If you didn't have time to do it this morning and turn it into us so that we can be praying with you for your friends and relatives who do not know Christ and who you will be inviting to the drama later in the month. By the way, you can come and pray with people for those who are lost on Wednesday nights and Thursday mornings. There are prayer meetings here at the church. There's information about that in your bulletin this morning. It's a wonderful prayer opportunity.
Well there was a puzzled wife who said to her husband, honey I got a letter from my mother saying that she wasn't coming for the visit. Didn't I ask you to write and invite her to come at her own convenience? He said, well yes you did but I didn't know how to spell convenience so I put risk instead. As family relationships indeed put the family at risk and that's why as we conclude this month of the family I want to talk this morning about building and strengthening family relationships.
The most important institution in the world is the family. As go the families of a nation so goes that nation. A wise government will do everything it possibly can to encourage and strengthen families. Actually in doing so a government is looking after its own best interests. The same is true of course of a husband and wife or mom and dad or parents and children. When we build family relationships we're looking after our own best interests.
To create and to sustain good internal relationships in the home is looking after everyone's vital concerns. It is true that family relationships take time. That's the highest price commodity in the world today. But the investment of that time in family relationships will pay dividends well into the future. Good relations in the family must be built. They are not automatic. They must be built. And the work of that building belongs to everyone in the family.
On the text we're going to look at today really two full chapters of Scripture. The apostle Paul writes to the Thessalonians as members of his spiritual family. He consolidates and builds his relationship with them and in doing so he provides a model for us as to how to build our family relationships. So I want to encourage you today to look at these six stones with me.
These are the stones that need to be placed into the foundation of your family structure and know that if you will take note of these and will work at them you're doing what pleases God and you're doing what will bring you success in your family. Stone number one is found in the first six verses of chapter two and it is the stone of transparent living. Notice that the apostle Paul says you yourselves know brethren that our coming to you was not in vain.
Again in verse two he says as you know you know what took place and again in verse five he says and you know we came not with flattering speech nor with pretext for greed. He underscores this by saying not only do you know what we were like but God knows. He says God is witness that we did not seek glory from men either from you or from others even though as the apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. What Paul is reminding them of here is his transparent life among them.
He says you remember you know how we lived. God is witness. God knows how we lived. His life had nothing to hide. His life was an open book before them. Family relationships are built upon transparent living. Family relationships are strong when there is openness among the members of the family. When there is genuineness and honesty about the struggles and the successes of life.
When I talk about transparent living I'm not talking about being brutal and vicious in honesty with your spouse or with your loved ones. Sometimes people have the idea that being transparent is being mean to people. That is not the case. Transparent living that is godly does not attack others. What I'm talking about in transparent living is what Paul is referring to.
A humble, loving honesty that gives evidence of inner integrity and which also is unashamed to acknowledge personal struggles and failure. Paul very candidly tells them of the persecution that he felt and as we'll get into the chapter you'll see that he's very open about his feelings for them. He allows them to see the deepest part of him. When you and I can do that in our families.
When we can pull back the curtains and allow those who are closest to us see the real us it will strengthen our family relationships. This is an important foundation stone. In his book, Dropping Your Guard, Charles Swindall writes in the introduction, okay everybody masks off. There are times he says I want to stand up and make that announcement. I've never done it you understand but I've been tempted. Can you imagine the reaction?
It would be a scary thing for most folks especially those who've learned that survival comes a lot easier behind a mask. There's a mask for whatever the occasion. Have you noticed? No matter how you really feel regardless of the truth if you become skilled at hiding behind your guard you don't have to hassle all the things that come with full disclosure. You feel safe. What you lack in honesty you make up for in pseudo security.
If you wear an I'm tough mask you don't have to worry about admitting how weak and frightened you actually are. If you keep your I'm holy mask in place you never need to bother with people wondering if you struggle with spirituality. Furthermore the I'm cool because I've got it all together mask comes in handy if you resist stuff like hard questions, vulnerable admissions, straight talk. Another familiar front is the I'm able to handle all this pain and pressure mask.
No tears, not even a frown or hint of bewilderment is revealed. That one helps when you're surrounded by super pious folks who are impressed with answers like oh I'm fine or I'm just claiming the victory accompanied by eyelids and half mask and a nice appropriate smile. There are even intellectual and scholarly masks that protect you from having to face the practical nitty gritty. There's just one major difficulty in this mask wearing game. It isn't real.
We all have masks that we develop in life and what we're talking about now is getting the masks off and learning in our families first to allow others to see the truth and the depths of who we are. How much does your wife really know about you? How much do your children understand the struggles that you've had in your marriage and how you've worked through them?
Whether it's husband and wife, mom and dad, parents and children, all of us need to discard the pretense that we easily fall into because a strong family must be built with an open openness to each other. Transparent living is followed by tender compassion in verses 7 to 12. Paul here uses two analogies to illustrate this quality of tender compassion in his life for his spiritual children. The first analogy is that of a nursing mother, one who gives of herself devotedly to her young.
Notice he says in verse 7, we prove to be gentle among you as a nursing mother, tenderly caring for her own children. Notice that phrase, tenderly caring. Verse 8, having a fond affection, that's a term that would be found in the nursery of the New Testament days. In the end of verse 8, you became very dear to us. Paul is not afraid to allow this feminine quality to come through in him, that of being motherly, of caring deeply and nurturing his young.
That's one side of tender compassion that needs to be built into a family. The other side is that of a coaching father, which Paul goes on to talk about. He says in verse 11, just as you know, how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children. So now Paul puts on his masculine side and he says, we were like a coaching father to you. And he uses three terms, exhorting means to call alongside of for admonition, for counsel.
It's the word that would be used for the coach who calls the player out of the game to sit on the bench for a moment while he explains to him what went wrong in that last play. He also uses the word encouraging, which means to come up alongside and to say a word of encouragement, give the pat on the rear end and send him back in. The final word is imploring and here it means to urge, to appeal to. I suppose Bobby Knight would be the example of that. No, not really. Not that kind of appealing.
Tender compassion, like a coaching father who genuinely deeply cares for his children. Therefore he's there to coach and to guide them through life. With similar tender care and loyal compassion, family members build strongly into one another's lives. We need to flee that modern self-centered penchant to put others down. We see this all the time, don't we, on the sitcoms, on television? Family members putting down other family members for a laugh from the audience.
And we smile and we giggle and laugh and somehow we pick that up in our own homes, our own families. And we use put downs in our families. No, no, no, no. Make put downs off base for your family. Rather let there be a tender compassion for each other. Sometimes we get into habits of attacking other's successes. We don't do that. You think you're so good? Here's what I did. Or we ridicule the inadequacies of others in our families. These things have no place in a Christian family.
We need to seek to build our families with language like Paul uses here, language of tender compassion. Paul goes on then to give them an image of themselves, to generate within them great encouragement. He says in verse 12, God has called you to His kingdom and His glory. Do you see what he's doing for his family? He's building them up with his words.
He's giving them a positive image, something to look forward to, a glimpse of destiny as he tenderly, compassionately nurtures them as a nursing mother and a coaching father. What an important stone this is in the family of tender compassion for one another. The third stone is that of mutual experiences. Now in verses 13 through 16, Paul tells about this. He reminds them of their faith in Christ which had brought persecution.
And he says in verse 14, you brethren became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen like they did. Paul is pointing here to mutual experiences in the family. Back in chapter 1 and verse 6, he tells them, you became imitators of us and of the Lord having received the word in much tribulation and in the joy of the Holy Spirit.
And so not only does he point down to the churches in Judea, but he says, you remember when we came to you, there was a lot of trouble in Thessalonica. And you became imitators of us too. What he's saying here is, look, we're a family and there are things that we together mutually experience. What is this doing for them as they read these words? It is building strength. You see, there's a wonderful sense of camaraderie that comes when you know you are doing things together.
It provides a sense of oneness, not only trials as here, but good, positive experiences as well. Families grow strong through the same kind of thing by doing things together. I'll guarantee you this brother and sister who stood up here and sang this morning will never forget that. Because I don't forget when I was the age of Lydia, I think, when I sang with my brother in a group of about eight people.
And I can almost tell you the name of the song, but the title doesn't come to me right now, but it's talking about Friends with Jesus. You see, when you do things together, it builds ministry. There are some families here that are going to the Word of Life church in order to minister together. There are other families that go down to the mission in St. Paul and do things together. Some go to the Marie Sandbix Center occasionally, do things together. Those are all positive.
Mutual experiences build strong family relationships. This can be that. At least once you get there. Visiting a sick friend, taking the kids to a funeral. Boy, that raises all kinds of questions. They're important. Prayer times, special events. You understand my point, don't you? One of the stones that you can put into the foundation of your family that will build strong relationships is the stone of mutual experiences.
There's a fourth stone found at the end of chapter 2 where Paul expresses his affection for them. Here Paul heaps words of emotion and fondness and affection on his spiritual children. You want to build strong families? Then learn to express your affection to the ones that you love. It is a deep sorrow when I am counseling someone and they acknowledge to me in the course of the counseling, well, I knew my father loved me but he never said so.
Do you know how painful that is yet for an adult to have to admit? Learn to express affection for your children. I mean tell them with your mouth. Let them hear the words. Say, well, they know I love them. Tell them. Tell them that you love them. Notice that Paul says, what is our hope, our joy, our crown of exaltation? Isn't it you? He says you are our glory and our joy. Paul has already expressed his deep affection for them.
In other words, you can't tell somebody that you love them too many times. Don't ever assume that they know it. They need to hear it from your mouth. Those kinds of words created a treasury of emotional warmth and strength in the life of your family. That storehouse of affection within the heart provides an emotional surplus that can be drawn on throughout life in moments of crisis. And so express your affection. Never underestimate the power of words that are loving.
The security and worth that you build into your family through your expressed affection are valuable beyond price. Everything can ever replace that affection that you will express to your family. Oh, what strength that will build into your home. There's a fifth stone in the foundation of a strong family that we want to note in chapter 3. It is the stone of demonstrated sacrifice.
Paul says, when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left alone at Athens and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel, to strengthen and encourage you as do your faith. Paul wants them to know that he has sacrificed and sent Timothy to them. They knew it. But he uses strong language. He says, we thought it was better for us to be abandoned in Athens so that Timothy could come and look after your welfare.
He is telling them of the sacrifice that has been demonstrated for them, how they must have appreciated this. It spoke volumes to them of Paul's deep concern for them. He wanted to build them, to establish and strengthen them as his spiritual family. And they responded. They responded with love. The cords between Paul and the Thessalonians were drawn even more tightly as he expresses in the verses that follow because of this demonstrated sacrifice.
There are a few things that build attachment, loyalty, devotion and the like, like an act of demonstrated self-sacrifice and depriving oneself for others. I could remember when I was a little boy, when food was sometimes a little short on the table and suddenly my mother wasn't very hungry anymore. She was willing to sacrifice food for the sake of her overly hungry little boys who didn't need all of it. But I don't need to tell you what that did in terms of our depth of love for her.
You see, when your loved ones see you giving up something for his or her benefit, that will produce a depth of strength in your family that will last through the storms that come later in relationships. There's a final stone that I want to look at in this verses 9 through 13. It perhaps is the crowning stone. Perhaps is the most important stone that we've talked about. And it's the stone of thankful prayer.
You see, nothing builds relationship like prayer, like praying together or praying for one another. What this last stone does is to put God right in the heart of the family. You can't build a truly strong family without God being there. You can have a good family. You can have a family that will make it through the storms of life and have good relationship. But if you want to have the strongest possible family, God has to be there right in the center of it all.
And here he puts God right where he belongs. Paul's prayer exudes with thankfulness to God for his children. If your kids ever heard you pray and say, Father God, I thank you for my kids. Hear what that does for them? And then he moves into petition on their behalf. He says that his deep desire is that we may see your face. And so he prays, may the Lord direct our way to you. He says my deep desire is that we may come and complete what is lacking in your faith.
And so he prays, may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another. It is an old statement. I remember when I was a kid and probably the oldest person here would remember when you were a kid, the family that prays together what? Stays together. Does your family pray together? Do you pray for one another?
When you're a little girl or your little boy comes running home and there's been a problem on the playground or at school, obviously you try to comfort, you try to find out what's going on, you try to give advice. Have you ever thought about praying at that moment? Say honey, let's just ask Jesus to help you with this. Were your children seeing dad or mom come home from work and they've had a bad day?
Have you ever gone over and hugged your mom or your dad and said, I want to just pray for you right now? Did Jesus will strengthen you and help you after this tough day you've had? Thankful prayer. Oh, what a strong element this is in a family. How it will build your family. These foundation stones are essential. The relationships in your family will be enduring despite the trials, the tests that they will pass through, they will endure. It really requires everybody in the family to work at it.
One person can't do it alone. Mom can't be the only one. Dad can't be the only one. It takes mom and dad. It takes parent and child. It takes everybody who's in that home working together to build the strongest possible family. That's why I want to appeal to you, husbands and wives, to appeal to you, moms and dads and children, to covenant in your heart today to do your part in building strong family relationships in your home.
Because you see there are so many pressures in our world today seeking to break your family apart. Some of you have experienced that and you know the heartache and the trauma that comes when the home is ripped apart and you're living with some of the results of it. Yet God can help you if your home has been ripped to make that home the happiest place it can be under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. All is not lost even though there's been something that's happened that's tragic.
What are you contributing to your family? Is your family stronger because of some contribution that you made this last week because of some stone that you put in place? Our family has gone from six to four in the last year. It's a wonderful time of life. Somehow I thought the food budget would be less. And we've been through these trials with our kids that happened in most teenagers' lives.
It's been a wonderful thing to see that relationship has endured despite my mistakes as a dad and the times when I have blown it. And I have more times than I like to think about, especially with the older ones. To the extent that we have successfully put these stones in place, our family is strong. Our daughter and her husband left for Phoenix to live there on Friday. It's been a sad weekend around our home, I'll tell you.
I know she's been married for nine months or whatever it's been, but they've lived close by. They're not there anymore. And we miss them. But you know, it's been wonderful that we've missed them because there were times a few years ago when I didn't think I would ever miss her. But the relationship has been there. Our son is away at college. I was hanging on by my nails waiting for the day he would go to college and be gone.
I can hardly wait for him to come home, and now he's going to Phoenix instead of coming home at break. I can't imagine why. What I'm saying to you this morning is that we need to build strong relationships in our home. And these are six stones that need to be put in place. I want to exhort and encourage you to make it a high priority in your life, to look at these stones, to follow the model that Paul gives to us here, and let your home be strong.
Let not only your life, but your home be a temple, be a sanctuary of God. Let it be built up that it may endure the terrible storms that are present in our culture fighting, wearing down families. May your home be a temple to God that will endure into eternity.
Let's pray. Father God, I pray that you will do in our hearts what needs to be done, where there needs to be a fresh commitment to the family, where there needs to be repentance of failure, where there needs to be a devotion that's renewed, where there needs to be a willingness to humble whatever the need is, do it we pray, that we may build our homes strongly to last the storms of life, and may they be a sanctuary and a temple of God.
Amen. Before we go this morning, let's sing that chorus that Lord would prepare us to be sanctuaries as we leave here, as we seek to strengthen our homes by His word. Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary, good and holy, bright and true, where thanks be to God, I will be a sanctuary. Let's stand together. Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary, good and holy, bright and true, where thanks be to God, I will be a sanctuary.
And now Lord, I pray that you by your spirit will indeed fulfill that prayer, and walk in us and live in us and reveal yourself in us, transform our lives, that as we walk in the world, as we build our homes, the Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified and lifted up. In His name we pray. Amen. Amen.