THE CHURCH IS THE FAMILY OF GOD
Introduction:
1. What is a family? The answer will depend upon whom you ask. If you ask a little child, the answer will probably be, “Mommy and Daddy and brother and sister.” Ask an older person, and maybe they will tell, “My children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren”—an extended family. Ask a native of an isolated tribe in Africa and he will tell you, “Everyone in my tribe is my family.”
But ask a policeman in Chicago or Little Rock and he might say, “A family is a criminal syndicate under a single leadership the mafia.” Ask a Biologist and he will answer, “A category in the classification of plants and animals above a genus and below an order.” Ask a Mathematician and he will answer, “A family is a set of curves, functions or other entities with some shared property.”
But ask a Christian and he may say, “My family is all the people in the world who are members of the church, God’s spiritual family.” A family means different things to different people.
There are many people who have no family at all. They are all alone and lonely. Maybe their natural family has all died.. Or maybe confusion and turmoil has dividied their natural family and left the members alone and estranged form one another. Certainly there is no difference between one whose family has deserted them and one whose family has all died. Both are without a substantial family to supply the support and encouragement that they need.
But there are also people who are members of more than one family. We can a member of both a natural family and a spiritual family. God has a spiritual family, His church.
2. Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” He meant that just as Nicodemus had been born of the flesh, he must also be born of the Spirit, “born of water and of Spirit” (John 3:5). The first birth produced a fleshly creation. The second birth produced a spiritual creation. Those who are born again become “children of God” (Galatians 3:26) and individual members of the house of God (Hebrews 3:6).
I. GOD’S HOUSE IS HIS FAMILY.
A. God uses several terms to describe His church from different perspectives – a kingdom, body, vineyard, house.
1. When Paul told the Philippian Jailer, “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your house(hold)” Acts 16:31, he was speaking of the people who lived there.
2. Jesus used the word household in the same way when he said, “And a man’s foes will be those of his own household” (Matthew 10:36).
1. “These things I write to you, though I hope to come you shortly; but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God , which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth” (1 Timothy 3:14-15).
2. “And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” ( Hebrews 3:5-6).
D. There are only two spiritual families to which we may belong. We are either in God’s family or Satan’s family.
1. Those who reject God’s family, the church, and serve the flesh are members of the devil’s family and his children. Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44).
2. If one is in the family of Satan he has “no hope, and is without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). He can not receive God’s spiritual blessings, because he is not His child. Neither can he expect God to hear and to answer his prayers. He and others like him need to be born again so that they “are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).
II. SPIRITUAL BLESSING ABOUND FOR THE CHILD OF GOD.
A. “ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).
1. To be “in Christ” is to be in His body. (1 Cor. 12:13), which is the church (Eph. 1:18).
2. We get “into Christ” and become children of God when we are baptized into Christ (Gal. 3:26-27). Our baptism is for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38), so that we may be saved (Mark 16:16; 1 Peter 3:21).
3. We then become heirs of God and as dear children the richest blessings of heaven are ours to enjoy. “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified together” (Rom. 8:16,17).
B. As God’s children we have membership in a family where we can receive support and encouragement to face the trials and disappointments of life.
1. There was a time when one’s natural family could be relied on to give support in times and sickness and adversity. Parents and grandparents and children and grandchildren all worked together to encourage and support one another. But this is seldom the case today. We live in a mobile society where families are often separated by hundreds of miles. Absentee fathers and high divorce rates have left many households fragmented. The natural family often does not have the resources to supply the support and encouragement that family members need.
2. The church, as the spiritual family has an increasingly important place to fill in this area. We are to minister daily to the needy widows and give benevolent assistance to Christian brothers and sisters whenever and wherever the need arises (Gal. 6:10). We should give preferential treatment to one another (Romans 12:10). And, by every means, we are to show kindness and compassion to one another. “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11). We should also hold one another accountable for living faithful Christian living. “Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all” (1 Thess. 5:14-15).
B. As a child of God we have confidence that God will hear and answer our prayers.
1. Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you, who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:7-11)
3. “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him” (John 9:31).
4. Jesus intercedes for us as our High Priest, “and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:21-22).
Conclusion:
A. God has ONLY ONE family! It wears the name of His Son (Romans 16:16; Matthew 16:18; 1Cor. 12:27; Acts 4:10-12).
B. There is salvation in God’s family, but those outside of it are lost. You can become God’s child today!