The Family Enterprise

 The Family Enterprise

Sunday, August 29, 2021

I talked with a gentleman recently who owns a small homebuilding business. He’s done it for years, and has the satisfaction of building many quality dwellings for people, of being his own boss, and working out-of-doors much of the time, and with his hands. But he’s 70 or so now, and everything is harder. He would like his son to take over the business, but the son’s bones and joints ache too, and he doesn’t want the headaches that go along with running a business. I’m not sure if my friend will be able to sell, or just close. It’s kind of sad.

This story is repeated over and over with family farms and businesses. The next generation doesn’t find the same joy in it as earlier generations did. Or, the corporate farms and big-box stores crowd out the market so that running a small operation is more difficult. Does this happen in the church as well?

Our Father in heaven is head of the family enterprise (grandly, and rightly called “the Kingdom of God”), and He is not about to retire. But, He has designed that His children should be involved in the family enterprise. They are to serve His interests, represent His mission, and glorify His name. They are to be active participants. But, like the son mentioned above, we can often find reasons or excuses for not taking part.

When it comes to this service, age or retirement is no excuse. You don’t need to climb tall ladders in God’s service. It’s much more the practical application of the fruit of the Spirit. Are you active in loving others? Are you spreading the joy the fills your heart? Are you an agent of peace, both in sharing how you have found peace with God, and making peace with others. Are you patient and gentle? Sure, there are practical applications that are difficult and demanding. Love goes along with sacrifice. Joy requires the discipline of not complaining. We have to say “no” to our flesh that we might live according to this Spirit who will help us be meaningfully and usefully involved in the family enterprise.

Pity the world that has no greater purpose in this world than accumulating more perishable items and once again trying to find something new in order to amuse oneself. But “pity” is not the right word to use of the one called to follow Christ, who shrugs off the family enterprise which was conceived before the foundation of the world were laid, and which will continue long after our sand castles are washed away.