Living a Purpose Driven Life part 3
(Made to be in God’s Family)
Brian A. Moon
(Based on the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren)
At the annual family-reunion picnic, a young bride led her husband over to an old woman busily crocheting in a rocker. "Granny," she said, touching the old woman’s hand affectionately, "this is my new husband." The woman eyed him critically for a long moment, then asked abruptly, "Do you desire children?" Startled by her bluntness, the young man blushed and stammered, "Well-uh-yes, I do very much."
"Well," she said, looking scornfully at the large tribe gathered around the six picnic tables, "try to control it!"
Families are great things! Many of us have experienced those wonderful mid-summer family reunions where you get your cheeks pinched and are forced to play nicely with these kids that you are supposedly related to… But seriously families are great and all of us no matter if our family is just a mom and some brothers or sisters or mom and a dad and a dog, our families are something that we all treasure and value. We are in the middle of a 40 Days of Purpose series that is looking into what the purpose of life is really all about. It has been amazing so far to see and hear some of the stories of how we all are finding our God given purposes in life. Last week we learned that the first purpose of our lives is to know and love God or worship God; we were made for his pleasure! This week we are diving into the second purpose of your life and that is: “You were Made to be in God’s Family!”
The Bible says, “His (God’s) unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 1:5 NLT
Underline “adopt us into his own family”
God wanted a family, and the entire Bible is the story of God creating, saving, and protecting his children. He made us, he sent Jesus his Son to save us, and if you accept Jesus into your life he has promised to protect us. We were made for God’s eternal family. Or to say that another way, you were made to last forever in God’s family! This is a big deal, think of all the trouble God went to make us a part of his family and this is the key to this second purpose of your life, the Bible says:
“Love your spiritual family.” 1 Peter 2:17 MSG
God wants us to be about loving our spiritual brothers and sisters. God wants us to practice loving each other. This life is the dress rehearsal for the real production, which will happen for the rest of FOREVER, and God wants us to learn how to get along and practice loving each other now. The Bible says God is love and he wants us to be more like him so he gives us the purpose of loving our spiritual family.
The word that is used for this loving our spiritual families is fellowship. Fellowship is more than just chit-chat and small talk. Real, authentic, Biblical fellowship is learning to love and serve each other.
The Bible says, “The person who loves God must also love other believers.” 1 John 4:21 GW
So how do we do that? How do we learn to love each other? Well before you can even begin you must realize this one truth… the people in this room are your spiritual family! The church is more than a building, it is more than this meeting once a week on Sunday Nights, it is a family. We will never learn to love our spiritual family until we put some faces with this, until we get a little uncomfortable because we have some issues with others in this room.
It is a lot harder to love someone when you put a face with it so look around the room right now and meet your family. Now that you have met your family we can get down to leaning more about authentic fellowship together! There are 4 levels of fellowship that we are going to go into and the first level is:
Choosing to belong
The most basic level is something I hope all of you in this room are doing and that is simply choosing to come and get connected to this group. Many people today think that they can be a Christian and not be a part of a church. To some degree that is true, coming to church does not mean that you are a Christian, but God made us for each other, we need each other and we need to be connected to a group of believers.
The Bible says, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household”
Ephesians 2:19 NIV
You see you have to not only believe to live a purpose driven life, but you also have to belong!
You have to make a decision that OK I am going to make the sacrifice of my time and I am going to be apart of this family right here. That is where fellowship begins, when you and others choose to belong. God made you to be in his family and it is up to you say OK God you made me for fellowship and I am going to do it. I am going to choose to come to this group! Before I mentioned that we need each other and do you realize that you are like a puzzle piece?
Really you are because this group cannot reach its God given potential without you coming and connecting with everyone else to complete the puzzle! You are valuable and we need you as much as you need the other people here tonight.
The Bible says, “In the same way, even though we are many individuals, Christ makes us one body and individuals who are connected to each other.” Romans 12:5 GW
Circle the word “Connected”
We must be connected to each other before we can have go any deeper with our fellowship and to be connected we must choose to belong! Jesus loved the “church” so much that he died or it! If Jesus had that kind of passion for us to be together then we should have an equal passion to be together! That is why the church is called the body of Christ because we are the way that his love is passed on and this cannot happen unless we choose to belong. So once we have chosen to belong now what? The next level of fellowship is:
Learning to share
Growing up as an only child people automatically think that I had a hard time leaning to share and I don’t know where they get this idea from… hey that’s my pencil give me that back! (Grab someone’s pencil)
But for our level of fellowship to increase we must do what this verse says:
“All the believers met together constantly and shared everything with each other.” Acts 2:44 TLB
Circle “shared everything”
When we begin to develop stronger bonds and friendships by belonging to each other then you must begin to want to share with each other. God wants us to learn to share with each other and show love by sharing… but share what? Well you could share your experiences.
This past year Cheryl and I were at Stone Mountain, Georgia and there is an old blacksmith shop there.
As we watched the men work it was amazing to see how they took a blunt piece of metal and heated and hammered it into a razor, sharp nail. In the Bible it talks about iron sharpening iron or when we share our experiences it helps others.
Proverbs says, “People learn from one another, just as iron sharpens iron.” Proverbs 27:17 TEV
Nobody knows it all, but by sharing things we have learned by trial and error we can grow together. The next thing you could share is your house
The Bible says, “Open up your homes to each other.” 1 Peter 4:9 NCV
Real fellowship is developed outside of these church building walls. Real fellowship develops as you “live life together” and that can happen at your house! We have small groups that meet in homes each week and when the time comes to pick next weeks house say, “Come on over!” If you are not in a small group right now then on the back of your response card write small group and we will get you plugged in to these life changing times of authentic fellowship.
We must be a family here in our large group, but the most powerful level of fellowship is in small groups!
The final thing you can share is your problems. When you have a family you have someone that is always there to help you when you are facing some tough times and lets face it… we all have tough times.
Just because you are a follower of Christ does not mean that all your problems disappear. That is why having a spiritual family is so important because they can offer you love, support, and encouragement as you journey the Christian life.
The Bible tells us to: “Share each others troubles and problems.” Galatians 6:2 NLT
That means we are to help each other when the load is getting tough and to share when your load is getting tough. It’s a give and take kind of deal. We need each other and the best illustration of this I have ever seen looks like this.
(Picture of 3 people carrying a cross and through teamwork crossing an impossible ravine)
When one needs help the other two are right there to help, that is real fellowship carrying each other’s troubles! So sharing is the second level of fellowship and now we move into the third and that is:
Doing my part
Remember when I said that you are like a puzzle piece and we cannot live out our God given potential as a group unless you do your special part? When you realize that and you get off the bench and get in the game you have reached the third level of fellowship and that is deciding to partner with this ministry.
Recently we had 6 people become the very first “partners” of this ministry by attending the 101 Partnership Life Development class. It was amazing to see these people cross that line and reach a whole new level with there fellowship! And you can do the same by attending our next 101 Class on March 8th. God has chosen to use us humans to do his work here on earth and you play an important part of that work by picking up your family chores. Each of us has a contribution to make and that is what it is all about serving God TOGETHER! Living out his five purposes for our lives as a team.
The Bible says, “We are partners working together for God.” 1 Corinthians 3:9 TEV
Circle the word “Partners”
In the Greek language, which was the original language of the New Testament of the Bible, the word “fellowship” is often used interchangeable with the word “partnership.” Real fellowship happens when we partner with each other to serve God. We have a lot of needs to make this ministry work like it should. We need people to be on the First Impression Team or FIT team to greet people and hand out programs. We need people to serve as vocalist and we need people to help with the technical side of Sunday Nights. We even need people to help plan out each Sunday Night with all the creative elements we do here and we even need people to set up and tear down all this each week. You have a part to play, God has given you the ability to do some of these things and as we work together we develop even closer and more authentic fellowship with one another.
The Bible says, “The whole body fits together perfectly as each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” Ephesians 4:16 NLT
For this group to reach people who don’t know about God’s amazing love, for this group to reach hurting and lost people we need to work as a team, as one body each doing our own part! When that happens we will explode with growth and we will reach our God given potential as a group. Our group grows as we grow in true fellowship. The final and deepest form of fellowship is:
Loving others as family
The deepest and level of fellowship is the kind of bond you have between family members. This is the kind of bond between a parent and their children or the bond you might have with a brother or sister.
It is an unconditional kind of bond that is for life!
The deepest level of fellowship is when you can love the people in this room like that!
The Bible says about the early church that, “They were like family to each other.” Acts 2:42 CEV
When we can learn to love the people here like we would our own family then we have reached true and authentic fellowship.
People are going to know that we are followers of Christ not because of what we know, and not because of what we look like, but because they see us truly loving each other. When people see that in action, when they see us loving each other like family, it is the most powerful witness we could ever have. God made us for each other and we need to learn how to love each other and learn how to lay our lives down to serve one another.
The Bible says, “The greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.” John 15:13b NLT
When we can put our wants and our desires in second place, when we can put others first we will have reached the greatest level of fellowship. We want to be known as a group that loved each other with all we had, we want to be known for loving each other as family! That is what it is all about; it’s all about love! When we get here, when we get to this level let me promise you this… they will not be able to keep people away from Sunday Nights! So where are you at? Are you still looking at maybe getting connected to this group, are you ready to partner with us, are you serving and helping out in this ministry, are you ready to really love people? Where ever you are let me leave you with this challenge. God has made you for his family and no one wants to be part of a dysfunctional one… lets learn to love each other like family!
Prayer Time ------------
God we thank you for loving us enough to give us a family. We ask that you teach us how to love our family members better.
If you are here tonight and you are looking for a place to belong, you are in need of being part of God’s family. You need God to come and make you his child and you have never accepted God’s gift of salvation through Jesus then right now in your heart cry this out to God:
God I want to be one of your children. I realize that I have flaws and shortcomings and sins and I ask for your forgiveness. Please come and save me and give me a new life full of hope and joy. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for me. Amen.
If that was you then God just finished signing the adoption papers and you are one of his now! Welcome to his family!
If you are saved and you know that you need to learn to love your spiritual family better then pray this in your heart right now:
God I know that you made me for your family and I have been neglecting my family members. Forgive me and help me to love others the way that you love me. Deepen my level of fellowship. Amen.
