Little Pictures/ Big Realities
The Lessons all around us
The Blueprints
When a plant begins its development; it’s called a “sprout.”
This little sprout is said to contain all the nutrients it needs to start in its little quest to bear its first leaves. Yet, it is contained under the protection of the dirt at this stage; it’s hidden from the rest of the world. A person can pass by with no idea of what lays beneath the surface; he sees only dirt. At this point the sprout has no ability to produce a flower, a tree, or any kind of vegetable or fruit. All it can do is be nested and nurtured by the ground that surrounds it.
In the same way, a baby is embraced in the arms of its mother. It has no ability to stand up, interact, or participate in household chores or activities. It doesn’t have an education or skill; it is a simple baby in complete dependency on its mother’s care.
Given a few days, weeks, and months it will be obvious that the nurture and care of the sprout and baby has provided all that was necessary for growth. The sprout will shoot from the ground, establish its roots, embolden its leaves, and fruit will spring forth.
The baby will grow to a toddler, a teen, and then an adult. He will learn to walk, talk, reason, and finally reach maturity.
Both of these are all done through the care and protection of the soil and the family.
God has a unique pattern for teaching men and women how things operate. He usually starts with something personal in order to reveal a greater reality. He uses what is personal to help us understand things that are magnificent.
For example, consider how Paul talks about marriage when speaking on how a husband should love his wife in Ephesians 5, He says,
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” —Ephesians 5:31-33
He explains that a husband should love his wife as he love himself, because they are “one flesh.” But, God didn’t allow this relationship to only exist for itself, he put the man and woman in the relationship so they could understand something greater—mainly how Christ loves the church. God makes us live something in order for us to understand something else at a deeper level.
Now, he doesn’t just do this in our personal experience of life, but he also gives us pictures of it in things that we see around us. We see this with the sprout and the baby mentioned above. Both needed protection and development. Both needed either nutrients or guidance. A plant left without soil will be scorched by the sun or eaten by a hungry bird. A baby left by itself will starve and die. The question for such things is: What can I learn from this picture? Where do these things point?
I believe that these pictures and many others are pointing us to greater things. They are teaching us simple concepts in order to help us become useful in our life as a Christian. They are teaching us about us and about the works and providence of God.
Along with the guidance of scripture, we are provided with various little blueprints of how things can rightly operate for Gods glory.
I say “blueprints” because everything is structured around us. Things have an order to them; like a blueprint lays out the structure of a building. Now, I’m not saying that these things are placed above the word of God, rather they are supportive in how they give us tangible examples of greater realities. We should read the word of God and then find every example that will help us teach it, apply it, and cherish it deeply.
Let’s look at two examples.
Jesus Loved Plants
In John 15 we hear Jesus say this,
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
In this passage, Jesus points to something we see throughout our day to describe something of greater importance: That a man needs to abide in Christ. He explains, that in order to have life, you have to be connected to the true vine. The vine is Christ. He is life. He said in another place, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Without him we die. So, with the sprout and the baby, we can conclude even farther that these two must also be connected to this “life.’’ This is plain when we read, “all things are held together by him.” (Colossians 1:16-17)
So, Christ points to a picture (a vine) that is familiar in order to show something greater.
Do we know what a vine is?
Of course we do!
So, it’s easy to understand this greater reality through a simple picture. It explains the aspects of the reality through what we already know about plants. We use this concept in teaching.
In order to teach my son how to say, “Bobcat,” I would draw a man named “Bob” and then give him a “cat.” After seeing the pictures that he is already familiar with, my son would associate the word “Bobcat” with the image I have made and with laughter would say, “Bobcat.”
This is how we comprehend things from one difficulty to the next. We start with something simple and familiar and work towards the complex and unfamiliar. We see this in art. An artist doesn’t go straight to detail, but instead starts with simple shapes. He starts with the common in order to understand the structure and form of the complex.
Jesus did this often and at times he used the simple things to confound the intellectuals of his day. He would say: They must “eat his body” or “drink his blood” (John 6:53-58) and they would think that he is promoting cannibalism! Of course he wasn’t, but he was using the simple in order to point to something greater. They often didn’t understand what he was saying even though it was simple.
But it is necessary to realize that God has given us little pictures to help us understand great realities.
The next time you go outside, hold this in your mind and consider how everything around you is teaching you something.
In relation to the church, consider how we have “Sprouts” or new believers who need our protection from false teachings. They need the word of God to be taught to them in order for them to cultivate leaves. They need nutrients. They need the soil to surround them. Now, I have never viewed our congregation as soil before, but we can see the connection.
We can see that most things need guarding in their first stages of life. This is plain when we view the world around us. I recently watched a mother bird prepare a nest for her babies to grow in when they were born. She guarded that nest and protected her babies at all cost. I watched her push them out of the nest to help them learn to fly. This lesson is something to consider, too. We need to be nurtured as a new believer, but one day we must be pushed into something that will help us grow; that will help us fly in a sense.
We can see how easily it could be to start a journal on things that we learn from just looking at what’s around us.
We live in a world of overlooked glories!
I would encourage you to start considering what you see. Look at the simple and see how it relates to the greater picture.
Let’s look at one more example.
The Family Is The Training Ground For Life As A Church
I mentioned above that: God makes us live something in order for us to understand something else at a deeper level. One of the biggest ways God trains a man is in the context of giving him a family. As we saw in Ephesians 5, God places men in a position that helps them understand something greater.
Consider a young man before marriage:
He is alone and probably considers himself a pretty selfless person. He probably thinks he’s not very angry or irritable, but casual and cool. He thinks he knows how to wash his dishes and how to do laundry. He thinks he’s a great teacher and leader. He’s all around a great dude.
Then, he gets married.
He soon realizes that he is very selfish, anger is constantly swelling in his chest, and he has felt more irritated now, than ever.
Is this his wife’s fault?
No, this is him as he really is. The cup of water has been “disturbed” as I heard one preacher say.
Did this man really know how to love before his wife came into his life?
Probably not.
He never had to sacrifice anything when he was single. He didn’t understand what it meant to “lay down your life” for someone. So, God put him in this position to see himself as he is— a needy sinner. He made it obvious he had no idea who he really was. God reveals what’s in the heart of a man through relationships. He forces a man to stop relying on his own power and start clinging to Christ. He sees his sin more than ever before.
Soon, the man gets used to loving his wife. He thinks he is selfless again—and then comes a kid. So, the cycle repeats.
Family is a training ground for a man to become a leader. It’s where God reveals what we really are and then ask us to love each other. It reveals how Christ loves sinners and gives up his life for them. We live a miniature version of something wonderful!
What is frightening in our culture is that men bail at the slightest time of hardship—even Christian men. They are told that they need to “chase their dreams” and “Take care of number one.” They think they are “tough” because of this, but in reality they are betraying their greatest duty and benefit. They are leaving the thing that is building true strength.
This has a domino effect on the younger men, because the younger men are left without guidance from the one who has “withstood the test”— mainly, their fathers. They don’t see value in sticking with it through tough times. They don’t see the family as a blessing, but a curse. They see it as a weight that pins them to the floor instead of a weight that makes them strong and unmovable.
More than this, these things carry over into our churches.
The surge of single-motherhood has caused women to stand in roles they weren’t meant to hold. If men can’t lead a family, then the women will step in. This is carried over into the church.
Who is more likely to lead their family to church in our day? Is it not the mother? Where is the man? Watching sports or playing games? This is to our shame.
The lack of leadership in the home is the lack of leadership in the church. The lack of commitment to the home is a lack of commitment to the church. The woman is the head of most families because of fatherless homes. This leads to women trying to help lead the church. While pastors are saying, “It is unbiblical for a woman to be head in the church,” (Which it is.) It is also unbiblical for a man to be complacent while his family falls apart. What do we expect in our church except that which is true of our own families.
Family is a blueprint of how church should look. It shows sinful men and women clinging to the gospel as they live side-by-side each other, learning to love and grow as they wait for the revealing of the Son of God. It reveals the man as the head of his house as Christ is the head of the church. It shows perseverance and steadfast love. It shows leadership and submission. It shows grace and forgiveness. It shows hope and joy. It shows self-sacrifice and the sharing of burdens. It is lovely and painful. It is all centered around hope in Christ.
This is the lesson of family and this is what church life needs.
But, when the family is weak and easily split, so is the church. If a man will leave his personal family when things are hard, be sure he will leave his church family. When men throw out the family, the structure of the local church naturally starts to weaken. When women are the main motivators for getting in the car Sunday morning, we can expect something is wrong.
Men are meant to lead their family and then lead the church. Young men are meant to grow in this leadership. Women are to be nurtured and lead through this leadership. A man who can control his anger with his wife is a man who can control his anger with his church. A man who can teach his wife and children the word of God and apply it, is a man who can teach the church. A man who can comfort his wife and admit his sin, is a man who can comfort his church and walk in humility.
Family is a blueprint to supply a picture of what’s necessary for the life of the bigger picture—the church. Whether a baby or a sprout, each belongs to something greater. One belongs to the beauty of a garden, while the other belongs to the enjoyment of a family. In the same way, all belong to the glory of God!
A family that is biblically-centered, is the continual training that builds a Christ-Exalting church. A man is taught how to love and lead primarily in their family, he is taught to love scripture through his parents, he is taught to honor God and cherish the gospel, and this training is given for Christ’ church.
It’s a picture of something greater.
God makes us personally live things in order to understand and be equipped for the greater things.
I hope you can find more examples of these little lessons of the BIGGER realities.
More than this, I hope you cling to Christ as your only hope and motivation for such great things.
The gospel says you and I are sinful. We are unable to earn Gods favor or be in right standing by our own efforts. Jesus also said, he will build his church, so while at times we are looking weak, it must be known that nothing thwarts God’s plan.
Our only hope is that Christ has paid our debt by nailing it to the cross. It’s his blood that makes these realities sweet instead of crushing. So, while you may be a dad who has lost control of his family and has failed in many parts, I would say, “I have too.”
But, in the Gospel we can admit our sin, seek reconciliation, and press on. Get into the scripture and seek understanding and pray for wisdom and then do something. Let’s learn to see the lessons and find encouragement. Writing on these things can have a “I better get myself together” effect on people. No. Don’t do that, you can’t make yourself better, but only cling to Christ as your only hope of salvation and let your motivation be from his work for you—not your work for him.
I’m praying that we understand and walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Cling to Christ
Great Article