Family Matters

Introduction

By a show of hands, were you like me and growing up, you had family reunions a lot. Wow, not many of you, or at least you’re bashful or you’re ashamed of your family, maybe that’s the case. We had family reunions. Family reunions were a big deal in the South. Now, you say you had family reunions, but by another show of hands, did you have a true Southern family reunion? All right, we’re going to test that whether or not that was actually the case. You may think you had a Southern family reunion. But let me invite you to my family reunion. To tell you how Southern my family was, my grandpa on my dad’s side had three brothers. And together their names were Marley, Garley, Gurley, and Charlie.

I’m not making that up. Also on my dad’s side, I had a great aunt. Her name was Fanny Melinda Louisa Elizabeth Chapman. By the time I knew her, she just had one arm and one leg because she’d been hit and hit by the train. On my mom’s side of the family, every family reunion started the day before by killing a hog. And I can remember being at my great aunt’s house and looking out the window of the guest room where I was sleeping on the ironing board between two chairs. And looking out the window and seeing my dad and my uncle standing around the fire tending to that hog all night long, knowing that we were going to eat good tomorrow. Now that’s a southern family, a southern family reunion, and I have great memories of those times with family.

I had ten aunts and uncles, and if I counted right, 17 first cousins, but then I had also a plethora of great aunts and great uncles and a bunch of people that I didn’t really know who they were to me, other than they were my kin. And we always got together and had good times together. I had a good family. Now I recognize that I’m speaking to an audience, both here and online, for whom that may not have been the case.

Of all the metaphors in Scripture to describe this, family is by far the most common. We are the household of God, the scriptures tell us, which is just another word for family. We have God as our father, Christ as our elder brother, and one another as our spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ. And regardless of what your family, your physical family was like, please understand this that when the scriptures speak of the church as a family, it speaks in the ideal. Not of what a dysfunctional family might have been, but what a family should be, with a loving, giving, compassionate father, of brothers and sisters who, though we may differ and have our differences and even squabbles at times, that ultimately we are family and we recognize that.

Because in a sense, every Lord’s Day we have a little family reunion.

1. This Family Gives Us a Sense of Belonging

And so let’s talk about these family matters of what family and what it means to be a part of this family. First of all, this family gives us a sense of belonging. That’s what family does, or at least it should do. Again, the Bible speaks of the family in the ideal. That’s what family is. And that’s what it does. It gives us that sense of belonging. That you have somebody who is yours. There’s an old saying that you don’t get to pick your family. And you know you may say that and mean it in a negative way. You may have those embarrassing family members. And you might shrug your shoulders and say, well, you don’t get to pick your family. But I want to reconsider that phrase in a positive light.

You don’t get to pick your family means that regardless, you have family. Because if you got to pick your family, and that’s the way family worked, for some of us, me, maybe nobody would pick me. But my family was stuck with me. And that was a good thing. Turn with me, if you will, in the book of Romans, chapter 8. Now it is certainly true that as free will individuals, we have the choice whether or not to be a part of this family. But once we’ve made that choice to swear allegiance to our Father in heaven, who’s also our King and our master, then we’re a part of this family, and we don’t get to choose our family. But it gives us that great sense of belonging and knowing that we do belong.

And we belong to one another, and most importantly, we belong to God. Look at the language that the apostle uses in Romans chapter 8. Begin reading with me in verse 14. Romans 8, 14, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Let’s just pause right there from the very beginning. We said that the idea of family is the overriding number one metaphor that is used to describe this Christian experience. And that’s profound and meaningful. But it’s also dangerous because those references are so common in Scripture that maybe we’ll just read past them without seeing their significance. The terms brother or brother and sister used so often in Scripture that we might just read past it, because it’s lost its meaning to us.

And it should not.

Verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption, by whom you cry out, Abba, Father. 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 might also be glorified with him. We are children of God. We belong to Him. Now here’s where the Bible, we talked about the prominence of this metaphor in Scripture, but sometimes there’s a mixing of metaphors. We talk about being born into this family and birth and the new birth is very prominent in scriptures of how we get into this relationship. But then Paul here in other places also speaks of the idea of us being adopted into this family.

They both have meaning. But think of the idea of adoption, that special meaning that this was not by accident, it was by choice, that we have been adopted as children of God. That gives us this sense of belonging, of being a part of family. This means that no matter what, we have a family.

Look over at 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. The importance of family, I think, is seen in in many places, but maybe in its extreme in this passage. 1 Thessalonians, look in chapter 3, or excuse me, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. Here is the extreme case of discipline in the family. That here is a family member who is misbehaving. It’s a family after all. That happens, and discipline has to be enacted in this family relationship, and we would call this the extreme form of that discipline. Look what it says back up to verse 14. 2 Thessalonians 3. If anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him that he may be ashamed. Now we read that extreme and admittedly harsh language, and we might think, well, that person’s just got kicked out of the family.

2. It Gives Us a Network of Support

They’re not family anymore. But read on, verse 15, yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Now, has the relationship changed? Yes. But what has not changed is that they’re family. And so we get this sense of belonging in being a part of this family that no matter what, we have family. A family, a father, an elder brother, and brothers and sisters who look out for us and care for us and will even admonish and discipline us. Why? Because we’re family. Another thing that this family gives us, it gives us a network of support. This sense of family gives us that emotional support. That’s that sense of belonging. That was point number one. But it gives us more than just an emotional support.

Family is there for family. Again, I need to repeat that when the scriptures speak of the church as being family, it speaks in the sense of ideal. And family, ideally, is there for family. When a need arises, we have family. When heartbreak appears, we have family. When times of rejoicing come, we have family. Walcott read to us in our Lord’s Supper Meditation, but I want to go back to John chapter 19 and watch, look at one incident there that illustrates that family is there for family. John chapter 19, our Lord is upon the cross. And think of the emotion of this scene. There he is exposed, brutalized, and dying. And he looks up and sees his mother. And notice what he says. John chapter 19, verse 26, Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved.

We assume that is John, the author of this gospel. He sees the disciple whom he loves standing by, and he said to his mother, Behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, again, John, behold your mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home. In those simple, brief instructions, Jesus said to his mother, looking at John, behold your son. And to John, behold your mother. What he meant was, I’m going away. But mother, John will be your son. And John, Mary will now be your mother. That’s all he said. But John goes on to explain from that very hour, I took her home. And she was my mother. And I saw to her needs.

That’s what physical family should do. That’s what spiritual family should do. And so do you see that these references, the brothers and sisters in the family, aren’t just a cute way of describing us. They have meaning.

Let me illustrate that in both the physical and the spiritual family.

We moved away from far away from her parents and far away from my parents. And for a while when we were first married, we lived by my parents, and we would go by. I was a good son. And so I would go by and see my parents. It just so happened it was often around supper time. Because we didn’t have groceries. But we moved away from that family support. But I had an uncle who was a truck driver. We lived on Highway 231 outside of Troy, Alabama. It’s a heavily traveled road and heavily traveled by 18 wheelers. And my uncle would drive by. Sometimes he was behind schedule and he would just blow his horn as he went by, but always on the way back he would stop.

And we lived in the preacher’s house that was right next to the church building. And so we would pull that big truck and trailer into the church building parking lot, and he would come and he would visit.

And as our hand separated, in my hand would be a hundred dollar bill. Because we were family.

Years later, we moved from there to the Birmingham area and preached for the Penson Church. And it was usually announced the Sunday before that Ken’s going away in a gospel meeting to such and such a place, or Ken and Deedra will be gone to Kansas to visit Deedra’s folks, and so and it almost never failed that after that announcement was made, and I won’t call his name, but one of the men of that congregation would come to me and shake my hand and say, have a good meeting, or enjoy your time with your in-laws, and as our hands separated in my hand was a hundred dollar bill because he knew we needed gas money to get home, and he was family, just like my uncle, and family gives that sense of a network of support that no matter what, we have somebody on whom we can call and on whom we can rely.

3. It Gives Us a Purpose in Life

Another thing family does for us, or should do for us, it gives us a purpose in life. Joseph Addison is quoted as saying there are three grand essentials to happiness in life: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. So important, we all need to feel needed and to feel like we have a purpose in life. And because God’s people are family, we’ll hold our own personal preferences and our own personal priorities loosely. Look with me in the book of Acts, chapter 4. Here’s what family does for family. This early church recognized that they were not just an organization. They were not just some kind of structure of people. They were family. Acts chapter 4, we have numerous verses that echo this same sentiment. But in Acts chapter 4, notice what this family did, verse 32. Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and of one soul. Neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.

And you have that network of support and how meaningful that can be in a family. But just as meaningful is the idea that you can be that person who is needed, and who offers that support. To feel like you have a purpose in life, to feel that you are needed and people rely upon you and need what you as a family member and you alone as a family member can supply to this family. Paul would go on to say, let not everyone look out for his own interest, but for the interest of others. Why? Because we feel that connection. We feel that purpose in our lives.

Because we are family, and because we see that as our purpose in life, we will open our doors and our hearts. We’ll pull up another chair to the dinner table. We’ll add another name to our prayer list. We’ll give them our groceries and our furniture and our smiles. We’ll share their grief, their trials, their disappointments. And like a good family, we’ll look for ways to show our love. Because we recognize that it is family, that the church is not some man-made society that we can participate in or opt out of, like the PTA or the Neighborhood Association or the Booster Club. Because these things don’t obligate us to sacrifice when things get tough. But family does.

Conclusion

Think about the family you grew up in, and hopefully, like me, there’s good and funny memories that will come flooding to mind. But I also want you to think about this family. A family that gives you a sense of belonging, that you’ve been adopted into the family, that you’re now a child of God. Think about this family that gives you a network of support that no matter what, you have family who will rush to your aid. And think about family that gives you a sense of a purpose in life. And see to that purpose. I want to tell my family that I love you. And I appreciate you because I, and maybe in my role get to see more than some other family members do. I get to see the care you have for one another.

And the love and the expressions and the support that you show one another in times of need.

And I want to encourage my family to keep doing that. Or maybe if you feel like a distant cousin in this family, to start doing that. To show up at more of the family reunions, and to feel a greater sense of belonging and a greater purpose in your life by seeing to the needs of your family.

Because that’s what family does. And don’t ever forget that we’re family. If you’re not a part of this family, then why not correct that this morning? Why not come to Christ? And let me make this point as we close that the greatest part of this family is not us. The greatest part of this family is our Father. And you should come to this family not to be our brothers and sisters, but to be his child. Having this network of brothers and sisters is a secondary blessing and benefit to being a child of God. But why not become one of his children and become mine and our brother and sister and feel that sense of belonging, that network of support and that purpose in life that now you get to be a part of a family and you can serve and help and love as well.

Maybe you’ve done that, but you’ve distanced yourself from family. And I pray not from our Father. But if that’s the case, then why not come back? Renew your commitment to this family. And most importantly, your commitment to God. Would you do that right now as together we stand and as we sing?