The Family of God.

The Family of God   •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Series Intro

Good morning REC. It is so Good to be here and thank you all for your warm reception of my family.
I have just come out of a sabbatical where I have had 6 weeks off of preaching…And I have to tell you it is good to be back
As I start my teaching ministry here I had been thinking and praying about how I would start and what I would teach
I have a core conviction about preaching and so I hope I am right: And that is I am responsible to God for what I teach you …So I take that seriously. So there will be times while I am preaching that I will show you how to read the Bible for yourself…I cant help but do this…Because it is my core conviction that not only am I responsible for what I will teach you and I believe I will be held accountable for it, but I also believe that everyone, no matter if you are a high school drop out or if you have your PhD, you can understand the Bible...
What I wanted to do for the first few weeks was to speak on some of my convictions about the church. What do I really believe about it?
Its a series I am simply calling “The family of God”
It is because that is what we are…We are God’s family…And over the next 4 weeks I just want to lay out some stuff that I believe about the church.
This is not necessarily my vision for REC. We will get there...
But what is God’s vision for His church
When God set this movement afoot called the church…What was God’s intention for you and for me?
I mean the church is this revolutionary body in the world it is a community of people that restore, they reconcile and they renew creation.
If you have said “yes” to Jesus today, then You are a member of God’s conspiracy to bring about good on earth and to renew all of creation…Did you know that?
and 2000 years ago, God set this movement afoot…In a very small way…With 12 Guys...

1. The church is the most revolutionary family in the world , with the most revolutionary mission of all time.

There are a lot of groups that gather together, groups of similar interest
You can go join community service organizations and go do good things
You can join a political group and go advocate for your side with like minded people
You can join a sports club and exercise with people that do the same sports as you...
And Unfortunately this is the way that some people see the church
Its just a bunch of people who are interested in religion and who gather together to sing songs and pray...
And maybe this is what church has become for you…You’ve become a spiritual consumer. You just want the next chunk of bible teaching, you want the best music…You want to feel good…and go home and just try to be a better person!
Essentially the church has become about you doing better in life! Rather than what it actually is
A revolution in this world
A revolution of love
A revolution of Hope
A revolution of Peace
A revolution of Justice
Its a revolution in forgiveness and reconciliation
But what we actually are is part of is the family of God, a divine revolution on this earth
This family of God that he is building in Jesus ....People much smarter than me like Dallas Willard call it “The Divine Conspiracy”
God’s family has been this ever growing group through history that has been overturning structures of evil and bringing about God’s good purposes
Always inviting people into God’s family...
It is a conspiracy to overturn the evil that is so pervasive in the human heart, to bring people back into the family of God.
You and I are part of God’s movement to restore all of creation back to Him …He is constantly transforming us into the kind of people who can bring about His good purposes for this earth.
So one of the things that you will learn about me as I preach is that I like to teach the whole story whenever I preach…Things don’t make sense to me without context, So I don’t like just preaching some idea, I like showing you how God weaved this idea all through scripture.
So indulge me for a couple of minutes…Because I want to do a broad sweep over the Bible to look at how Jesus is re-uniting the family of God under himself.

The making of God’s Family

Now when I became a dad everyone said
“Emma looks just like you” or they said
“She is a spitting image of her mom”
This is something we all do when people have kids, we look at them and naturally wonder who it is they look like.
Why? Because Who it is we look like, speaks to the family that we belong to...
Did you catch that???
Who it is we look like, reveals the family that we belong to
And God’s crown Jewel of creation was people…So he made us after his own image...
So literally, humans “Image” God to the rest of creation. Your mission on this earth is to reveal to the rest of creation what God is like.
So lets look at this tiny Hebrew poem
Genesis 1:27

27  So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

Hebrew Poetry has a standard form. It is intentionally similar but not exactly the same. Why? because the intention of it is for you to look at it close enough to find the differences…And in the differences you find the main point...
Line 1: God created (man) or human in his own image: We have to understand that the word “Man” here is all of humanity. So this is a general statement that both humanity as a whole and individual people bear the image of God.
Line 2: It takes the 4 key words of the first line and messes with the order so that the third line can match the word order of the second line…But also it says in the image of God he created “him” That is because this is a masculine Noun in Hebrew …It is still talking about all of humanity.
Line 3: So in the poetic structure, the phrase “male and female” is in the space for “image of God” from the second line…So this third line comes along to clarify that the image of God is not male specifically, but the image of God is both Male and Female.
So what is my point? ALL of HUMANITY IS MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. That is the original intention of scripture.
God created the earth and when he made all of humanity to look like him.…
Humanity is God’s family
In just the same way that our kids look like us....God created us to look like him...
We are all bound together in the image of God
In other-words, just like your kids are the spitting image of you. You were made to be the spitting image of your father in heaven.
Why? Why does this matter so much?
Because we all build or buy into false identities.
The identity that wealth is all that matters…
Maybe it is the identity that it is our intellect that defines us!
maybe your identity is wrapped up in the fact that you are a mom and a dad
Or your job is your identity
And while these can all be great things the only thing that really matters is that you are made in the image of the king of creation, you are a child of God loved by God!
On page one of the Bible, great pains are made to tell you that you are a part of God’s family. You look like your father in heaven
Built for relationship with him
Built for relationship with others
Built because and for love
So the next line is God blessing his image
Genesis 1:28

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

The role of the Male and Female is to make more humans and to rule over the earth. And to create more people who image God
So God made this human family and blessed them to make more family
So you probably know the story:
Adam and Eve sin…They are expelled from the garden. And this sin begins to trickle down and the next family repeats the sin
And by the way…Isn't that the story of every family?
We can either pass sin down to our family or Goodness...
So look at Genesis 4 with me...
Genesis 4:8-10

8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.

And it only takes one generation before the family of God starts to kill each other
And we are not going to painstakingly go through it, but if you look at all of the genealogies from Genesis 5-10 you will see how the family of God from that point on began to split off and began to have problem after problem
As you read Genesis 5-10 you will see God’s family going deeper into sin…and deeper into division!
But wait…The humans have an idea of how to fix this all…How can all of the families on earth unite?

Babel, The Human Family Gone Wrong

Genesis 11:1-4
English Standard Version (Chapter 11)
11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
So the human family has this idea…They are going to go “east”…Away from the garden....away from God
They are going to build this huge tower…with its “Top in the heavens”
In Hebrew, this reads…They are going to build a tower with its “head in the heavens” And they are going to build a name for themselves
So all of the sudden the family of God just had this inclination to unite…Which is a great inclination. But it is to unite around human power and ingenuity rather than the power of God.
By the way, this is the same problem with false unity today…We unite around human power, human ideas and celebrity rather than the things of God.
Babel is any attempt at human unity that excludes God.
Literally they are going to unite under the “head” of a human made civilization…THIS BECOMES SO KEY LATER ON…DO NOT FORGET THIS POINT
So even though, God gave the humans His image, even though God’s purpose was to make his name great through his human family
The humans did what they always do…They cut God out, and tried to take the glory for themselves
Babel is the human attempt to create human unity apart from God!
So God confuses everything ....and out of it, calls a husband and wife out of Babel to do something new

A Called out Family

Genesis 12:1-3

12 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So do you get what is happening here?
Abraham is Going to create a family that will bless all of the other families, in complete opposition to Babel!
Abraham’s family will eventually be Israel and it is supposed to bless the whole world
Now Abraham and his family are totally screwed up. They do everything wrong
Two times Abraham goes to foreign places and tells the king that his wife is actually his sister so that he wouldn’t be killed.
This is not great marriage advice.
We idealize Bible characters but there is a lot of stuff that people in the Bible do that we shouldn’t do.
Abraham tries and force God’s hand and make the promise of God come to pass by sleeping with his servant girl…Again…Not great advice...
So this imperfect family is God’s tool that he will us to build a family that will bless all other families...
This is God’s M/O by the way, He loves to take imperfect people and use them as His instruments to bless the world…And Hey…maybe thats you!
Maybe God wants to use you!
Somehow the family of God…Which is divided and scattered all over the world....would be united again...
But not like Babel
Where they united under human made power and ingenuity
But there will be a new member of the family ...
Matthew 1:1

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

Jesus becomes this new family member in the line of Abraham…
And if we were to really take the time which we will not today and look at the genealogy of Jesus we would see that there were 4 women in this genealogy who were not from the family of Abraham
So we have Jesus who in his own family makeup is both a child of Abraham but has all of these great grandmothers who are from “The nations”
With mothers in his line such a Tamar the Canaanite, Rahab the Canaanite prostitute, Ruth, the Moabite, Bathsheba the Hittite
So do you get it....Jesus is the Son of God, he is in the line of Abraham…But also has these mothers in his line who are from “the nations”
Jesus is coming to do some serious work with the family of God ....
In the person of Jesus we will see some major re-uniting of God’s family
And we see this all over in Jesus’ ministry:
When Jesus sends his disciples out…He only sends them to the lost sheep of Israel…And he specifically says…Don’t go to the gentiles…(Nations)
Why? He is trying to recover their purpose as the family of God that will reach all other families of the earth
Then we see Jesus himself go to gentile areas and share the gospel with them…We see Jesus go to a Canaanite woman…Why?
Jesus just recovered the original purpose of the family of Abraham....He was a blessing to the nations
But we also see Jesus massively redefine family

Family Reimagined

There are a few strange text’s in the bible when it comes to family and one of them is this:
Jesus says some stuff that is probably a difficult thing to hear but lets look at that now.
Matthew 12:46-50

46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Some of us look at this text as mean. Like Why would Jesus kind of shun his mom and his brothers? Why would he say that?
Well the reality is that Jesus never dishonors his biological family
But what he actually does is re-define what family actually is!
According to Jesus, his family is the one who lives out his teachings
What Jesus is saying is those who have organized their lives around following God…Are actually God’s family
​
My Grandfather was from Italy, he Immigrated to America…His last name was Cammarano…and for him, it was all about how much Cammarano blood you had flowing through your veins...
So if you married into the family, he made life rough for you…You weren’t really his family
He Loved his grandchildren & great grand children but he kind of always saw us as having diluted Cammarano blood
This is just the way he was raised
But see to Jesus, family isn't about the blood that flows through your veins its about the blood that flows out of his veins
And Jesus created a whole new family system out of it
But I think the most powerful redefinition of family came from the cross...

The Shadow of the cross

John 19:25-27

25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

On one had this is a sweet and caring gesture....That Jesus cares for his mother so much that he had John take care of her..
But Mary had other kids!
We know that James was Mary’s son…In that culture, if the oldest brother dies then the youngest brother steps in to care for mom...
But see I think that Jesus is doing something amazing from the cross...
See in the shadow of the cross…as Jesus hangs there dying and bleeding out for us…He created a new family...
By the blood of Jesus a new family of God is inaugurated...
All of us who live in the shadow of the cross are family...
We are God’s family
Those who are redeemed by his Blood
God’s family the church are united around the cross
Remember how I told you that the whole Babel passage would be impotrant here…The whole idea about human kind uniting under the head of human authority?
Well check this out.

The Headship of Jesus

Colossians 1:18

18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent

The Apostle Paul describes Jesus as the “head” of the church five times in all of his writing ....
So Just as all of humanity assembled under the head of the tower of Babel in this idea that they were building a false human family…God scattered that…He rejected their false unity built on their own power
But in the church God invites us to gather around another “Head” and that is the head of Jesus Christ.
See Jesus invites us to the base of the cross where a new kind of family is born...
And then we live in the same purpose of Abraham’s family…To be a blessing to the world!
We are the family of God, “Adopted” into his family through the blood of Jesus...
And Jesus gave us his mission
Matthew 28:18-20

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus says, Go into all the “nations”
This is the same language as Abraham…That he would be a blessing to the nations
The word nations is Ethnos, it is also translated…Gentiles...
Remember Jesus’ Lineage…He is from Abraham but also has these 4 Gentile women in his background?
In the person of Jesus the family of God is reunited, And Jesus tells us to go and do the same thing…Go to the nations and bring people back into the family!
Jesus created a whole new family with the same mission that had always been there...
Go bring more into my family!
See I think the heart of God is that he wants his kids back into his family
He wants those who have wandered to come back!

Response/Challenge

1. The church is the most revolutionary family in the world , with the most revolutionary mission of all time.

Maybe family has been a difficult concept for you, and you are still searching out this whole God thing…Well the truth of today is that he wants you in his family…No matter your background…no matter what you have done…Where you have been…The invitation is there...
By his blood he has purchased you and invited you into a new kind of life. A life where his life can flow through your life!
All you need to do is to give your allegiance to Jesus
Maybe today you need to do that.
Maybe you're here today and you’ve been a part of River’s Edge for a while and the last year has just hi-lighted some things for you
I mean, You have lived through COVID regulations…Masking, not masking, George Floyd, a presidential election…Not having a pastor for 10 months.
Maybe you are here and you have some bitter feelings toward others in the REC family…I want to challenge you today…You are Family forever in Jesus
Go be reconciled...
Go forgive....
Go ask for forgiveness ..
You are family, Go work it out! Thats what you would do with your own brothers and sisters right?
3. Lastly…Maybe you’re here and you are just in the camp where you are happy…You follow Jesus…You are in the family of God...
I want to invite you to be on mission with Jesus. Start inviting people to church. Start inviting people to the family of God
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Let’s Pray
Follow Jesus
Reconcile with one another
Get on mission
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