Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you and.
In this series that we are in the midst of, it's all about
community, restoring community to God's original design and
that we're in Week 2. And so this morning we're going
to kick it off by saying a couple practical things.
One is we are a house that believes everything we do is
founded on the Word of God. And if you don't have a Bible in
your hand this morning and you would like one, we want to put
one in your hands. Go ahead and raise your hand
nice and high. Our ushers will bring a Bible to
you. You can keep it.
You can leave it here if you would like, but we would love
for you to have your own Bible. I also want to tell you that we
believe that life change takes more than what happens here on
Sunday morning. It's why we talk about groups.
It's why we talk about learning how to read the Bible.
And it's why we have created a brand new resource that is going
to help you keep the sermon alive during the week.
It's a digital resource. It's going to come to you.
And all you have to do. I think we have AQR code.
All you have to do is snap a picture of that.
Grab it. We got some Bible hungry people
in the back. And what this does is on Sunday,
you'll get some questions to digest the message with with
people after church. And on Monday you're going to
get a resource that's for the week.
And then you're going to get prompts and reminders that help
you dig further into what we talked about here on Sunday
morning. We would love it if every single
person was eating of the Word all week long.
And that's why we've provided this for you.
With all of that being said, let's pray and let's jump in.
Father, we thank you so much that you are unchanging.
Your presence is undeniable. We want more.
We're hungry and we're thirsty. And God, for anyone here today
who's saying, I'm curious, but I'm not sure what this is all
about. I pray, Lord, that the power and
the presence of Your spirit, the fullness, the activity of Your
Word would land on ears and hearts and eyes that want to
see, hear, and know You. So use my mouth, use my body,
use whatever you want to do to convey your living and active
word. And it's in Jesus name that we
pray, Amen. So when we talk about community,
what we're really talking about is relationships, right?
Great community is founded on great relationships.
And great relationships I think get formed around great question
asking. If you want to build
relationship with someone, you learn how to ask great
questions. And so this week, someone I love
very much, I was spending time with building relationship and
she asked me a question that prompted some curious thinking.
She said, I want to know what you were like in high school.
And I thought to myself, so long ago, I'm not really sure that I
know what I was like in high school, but she asked it in a
really neat way. She said, give me 5 words that
would tell you, tell me about you in high school.
And I was formulating. I'm like, I'm think I'm getting
to one or two. And I'm not really sure I get to
5, but they're all pointing towards one word.
And it's nerd. OK.
I think I really was a giant nerd.
I loved school, I loved academics and I loved reading.
I was telling her, I think I spent at least one summer inside
the Public Library. And I don't mean like I went and
checked out some books. I mean, like, I treated it like
it was my living room. Like, hey, this book is good.
I read it. I finished it today.
I'm going to put it back. And at the end of the day, my
parents would pick me up like I was a nerd.
It's OK, But I love books. How many of you love books, love
movies, love a great story? We love a great story.
We're storytelling people, right?
But in a great story, almost always there's a build up.
There's like a conflict that's rising, pointing towards
something. You know what I'm talking about.
And then we're longing for the tip over into the resolution.
Who? I think for me, 350 pages, just
about enough before we're tipping right 97 minutes.
That movie better have resolved or we don't like it, right?
Can I get an Amen? So what happens in our spiritual
lives when we're in a conflict that's just not resolving?
What happens when the gap between what we know to be true
and what we're actually living in our lives?
Like it's just not working out and we're living in like this
sustained conflict? What I believe the Lord wants us
to understand today is the role that community plays in
resolving this conflict, the gap between what you know and what
you become. Because the reality is, I'm here
to tell you, you may not like it, but you're in a giant
conflict right now because you are an eternal being born with
an eternal spirit, and you're living in a temporary place.
And this temporary place called Earth has boundaries and
constructs that are built by humans that don't really align
and match with the God who designed you and the Kingdom
presence and the Kingdom way. So the minute you're born into
the spiritual family, reborn and you have become a new creation,
you're now faced with a day in, day out conflict.
Which one are you going to choose?
Are you going to choose the Kingdom principles, the Kingdom
way, the eternal perspective, or are we going to choose to
satisfy the earthly temporal flesh that we're living in?
Are you starting to see the conflict?
It's the conflict that you feel when you come to an amazing
conference like these men just did or the women are going to do
in August. That's a shameless plug.
We are going to do the same thing in August.
You should sign up now, but when you go to a conference and you
have your mind blown and the power of the presence of the
Holy Spirit and the Word transforms you, and then you go
back to your regular life, right?
And you feel this conflict within this is a conflict that
we can read all about in the Bible.
But it's this, the moment you become a Jesus follower, we are
called to transfer our allegiance from this world and
its ways to the Kingdom and its ways.
And as long as we're living on this side of heaven, we are
going to face times where we feel stuck.
Maybe you're not convinced yet, but anytime that you know what
you should be doing in your heart, you're convicted by the
Holy Spirit. Because here's the deal, once
the Holy Spirit is in you, you're not going to feel good
doing the things the way the world does anymore.
So what's the conflict? The conflict is the choice we
make day in and day out of. Where is our citizenship?
Where is it going to land? If you feel stuck today in any
way between what you know is right but what you are actually
doing, then today's message is for you.
Moses. He is a leader that God chose.
We read about him in the Old Testament.
He is the leader that God chose to take a ragtag bunch of people
that had been in slavery, that were wandering in the desert to
the precipice of joining the promised land that God has
provided. And he's taking these millions
of people through the miracle of the Red Sea.
You may have heard about that. That was Moses, and so as Moses
is standing before them recounting everything God has
done and he's telling them you're going to go into that
nation and you're going to be a community.
Here's what you need to know. If you will turn to me and
Deuteronomy, turn with me. Deuteronomy chapter 30, we're
going to read how Moses explains this conflict.
Deuteronomy chapter 30. We're going to read a passage
here, and then if you want to mark Matthew 12, that's the New
Testament. You can mark Matthew 12.
Those are the 2 main places. I would love for you to join me
in your Bible today. I'm going to read other verses,
but those are the 2 main anchors, Deuteronomy chapter 30
and Matthew chapter 12. Everybody ready?
If you're ready, say yes, OK. Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse
11. Moses stands before the people
like I am today, and says now what I am commanding you today
is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.
It's not up in heaven so that you have to ask who will ascend
into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey
it. Nor is it beyond the sea, so
that you have to ask who will cross the sea to get it and
proclaim it to us so we may obey it.
No, the word is very near you. It's in your mouth and it's in
your heart so that you may obey it.
So what we're hearing from Moses is this God way of living is not
unattainable. It's not some mystery.
So we haven't hit the conflict yet, right?
Here comes the conflict. In verse 19, Moses says, this
day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you
that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
So here's the conflict. Every day, day in and day out,
we get choices to choose life or to choose death, to choose
blessings or to choose curses. And this is Moses admonition.
What does he say to them? Now choose what?
Now choose life. Moses said it's accessible, the
word is in your mouth, it's in your heart.
It couldn't be closer to you. But we have to make a choice
about what we do with it. And he says now choose life.
It's the very same principle within this conflict that Jesus
presents in Matthew chapter 16, verses 24 through 26, when he's
teaching his disciples and he says, if anyone wishes to come
after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow
me. This is sounding
counterintuitive, right? You want to live, you've got to
die. What is Jesus talking about?
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for my sake will find it.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and
forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul? Do you hear the conflict?
Which one do you want? You want the earthly temporal
life? Then you're going to lose
whatever Jesus is offering. But if we're willing to choose
life in Jesus way and say death to whatever this context is, we
will have everything that Jesus is offering.
And so both Moses and Jesus say choose life.
How do we do this? When you're running a business
and you choose maximum generosity, radical generosity
instead of maximum personal gain, you choose life.
Say it loud. When you forgive inside your
home, your neighborhood, your church, your workplace, When
others would tell you you are justified to cut them off or
retaliate, you choose. You choose life.
And when you parent your children according to the Word
and not according to the world, you choose yes.
And today, in our context, what we're talking about is when we
choose community in this way, when we open our homes, when we
open our tables, when we share our resources, when we use our
time to put lonely people into our family, you choose yes.
So how is this possible? How are we going to win this
battle? Moses said it, Jesus said it.
How are we going to choose life? I believe that God has given us
two key gifts in order to do this successfully day in and day
out. Number one is the Holy Spirit.
When you receive Jesus in salvation, He gives you the
indwelling power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
And the second one is the topic for today.
He gives you a new family. He gives you a new family, but a
family that is marked and defined not by the world's
explanations, but by Jesus's. And today what we're going to do
is we're going to study Jesus's family.
Because if you feel stuck, like you are not winning the battle,
if you are not winning this conflict day in and day out,
decision by decision, it might be because you are not
experiencing this new family in the way that Jesus intends.
And so today we are focusing on the new family of Jesus as a
gift. Everybody say gift.
This is what we mean when we say there's a growing new family in
a community. Did you see all ages, all
colors? Did you see baptism?
Did you see men sharpening men and women with women?
Did you see people who, without anywhere else they could connect
because of a special need, are finding family in the Thrive
Family community? This yes, I see you, Buck.
This is the new family that is going to help you choose life
over death. So today what we're going to do
is we're going to study five characteristics about this
family so you will know what your part is, what we are
building, and we will know how we will know when we've hit it
is when Jesus's family looks like this number one, this
family that Jesus is building goes beyond your relationships
that come through marriage, birth or adoption.
You know the phrase blood is thicker than water.
Jesus's blood is thicker than anything else.
If that's where we're looking, the blood of Jesus is creating a
new family that is going to go beyond your family of origin.
And this is a great promise If you have a finger holding there
in Matthew 12. Let's go to Matthew 12.
This is our central passage today.
It's only four verses, but it's rich, it's challenging, and it's
wonderful. So as you go to Matthew chapter
12, we're going to read verses 46 through 50.
But I want to tell you very briefly what has happened in the
preceding verses because we're jumping in to verse 46.
Anytime you read that Jesus is teaching to a crowd, he's likely
teaching to three kinds of people.
Everybody say 3, The first one are the disciples that have
devoted themselves to following Jesus.
The second kind of people are the curious people.
They're trying to figure out, are you a wacko or is this
something I want to follow? Right?
And then the third group of people inside that crowd, often
we're religious leaders, they're called Pharisees or Sadducees.
And these people are trying desperately to protect the
current state of the Jewish church.
And when Jesus comes and he starts rocking the boat, they
don't like it. So all of that has been
happening leading up to these verses.
And so Jesus disciples, they pulled some grain off of a stalk
and the Pharisees said, you violated the Sabbath.
And Jesus healed somebody on the Sabbath, and they said you
violated the Sabbath. The Pharisees did.
And then finally, the Pharisees went so far as to say, yeah, so
you're doing some miracles, but we don't think your source of
power is God. We think your source of power is
Satan really affrontive, right? So as we get into verse 46, this
is the crowd that Jesus is speaking to in Matthew 12.
Let's pick it up together. While he was still speaking to
the crowds, behold, his mother and his brothers were standing
outside seeking to speak to him. And someone said to him, behold,
your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to
speak to you, Jesus. But Jesus answered the one who
was telling him and said, who is my mother and who are my
brothers? And stretching out his hand, he
said to his disciples, Behold my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my father who is in heaven, he is
my brother and sister and mother.
Now I've got children. If my son Owen was hanging out
and doing his thing and I was like, Hey, can somebody get
Owen? And he's like, I don't have a
mom. What are you talking about?
I would be crushed, right? Can you put yourself in this
situation and say, what is going on here?
Now, if you're new to learning about Jesus, you might think, is
Jesus really rude? Did he just like really crush
his mom and his brothers? Or you might say, oh, OK, this
is where we learned that our church family and our church
roles and what we do is more important than anything else.
So your kids can just die on the altar of ministry, right?
Y'all better say no. A little better than that, no.
So when we face scripture, that seems like it's confusing, we
have to dig. So we're going to dig by saying
what else did Jesus say about family?
In Matthew 15, Jesus reinforced and strengthened the commandment
to honor your father and mother. And the apostle Paul in First
Timothy 58 gives this challenge. If anyone does not provide for
his relatives, especially for members of his household, he has
denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
So we are called to take care of our family.
We are called to honor our parents, to serve well those by
which we are related by blood, marriage or adoption 100%.
So what is Jesus doing? When we launched this church, I
had a baby in a sling 1314 years ago and I had a 7 year old and
an 11 year old. And I can identify with Jesus in
some way in this passage because every Sunday morning I felt like
my job was to minister to whoever it was that was right in
front of me. Like if you were right in front
of me and you were talking to me and sharing your heart with me
after the service, I wanted to give you my full attention.
I might be bouncing a baby or have like a toddler or whatever,
but I'm locked in, right? But what would inevitably happen
is my precious sweet kids would be like, can we go to lunch with
so and so? Can I have a play date with so
and so? Can we?
And I'd be like locked in trying to say, hey, I'm giving my
attention, but they really needed or wanted whatever was
going on, right? There's a tension here in this
moment and I think we cannot resolve it in a simplistic way.
We have to dig. When you consider the whole of
Scripture and you dig further into what God is saying, you are
going to find this is an expansion of family.
It's not a replacement. Jesus is expanding our
understanding of family and he is not replacing you and your
family come into this new community.
If you're single, you bring yourself into this community and
what will happen is you will influence the community and the
community will influence you. But Jesus's new family, the
building blocks, are your family of origin.
Now what happens if your choice to follow Jesus puts you at odds
with your family by blood, marriage or adoption?
Because that can happen in a very real way.
You could be choosing to follow Jesus after you're married.
You've already made a choice of spouse, and maybe your spouse
isn't on the spiritual journey with you.
How many know that would cause tension?
But Jesus doesn't say get divorced.
You know what he says, keep loving me, keep living your life
and your faith will win over your spouse.
What if you're a student? Like I was a student that came
to church and came to faith and no one in my household was
following Jesus at that time. So what happens?
You come into this youth, everything in here is a youth
ministry. Now you guys meet on Sunday
night, but this is your youth ministry and this family will
help you grow up and you will lead your parents because you
are living that life with them and in front of them, right?
And what happens when your religion of origin is completely
a rejection if you choose Jesus? What if you literally are cut
off, kicked out? I know one family that took in a
young girl whose family completely cut her off.
There is a cost to following Jesus, but what Jesus is saying
is we're going to expand your understanding of family and the
ideal state is you bring yourself and your family into
this body. But if there is a cost, a
rejection or a cutting off, here's what Jesus promises will
be true. He says in Matthew 12 verses 29,
Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or
mother or children or farms for my name's sake will receive many
times as much and will inherit eternal life.
So even in that very difficult choice, choose Jesus every time.
And Jesus will use this new family to close any gaps, to
help you by putting you into a community that will help fill
every deficit that you have. So Jesus is building a new
family that's expanding. What else is this family #2 this
new family of Jesus is counter cultural.
To understand how significant this moment is between Jesus and
the crowd and his disciples and his family, we have to go and
understand what was the family unit like in ancient Israel.
It's very different than what we understand in our perspective.
Even if you come from a culture, American or otherwise, that
really values family, it's nothing like what was true in
ancient Israel. In ancient Israel, a son would
take the name of his father, not even just his last name, but the
first name. He was identified and known only
by his family and his household. Your entire economic, social,
religious and political status was established by your family
and your family alone. It was not moved by your
personal success or anything like what we experienced today.
You know, in America today, we value family, sure, but you can
be very successful, very independent and go completely on
your own, right? At this time in this society, in
ancient Israel, there was no you apart from your family, period.
Family was everything. We experienced this when we went
to Israel in 2023. We were in a town called
Capernaum. I've got a picture I want to
show you. And this is the town where Jesus
did most of his living or anchor for his ministry, right next to
the Sea of Galilee. And in Capernaum you can go and
see the structure that remains. And while we were standing
there, our tour guide was showing us this.
I'm like, well, that's great. It's a bunch of walls.
Yay. But what she said was so
profound. Every one of those walls, every
one of those little squares or rectangles represents what they
added to their household as their family expanded.
So if you were living in one of those rectangles and your son
got married, you would not say, son, go buy a nice piece of
property, Let's get you set up in a rental for your family.
You would say go get the stones. We're adding on to the house.
So inside that household, one family unit, grandparents,
parents, children, grandchildren, great
grandchildren were living and existing based on their family
name. Everybody with me.
So when Jesus says, who is my family?
If he asserts anything is superior to his family of
origin, he is literally shaking the ground, shaking the
foundation, and shocking everyone who is listening.
But Jesus doesn't have a problem being offensive, right?
Everything he did was to come to show the Kingdom of heaven.
In fact, he said over and over, the Kingdom of heaven is like
the Kingdom of heaven is like. Why?
Because the Kingdom of earth is nothing like the Kingdom of
heaven. And so when he begins sharing
who is my family, he is definitely upsetting the norms
of the day. He does the same thing in the
parable of the Good Samaritan. It's in Luke chapter 10, verses
25 to 37. And I'm not going to read you
the whole passage. I'm just going to summarize the
story and we'll pit stop at a couple verses along the way.
But here's what you need to know.
There was an expert in the law that came to Jesus.
Another crowd, another situation.
But when the Bible says expert in the law, it does not mean a
lawyer or a judge. It means a religious leader
who's the expert in how their political and religious laws
were one at that time. Also very different from us,
right? So the expert of the law comes
to Jesus and he's like, OK, Mr. Kingdom of Heaven, that's great.
How do I get this eternal life? And Jesus responds to him by
telling him a story. But in verse 29, we learn that
not only did this man want information, he wanted to
justify himself. He wanted to prove that Jesus
was wrong and he was right. So the expert in the law asked
Jesus, how do I inherit eternal life?
And Jesus says, love God and love your neighbor.
So in verse 29, we read he wanted to justify himself.
So he asked Jesus, who's my neighbor?
And Jesus answered with a story about a man that was walking on
the road and he was attacked and he was beaten, he was robbed,
and he was left for dead. And along that road came two
other religious leaders. It says two different kinds of
religious leaders, a Levi and a priest.
And he comes by, They both come by, and instead of stopping to
help this man, they get as far as they possibly can away and
they leave him to die. But there's a third person that
comes by in the story, and that person is called a Samaritan.
Everyone say Samaritan. The Samaritan would be like a
mortal enemy of this Jewish leader.
Like, not just we don't like each other, we hate each other.
And so the Samaritan, what does he do?
He comes and he stops and he bandages the wounds.
He cares for the man. He uses his own money, his
resource and his time to make sure that the injured man is
going to be in a place where he can heal.
He even says, I'm going to come back and make sure that I pay
for everything that he needs. And so in this story, Jesus then
goes on to say, which of these three do you think was a
neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?
Verse 37, the expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy
on him, and Jesus told him, go and do likewise.
So the shock value in this parable is that Jesus made the
enemy the neighbor, right? The enemy, the moral example he
made. The shock value about who you
think I'm calling you to love and build family with is not
what you think. It's parallel and relates very
clearly to what Jesus says when he says who is my family?
The shock value here is that Jesus places the value on
something outside and across family lines because this new
family is beyond blood and it's countercultural.
Why? Because God's designed to reach
the World with the good news is to show his true character and
his heart and his face through a multi generational cross
cultural family that lives in such a way that the health
within this family defies all human understanding.
And when people encounter that kind of family of God, they say,
I have to know your father. And Jesus's plan, His mission,
is to be countercultural because the Father's heart is for all.
And the point of being countercultural is not to be
rebellious for rebellion's sake. The point of being rebellious in
this case is for redemption. Rebellion is not the point.
Redemption is. And that brings us to point #3
this new family of Jesus is not only beyond blood, it's not only
counter cultural. This new family is on a distinct
mission together. Do you remember in Matthew
chapter 12? If you can go there, let's read
verse 50 again together. For whoever does the will of my
Father who is in heaven, He is my brother and my sister and my
mother. Did Jesus say the people who
show up to temple or church, they're the in the church family
shake your head no. Did Jesus say if you're nice and
you're good enough and you do all the right things, then
you're in in the family? No, he said those that are my
just my disciples that are doing the will of my father alongside
me underneath 1 mission. This is the family that I am
talking about because the new family of Jesus will be marked
by disciples on a mission, and that mission is not earthly
pleasure and pursuit. It's not wealth or status.
It's not ringing out the most that we can out of life on our
trips around the sun. This family of God is going to
be marked by the costly love of mercy, care, and forgiveness
within a family that has one primary focus.
And when we're all looking at that same focus, everything else
gets ordered and prioritized underneath it.
And Jesus gave us that focus in Matthew 2819 and 20.
My discipleship group just memorized this a few weeks ago.
Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
So what is the big deal with this family?
This family is crystal clear on our mission that is to share the
gospel and to share our lives in such a way that causes spiritual
babies to become spiritual parents to keep adding to and
growing the family. And when Jesus said, I want you
to teach them to everything that I've taught you, when He said
I'm commanding you teach them to observe it all.
He didn't mean in a classroom. Do you know what he meant in
your everyday real life? This is the mark of the mission.
When I was 13 years old, I entered Jesus's forever family,
and my family of origin was not following Jesus and I didn't
have spiritual parents. So when I was 13 years old, from
the age of 13 to 16, Mike and Karen, they opened their family
and their home to me. They had young children and I
learned how to center your life and your family around Jesus and
it was an incredible life changing season.
And Paul and Paula, they led a consistent youth discipleship
group. And every Friday night I went
over there and I learned from the Bible and we played games
and we had dinner and they made room in their lives to disciple
me. And when I got married, Garnett,
she invited me into her home. She was a young mom.
She had three little girls. I had just gotten freshly off of
the I do and she taught me how to honor my husband, how to be a
new wife and she showed me what it meant to be a Mama that I
would one day become. When we were newly married, we
had a team of other young marriage and we met and we did a
covenant group where we read about conflict and money, how to
love one another, how to choose life inside of our marriage.
And Chris and Jen, they opened their home and friendship to us.
They had a little baby and we spent all kinds of time over
there, but our whole time together was around the baby's
needs. So we'd be making dinner and
then somebody would be like, oh, I'll change his diaper.
And so I'd go change his diaper and then we'd come and we'd play
a game, but it's time for the baby to go to bed.
So Tim would put the baby to bed.
You know what that did for us? It showed us we were ready to
have a baby. It showed us how to build our
life around friendship and community with a young child.
And then when we had our first baby, when Owen came, Bill and
Becky, they came to our house every Monday night.
Now they had teenagers. They were teaching us all kinds
of things about how to go through the teenage years, but
they showed up every Monday night at our house so that Tim
and I could go to worship practice and we could serve on
the worship team. This is community.
This is just a 10 year snapshot of my life that I'm sharing with
you. The gift of community is people
to become like Jesus with in every season of your life.
And together you uphold the mission of Jesus, of expanding
this very family that we're in. But have you ever been in a
church? Anyone ever been in a church?
You should raise your hand, everyone.
Anyone ever been in a family called church?
That was messy. Come on y'all.
That was like 4 people. Have you ever been the messy
person in the church? Yeah, I have too.
You know why church families stay messy?
Because we forget that we are a body and that Jesus is the head.
We forget that when we're called into the family and we're born
into it, we have to keep growing up.
We forget that the way God designed our body is for our
systems to intricately work together with the brain being
the giving and the receiving of information, right?
We were in 7th grade science this week, I think with Eli.
We were studying about cardiovascular system,
respiratory system, digestive system, all of these things and
it reminded me that the body only works when we all work
together and it only works when we have a great head.
Did you know that we are a body? First Corinthians 12/27 says now
you are Christ's body and individually parts of it and
Ephesians 4 says there is one body and one spirit just as you
also were called in one hope of your calling.
Verse 15 says speaking the truth and love.
We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that
is, who say it loud. We're supposed to grow up into
the head and from Him our whole body being fitted and held
together, where every joint supplies according to the proper
working of each individual part, will cause the growth of the
body for the building up of itself in love.
If we submit ourselves to the head and the counsel of the
Word, we will hear things like this.
Here's how we live together. Be kind and compassionate to one
another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave
you. We will here love each other
deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
We will hear that we are to offer hospitality to one
another. We will here serve one another
humbly in love. Look not only to your interests,
but the interests of others. Is this sounding like a good
family? If we submit to the Head and the
counsel of the Word, and we align to the truth of God and
let Him guide us in how to live, we won't be a messy church.
He'll move us from mess to maturity.
And in that maturity we will learn here.
Maybe one of the hardest things. You know the Bible says in
Matthew 5, if you come to give your offering to the Lord, you
come to make your worship sacrifice, or you come to bring
your gift, or you come to be in His presence, and you have
something between you and somebody else in conflict.
You know what the Bible says, Put your thing down, go resolve
that conflict, and then come back and bring your offering.
If we could get Jesus as the head and Jesus's word as our
wisdom, we will be a mature, beautiful, powerful church where
you want to be and other people want to be with you.
Praise God, but there is an alarming thing I heard this
week. I heard it Friday and it came
through the Barna group. If you don't know Barna, they're
a very reliable statistical based group that studies data
and people often related to the church.
And I want to read you this statement.
They tested this statement and they asked for agreement.
Now you need to know it was people inside the church,
outside the church, people who all all spectrums.
They put this statement forward. So I'll give it to you and you
can tell me if you would agree spiritual advice from AI
artificial intelligence is just as trustworthy as advice from a
pastor. No, 30% of the people said they
agreed. 30% of the people. And the reason I'm telling you
this is not because I'm worried about my job security.
I am worried about our maturity. Jesus must be our word and our
wisdom. We must grow up as the family of
God, up under Jesus as the head. And when we do, we will be
forming the family that Jesus has in his heart.
It'll be beyond blood. It will be counter cultural.
It will be on a distinct mission.
And we will grow up in maturity. And you know what word came with
maturity? It was love.
When we help each other grow up, what it births is love.
And our fifth and final point this morning is that this new
family that Jesus is describing is eternal.
It's the only thing that's going to last.
And when Jesus is talking in this situation where he's
saying, who's my family? These disciples are my family.
The reason he's doing it is because he's building an eternal
family. And we have to stop looking this
way and start looking this way and then look back down and do
what he calls us to do. In Genesis, Pastor Tim taught us
that God established community in the form of a family because
God is community and everything he does is through community.
In Moses and Abraham, Jesus is not pictured yet, but he's
already on the scene. He's forming this family through
his future sacrifice. And everything in the Old
Testament shows us God is creating a nation.
It's made-up of families, clans and tribes.
And that nation has one job, show the heart of the Father to
the world. And in turn, we see, man, we're
messy without a savior, right? Then the Savior comes, Jesus
comes and he takes these families, these tribes, these
clans, and he mixes them, all them up and puts them into a
brand new family. And he breathes the Holy Spirit
on them, and he burst the church.
And by the power of the Spirit, he births a church that can
withstand the gates of hell by being beyond blood,
countercultural, on mission, and united to each other with Jesus
as the head. But then he goes one step
further in revelation to show us how eternal and how significant
this church family is. He calls you the bride.
He calls you the bride and he says in eternity in the Book of
Revelation, he says we're going to have a wedding feast that
blows out any wedding feast you could ever imagine.
And Jesus is the groom and the church is his bride.
Now, guys, you got to get over this.
We're a bride together. What does it mean?
Treasured, covenant relationship, loved, adored,
sacrificed for, laid down his life for an eternal bride.
And as Jesus teaches us, yes, he's teaching us that the family
equals the church and the church equals the bride.
But the family that he is building has eternity on its
mind always. And so in Revelation 22, seven,
and 17, we hear Jesus through the apostle John.
He gives this incredible promise.
Jesus says, behold, I am coming quickly and blessed is he who
heeds the words of prophecy in this book.
And what is our response? Verse 17, you remember the two
gifts that are going to help you choose life.
What were they? The Holy Spirit and the church,
right? The community.
In verse 17, we hear Jesus says the Spirit and the bride say
what? Come.
Let the one who hears say come. Let the one who is thirsty come.
Let the one who desires take the water of life without cost.
Is it truly without cost? In just a moment we're going to
receive communion. But just remember, when Jesus
says this is coming without cost, it's without cost to us.
And so when he says I'm coming back for you, bride, we want to
be ready. We want to be the family that he
designed and that he desired. That's beyond blood, that's
countercultural, that's on mission, that is submitted to
the head and beautifully functioning as the body and has
eternity on its mind. So in Matthew chapter 12, what
was Jesus saying when he said, who is my family?
These disciples are my family. He is not making us pick between
people. He is saying something so much
more valuable. At the root of this passage,
Jesus is addressing the very conflict that we started with
today. Do you remember?
I put before you life and death. Choose life.
And So what is Jesus saying every single time there is a
conflict inside of you about choosing the things that are
valuable in heaven over the things that are valuable to
earth? Pick the Kingdom every time.
Every time you're faced with a choice between choosing life and
choosing death, choose life every time.
And so he knows it's not easy. That's why he gave us the Holy
Spirit and He's giving us community.
How you choose who you choose, how much you choose to get in,
who you choose to let come around you and shape you.
This is the critical choice of today because with the right
community, you can pick the eternal over the temporary every
single time. God is providing you a forever
family, a community to do this with, regardless of your
relationships that come through marriage, birth, or adoption.
This community is essential. So God is putting it before us
today. Choose life.
And as we remember in communion, God chose us first, right?
Jesus chose us first. So if you will stand to your
feet as we close today, we're going to do a few more things.
The first of which is to talk about communion.
What is communion? You come from other faith
backgrounds. You may have been taught only
certain people can take communion in this church.
The table is open. The requirements or the guidance
for taking communion, the body and the blood of Jesus is that
you are confessing Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
So inside of this wafer and this juice is the promise that was
fulfilled in Jesus as Messiah and the future promise that he's
coming back for his bride. In the body and in the blood is
the remembrance of the mission. We confess, we align, we restore
our hearts to God's design for community when we take
communion. So as you're preparing your
elements, you can go ahead and peel back.
If you need the elements, you can raise your hand and our
usher will bring you one if you didn't get it.
If you need gluten free, you can like wave it back and forth and
we'll bring you that. But but before we receive
communion, we want to extend the invitation to salvation because
the table is open and the sacrifice has been made.
The unique identity, death and resurrection of Jesus.
He was fully God and fully human.
He bore all of our sins. He took the penalty of what we
could not bear and he bore it. Then he defeated death,
resurrected, and he gives us the opportunity for new life.
And so today, if you are being stirred, if you're saying I have
never done this, I've been around it, I've been near it,
but I've never taking this step, today is your day.
The Holy Spirit is stirring you. And this is the way that we do
that. Here we're going to say together
something all out loud. But for you, it's the
application of the Scripture that says when you believe in
your heart and you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord,
you will be saved, nothing more, nothing less.
So church, we're going to agree together and raise our voices
with those who are boldly declaring Jesus for the very
first time. Would you say this with me out
loud? Repeat this prayer.
Father God, I see you, I know you came after me.
I know there is no way to you but through Jesus.
And so I believe in my heart and I confess with my mouth that I
need the blood of Jesus to cover me, to heal me, to set me free.
And so I say today, Jesus, you are my Lord and Father, we thank
you so much for those that are being saved today.
If you made that decision and you declared it today, we want
to walk with you. We'd ask you to boldly raise
your hand. The rest of your life is going
to be full of bold choices. So today, make your first one,
raise your hand nice and high, and let our ushers bring you a
card so we can walk with you in this new family.
Let's prepare to receive communion.
Go ahead and take out the bread. Jesus said, this is my body
broken for you for the forgiveness of sins.
Tell him thank you and receive his gift.
And then he said, this cup, this blood, this is the offering, the
substitution for your sin. He said drink of it and remember
the covenant that he has made with you for now in eternity.
Would you receive this? As we close today, we're going
to praise, we're going to raise the roof.
We're going to sing about eternity because we are a family
that is beyond blood. We are going to be counter
cultural. We are on mission.
Jesus is our head and we need each other and this is an
eternal family. God bless you and the reading
and the hearing of the Word. Thanks for joining us today.
We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can text connect to
407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot church.
Have a great week.