I have a brother six years younger than me who lives in Australia. He married
an Australian lady from Adelaide and they live in Adelaide. He is very different
from me – he’s a technical guy; he maintains the computer system in a local hospital.
That is a job I could never do. I can just about work a PC but don’t ask me to
do anything complicated.
It’s fun to catch up with him when I see him – I enjoy ribbing him about the
Australian twang he seems to have acquired. I got a very amusing message on our
ansaphone the last time he was over – ‘we’re on our whaay’. We have shared experiences
and memories but to be honest if we weren’t brothers, it’s very unlikely that
we would have become friends partly because of the age gap as we were growing
up and partly because we have such different interests.
But we are brothers for life because we have the same Mum and Dad. It’s as simple
as that. Being brothers is a given thing – you don’t choose it, you’re born into
it. There he was next to Mum in St Mary’s Paddington in August 1970 – new-born,
spotty nose (no Australian accent at that point). That’s my brother – like it
or lump it.
It’s the givenness of a family bond like that between two brothers or a brother
and a sister that drives the New Testament image of the church as the family
of God. It’s a given thing. You’re born into it.
When we are what Jesus calls in John chapter 3 ‘born again’ by the Holy Spirit
of God when he leads us to put our trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our
sins - when we are born again in Christ, we get a new father, God, and we get
a new family, our fellow Christian believers. What do we call God in the Christian
family prayer, the Lord’s Prayer? Our Father who art in heaven. As disciples
of the Lord Jesus Christ, God is our Father and our fellow believers are our
brothers and sisters. It’s a given thing – we do not choose our fellow believers.
God chooses them.
It would be quite wrong to say that the New Testament calls the church the family
of God because in human experience families love one another. Quite often they
don’t. Did Cain love Abel?
No, the reason the New Testament calls the church the family of God is because
of the givenness of the bond between believers. Whether we like it or not, whether
we like them or not, if we are believers in Jesus, we are brothers and sisters
in him sharing the same Father who is in heaven and because the God who is our
Father is love we should love one another as his family.
I could have chosen a number of New Testament passages that bring out the idea
of the church as the family of God but I went for the last section in Paul’s
first letter to the Thessalonians. It’s not possible to expound it in detail
this morning but I want to focus on how it brings out so very powerfully the
idea of the church as the family of God and what should be ethos of the church
family, the kind of relationships we ought to be having in the family ( 1 Thessalonians
5vv12-28 – printed below):
12Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are
over you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13Hold them in the highest regard
in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 14And we urge
you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be
patient with everyone. 15Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but
always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. 16Be joyful always;
17pray continually; 18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's
will for you in Christ Jesus. 19Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20do not
treat prophecies with contempt. 21Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22Avoid
every kind of evil. 23May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through
and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do
it. 25Brothers, pray for us. 26Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. 27I
charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. 28The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
The first thing to note is that the Apostle Paul calls the church at Thessalonica
‘brothers’ five times in these 16 verses: ‘we ask you brothers’ v12; ‘ we urge
you brothers’ v14; ‘brothers pray for us’ v25; ‘greet all the brothers with a
holy kiss’ v26; ‘I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all
the brothers’ v27.
Five times: now let me make it clear that the term ‘brothers’ is a generic term.
We could just as well translate it brothers and sisters. Paul is absolutely clear
that women are equally members of the church family. In another of his letters,
Galatians 3vv26-28, he says: ‘You are all sons (ie heirs) of God through faith
in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves
with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’
Men and women, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free are equally members of the
family of God because it’s a given thing. It goes along with having the same
heavenly Father.
And notice also who it is that is calling the Thessalonian Christians brothers.
It’s Paul, the Apostle Paul, with a unique role in the church of Christ having
had a unique experience of Christ. He saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ on the
road to Damascus. These Thessalonians had never Jesus - they’d heard about him
- yet Paul calls them brothers because again it’s a given thing. Our family bond
transcends our different roles within the church and our different experiences
of coming to faith. In the case of the Thessalonians, even though they had had
a necessarily different experience of coming to faith from Paul and even though
they had a different role in the church - Paul was an apostle, they were not
- they are still brothers. Paul calls them brothers five times in these verses
because in Christ they share the same heavenly Father.
Notice also who it
was that is calling these Thessalonians
his brothers - Paul, formerly Saul, the fanatical Jewish Pharisee, the former
persecutor of the church. He saw his fellow Jews who followed the crucified Jesus
as traitors. He hated them and as for Gentiles – they were unclean, he wouldn’t
even have bought a beef burger from one. Yet here he is calling Greek Gentiles
like these Thessalonians brothers. Why? Because they’re in the same family -
it’s a given thing. Christ captured him on the road to Damascus and changed him
and now he loves his brothers and sisters in Christ.
And now he teaches them as an apostle of Christ what should be the ethos in the
Christian family, what should be the family dynamics.
First of all, v12, respect for those in the family who are called to teach the
Scriptures. ‘We ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you,
who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you’ – who, in other words, exhort
and warn the church family from the Holy Scriptures. ‘Hold them’, v13, ‘in the
highest regard in love because of their work.’
Respect for those who have been given the teaching office in the church should
be a mark of the Christian family living under the authority of God our Father.
Where that respect is absent, there is likely to be war in the Christian family,
which is why Paul says at the end of v13 – ‘live in peace with each other’.
2nd dynamic in the church family - looking after one another. V14 ‘And we urge
you, brothers, warn those who are idlers, encourage the timid, help the weak,
be patient with everyone.’ The idlers in the Thessalonian church were those who
were refusing to work for their living – there was no point, they thought, because
the world was about to end. But the Bible teaches us that we should work for
a living and therefore the church family had the responsibility to warn those
who were disobeying the Bible’s teaching in this regard. In the church family
we are to look after one another.
3rd family dynamic - v15 ‘Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but
always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.’ The non-Christian
world is marked by private vengeance and settling scores – you hit me, I’ll hit
you harder - but that should not be the ethos in the Christian family. Church
discipline, yes, overseen by the teaching leaders and implemented by the church
family as vv12-14 outline but private vengeance, no. Make sure that nobody pays
back wrong for wrong – love takes it on the chin.
4th family dynamic vv16-18 – joyful and thankful dependence on God in prayer.
‘Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this
is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.’
The Christian family talks to our Father who is in heaven and we do it together,
giving thanks in all circumstances. Not *for *all circumstances note but in all
circumstances and there is a difference. We shouldn’t thank God for the awful
thing that’s happened to a member of the church family but we can give thanks
in that situation that God is their heavenly Father and they are securely in
Christ. The Christian family prays thankfully together.
5th family dynamic vv19-21 – respect for preaching with discernment. ‘Do not
put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything.
Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.’ We need to respect the fact that
the Holy Spirit is at work as the word of God is preached but there is the need
for hearers to be discerning about what we hear, to keep our brains engaged,
to test it by Scripture, to hold on to what is biblical and therefore of God
in the preached message and to reject what is not biblical and therefore not
of God. ‘Hold on to the good, avoid every kind of evil.’ The five family dynamics.
And so to conclude with Paul’s wonderful prayer for the church family vv23-24:
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify us (that is, make us holy, set apart
for him in belief and behaviour) through and through. May our whole spirit soul
and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who
calls us is faithful and he will do it. Amen.