The Family of God

Bible Passage: Genesis 22:15-19

INTRO

“Soma Church exists to love the body of Christ and equip them to do the work of ministry here, near and far, all for the glory of God.”

Over the next 7 weeks, we are going to be diving into the most important institution that exists on the earth.

And in case you are wondering, it is not the United States Gov. It’s not the United Nations. It’s not the World Economic Forum, big pharma, big tech, private equity.

It’s the family. These divine God-ordained units of people is the thing on which the rest of the world is built.

I would make the claim that this means as the family goes, so does the rest of the culture…

I am not alone in this thought either as many prolific christian thinkers have held to this opinion throughout church history.

“You are not likely to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation. Some little religion there may be, here and there; but while it is confined to single persons, and is not promoted in families, it will not prosper, nor promise much future increase.” - Richard Baxter

If the family really is the bedrock of society and the building block of culture, then it should be no surprise to us that we live in a day in which family is under spiritual attack.

Some prime examples of this being…

The demonic, idolatrous and systemic slaughter of children in the womb at the hands of abortion.

Marriage rates are beginning to steadily decline while rates of cohabitation are trending up each and every year.

This has been proven to be detrimental to the long term health and success of marriages and displays an unwillingness to fully commit to a person.

According to Gallup, 69% of Americans affirm same sex marriage and relationships which are contrary to God’s design for sexuality, family and human flourishing.

These are just a few examples that we can point to of direct attacks on God’s intent and design for family.

For many of us hearing these things can make it easy puff our chests, point our fingers and think that we are off the hook for this.

But I would also contend that this cultural decline in the sacred view of family is largely due to the church failing to understand herself what it truly is and how to do it for the glory of God.

Just because your family may look “biblical” does not mean that it is functioning in a biblical way.

The reality is that we have willingly given ground to the culture due to our apathy and lack of biblical literacy on this issue and others.

With that in mind, I am praying that the next 7 weeks are healing, informative and sanctifying for us as The Soma of Jesus Christ.

But before we jump into various topics like singleness, marriage, manhood, womanhood and legacy, I think it is right for us to talk first about The Family of God.

This global family of humans from every nation, tribe and tongue to which those who profess faith in Jesus belong to.

BODY

Turn in your bibles with me to Genesis chapter 22 and while you do that let me introduce you to a man named Abram

Abram was a descendant of Adam and Eve’s son Seth who lived in a place called Ur which was controlled at the time by the Chaldeans

He was not a worshipper of God until one day God came to Abram, told him to pick up his family along with everything he owned and go to a land that God will show Him.

He ends up settling in the land of Canaan which God would give to the Israelite people as their home. What we often call “The Promise Land.”

Abram had a wife named Sarai and the Bible tells us that she was unable to have children.

Because of this, you can imagine how surprise Abram must have been when God told him in Gen 15

Genesis 15:5 ESV

And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Years go by and…

Genesis 17:1–7 ESV

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

God reminds Abraham of his promise from a couple chapters prior and a year later Abram and Sarai now have new names (Abraham & Sarah) and a something else that is new Genesis 21:1-7

Genesis 21:1–7 ESV

The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

A few years into their baby boys life, God decides to put Abraham to the test and asks him to do something quite strange. He asks him to take him up on mount Moriah and offer Isaac as a burnt offering

So Abraham makes preparations, and he along with his son Isaac and his servants begin to scale the mountain.

Along the way, Isaac asks his dad where they will be getting the lamb for their sacrifice and full of faith, Abraham tells the boy that “God will provide”

The rest of the story says that Abraham reaches the place where God had led them, he prepares the altar, lays his son Isaac on it, raises his knife to obey God’s command when he hears from heaven the angel of the LORD say to Him…

Genesis 22:11–14 ESV

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Moved by Abraham’s obedience, God intervenes before any harm can come to Abraham’s son and he provides another sacrifice in place of the boy.

And we jump down a few verses and see God say this to Abraham…

Genesis 22:15–18 ESV

And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

God has now given more revelation to Abraham, telling him that not only will his descendants be innumerable but through them, all of the nations of the earth will be blessed.

I imagine Abraham thought about those words often

“How will that happen?” “Through my family every nation that walks the earth will be blessed.”

That is a gigantic promise that God has made with his man.

Abraham lived to be 175 years old before he died. From there, we read of many amazing and terrible things that Abrahams descendants go on to do and become

But then we get to the right side of the book, the NT and hundreds of years later, in the opening pages of Matthew, we see a familiar character appear…

Matthew 1:1 ESV

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Matthew calls Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham

Meaning that Jesus can be directly traced back to Abraham across hundreds of years of people. 28 generations to be exact.

the reason that this is an important detail of the story this morning is that God comes through on his promises.

The arrival, the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus is all God making good on His promise to Abraham.

Jesus is the son who was taken up the hill and was sacrificed for sins. Isaac was spared and Jesus was crushed.

Galatians 3:7–9 ESV

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

God has not only given Abraham many generations of descendants in his direct blood line, he has also numbered his descendants as many as there are stars in the sky through the people that Jesus has brought in through being the payment for our sins.

By faith in Christ, we get to have the opportunity to step into God’s family…

CLOSING

You may be wondering why we are kicking off a very practical series on family with such an in depth look into things like God covenant with Abraham or the lineage of Jesus.

The reason for this is, every practical piece of wisdom we can give you is folly if we are not anchored first in the fact that God has and is calling us to be his sons and daughters

We belong first in the family of God and I want you to see that from the dawn of creation, for generations, He has been working and moving toward the day when he would call you a son or a daughter.

So yes, each of us in this room have a last name. We belong to some group of people.

But more important than that is for us to grasp that we get to call God “Abba Father” if we would place our faith in Jesus.

Some people here today might be struggling with the fact that we are gonna talk about family for the next 6 weeks because family is a sore subject for you…

If that is you, I am so sorry but I want you to know that whatever model of family you have had, broken marriage, abuse, absent parents, toxic relationships, sibling rivalries, my Fathers family is so much better.

Not because all of the people are perfect, but because my Father is.

If you have never stepped into the family of God today, would today be the day that you repent, believe the gospel by faith and come home.

For those who are in the family, would we not step back in here next week without taking some time to marvel and praise God for the family that He has called us into.

PRAY