“YOU WERE FORMED FOR GOD’S FAMILY”
Sunday, May 9, 2004
40 DAYS OF PURPOSE - week 3
We welcome you back to 40 Days of Purpose. This is the third week of our series spanning 40 days from April 25 to June 6. We are asking, and seeking the answer to, the question “What on earth am I here for?”
We have been a part of this journey for 3 weeks; if you are new to it, we encourage you to get the book The Purpose Driven Life. You can come to the Thursday afternoon small group because we haven’t yet covered the first purpose, so you haven’t missed anything there.
Last week we started looking at the five purposes. We have been created for five purposes. They are built in. They are innate. They are God’s design. They are power packs in you. They are lights inside of you. They are pistons, you might say. If you fire them up, you will experience what life is all about, and the true joy and contentment that God offers.
It is important for us to realize, though, that we were created. You were not an accident. You did not crawl out of a primordial soup. You were created by God and for God. I think one of the reasons why, as a culture, we have lost our way; why we experience so much confusion, despair and dissatisfaction, a sense of weariness and hopelessness, is our starting point.
We believe and have been taught that life is all about us; we start with ourselves. We look at what will make us happy; that is the wrong starting point. If you go down that road of self, pleasing yourself, you will get lost, and life will be very dissatisfying. It will continue to be confusing for us. If your starting point is God, then it forces you to ask the question, “God, why did you put me here?” As we discover why God put us here and begin to operate within those five innate purposes, you could say the planets come all in alignment and you experience new life. Life becomes good.
Why has God put us here? Last week we talked about purpose number one – we were planned for God’s pleasure. The word pleasure is the word worship. Worship is anything that delights God, anything that puts a smile on God’s face. One of those things is corporate worship, but that is not all there is. We please God with our entire lives, including our work and our roles as long as they serve him.
Today we are looking at purpose number two and you will need your outlines. I encourage you to pull out the outlines that are in your insert. We will be referring to a lot of the verses and I have some things for you to do with those and things to note.
Purpose number two is: you and I were formed for God’s family. Hebrews 2:10a: “God is the one who made all things, and all things are for His glory. He wanted to have many children share His glory…” Ephesians 1:5: “His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ.” God desires that family to be rather large. Have any of you seen the movie Cheaper by the Dozen? God’s model is “cheaper by the billions;” God desires his family to expand and always be expanding. He wants as many as possible to become part of his household. I Timothy 2:4-5 says this: “For He (God) wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and people. He is the man Christ Jesus.”
You and I were created by God because God wanted to have children. God wanted a family. We are an extension of his love. God wanted to share his love with someone. As a result, he created us as his children so he could love on us. We can relate to that in that why do we have children? Is there any good reason for having children? Now I am sure that at some point in your lives you have questioned that if you’ve had children. Why on earth did I have these children because they’re messy, they’re inconvenient, aren’t they? They keep you up at night. They make you worry and fret and fear and doubt your own judgment. They do all kinds of things. Why on earth did you have them? They cost a lot of money. Can I hear an ‘amen.’ They make you delay personal gratification. Why did you do it?
If you think about it, you can’t come up with a good reason. You say because I wanted to. Because at some point in your life you said I am tired of myself, I’m tired of my spouse too. There has to be something more. We want to share our lives. Our love is oozing, we want to share it with someone else, so we want to have children to share that love, so we relate to God very well. He just wanted to; it is an extension of his love. He wanted to love someone- love us. That is what love does.
Think about this. If we are God’s children and we all call God father, then what does that make us? What does it make you, us, together -- brothers and sisters -- it makes us all family, doesn’t it? God loves the family. Look around at the person next to you, you are family. Tell them “Hi, family.” Go ahead and tell them, “Hi, family!” I know it’s kind of goofy, and they look goofy; they think the same about you, but we are all family together and God loves the family. God loves you and me and he wants what every father and mother does - he wants us to love each other. He wants us to get along. We defined worship last week as loving God back. Fellowship is loving what God loves, and God loves the family. It is the second purpose for our lives. The word is fellowship. Actually, the better word for it is koinonia. I use that more often because it is a deeper word; we were formed for God’s family.
Look at the second set of verses. 1 Peter 2:17b. The second greatest command is like the first. Note that Jesus said that the first order of business is worship. The second order of business, the second purpose for your life is this: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” 1 John 4:21: “The person who loves God must also love other believers.” John 15:17 Jesus’ last thing he said, the great command, “Love one another. . . .” Mark 3:35: “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” God’s definition of family is based upon a spiritual yearning, a spiritual commitment to God, and if we make that spiritual commitment to God, we are part of God’s family. God calls us to love each other. Now look at the last verse on how we love each other. How do we love each other? We are called to love what God loves-God loves the family. God calls us to love each other.
How do we do that? God gives a lot of instruction on how to love. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:14-15: “I’m writing…so you’ll know how to live in the family of God. That family is the church. . . .” I want you to circle the word ‘family’ and the word ‘church’, because that is what the church is. The church is not a building. The church is not an institution. It is not an organization. It’s an organism. It’s a people. It is not a club. It is not a place. So often we talk about the church. I am going to church. Now you are going to the place where the church meets but you are not going to church because that is not what the church is. The church is a people. The church is a family to which you and I belong. You and I were never meant, (if you want to get the meaning out of your life, you need to discovery this critical point, and this is it), you and I were never meant to be on earth alone. We were created for community. I know that flows in direct contradiction to our culture in that our culture is pushing us farther and farther apart from each other and from people. We are becoming isolated more and more.
When I was in school, I learned the poem, “Desiderata” which celebrated human independence. There is a song, “I am a rock, I am an island.” Every new technology seems to drive us farther and farther apart. We can do everything now from our home. We don’t have to leave it any longer. Those who study our culture say the two things that have happened to create the most isolation were in the area of zoning ordinances. When architects and builders began to include air conditioning, and when they took the detached garage and moved it into the house, that caused more isolation than any other thing in our culture. How is that? Because now instead of being on the porch to get cool and wind up talking to our neighbors, we stay inside the house. Rather than getting out of our cars and walking to our house and saying hello to our neighbor, we now can go from the garage right into our home, and we never leave our home.
As a result, we have become more and more isolated. There is a yearning in us. We yearn for connection, we crave fellowship. We desire to get to know people. More people are moving from the suburbs to small towns for this purpose.
What is fellowship? If this is a purpose that God has created us for, what is fellowship? When we think of the word fellowship, we oftentimes think of things like what happens during the coffee hour or what happens between things at church, between Sunday school and worship, between meetings. Sometimes we think of church dinners, church dinners ergo is fellowship, but that is not really what biblical fellowship is. That’s getting acquainted, that’s chewing the fat, but that’s not what real fellowship is all about.
The Greek word is koinonia and it is very different. What is koinonia? There are four basic things that are part of koinonia or real fellowship. The first one is belonging. We call it membership. Ephesians 2:19 says this: “You are members of God’s very own family… and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian.” You are members of God’s very own family and you belong to God’s household with every other Christian. When we were physically born, you became a member of your family automatically, but that is not true with belonging to the people of God. When we are spiritually reborn, when we make a Christian commitment to God, he makes us a part of the family; it is something we have to choose. We have to choose to belong.
I have heard this question a lot: Pastor, can’t I be a Christian and not belong to a church? My answer is I think that is a nonsensical question. It doesn’t make any sense. I know why people say it. They have been hurt. They have been disillusioned. Some of it is out of a sense of selfishness, to be quite frank with you. It is like saying, I’m a football player but I don’t want to belong to a team. It is like saying, I’m a soldier but I don’t want to belong to the army. I’m an employee of DuPont but I don’t want to sign a contract. I want to be part of a country club but I don’t want to apply for membership. Now imagine golfing at some of the most exclusive country clubs but not wanting to be a member there. It doesn’t work. It’s not going to happen. The same thing is true with saying I want to be a Christian but I don’t want to belong to a church, and it is dangerous.
Think of the analogy that Jesus uses for the church. One analogy is sheep. Where is the most dangerous place for a sheep to be? Alone. It is a dangerous thing. We need each other and we need to belong to a church.
Another analogy for the church is the bride of Christ. Revelations 19:7 says this: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him Glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” Picturing the church as a bride, what is your relationship like with his church, with his bride? How have you treated his bride? A lot of people say, I love God but I can’t stand the church. What you are saying is that you don’t like, or you hate, what God loves. Ephesians 5:25 says that he gave his life for the church. When we say that we don’t love the church, we’re saying that we don’t love what God loves - what he gave his life for. Yes, but you know, the politics, the hard people, the people who are hard to love, the gossip, the unchristian-like behavior…
If you are saying the church is imperfect, you are right, but where else are you going to go? There are no perfect churches because there are no perfect people. When you go home, you will still experience an imperfect church because you are imperfect as well. As one author says, “Stop griping. If the church were perfect, you couldn’t belong.” Stop judging people. God himself does not judge a person until he is dead so why should we.
What is your relationship with the bride of Christ? Have you made a commitment to her? I know for some Christians, they date a very long time; if you have been dating the church a long time the question is when are we going to get married? Some Christians live with the bride of Christ for a long time and never make a commitment . . . is that right? Some Christians are promiscuous with the bride of Christ in that they go partner to partner to partner to partner to the next exciting thing and never make a commitment. Other believers are serial divorcees in that they make a commitment, they get offended and they leave, and they make a commitment, they get offended and they leave . . . is that right?
All of these relationships, all these styles of marriage do not work in real physical marriage and they don’t work in the church. They don’t work in your spiritual life either. God wants you to make a commitment. You were created for fellowship and fellowship begins with making a commitment, but fellowship doesn’t end there. Fellowship begins with making a commitment but it continues as we share our lives with others; we call this friendship. Acts 2:44 says this: “All the believers met together constantly and shared everything with each other.” Note two operative words. All the believers met together constantly and shared everything with each other. What is vital for creating friendships in the church are two things – these basic two things. You can’t have friendship without meeting together and you can’t have friendship without sharing. So many people today are alone and feel lonely because they are not taking time to develop friendships; friendships take time. If you want the sense of friendship in the church, it means making it a priority - taking the time to develop that friendship and taking time to spend with each other.
It also involves sharing three particular things. It involves sharing our experiences. Proverbs 27:17: “People learn from one another, just as iron sharpens iron.” I think we can really benefit from this because so often we are going it alone. We are reinventing the wheel in every area of our life. You know what, if you keep trying to do that, trying to figure out life on your own, what is going to happen? You will spend the rest of your life trying to figure it out and by the time you figure it out, it is time to die. If you want to figure life out, what we need to do is learn from each other’s experiences. There are people who have already done what we are about to do, whose skills, education and experience are vital for us.
One area is parenting. A lot of parents are struggling because they think they have to reinvent the wheel to discover what parenting really is. There have been thousands and thousands of generations who have gone before us, who have raised children, and if we would only listen to the proverbial wisdom handed down, we wouldn’t have to be so frustrated in child-rearing, with all the trial and error, and hit and miss. I encourage every couple that has newborn children, every new parent, to find a mentor couple, someone who has already raised their children successfully, and learn from them. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. You do not have to be so frustrated in your life. Just follow Proverbs 27:7.
It is also important for us to share our home as 1 Peter 4:9 says: “Open your homes to each other.” Let me teach you a secret. It has been a frustration of White Clay for a long time, and here it is: You can’t find fellowship during worship. You can’t find fellowship Sunday morning. You can chew the fat. You can get acquainted but you can’t find fellowship in a crowd. I know a lot of churches try to define themselves as a fellowship where everyone knows everything about each other. You know how small a church has to get to really experience that type of fellowship? I pastored a church that was down to 45 members and they still didn’t know each other. You know how many people you can really get to know on the fellowship level, heart to heart? . . 12. So unless a church has only 12 people you will never experience true fellowship on Sunday morning. True fellowship takes place in a small group; that is why you read in scripture they meet in the temple and they meet in the home. What is the purpose of meeting in the temple? Worship. What is the purpose of meeting in the home? Fellowship, caring for one another. That is why I stress small groups.
I can tell you, for those who have joined a small group, I hear story after story after story. I have seen the story. Recently one of our members lost their mom; the funeral was way outside of town. I went to the service just to be there for the family. They are part of a covenant group, and what did I discover? Just about every member of that covenant group was there sharing in their life, sharing in their pain, upholding them, being there for each other. Some of them even took half a day off work to do it. Now that is fellowship. That is love.
Fellowship involves, as typified in that very example, not just sharing of our homes and sharing of information and experiences, it also involves sharing our problems. Galatians 6:2: “Share each other’s troubles and problems. Weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice.” But that still is not full fellowship. That is not what the scripture talks about when it says koinonia. It is still deeper. It also includes a partnership or, as we call it, ministry. 1 Corinthians 3:9a says this: “We are partners working together for God.”
Now all of us probably have a family. What do families do? I don’t know if this happened when you were a child but, when I was a child in a family of nine, we all had chores. Did you have chores when you grew up? Yes. It is what families do. Families work together. Families are a team. It is too much to do it alone. Your mom and dad can’t do it all. It is important for everyone to share the responsibilities. It makes you feel like you are part of the family, part of the team. So we divide up the workload; the same is true in the church. The church is called the body of Christ, and like the physical body, each of us has a part. Each of us is called to play that part. I encourage you to discover what part you are and where you fit in.
On May 23 we are going to unpack and talk about that more. If you want to discover where you fit in in the ministry of the church, where you can, as a family member, start helping out with the family business, then I encourage you to come May 23 and find out.
But fellowship is still more than that. Fellowship involves one more thing; and at its deepest, truest level, fellowship, koinonia involves membership; it involves sharing, it involves partnership but it also involves what I call kinship.
Punxatawny, Pennsylvania people know what kin are. My mother’s family comes from there. Do you have kin? Do you know what kin is? Kin is that deep, abiding, heartfelt, love for another person just because they are part of your family. Do you have that kind of love for God’s people? Do you have that kind of love for each other? Acts 2:42a says this: “…they were like family to each other.” Romans 12:10: “Be devoted to each other like a loving family.” We know what real love is, 1 John 3:16: “…because Christ gave up His life for us. And so we also ought to give up our lives for our Christian brothers and sisters.”
How do families, how do kin, love each other? I think kin love each other by simply accepting each other. They know that each one has faults and when they experience hurtful words or behavior, what do kin do? Kin understand. They understand the person and they overlook the offense. They don’t get upset too much by it. If they get hurt, they don’t opt out of the family, they reconcile, even if it takes the death bed. Families reconcile with each other.
Real families, kin, are unwilling to hear the slander or criticism of a family member. In fact, if you try to slander kin, they are going to fight you and protect the family and its people. With kin, you can be away from the family for a long time and when you come home, it’s home, it’s home again. You are treated just like you never left. Kin care for each other. Kin know when each other are missing. Kin know when each other are hurting and kin take care of each other. With kin, when you struggle financially, they pitch in; and when you are messing up, they come and talk to you out of love because they don’t want you to destroy and ruin your life.
Well Pastor that never happened to me and I have been part of this church for 49 years.
What I have discovered, an observation I will share with you is a principle I find in Galatians 6. You usually reap what you sow. I often hear people say that the church didn’t do this or do that, but my observation is that usually people don’t experience the full caring of the church because they haven’t gone to that level themselves. There are some people who have never even joined the church and yet they expect the church to be kin, and that just isn’t going to happen. People don’t even know your name. If you want the full care and love of the church, you have got to be a partner with it. You have got to love like a family member loves. When you are partner with the church and you love as kin to each other, people know when you are hurting and they want to reach out and care.
What I find so often is when caring doesn’t happen it is because we have remained at the level of just membership or friendship and we haven’t let anyone into our lives, so no one can care for us the way we need to be cared for. Whose fault is that? It is not the church, it is our fault because we haven’t been family to God’s family.
If I had the set-up with the new sight and sound, I would show you clips that would just touch your heart. I can’t do it but I want you to see one of these three clips. See the movie Cheaper by the Dozen, or Frequency or Planes, Trains and Automobiles and look at just the end because at the end it wraps it all up and it celebrates family. It is a wonderful picture of what family can be. But in all those films, the type of family they experience at the end took work. It took sacrifices, it took the intentional choice of putting others ahead of themselves. It took time. It took commitment. It took overlooking an offense. It took reconciliation. It took loving people and letting people into your lives.
Is it worth it? Is it worth it? I would say more than gold, more than fame, more than any position. How do I know that, because I have been around people when they die. I have buried 60 people so far. I have sat with probably 24 as they went into the next life. In every case, I have never heard anyone ask for more time with their day planner, or ask for their checkbook so they can look at it one more time, or ask for the sweeper, or to get a paintbrush, or to have their golf clubs next to their side. What do they ask for and who do they seek to reconcile with? Their family. Is it worth it? Yes. I call you to live out God’s second purpose for your life - that you were formed for God’s family. Experience God’s family in its fullness through membership, friendship, partnership and kinship.
[Let’s pray.]
