The Family of God

Matthew 12:46-50

One of the biggest misconceptions in our culture today concerning religion is that we are all God’s children. There are many who believe that because we are all humans created in the image of God, we are His children.

It’s true that God is the creator of us all. But it is not true that He is the Father of us all. Jesus shocked the religious establishment when He told some of the leaders that they belonged to their father, the devil. On another occasion, explaining the parable of the wheat and the tares, Jesus said that the tares are the children of the wicked one (13:38). The truth is God is only our Father if Jesus is Savior.

Our text today makes this point crystal clear. This morning we’re going to consider the family of God. I want you to see three things in this section of Scripture:

1. Jesus did not allow His earthly family to interrupt His heavenly ministry (46-48).

2. Jesus identifies His true family (49).

3. Jesus invites others into his family (50).

1. Jesus did not allow His earthly family to interrupt His heavenly ministry (46-48).

A. Jesus had an earthly family.

According to 13:55 Jesus had at least four brothers and some sisters as well.

None of His brothers believed in Him until after He had risen from the dead (John 7:5, Acts 1:14). Joseph was probably dead. At this time, the only person who believed He was the Messiah in His family was likely Mary.

Mark’s gospel (3:20-35) sheds more light on this situation. Jesus had not rested or eaten in some time. Some of Jesus friends were beginning to worry about Him. In fact, they were afraid Jesus had lost His mind.

Jesus wasn’t eating much.

Jesus was claiming to be the Savior of the world.

Jesus was developing powerful enemies that could have Him killed.

They did what most earthly families would do. They tried to have an intervention of sorts. If Jesus wouldn’t come home, then they would go and get Him. They probably thought they were saving Jesus’ life.

This isn’t the only time something like this happened in the life of Jesus. When He was 12, He scared his parents. He stayed behind in Jerusalem after the Passover celebration. His parents thought He was with the group as they traveled home. When they returned to Jerusalem to get Him, they found Him in the Temple amazing the teachers of the Law with His knowledge. Mary scolded Jesus. Jesus told her He had to be about His Father’s business.

For some time, Jesus earthly family didn’t understand Jesus heavenly ministry. Eventually they come around. They are saved after His resurrection. Two of His brothers, James and Jude, would even go on to write books in your Bible.

B. Jesus earthly family was made up of sinners.

I’ve already talked about His brothers. Let’s talk about Mary for a moment. The Catholic church teaches things about Mary that are contradicted here.

That teach that she remained a virgin for the rest of her life. Clearly, she didn’t. She had at least seven children (13:55).

They also teach that Mary has influence over Jesus. The reason Catholics pray to Mary is they believe she is the Mother of God can get Him to do things easier than a sinful person could.

When we look at this text Mary doesn’t have any more influence over Jesus than anyone else. In fact, she is trying to get Jesus to stop preaching. If Jesus had listened to Mary He would have departed from the will of God.

Jesus refusal to come out and speak to Mary and His brothers is a rebuke against them. Jesus isn’t abandoning His family. He’s not disrespecting them at all. He simply cannot put His family before the will of God.

By the way, could you imagine how this went over?

Jesus is in this house preaching.

His mom and brothers knock on the door and say they need Jesus to come out and talk with them.

Someone goes back and tells Jesus His mom and brothers are at the door and they need to talk to Him.

They come back to the door and tell Mary and her sons “He says were His mother and brothers.”

What could they say to that? They were probably confused and thought He had certainly lost His mind.

C. Jesus gave us an example to follow.

The will of God comes first.

We are required to love our spouse.

We are required to provide for our family.

We are required to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

We should be devoted to our family. But our first devotion is to God. If we have to choose between our family and God, we are required to choose God.

Because we have an earthly family made up of sinners there are times they will seek to pull us away from God.

They may try to pull us away from the church.

They may try to get us to quit sharing the truth of the gospel.

They may try to change our mind on a Biblical truth.

When we stand firm, it doesn’t mean we don’t love our family. It means we love the Lord more than anyone else.

If our earthly family forsakes us, we have the comfort of knowing we belong to a greater family. We belong to the family of God.

2. Jesus identified His true family (49).

A. He belonged to them.

He stretched forth His hand and pointed at His disciples. Not just the twelve, but all who were following Him. I love that He pointed toward His disciples.

He specifically identified them.

There is a dignity in that.

There are people we are kin to, but we don’t go around broadcasting it. Just looking at Jesus disciples there are some guys in there we couldn’t blame Him if He didn’t want to claim them.

Big-mouthed Peter who denied him.

Thomas who doubted Him.

James and John who were often on an ego trip.

Matthew who had been a thieving tax collector.

Stretching forth His hand He publicly claims them as His own. He is saying “I belong to them!”

In Philippians 3:8 Paul said

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

If we are saved Christ is ours.

There is an intimacy in family expressed through language. When speaking of your family you use specific language to identify the people who belong to you.

There is Your Mama.

There is your daddy.

There is your brother.

There is your sister.

They belong to you.

Because of Christ there is an intimacy in our language concerning God.

Aren’t you glad He is Christ Jesus OUR Lord?

Aren’t you glad He is OUR Father who art in heaven?

Aren’t you glad you can say the Lord is MY Shepherd?

Hebrews 2:11 says

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers;

in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

You’ll get to heaven because Christ will identify with you. The Bible says He will confess your name before the Father. He will declare before all of heaven that you are a part of His family.

What dignity there is in that!

We are children of the King!

We are sons and daughters of the Most High God!

We are a royal priesthood!

We are a chosen generation!

If we are saved Christ belongs to us.

B. They belonged to one another.

It only follows that if God is their Father then they must all be brothers and sisters. The church is made up of brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is the greater family. A family is not complete until all the members of that family know Christ.

It’s a wonderful thing to have children. Two of the happiest days of my life were February 22, 2000 and July 31, 2003. That’s when my children were born. Listen to me though…

The joy of children born is surpassed by the joy of children reborn.

There is not rejoicing in heaven when a child is born. There is joy on earth no doubt. But the Bible says when a person is reborn there is rejoicing in heaven.

When my children were reborn our family was truly complete.

When my son become my brother, we were complete!

When my daughter became my sister, we were complete!

My joy was full when my children came to Christ. My goal as a parent is not that my children would grow up and be like me. My goal is that they would grow up and be like Jesus. The only way for that to happen is if they are born of the Spirit.

Listen to me church, we belong to one another because we belong to Him. We are a family. Every Sunday we have a family reunion. We gather together to honor our Father.

We love one another

We encourage one another

We help one another

We forgive one another

We weep with one another

We rejoice with one another

We serve one another

Our Father in heaven is glorified as His family comes together to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

3. Jesus invites others into his family (50).

A. It is an open invitation.

I love the word “whosever”. It’s an inviting word. I’m not much. I’m not particularly talented at anything. I’m not going to make it into the top ten of anything.

But I am a whosoever.

I failed the 8th grade, but I’m still a whosoever.

I’m not gonna win a beauty contest, but I’m still a whosever.

Do you know what I’m looking at this morning? I’m looking at a bunch of “whosoever’s”.

Would you like to be in the family of God? If you’re a whosoever, come!

Imagine for a moment an extremely wealthy man dies. The children rush to hear his will read. They want to make sure they hear their names. They want to claim their inheritance.

Dear friend the wealthiest Being in the universe has died. Through his death He has purchased eternal riches for His children.

The forgiveness of sin.

Eternal peace.

A home in heaven.

And now we read the will. Now we find out who His children are. My dear friends. He’s still adopting children even after his death. The will reads:

Whosoever will!

We’d be foolish not to come.

B. Christ’s family is superior to our earthly family.

You may think you have the greatest family in the world, but you don’t. Christ has the greatest family. It isn’t because of the family members themselves. It’s because of Christ. As Christians we are a part of the greatest family because:

1. Our Father is greater.

You may have a shirt or a coffee mug that says, “World’s greatest Dad”. You can’t believe everything you read. They sell those shirts by the truckload. Lot’s of dads have one. If what was written on it was true there could be only one.

As Christians we do have the worlds greatest Father:

Great in His love- Patient, kind, forgiving.

Great in His power- will protect us.

Great in His provision- supports all of His children.

Great in His wisdom- truly knows everything.

Sometimes we hear people ask “If you could choose your own parents who would you choose?” We would probably choose what we believed to be the greatest parents.

Here’s the surprising thing, the greatest Father in the universe chose us. Our Father is greater than anyone or anything.

2. Our inheritance is greater.

You may be blessed enough to have a parent who leaves you money or land behind. That’s a wonderful thing. The inheritance your earthly family leaves you can’t be compared to the inheritance we have in Christ Jesus.

Our inheritance cannot rust or rot.

Our inheritance cannot be stolen.

Our inheritance will not lose value.

Our inheritance can never be spent up.

When it comes to inheritance a person will likely ask of the deceased father “What was He worth?”

How would we answer that, Christians? What is our Father worth?

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.

He owns all you can see and all you can’t see.

He owns every precious jewel and every rare coin.

He owns every piece of land and every planet.

He holds the deed to:

The earth

The oceans

The heavens

An earthly father or mother could never leave us what Christ has left us. We are joint heirs with Jesus. Do you know what that means? We sing it:

“Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod”

It means we are a beneficiary. We have the same rights to the inheritance that Jesus does. Because of Jesus we are God’s adopted children and therefore have rights to the heavenly inheritance. That which belongs to Jesus also belongs to us (Romans 8:17).

3. Our nature is greater.

It’s true that we inherit certain traits from our parents. Not just physical traits, but character traits as well. Sometimes those traits aren’t good.

We may inherit:

A sarcastic attitude

A short temper

A sharp tongue

A snooty countenance

An argumentative spirit

A hard head

A proud disposition

We all inherited a sinful nature from Adam. That nature is known to our family. None of us are perfect all you have to do is ask our family to find out.

In Christ we have received a new nature. We aren’t perfect but we will be one day. We have been given the mind of Christ, a heart of flesh and the Spirit of God. By God’s grace we are being conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank God for the nature of Christ. I shudder to think how terrible of a person I would be if Jesus had not saved me.

Because of Jesus we overcome the sinful tendencies we inherit from our earthly family. It’s a process but thank God for progress!

Our nature is greater.

4. Our eternity is greater.

Because of Christ were going to heaven. Earthly relationships are very short.

If you only have earthly relationships, you may have:

A child for sixty years. Maybe seventy.

A mother or father for sixty or seventy years.

A brother or sister for seventy or eighty years.

Look on your pew, or the one in front of you. How many of those people will be here in 25 years? How about thirty years? Life expectancy in USA is 79.8 years.

Life on this earth is short. If this life is the only one where we get to experience joy with our family then that is depressing.

David is an interesting character in the Bible. He wasn’t a great dad by any stretch of the imagination. I want to bring I I want to direct your attention to two occasions in which we see the heart of David as a father.

He had a child by Bathsheba that become very sick. David was weeping uncontrollably at the thought of this child dying. The Bible says no one could console him. After the baby dies David cleaned himself up and was able to function again. He was asked why there was such a drastic change in him. He said because he knew one day he would see this child again in heaven (2 Samuel 12).

On another occasion his son Absalom died. Absalom was a terrible man. He was extremely ungodly. He was filled with hate and perversion. He died. After he died David didn’t dry his tears. He couldn’t be consoled. He was beside himself with grief (2 Samuel 18).

I think the difference in these two situations is obvious. David knew he would see his infant son again and he knew he would never see Absalom again.

If Jesus brothers weren’t saved then none of us can expect to be saved by virtue of our family ties. Mary and Jesus brothers had to come to a place of faith and repentance in Christ. If they had not their eternity would have been awful.

On the other hand, because of Christ our family can last forever.

I’m so glad my granny was saved.

I’m so glad my mama was saved.

I love all of y’all and I hope you’re all gonna be in heaven. But there are some special people in my earthly family that I want to be there. There are people I never tire of being around and I pray to God they are in heaven.

But I know when I step on those golden shores even the memories of lost family members will be erased. They will be wiped away like a tear. What I will see that city is my family. Everyone there will be my brothers and sisters. I didn’t have a big family on earth, but I’ll have a big one in heaven!

The family of God. Are you a part of it? You can be through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.