Our Family of God

As I write this column, I am watching my son play basketball. This sport requires team effort. To win the game, the players have to work together on offense and defense. Some players are better at basketball than others, but the effort of the whole team leads to a winning season.
Similarly, the family unit is like a sports team. Father, mother, and children need to work together in order to accomplish anything. Not much would get done in the limited time there is after school if only one person does the dishes while everyone else is playing computer games or watching television. Cleaning house would take a long time if one part of the family was messing up rooms while another family member tried to make everything neat. Teamwork means agreeing on goals and working together to meet them.
God has established the family unit as a means to build each other up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. God intended that the family be on defense against the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. Children need to know the difference between good and evil, truth and error, so that they do not fall into temptation. The family is also to be on offense so that they build each other up in the faith, pray for each other, become wise in God’s Word, and walk together on the path of salvation.
St. Paul states that believers are on God’s team (1 Corinthians 12:12), namely, that we are members of His household (Ephesians 2:19) and children of God (Galatians 3:26).
If the family is a gift from God and He blesses those who live in the Word and prayer, we should not be surprised that the devil will also be on the offensive to tear down the family, to raise up dissension, to promote independence instead of cooperation, and to foster a spirit of division.
Satan has convinced some that a family can be any group of people living together who can raise children. Many tempt God’s wrath by refusing to get married. Others work to destroy God’s order by establishing “families” of the same sex, others by raising children in a communal school without parents at all. The devil has convinced people that they are wiser than God and that society or individuals can establish the rules of life. Such people may convince themselves that their arrangement is much better than the family unit God established, but they are on the wrong team.
Guarding the family unit as part of God’s will is just as important as promoting the sanctity of life in the womb, for both are gifts from God. The Christian family is God’s established means to protect children from harm, to teach them His Word, and to nurture them in the true faith.
As with sports, the work of the Christian family requires a team effort between parents, relatives, school, and church. What a blessing it is when children grow up, continue in the faith, and establish their own families which walk together with Jesus on their way to eternal life.
Theodore Gullixson is pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisconsin.