We Are Family

Introduction

Well, let me join by welcoming you and greeting you with a happy new year. New Years are exciting because they’re new. There’s a lot of news in New Year’s. There’s a new calendar, a new practice, which is not as bad as it used to be, but remember when we lived our life by the checkbook, we had to learn the new practice of writing 2023 instead of 2022. It’s a new year of life. If God blesses us to that extent, we’ll all have a new birthday this year. It’s new opportunities and hopefully new blessings as we share in this new year. But this being the first Lord’s Day of this new year, there’s something else new. A few years back, the shepherds here decided that every year we would have a new congregational theme.

This past year, still seems odd to refer to 2022 as last year. We talked about not losing heart. We were encouraged to not give up, despite the circumstances, despite the discouragements and obstacles that we might face, we are not to lose heart. I hope that theme resonated with you and encouraged you throughout this past year to do just that, not lose heart. Well, for 2023, the shepherds have decided on a new theme, and that theme is simply we are family. We won’t be inviting the Pointer Sisters to sing, but we are family is the focus. And we want to focus on the fact that we are a family. But more importantly than just focusing on that and basking in that, we want to talk about what does that mean.

And so we’re going to have some different sub-themes. And so what we thought was appropriate is just to share our family album there. And if you’re a member here and you have a picture in the directory, you’re a part of that family album there. Maybe you can find yourself. If you’re not up there, then this is an encouragement for you either to become a part of the family here or to get your picture made for the directory. It’s also an encouragement for some of you. Some of you are 60 years or older, and this is your yearbook photo, so we need maybe update some of those pictures so we can recognize you and your children when we look at that directory. But we’re a family, and we want to talk about it that this year.

And throughout the year, we’re going to focus on different aspects of that. Our first quarter of this year, we’re going to focus on our father in this family. God is our family, and our family will praise our Father. And so we’re going to be emphasizing in the first quarter of this congregational theme the idea of God as our Father, and that He is worthy of our emphasis will be on we are family, and that our family loves. We’re going to talk about that a little bit this morning, and as we’re introducing this theme, that family should be, if practiced properly, should be a place for love. We’re going to talk about what does that mean? What does family love look like? And then in our third quarter, we’re going to talk about some of the obligations that we have as family to our brothers and sisters.

One thing we will do is we’ll seek to encourage, to edify, to admonish and even restore our brothers and sisters. And we’ll have that focus in our third quarter. And then, Lord willing, almost a year from now, in our fourth quarter, we’re going to talk about growing this family. How does a family grow? And what can you do to help this family grow and add more brothers and sisters who have sworn allegiance to their father in heaven? And so that’s going to be our focus this year as we talk about family. But I want to kind of introduce that theme this morning and talk about family. And since this is kind of the holiday season, and these holidays are focused on family, and we’re talking about family, and I want to emphasize to you in every sense of that word, family, what family is.

Can I be a little selfish this morning? Will you indulge me in sharing some photos from my family photo album? I want to introduce you to my family. That man in the check and shirt there was the only grandparent I ever knew. My other three grandparents died before I got to get to know them. But that man’s name was I Thema. I Thema Swilling Duke was my grandpa. That’s his second wife. We referred to her as Granny Hazel. She was the only grandmother I ever knew, though we didn’t share a blood relation. I Thema, or grandpa, as I called him, was the strongest man I ever knew. He was six foot three. I don’t know what he weighed, but he was strong as an ox. And he was strong, just as strong spiritually.

I take my looks and my size from my grandpa, and I hope, like Timothy’s grandmother and mother before him, that I’m half the man in the faith of God and spiritually as grandpa was. That’s my mom and dad. David and Marie were their names. David and Marie Chapman. I couldn’t have asked for better parents. I miss them every day. David, Dad, I called him, was the funniest man I ever knew. He was a jokester, loved pulling pranks. Unfortunately, mom was the recipient of many of those pranks that he pulled, but he loved joking. He was also the kindest man I ever knew. He would give you the shirt off his back. He helped so many people. He could fix and do anything. And he did that around the house, and he did it at the church building, and he did it for countless of their neighbors.

It became hard when Dad got old and down with Parkinson’s disease. It got hard for him to see that role reversed where others had to help him and do things around his house for him. Mom was the sweetest, best cook, and I’ll fight you over that. The best cook that ever walked this planet. She was a smart woman. She didn’t have any education, but she was smart and she was loving and she was kind. And she did the best job of rocking this. Are you ready to see the cutest baby you’ll ever see?

That’s the baby my mama would rock in that rocking chair, and they called me Kenneth. You know me as Ken, but they called me Kenneth. There’s my brothers. I’m the cutest and the youngest of those. My oldest brother Gary has passed from this life as well. My middle brother, Richard, is still alive. I’ll show you his family here in just a little bit. And that’s little Kenneth there in that matching shirt. That’s my brother who’s still living, Richard and his wife Karen. They live in the Washington, D.C. area. I don’t have pictures of their, well, I have them, but I’m not sharing pictures of their children, Angela and Avery. We’re certainly proud of them. And that’s us. That’s me when I was half the man that I am now.

1. Family Is Life

And uh Deedra. And that’s little Blake, who’s now 35, and little Keeley there in the pink dress, who’s now 33. So that’s my family. Family means everything to us, doesn’t it? Family is our focus. And so we want to talk about family this year. We’re gonna have a lot to say about it and what it means and the emotion attached to family, but also the obligations. And so let’s just start very basically this morning, the first day of this new year and this new theme, and just talking about what is family. Well, family’s a lot of things, but let’s just talk about three of them, will we? First of all, family’s life. That kind of almost fits within the definition of the parameters of family. That’s where life comes from.

2. Family Is Love

It was God’s plan that the family be the givers of life. Griffin read there in Genesis chapter 1 in our Bible reading this morning that that first family, Adam and Eve, were to procreate and they were to replenish to fill the earth. Family is life, and family is where you received your life from your mother and father, and family is where you give life to others. That’s family, and that’s what family does. But family is also love. Now we need to pause here and add this qualifying statement.

Different backgrounds in different families.

I had a wonderful, loving Christian family, who never intentionally did anything to hurt me.

That may not have been your experience.

You may have a family that was dunctional or even abusive. It wasn’t a place of support and giving and caring and love. But whatever family, physical family you had, we’re going to talk about our spiritual family, of course, this morning. And if you had that good family, then you have a perfect model for what this spiritual family is to be for you. But if that wasn’t your experience, you didn’t have that good family, then you can have that in this spiritual family. That’s the blessing. Whether you had a good family or a bad family, we’re both blessed in having this spiritual family. But family is to be, when it’s done right, is to be a place for love. Unconditional love. Now, not unconditional in the sense that that family would condone or promote sin or poor behavior in your life, but yet a family that would love you even when you make those bad mistakes and the wrong choices.

They may not support you in those wrong choices, but they love you still. And they’re like that typical prodigal father who is waiting for that son or that daughter to come back so that they can experience all the blessings of that family. The family is a place to give love.

3. Family Is to Be About Growth

So family’s life, and family is love, and family is to be about growth. Again, done right, family is where growth and nourishment take place. That you have those loving parents who are there to feed you, both physically and mentally and emotionally and hopefully you were blessed to feed you spiritually so that you can grow in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Family is a place for training. And that even involves discipline sometimes. Family’s a place of growth for children. But family is also a place of growth for the parents. If you did it right, you grew as you raised your family. And if you’re doing marriage right, you’re growing husbands and wives, you’re growing in this relationship. That you’re becoming a better person, a better human being, a better child of God because of family.

4. This Family Is Life

That’s what family is. And again, if done properly, and by properly we mean God’s way, then it’s a blessing to have this love, this life, and this growth. So we’ve asked the question, what is family? But now let’s ask the question: what is this family? We know what the physical family is to be for and like, but what is this family? And as we might expect, God chose this metaphor, and by the way, this is overwhelmingly the dominant metaphor that God speaks of his people with. He’ll speak of us as a kingdom, that we’re citizens and he’s the king, and we owe him allegiance and obedience. He’ll speak of us as a body, that we’re all connected. We have a head. That’s Jesus Christ. He directs the body, and you and I are integral parts and different parts to that body.

He’ll refer to us as a building or as a temple, more specifically, a place where worship and service and sacrifice takes place. We’re both stones in that building, that temple, and we are sacrifices and we are priest, all in that building, the temple. But more than any other, Scripture speaks of this relationship, this group of people as family. We lose count at how many times the New Testament refers to us, to others as brothers and sisters in Christ. We’re referred to as the household of God, which in modern-day vernacular just means family. We refer to God as our Father, Jesus as our elder brother, and again as one another as brothers and sisters. That metaphor and the dominance of that family metaphor in Scripture is certainly intentional because it connects our minds to what is family.

And so what is this family? Get ready for some repetition. This family is life. Turn with me, if you will, to the Gospel of John, chapter 1. Our relationship to our Father is all about life. Yes, it’s about obedience. It’s about submission. Yes, it’s about the blessings that he will bestow upon us. But encompassing all of that is the fact that our relationship to God is all about life. He is our Father. Because a Father gives life. John chapter 1. Let’s begin the reading in verse 1. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him, nothing was made that was made. In him was life.

And the life was the light of man. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Let’s pause there. God is life. Jesus Christ is life. And our relationship to him is the recipient of life. Skip down to verse 9, still in John 1, verse 9. That was the true light, speaking of the word of Jesus Christ. The true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world. Let’s pause there and remind ourselves, according to verse 4, that the life was the light. And so when he says in verse 9 that he, Jesus Christ, gives light to every man, according to verse 4, that means he’s giving life, spiritual light, and spiritual life to every man. He was in the world, verse 10, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to be children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. In its most basic fundamental sense, that’s what family does. It produces life.

5. This Family Is Love

This family is love.

It can replace a non existent good loving family. It can supplement a good loving family. But it’s to be about love. First Peter chapter one. Think about how many times we are told to love one another, but then think about how many times the command to love one another is couched in the metaphor of family. We love as our Father has loved. There’s family. We are to love. Look in 1 Peter 1 and in verse 22. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren. Love one another fervently with a pure heart. Now it is true from the mouth of Jesus Himself that I’m to love everybody. Everybody is my neighbor.

But that does not change the fact that the New Testament unapologetically tells me that family takes priority when it comes to love.

6. This Spiritual Family Should Be About Growth

I make no apology in saying I love those people more than I love your brothers and mother and father and grandparents. That’s just the way family is. Family takes that priority. That’s the way it is in this family. We love all of mankind. Everyone is our neighbor. We even love our enemies. But we make no apologies in showing priority to family. Sincere love of the brethren. And Peter there tells us the type of love. It’s a family love, but it’s a genuine love. It’s not a love in word. It’s not a love in some shell of an emotion. But it’s real and it’s genuine. We love one another from the heart fervently. And this family, this spiritual family, should be about growth as well. That’s one of the greatest blessings your family gave you and you give to others in your family is that you help them grow.

You feed them. You support them, you protect them so that they can grow.

One of the best and maybe worst things that ever came along were these books about child rearing. I can remember when our children were born, people probably worried about us because that was one of the first gifts they gave us how to raise a child and not kill it. And you got those kind of what to expect, I think they were called. And so when your child is six months old, here’s what to expect. When they’re a year old, here’s what to expect. And there’s two years old. And since those books came out, and probably even before those books came out, parents have been alarmed. My child’s not rolling over. My child’s not walking. He’s not walking. He’s not talking. He’s not body trained yet. What are we going to do?

He doesn’t know his ABCs yet. She doesn’t know how to tie her shoes. We get all alarmed when there isn’t that progress in growth. Now, don’t misunderstand. We probably overreact about many of those things because physically and spiritually growth take place at different levels. But if growth is supposed to take place, we’re going to be alarmed if it’s not. This spiritual family is growth. And it should be about growth. And we should be alarmed if we or someone else in our family is not growing as they should. Turn with me to the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. The book of Ephesians, chapter 4 talks about the body aspect of this experiment of Christianity, but it also speaks of it as a family. Look in Ephesians 4 and in verse 16.

From whom, that is from Christ, the head of this body, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. God so ordered this thing, this kingdom, this temple, this body, this family, so that we might grow. And if we’re not growing, if you’re not growing, if I’m not growing, to some degree we’re doing family wrong. Because family is to be about life and love and growth. And so throughout this year, we’re going to talk about family. And how that family is to be love and growth and life.

Conclusion

Maybe you’re not a part of that family. You need to be a part of this family, not because we’re such wonderful brothers and sisters. I think we’re pretty good.

And throughout this year, we’ll be emphasizing that’s the most important thing about family is our Father and our elder brother Jesus Christ. And so, would you start this new year with the greatest blessing of a new year by becoming a part of God’s family, being one of his children? Maybe you are that prodigal son, who’s wasted your father’s inheritance in riotous living to one degree or another. We want you to know that the father is waiting with outstretched arms for that child to come back home. And we would be wonderfully thrilled to assist you in that return back home to family. Can we help you in any way this morning as you grow, live, and love as a part of this family? Can we help you as together we stand and as we sing?