new households that will also raise new believers. On and on. We want to raise believers who will raise believers who will raise believers.

[48:19] We want this generational, generation after generation of faithfulness to the Lord and his ways. And the ways that God gave to Abraham, there was circumcision and there was eventually the law and all those things.

[48:36] And those were the things that needed to be passed down from generation to generation. And also just the truths of God and who he is and just general faithfulness to him. In our day, in this age of grace that we live in, that's what we need to pass down, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[48:54] That our kids would trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not just in us, right? There's a phrase that we use, and I've heard it here at this church from others as well, that God has no grandchildren.

[49:08] Right? God has no grandchildren. What does that mean? That means that each one of us has to decide whether God is going to be our father, whether we're going to put ourselves under his authority, whether we're going to be part of his family.

[49:22] Each one of us decides. And so each new generation has to make that decision. Will you join God's family? Or really, what's the other option?

[49:34] Some people think, oh, the other option is just to not join God's family. Actually, no, there's only two options. Join God's family, or your father becomes who? Satan, as Jesus said in the Gospels.

[49:49] So we want to pass down our faith from one generation to the next, teach our children to know God, to love him, and not just stop there, but teach them to also train and teach and influence their children from one generation to the next, to the next.

[50:09] A generational faithfulness to the Lord. That's what God wants to see. He wants to fill the world, not just with people, but people who are faithful to him. So our commitment to family, to have families families that recognize his design for how a family ought to be, and that we're faithful to those things, and fill the roles that he gave each one of us.

[50:35] And I'm going to wrap it up here, but just give a little preview of kind of the things that we're going to talk about over the next few weeks. Looking specifically at the roles that God gave for the family, and what are some of the roles?

[50:49] And I'll just throw it out there, just for a little interaction. What are the different roles that are in a family? So I hate it when people do this.

[51:03] They ask questions and expect that people know what you're thinking. I'm thinking of the role of a father, right?

[51:14] That's a role in a family. There's also a mother, and those are two separate roles. Combined, we call those parents, right? And we have the role of a mother, we have the role of a father as parents together.

[51:28] Then we have the role of sons and daughters. Sons and daughters have responsibilities, obligations, things that are expected of them. We have another role, or roles called brothers and sisters.

[51:45] And do brothers and sisters have responsibilities? responsibilities and things that they need to take care of within a family? They certainly do. And then we even have grandparents and grandchildren.

[51:57] Are there any responsibilities there? Are there responsibilities that grandparents have to their grandkids? Or once the new family starts, there's no more responsibility?

[52:10] I think there still remains a certain level of responsibility. It's not the same. It's different, but a certain bit. And so those are the things I want to look and address and talk about each one of those as we go along in the coming weeks.

[52:31] Well, I'll end there, but let me, the whole purpose in this is to cast a vision for what God designed the family to be, and that we would look at the different roles that we fill, and not all of us fill all the same roles.

[52:45] Not all of us have brothers and sisters. Not all of us even have children. Most of us, I think, I think all of us, right, are sons and daughters of somebody. And so, but we all are part of a family in some way, and as part of being God's, we'll call it salt and light, as Jesus said, in the world.

[53:05] If we do this family thing right, you know, we can build a great heritage for future generations and also have a tremendous impact here and now.

[53:17] Because people are paying attention. People are paying attention. As the world crumbles, as other families fall apart, as the world becomes less stable, people pay attention to what's going on with these Christians.

[53:30] Their families actually seem stable. There's stability there. What do they have that I don't, that I need? Amen? So let's end in some prayer here. Father, thank you so much for your word, for sharing with us what your design for the family is.

[53:47] I pray that as we go through more and look in depth at what your expectations are for the family, that you would open up our eyes and open up our hearts, even today, to our responsibilities, our roles, the things that we ought to be doing among our families, that you would open up our hearts in those ways to understand your word and to pursue truth and family as you would have us do it.

[54:16] In Jesus' name, amen.