When the Church Is Your Family
Download MP3Thanks, Rodney. That was a perfect way to lead into lead into the message that we're going to look at together this morning. It's a privilege to worship with you. Again as I do every week. I'm a member here of Redeemer Community Church.
Collin Hansen:My name is Colin Hanson. My wife is Lauren. Our almost 7 month old son is Carter. And, Lauren and I have been members here for about 3 years and just privileged to call this our church home. With the rest of my time I serve as the editorial director for a ministry called The Gospel Coalition where I'm responsible for all of our editorial content from videos to audio to, articles and and things of that nature.
Collin Hansen:So again, it's a it's a great privilege to be able to open God's word with you together this morning. You're probably familiar with the concept of post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. It's an ongoing psychological disorder suffered after a painful event. Think about after a car crash or when your parents divorced or suffered amid physical and emotional abuse. It's most commonly associated though, for most of us with military veterans.
Collin Hansen:They return home and suffer flashbacks, sleepless nights filled with bad dreams, constant anxiety, and jumpiness. We often associate PTSD with the horrors of war. Exploding artillery shells, the gruesome sights of fallen comrades, suffering dreadful living conditions, and all that is a major factor, no doubt. But there's another element to PTSD that we often overlook, and it's actually the same reason that many of these same soldiers returned again and again and again to the very site, to the very place of their suffering that caused the trauma to begin with in multiple tours of duty. Because PTSD also involves the difficulty of transitioning back to normal life.
Collin Hansen:We thank veterans for serving their country and risking their lives so that we can be free. But when they often talk of the experience, they remember their friends. They remember these harsh and deadly conditions. They bond the survivors together for life, even if they don't share the same ethnicity, education, or accent. They return to return to the life of long commutes, and evenings at home, in front of the TV, and punch card jobs.
Collin Hansen:That can't adjust. They'll trade the risk of experience they'll they'll trade the risk of death for the experience of life with friends, you know, who would give their lives for yours in service of a good cause. Ordinary life just doesn't bond us the same way with our neighbors. But think about your closest friends. What tragedy brought you closer together?
Collin Hansen:Maybe it was a break up. Maybe you commiserated over sleepless nights together, as young parents with children about the same age. Maybe just endured puberty together. The same goes with your family, actually. You can be just as close You're close because of what you've gone through together.
Collin Hansen:The bratty phase, or the crazy hairdo, a terrible vacation, or of course, the heaving sobs of grief with loss. Because love is the motive, but it's also the result of enduring tragedy together. Well, today you might be visiting Redeemer for the first time, or testing it out after a few weeks to see if you want to commit. Or maybe you've been here for a long time, still haven't quite found your place, or maybe you HAD a place at one point, but now you've you've lost it. But no matter where you're coming from today, I can safely assume this about you, just like me.
Collin Hansen:You just want to be affirmed, valued, known, and loved. What you need is a family. Friendship isn't a strong enough word to actually capture this kind of love that I'm describing that's been forged through hardship. And that's why soldiers often describe themselves, and have for centuries upon centuries, as a band of brothers. That's why, especially when women are talking about their best friend, they'll often say, she's like a sister to me.
Collin Hansen:Well, in 1st Thessalonians 2:5 to 12, you can go ahead and turn there if you brought your Bibles today, or look at it there in your worship guide. We're going to see the Apostle Paul refer to his readers as brothers. They had been bonded together through the greatest struggle of all, the journey from spiritual death to eternal life. And by faith in the death and life of Jesus Christ, just as we've been singing about, exploring together in these last couple weeks, they've been adopted together in a family that would never split up. A family whose love for each other would never end because they had been welcomed into the family of God.
Collin Hansen:Message this morning is this. When the church is your family, love is your birthright. That again, when the church is your family, love is your birthright. Let's look at that together now from 1 Thessalonians 2:5 to 12. I'll be reading here, as in your guys, from the ESV.
Collin Hansen:For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves because you had become very dear to us.
Collin Hansen:For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil. We work night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaim to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. This is the word of the Lord.
Collin Hansen:Let's talk about some of the background here for 1st Thessalonians. It's a little bit difficult in these summer months, and we're jumping in and out of books. So let's set the stage for Paul's letter here. You can visit Thesalonica today. It's now called Thessaloniki, And I guarantee, you're probably gonna get a pretty good deal.
Collin Hansen:It's in Greece, which is in the middle of great economic upheaval. It's the second city of Greece behind Athens, with about 1,000,000 residents, so roughly the same size as Birmingham. Back then, it was also a major population center with more than 100,000 people in Paul's day. It's It's because it was a port city at the intersection of 2 major roads. So it's no surprise then that Paul would visit here on his second missionary journey.
Collin Hansen:So he's come here after he's been in Philippi. He's eventually going to head down through Thessalonica to Athens over to Corinth. He wrote this letter from Corinth. It is the oldest book in the New Testament. The first one recorded down and disseminated among the church.
Collin Hansen:I want you to know a lot about the Thessalonians, more than what you know from just this passage because Acts 17 records it. Anybody know that Paul, Silas, and Timothy visited together, and Paul writes this letter to the Thessalonians together, in their names. This letter comes after a visit from Timothy. He'd been with Paul and Silas in Corinth. Paul sent him back to Thesalonica to find out how they were doing after a few months.
Collin Hansen:When Timothy then returned to Paul in Corinth, he delivered a very encouraging report about their faith, and Paul, throughout this letter, just gushes over the Thessalonians, his children in the faith. Together, Paul Salas and Timothy had preached for 3 weeks in the synagogue. And some Jews and many Greeks believed from their teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. The one who was sent to deliver his people from their captivity to sin. But among the many Jews who did not believe, they riled up a bunch of city toughs to get together, form a mob to attack Paul, Silas, and Timothy.
Collin Hansen:They couldn't quite track these guys down, so they took out their anger on a poor guy named, Jason, who'd been hosting them. And as the crowd demanded, these men they described them as the men who have turned the world upside down. It's one of my favorite phrases in all of scripture. Again, everybody's wound up in this riot, not the first riot that these men had endured. They ended up just taking money from Jason and Paul's other supporters and then ultimately releasing them.
Collin Hansen:And from what we can deduce in looking at this letter, Paul wrote it because the Thessalonians just they missed him. They missed him after 3 months, and they worried about the ongoing persecution. It didn't stop when Paul left, and they wanted to know what would happen to them and their loved ones when they died. And they wanted to know when Jesus was coming back. It's a pretty natural thing.
Collin Hansen:You're going through suffering. You're wondering, when, Lord? When is Jesus going to return? Amazing thing again is that they spent only 3 weeks together, but you can see they already loved each other as family. 1st Thessalonians 2 19 to 20, Paul writes, for what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming?
Collin Hansen:Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy. So it didn't take long. It didn't take long, but they'd been bonded together through hardship. Let's look then very carefully then through this particular passage, starting there in verse 5.
Collin Hansen:You can see there Paul Paul refers to flattery. I don't know if you use this word very commonly or immediately understand what it means. You probably recognize it when you see it. But essentially, it's when somebody says nice things to you, about you, but not to make you feel good, to make them look good in your eyes. That's flattery.
Collin Hansen:It's not sincere. You see, there's this funny little comment there from Paul, as you know. I mean, who flatters a family member? Do you ever feel do you ever flatter your brother or sister? I mean, imagine your dad ever flattering you to make him look good and feel good.
Collin Hansen:Families don't flatter. Flatter. It's stopped in one case. Well, there's money on the line. For greed.
Collin Hansen:You gotta understand where he's coming from here. Traveling teachers in the Greco Roman days of the New Testament demanded payment for services rendered. And why not? Like this was entertainment. These were the athletes.
Collin Hansen:These were the the Hollywood stars. These were the multimedia celebrities of the day. They had to eat! How were they going to eat despite, you know, except they didn't get paid by the crowds. Here's the problem though.
Collin Hansen:Could you trust somebody to tell you the truth if you were paying them to say it? How does this make any sense? Remember this the next time you're tempted late at night to call up miss Cleo, or to go out looking for a psychic, or something like that. Again, they'll be happy to pay you as, you know, whatever you whatever you wanna pay, because they know they just need to keep telling you what you want to hear ultimately. The same thing, though, actually happens in the church today, whenever it gets away from preaching the Bible, from preaching God's Word.
Collin Hansen:Because family, they tell you what you need to hear, but it's not always what you want to hear. So we're at whether this is your home or you're still looking for a place, we just encourage you to look for that kind of church that from God's word tells you what you need to hear, and not what you're always wanting to hear. Verse 6 then. You can see that the flatterer again seeks glory for himself, not for the one he praises. Paul is actually, again, so concerned about his independence to preach the gospel in all its fullness to the Thessalonians, that he doesn't even take what properly belongs to him.
Collin Hansen:He could have asked them to support him. He could have asked them to to subsidize him. I mean, elsewhere elsewhere, he tells Christians to do that very thing for their pastors. From what we can tell here, it's probably the the Philippians, who he just absolutely loved and supported him financially during this the rest of this journey. But there's something else deeper going on here, this relationship between Paul and the Thessalonians.
Collin Hansen:Because you can see it you can see this come out in verse 7. No one pays his parents for services rendered. You can't pay them back for this. And that's how Paul sees himself with the Thessalonians after only 3 weeks together. The love of Christ though, inside the church, it transcends these many different family roles.
Collin Hansen:He uses them to explain what the what the love of the gospel is like, but but it but it's more than that. It's beyond that. In just our passage today, Paul describes himself as a mother, as a father, and at the same time, an infant child. All 3 in the same passage. The word gentle that you see there if you're using the ESV.
Collin Hansen:If the NIV, you might see something like little children, something like that. The word gentle there in verse 7 Could actually be, and maybe maybe even should be the word infants. We were infants among you. There's probably a footnote there in your ESV if you're looking at that. So Paul's likening his love for the Thessalonians as to the combined love that flows back and forth between a nursing mother.
Collin Hansen:That's the specific reference to the mother here as a nursing, a wet mother, wet nurse. A nursing mother and her infant child. A love that cannot be dimmed, no matter how many sleepless nights, no matter how many dirty diapers, no matter how many illnesses. It's a love that brews over 40 weeks together in the womb. A love that is consummated through the trauma of childbirth, and solidified forever over endless hours together alone.
Collin Hansen:To the child, it defines love. This is love to the infant. To the mother, it draws out a love so strong, she didn't even know she could feel it. She didn't even know where it came from. In verse 8, you see there the phrase, affectionately desirous.
Collin Hansen:It's another way of describing this love. It's a yearning. A yearning love. Imagine the love of a long distance relationship, which this actually is, in a way, as he's separated from them in Corinth. Or imagine the love of a father separated from his family on a business trip.
Collin Hansen:In the church, then, as we've been looking at these last couple weeks, this is a love that can only come from Jesus, who has adopted all who believe into the family of God. We love one another because he first loved us. So when we see each other, when we gather together here morning evening, we're seeing God's love The church that he's describing them is God's love made visible. To go back to that relationship between parents and child, we see this love on display in a unique way with a couple when they have a child. Because you can see both parents in this child, this love.
Collin Hansen:It creates a new thing between these two people. And the love of God, likewise, creates this new thing, this visible thing, the church. The phrase there in verse 8, very dear, could also be translated as beloved. It's the same term of endearment that God the father uses for his son in the transfiguration of Matthew 17:5. Again, our what that has existed from all of eternity.
Collin Hansen:That's what this is, as we gather together. It's that love made visible between us, among us, toward one another, and ultimately toward God lifted up. And you can see now in verse 11, Paul has shifted from mother to infant, and now over to father. This is a much more common phrase for Paul. He often regards himself as the spiritual father of the Thessalonians.
Collin Hansen:There's the tone though. I don't know if you pick it up here. The tone has shifted a little bit. It shifted a little bit. Later on in 1st Thessalonians, he's gonna sound a lot like a father, when he essentially tells the lazy Thessalonians in 411 and 514 to get a job.
Collin Hansen:Preferably, manual labor. Again, it sounds a lot more like a father here. He's using stronger language, like exhorted and charged, as part of his fatherly message. But it's actually it's less like a kick in the pants though, and more like a dad trying to coax his son or daughter across the finish line. It's possible the Thessalonians were not actually really lazy.
Collin Hansen:They were just confused as to when Jesus was going to come back, and what they were supposed to do in the meantime. So Paul tells them to get to work, and Jesus could come back at any time. So push on and work to make your Father proud, not because you can earn His love. We just sang about that, that it comes from grace and grace alone, but work because you delight because of that grace to please your heavenly Father. So again, what we've seen here throughout this passage that when God's called you into the family of his church, this love is your birthright.
Collin Hansen:You don't have to do anything to deserve it. You don't have to do anything to make it happen. It's yours. So I don't I don't know at this point though, in the message, if you're captivated by this by this vision, if you're confused by it, or even maybe a little bit scared about it because maybe you just came this morning to find some friends. Maybe you're new to the area, and you're just looking for some folks to hang out with.
Collin Hansen:Or you could even be intimidated by this message, because it sounds like this church expects a lot more out of you than you expect from it. Well, I mentioned early on though, that all of us, no matter where we're coming from this morning, no matter what our background, are looking to be affirmed, valued, loved, and known. Again, even if you're not buying what Paul's selling here, I can safely assume that's true of you. And Paul, Silas, and Timothy, in the Thessalonians, How do we get it? I mean, is there any other way?
Collin Hansen:Maybe we should look I think you can probably safely assume this is a sermon, so it's gonna end with Jesus. That's how we get it. But is there any other way to get this kind of love? Is there any other way? Well, some of us are blessed to know something like this, kind of unconditional love through our biological families.
Collin Hansen:But many of us are not. Maybe you've been exposed through, through this world, the ideals, maybe you've been exposed through through this world, the ideal at least, of how mothers and fathers are supposed to love their children selflessly without flattery, and not looking for any kind of personal gain. But here's the question. Is this how we look for friends today? Is this what you're thinking when you're looking for that kind of friend?
Collin Hansen:But I suggest it is not. But we still expect this kind of searching for friends to make us feel affirmed, valued, known, and loved. Here's how I think most of us think about looking for friends. We think about choice. That's a very high priority there.
Collin Hansen:In fact, as I was doing some preparation reading here, I found a number of people arguing that friendship is a higher form of love than family, precisely because it is voluntary. Precisely because it can be picked up, dropped, and moved at your whim. That's actually seen as a benefit to love today. So again, we often think choice is very key to finding a friend. We don't choose our family.
Collin Hansen:We know that painfully well, in many cases. We do choose, though, our friends, and we're looking for something in those friends that we're not necessarily looking for in the family. We're looking for compatibility. Again, a lot like almost looking for a romantic relationship. We're looking for commonality.
Collin Hansen:We're often looking for somebody to make us feel good about ourselves. So maybe you look for somebody who's more popular, and you flatter him or her. Or you look for somebody wealthier, and you ingratiate yourself. But we've already seen through this passage and through the earlier reference to military veterans that the closest relationships are forged through hardship and through sacrifice built on self giving love. You can remember what that was like for some veterans coming back with PTSD.
Collin Hansen:You don't have to be the same age. You don't have to share the same interests. You don't even need the same personality, But hardship will draw out the depth of your love. In many ways, it'll separate the true friends from the flattering friends. And this is what you see happened.
Collin Hansen:That hardship created, drew something out between Paul, and Silas, and Timothy, and the Thessalonians when they were persecuted. So if you're looking for these these kind of deep friends, a friendship that will last, you need a cause that's bigger than yourself. You need something that actually demands a lot out of you. You need a mission that will captivate you. You need ultimately the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you need the church then that makes brothers and sisters out of strangers.
Collin Hansen:Brothers and sisters out of strangers. But if you want these kinds of friends, I guarantee you, you're gonna have to push back really hard against our culture's expectations. Because again, we associate choice with the ultimate in freedom and personal fulfillment. It's no wonder, though, in that context, where everything is voluntary, when anything can be picked up and dropped, when friendship is all about what you share in common, that we are really struggling, in many cases, to find lasting friends. You when you grow up.
Collin Hansen:Do we ever mean such as a good friend who considers others more important than himself? I mean, that's that's not what we ever mean when we use that phrase. No. In fact, we're always the hero of our own dreams. It's always us against the world.
Collin Hansen:So think about this. Where are the other people in our dreams? They're either trying to hold us back or they're working to hold us up. They're either getting in the way or they're getting us on our way. This is how this is the story that we truly tell ourselves when we say that we're looking for friends.
Collin Hansen:As an easy way though, to tell if you if you have the right mindset that's going to guarantee these kind of deep and lasting friendships, like Paul is talking about here with the Thessalonians, just ask yourself these questions. How do you make decisions? About how you spend your time? About where you work? About where you live?
Collin Hansen:About where you go to church? If you're considering others more important than yourself, and you're giving yourself in the mission of the church, which is what Paul did here, You're going to have what Paul, Silas, and Timothy shared with the Thessalonians. You'll have this kind of yearning love, even for the people you see together on Sunday morning. You'll you'll be excited to show up and to see these people. Again, we we often we don't prioritize others, or the mission.
Collin Hansen:We're holding back. We're holding back and looking for people that we can get along with, who are just like us, who are in that same same life stage. It seems like more than true friendships, we're actually looking for security, or notoriety, or to preserve our freedom. I think in many cases, it's because we're scared. We're scared of what's going to happen when you develop this kind of yearning love, because you know that with the kind of way that people are looking for friends today, you're going to avoid some hardship, and you're not going to have to give as much.
Collin Hansen:It's going to be easier for you to find those people who have everything in common with you. But I but I also have seen it again and again. You may not have to give as much, but you're not going to get as much in return either. You'll have business contacts. You'll have acquaintances.
Collin Hansen:You might actually even be surrounded by people. People might think of you as being very popular, as having a lot of friends. If you're not looking at it the way Paul's looking at it, in your drama. And you are going to be playing a supporting role in theirs. And that's not how a loving family works.
Collin Hansen:And it's not how the heavenly family works. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, They didn't need to create, but they did out of love, man and woman made in the image of God. When we'd wandered far from home. God didn't need to share his riches with us, but he sent the Spirit as a deposit that guarantees our inheritance forever, this familial language throughout Scriptures. They're coming from Ephesians 1 14.
Collin Hansen:So in conclusion, I wanna look at 4 different ways that the church is like a family, a So the first way that that church is like a family is in preferences. In family, we know that you don't always get your way in the car stereo. You don't always get your way on vacation. You're part of a bigger unit. You're considering others more important than yourselves, even when you don't always feel like it.
Collin Hansen:Church works that way too. As Joel often says, we do get the church we need, but it's not always the church that we want. The church is also like a family because there's authority in a family. Parents know best because ultimately, they're the ones accountable to God, and they have the experience and wisdom accumulated over years, and often accumulated through bad decisions that they don't want us to make as their children. Same thing happens within the authority structures of our elders, and home group leaders, and others within the church.
Collin Hansen:The third way is in the welcome. The church is like a family, because with good families, at least, you know you can always go home. You can always go home no matter how long you've been away. That's not in any way to deny the costs of neglecting that relationship, or what's gonna be required to repair though that those relationships. But family, ultimately, knows a love that covers a multitude of sins.
Collin Hansen:That's how I often think about church when I see somebody who hasn't been for a while, and I wonder if they feel guilty about coming back, and I think, no. We're glad to have you back. We're glad to see you. We want to see you. We want we're eager to welcome you home.
Collin Hansen:And finally, in the other way that church is like a family is in disagreement. When you fight with your siblings, you don't think that they've stopped loving you all of a sudden. But you know those family members are still going to love you. And likewise, within the church. We're not going to be the same.
Collin Hansen:In fact, God's love in the gospel of Jesus is on display in a particularly powerful way precisely because we're not like each other in all of these ways. That's the kind of community you can't get anywhere else. So finally, there's one big problem. One big problem is that if the church is supposed to be my family, what does that mean for my biological family? And ultimately, related to that, can I truly trust?
Collin Hansen:I know I can trust my parents, hopefully. I know I can trust my siblings, hopefully. But can I trust this family? Can I trust these people? Well, I can't guarantee that this or any family will never disappoint you.
Collin Hansen:In fact, I can guarantee that we will. We're going to disagree. There's going to be discipline, and at some point, I know this, it's going to be easier for you to give up. It's going to be easier for you to find a different church, and in Birmingham, Alabama, you have plenty of options. I can only tell you this, that Jesus makes family out of strangers by adopting them and giving them his own birth right, the love of God.
Collin Hansen:Think about this with Jesus. When any thinking must have seemed unthinkable amid this unthinkable pain. Jesus was actually thinking about his family on the cross, Both spiritual and biological, because that's who Jesus was, and that's who Jesus is. He's fully God, and he's fully man. He's descended from David by the man who adopted him, Joseph.
Collin Hansen:He's descended from heaven as the second person of the trinity by the Spirit's anointing on his mother, Mary. Joel's gonna be back with us next week, preaching from John. And we're gonna see something remarkable in the gospel of John about Jesus's family. By the time Jesus got to the cross, there wasn't much family left for him. John tells us in chapter 19, only 4 of his followers made it to the crucifixion.
Collin Hansen:Three women, all named Mary, including his mother, and Jesus and John himself, the one who wrote the gospel, known as the one Jesus loved. As he hung dying on the cross, Jesus said the second last thing he said, at least according to John, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. To make it clear what he meant, he then said to John, behold your mother. John tells us then that Mary moved in with him from that time. We don't know what had happened to Mary's husband Joseph, but we can safely assume that he died, making her a widow.
Collin Hansen:So here, Mary's oldest child, Jesus at the very end, is doing what any good Jewish boy would do. He's making arrangements for his mother's care, like a good son that he was. But that's not the most amazing thing about Jesus on the cross, here even with his family, because Jesus had brothers. Back home. If you're really the Messiah, show us.
Collin Hansen:Enough talk, Jesus. Sounds like brothers to me. They didn't believe in him. In fact, they taunted him a lot like the man next to him on the cross taunted him. Are you not the Christ?
Collin Hansen:Save yourself and us. Yeah. Jesus had brothers. Alright? But they weren't believers.
Collin Hansen:And instead of entrusting his mother's care to them, Jesus entrusted her to his and her spiritual brother, John. The church became her family. The church shared her grief. But soon, even Jesus's brothers became family as well when he had been resurrected and ascended. We know from 1st Corinthians 15 that Jesus appeared to his brother, James, after his resurrection.
Collin Hansen:James would go on to write a New Testament book that carried his name, and he said then, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produced steadfastness. And I would add, I'm sure with James' approval, the love of a family that would never end. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for making brothers and sisters out of strangers. Father, thank you for blessing us with this love that overflows from the love shared between you and your son, Jesus.
Collin Hansen:Jesus, we praise you for coming, for dying on behalf of sinners, for calling us into the family of God where we're lavished with love. Thank you, Spirit, for sealing our inheritance, so that this never ending love might be our birthright. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
