We're Family
Notes
Transcript
Handout
35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Intro:
What an interesting thought, We’re family! You will hear that a lot at this church, we call ourselves a church family, you are all my brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s an amazing thought, that because of Christ, we are related as inheritors of the Kingdom of God, one family. But this can get a bit confusing at times right, you might be looking at the person to your left or right and saying, wait.... are we really related????
Imagine how confusing this becomes for people just coming in to preview what church is, but maybe they don’t have good notions of what family is like. Maybe their family has rejected them, or abused them, or they never had a family to know what its like. For them that might not even be an appealing notion.
So this morning I want to discuss the fact that we are family with you a bit, and some of what that reality looks like.
1. We’re a little crazy
Yes its true we’re a little crazy. Our verse this morning early in the chapter gives more context to what was going on.
20 Then He went home, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat. 21 When His family heard this, they set out to restrain Him, because they said, “He’s out of His mind.”
Jesus was all about God’s Will, something even His family couldn’t fully understand, and they feared for Him.
History reveals that God’s servants are usually misjudged by their contemporaries, and often misunderstood by their families. D.L. Moody was called “Crazy Moody” by many people in Chicago, and even the great Apostle Paul was called mad (Acts 26:24–25).
Understand something, to the outside world we will likely seem crazy, unfortunately even inside our own families, or church family we may seem crazy at times when God is telling us to do something.
but for Jesus, He shows us that the Will of God must take priority, and for those who do the Will of God they are His family.
2. God’s Family is United
Lets be honest with each other, we all have some in our family that we “love”, but that we don’t “like”. everyone said amen.
That can even be true in your church family right. But here is the thing about God’s family, His family is united, sometimes if we are honest, we aren’t really “loving” those we don’t like, DON”T SHOW YOUR HANDS IF THAT'S TRUE! HA, YOU ALL ADMITTED IT.
frankly, sometimes we aren’t in unity with those we don’t like. That’s not how God operates, that’s not His program, that’s not His Will.
29 “This is the most important,” Jesus answered: Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. 31 “The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
The Bible says God is one, He is not divided amongst himself. He is always in unity. We aren’t always united though are we. No we have squabbles, we have disagreements, we fight, we can argue about things we think are best for the church and so on....
Here’s the thing, you can’t be united with others, if your divided in your self.
God says love others as yourself, but what if you don’t love yourself? then you can’t properly love others.
To be in unity, you need to be in unity with yourself first. You say, but how can I not be united with myself?
When we don’t love ourselves, we are divided inwardly. You may have areas in your life that are so broken, that its hard to love yourself. How can you possibly Love God and then others if your divided inwardly? This brokenness can then make it hard to love God, and others the way we are called to.
for a person that is divided inwardly, this comes from things that you have experienced, an offense, someone has offended you, now you live differently because of those wounds, probably when that person that offended you is around, you act differently towards them, you don’t love them, you isolate yourself, which oh does the enemy of our soul love that! But you say, I love them I just don’t like them.... Really? do you really love them? if so are your actions proof? or do you avoid them, do you ignore them? Actions speak louder then words.
but our wounds also come from things like being rejected, or neglected, or sometimes sadly, abused. These wounds harbor deep emotions, some of which manifest themselves in disunity
You can’t live out of your wounds.
I can always tell when someone is, because guess what, they are usually divisive, they are usually avoiding, or isolating.
When your living out of your wounds you are going to go into a self-preservation mode. This is when you create a protective barrier over yourself because you just can’t be hurt again. You know what they call that? a stronghold.
So listen, if you feel that any of this describes you, then it’s time for you to step out of that woundedness and into an all encompassing love with yourself, and God, and others. Because God’s family is unity, and He wants you to be in that unity too.
How do we become family?
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Three: The Servant, the Crowds, and the Kingdom (Mark 3:13–4:34)
How does one enter into the family of God? By means of a new birth, a spiritual birth from above (John 3:1–7; 1 Peter 1:22–25). When the sinner trusts Jesus Christ as Saviour, he experiences this new birth and enters into God’s family. He shares God’s divine nature (2 Peter 1:3–4) and can call God “Father” (Rom. 8:15–16). This spiritual birth is not something that we accomplish for ourselves, nor can others do it for us (John 1:11–13). It is God’s work of grace; all we can do is believe and receive (Eph. 2:8–9).
Simply put, by our saving relationship with Jesus Christ we become family. We aren’t all the same, we don’t all agree on things, but if we have Jesus, we all have something in common. This one thing we have in common is the greatest way to unite us with each other, and it ought to also unite us into loving relationships where we do in fact care for each other, and about each other.
If your not living your life in that kind of thinking, your not living to the fullest extent of what God’s Family is, and its time you turn off self preservation mode and time to turn on your God praising mode. Cause God loves you, and there's nothing you can do to mess that up.
So Let us commit ourselves to love God, and love others, just as He has commanded us.