Family Renewal

Family

Yesterday we celebrated the great “exchanging of gifts.” Just from the picture you can see… it took awhile. We took breaks.

Problem the first: Karen and I got lots of our shopping done early. Then we saw more great things. Then we try and even things up. Before you know it every kid has 47 presents.

Then we take them all to dollar tree and they get eachother gifts. Then comes Santa... And we have 7 people… and a dog. It took a minute.

It was glorious, wonderful, beautiful. And not because all the gifts were perfect and we got everything our hearts desired.

Because it was time together… and the kids were so kind and loving towards one another, even with occasional tears and robot arm pinches… or swords to the face… or Nerf darts shot to the face… my house is kind of dangerous.

Such a great time to gather together as family.

I pray that you had good time together as a family, whatever your “family” looks like.

… and that doesn’t stop. No matter what else your family looks like… this is family today, isn’t it..

We had a little family prayer and praise night on Tuesday night with some good friends in town. One of them asked “what has God taught you through Corona this year?”

He has taught me how much I love y’all… my church family… how beautifully precious our community is… and also how fragile it can be.

The beautiful story of Christmas morning is, as we discussed, messy and so very human… even as the heavens burst out in heavenly chorus to declare how glorious it all is.

The glory peeks through… but every day is characterized by family and community. The “Christmas story” continues… and continues for the next 33 years as the story of Jesus - God the Son - completely embedded in family and church and neighborhood.

We get a couple glimpses.

We have this great story of Jesus and his family traveling to the temple. The original “Home Alone”

Luke 2:41–51 ESV

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

So much we learn in that. That Jesus was aware of his calling, of his origins, at least by 12. That we was precocious, already knowledgeable and wise at 12… and let me tell, that isn’t generally the case for 12 year olds!

It tells us of Jesus being obedient to his parents, submissive to them...

But it also gives a glimpse of life in the Joseph house. Being such a part of the community that you just assume someone’s got an eye on your boy.

Luke 2:44 ESV

but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances,

Where’s Kevin???

Where’s Jesus? Aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and neighbors. These are people from Nazareth, from Galilee, who have joined up in caravan together to make the annual (or twice or thrice annual) pilgrimage down to Jerusalem. They are going to “Conference.”

It sounds like life! It sounds like family.

That’s a challenge for this community, for this family. They see Jesus so much in the everyday… that they have the absolute HARDEST time receiving Jesus as extraordinary.

Almost 20 years later:

Luke 4:16 ESV

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.

Note: Jesus was in the custom of going to church (aka synagogue) every Sabbath day. This was the pattern of Jesus and the early disciples, and it carried right through after his death and resurrection.

More importantly… this has been his custom… and we can expect this was his custom here especially in his hometown. This was the church, the synagogue, where he had attended and, maybe often, done the “reading and commentary” (aka preaching the “sermon”) many many times before.

And here he is, back in town, and he is invited to do the reading of the day.

Luke 4:17–22 ESV

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

They have a hard time receiving him.

Here they are marveling, Jesus is going to press the issue a bit and it doesn’t go “well.”

And he says “no prophet is acceptable in his hometown...” and they get furious and kick him out of town, and he sneaks or turns incorporeal, he magics his way out and escapes.

That is important… but that isn’t what struck me.

What struck me is that Jesus had a local church - a place where “everybody knows your name...”

The salvation story is worked out in community - through FAMILY.

And then Jesus announced… by his 2nd cousin.

His church after he resurrects - led by his half brother James.

Let’s read the begats, the lineage of Jesus. Boring to read… until you start recognizing and unpacking all those stories. It is God working through family and through community to rescue his LARGER and LARGEST family.

We Are Family

2020. At the beginning of 2020 I said we would be seeking vision that year. How God has answered that prayer:

God answered in a big way. Not small changes to who we are.

Re-examining who we are, who we have always been, what we are called to do. I don’t like some of those answers, they make me uncomfortable....

But this part is absolutely core and fundamental to who we are. We are family.

Sermon Plan A was a walk through covenant in the Bible. Covenant with Noah, with Abraham, with David, connecting with Jeremiah and Ezekiel… and the new covenant in Jesus.

Here was my conviction on Thursday… we don’t need that. We don’t need a study in covenant. It all boils down to this.

How do we become family?

How did we become family?

That’s a dumb question for some of us… we literally are family. Connected by marriage or blood or long history.

But there is this model for becoming “family” we see over and over in Scripture. In the covenant of marriage, two “unrelated” people become family.

Even in the covenant with God, God doesn’t stay the distant Suzerain (or monarch) demanding everything while giving nothing… he enters into mutual covenant.

A covenant is this:

COVENANT (בְּרִית, berith; διαθήκη, diathēkē). A sacred kinship bond between two parties, ratified by swearing an oath.

Covenant is how we become family. Not like a contract which says “this is yours, that is mine”. A covenant is an exchange of life, a measure of “I am yours, you are mine.”

We are family.

We don’t always do that well. We aren’t always faithful in living up to everything our covenant calls us to.

2021

Here is my vision for 2021. I have shared this “covenant language” before. I’ll share it again.

As disciples of Jesus we covenant together to love God and love others, inside and outside the fellowship, by the Spirit of God, in sacrifice, submission and trust, we are on mission: to encourage and equip one another to take the next bold step in being and making disciples of Jesus.

Step 1 - I want you all to prayerfully consider adopting this as our official covenant. This is a heavy decision… because we call ourselves a “covenant community.”

This shapes and defines “who we are.” I will send out formal proposals for our “business meeting” and all that good stuff.

That is window dressing. This is a family meeting.

Is this who we are as a family? Is this who we want to be? I’ll be as frank and clear as I can be… I believe this is who God is calling us to be.

This didn’t come from on high on Mount Sinai. It is shaped by the “one another” verses in Scripture and all of our talks over these last years… but it isn’t sacred language. I invite you to wrestle with the words, to challenge me on the ideas…

Because if we take this on as our covenant, this becomes the definition of who we are… and then 2021 is all about living it out.

Making it specific.

Making it habitual.

Making it real.

We aren’t this today. We know that. This covenant is aspirational.

But that’s just the beginning of 2021. This sets the stage.

Are we yet doing all these things? Even getting started has been difficult.

Love God

Hard news, we aren’t doing this yet. Good news, we will be growing in this for an eternity!

Loving one another in the fellowship.

It is BEAUTIFUL to see some relationships being healed, seeing reconciliation happening. We have far and far to go and we aren’t done here yet. These stories aren’t over.

A huge step has occurred in this last year, stripping away a “culture of silence” and allowing us to talk about these.

Loving outside the fellowship, starting with the homeless community here around us. I have had some folks ask, “why the homeless” and who decided that?

I believe God has specifically called us to focus here… and has been calling us over and over again to it for many years. We have only just begun to explore what we could do here. We need to walk this out, live this out in 2021.

Being bold witnesses...

Sharing our testimonies with one another, that’s a good start. We need to walk this out, take actual next steps in reshaping our expectations, our habits, our witness in 2021.

And how are all these grounded in Scripture? Paul gives us an awesome picture of the church, a church where Paul served for years, in 1 Corinthians. I can’t promise we won’t take some topical diversions along the way, as God leads… but that will be our next expositional journey and I am SUPER looking forward to it.

That’s all coming.

But we decide… “we are family.” We are covenant family, because we solemnly and joyfully covenant together, because we choose to be, we commit to be… and only and always because God has called us out to bring us together, to work in us and to work through us.