Family of God | Alex Maksimov

[00:00:07] The very beginning. If you open up your scriptures to Genesis 1, we're not going to go there today. But you have a triune God who is just created everything out of nothing. And now you have the chaotic waters, and you have the spirit of God hovering over the depths of the waters. And you have the voice of God saying, let there be. Let there be. [00:00:26] Then fast forward some more time and you have the baptism of Jesus in the waters, and you have the Spirit again descending like a dove on Jesus. And you have the voice of the Father affirming his Son as his representation and the one that he loves. You have the Trinity there as well. And then fast forward into Pentecost and you have the Spirit once again descending on the church. And this time he doesn't just descend, he stays and he indwells and he powers and he creates a new family, a recreation of sorts. [00:00:55] And so today I get to be in Ephesians with that in mind. [00:01:02] Ephesians is really interesting because it actually accounts for a lot of things. You guys know what a panoramic picture is like when iPhones came out with that for some reason. So when you. So it's kind of Ephesians is kind of like that. So when you stand on top of a hill, like, and you have a panoramic view, let's say if you went hiking, we're in the Pacific Northwest, you're standing on top of a mountain, you have a big view of everything. [00:01:23] And let's say you see a road that's going through the mountains that you're able to see, and you see a car just driving through. Right. If you weren't looking from the panoramic image of being up above, you wouldn't know the journey of that car, where it's coming from, where it's going. [00:01:38] But because you're up here, you get to see everything kind of from a bird's eye view. And that's kind of what Ephesians is like. Paul is writing Ephesians from prison to the letter. It's the letter to the Ephesians. And he's. He starts off in the first chapter. It's kind of like, this is God's plan, this is what he's doing, and then it moves on to here's how he's doing it. This is what the church is. This is what it means to be the church, and this is how you act it out and destroy the evil powers in this world through it. So it's one big panoramic picture of that car. Just like, oh, this is God's plan. [00:02:09] And the thing that powers that plan is the Holy Spirit. [00:02:13] So before we dive in a little bit deeper, I just want to read two quick verses that have to do with something that I want us to keep in mind. That's going to be in Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. [00:02:24] In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance. Excuse me, until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. So this Holy Spirit is a guarantee of our inheritance. When we hear the word inheritance, we often think of family, because typically you pass on your inheritance to your family. They're given to children. [00:02:51] And honestly, there's a lot of metaphors in the scriptures to how we describe the church or the body of believers. It is described as a body, described as a temple. We're described as sheep. Sometimes we're described in all sorts of different ways, the bride. But probably the most pervasive of the metaphors in scripture and early church fathers would be the metaphor of family. [00:03:12] And that's kind of what I want to talk about today. [00:03:15] But family itself is an interesting word, isn't it? Like, when you. How many of you guys have heard blood is thicker than water, could you slip up your hands? [00:03:24] I think, oh, there's a lot more people in the second service that heard this than in the first. Okay, that's cool. So blood is thicker than water is a phrase. It's probably a few centuries years old at this point, but it's a phrase that is meant to kind of drive the point home. That familiar bonds, familial bonds within the family, like you're related by blood. It's thicker than anything that can compete with it. And that has been the concept of family. But then in our modern era, in our hyper individualistic culture, we're very consumer friendly, so we want to figure out what's the best thing that serves us best. And so in our culture today, family gets thrown around very quickly as a marketing ploy or something else. [00:04:04] You can already imagine the cliche scene in the boardroom where the boss is talking to his employees or her employees that they barely know and calling them family as long as the profits keep coming and the work keeps getting done. Or you have family get thrown around for marketing purposes. Like if. If you guys have ever, like, done CrossFit, like, maybe that's something like, welcome to the CrossFit family, or the Harley Davidson family. You're now part of the Jeep family. I even heard one time someone, someone got a peloton bike, and I think they welcomed them to the peloton family. Like this family word is just so all over the place that we don't even take it seriously anymore. But for some of us in this room, I'm very aware that family could mean anything but a light connotation for some of us in this room, maybe you're in here today. And when you hear family, you're not hearing a marketing ploy, you're not hearing a lightly thrown around word. You're feeling pain because the origin of the family of origin that you're from might have been not what it was supposed to be. Let's just leave it there. And I want to encourage us today that when we hear the word family from the word of God, he means something. [00:05:11] Family means something to God. And it's not what this culture has to offer, and it's definitely not what the brokenness of this world has to offer as well. [00:05:21] Because in God's redemptive plan of love, family is about so much more. [00:05:27] All right, before I dive in, we're going to be doing a little bit longer reading of the scriptures, so buckle up. Bear with me. [00:05:34] I wish I could read all of Ephesians, but I can't. [00:05:37] But basically, a little bit of context, we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 2 next. The context here is Paul is again writing from prison, but he's writing to a church that used to be somewhat divided. So the way that the vision happened then is you had the Jews and you had the Gentiles, which is basically everyone else. And the Jews were in a covenant with. With God. They saw themselves as God's covenant people, and they kind of just excluded everyone else, which doesn't feel good if you're a Gentile. So you return the favor. And now you have this dividing wall of hostility and you have enmity between the two groups, and there's quarreling and arguing and fighting and all sorts of things. But Paul is getting at what Christ has done. Go. Verse 12 through the end of the chapter. So stay with me here. [00:06:19] Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made both us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. We just had a remembrance of the body and blood of Jesus. This is part of what he did. He killed the hostility between us and him and between us and one another. [00:07:09] And had come he and he came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who were near. [00:07:15] For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. That's family language. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are built together with. With, into. We're built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. [00:07:49] So we have here, just as the Spirit of God hovered over the chaotic waters and declared creation, just as he hovered over Jesus at his baptism in an incarnation and the. [00:07:59] And the declaration of who he is. And just as he's descended on the church, he hasn't yet left, and so he is still here. And he's animating new creation within his family. And. But look at what God has done in what I just read. He unified us. He drew us in. We were at one point. [00:08:17] We were at one point strangers and foreigners. We were aliens to the household of God. But he drew us in and made us family. [00:08:24] And this inheritance is sealed by the promise of the Holy Spirit. And so when you don't have family, you can be referred to as an orphan. And that's basically what we were, spiritual orphans. But now we've been adopted through the body and blood of Christ into one family. [00:08:39] He brought us in. That's a security that no sports team or workout equipment or, you know, Fortune 500 Dynamic could ever give you. And that is definitely a security that not even a broken earthly family could give you. He's brought us in and sealed us with the promise of the Holy Spirit. [00:08:58] God has something in mind because we, we are the family of God, whether you're a part of this church or another church and you're just visiting because you are the family of God. His Holy Spirit is among us, and he's recreating us. And so today what I want to do is I want to raise our awareness of The Holy Spirit's involvement, whether we feel him or not, whether we see what he's doing or not. We need to stand on the truth that the Holy Spirit is doing something. And I want to raise our awareness of that. And the second thing is I want to raise our awareness of our expectation. And so if we're aware and we have our eyes open to what the Spirit of God is doing in his family, it's only proper to look around and see results and expect the results, expect something. [00:09:40] So what does this actually look like? Right, because I'm being very hypothetical here. [00:09:45] Glad you asked. Chapter four. [00:09:48] We'll do a few more verses here. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility. This is what it looks like. Gentleness with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now it's interesting, isn't it, how we start with this panoramic picture. This is God's plan. The Spirit of God who created the universe, or the triune God who created the universe by his animating creative spirit, is now among us doing this. This is a huge picture. And here is what it says to therefore, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. If that isn't clear enough, I'm not sure what is. One Spirit, one faith, one baptism. The vision of God for recreation of his new humanity is his family. And his family is built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets and the the sacrifice of cross of Christ on the cross and the sealing of the Holy Spirit, which is our ultimate security that nothing else can compete with. And so what does this mean? It's talking about unity. Because the truth is Christianity cannot be done alone. It was never intended to be done alone. We're saved from our sins, we're saved from our old life, we're given a new Spirit. We now have the Spirit of God, but we're saved from something into something and that into is family and nothing less than that. [00:11:32] You can't even obey. Like think about the Scriptures. You can't even obey a lot of the commands in the scriptures unless you're closely intertwined with the community, unless you have something to obey them with. [00:11:43] Think about the parable of the 99. For those who know the parable of the sheep, Jesus leaves the 99 sheep and he goes to find the 1. Well, when he does that, when he finds the sheep, he doesn't just skip away with the sheep. Like he takes the sheep and takes it back to where it belongs with the rest of them. Think of the other parable of Jesus talking about the prodigal son. When the prodigal son's returning, the father leaves the family house to go get him, but when he brings him back, they don't cuddle it out in the room. They actually embrace each other and they throw a party and everyone's invited in the family home. So much so that the other person, the other brother, was actually disappointed at that. [00:12:19] Today we have this idea sometimes that like, you know, oh, it's me and God in my prayer closet and I'm going to develop spiritual fruit. Yes. [00:12:27] Hear me right here. I'm not saying that's always where it should be, but it can't stay there. It continues out into the family and how we treat one another, because that's where he develops us. [00:12:38] So what's my point? My point is if we study the New Testament, there is not one, not one normative example that we can follow of someone who's converted and we can see what happened to them where they're not emerged into a local church body or congregation. It doesn't exist. You cannot do Christianity alone. [00:13:00] Not only is it unbiblical, but we're robbing ourselves if we try that. [00:13:04] And it's not just about being on a first name basis. This is about, like, do we have people in our lives and in our circles who can sense when something's off with us, who can draw us closer to the feet of Jesus and who can come alongside us and call us out in a way that we actually respond to? Do we have those people? Because if we don't, we're lacking greatly. And unlike the cultural climate, for God, this family means something. It's not just a Sunday TED Talk. [00:13:29] It's not just, you know, some good music on a in the morning and then seeing some friends and grabbing fantastic sushi. Like, that's all great, praise God for that. [00:13:37] But the Holy Spirit is doing something. Whether we acknowledge it right now or we notice it a decade later, the Holy Spirit is doing something. [00:13:46] You know what's, what's sadder than a Christian who is isolated, sadder than a Christian who doesn't, who doesn't plug in to a church body? [00:13:57] It's a Christian that shows up every Sunday and maybe even goes to life group, but never realizes what they're a part of because you're so close. You're just so close. [00:14:09] But the Holy Spirit is drawing you zealously because he wants to do a work in you and through you to others. And if you don't plug in, you're robbing yourself and you're not taking him seriously. Separating yourself or withholding your true self is opting out of who you were meant to be in the grand plan of God. [00:14:27] So maybe not always, but maybe sometimes God might feel silent because we've closed off a channel of communication through which he wants to rescue us, through which is his family. [00:14:39] Second century church Father Irenaeus said this beautifully. Where the church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is there is the church and every kind of grace. The family of God is God's grand plan. It and after studying this for some time, I'm convinced if someone, if you are pursuing God and you want to get to know him more the best way you know how, you will eventually look to your right and your left and find yourself in a family. [00:15:06] You don't end up anywhere else. [00:15:09] So there's a beauty. It's not optional, but it's not a burden. It's a joy to step into. And I want to make a note before I move into why this is a joy to step into. I want to make a kind of like a reality check for us because I don't want to set us up for idealization. [00:15:24] Oftentimes relationships, marriages work this way. When we get into something new, we often have an idealized version in our heads of this is what it should look like. This is the perfect image. And then as soon as something doesn't like, come to that image, we get disappointed and discouraged. And so idealization is definitely a danger. So I want to let us know. This doesn't mean that you'll never have relational tension. [00:15:50] Like any family, you will. But the difference here is as we lean into the family of God, that relational tension is actually sanctifying when we submit that opportunity and ask Holy Spirit, this is your family. What are you doing through me and the other person or persons? And then we submit our response to the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit because he's building his church. [00:16:12] So there's a family that's on a journey led by the Holy Spirit. [00:16:16] So I'm not saying we need to overlook like abuse and sin. [00:16:21] Absolutely not. But the reason we don't Overlook or overlook sin in the church is precisely because we understand who's at work here. It's precisely because we understand the gravity and the holiness of what the family of God actually is. [00:16:37] Bonhoeffer actually warned of this when he said, those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community, even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. You can love someone. You can love your spouse or your best friend, or you can love some version of them that you have in your head. But until reality meets who they actually are, the relationship isn't actually developing. Your relationship with yourself and an imaginary version of them is developing, and it's not a healthy one. [00:17:15] So it doesn't mean we won't experience suffering or relational challenges. But if we lean in, we discover that the Spirit is doing something. And personally, in my toughest seasons, I've. Even in the midst of the deepest worries, I've been able to encounter the love of God in a way that I can't explain. And I know there's many people in this room that feel the same way. You think about some of your deepest struggles. And when you were. [00:17:40] You were walking through something hard and heavy, but you knew that you were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit, and you felt God close. Even if he didn't have the answer, He Himself was the answer. And a lot of times his answer comes through community. [00:17:51] And so also, I mean, after the battles, you look back and personally, I've looked back and I've just wondered, how in the world does anyone ever do this by themselves? Like, once you're plugged into an actual community and you're known. [00:18:06] You know what I mean? You're known. [00:18:07] Like, there is, like, you look back and you're just wondering, I don't understand how I used to do this. Without the family of God, we're all people in need of his grace. [00:18:19] We're adopted into the family, but this is where we are formed. Through thick and thin, through our relationships, through the tension. The family is not a download. You can't just, like, upload it into your system. It's an experience. It's a supernatural community that we get to step into with joy and be a part of. The family of God is meant to be a transformative endeavor, an adventure with the rest of our brothers and sisters, is the Holy Spirit at the center? [00:18:44] And if you're not part of it, you're missing out. [00:18:47] This is the one place where you can Be fully known and loved. Not because of how great you or I are, but because of what Christ has done through his body on the cross. And the fact that we're sealed means that we have a security that nothing I do in terms of, like, my mistakes, my sins, my. My past can ever offend you enough to where you have to leave me. [00:19:08] We have the ultimate security. Billions of people have walked this transformative journey before us. This isn't something we get to change. This isn't something we get to adjust or transform like, we get to step into. We have brothers and sisters in Nigeria that are right now being slaughtered because they refuse to gather together, because they refuse to stop gathering together. That's family. [00:19:29] We have some people in this room. Maybe two generations ago, you had grandfathers and grandmothers who went to prison, who were dragged out of their houses by their feet because they refused to stop gathering with the family of God. Why? Because they knew that this is God's plan, this is God's design, and he's at work in it, and it was worth it for them. We are standing on the shoulders of giants today, and we need to be thankful for that. The family is not ours to reinvent or change. It's ours to belong to. [00:19:55] So community, communion with God within the context of his family is what you and I were created for. It's where the deepest and most beautiful parts that were meant to be discovered are discovered within us. [00:20:08] It's where as we lean into the spirit of God, he does the work. And it might not be obvious today or tomorrow or next year, but we look back and we see that road from the panoramic picture, and we're like, ah. [00:20:20] Ah, there it is. There it is. And even if we don't know what's around the next bend, we know who's driving the ship. [00:20:28] It's based on the reconciling work of Christ and the seal of his spirit. Nothing can separate us for that. And there's no better place for you and I to be than within this community. [00:20:39] The communion of God, the love of God to experience the adventure of being human. God, God's way. It's meant to be in his family. [00:20:50] Isn't that a much better picture of the cultural climate of family? Isn't that so much better than just like, hey, guys, like, welcome to the Peloton, fam. Like, isn't this. This is a. The vision of the gospel is like the. The panoramic view of Ephesians is like, this is unfolding before our eyes. There's thousands of years of the Holy Spirit's involvement and building of his church, and we get to be a part of it. We get to lean in and acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is doing something. Whether we feel him or not, he's in our midst and accept the commitment of being an unwavering part of the local family of God. Again, whether you're part of this church or you're visiting from somewhere else, it's amazing the growth that happens when we get to step in to this vision. [00:21:32] And so why is it so hard then, to live out this beautiful vision in some seasons? [00:21:39] Why do all of us, if we're honest, sometimes fall back into a place of complacency? Or we just don't acknowledge or, you know, we get busy? Well, there's probably a bunch of hindrances here, but I want to focus particularly on two. The first one is cynicism, and the second one is apathy. Let's start with cynicism. [00:21:56] I've heard this story. [00:21:58] I don't think it's real. I heard the story. It's this guy was stuck on a desert island all by himself for years, and there's this. He was there by himself, and then there's a big rescue ship pulling up. And they see him on the island and they're like, oh, there he is. So they pull up, they get off, and they're like, okay, who else is here? And the guy's like, oh, it's just me. It's been me for, like, years. And they're like, why are there three different huts here? What's going on? He's like, oh, I live in that one. Okay, you need shelter. What about that one? He's like, that's the church I go to. And they're like, you're by yourself. Okay, what about that one? Oh, that's the church I used to go to. [00:22:34] What an example of cynicism, right? He found something wrong to separate from that church even though he was by himself. [00:22:43] Cynicism, it's a general distrust. It's a general, just, like, accusatory place that we can fall into. We can fall into this place where it's like nothing they do is ever right. And thus I'm going to separate. Nothing they do is ever perfect. So I'm not actually going to reveal myself because I know they made mistakes as well. Well, and that's the cynicism that we are called to fight, my friends, because at the end of the day, when we do that, we are beginning. We are losing the acknowledgment that the Holy Spirit is actually doing something and we should confront things. Yes. But when we begin to have our picture of the family of God that we are plugged into, we don't always choose family that we're plugged into be colored by the cynicism of what we think people are like. Behind closed doors, stuff starts to spiral. We forget that the Holy Spirit's actually doing something, and then we forget to lean in. We forget to be attentive, and we forget to expect. [00:23:34] So let's expect to those carrying real pain. I want to stop here because cynicism isn't always what cynicism looks like. There may be people in this very room that are carrying real pain, dare I even say trauma, and maybe even unfortunately from a church context. I am not here to excuse that. God is definitely not here to excuse that Jesus's hardest rebukes were always on the religious people that misrepresented his name. [00:24:01] The triune God of love is building his church, and that's what you're being invited into. Jesus was the hardest on people that did that. [00:24:08] But the way of healing is often not through isolation. [00:24:12] The way of healing often comes through steps of trusting, safe and committed relationships. And what more commitment can you have than the seal of the Holy Spirit in the family of God? [00:24:27] So why wouldn't the enemy do his best to destroy your perception of his family when that's the place of your healing? [00:24:32] But if we lean in, and there is a real healing available here, if we lean in, if only we dare to believe that the Holy Spirit is still here and is still acting, whether we feel him or not, who knows what would happen? Who knows what that road that we're looking, that car drive by, who knows where that road is going to lead you if you dare to get in the car? [00:24:54] Relational ties, psychology tells us, are often some of the deepest places of our wounds, but also the deepest places of our healing. [00:25:02] For the rest of us, though, cynicism can be a defense mechanism. We just don't want to be disappointed. So we write people off. [00:25:09] Or maybe it's bitterness that we hold inside. Even the great novelist and Christian philosopher C.S. lewis, like 13 years after his conversion, admitted in a Q and A that at first, when he got. At first when he converted, he tried to do the Christian life by himself. He's like, I would just try to, you know, go into my study with my theology books and just. Just be a Christian, you know. And then later he's like, I realized it's not possible. Like it's not viable. You have to, he said. This is the only way you fly your flag. And for him, he said, that meant being a target. [00:25:39] Sixteen years after that admission, he wrote his masterpiece, the Four Loves. And that's what I have, a quote from here today. [00:25:46] Listen to where he's arrived. [00:25:48] To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything in your heart will be wrong and possibly broken. [00:25:54] If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. [00:26:04] Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless. It will change. [00:26:17] It will not be broken. [00:26:20] It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. [00:26:26] To love, Lewis says, is to be vulnerable. You cannot have love without vulnerability. [00:26:33] Vulnerability is required. This is not the place to hide. If you want evidence of that, think about Jesus, who existed in the very form of God, didn't regard equality with God a thing to kind of grasp onto, but he emptied himself and went from being God himself to becoming a human baby born from a womb. That's vulnerability. And why did he do that? Because of his love for us. Which Jesus are we following? [00:26:57] Imagine a place where people can come and seek, not where they can consume, but where they can belong and how they can help others do the same. [00:27:05] Vulnerability is an antidote to cynicism and a healing for brokenness. A healing for brokenness. Our past does not have the final word in our story. Our past family experiences don't have it. Our past sins don't have it. Our past cultural norms don't have it. [00:27:24] They don't define who we are in the family of God. He does. And he calls us children. He calls us redeemed. He says that he actually inherited us, adopted us into the family of God. And now he sealed us with the promise of the Holy Spirit. God knew what he was saving when he saved you. God factored in your shortcomings in mind when he brought you into the family. God knew your weaknesses, your addictions, your proclivities when he called you to be part of his family. And so that's factored in. Breathe out. Trust that the spirit of God is actually here in our midst and he's doing something. [00:27:58] Fight cynicism with everything you have, because it will quench the spirit of God. And we'll talk about that. Being fully known and vulnerable is a great place to start the second Thing is apathy. Apathy is a lack of concern or care. It speaks often of emotional disengagement. [00:28:15] So, like, you can love something, you can hate it, or you can be apathetic to it, which is basically just like, I don't really. I don't know what to do with this, and I'm just kind of ignoring it. [00:28:24] Church life starts to take a back seat to life. [00:28:27] And I think it's actually a loss of wonder. [00:28:30] There is a wonder that we are called into as we behold the glory of God that I think begins to be lost. And it fosters apathy. [00:28:40] John Stott, who was a English Anglican theologian of the most, one of the most influential voices in the 20th century in terms of evangelical theology, said this. If the church is central to God's purpose, as seen in both history and the gospel, it must surely also be central to our lives. [00:29:00] How can we take lightly what God takes so seriously? [00:29:04] How dare we push to the circumference what God has placed at the center? And he continues. If instead we keep before us the vision of God's new society. This is Ephesians, guys. As his family, his dwelling place, and his instrument in the world, then we shall constantly be seeking to make our church's worship more authentic, its fellowship more caring, and its outreach more compassionate. [00:29:27] Do we sometimes get so familiar with just the rhythms and motions of Sunday service and just like relationships and whatever we do during the week that we just start to foster apathy because of how familiar we are? Because it's so easy to lose that wonder. But I just want to encourage us today not to overlook. The Holy Spirit actually has a zealous love for every person in this room. [00:29:50] And that is something that I cannot hope to communicate. I can only rely on him to reveal to you. But he is after every one of us. And in that after every one of us, he's actually has. He has a plan for a place for us to truly belong. And where you belong is where you grow and where you transform. The foundation that builds the letters to the Ephesians is an antidote to apathy. See the bigger picture in mind. See what God is actually doing. And see that he's working, working in and through us for a greater goal, even if we don't know what it is right now. [00:30:21] There is nothing less here than new humanity. And if we forget that, we can become apathetic. So we must remind ourselves of the vision. We're no longer foreigners. We're no longer strangers. We're no longer orphans. We've now been adopted and drawn into the family of God and sealed by the promise of the Holy Spirit. So focus on this reality. Fight cynicism with vulnerability and hope. [00:30:42] Fighting fight apathy with God's vision and awareness of his presence. [00:30:47] So what do we do with all this? [00:30:49] Let's skip over to chapter five. [00:30:53] Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. [00:31:06] Therefore be imitators. [00:31:09] God, the triune God who Himself as a community made us to belong. [00:31:14] And if we forget that, we can become apathetic too quickly and miss it, we can be in this very church, we can be in this very building, wherever we're plugged in and be completely unaware of what's happening. [00:31:29] Jesus is the perfect representation of the invisible God, the exact representation of his nature. [00:31:35] And look at what he did. He One theologian said God was Christ. Like I love that you can figure it out on your own time. Jesus took on human flesh and dwelt among us. [00:31:45] He could have given us anything in the world. He could have shouted at us from heaven, he could have done whatever, but instead he chose to give us presence. His presence. And when he said that he wouldn't leave us as orphans, he didn't. And so today, the greatest thing we can do for one another isn't Instagram likes or livestream upticks or even money or whatever it is, or compliments. It's presence, it's our presence. It's our vulnerability. It's our reality. It's actually who we are. And in that trust that the Spirit of God is still doing what he's been doing all along. [00:32:20] And so the greatest thing we can do is serve one another as Christ has served and loved us. [00:32:26] Before I close, can we stand together? [00:32:38] This is God's idea, it's not mine. [00:32:41] It's not some theologians idea. This is God's idea. This is God's family. [00:32:46] Nothing less than that. [00:32:48] The moment we begin to overlook that, we begin to ignore what God is actually doing. [00:32:55] Sliding into apathy. Cynicism is actually us sliding away from being, from acknowledging the purposes of God and what the Spirit is actually doing among us, we have the honor of stepping into God's family. Whether you're part of the local church or you're somewhere else. Don't overlook what's happening. Don't overlook what he's doing. Don't overlook his zealous pursuit of your heart and the pursuit of how you treat others around you. [00:33:21] Don't neglect the spirit of God among his people. [00:33:25] How we treat one another matters. [00:33:28] So much so that in the same letter, Paul actually warns us against grieving the spirit of God in the context of how we treat one another. Because this is family. [00:33:37] So spot cynicism early and kill it with vulnerability. Fight apathy with truth and vision. [00:33:43] You were created by a triune God in his image and meant to live in community by blood is thicker than water. In this case, it's absolutely true because we're not bound by our own blood. It's the blood of Christ. And through that blood, through that body, through that cross, we are being drawn together into a new humanity in the here and now, with the inheritances of the future, sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit and drawn into a place where we can actually belong. Not what the culture has to offer, not some random imitation of belonging here, now, belonging humanity in Christ. [00:34:16] Everyone is welcome into this and may we never forget this. The Father's plan, the. The Son accomplished it and the Spirit is carrying out this vision. May we step into the joy that is on offer, empowered by the Holy Spirit to actually belong. [00:34:31] Belong to a family of God. [00:34:33] And so I don't know what that looks like in your life right now. I don't know if you're in a place where maybe you. [00:34:40] You. Maybe you believe in God and you attend church regularly, but maybe you're in a place where you begin to fall into a place of. You're noticing, you're just becoming apathetic. I'm going to welcome the ministry team to come up at this time. [00:34:53] I believe the Holy Spirit wants to touch certain individuals in this room this afternoon. Even in my preparation, the Holy Spirit's zealously for individuals to be part of something where they can belong. If only you knew what you were missing out on. [00:35:11] If only you knew that everyone here is actually for you, not against you. Everyone here has already accepted you because you're coming through Christ. And that's how I'm accepted too. [00:35:20] There is no hierarchy. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. We're here to serve one another. And by his blood you're actually adopted into a new family, given a new inheritance and asked to be part of the family of God where you can get developed. Where the most beautiful parts of you that God intended to come out, come out. Where the brokenness and fast and fallings of this world are now fixed and sealed by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Nothing can separate you from his love and nothing ever Will, unlike the cheap imitations that we see out there, this is actual family. And nothing will ever be able to compete with it. And so if that's you and you're finding yourself in a place of apathetic. Or maybe you're a cynicism, you're struggling with cynicism, or maybe you're just. You just need a refreshing of the Holy Spirit's power and involvement in your life so that you can more clearly see what he is doing. Give me eyes to see the prayer that is the ancient prayers. Come, Holy Spirit, come illuminate my mind. Give me eyes to see what you are doing in and through me, but also in the relationships I have among your family. I want a place to belong, another person I might be talking to today. If you're experiencing the deep pain, and I'm not talking about someone said something that offended you, I'm talking, you're in here and you can. You're just the. You're doing your best to not run out of this room. [00:36:37] Maybe you're online and you're watching and you're doing. And you're just trying to figure out what this could look like after what you've gone through. I want to tell you today that the Holy Spirit is on your side. [00:36:48] God is on your side. God has extreme compassion for you and he's drawing you in closer because. [00:36:59] Because again, you are sealed. [00:37:01] There's nothing that can separate you. And so if you're in here, I just ask that you would. Maybe you can wait until we start doing worship, but I ask that you come forward, share an inch. What a better way to punch the devil in the face than to just come to the family of God and ask the Holy Spirit through his family, to heal the brokenness and the wounds that you've experienced. What is more ironically fabulous than that? And so in the family of God, you have the opportunity to encounter the spirit of God, the presence of God, the healing and outworking power of God in community. And so I just ask that you would come forward and just share an inch, give him an inch. And watch what the spirit of God does with the curves of your life as you stand back in eternity and look at what he's done. It takes one moment of obedience, one moment of surrender. It just takes one moment, one step of vulnerability as slowly as you need to go. And you can encounter the power, the healing presence of God and then look back seasons past and see what he's done. And then finally, I want to speak to you if you're in this room. And you're realizing you're actually not a part of the family of God. What I'm saying to you today is foreign. I don't know if you believe in God. I don't know if that's something that's new to you. I don't know if that's something you're trying out. I don't know if you've wandered away, but you're realizing that you're not actually plugged into a family of God. And today, just like the Prodigal son had a huge party, you're invited to that party as well. Because through confession, repentance, and the waters of baptism, you can actually be a part of the family of God, sealed with the same Holy Spirit, the same reanimating, recreating force and power that has created the world, that has accomplished everything that you see here today and throughout the centuries. The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is going to be living on the inside of you. And how you honor him is how you plug into the family of God within his community. [00:38:43] And so, with this vision in mind, let us persevere. Let us step forward into what God is calling us into. Let's treat each other with love because Christ has first loved us. And let's please never forget that the Holy Spirit is involved. He is central. He is doing something throughout the seasons of our lives. And let's lean into that through every tension and every opportunity we have. Father, thank you so much for this family of God that you've drawn us into. Thank you for your reconciling work on the cross, that you saved us through one body, through the cross, that you've sealed us with the gift of the Holy Spirit. You did not leave us as orphans, Jesus. You came to us and you're here present among us today. God, I thank you for every individual in this room that you are working on their hearts and minds, that you're working on my heart. God, I thank you, Spirit of God, that you're empowering us to treat each other well, to live together in communion, community, and to honor your presence, to honor your word and to honor your authority. God, I thank you that we are sealed with the promise of Holy Spirit and we have an inheritance for the day of redemption. God, that you are doing a new humanity and that nothing on this earth could ever satisfy or ever compete with the family of God that we have in this place. We honor you, Holy Spirit. We thank you and we ask for you to move as people are getting ministered to God, I pray that you would begin to heal broken lives and broken bodies. I pray that you begin to mend relationships and the things that people are drawing coming in here with God. I pray that you would begin to heal and mold. And even if it's not obvious right now, Holy Spirit, I ask that you would begin a work that you will always bring to completion because you have never left or forsaken us. And it is your glory alone that we rely on. And we thank you for the security that comes with being in the family of God. And we worship you together in Christ's name. [00:40:27] Thank you for joining Kingdom Movement Online. I pray and hope that that sermon impacted you deeply. I would love if you shared this with a few friends and family. And before you go, don't forget to subscribe. See you next week.