Join us this Sunday! In-Person 9:00am & 10:45am, Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Join us this Sunday! In-Person 9:00am & 10:45am, Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Join us at the next Sunday worship service:
In-Person
9:00am & 10:45am,
Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Every Family is Flawed

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” – Joshua 24:15

Our saying at Northstar is that nobody’s perfect. You won’t find any perfect people in our church because there aren’t any perfect people. That means that we’re also a “No Perfect Families Allowed” church. We all have flaws and as a result the family we are part of also has flaws and is less than the ideal.

If you have something about your family that isn’t perfect – join the club. There are struggling families, stressed families and good families that are striving to be better – but no perfect families. The question is whether we accept family life as it is, or do we attempt to make it better by striving to meet God’s standard. Each of us has an idea already in mind of what marriage and family is all about. That idea is our “model,” or pattern, or ideal. The difficulty is that many families are not evaluating their lives according to God’s standards, but rather, according to what other Christians, or others, seem to be doing. It is easy to become so occupied with the standards of this world and forgot that Jesus raised the bar. 

God’s word gives us the ideal in everything, including families. We looked at a few family stories in the Bible. There was no effort made to airbrush the complexions of even some of most notable households. God doesn’t attempt to hide the dirty laundry of Bible families. It began with Adam and Eve. The first recorded murder in history occurred between two brothers (Cain and Abel) and the first civil war in the nation of Israel was between David and his son. Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel gets his maid servant pregnant then ends up sending her and her son away because his wife Sarah couldn’t get along with them. Jacob tricks his older brother out of his birth right. Jacob then works for years for an untrustworthy uncle who continuously cheats him.

Fast forward to today. None of us grew up in perfect homes. Our folks had flaws. Our kids will grow up and look back on our flaws.  So what do we do with our flaws? We need to strive for God’s standard and not be happy with whatever standard we are using at this time. 

In this series, we’re going to discover what the Bible says about dealing with the imperfections in family and navigating the struggles of family life. We get to pick our friends but none of us get to pick our families of origin. As a result, family relationships can be the most challenging in our lives. They can also be the most rewarding. No one’s family is perfect, but it is possible to aspire to an ideal. 

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is your definition of an ideal family? How do we best determine where we are as a family?
  2. What is your favorite part of being a part of a family? What is your favorite part of being a member of the family of God?
  3. Why do you think every family in the Bible had flaws?
  4. What can we do this week to move toward God’s standards for our family? 

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