Main Idea: Being in God’s family is proven by obedience to Christ rather than the church we attend.

Over these last four weeks we have been talking about issues that concern our personal lives and those within our family. We called the series "Extreme Makeover-Home Edition". In these messages we have talked about the fears that come with growing older, the responsibilities of young parents and last week we examined the issue of parents who endure the pain of a prodigal child. In this last message we’re going to discuss what it means to be in God’s family. You may not have found yourself relating to any of these other issues regarding our lives as persons or families. Yet, regardless of the issues in your family, being in God’s family is something that God wants for everyone.

While we have talked about the television show Extreme Makeover-Home Edition as a theme for our series there have been a large number of shows that offer changes for our homes and lives. There’s everything from "Trading Spaces" to "Trading Spouses." Have you ever, though, wanted to trade places with someone else? Have you ever thought what it would be like, just for a while, to trade places with someone else’s family? Maybe you wanted to live in someone else’s house or have someone else’s family. Maybe you’ve wanted to see what it would be like to have someone else’s life without the divorce or the drugs or the abuse or the disease or the problems. Maybe you’ve wanted to see what it would be like to just share the same commitment of faith.

If you had a different family, would your life be different? We can’t really know that, can we? The reason is because we didn’t have a choice about the family that is ours. It’s like the commercial for the cholesterol-reducing drug that says your high cholesterol can come more from your Uncle Chester than your cheeseburger. While we didn’t have a choice about the family that is ours, we do have a choice about being in God’s family. How can we become God’s family? Well, that’s what we are going to talk about this morning.

The Bible teaches us that God wants the people he created to be included in his family. However, while every person was created by God, not everyone is a child of God. The only way to be in God’s family is by being born again into it. You become a part of the human family through your first birth but you become a part of God’s family by your second birth. While the invitation to become a part of God’s family is for everyone, there is one condition: faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26 NLT).

Here is where we get confused, though. Because most of us were brought up in the church, going to church, being around church, using the language of church, we assume that because attending church is a tradition with our family that somehow that proves I’m in God’s family. For instance, I enjoy military history and value the traditions of the military. My ancestors served in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, World War I, World War II and Korea, but when it came to me I did ROTC for two semesters at Ouachita. While I may have my draft card from the ‘70’s, I was never in the military. It doesn’t matter how long your family has been in this church or any church, attending church doesn’t prove you are in God’s family. What I want us to see today is that being in God’s family is proven by obedience to Christ rather than the church we attend.

How do you prove you are in God’s family? Well, being in God’s family is proven by the priorities you have chosen. (Mark 3:20-21). In our text from Mark’s Gospel Jesus has just chosen his twelve disciples for an exclusive relationship with him. After making these selections he goes to a house where he had been staying. This possibly was the home of Simon and Andrew, which was located at the city of Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. While he was in the house crowds of people gathered to hear him teach and touch the sick. There became so many of them that Jesus and the disciples didn’t have time to eat. At some point word of the length of this situation got back to his family, who likely still lived in Nazareth, which was about forty miles away. They assume that because Jesus was failing to care for his personal health that he had lost his mind. Their solution was to come and forcibly take him home where he could think and act normally. They believed that Jesus had become so consumed with what he believed was his mission and his ministry that he had just gone crazy. It was so bad that even Mary was part of this thinking!

Has your family ever thought you were crazy? I know we may do some crazy things sometimes but have they ever thought because of the faith that possessed you that somehow you had lost your mind? Jesus chose to reject things that his family considered normal for a man of his age and upbringing. He walked away from their priorities to accept the things that were God’s priorities.

• He chose to reject the security that others sought for the insecurity of his future.
• He chose to reject the safety others wanted for the risk that was God’s will.
• He chose to reject the approval others needed for the alienation of his culture.

Have you made a decision to be in God’s family? If you have, then it will be proven by the priorities you have chosen. Have you chosen the security that only God can give and walked away from the security of what you can see? Have you accepted the safety that God supplies and turned away from the assurance of what’s comfortable? Have you treasured the approval that God offers and denied the need for the approval of others? Choosing to be in God’s family will mean choosing different priorities that may make others think you are crazy. Erwin McManus says, "If it’s normal to wake up in the morning and just try to make it through the day, then I vote for abnormality. I choose insanity." (Seizing Divine Moment, p. 56-57). Being in God’s family is proven by the priorities we have chosen—and sometimes others will think we are insane!

Being in God’s family is also proven by the things we have in common with others in God’s family. (Mark 3:31-34). You know it’s one thing for your family to think you are crazy because of your passion for God but it’s a whole new issue when the folks from the church think you are possessed by the devil! That’s what happened to Jesus in Mark 3:23. The Jewish leaders show up at the house and accuse him of being in cooperation with Satan. He denies this and accuses them of speaking evil of what God was doing through him (Mark 3:23-30).

After some time had passed, Jesus’ mother, brothers and sisters arrive at the house. I am sure they thought he was going off the deep end when they see the crowds and the religion police there. Verses 31-32 describe Jesus inside the house with the crowds all around him while his family is outside. They can’t get in so they send messages telling him to come outside and talk to them. This is a critical moment for Jesus. He has twelve men before him who he had asked to follow him. They had obeyed him and given up or would give up everything to follow him. At the same time, it was cultural suicide for him to reject his family. So what would he do?

Watch what he does in verses 33-34. He responds by asking a question verse 33, " Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" Then he makes a statement in verse 34: " Then he looked at those around him and said, "These are my mother and brothers." He asks in verse 33, "Is there not a deeper relationship that is greater than those whose blood we share?" He then says "Those who share in the experience of following me, they are my true family."

What did those twelve have in common to be included in Jesus’ family? What do we have in common, if we are in God’s family?

• We must have the common experience of having our sins forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ and expressing that through baptism.
• We must have a common desire to know Jesus more personally and intimately demonstrating that by our thirst for his Word.
• We must have a common commitment to live a fully devoted life that is evidenced by our daily style of life.
• We must have a common purpose to invite others to be in God’s family with us.

Look around you! What do you really have in common with those who attend this church? Oh, you may be from the same town, school, neighborhood, have the same lifestyle or friends, but you can get that at a civic club! I’m afraid too often that’s all First Baptist Church is for some—it’s just where I have some superficial things in common with others. Your tradition or your comfortable relationships at church are not what matters in God’s family! What matters are a common experience, desire, commitment and purpose! If those are the things we share in common, then we are proving we are in God’s family.

Being in God’s family is proven by the priorities we have chosen and by the things we have in common but, lastly, being in God’s family is proven by the devotion we show to Christ’s commands (Mark 3:35). To this point Jesus has said some very shocking things for his culture. Ernest Renan said that Jesus’ words showed that he "cared little for the relationship of kinship" and that his statements were a "bold revolt against nature that trampled underfoot everything that is human, blood, love and country." Then in verse 35 he makes a statement that is still disturbing even today, " Anyone who does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." He is saying that the twelve and anyone else who chooses to be part of God’s family proves it by their doing the will of God.

It is hard for us to understand just how radical this statement of Jesus truly was because it was counter to his culture and tradition. Your blood family was at the basis of all social and economic life as well as your identity. You weren’t considered an individual but you were a family. Your life was your family; to reject family or to be cast out of family was to lose one’s life. Jesus’ point in verse 34 was to say, "I have redefined family." To be in God’s family was to be exclusively under Jesus’ rule and authority, whose sole devotion was to be obedient to his commands.

This tells us that the ultimate relationship we have with Jesus Christ transcends the relationships of blood kin and close friends. It also tells us that not everyone shares or has that relationship and that those who have this relationship will prove it by their devotion to his commands.

I want to say something very clear: Our families are not the ultimate relationship for our lives! The ultimate relationship we have is a personal one with Jesus Christ. Jesus did not come to die on the cross to build a family; he came to build the church. Our families are designed not to be the end of God’s work but the means through which he works. We must be cautious of making an idol of our family. Jesus died not to save the institution of the family but to save the people who are part of a new family—the family of God.

Being in God’s family comes with its risks because if we are in his family then we will be devoted to his commands. Jesus said, "If any of you wants to be my follower…you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me." (Mark 8:34) When that call comes to us it cuts through all other relationships and responsibilities. Dietrich Bonhoffer said, "Neither father nor mother, neither wife nor child, neither nationality nor tradition, can protect a man at the moment of his call. It is Christ’s will that he should be thus isolated and that he should fix his eyes solely upon him." (The NIV Application Commentary, p. 146) How devoted are you to Christ’s commands? How committed are you to doing God’s will? You prove you are in God’s family by your devotion to his commands!

This week Carrie Williams, who works for us as a secretary, told me of the news that her brother Barry Pylant was going to be deployed to Iraq. Barry is three years younger than Carrie and has a wife, Maureen, and a daughter, Nicole, who will be in the 5^th grade this fall. They live in Little Rock where Barry flies helicopters for the Air Evac Helicopter Service for Arkansas. Barry has always loved to fly and he has always loved the military. He has served in the regular Army as well as the Arkansas National Guard. He trained on both the Huey as well as the Black Hawk helicopter.

Deep within Barry is a driving desire to serve his country. To fulfill that desire Barry volunteered to go to Iraq with the Kentucky National Guard, who will be attached to the 101^st Airborne Division. His job will be to fly the Black Hawk and evacuate combat causalities. Barry leaves in November and told his little girl, "You’ll be in the 6^th grade when Daddy comes home."

Why would a person volunteer for something with such a high degree of risk to his life and his future? Why walk away from your family, whose love means life and security, for the dangers of combat? Because there is for Barry a calling that transcends every other bond and tie. It is that call that demands he lay aside one family to claim another family as his own.

You may have made a decision like that yourself. You may have heard the voice of Christ saying to you, "Follow Me." If you have, then does your life prove that you are in God’s family? Is it seen in the priorities you have chosen? Is it seen by the things you have in common with other believers? Is it evidenced by the devotion you show to Christ’s commands? Or is it that you just go to church? Coming to this building doesn’t make you a member of God’s family any more than my watching "Mail Call" on the History Channel makes me a soldier. Being in God’s family is proven by obedience to Christ rather than the church we attend!

Today I invite you to be in God’s family. You may need to choose today to belong to this local family called First Baptist Church. It might be that it’s hard to tell you are part of the family. We all prove we are in God’s family when we do what he says!

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org