Sibling rivalries and relationships
.
I feel like this is something that largely goes unspoken and is internalized a lot in the body. I have been there. I’ve seen it in my family and others, and I’ve definitely seen it in the body. “This child is the favorite and this child isn’t”. “Why do they get away with this and I don’t”. “Why do they get a pass”. Often times we carry offense, rejection, and hurt, that turns to jealousy, anger, contempt, and bitterness towards our siblings and our parent. In all of our striving to earn and achieve, we lose sight that we’re in the same family with the same Dad. When we don’t live out of our sonship and daughterhood, and in turn don’t recognize that same sonship and daughterhood that is in our brothers and sisters, then we begin to jockey for position as “the favorite child” and we end up demeaning and degrading the very gift that God has placed in us and them. If I’m jealous of my brother and sister, I’m saying that who God made me to be is “less than” and who God made them to be is “more than”, and that’s not where we want to live. The pressure that it adds to your life and theirs is ever increasing. It makes you feel like you’re never good enough, and it robs you of the grace, care, compassion, and encouragement that you’re brother or sister could be receiving from you and replaces it with a pressure to perform and a silent hope for failure to elevate your position as the better child. We may reference this verse every blog:
.
““When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.””
Luke 14:8-11 ESV
.
In my head I can see the scenario playing out. The pressure of the host having to tell someone that where they are sitting is for someone else. The embarrassment of having to move to a different seat in front of all those people. Yet on the inverse, how exciting it would be for the host to tell someone to move to this seat of honor, and the gratitude of the person to be honored. The truth is that we have traditionally lived with pressure in so many areas of life. Especially relationally. So why does sonship and daughterhood matter in the body, in the kingdom, for you and me? Because our identity as a son or daughter will shape every aspect of our life. As a child I believed my dad could do anything and I lived out of that belief. If I don’t live as a son, I’m going to seek fulfillment somewhere, whether that be my wife, my job, or even my friends/brothers and sisters. If as a son, I lack the revelation that my love, acceptance, and place are all secure because of what Christ did, then I will seek your love, inclusion, a long laundry list of things that you could never achieve much less perfectly, to make me feel “ok” or “accepted”. The truth is, I will add unspoken expectations and unspoken pressure for you to perform to make me “ok”, when my posture must be that as a son, I’m accepted and loved by God and therefore all that is finished. Now listen, I’m a feeler. I can get in my feels quickly. Feeling left out and forgotten, have run rampant throughout the years because of my orphan heart. I was quick to get offended from the rejection I felt because someone didn’t include me, or I didn’t get picked to do something, but the truth is, even when I did get invited or did get picked, it wasn’t enough to satisfy. In the good times, I spent my time looking for the bad on the horizon, and when the hard times came, I had forfeited all my joy and peace of enjoying the gift of a season, because I was anticipating when that season would end. But now, with a revelation of sonship, my placement doesn’t change, even though the season might.
.
“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
Romans 12:9-18 ESV
.
As brothers and sisters we have the gift and opportunity to live differently together than the world would. Because of what Christ did, we are one body United in Christ, sharing the same spirit. Meaning I don’t have to compete with you because our lives are mutually beneficial to one another. Your success, gifts, recognition, growth, etc, are reasons for me to celebrate. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn”. That means I get to celebrate with you. I get to be happy as God pours out his blessings on you, because in the body, if we are being built together I’m going to benefit from that, just like the rest of the body will as well. We should be the loudest encouragers, championing our brothers and sisters, competing with that great cloud of witnesses to see each other grow in Christ to our full maturity.
.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV
.
Why does this matter, Adam? Because sons and daughters grow up to be mothers and fathers who raise more sons and daughters. There are generations after us that we get the opportunity to pave the way for them to know they “can’t mess this up” at the youngest of ages. All of this is bigger than my ego, offense, and my wants, this is about giving the future generations that follow us a different way to live other than just robbing societies methods and slapping a Christian label on them.
.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””
John 13:34-35 ESV
.
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
1 John 4:16-20 ESV
.
At the end of the day, and for the rest of eternity we are going to be together worshiping God, and in eternity sanctification will be complete, but oh what an opportunity and a gift that we have to be of one accord as brothers and sisters right now to see a glimpse of the fullness of what we will see and experience for all of eternity. Let love abound for your brothers and sisters. Encourage each other greatly.
.
“who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
1 Thessalonians 5:10-11 ESV