The Church as the Family of God

23/09/2018

Jesus said that He would build his church. We’re used to “ground breaking” or “turning a sod” ceremonies, or laying a brick to launch a new building project. A few old men in suits turn up with shovels and pose for pictures. They tend to be genteel affairs with a few claps and some light refreshments afterwards. 

However, there was nothing genteel when Jesus chose to launch his church building project on the day of Pentecost. It was more like an explosion!

On that day, the church was born. The new testament has various ways to describe the church – body of Christ, bride of Christ, God’s household, temple of God. But one man suggests that Jesus had a favourite metaphor for the church – this man! 

Joachim Jeremias said that the metaphor ‘the Family of God’ was Jesus’ favourite image for referring to the church.

Politicians are always keen to stress their commitment to “Family Values”. During a speech in January 1992, then-president George Bush Snr said: “We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.”

There are two ways in which you can become a member of a family – you can born into one, or adopted. 

Interestingly, Roman Law in NT times allowed you to disown a child by birth but not a child by adoption.

What’s also interesting is that we become a member of God’s family by being both born into it and adopted into it! Belt and braces approach.

Let’s look at being born first. Christians have experienced both a physical birth and a spiritual birth.

Jesus told Nicodemus: 'Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again' (or born from above).

But Christians are also adopted. Listen to the start of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians where Paul opens his letter with some glorious truths about who we are as Christians:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.

Such a lot of good stuff in these few verses, like being chosen. As the old story goes about the child who was being bullied for being adopted – he stood up for himself and said – your parents had no choice when you were born, they had to take you home whether they liked you or not, but me – I was chosen!

There’s something special about being chosen, like being chosen to play on the football team - I still have a team sheet from boarding school where I was picked for the firsts rugby team! 

In John 15, talking about the Vine and the branches, Jesus reminds his disciples that they were chosen: 'I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.' Likewise, we’ve been chosen and appointed by Jesus to go and bear spiritual fruit in His name. 

This is not something that God did reluctantly – it was ‘in accordance with his pleasure and will’ It’s something he was delighted to do, because he delights in us.

God chose us for “adoption to sonship”. The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a legal term in Roman culture referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir. And of course, if you’re an heir, what does that make you entitled to? An inheritance – we’ll get to that later.

Paul keeps going with truth after truth, and he tells us that we have redemption through Jesus’ blood. The concept of redemption comes from the system of slavery. In the Roman Empire, during the time the New Testament was written, slaves accounted for roughly one-fifth of the population. A slave could be redeemed by someone paying a price, called a ransom. And so we have this concept of us being slaves to sin but then being redeemed by the blood of Jesus which makes us in some sense a slave to Christ. Paul told the Corinthians: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.”

Another phrase to describe the church is therefore “the community of the redeemed”. Adoption into the family of God, however, is a much more powerful concept. It's one thing to be redeemed - to be set free, but it's much more powerful to be then adopted. Adoption gives you a new family, a new life, a new future, a new inheritance!

Which leads to another passage which starts with “Praise be….” (from 1 Peter 1)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Earthly inheritances are unreliable. At one point, I was hoping to inherit my grandfather’s cottage in Connemara – it didn’t perish or spoil, but the dream just faded – we had to sell it to pay for his nursing home. There are so many ways that an earthly inheritance can disappear from your grasp. And even if you get your hands on it, it can be more trouble than it’s worth. It can cause family rows and falling out. Where there’s a will, there’s relatives!

But as Christians we have been spiritually born and spiritually adopted into a new spiritual family, and as sons and daughters of the living God, we have a spiritual inheritance that is 100% reliable, it can never perish, spoil or fade. It is kept in heaven for us.

In the letters above, both Paul & Peter start off with theology and then deal with local issues. So far, I’ve talked about being part of God’s family in a somewhat theological and almost individualistic sense. So now I’d like to focus on the nuts and bolts.

If we only think in terms of being sons and daughters of God, and therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, we miss a key dynamic because today, many families are dispersed – and while the children all share in the inheritance of their parents, they could be living in different countries with not much contact and no meaningful relationship with each other and maybe not even with their parents.

Simply being brothers and sisters in Christ can give us an excuse for keeping a safe distance from each other, while pursuing our own personal relationship with God. In some ways, we are saying “My Father, who art in Heaven” instead of “Our Father…”

Jesus challenged this attitude in Matthew 12: 

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

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

So Jesus goes beyond the idea of spiritual siblings, suggesting that the family of God should have inter-generational relationships. For example, maybe some of you have people you look up to as a spiritual mother or father in the Lord.

I think one of the most helpful way to localise the concept of the family of God is to see the local church as a spiritual extended family.

Biblical families were extended families. Just one example - when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, he told them to go back and bring the whole family to Egypt. Gen 46:26 says: “All those who went to Egypt with Jacob-- those who were his direct descendants, not counting his sons' wives - numbered sixty-six persons.”

I’ve done a lot of talking, now I want you to do some thinking. 

1.    What barriers are there to the church functioning as a healthy extended family?

Here are some of my thoughts: 

• Lack of extended family in western society
• Western individualism
• Rick Warren - Christianity is seen as a Belief system rather than a Belong system
• The 4th century shift from House Church to Cathedral

2.    What can we do to address them? 

• Make an effort!
• Practice hospitality
• Practice the “One Anothers”

Apparently, there are 59 "One Another" phrases in the New Testament. Some examples are:

• Love one another
• Be at peace with each other.
• Honour one another above yourselves
• Stop passing judgment on one another. 
• Bear with each other      
• Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you
  
• Have equal concern for each other.
  
• Be patient, bearing with one another in love.       
  
• Don’t grumble against each other
  
• Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

You can't practice the "one anothers" without being in and around people - small groups are the simplest way to do this, so maybe this is something for your to consider as the Bible Studies all start up again after the summer.

Let's Pray:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for our church family and we ask you to help us to see beyond our biological family, to love and embrace the needs of others. Help us to find time to be in the company of our brothers and sisters in Christ, so we can love, honour, accept, bear with and forgive one another. Amen.