we are family

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3:26)

Renew, the new singles group, met today at 3:00 for their monthly Bible study. They are a new group here at Firm Foundation.

They have a unique (to me at least) perspective on life in general. They are single. I have been married for 41 years (just last week, in fact) and can barely remember what it was like being single. My perspective on the Christian life is not that of a single person.

Listening to them talk gave me some interesting insights. What they considered vital as single people, I do not. The single people and I live, in some ways, in totally different worlds.

But – and here is the caveat – we – both married and single – are both Christ-followers. Even though we look at life in different ways, we are all Christians, children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

I had an ex-inmate ministry in a church I pastored a few years ago. Their perspective too was so different than mine. I never have been in jail or in serious trouble. Yet we were both children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

The same with all of the other people in the church. Even though we are all different, we are all alike in one way: we are part of the Kingdom of God.

In the church are married and single people, ex-inmates, recovering drug addicts, former prostitutes, government workers, manual laborers, college people, educated and uneducated, poor and rich, old and young. And all stand before God equally.

That is the beauty of the church, that motley collection of all kinds of people from all kinds of life.

And no one is better than another. All are equal in God’s sight. He loves none more than the others. Yes, we have different functions, different jobs, different talents – but we are all equal where it counts: we are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

What makes the church work is when all of these people come together, when we all stand united in commonality of belief. When we do that, we are triumphant.

And we are all family

more thoughts on hebrews

He [Jesus] says, I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises." And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again he says, "Here am I, and the children God has given me. (Hebrews 2:12-13)

Some families just look happier than others. A common denominator seems to be the fact that the father and mother love the children. Whether the children are biological, or adopted, they know they are loved. And they are happy.

To God, we are all His children (Galatians 3:27), not just Jesus. And Jesus feels that same way: the church is all his brothers and sisters. Jesus says that with his brothers, he will sing the praises of God the Father and in the presence of the congregation he will sing praises. When we praise God, however it is that we do, we join Jesus in that praise.

When our children go out on dates, or to school, or wherever, we want them to bring honor to us. We don’t want to go downtown in the middle of the night to get them out of jail. We don’t want to hear other people talking about what delinquents they are. We want our children to make us happy.

Jesus praised God as his child in all aspects of his life. As a carpenter, he was fair and accurate, he didn’t overcharge, he was the embodiment of God in flesh working with others. As a teacher, he did all he did with the blessing of God and he made sure that he had that blessing by bathing every effort in prayer. As a prisoner, he was humble and submitted, even knowing it was wrong and that if he wanted to, he could call a legion of angels to stop it and help him. As the Son of God, he rose from the dead.

Everything he did was to the praise of the Glory of God (Ephesians 1) and never to his own. When we do these things in our lives, we declare his glory by our participation in praise – “Life Praise”, a Lifestyle of Praise, whatever you may want to call it.

Our living for God is like his living for God: less in degree maybe, but the same in quality. Our life is a reveling in the knowledge that we are his children and that he loves us.

We are part of a great family.