Below is my manuscript version of those opening comments. It is somewhat different than what I actually said, but I hope it still communicates my desire for Covenant Community Church to become more and more the church pictured in the pages of the New Testament.
We were last in the gospel of Luke two weeks ago. Then we looked at 12:49-53. Jesus says in those verses He came to divide, that His death – in which He bore the judgment that was due sinners – would result in divisions even in biological families. He said fathers would be against sons and mothers against daughters. He, and His atoning work, would be the dividing line.
I talked about the divisions among households two weeks ago, and that is what is most explicit in that passage. But there is something implicit in Jesus’ sayings – while there is division declared, there also is union implied. It is not only that the division would separate from some but that the division and separation would unite us with others.
Luke includes an explicit statement on this later in his gospel. In Luke 18, Jesus has an encounter with a rich ruler who did not inherit eternal life because he treasured his wealth more than Jesus. Jesus then comments on how difficult it is for the rich to enter God’s kingdom. This stuns His disciples, and they ask who then can be saved. Jesus says it is impossible except with God.
Peter tells Jesus, “Behold, we have left our own homes and followed You.” Jesus says to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”
Those who are divided from family and friends will be united with others – others who are also followers of Christ, others who have been brought into God’s family through the life and death of Jesus and the sovereign grace of God. They will be in relationships produced by the cross. And those relationships will be lived out in churches.
May we not miss this point – and may we not miss the significance of the church in the life of every believer. While we are divided from some, we are united with others as a result of Jesus’ coming and giving His life as a ransom for many – not all but many.
As a church, we are a family produced by the blood of Jesus, not the blood of our biological parents and their parents and their parents before them. Through His death, we are given life and adopted by God the Father into His family. We belong to each other as a result. And in that belonging, we extend grace to one another on the basis of the grace our Father has extended to us through His Son and our Savior. And we serve each other because His Son and our Savior has served us.
When we gather together each time as the church, it is a family reunion. And we invite all others to join us in the celebration and worship – not of a clan or family but of the Lord who has made us a family.
And I encourage you as the Covenant Community to walk together as brothers and sisters, not being negligent of our times together, not missing out on these opportunities to pray together for those loved ones who are divided from us because they have rejected our Savior, not missing out on the opportunities to serve the young and the old, not missing out on the opportunities to show what God is like by loving one another as He loves us.
And for those of you who live here but are not part of this family, we invite you to walk with us and see what our Father and His Son are like, and what being part of an eternal family is like.
So, again, thank you all for gathering to experience all of this and more in worship today.
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