Enjoying, Not Exploiting, the Family

Enjoying the family

Do you have a favourite family photo? Our house is covered in family photos - we love being surrounded by them. Here’s one I noticed this week:

What do you see when you look at a photo like this? Each one has a story behind it. This is when we were on holiday with our wider family in France years ago - when our kids were still wee. The weather wasn’t so good so we drove miles and miles to get to what we thought would be a brilliant family swimming pool with slides and waves and all that. But when we finally arrived, it turned out it was a French public holiday - and so the pool was closed! And then, as we sat in the carpark, wondering what to do next, it started to rain! Despite it all, we actually ended up having the best picnic I’ve ever had in a bus shelter - thanks to Rachael’s mum.

When I see a photo like this, when I remember the story, I can feel that love we experienced as a family that day. Family is mean to be a place of love, a place of care, a place of warmth. I know this isn’t everyone’s experience of family - it’s not ours all the time, and for some it’s never been - but this is the design. One of the original languages of the bible, Greek, has a special word for that family love: philadelphia

We’ve been working our way through a letter written nearly two thousand years ago by a group of early Christians who started a church in the Greek city of Thessalonica. After being forced out of the city by persecution, they’re writing to the nascent church they left behind, giving them encouragement and instruction. Today, their instructions turn to exactly this kind of family love. - in fact, the writers pick up this exact word, philadelphia, familial-love, and they use it in a way no-one else had done before. In the passage we’re going to read today, they apply it to the church; the church should be a place of this family love.

Ben’s going to read for us today from first Thessalonians, chapter 4, starting at verse 9. Over to Ben.

1 Thessalonians 4:9–10 NIV

Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more,

Thanks Ben. When you heard “love for one another”, that’s this word, philadephia - up to this point basically only ever used for the love within a family. But here’s the thing: the authors are writing to a church, not a family. So what? Church is meant to be a family. An extraordinary family.

When you think about what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be a part of a Church, this actually makes total sense. See, every true follower of Jesus, the bible tells us, has been adopted - adopted by God who has become our Father. That’s why Jesus’ famous prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, starts with “Our Father” - because, although we still have physical parents, we’re now a part of God’s family. He’s brought us into it on a one-way ticket, no going back. He’s made us as much his children as Jesus himself. Just like when a family today adopts a child, they become part of the family, a child just like any of the others.

Paul, one of Jesus’ first followers, and one of the authors of the passage we’re studying today speaks about this in another of his letters. Gal 3:26 says

Galatians 3:26 NIV

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,

Children of God! Think about that for a moment! But if we’re adopted into God’s family, that means more than just God is our Father. That vertical relationship also changes our horizontal relationships. It means we have a whole new family, not just a new Father. It means all followers of Jesus - anywhere, anyhow and anywhen we were adopted - suddenly have a new family of brothers and sisters.

An extraordinary family - made up of such radically different children anyone looking on would scratch their heads in wonder. Paul goes on to write in Gal 3:28

Galatians 3:28 NIV

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Staggering things happened in the church family: Jew and Gentile suddenly became sisters; slave and free suddenly became brothers. The result? A Jew would happily share a meal with a Gentile - shocking in their culture, but normal for a family. A slave would sit at a table with his master as if they were family - something you’d see nowhere else. Rich and poor together as family. Old and young as siblings. Women and men, brought together into one family under God through Christ.

And as we’re adopted into this family, we should expect to live together with love. To receive love from our family - and to give it to our family. Being family means there should be love - and there is in this ancient church: remember from our bible reading, “about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” That’s within that one local gathering of Christians in Thessalonica - an extraordinary and countercultural family, living out family love. But as we read on, it stretched further “in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia” - this family relationship, and this family love, stretches to people they’ve probably never even met in other cities - suddenly brothers and sisters.

What does this mean for us here and now? Well, imagine how you - at your best moments, and when family life is warmest - imagine how you might act out love in your family. What have you done for your brother or sister, your father or son, your mother or daughter at your best moments? What does love look like in practice? [pause]

A few weeks back, in our evening gathering we were talking about what it means to serve one another with love - and as a part of that we gathered up an anonymous list of all the wonderful ways our church family had been living out love for one another and for others over these last months. It was super-inspiring: baking, chatting, feeding, listening, writing, sharing, making, helping, gardening, praying, standing with people in their sorrow or loneliness. Family love.

It’s so encouraging to think about all that’s going on. But despite that good report - remember how our reading ended? “Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more.” I guess it’s kind of obvious when you think about it that, while there were good things to report, they hadn’t reached the limit of what family love could look like - and neither have we. If you want to know what the limit to family love looks like, look to Jesus. Jesus shows us perfect family love - and he’s the example for us to emulate. The bible tells us in 1 John 3:16

1 John 3:16 NIV

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

There are always more ways to live out this family love, and more people to include in it. But why do we need this urging to go further?

Sometimes I’m just so busy with myself - my own world, my own life - that I forget about others and need a reminder.

Sometimes I’m held back by the cost - things I know I could do, acts of love, feel so costly it makes my stomach turn just to think about them. I’m going to need someone to push me off the cliff if I’m ever actually going do it. My wife’s good at that.

Sometimes I can feel so different from other people that I’m afraid of being close to them and I need a cattle-prod to get up close and personal - but there should be nowhere in our world where we find all classes, all nations, all kinds of people more united than a church family.

And let’s be honest: sometimes there are people I just find hard - but I need to be reminded we don’t get to choose our family. Family isn’t always easy - but it’s still family.

So, Family love - as God’s new-made family, we should have family love - and we do. Yet there’s always room for more.

But what if this isn’t your experience?

Well, imagine if you could just join a family - who would you choose? The Windsors with all their castles? The Kardashians with all their fame? The Bezos’s with all their cash? Each of those could be cool - but you can’t just join a family, just opt in one day and show up for dinner. Imagine if someone did that to you - just walked in and sat down at your table!

Here’s the amazing thing, though: If you’d like a family like this - imperfect, no question - but a real family with real family love - if you’d like a family like this, here’s the good news: unlike your average earthly family, you can just join. Today, even. The door is wide open, and the table’s set.

What makes the church a family is our one Father, God. If you’ve never known what it is to have God as your father, if that sounds too good to be true, just impossible — or if you feel like you walked away from Him long ago and now you’re too far from home to ever come back - know this: God invites you to join his family through Jesus. God offers you a welcome, he has a place for you - no matter who you are or what you’ve done or where you’ve been. All of our baggage, all of our mistakes, everything which would separate us from God, Jesus took on himself at the cross - so you can be freed from it and come home.

Do you want to be a part of his family? If you’re watching live and you’re ready to respond right now, in the chat window, you’ll see an opportunity to raise your hand, virtually, and to reach out to God. Our team are ready to pray with you and help you take your first steps into his family. Would you reach out to God right now?

Rather just put a toe in the water? Stick around at the end of the stream and join me for zoom coffee in the studio. If you’re watching a recording, just email me: [e-mail] - or why not join us for Christianity Explored, starting next Sunday at 5pm? A chance to examine the primary sources for yourself and talk through the basics of the Christian faith.

Join the family. At least put a toe in the water.

But what if you’re already in the family - and this still isn’t your experience? What if you feel excluded rather than at home, what if you feel ignored rather than loved?

Well the first thing to say is sorry. I’m sorry that’s not been your experience. We are not even nearly a perfect church and we don’t get this right. I’m sorry you’ve not felt or experienced that family love. Know that this is our aspiration. Publicly, as one of the leaders here, I tell you this is what we believe church should be. This is what we aspire to, what we will keep on working towards.

If this is how you feel, here’s what I’d ask you to do:

First, tell someone. Pigeonhole’s probably not the best place for this so why not email me or talk to anyone you know here. Help us see where we’ve got it wrong, and try to make it right - because we do aspire to this love.

Second, step forward rather than stepping back. The temptation when you’re struggling with a group, not feeling a part of it, is to withdraw, to retreat - or to just stay on the edge, keeping your distance, and to wait for someone to reach out to you. We all want to be pursued. But can I challenge you instead, if you’re feeling that way, to choose to step forward rather than step back? There are lots of ways to get connected at Hope City. Join us for coffee after the gathering. Join our Facebook group - even if you don’t do facebook or like facebook. Comment and join in rather than just lurk! Join our evening gatherings where there are small groups. Even just once - we start a new series next week. Volunteer to serve somewhere - and meet a team through that.

Or could you go even further? Even though it’s a cheesy phrase, could you “be the change you want to see”: step out and start showing that family love to others in the way you wish you had been loved. Model it for the people around you. See, it’s not only and always from the top that organisations change - you have the power to start a revolution in family love here.

And if you’re watching this morning, and you’re feeling the love and being that love - at least to some extent - then today’s passage says to you: “we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more.” So here’s my question for you: how could you take it up a notch? How could you act out this family love to others at church, perhaps others who are radically different to you?

Perhaps there’s an opportunity in the new Lockdown extended householding for you, as a single, to show love to a family, or as a family, to show love to a single? Perhaps there’s an opportunity to show love in permitted outdoor gatherings - to parents who need a break or people who are feeling isolated? So often, simply listening is showing love. Perhaps there’s a need that only you know of, one you could secretly meet. Perhaps if you just picked someone and considered what might show love to them, you’d be inspired? Perhaps you could simply commit to pray for someone regularly? That’s love in action. Perhaps there’s someone who really needs a deeper friend - and that could be you?

stop + think: what is God saying to you this morning? what will you do? It’s too easy to have the moment come and go so I’m going to give us a minute right now to think - why not put something in your calendar, write yourself a to-do, or start an email to someone?

<60s slide v 9-10, “what is God saying to you?”, backing music>

exploiting the family

So far this morning we’ve been talking about family love - but the letter we’ve been studying doesn’t stop with this urging to love more - the authors have something else they want to address in relation to this family love: people who exploit it. Let’s have Ben read to us again those verses we’ve already looked at - and also what follows:

1 Thessalonians 4:9–12 NIV

Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

Thanks Ben. So what’s going on in that second section of our passage? Let me pull this apart for you so you can see the structure more clearly: There are two things the authors are urging here:

we urge you brother and sisters

to do so more and more

and

to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life

That second one needs some explanation - what do the authors mean by a “leading a quiet life” - is this about a vow of silence, monk style? What’s that got to do with family love?! Well the original language there is a bit tricky to capture in English - but fortunately they’ve gone on to spell out what they mean! What’s a quiet life?

You should

mind your own business

work with your hands - just as we told you

“mind your own business” there doesn’t have that negative sense of “get your nose out of my business” - it’s “do your own things”

So, to summarise, “get busy”! There are different theories about exactly why these Thessalonians would need that “get busy” instruction - if you want to explore, take a look at the background video I posted to Facebook on Thursday - but it’s clear there was a particular problem; the church startup-team saw it coming and have obviously modelled working hard rather than living off of hand-outs and taught about it already. Alas, it’s still a problem when they’re writing - and when they later write again, it seems to be an even bigger problem: 2 Thes 3:6-11.

But if it’s not clear what the problem is, what is clear? What can we learn here?

First, the church community, the church family, was a place of radical generosity. That’s why there was the potential for an issue here: people in need knew they could count on the generosity of their church family - on account of that family love. And you can see that’s the pattern from the dawn of the church: Acts 2:44-45 describes the church like this:

Acts 2:44–45 NIV

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

A little later it’s described similarly:

Acts 4:32–35 NIV

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Family love looks after the weak; family love looks after the needy. Here at Hope City we have something called the Care Fund for precisely this reason: so we’re ready to look after the needy among us. We have money set aside, ready for this right now - and we know this is a stretching and difficult time for many. There’s no shame in asking for help, in letting your church family help you in a time of need - instead it’s our duty, our honour and our joy to look after one another. Jesus says it’s more blessed to give than to receive so actually you’re letting others be blessed by allowing them to give and share with you in your need. If you find yourself in need - for whatever reason - please reach out to your church family. You can do that privately by emailing [e-mail] and we’ll keep things as confidential as you like.

The thing is, back in Thessalonica it seems this reputation, and this pattern of generosity and care was being exploited. Think about a family: we provide for our children, we feed them - but everyone has a part to play in the family. Perhaps for our youngest, it’s just clearing their table or tidying their room. As children become more able, it’s only right that they play a larger part in the work of the family, that they learn to pull their weight - ready to provide for themselves when the time comes.

The Christian pattern, set out clearly here, the norm, is working to provide for yourself rather than being dependent on others. In fact elsewhere the writers go further, and call us to work so we can provide for ourselves and have something to share with those in need. Ephesians 4:28. In fact, Christianity views work as a whole positively rather than negatively which is unusual. So much of the ancient world, and so many today think of work as a necessary evil. Something we have to put up with for 40 years of before we can finally retire. Something unfortunate people do when they can’t see how to avoid it. But at creation, we’re told God worked. Humankind are created with work to do - this before the fall, when God declared everything very good. Work gives dignity, purpose, satisfaction, meaning.

Now it’s really important we recognise there are situations where people can’t work, where this simply isn’t possible - as a result, people end up in need, and it’s right then to expect provision and care. Perhaps less often in our context, where there’s a strong state safety net - but still.

This current crisis has had a dramatic impact on many people’s jobs - furlough for some, jobs simply gone for others - and there’s probably harder times yet to come - so it may well be the case for you, or for someone you know, that there isn’t work to come by. For others it may be health, or the need to care for or support others that makes work impossible. If that’s you, again, there’s no shame in looking to your church family for help. That’s not what’s in view in the passage we’re looking at. Family looks after its needy.

The problem is when this family love is exploited. And that’s perhaps the biggest thing to learn here, rather than just focusing in on work: when church is our family, everyone in the family should be playing their part - driven by love - and not exploiting others. There are lots of opportunities to play a part in the life of Hope City - each year we try and ask everyone who’s a regular where they might be willing to serve in the year ahead. Putting together something like this Sunday morning takes a lot of people behind the scenes - did you see the list of names on our credits slide?

But it’s not just in these roles, these formal slots that we get to play our part and live out love inside the church family - in fact there are so many more ways we can live out love for one another, and many times these informal acts of love are the ones that really matter. There are things you can do whether your young or old, whether you’re a techie or not, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert. Sure, it might take some thinking, some asking, some exploring to find out how you can play your part, how you can love others in your church family. But really it’s just our lack of imagination and effort in thinking through the opportunities that limits us here.

So let’s stop again for a moment and think: if you’re a part of this church family, how could you play your part in making Hope City a family of love?

60s, background music

So, family. Family love. Playing your part. Here’s the amazing thing: Jesus isn’t just the model for us of what family love looks like, laying down his life for his new brothers and sisters - Jesus also tells us this is how we will be known his followers: by showing that same love for our church family.

John 13:35 NIV

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Let me pray that we’d know Jesus’ family love, and that as a result we’d be a family of love.

[prayer]

today we’re going to use a song to respond - one you can sing as your own prayer in response to today’s passage as we reflect on how the Father loves us, how Jesus loves us, asking that we might have that same love: Give us your heart. Let’s sing together with our musicians now: