Jack Graham - The Family of God
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All right. Are you ready for God's Word? Take your Bibles, turn to Acts, the second chapter. This is our FAMILY series. We've been talking about the home, marriage, family, our children. And today's message is an essential part of that series. It's a message that I'm simply calling "The Family of God". We are God's family, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is an essential and sure foundation for my family and your family. The psalmist said in Psalm 127, "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it".
So whether it is our marriage, our family or the church, we are counting on the Lord to build our family. Jesus builds the church. He said, "The gates of hell will not prevail against My church because I am building My church". So the question is what is the church? And there are many questions swirling around, the scandals in our region, about the church, about the foibles, the failures, the sinfulness that is around the church today. So what is the church? Should we even go to church? Should we be discouraged with our churches today? Where can we go to find a church? How do you define the church?
One of the most important decisions you will make in your life for yourself and your family, is the church you choose to call home. Jesus did say in Matthew 16 that He is building the church and the forces of hell, all of the attacks of the enemy will not prevail against it. Satan cannot stop the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are undefeated because of what Christ has promised. This promise is iron clad. "I will build My church and the gates of hell, all the forces of evil and darkness will not prevail against the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ". This is God's promise.
Now the church was born in a prayer meeting in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Jesus had given His followers a great commandment to love God and then to love their neighbors, and then a great commission to "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel and make disciples". In the first chapter of Acts, you're at chapter two, and we're going to get there in a moment. But verse 8 of chapter one says that "After the Holy Spirit is come, you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth". And then He instructed them to go and wait for the endowment of power, the work of the Holy Spirit upon them. So they did exactly as He told them. And 120 believers gathered in an upper room and prayed in faith and unity, and waited on the Holy Spirit to come.
And right on time, right on schedule, the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon them. They were filled with His presence, His power, the prayers were up, the prayers went up, the Spirit came down, and then the church went out. And the world would never be the same, because the Church is born. Peter then preached a great message. Now the leader of the church, the same on who had denied the Lord, is restored, and he's preaching with power and conviction and courage. We read that message in Acts chapter 2. It's just full of Jesus and the resurrection. And then he closes with an invitation and he says, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation" that is going nowhere. And he invited people to respond and to receive Christ.
And the Scripture tells us that they received Christ; they received the Spirit of God, and then they were baptized into the church. They were born again, they were baptized, and then they belonged in to the Church. And the key characteristic of the Church from generation to generation, you can describe it as a New Testament does in many ways. The Church is described as a body, like a physical body, with many parts working together, balancing the work. And so we are a body with Christ, our head. The Church is described as the bride of Christ. And that Jesus loves the Church and gave Himself for it, His bride. But the Scripture describes the Church, our focus today, as a brotherhood.
And that's 1 Peter chapter 2. A brotherhood which means we are a family, brothers and sisters in Christ. We are a family. God is our Father and we are His sons and daughters. How? In that we have been born again. We have been born again into the family of God. What is the family of God like? What is the family of God? Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47 gives us an insider look at our family as it ought to be. This is the Church at its birth, in its infancy. It is pure and powerful, not perfect, because no church, even this one, is perfect, but pure and powerful; uncompromising, unstoppable. It was young and vibrant and beautiful.
And verse 42 of chapter 2 of Acts says: "And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved".
So let's take a look at what the family of God is all about. Number one, exalting Christ. First and foremost, and forever, we are about the praise and proclamation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The original Church worshipped Jesus and witnessed of His power to save. It was then and it is now, if it is truly the Church, all about Jesus. He is the Lord of life and the Lord of love to all who believes. This means that you are in the family of God when you personally profess and confess your faith in Jesus Christ by repenting of your sins, inviting Him into your life, and receiving His very salvation, the forgiveness of sin. This is how you become a member of the family of God.
You're in Acts chapter 2; look back at verse 38 of Acts, chapter two. It says: "And Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'" So at the end of the message, when Peter is inviting people to respond, as we do each week when we preach, he invited them to respond and on that day the 120 who had gathered in the upper room exploded to 3120 because that many people came to Christ. They apparently were counting them. They were checking the roll; they were taking names.
And all of these people were birthed into the family of God. And because they became members of the family of God spiritually, they were baptized in the Spirit, they were then baptized in water, and they were commanded as Jesus commanded us to make disciples and to baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They believed together and therefore, they belonged together. They began together, they believed together, they belonged together. The Church of Jesus Christ is made up (wait for it) of believers! Believers who have been saved because we have put our faith in Christ and Christ alone.
Now that may seem obvious, that the Church would be made up of believers. But unfortunately, churches are often filled with unbelievers. Unsaved members of the church, and therefore, not a part of the family of God. The fact is, you can go to church, you can be a member of this church, you can be baptized in this church, you can attend this church and not be a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. The question is, do you know Christ? Has He changed your life? Does He live in you? There's some evidence, there's some marks, some characteristics of what a Christian is and what he does. When we are filled with His presence and His power, what do we do?
Look again at verse 42. What happened after all these people believed and were baptized? "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread in prayers". So the second mark that I want to mention regarding what the family of God looks like... we are exalting Christ, but we are edifying and equipping Christians. They continued steadfastly, devotedly. They devoted themselves. This is the sign of conversion. Conversion means that you will not only have a beginning, but you will have a continuance of your faith in Christ. The Apostle John said in 1 John 2:19: "They went out from us", speaking of people who abandoned the church. He said, "They went out from us because they weren't of us. For had they been of us, they would have no doubt continued with us".
You know, a preacher said one time, the faith that was faulty at the first fizzles at the finish. Some people only attend church when they're hatched, matched and dispatched. If you are a Christian, you will continue to center your life in Christ. And there is the teaching and the preaching the Apostle's doctrine. What is the Apostles doctrine? That is the disciples teaching. They had the Bible, the Old Testament, and they no doubt, preached from the parchments and the scriptures that they had memorized from the Old Testament. And then they preached what they heard, they echoed, it was so fresh in their hearts and minds, the words of Jesus. They were teaching the words of Jesus.
And these believers couldn't get enough of it. They were growing by leaps and bounds spiritually. Their families were together from house to house. They were growing in their discipleship. And what were they doing? They were teaching the Word of God. They were preaching Jesus Christ. We as a church are committed to this, receiving the Word of God and delivering the Word of God, teaching truth from God's Word which is infallible and inerrant. Second Timothy chapter three says "All Scripture is breathed out by the Holy Spirit and is profitable for doctrine (or teaching) for reproof and correction, and instruction in righteousness".
And so the church that Jesus builds is built upon Christ and His Word, His Book. we believe this is the only Book that God wrote. This is God's Word and authoritative for Christian living, how we live our lives. So this is why we're teaching our children, back to the family, we need to make sure, of course, that we're teaching our children in the home, as well as the church. Every generation is responsible for teaching the Word of God and passing along from generation to generation the faith.
This is why is so important that you lead your family well and make sure they're in church. I'm not sure who said it. I think I've got a slide on this: If your children see your faith as optimal or optional, here it is: When church becomes optional to you, it will become unnecessary to your children. Do you see that? Parents, moms and dads, do you see that? Now, that's not scripture, but that is true. I've seen it in experience over and over again. If church is not important to you and your family, guess what's going to happen to the next generation of your family? If it's peripheral or optional? In my family, growing up, church on Sunday morning and I might add Sunday night, Wednesday night, and a lot of other times, not optional!
So we're to pass the faith of the next generation. And if you are a parent, if you are a grandparent, make sure your children... Thank God for grandparents like my grandfather who put me on his knee and taught me the scriptures. The Bible is all about Jesus. It's the Jesus book. The Bible is for us, listen to this. The Bible is for us, given to us, but it's not about us. The Bible is all about the story of Jesus, knowing Him, loving Him, and serving Him. So what is the church do? We are equipping Christians. We're exalting Christ. We are equipping Christians. We do a lot of things, produce a lot of ministry and activity, but it all flows out of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
That's why at the very center of all this, this entire property, almost dead center to this acreage, is this pulpit, right in the heart of this church, not because I stand in it, but because of what this represents, that it represents our commitment to hearing, believing, obeying the Word of God. And so if you are a Christian, then you will continue with your desire and delight in the Word of God. Thirdly, experiencing community. We are exalting Christ; we are edifying Christians; and we are experiencing community.
Look back in chapter 2 again, verse 42, it says, "They devoted themselves to the apostle teaching and to fellowship". And along with that fellowship came the breaking of bread and prayers, all about communion and union with Christ. Some people believe that you can't have fellowship in a big church. But if that's the case here in Acts chapter 2, they weren't having fellowship, as the Bible says, because they were a big church. They had 3120 on the first day. Ultimately, it became a multitude of people. Bible scholars estimate that there were as many as 50,000 people who came to Christ in the first 6 months of the church's existence in Jerusalem.
That's a big church. But they were having fellowship, breaking bread together, house to house together, belonging together, battling together against the enemies of darkness. Why? Because we love one another. We're a family. We are a band of brothers. We are a sorority of sisters in Christ. We pray for one another; we serve one another; we support one another; we believe in one another; we battle with one another; we correct one another if necessary. Everyone needs a church family. So many people today are alone and anxious and depressed and isolated. We hear it all the time, in spite of all the technology that people have. Alone and isolated. The consequences of loneliness are physical, including stroke, dementia, heart disease, premature death.
In fact, loneliness is right there with obesity and smoking as the number one cause of premature death. Loneliness. But God has given us the church. God gives us a family so that we don't have to be alone. You say, "Well, there are a lot of people here and you know, they're just too many". You know, I heard that you can really know about fifty people well. Maybe some of you know more than fifty people well, but let's just say it's fifty.
So if you're in a church of fifty people, you'll have fellowship with fifty people. If you're in a church of 50,000 people, you're going to have church fellowship with about fifty people, and you can ignore all the rest of them. But fellowship, and we want to make every effort that we can to get people together. Fellowship is in times of sorrow, there's the fellowship of grief and the fellowship of suffering. It's all in the church. In the first church, as noted here, devoted itself to prayer. Prayer so often missing the church today. Sincere prayer. Why did they pray? Because the believed the word of Jesus. He said, "Ask me anything, and I will give it to you in My name".
They believed enough, were bold enough to believe, so they just prayed all the time. They prayed and believed God for anything and everything that God could do. "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it". Family praying, praying with your kids, over your kids, for your kids. Praying corporately with the church. When we worship, when we sing these songs, it's a form of prayer. We are offering our praise to God and often our cries to God. I want to encourage you to pray with other believers in this church. Why do we pray? Because when we pray, we admit our dependence upon God! When we pray, we get what God can do. When we work on our own we get what we can do. But when we work and pray, we get what only God can do.
We get the supernatural. And that's what happened here in the church. It says great awe and wonder. Look again, I'm rounding third and coming home. Don't worry. It says that: "Great awe", verse 43, "came upon every soul and wonders and signs were being done through the apostles". You know what happens when we pray and we are united in Christ, and we love one another and serve God and witness of His power? Mighty wonderful things happen, wonderous things happen. The power of God is manifest with His people.
Miracles take place. And we've seen miracles! We've seen God change lives. We've seen the miracle of God healing sick and broken people. We've seen God perform the miracle of putting a marriage back together. We've seen God bring children back home. That is a miracle of His hand. People back together. We've seen God move in people's lives and break the bondage of sin and addiction in their lives. We've seen God move and we just stand in awe of what God has done! And when that happened in the first century in the infancy of the church, when people around them saw the power of God ignited, they wanted it, because the people were generous and they were gregarious. God gave them favor with the people. They were preaching Good News.
And so the Lord added daily. Every day, and then ultimately multiplying the church to a multitude of people and they turned the whole world upside down. Why? Because, the last point is that they engaged the community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They left their seats and went to the streets and shared Christ. Jesus said, "As the Father sent Me, so do I send you". This is His mission and therefore, it's our mission. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And you and your family are a vital part of His mission here.
Choose to be a part of it. Don't be just a spectator or member of an audience or a face in the crowd. Find your fellowship. Continue in the Word of God. Pass your faith to your children by leading them to Christ, and we will reach the world right around us. God has put in on my heart to reach a billion people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We can do that through media. We can do that through the message that He's given us and the missionaries we support. A billion people before He comes. Let's do it, church. We are the family of God. I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God.