Opening
Did you hear about the guy who was called into his doctor’s office? The doctor sat him down and said, “I’ve got some good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” “Give me the good news first.” “Ok,” the doctor said. “Your tests are back and you only have three days to live.” “That’s the good news?” the guy exclaimed. “For heaven’s sake, what’s the bad news?” “Well,” said the doctor, “my receptionist has been trying to get a hold of you for two days”.
Folks, I have good news and bad news for you this morning.
The good news is that the church is like a family.
Here is the bad news – the church is like a family.
One man described his family this way. “Families are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts.”
Perhaps you feel this way about your biological family. You love them but some of them are tough to like.
God designed His church to be a family. Not just to act like a family, but to literally be a family.
Think about the relational terminology that the bible uses and that we have used for this sermon series.
We talked about being the children of God, the sons and daughters of God, we talked about God being our Abba, Daddy, and we’ve talked about you and I being the Bride of Christ.
These are all family phrases, and it is not by accident that God made it this way.
Family is supposed to be the place where
…we nurture the closest relationships we have with one another.
…we find love and nurture.
…we find refuge, safety and security from an unsafe world.
…we find support and encouragement.
…we can be ourselves and still be accepted and loved.
Unfortunately, most families aren’t perfect, because they aren’t made up of perfect people.
In fact, some of us can be pretty damaged or wounded, and we bring that wounded-ness to our families, which in turn, makes those families less than ideal places for safety, love, comfort, refuge and security.
I have to admit, I love doing funerals and weddings. I get an inside look at people’s families and get to admire their strengths. I did a funeral this week and I grew to admire the Stoltz family and the cohesion that they have. In both the family we know here as well as their wider family, I saw a family that cared for one another. They had built many memories with one another, and shared their memories of a loved one and laughed and cried together. I thought to myself as I ate a sandwich after the funeral with Lynn and Debbie and their 3 boys …this family is blessed!
As we grow up we formulate our perception of family from our own experiences.
Some children are raised with intense conflict, or with anger or hostility in the home.
Some are raised where there is no sense of security, where they wonder if they will be on the streets the next day.
Others are raised in families with addictions or severe emotional troubles.
And if these children never experience anything different, they will believe that that is the norm for a family and reproduce that norm when they start their own family.
The Simpsons’ and our culture. You want to hear a scary thought? Observers say that The Simpsons’, those cartooned caricatures of dysfunction and irreverence may actually reflect the way most American families live and act. They have been on over 22 seasons and still carry a strong following. I wonder why. Is this a statement about the condition of our own families in America…that we need to find a family so utterly dysfunctional, more dysfunctional than our own so we can laugh at it? Aren’t we really laughing at ourselves?
Families are complex organisms…and the reason I say organisms, is that they consist of living beings who interact in a variety of complex ways, each based upon their own expectations, wounding, strengths and weaknesses that they have developed.
So when we talk about church being a family, we bring our own preconceptions into this analogy. Sometimes I wonder why God used “family” to describe His church, because I figure if it’s God’s family, shouldn’t it be “perfect?”
And just like our own families, it is comprised of fallible, weak, hurting and broken people. God’s family, just like our own, is far from perfect, with the exception that we have a perfect Father.
BROTHERS OF CHRIST
Did you know Jesus called you and I His brothers and sisters?
Mark 3:31-35 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." 33 "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother."
Mt. 28:10 “Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
It was common to call a fellow Israelite a “brother” and it became a common address of one another to call each other “brother” or “sister.” The Israelites were all related, having a common ancestor named Abraham. If you were a descendent of Abraham, your fellow Jew was your brother.
Brother or Sister is used 221 times in the New Testament, with the vast majority of its usage being to address a fellow believer in Christ.
Jesus wants you and I to understand that we are His family.
His disciples weren’t just His followers but they were brothers to Him. They were closer than His own natural brother James, who hadn’t believed in Him early on.
When you placed your faith in Christ, and experienced the new birth, the spiritual rebirth that comes by faith, you became a babe in Christ, a member of God’s family.
Your brothers and sisters got here the exact same way. By grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3:27-28 “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Some folks might be attending our church and have not been born into God’s family. You are looking at the family, deciding whether or not we act like God’s family before you commit to the Father of the family.
The Father of the family, the head of the family has a lot to do with how the family members act.
But God is a Father that is everything we would ever want or need in a Father!
Unfortunately, so many of us have warped or distorted views of God that we never allow Him to love us the way He desires to.
I would hope that at Here’s Hope, God’s family would reflect our Father’s love sufficiently so that you might want to be a part of His family.
How can you become a member of God’s family? By placing your faith in Jesus Christ. It is a simple act of trust. It requires that you acknowledge you need a Savior, that you are a sinner and that you cannot fix yourself, you cannot make yourself acceptable to God on your own. By trusting what Jesus Christ has done on your behalf by dying for your sins on the cross and He enters your life and changes your heart. It’s that simple. If you want to do that today, you can. At the conclusion of the service, if God has been speaking to you, I urge you to come up for prayer. We will pray with you.
Another things that God wants you and I to know is that we are to be family to one another.
Few of us would say that our homes are the equivilant of our families, would we?
Why do we equate our church building to the church? The church is the people, the building is merely the facility in which the family of God gathers together.
You might wonder if being a part of a local church family is really necessary.
You don’t have to join a church to belong to God’s family.
You are a member of God’s family by faith. You become a member of His family by trusting in Christ. I have brothers and sisters in Christ that aren’t members of this church or even this denomination. They are still my family in Christ!
Local church membership is important because…
it serves to commit fellow believers to one another.
it provides an opportunity to unite around a common vision and purpose.
it acts as a gathering point for family activities and functions.
People shop for a church and drop in and drop out of local churches like they are mere commodities like a brand of coffee.
All too often we shop for a group of people to meet our needs, rather than looking to find out if we might be suited to meet a need in that local family of believers.
But churches are supposed to be family. I hope you don’t shop for a family but embrace the ones God has given you. You are important to me.
We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Some of you are like spiritual parents and others like spiritual children, but the bottom line, we are all relatives in Christ.
This week I attended a hearing with Joe and Sonya. Joe and Sonya are like my children in the Lord. I greeted their family as if it were my own. I prayed with them and I cried with them when they found leniency with the judge. Why? Because Joe and Sonya are part of our spiritual family. We are connected like family.
You know, it hurts me when family members leave the church for the variety of reasons that they do. I imagine it hurts you too. Sometimes I cannot understand it, how after ministering alongside and with someone for several years, walking with them through funerals and hospitals and births that they can casually walk away as if they were leaving a social club and not a family.
Getting our own way
What does it mean to be the family of God? What does it look like for us to live in community?
To be a part of family requires a commitment to the hard work of relationships.
It is very frustrating for us as a church when someone says, “I don’t feel like I fit in.”
When I counsel folks such as these, I discover quickly that they don’t know anyone because they have never come to a social gathering, a bible study or a fellowship at church, the things that would help them make friends. They have limited their involvement to corporate worship alone.
Sometimes this attitude is what I call the “Catholic” attitude, where I was raised. We were expected to “attend church and give.” If we did that we would be good Christians.
Other times I find that we don’t want to reach out and make friends with others because we are too busy. If you are fairly new to our church, I hope someone has asked you to come to a social gathering or a bible study by now. Folks, if you have been a part of our church family for awhile and you haven’t asked someone to be a part of something, then you have failed too!
Richard Wafford says, “Life is a series of giving’s that we might gain. Only where there is input can we expect an output. Only when we deposit, can we expect return. If you don’t participate, then don’t expect anything. Nothing comes from nothing,.”
Relationships are hard work, but people are often not willing to do the hard work.
We are supposed to be a covenant community where the individuals pledge themselves to the larger community. We must realize the church is bigger than we are.
When I read Acts 2:42 ‘s description of the church community, it sounds so easy. But the truth is, unity and love take work.
I sometimes wonder if we develop this attitude because we desire to get our own way and don’t understand the importance of doing things for the good of the WHOLE family.
Chuck Swindoll tells a story about what happened one day while aboard a 727 about halfway back in the coach section. The plane had three seats on the left side and three on the right side of the aisle. He was seated halfway back on the aircraft when a family of three came aboard. Apparently, they had purchased their tickets late and were unable to secure reserved seating in the same row. The airline attendant assured them that there were several empty seats. Surely someone would be willing to swap seats so they could all sit together. As they boarded, they found a row that looked promising. The row had four empty seats. The aisle seat on the left was open and the two seats closest to the window on the right were unoccupied. There was one man sitting in the aisle seat on the right side that would only have to move across the aisle to sit and they could all be together. The family, all of them friendly and courteous, asked the gentleman on the aisle if he would be willing to move from the right side aisle seat to the left side aisle seat. That’s all. Just stand up, take two steps to the left, and sit down. Just swap seat 17 D for 17 C.
Do you think he’d do it? No way. He wasn’t even courteous enough to answer verbally. He just stared straight ahead as he shook his head no firmly. And, when a flight attendant tactfully tried again, he unloaded a piece of his mind he couldn’t afford to lose. The guy absolutely refused to budge. This was his “space”. He had paid good money for it, and there was no way he was going to let anybody, for any reason, take it away from him.
The church is accused of acting this way sometimes. It isn’t without reason that the world sees us this way.
From wanting our favorite pew and being incensed that someone would actually sit in it, to wanting our favorite music and wanting our way, church members have been historically guilty of being self-centered and self-interested and hurting the rest of the family in the process.
That is an unhealthy way to live in a family relationship.
It is too bad, but churches when they are filled with people who have forgotten how they got there, begin to act exactly this way.
“Its my seat!” - or “I like the way we USED to do things when pastor so and so was here.”
We forget we are family, and a healthy family is always growing, adding new family members who are different, with changing interests and desires.
My oldest daughter’s boyfriend is a very nice young man. He is a bit older than Danielle, he is 28, she is 22. He has an allergy to mushrooms. He also comes over to eat on Tuesday evenings, the night when we traditionally have spaghetti. You guessed it! I love mushrooms.
Put yourself in this situation. Here is a potential son-in-law, a future addition to my family. Do I refuse to serve spaghetti without mushrooms just because that is what I WANT?
In fact, my entire family likes mushrooms! Do we say, “Too bad, you eat what we eat or you don’t eat at all?” That isn’t a very family friendly attitude is it? If anything, it would reflect a selfish family system that has no room for anyone who is the slightest difference from the rest of us. If we perpetuated that attitude of selfishness, I guarantee our family would never grow, and my daughters would never bring their boyfriends who represent their future families to our house for dinner!
Can you see the parallel to the church family?
20 years ago, we sang hymns as our standard for worship in this church. Some of you were in your 40’s and 50’s back then. Now you are in your 60’s and 70’s. Your spiritual children are bringing their spiritual relatives and friends and their spiritual children into the church family. Funny thing is they don’t like mushrooms (hymns) as much as you do. Do you say, “If you don’t like what we’re serving get out?” Of course not! You adapt so that the family can grow.
20 years from now, many of us who are now in our 40’s and 50’s will be sitting here as our church family grows and who knows what the spiritual children of our church will prefer. But we too will have to adapt so the family can continue to grow and so that more children can be born into the family of God.
Families’ members make sacrifices of love for the sake of the rest of the family.
I heard a person say in our church that they aren’t exactly comfortable with the style changes that we have adopted over the past few months. They went on to say, “but I will have to adapt, because this is my church family.”
That is the attitude of love that God commands His children to have toward one another.
Family is where you can be yourself.
The other day I shared with our Deacons how much I was enjoying the increased enthusiasm that is a part of our worship. One of our wise deacons agreed but added, “if we drum up enthusiasm but don’t grow in love, it will be a waste.” And he was right! Enthusiasm comes as a result of a healthy family atmosphere of love. It is the product of it and not the cause of it.
When you feel safe, when you feel loved by God and by your brothers and sisters, when you feel wanted and needed…it is much easier to let your hair down and be yourself.
That is the nature of enthusiasm. You drop all pretense and begin to enjoy God and the people around you. Worship and church become fun!
Is if fun for you? Can you be yourself with your church family? You may be learning how, but I believe you can!
Family is where when you have kids the family dynamics change.
Surely you can recall the stresses that new family members bring to a family.
It is no different for the family of God. New births mean more work. You don’t get to retire in the family of God. Your role may change, but the work never stops.
When the grandkids come over, you dote on them and enjoy them. So it must be with us.
The purpose of family is to grow. You hope your kids have kids…you want grandkids!
Parents sacrifice for their children and not the other way around. Which one of us would expect your infant child to give up its crying so you can sleep? No, you give up your sleep so the baby can rest and grow. So it is in God’s family.
If we aren’t growing, we are dying. If we are growing as a family, there will always be change in the works. There will always be new life too!
This brings me to what I want to ask you to do with all this information.
Will you commit to the process of loving one another like family? Will you stop being a consumer of church and instead become a family member?
