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The Church as the Family of God – Things Found in It

The church in the New Testament is described under various appellations the best
known perhaps being the family of God. It is the designation that touches the heart
with the greatest force. We long to be part of a family, to have people that care
about us and care how we are doing and who will help us willingly and gladly should
we need it, people who do love us. One of the saddest things one can experience in
life, a gut wrenching experience, is to feel alone, to feel abandoned, to feel you
matter to no one. It rips your heart out and then shreds it to pieces.

Many people truly are alone; no one cares even enough to pray for them and the
saddest thing is many realize this. It is not hidden from them and they thus bear
the burden of that knowledge suffering the pain that comes with it.

The sickness of heart so many experience who feel abandoned and alone is far
more painful than any physical ailment for it touches the soul. When one is
unloved and unwanted then what is left when that comes into a person’s life? “By
sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.” (Prov. 15:13 NKJV) God knew what he was
talking about. All human experience has borne out the truth of this statement of
scripture.

In Christ one always has family for the church of God is the family of God, people
who love one another and care about one another, people who will literally pray for
you as well as help you. How thankful we ought to be to find someone who cares
enough to pray for us. Many people have no one who will do that for them. Have
you ever wanted someone to pray for you and there was no one to do it – no one
who cared, no one close enough to you to even know your need?

While the phrase “the family of God” is not found in the New Testament the concept
is. We are the children of God, “Beloved, now we are children of God.” (1 John 3:2
NKJV) Christians are born of God, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born
of God.” (1 John 5:1 NKJV) We are begotten of God in that he has “according to his
abundant mercy…begotten us again.” (1 Peter 1:3 NKJV) The Christian has been
born again into the family of God. We call God Father for, “Behold what manner of
love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1
John 3:1 NKJV) If we are his children he is our Father.

Jesus is our elder brother, “For both he who sanctifies and those who are being
sanctified are all of one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
saying: ‘I will declare your name to my brethren; In the midst of the congregation I
will sing praise to you.’” (Heb. 2:11-12 NKJV) We are brothers and sisters in Christ
for in Jesus’ own words he says, “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is
my brother and sister and mother.” (Matt. 12:50 NKJV)

Paul wrote to Timothy saying, “I write so that you may know how you ought to
conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God.” (1 Tim.
3:15 NKJV) Thus the church is our spiritual family, the house of God, and if we live
in it long enough and are faithful in it it becomes as close to us as physical family,
even a closely knit physical family, and even dearer to us as the years go by and we
grow older. That is the way God meant it to be.

What should one experience in the family of God? Here are but a few of those
things.

(1) Love. “In sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure
heart.” (1 Peter 1:22 NKJV) “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you
have love for one another.” (John 13:35 NKJV) “By this we know love, because he
laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
(1 John 3:16 NKJV) “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life
for his friends.” (John 15:13 NKJV)

I think the greatest desire of the human heart is for love, to be loved and cared
about. In the church if the brethren are what they ought to be they will love you
and care about you. You are their beloved family.

(2) Compassion. “The members should have the same care for one another…if one
member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the
members rejoice with it.” (1 Cor. 12:25-26 NKJV) Sounds like what we expect in our
own homes does it not? Sounds like people care for one another does it not? That
should be the church when the membership lives as Christ has directed them and
have the love of God in them.

(3) Kindness. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted.” (Eph. 4:32 NKJV) Every
Christian is to have “brotherly kindness” (2 Peter 1:7 NKJV) in his life. Kindness is
one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22 NKJV). Have you ever wondered how much
kindness the homeless receive? What value do you think they would place on a
little kindness? How much value do we place on kindness in our life – kindness both
shown to us and that which we show or should show to others? In the church one
should always find kindness being shown one member to another for we are family.
We should show kindness to all, the Bible teaches that, but certainly we need
kindness to one another in the family of God.

(4) Longsuffering or patience. Life in any family requires patience or longsuffering


with one another. You should find that in the church as well. God’s people, his
family, learn to put up with one another’s quirks of character – those things that can
be annoying – because of the love we have for one another. We are “bearing with
one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Sprit in the bond of
peace.” (Eph. 4:2-3 NKJV) Is that not the way it is with a husband and wife? We all
know it is and that is the way it is in any successful family. It is that way in God’s
family if it is the family God would have it to be.
(5) Forgiveness. “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.” (Eph. 4:32 NKJV) “Bearing with one
another, and forgiving one another.” (Col. 3:13 NKJV) We all feel the need to be
forgiven. In the church, God’s family, one needs to find that forgiveness and I am
speaking here of the forgiveness by our brethren specifically.

Sin is a burden we carry and yes, certainly, we must first be concerned with the
forgiveness of God but we also must feel our brethren, our spiritual brothers and
sisters in God’s family, will forgive us and help us unload the burden and guilt of sin.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:2 NKJV) To
know our family will have us back, forgive us, and love us despite our past sin is a
wonderful thing. An unforgiving Christian is an unsaved Christian. “If you forgive
men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not
forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
(Matt. 6:14-15 NKJV)

(6) Help and support. If it is needed the family of God helps one another out with
the matters of this life. “Whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in
need, and shuts up his heart from him how does the love of God abide in him?” (1
John 3:17 NKJV) “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those
who are of the household of faith.” (Gal. 6:10 NKJV) In 1 Tim. 5 Paul instructs
Timothy as to how the church is to care for those who are “widows indeed” (1 Tim.
5:3 KJV) having no one to help them. It would be a disgrace for a church to have
hungry and needy brethren uncared for, a mark of a lack of love.

This list could obviously be greatly extended but brevity must rule. But, just based
on the 5 items I have listed, without extending them, I think we would all agree that
any family sharing those traits is going to be a happy and successful family in
meeting the inner human needs we all have. Give me a family that loves me, has
compassion for me when I need it, is kind to me, is patient with me, forgives me as
needed, and who will help me in my life and I would say I have a wonderful family.
God’s family, when it is what it ought to be, is a wonderful family.

I could extend this article indefinitely talking about the wonderful Father and older
brother we have but time and space will only allow a brief comment or two.

As I think about God as my Father four thoughts come to my mind foremost. (1)
God loves me. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16
NKJV) He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to
repentance.” (1 Peter 3:9 NKJV) He “desires all men to be saved.” (1 Tim. 2:4 NKJV)
“We love him because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19 NKJV)

(2) He will never give up on me or come to the point he no longer wants me as long
as I will come home even if I was to wonder afar – the story of the prodigal son as
found in Luke 15. (3) He has prepared great things for me as a rich inheritance. (1
Peter 1:3-4) (4) He has promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Heb.
13:5 NKJV) What a wonderful Father! That last promise means a lot to me for I
know whether they want to leave me or not (some die, passing on, and have no
choice but leave) it is going to happen, has happened already. I have someone, in
God my Father, who will be with me no matter what even if it comes down to being
just the two of us alone. He is the only one that can go with me through the gates
of death. It means a lot to know he will be by my side.

Finally, I must close with the elder son of the Christian family, the Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. How much does he love me, love you? To ask is to answer for there
was, is, and ever will be the cross. “He himself is the propitiation for our sins.” (1
John 2:2 NKJV) When I think of Jesus I cannot help but think of him in the garden
praying, “And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. And his sweat became
like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44 NKJV) He “offered
up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to
save him from death, and was heard because of his godly fear.” (Heb. 5:7 NKJV)
What more could one ask of an elder brother in giving himself to save his younger
brother? Greater love has no man than this.

The family of God is the greatest family any man or woman can ever have. Likely if
it is not what it ought to be the reason is you or me, we are not the children we
ought to be. We know the Father is the best and the older son wonderful but how
are we as children – rebellious or loving and faithful? The church can always be
made better, made better as you and I make our lives better and become more like
our elder brother. How Christ like are we?

I end with this final thought. We have often sorrowed in our lives as our earthly
family has been struck down by death. The family of God is not torn asunder by
death. It is a family that will always be ours unless we leave it. When we die as a
Christian we just go on where other family members have already gone and are
reunited with them. How wonderful that will be to be reunited with those we have
loved in the past and who loved us and are now waiting on us.

But bear in mind the promise we have is only to those in God’s family. Everyone
today seems to think they are in God’s family regardless of doctrine or practice.
The Bible does not teach that every sincere person is going to be saved. There is a
way to be born into the family of God so study your Bible and compare what you did
to become a Christian, a child of God, with what they did in the first century. Read
Acts 2 as that is the day the family of God, the church, was established (a topic for
another time). Do as they did and you will be on safe grounds in the family of God.

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