Crowded House
- Date: Sunday, July 25, 2010
- Speaker: Jason Smith
- Series: Jesus in 3D: Seeing Jesus through the Gospel of Mark
- Scripture: Mark 3:7–3:35
Families are a bitter-sweet reality of life. There is no better place to receive unconditional love and care than from one’s family. Rudyard Kipling once wrote this about families: “All of us are we—and everyone else is they. A family shares things like dreams, hopes, possessions, memories, smiles, frowns, and gladness…A family is a clan held together with the glue of love and the cement of mutual respect. A family is shelter from the storm, a friendly port when the waves of life become too wild. No person I ever alone who is a member of a family.” Yet, sadly, many cannot relate to such a warm and positive description of family. Consider the Ledbetter family. They like to spend time at home together just not in the same room. So they built a 3,600-square-foot house with special rooms for studying and sewing, separate sitting areas for each kid, and a master bedroom far from both. Then there's the escape room, where Mr. Ledbetter says, "Any family member can go to get away from the rest of us." The industrial designer says his 7- and 11-year-old daughters fight less, because their new house gives them so many ways to avoid each other. "It just doesn't make sense for us to do everything together all the time," he says. The Ledbetter’s are actually part of a trend. After two decades of pushing the open floor plan-where domestic life revolved around a big central space and exposed kitchens gave everyone a view of half the house-major builders and top architects are walling people off. They're touting one-person Internet alcoves, locked-door away rooms and his-and-her offices on opposite ends of the house. The new floor plans offer so much seclusion, they're "good for the dysfunctional family," says Gopal Ahluwahlia, director of research for the National Association of Home Builders. The approach isn't for all architects. William Sherman, chairman of the department of architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Virginia, says all the cut-up spaces make families more isolated and lonelier than ever. "People don't even gather in the same spot to watch TV anymore," Mr. Sherman says. "It's sad." Because of our deep love for our families, they have the potential to hurt us the most. While no family is perfect, some experience greater levels of harmful brokenness than others. Divorce, verbal or physical abuse, disapproval, abandonment, favoritism, and neglect—these and more threaten to rob us of God’s plan of the modern family.
In Mark chapter three, Jesus will not only encounter trouble with His own family, but He will redefine for us the concept of family. He will show us that there is a stronger bond than that of flesh and blood. This stronger bond rests with one’s spiritual family. It is to this family that Jesus calls His disciples. It is the same calling that every Christ follower receives-not to a specific vocation or mission field or ministry, but to the family of God and our responsibilities within those relationships. Today, you have two options before you: Big Idea: In or Out. You are either in Christ and therefore in Christ’s family or you are outside looking in. Let’s turn to Mark 3:7-35 to helps us see where we are in relation to Christ’s family.
