The Church: Family (Eph. 2:18-22)
Here’s the manuscript from my initial sermon in our series, “The Church,” delivered on June 21st, 2020. You can catch the audio and video here.
I’m excited for us to regather, as Rob just announced. But notice the wording - we’re regathering, not reopening. Why’s that so important? We’ve never been closed.
Today, we’re beginning a new mini-series in Karis. We’re calling it “The Church: Embracing Our Identity as the People of God.” We’ll look at six metaphors we find for the church in the New Testament. And the first we’re going to look at today is the image of the family.
You don’t stop being a family during a pandemic. We may not be able to get together for awhile - at least all of us together - but we’re still family. And that says something about our relationships together and our obligations to one another. But I’m getting ahead of myself now.
Family Then
Paul writes here, to the church in Ephesus, calling them the “household of God.” I want us to dig into what that means today. But first, I want you to think about the day in which this letter was written.
One book that rocked my world a few years back was When The Church Was a Family by Joseph Hellerman. I can’t recommend it highly enough. He tries to call the church back to the days when it was more relational - and not just something institutional. He decries our lack of commitment to the church today and says we and the world suffer greatly as a result.
He contrasts our culture with that of the early church - and really most of the world still today - by talking about the storyline of the film Titanic. There a woman named Rose meets a man named Jack on that ship. She’s already set to marry a man her mother’s approved, a man who will provide for them and maintain their social status. But she meets this street kid on the boat. They fall in love. And now she has a choice to make. Well, of course, she chooses Jack. She follows her heart. But Hellerman points out, that if this would have played on screens in the first-century world, the audience would have been appalled. Because folks in that day thought of the group, the community, the family first.
Obviously, I’m not in our Ridgeway Auditorium, recording live with the others. Why’s that? Well, my son was exposed to COVID-19 by someone in the community. So I might be a bit spunky and snarky today because of that. But I want you to think about why containing this virus might be so hard for us as Americans.
If you’ve heard me preach more than once, you know that I love the nation of Japan. We have two couples from our Karis family there. I’ve been there seven times. Now that’s a nation of 126 and a half MILLION people. You know how many coronavirus deaths they’ve had over there? 935. What’s Missouri’s population? 6 million people. Again, Japan 126 million. Missouri 6 million. How many deaths have we had? 946. Let that sink in - more deaths here in our state than all the nation of Japan. And, of course, you can almost throw a rock from Japan and hit China - where the virus seems to have originated.
Now how could that be? Well, in Japan, people simply think more about the group than the individual. Less about their freedom than what everyone else needs. Now, of course, I know this has its drawbacks. It’s why it makes it harder for the gospel to spread. But it should also convict us. Ask people to stand six feet away. Ask people to wear a mask. People there just naturally think, “We’ll do what’s best for everyone.” It’s way harder for a deadly virus to spread. Their world is so much closer to the mindset of the first century.
But that’s not in the air we breathe here in America. And we’ve seen that pretty clearly the past few months. It’s hard to tell people who’ve been raised on “you do you” to suddenly put others first. To as Mark Sayers puts it, move from being consumers to citizens. We’re a highly individualistic society, and that makes it hard to grasp what it means that we’re a family together. Hellerman puts it like this:
“The early Christians had a markedly different perspective. Jesus' early followers were convinced that the group comes first—that I as an individual will become all God wants me to be only when I begin to view my goals, desires, and relational needs as secondary to what God is doing through his people, the local church. The group, not the individual, took priority in a believer's life in the early church. And this perspective (social scientists refer to it as "strong group") was hardly unique to Christianity. Strong-group values defined the broader social landscape of the ancient world and characterized the lives of Jews, Christians, and pagans alike.” (Joseph Hellerman)
For our good, and the good of those around us - and especially God’s glory - we need to recapture what this means. That we’re family together. As I’ve said from our earliest days as a church, relationships are not part of the church; they are the church. We’re not a building. We’re not a “service” - whatever that means. We’re gospel family. It’s my hope and prayer that we’ll recover and embrace that identity like never before.
What Family Means
Well, what then does that mean? Relationships and obligations. Right? Let’s first take relationships. We’re related. Now that first implies closeness. We have rich, deep community with one another. We open up our lives to one another. We let others see both our frailty and our fallenness. We’re vulnerable before our brothers and sisters. We let them apply the glorious gospel of Jesus to our lives, reminding us of what He’s done for us and who we are in Him.
We share our biggest joys and our deepest griefs. We rejoice and grieve with our gospel family. We don’t walk through either alone - but with our brothers and sisters beside us. Closeness.
But this second refers to kinship. We’re related in that way. Verse 18 says we “both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Verse 22 says we’re “built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” We who believe have been filled with His Holy Spirit. And blood may be thicker than water. But Spirit binds us together much more than blood. This is frankly why it’s hard to even think of “family” as a metaphor at all. If you read the book of Acts - and look at chapter 2 - you see the early believers living life together, worshipping our Lord, reaching out to their city. They’re close. They’re kin.
We’re related. But here’s one thing you may say in response. And trust me, I understand. You don’t want to get hurt. Or you’ve been burned badly in the past. I get that. Families are messy. They certainly are. But the gospel of Jesus brings change. In individuals. In churches. Problems, conflict, always show up in families. But what separates a healthy family from an unhealthy one is how they deal with the conflict or if they even deal with it at all. We’re committed to working through things around here. We always have been.
But what else do we see in Acts 2? Believers sharing their stuff with one another. Even selling their possessions and giving to those in need. We don’t just see relationships. We second see obligations. And that first implies giving to one another. We commit ourselves to our family. We say we’ll give our brothers and sisters whatever they need - meeting spiritual, emotional, and material needs. We give of our time, talent, and treasure. We think of the needs and the reputation of our church family first. Right?
But it implies second relying on one another. Now that’s hard for Americans. But being family means that we lean on others for those same kinds of needs. That we open ourselves up, we humble ourselves, and we ask for help. And that includes receiving teaching and guidance from those around us. We don’t go to our brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers in the faith last. We go to them first.
Now that’s what family looks like. We’re obligated. Hearing me even say those words may give you the heebie-jeebies. But it’s good for us and those around us. And it’s what Paul is talking about when He calls us “citizens” and “members” in Ephesians 2, verse 19. It certainly involves acknowledging that you’re a part of the church and making yourself an actual member of the family. But it also means living it out. Being dependent upon those around you. And seeking to carry the burdens of those same people.
One thing you might say in response is this: I’m just too busy for that. But we make time for the things that are most important. Don’t we? And life in the family of God is the best thing for us and our growth. We’ve long pointed to an image in Chester and Timmis’s book Total Church - where on one side, you have someone juggling church life with all the other things - work, family, exercise. How we feel often today. And on the other side there’s a group of people in the middle of a circle - gospel family - with everything else rotating around that. Yes, it may seem hard to put gospel family first with all we have to do. But perhaps sharing all those responsibilities with others might actually be easier for us.
However, here’s another angle I want you to think about. Maybe this is an issue of gospel faithfulness. And maybe our focus on the family in the church in America has gotten everything turned upside down. Hear these shocking words from Jesus in Matthew 12.
Matt. 12:46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.
Matt. 12:48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”
Matt. 12:49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!
Matt. 12:50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
He’s first saying something about a people. Those who follow after Him and His Father make up a new family. He’s second saying something about priority. Who makes up our primary family? Jesus says here, not his blood family, but His Spirit family. I know it sounds crazy. But it’s where the Lord wants our priority to be. With his people. Family first? Yes. But the family of God, our local church.
Something white people struggle to understand is why in the black community if one of their own struggles or succeeds, the whole community weeps or rejoices. Keller explains it like this: if I’m a white dude in Korea and another white man gets harmed by the government or maybe excels at athletics, I’m definitely going to go up or down with him. That’s because I’m in the minority with him and others. We can’t help but band together and support one another. It’s the same way with our black brothers and sisters here. You see George Floyd and you see you or your son. Again, there’s way more of a community mindset. And that serves as a great model for us, the people of God, made up of black and white. When one parts suffers, we feel it. When one part triumphs, we feel that, too.
The Lord is our Father. He makes us His children - together - if we believe - thanks to the life, death, and resurrection of our brother, Jesus. God wants this to be our reality. Gospel family. Our primary relationships. Our chief obligations. For our good. For His glory. And let me tell you: I’ve experienced plenty of the institutional model. And the relational one is far, far better. Would you join me? Join us? In gospel family
Family Now
Now one thing I’ve been thinking about is this: what does this look like today? Yes, first, in an individualistic, secular society. I heard Mark Sayers talk about how we’ve gotten to the polarization politically that we have today. Our society is high on freedom. Our tanks overflow with that. But that works against community - because that requires relationships and obligations.
And it also works against meaning. Distance yourself from God and faith community that’s what’s gonna result. But lacking community and meaning leaves us with a void. And that’s why Sayers says people are running hard to fringe groups on both the right and the left. To find that community and meaning again.
We the church need to live as this kind of gospel family. Submitting to the will of God and living with true liberty. Showing people where true meaning is found. And how deep, rich community is found around our Lord and His gospel. In a society that says “you do you,” we say it’s far better to do life with others. And we have to watch that we don’t find our identity in these other groups ourselves - that we don’t get caught up in the polarization around us - otherwise we obscure the beauty of Jesus and His people. We have to show people a better way - the beauty of gospel family.
Second, we also have to live this out in this current crisis. During this pandemic and all that comes with it. During this movement toward racial justice. The world around us needs to see a stable family. One that’s tossed by the storm but still keeps trusting, still keeps going. A united family walking through trials. That lives in faith and not fear. That thinks about others and not just themselves. They don’t need to see a family that’s perfect, but one that’s secure in a perfect God.
And they also need to see a diverse family. A family that’s made up of every tribe and tongue and nation. One that’s made up of ethnicities previously at odds that are brought together by the gospel. If you back a few verses in chapter 2 of Ephesians, in verses 11-16, you see the apostle Paul calling Jew and Gentile together. He talks about how in Christ, those “far off have been brought near.” How He who is our “peace” has made us one. How He has reconciled us together “in one body.” How He’s made “one new man in place of the two.” The world needs to see that take place in our midst. A diverse family walking in unity. And especially in America between believers black and white. And our city needs to see us pursue that also out in the streets, seeking out justice in society as a whole.
Family Together
Well, as I said at the start, you don’t stop being a family during a pandemic. Maybe you start being one. Or you return to being one. Maybe you see your need for one again. Or find what you’ve been looking for for the first time.
It’s probably better to say that families show what they’re made of during a pandemic. And I think, Karis, we’ve done a pretty good job. He’s used our little family to support one another, to meet the needs of one another. He’s kept us together. He’s taken us deeper.
But at the same time, things have not really been the same. We’ve had to distance ourselves from one another. And it’s been hard. It’s my prayer that this time has helped us see just what a beautiful thing we have as God’s family together. And that we’ll be even more resolved to live with one another in this way going forward.
Well, in verses 20 through 22 of chapter 2, we see the metaphor shift from one of a family to that of a building. We’re a temple. What could that mean? Come back next week - and this time in person and find out. As we regather.
Back to word choice again. I never use the word “service.” God doesn’t need our help to accomplish His purposes in the world. We’re not providing services like we’re a plumbing company or something. We call our corporate worship the “gathering.” We are a family. We scatter during the week on mission. We gather back together on Sundays to worship as a family. What a blessing it is. I can’t wait to see all of you next week.