Jeff:
Fun discussion today. And we’re going to talk about building a big house for your family. Now, do we mean physical? Do we mean spiritual? I think that’s … a little bit of both or that’s what the conversation is that we’re going to have. So, Jeremy, what are your thoughts here about physical house and a space for a family and spiritual house for a family?

Jeremy:
Yeah. So I wanted to share with you guys some verses from Isaiah 54. So right after Isaiah 53, when we have this epic poem prophecy about the coming Messiah, who’s going to rescue the world through taking on the sins of the world on himself. The next thing that we read is in Isaiah 54, about this explosive family, that includes everyone, that includes families, but also even barren women, eunuchs so it goes on and on and talks about how the family is going to just grow. And Isaiah 54, you have this beautiful picture of a tent. So Isaiah says, “Enlarge the place of your tent and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out. Do not hold back, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.”

Or as the New Living version says, “Enlarge your house, build an addition, spread out your home. Spare no expense for you will soon be bursting at the seams. Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle, the ruined cities.”

Jeff:
Is that the Message or New Living Translation?

Jeremy:
That was the New Living.

Jeff:
I love that. Enlarge your house, call Bob Vila, look on YouTube, that version.

Jeremy:
So yeah, you have this giant. So the picture is, is you’ve got this small house and that what God really wants is for this thing to expand, right? And really through both physical and spiritual descendants, the context of this actually is a barren woman and really the song that’s being sung over her is this giant house that’s just expanding in all directions. And I really think it’s a picture of disciple-making. The spiritual children and grandchildren and great grandchildren of those who are coming to faith through the Messiah.

And part of what that means for us as families and for us as dads is that we need to embrace the possibility that we’re going to need to expand the dwelling, right? That we’re going to want to see these descendants grow, right? We want to see our families generationally both spiritually, the generations and physically the generations, and that requires this sort of expansion. And then it talks about your descendants will occupy their nations and resettle the ruined cities. And so part of what it means to renew a city is to build a house, expand the house, and then really see your descendants, the multiplication of the effort that you’re doing and building that, that family team really rejuvenate the city. That’s the ultimate end is to build a city of God. And so I love this idea. And the fact that when you think about your physical house, it’s a really fun process to go from, you know, living in a really small apartment to maybe getting your first house to like seeing, okay.

And then as you’re getting, and as your kids are multiplying and as your spiritual kids are multiplying, the amount of things you’re hosting in your household is becoming more and more fruitful. You begin to really dream about what would it look like for us to expand this or build an addition here. And so we’ve had this sort of experience as a family where we’ve been sort of adding additions to our house and watching sort of, trying to mirror the way the house looks to the spiritual and physical fruit that is expanding in the family. And as I thought about that over the years, as I’ve got excited, I’ve had sort of this prayer and thought about this thing, just kind of being set over us, enlarge your house, build an addition, spread out your home, spare, no expense for you. We’ll soon be bursting at the seams. The descendants are coming and the city is going to get renewed. And I just think that’s a fun, beautiful, poetic picture of what it looks like as your family starts to really gain momentum generationally.

Jeff:
Yeah. And I think what I’ll end with and just quick note, because I agree. I think you said it all. That’s perfect. And I agree is that a house is such a beautiful tool for the kingdom of God, especially where we’re going as a culture. I think welcoming someone into your home is more and more sacred every day we go forward. I think because people have coming more and more from broken homes, more and more from messed up homes, home doesn’t represent beauty and table and truth and feasting and hospitality to most people anymore. And so bringing them into a space like that is huge. And so, yeah, we’re not saying, I think some people, you know, the American dream does this, but for self consumption, right? Get a bigger house, bigger house, leverage yourself, all this debt, blah, blah, blah, for your own self and pleasure or like an ideal or putting on a face.

But the Kingdom of God is saying actually say within stewardship and generosity and within, and being shrewd, actually, it’s okay to actually want and desire a space to use and to bless and to honor and to host people and to have people stay with you. And man, we think about our house and it is primarily our number one vehicle of ministry, hands down, we’ve had three or four or five. I think people different people live with us over seven years of marriage. So we’re averaging almost like one a year. Now with people who’ve moved in with us for short periods of time, we can’t even count how many parties we’ve hosted baby showers we’ve celebrated. How many dinners, how many Easters, like it is just … how many Christmases, how many times we’ve kind of invited the person who had no place to go. How many Bible studies, and Ohanas, small groups.

It should be used as a kingdom outpost and used as a tool. And so then using it and expanding it for that, I think God will always honor and allow you to step into that and stay in that. And so, yeah, that’s huge to us and to see a house as kind of the main vehicle or outpost for kingdom ministry. And when you do that, you see your house very, very differently.