It is once again my pleasure and privilege to bring the Word of God to the Book of Luke chapter 11 verse 17. Galatians chapter 6 verse 10 and 1 Timothy 3 verse 15.
I ask that you would stand for the reading of God's holy Word. First from Luke chapter 11 verse 17. But he, that is Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. And now from Galatians chapter 6 verse 10. Paul says, So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. And finally 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15, but I will also read verse 14. Paul writes, I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you, so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God abides forever. Amen.
Please be seated. Last month the ARP denomination, my denomination in which I'm ordained, had heard General Synod at the same time that the PCA was having heard General Assembly. One of my pastor friends wrote a summary of what happened at our General Synod, and in his conclusion he wrote this, quote, No one hates like family, and no one loves like family, yet at the end of the day we are all still family. We know this to be true in our own families, do we not? Even perhaps in our own church. We have arguments, we have fights, both in our families and in the church. Sometimes things reach such a level that there's a ripping that takes place and things become irreconcilable, either in the family or churches become divided. Families split, churches split.
But we've hopefully, Lord willing, also experienced the love of family and the love of the church. We take care of our own. We protect our own. We sacrifice for our own. The church is the family or the household of God.
And my friend isn't the only one to use this picture. Scripture does as well. So tonight we're going to look at several passages as we consider the church as a family, the church as the household of God. And so first I want us to turn over to Galatians chapter 6 verse 10. Galatians chapter 6 verse 10. The first thing I want us to see tonight is that in the family of God there is an expectation of doing good to the spiritual family. I'll say that again. In the family of God there is an expectation of doing good to the spiritual family.
Why? Why is this expectation as it is? Paul has previously said in this same chapter that whatever one sows that he will also reap up in verse 7. If we're sowing to the flesh, Paul writes, we will reap corruption. But if we sow to the Spirit we will reap from the Spirit.
Therefore within the church as we grow in the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as God works in us to transform us more and more into the likeness of our Savior Jesus Christ, we are to exercise that fruit not merely for ourselves but for the sake of others in the church as well. We are to treat those within our family with love, with gentleness, with patience, with kindness. If I'm sowing love to my spiritual brother or sister, my spiritual father or mother, then I have no room to hate them. If I'm sowing patience with them, then I have no room to be impatient with them. If I'm sowing gentleness towards them, I have no room to be harsh with them.
If I'm sowing kindness with them, I have no room to be nasty toward them. You and I have a special bond to one another because we as believers are united to Christ and therefore in Christ we are united to one another as a spiritual family. It is Christ who has made us a spiritual family and as a family we are to do good to one another just as we do in our natural families. Parents are to love their children and do good for them. Siblings are to love one another and to do good to them and for them in the same way we are to care for one another. In fact, the New Testament is filled with exhortations for how we are to treat one another.
Perhaps you've seen a list of all the quote-unquote one another verses. 2 Corinthians 13 11, we are to comfort one another. We are to live in peace with one another. In Galatians 6, the chapter we are looking at currently, in verse 2, look what it says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Paul instructs us in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32 to be kind to one another, to be tenderhearted toward one another, forgiving one another.
Why? Because Christ has forgiven you. The way that Christ has treated you is an example for us and how we are to treat those in our spiritual family. Because I have been forgiven, I am to forgive my brother, my sister, my father, my mother, spiritually speaking, if and when they sin against me. 1 Thessalonians 5 11, encourage one another, build one another up. The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 9 says that we are to show hospitality to one another without grumbling. In all of these different ways and all of these one another verses that are peppered throughout Holy Scripture, we see that God expects us to do good to one another within our spiritual family.
Why? Because God wants there to be peace and love within the family that He has created, a family that He has created and belongs to Him. This isn't my family, this isn't your family ultimately. We are simply a part of what God is doing. A family that He has created, that He has established before the foundation of the world.
We are part of that. We are only in this family because of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. He has been tenderhearted towards us. He is the one who through the blood of Christ has reconciled us to Himself so that we have peace with God. He has loved us with an everlasting love. He has carried our burdens upon His back because He cares for us.
He has been patient with you and me. So we are to imitate how God has treated us and how we treat one another as spiritual family. This is our responsibility. This is the expectation towards one another and as we practice these things we will be nurturing the spiritual family of God. We will be growing closer together in our bonds. The church will be stronger and the church will be closer as we practice these things. So then as we have opportunity let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household or family of faith.
Now flip over if you will to 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15. Here in Timothy we see from Scripture that in the family of God there is an expectation of behaving well when the family gathers together. Say it again, in the family of God there is an expectation of behaving well when the family gathers together. If the previous point characterized how we are to treat one another at all times I want us to focus in this point on what happens in corporate worship. What happens when there's this family reunion each and every Sunday so to speak. Now I don't know about your family reunions that you may have attended.
There's some out there that can get raucous and rambunctious. But that's not to characterize the family reunion of God's family. In the context of our passage here in 1 Timothy Paul is just given qualifications for the offices of elder and deacon. Paul says that there is an order to the spiritual family of God and there is an arrangement to the spiritual family of God. The church has parents so to speak in the offices of elder and deacon and in my denomination we're three office so I'll say minister as well.
Minister, elder, and deacon. The Apostle Paul called the church at Corinth his beloved children. That's family language. He calls the church in Galatia my little children.
That's family language. He describes his actions among the Thessalonians like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. First Thessalonians 2 7 if you want to look that up. In the list of qualifications that we find here in 1 Timothy 3 one of the characteristics that's common for both elder and deacon is that he is to be able to manage his own household well. He needs to know how to manage his natural family first so that he will also know how to manage the spiritual family.
Otherwise if he's not a good parent if he's not a good father in his natural family he's not going to be a good spiritual parent in the spiritual family. The Apostle John called the church his little children. In all this we see that those who hold to the spiritual offices in Christ's church are in a sense spiritual parents and we are their children. We are to obey them. We are to submit to them as children. Obey their natural parents and submit to their natural parents. There is to be an order in the corporate gathering of God.
It's not a free-for-all. We're not to be rebellious children. We're not to rebel against the order and the authority that Christ has established in his church. On the flip side those who hold office in the family of God are not to be abusive parents rather we are to be nursing parents.
We are to be parents who build up and encourage and exhort and rebuke when necessary but even that rebuke is for the child's good and so it is in the family of God. Beyond that Paul also tells the church that things are to be done decently and in order in corporate worship. The church in Corinth for example was just an absolute mess when it came to corporate worship. When they came together for worship they paraded their divisions and factions proudly. Perhaps they even sat in sections with their own faction. They prided themselves on who had baptized them. And perhaps it doesn't say this explicitly but perhaps they would not listen to the preacher if that person had been baptized by somebody else.
There was chaos in the assembly. People were speaking and exercising the supernatural gifts that were in effect during that apostolic time and they were speaking in tongues without interpreting and people were interrupting one another and claiming to prophesy and they were speaking over one another to be heard. Others in the church were jealous that they were not prophesying or speaking in tongues.
They wanted to receive those revelations as well. Basically imagine a worship service where you sit with only a certain subset of people. Perhaps you're even glaring at the other factions in the church sneering at them. There are scores of people speaking all at the same time trying to speak louder than one another and you can't make out what anybody is saying. You got some people speaking in a known language.
You got people over here speaking in a other language that you may not understand. And if that's not bad enough they're getting drunk at the sacrament of the Lord's Supper while others are treating it just as an ordinary meal and they are filling their bellies. The Lord suppers a dinner. I didn't have dinner at home so I'm gonna fill my belly here. Drink as much wine as I can.
Eat as much bread as I can to satisfy my hunger. Or perhaps they wanted a second dinner. The church in Corinth allowed into its membership a man who was in an incestuous relationship according to 1st Corinthians 5. Those who were strong paraded their liberty publicly in front of those who were weak. Those who were weak were judging the strong. Some were denying the resurrection of the body. There was no order in the church. There was no structure in the church.
Nobody was behaving well in the corporate assembly when the family gathered for a family reunion. It was a theological free-for-all. A big mass of chaos.
No exercise of church discipline. Think about a family reunion. There's a buffet line and just everybody is making a mad dash for the buffet line because they want to get the best food first and they don't care if they have to elbow you out of the way or cut in line.
It's just a free-for-all. There's no order. There's no structure. That's what was going on in Corinth. But God would have his family to be orderly and structured. He would have us to line up in an orderly fashion and go through the buffet line nice and calm and orderly. That's why we have a set order to a worship service. There are some churches out there where you don't know what you're going to get.
They can't print a bulletin. You just show up and let the spirit move. But that's not the way it is to be. That's why we have a set order of worship. What we commonly call a liturgy. When you come to church you know what to expect. There's going to be a call to worship.
Why? Because God is calling his family to worship him. There are going to be prayers. There's going to be the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. There's going to be the reading and the preaching of the Word. There's going to be the sacraments.
And it's going to end with God blessing his people. There's order. There's structure. And that order and that structure plays into and allows us to behave well when we gather together as a family.
We do this over and over and over again. Different people may lead in the worship but there's only one person speaking at a time. We don't come to church drunk.
That should be obvious. We don't allow unrepentant sexually immoral people into church membership. We don't allow those with heretical theological views into church membership. There are boundaries.
There are structures. There is order rather than chaos because God is a God of order and not a God of chaos. And we see this in Genesis 1 where he fashions things in an orderly and logical manner.
And if all of creation is structured and orderly, if our bodies are structured and orderly, how much more should the family gathering of God be structured and orderly so that there is proper behavior, proper oversight, proper management of the household of God rather than improper mismanagement in the family of God. Finally, I ask that you would turn over to the Gospel according to Luke. The Gospel according to Luke. We'll look at chapter 11 verse 17.
I read it once, I'll read it again. Jesus knowing their thoughts said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and a divided household falls. From this passage in Luke we see that in the family of God there is no place for unnecessary division. In the family of God there is no place for unnecessary division. There are times when the true church must either leave a denomination or force the apostates and heretics out who are reinterpreting scripture, moving away from the faith that has once for all been delivered to the saints.
I'm not talking about that division. I'm talking about matters of opinion or matters when we let sin rule over our thoughts or actions. When we are walking in the flesh and not the spirit. What are some examples of this?
What are some examples of unnecessary division? Leaving a church because they didn't install the color of carpet you wanted. Leaving a church because the faithful preaching doesn't speak to you. Leaving a church because it doesn't have a youth group or it doesn't have this program or that program. Leaving a church because the pastor favorably quoted C.S.
Lewis or maybe used an illustration from Harry Potter. The list could go on and on. It seems like these days people are looking for a reason, any reason to leave the church and they are willing to overlook a multitude of reasons to stay at a faithful church. And so they'll come up with any sort of rationalization or justification to leave. Trying to rationalize, well I couldn't understand what the pastor was saying.
It doesn't make sense to me. Calvin said that the only good reasons to ever leave a church would be that the church no longer preaches the word faithfully or administers the sacraments rightly. I would add it given our modern context that it's also okay if your job forces you to move to another state or you're deployed if you're in the military and you're forced to go overseas. There are valid reasons, logistical reasons that would force a person to leave the church.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about unnecessary division. I'm talking about looking for an excuse to leave. And today we see people leave over the silliest of issues, things that shouldn't even be an issue in the family of God. And when this happens it causes unnecessary division. It actually weakens the visible church. Jesus says a divided household will fall if there's division in the family of God.
That particular church is not going to stand. And our sinful flesh plays into this. It's not just silly things that can cause division in the visible church. Our sinful flesh brings division when we are acting upon it. Pride for example is a serious sin that can bring division to the church. The the Corinthian Church as I've already said was puffed up and proud over who had baptized them and who they followed to the point that there were cliques and factions within the church.
There was the Apollos faction and there was the Paul faction and perhaps the the Peter faction. And Paul urges the Corinthian Church for there to be no division within the church according to 1st Corinthians 1 10. Pride brings strife we are told in Proverbs chapter 13 verse 10. Wherever there is fighting over an issue, pride about something is ultimately the heart issue at play. Whenever there is fighting, whenever there is strife, pride is the heart issue at work.
Pride causes us to despise and look down upon our spiritual family. So we either ignore them or we make them be out to be the bad guy in the situation whatever the the division may be. And let's let's face it who here wants to be thought of as the bad guy? Raise your hand.
I'm waiting. Nobody wants to be thought of the bad guy but in our pride we think of ourselves as on the right side of history and that other person is the bad guy. They're on the wrong side of history. Listen to what the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs wrote quote, one proud man thinks himself the only worthy man to have his counsel followed and his desire satisfied and the other thinks himself the man that should have his counsel followed and his desire satisfied and thus men struggle and oppose one another. Because of our pride. Because we refuse to be humble.
To be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger. And so you and I we must be on guard against pride or we will weaken the church. We will weaken the family of God. Jealousy another sin of the heart that can bring division to the church. Paul asks the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians chapter 3 while there is jealousy and strife among you are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? He will go on to list jealousy in Galatians chapter 5 as one of the works of the flesh. Not being content with what we have or do not have.
Not being content with our station or a lot in life. We become jealous when we see our spiritual brother or sister with something that we do not have but we want. And in our jealousy we begin to resent him or her and that resentment turns into bitterness and bitterness turns into anger and hatred. Look at what Joseph's brothers did because of their jealousy of Joseph.
I'm not saying that what their father did was right but in their jealousy a family was split and a father thought a son of his dead for decades. So to jealousy will split a church family when our hearts so resent each other that we could care less if somebody else in our church were dead. This leads to a third sin that will divide and weaken the family of God anger. Both jealousy and pride lead to anger and when we are angry we are giving an opportunity to the devil according to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 27. Anger in our heart is the sin of murder according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. It was anger that led Cain to murder Abel. It was anger that provoked Saul to try to kill David on multiple occasions.
It was anger that led King Ahab to murder Naboth because Naboth refused to give Ahab his vineyard in 1 Kings chapter 21. Anger blinds us. Anger causes us not to care about the truth. We lose sight of the truth.
We lose sight of the the other person being a person because we become so fixated on our wants and on our desires. We see this do we not in our own country in the political discourse that goes on. Both sides spew hatred towards each other. Our country is divided.
Both sides are so fixated on what they want and on what they desire that they lose sight that the people on the other side are actual people. James tells us that anger does not produce the righteousness of God rather it produces the fruit of death. He says in James chapter 4 when we do not have what we desire we murder either physically or within our hearts by anger. Anger will cause division in the local church. It will weaken the family of God. And finally self-centeredness will also divide and weaken the household of God. Scripture calls us in Romans chapter 15 to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
Instead we are to build up our neighbor for his good but if we are only focused on ourselves and our desires our wants and our needs me me me me me the me monster. We will not have thoughts for others. We will not consider their needs. We will not have their interests at heart.
We will not consider how we may help them. Let each of you look not only to his own interests Paul writes in Philippians chapter 2 but also to the interest of others and you cannot do that if you are being self-centered. The call for us as the family of God is not to be selfish or self-centered rather we are to take notice and thought for others and care for them. You see somebody and it's obvious that they are upset.
Go to that person. Can I pray with you? You don't have to tell me what's going on but can I pray with you? Somebody sitting off to themselves at church walk towards that person. Can I sit with you? We are to care for and take thought of others.
Why? Because Christ came to serve others rather than to be served. Christ was not self-centered. He left the glory of heaven.
He left the Father's throne. He added on human flesh to himself and took on the form of a servant to heal our wounds, to forgive us of our iniquities, to be chastised in our place, in my place, in your place. So we must serve others as well and in order to do that we cannot be self-centered. Self-centeredness and serving one another are opposed to each other.
They cannot coexist. If we're only working to serve ourselves we will not be working to serve others and when we work only to serve ourselves we create a party of one spirit that leads to other divisions which will weaken the family of God. Think about it in your own natural families. If you're married, if you're not working together toward maintaining and strengthening your marriage, if you're not working toward a common goal, if the husband's looking out only for his interests and the wife is looking out only for her interests, your marriage is going to be weakened. If you have children, you can tell you know what happens when they're acting self-centered, do you not?
What does it do? It disrupts the peace of the family, does it not? You have to take time away from getting one thing done to go deal with this situation when your children are acting in a self-centered manner, when they snatch toys from one another, when they tattletale on one another, when they're arguing and fighting with one another. It's disruptive to the harmony and peace of the family and so it is with the church as well. Self-centeredness disrupts the harmony and the peace of the church. It causes division and it weakens the church as the family of God. So the family of God is to be a place where there is peace, where there is love and joy and gentleness and kindness and patience.
Not pride and jealousy and self-centeredness and anger. At the end of the day, we are a spiritual family but sin causes us to lose sight of that reality and so we start fighting, we start biting one another which only does harm to the church. It disrupts the peace, it disrupts the mission of the church, it causes heartbreak and devastation in the church when people walk away, when they leave, when we see those whom we have worshipped with for years just suddenly not there anymore and they're not there for a silly reason.
It breaks our hearts or it should. So we need these reminders from Scripture that we are to do good to others in the household of faith both in the corporate assembly as well as outside the corporate assembly. We're to behave well when we are gathered together to worship God because when we sin, it doesn't just affect us.
Sin does not exist in a vacuum. When you sin in a natural family, it disrupts the family, it affects everybody in the natural family, and so it is true in the Church of God. When we sin, when we bring our sin with us and we act upon it within the corporate context of the church, it affects the spiritual family. When we do good for others, it doesn't just affect us, it affects our spiritual family.
So above all, let us pursue love for one another and peace with one another as far as it is within our power. I'm going to overlook that sarcastic comment that that person made. I'm going to overlook that person's tone.
Maybe they're just having a bad day. I had a person email me the other day and they were having an issue with work and I responded explaining what was going on and suddenly I got blasted in this person's response and I was like, I don't appreciate being chastised. Whoa, I was not trying to chastise you.
So what did I do? I tried to diffuse the situation. I apologized. I'm sorry, I did not intend for that email to come across that way. I was simply trying to explain what the problem was so that we could address it and go about it.
That person wrote back, I apologize as well. I'm really strung out right now. I don't have a lot of mental capacity left and I'm having a bad day. I could have lashed out. What in the world are you talking about? How dare you accuse me of something? But I didn't. I tried to think best of what the other person is possibly going through.
Maybe and I was right, he was having a bad day. Let us pursue love and peace with one another as far as it is within our power. It is God who has brought us together as a spiritual family and what God has joined together. Let us not separate with our sin.
Let us not separate by causing unnecessary division over silly issues that aren't issues at all. I want to close with a quote from Sinclair Ferguson. He has one more practical application of this reality of the church as the family of God.
Listen to what he says, quote, we are living in a culture full of dysfunctional families and a world full of young people who as a result of dysfunctional families have no idea who they are or where they belong and they're told to make themselves up. But when our churches become expressions of the wonderful reality that we are family, then all kinds of people, young and old, are able to look at our church family and think that looks like how life was meant to be. Look at how these Christians love one another.
How on earth has that happened? The answer is this is the family of God. This is the church that Jesus is building. Amen and Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I give thanks that you have revealed this wonderful reality. Thank you for this good reminder this evening of who we are as we relate to one another here in the church. Lord may your word expose as a mirror exposes our filthiness. May it expose where we have been going astray, where we have been tempted to go astray. Oh Lord, may we sit under the authority of your word. May it have its perfect work in us by the power of your Holy Spirit so that your church may be a family of love and peace. Because you are love and our King is the Prince of Peace. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.
