Our Apostolic Roots and Our Identity | Acts

We'll be reading this morning from the book of Acts, chapter 1,

Acts 1:1–20

verses 1 through 20, but the focus will be on 1 through 14.

People of God, listen, for this is the word of the Lord. In the first book,

O Theophilus, I have dealt with

all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up,

after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

He presented himself alive to them after suffering by many proofs,

appearing to them forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem,

but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said you heard from me.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time

restore the kingdom to Israel?

He said to them, It's not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father

has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up,

and a cloud took him out of their sight.

And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by

them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you still stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way

as you saw him go to heaven.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet,

which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath-stage journey away.

And when they had entered, they went to the upper room where they were staying,

Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew.

James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot, and Judas the son of James.

All of these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with

the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers.

In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers. The company of the persons was about 120 people.

And said, Brothers, the Scriptures had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit

spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide

to those who arrested Jesus.

For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.

Now this man acquired a field with the reward of wickedness,

and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out.

And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was

called in their own language, Akeldamah, that is, field of blood.

For it is written in the book of the Psalms, May his camp become desolate,

and let there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his office.

So one of the men, having accompanied him the whole time during this,

the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John

until the day when he was taken up from us.

One of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, was also called Eustace and Matthias.

And they prayed and said, you Lord know the hearts of all, show which one of

these two that you have chosen to take the place in the ministry and the apostleship

from Judas, which Judas turned aside to go his own place.

And they cast lots for them and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the 11 apostles.

This is the word of the lord we can be seated let's pray together lord we ask

now that you would continue the work of your holy spirit in us that we might

know christ that we might hear him that we might be fed by your word this morning

we pray this in jesus name amen what is your tribe.

What is your tribe? I'll ask you that question. And it's an odd question,

I know. And it's actually a real question I was asked when I was in Africa.

I was registering for the hospital, got my name and my phone number,

where we lived. And then she said, what is your tribe?

I said, I'm an American.

I don't have a tribe. And she looked at me as if to say, no,

really, what is your tribe?

And I laughed. I said, we don't really have tribes in America.

Life's not the same way that you have tribes here.

And she said, seriously, what's your tribe? I said, put down American. I don't know what to say.

I jokingly asked if I could become a Begisu. That's where we lived.

And I said, do I look like a Begisu? She said, you don't look anything like

what is your tribe? I said, just put American.

But then when we came back to America, I noticed and we were watching,

we were keeping up with American politics and culture.

And American has become a very tribalistic nation, very tribalistic,

very divided along tribal lines.

In fact, I think that you could say that political leadership in general kind

of encourages tribalism, what's your tribe?

And that can be race, that can be ethnicity, that can even be gender now, what's your tribe?

You even know sometimes who people's tribes are because when we were in the

hospital here in America, they walked in and they had a name tag and on the

bottom were their preferred pronouns.

What do you identify?

I was listening even to the introduction of a supposed church meeting where

people were getting up and introducing themselves.

I'm so-and-so, a minister of this church. I'm a cisgender.

My pronouns are she, her.

It's like, what is going on with people's identity and how people's identity

is mixed up and confused today?

So this morning, I wanted to look at the passage. You say, what does this have

to do with the 12 guys who were chosen? to be the apostles of the church.

My point is, these 12 guys...

Are our tribal heads. We do have a tribe, actually, and it's not even a national

tribe like American. We have a tribe. It's called the Church of Jesus Christ.

This is our tribe, and you are our people.

You are my people, right, together, and it's not based on race.

It's not based on ethnicity. It's not even based on language.

It's based on the work of Jesus Christ and our union with him and our union

with him with one another in the church, and it's interesting that the church

does have tribal heads. We are members of a tribe.

It's called the Church of Jesus Christ, and these 12 guys are our tribal heads,

not ethnically, not racially, not in any other way except in Christ.

And this tribe that we have, this tribe that we're a member of,

is connected to the 12 tribes of Israel as well, and the promise made to our

tribal father, Abraham.

We are heirs of Abraham. This is our tribe.

And the one thing you know for sure, if you study the genealogies of scripture,

is it's never about race or ethnicity.

The Jews wanted it to be that, desperately. They wanted their tribe,

by which they meant Jewish people, to be the tribe that was blessed of God.

But Abraham was promised to be the father of what?

Many nations. The father of many nations.

So this morning I wanted to look at this, the selection of this 12 tribal heads,

and that's exactly what they are.

They are the founders of the church of Jesus Christ, and they are drawing us

together in Christ, in this tribe, in this nation, in this people,

in this family that we call the church of Jesus Christ.

Americans, we live in a culture in which people want desperately to divide us

on the basis of certain tribal claims.

All the time. I hear it every time I look at almost anything.

Some people's response to this has been, well, let's make America great again.

I want to say, let's make the church great again, if I could use that.

Maka? Is that how you're going to say it? Maka?

Make the church, or makaka, I don't know how you say it exactly,

but you'll get the acronym.

But make the church the center of our identity in Christ.

Because your roots, and how you think of your roots, and how you think of where

you came from determines very much what you think your identity is.

And if you're confused about your roots, you're going to be confused about your identity.

So we need to look to Jesus Christ. And one of the things about our identity

that I'll be trying to say and trying to conclude with is when we find our tribal

identity in these founders and those tribal founders connected to the 12 tribes

of Israel and they connected to Abraham and they connected to Noah and them also connected to Adam.

It's all an identity that we have in a promise that God loves us so much,

he saved us from our sins.

He sent someone to be a new tribal head to take our place, Jesus Christ.

Maybe oversimplify, but it's very powerful. If you are struggling and all of

us do to some extent over your identity, who am I?

Where did I come from? What am I doing here? Then we need to be reminded that

our identity is connected to our roots,

which is connected to the promise of jesus christ We are in christ And therefore

we are beloved Your identity as the people of god is the beloved of god.

We read from first peter. I'll read it again I'll emphasize it again.

We are the special people of god Because god loves us so much.

You see that's our identity Whatever your family situation is or was like,

good, bad, ugly, and some families have really ugly situations.

Maybe you came from that. I don't know. Whatever your family situation is in

your own sin, you worry and wonder about who am I? What's my identity?

I wanna encourage you to remember, and it will lead us directly to this Lord's

table, that our identity is in Christ and we are his beloved,

beloved children of God.

So let's do a little bit of review before we get to that. And again,

you might be saying, what, I just saw like 12 names listed.

And this guy's talking about tribalism and identity and so forth.

But I wanna try to tie this together.

Remember the beginning of Acts, Acts 1-4, wait for the promise of the Father,

which he said, you heard from me.

This promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell in this new nation,

this new special people, the church, who is not new.

Remember, the church is not new like it came out of nowhere.

It's new as a development of the promises made thousands of years ago.

We are the people of God like Israel was the people of God, like Abraham was

the people of God, like Noah was the people of God, like Adam and Eve were the

people of God, the church in the Old Testament.

But this is a development in those promises with the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And the development also calls us, if you recall from a week or so ago,

that the Holy Spirit is calling us to be witnesses, which means the word witness

in Greek is close to the word martyr.

We are to lay down our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit for Jesus Christ, what we're called to be.

And we saw then the ascension where Jesus has reminded them of this promise,

he's taught them, and then he is taken up, again, not floating away on a cloud,

but he's surrounded by the glory cloud presence of God.

The very throne room guardians surround him and he vanishes into the glory of God.

And we saw that Paul says that when he raised him from the dead,

he seated him at the right hand in heavenly places, far above all rule and authority

and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age,

but also in the one to come.

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to what?

To us, to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

This great heavenly throne room and the enthronement of Jesus Christ reminded

us to live with that hope.

And it's a true and real and certain hope.

We think of everything we do and everything we think and everything we say as

going to be judged by God.

In the end, we have to give an account. And it's genuine hope.

It's genuine hope that God will make all things right and we live in accordance with that.

So we see then in our verses, we're getting to the section, verse 112,

it says, they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet,

which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath's day journey.

I just want to mention a few words about this because, and I'm not going to

go through verse by verse so carefully, but I do want to mention this because

if you read a commentary on this,

immediately some liberal commentary will say, well, we all know that the Mount

of Olives is not a Sabbath's day journey from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives.

And it's not. But the wording that Luke uses is a wording that doesn't mean

they went from the Mount of Olives and took one Sabbath day journey.

It looks like he's saying having a Sabbath day journey at the end of it.

In other words, it looks like they were taught on the Mount of Olivet,

were traveling to Jerusalem, the ascension happened on an unknown mountain or

place, and then from that they moved a Sabbath day journey into Jerusalem.

And remember, when they're going into Jerusalem, the context is a dangerous place, okay?

Now the 11 are about to follow Jesus. last minute instructions.

They go into the dreaded context of Jerusalem.

You would have thought they would be more comfortable on the Mount of Olives. They go into Jerusalem.

Pentecost was near and Jerusalem was teeming with Jews and proselytes.

The same people that accused Jesus, the same Jewish council was still the same.

The same ruling governor that murdered and crucified Jesus, still the same.

So the tensions of the Roman government and the Sanhedrin was all the same.

And so this brings them back to the troubling reminder that they were going

to be witnesses or martyrs.

So they were going into Jerusalem in a fearful and dreadful and dangerous context.

And then they moved to the upper room. Again, I don't wanna make too much of

this, but by this time in New Testament history, at least as the canon is unfolding,

the upper room is a significant place.

It may well be that they went to the same upper room where Jesus gave them the

Lord's Supper at Passover. Could well be. We don't know for sure.

I like, you know, sometimes you can say, I like to think.

I'm not sure, but I like to think it was. Even if it wasn't,

we know that the upper room had been the place of significant redemptive events,

the Passover and so forth.

And now it's a place of theological importance because it provides the setting

for the choose choice of the 12th apostle.

So it's oftentimes theologically important to say, or we might even say,

well, when they went into that upper room, If we have our antenna going,

then we might say, well, something important may be about to happen. Are we together?

Ah, 4th of July made many of you tired.

I'm tired too, by the way. I traveled back and forth and ate my hot dogs and

hamburgers. So stay with me. Are we together?

Okay. I can see that. It's a very sleepy day after the 4th of July.

All right. So they go into the upper room.

What's the upper room? We don't know for sure, but we know something is about

to happen. Even like in the Bible, when you read stories about midnight,

you're reading through the Bible and it says it was about midnight.

You're like, oh, that sounds like a scene of judgment because that's when the

Passover, the death angel came at Passover.

And there are other scenes in the Bible where you see midnight.

In the New Testament, the geographic places change. You'll notice,

by the way, in the Old Testament, a lot of things happened with shepherds and shepherding.

In the New Testament, more things are happening in the sea with fishermen.

So there's changes of place.

Here in the New Testament, the upper room seems to be a place of significance.

For us to pay attention to.

It was a large and furnished like a big dining hall. In it, Christ showed himself

after the resurrection.

Again, probably the Passover meal. And here, the election of Matthias to the

apostolate or to the 12 apostles.

So this upper room setting is a place of significant transition to complete

the new 12 tribal heads of the church.

Luke lists the names now, and the names are listed in sections of groups of two at first.

And it's interesting that we also see, and we need to all be careful sometimes

when you see in the Bible that the apostles are arranged or organized in something

of a hierarchy of rank, it doesn't mean that we're automatically saying Peter was the Pope, okay?

The Roman Catholic Church has us so frightened sometimes that we don't know

how to think about Mary or Peter or other people because we don't want to sound Roman Catholic.

Because in the New Testament, you do see that Peter seems to have first among

equal rank. He's the one to whom Jesus is usually speaking.

He's the one to whom Jesus is showing visions and giving commands.

And so Jesus spoke directly to Peter.

And many times we see Peter is placed as the spokesman of Christ.

Now, the difference between saying Peter was first among equals and therefore

has a high honor in the church and saying he was the first pope is a big difference.

We would say Peter had a place of honor and respect, first among equals, but not a pope.

And sometimes in the Roman Catholic Church, you see them connecting the apostles

or the popes all the way back to Peter as if it were a genealogical study.

To be apostolic and to be Petrine in the sense that we follow the teachings

of Peter and the apostles, we don't connect it to a genealogy of people.

We connect it to the teachings of the apostles, to the doctrines of the apostles.

We want to be apostolic. We want to be Petrine.

We want to be following the ways of Peter and the apostle, not because we have

Peter genealogically as il papa or the Pope, but because he is the head of this

new apostolate and we are following in the ways of the apostles.

So we have this list of people, James and John, and they're listed in twos,

brothers at first, and then there's a distinction between some of the names

because sometimes in the New Testament, they're called by their Greek name or

their nickname or other things.

So Luke says, names 9, 10, and 11, James, son of Alphaeus, Judas or Jude,

brother of James, was also called Lebius or Thaddeus in other places,

and another Simon, this one distinguished by Luke as the Zealot.

He was probably so-called because he was formerly associated with a group of

people who wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire, kind of a militia sort of name.

So Luke names them all, all 11, and the names correspond to what we see from

other texts or scriptures, although sometimes Greek names are used, Aramaic names are used.

It's the same group of people, and it ends up being these 12 or these 11 for now.

So now, this is an important shift in New Testament history.

More important, again, just because the Roman Catholic Church or other churches

emphasize the apostolate as significant leaders in the church doesn't mean we

should shy away from it. Why?

Because we do have now the listing of the new tribes of Israel,

the new tribes of Israel, the new tribal heads of Israel.

And this is because Jesus is the new Israel.

He blessed his 12 apostles and he sent them out on this mission to establish his church.

And also because Jesus is the greater Jacob.

When you see in scriptures, a lot of times in the Old Testament,

you see what we call types in the Old Testament.

Jacob was a type of Christ. And now as Christ comes as this new son,

as it were, he is the greater Jacob.

And as the greater Jacob, he

is now establishing a new 12 tribes of this church, of the people of God.

Therefore, the apostles are special, not in and of themselves,

but because of the foundation they are laying for this new era,

this new time in history, the beginning of new tribal heads.

In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus commissioned these 12 to go to the nation of Israel

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

with kingdom authority.

Preach and teach the gospel. And this kingdom is now having new tribal heads.

The idea is not coming again out of nowhere. It's coming from the ancient teachings

that God has given 12 tribes to Israel, and he will establish his new tribe with these 12 apostles.

They received marks of apostleship, which are recognizable. We'll talk about this more next week.

I'll get into the details of how you become an apostle.

You have to have seen the resurrected Jesus Christ, which is why there are no more apostles.

When I was teaching at Knox School of Theology, one of my students,

when he signed up, I was saying, so-and-so here, so-and-so here.

I said, Simon, I think his name was Simon. He said, yes, sir,

that's Simon the apostle.

I said, really? Okay, we'll talk later. So there are no new apostles today because

there's no one now who sees the resurrected Lord of glory in person.

We'll get to that next time, next week. But these are the 12 tribes of the people of God.

Again, that reason I ask you the question, what tribe are you from?

It's a bit perplexing for most Americans because we're not tribal thinkers,

although we live in a tribal context where everyone seems to be trying to stir

each other up to divide in terms of identities.

But here we see the foundation. The 12 tribes of Israel, for instance,

the 12 tribes originated from the 12 sons of Jacob, also Israel.

Forming the basis of the new nation of Israel in the promised land.

Jacob renamed Israel had 12 sons, Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah,

Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Iskar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.

Jacob elevates Ephraim and Manasseh to the same status as son,

creating 12 tribes or 13, but Levi was not given particular land.

So these 12 tribes were also the 12 stones placed on the breastplate of the

great high priest so that when he went into the Holy of Holies,

he represented the 12 tribes of Israel, which represented the entire nation of Israel.

These 12 stones and these 12 tribal heads represented God's chosen people.

They seem to also indicate a symbol of his divine governance over the people.

And they are now the founders of the new church.

Now, again, if all I had was what we have, that would be enough.

Twelve tribes in Israel, twelve apostles as founders of the church.

And I could reasonably say these are the founders of the new era,

the new tribe, the new nation.

But it says so actually in Scripture.

For instance, the apostles are said to be the foundation of the church.

Revelation 21, 12. He says, and she had a great and high wall with twelve gates,

twelve angels at the gates and the names written on them, which are the names

of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel.

Three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south,

and three gates on the west. Now the wall of the city had 12 foundations.

And on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. It says it explicitly.

It's not just your pastor tinkering around too much in Old Testament symbolism or typology.

It actually says it. Ephesians chapter two, another section.

And there are many other places you could derive this from, but these are explicit statements.

Ephesians chapter two, 20. Now, therefore, you are no longer.

Now, listen to this, by the way. If you are struggling with your identity.

And most of us do to some extent, Paul says, you are no longer strangers and

foreigners, you're not outsiders,

but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,

having been built, ready, on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building

being joined together grows into a holy temple of the Lord, in whom you are

also being built together for a habitation of God. What was the temple of the Old Testament?

The place where place where God dwells. What is the temple in the New Testament?

The place where God dwells.

Has the promise of a temple been eradicated or done away with?

No, it's not been done away with. We've not even replaced it. It has been fulfilled.

The promises of land, the promises of temple, the promises of dwelling are fulfilled

in Christ, and many of them are fulfilled in the church of Jesus Christ.

These 12 tribal heads are the tribal heads of the new nation of God.

The church or Israel is going to fulfill the promises made to the nation of Israel.

And the apostles were representatives of Christ as the founding fathers.

Again, we don't live in a culture that worships ancestors.

In fact, we really, it's so strange to me, having come from Africa where they

do worship their ancestors.

There used to be a practice where a little boy would be born and they would name him.

And before the child could move to his manhood ceremony, he had to recite by

memory at least seven generations of the genealogy within his male side.

He had to know his family. And the names were often chosen for that child from

one of the people on that particular list. Other names were added.

Some of my African friends had as many as seven or eight names.

They'd usually choose two or three for us poor white people who couldn't remember

all the names. But they had to know their genealogies. Why?

Because ancestors are super important in the culture.

We live in a culture that doesn't respect history or care much about history

or even emphasize what we might call the founding fathers of our nation.

Long ago when history, the study of history was replaced by social studies,

this is just a bit of a side note from a historian, And it really fragmented

and shattered the nation's ability to have any roots.

Just a little study. This is a mountain. This is a tributary.

Oh, by the way, there's George Washington.

And this is the Washington Monument. And all these fragments and bits and pieces

of things that children learn in social studies, they don't tend to learn anything

about a sequence of events that puts them where they came from.

Where did the nation came from? I guess this is a semi-4th of July sermon,

isn't it? Where did we come from?

Most people don't know. Most people don't even care.

It's important to know your roots, not only as a nation, it's more important

as the people of God to know that we have roots in the apostles and in the promises

connected to those apostles.

The church is founded upon Christ, which they confessed, and not upon them personally,

but it is founded on the apostles.

That's why when we say in our creed, we believe in the holy, catholic, and.

Apostolic church. Thank you. Good. You are awake. That's excellent.

So the holy Catholic and apostolic. It's holy because God set it apart.

It's Catholic because it's no longer narrowly based on any ethnic tribe or particular

group of people or nation.

And it's apostolic in that it's founded on the teachings of the apostles,

the 12 tribes of the new nation of Israel.

We also know this, and this is where I want to kind of move towards a conclusion.

We also know this because now the people of God are no longer called Israel

in terms of this ethnic or national boundary with a particular temple in a particular

place with a particular river.

But the people of God, the church now has the same titles that were given to Israel.

This is what's amazing to me and I hope you find it encouraging.

Now that we Gentiles and members of many different tribes are part of this new

tribal nation called the church, we are now given the name of the church that

was once reserved for Israel.

Israel had certain names in Exodus and other places where God would say,

you are my special people.

I remember when I was studying Hebrew in seminary, one of the words that he

used, I think it's segula, you are a treasured possession.

That struck me because it's like if one of us would find like a small box or

a large box, like a pirate's treasure of gold or silver, we would take great care of it.

We would find a safety deposit box if we could we'd get someplace we'd hide

it We wouldn't tell you shouldn't tell too many people if you really treasure

it, but you would treat it with such loving care.

That's us We are his treasured possession.

Listen to what first peter calls us This is what we read earlier And this is

what we're driving at with these new tribal heads and all of us as part not

no longer of a particular nation No longer of an ethnicity no longer of a race.

Those things don't matter will now remember, as he says, 1 Peter 2,

1 Peter 2:4

verse 4, coming to him as a living stone, rejected indeed by men,

but chosen by God are precious.

You also, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house,

the new temple, a holy priesthood.

Again, holy priesthood was a name entirely reserved for Israel in the Old Testament.

Offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Therefore, it is also contained in the scriptures, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief

cornerstone, elect and precious, and he who believes in him will by no means be put to shame.

Therefore, to you who believe, he is precious, but to those who are disobedient,

the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,

and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they were also appointed.

And listen to this. Beloved, these are our titles, but you, you are a chosen

nation, a royal priesthood,

a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of

him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God,

who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

This is who we are in Christ. This is who we are as the church.

Knowing your roots matters. Some of you, I'm getting old.

I just turned 60, but I feel older. I'm getting old. In the 70s,

there was a series called Roots by Alex Haley.

Interesting thing, interesting study. May like it, may not.

It wasn't really all that historically accurate, but one of the things it did

among black Americans, African-Americans is that it began to stir up an interest

in their ancestry. Where did I come from?

Who was my great-great-grandfather? I don't know because I can only trace them

down to some sharecropper in Alabama, and that's all I know.

And soon after the series Roots came out, many African-Americans,

you know, after slavery, many African-Americans were naming their children like George Washington.

Abraham Lincoln was a super popular name of former slaves.

But now after the series Roots, suddenly there are babies being born named Kunta Kenta.

All of a sudden, it's like, what happened was, as they explored their roots,

they also tried to figure out who they were and what they wanted to be.

That's exactly what happens when you explore your roots, try to find your identity.

When you do find your roots, it makes a huge difference in how you identify

yourself and what you think you're supposed to be doing.

What am I here for? What's my purpose?

Where do I belong? Who are my people? We're always asking the question.

Even as Americans, you may not, it may sound funny to say, what's your tribe?

Because we don't have it in the African sense, but we do have a tribe and we

all struggle with identity.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I went home for 4th of July this weekend.

Going home is fun sometimes. It's challenging at other times, isn't it?

Because when you go home, you realize, okay, there's the family of God,

then there's my blood family. By the way, they're not the same.

They're not the same at all, because I don't know about your family,

but there's large slices of my family that we would say, what is the word? They're a mess.

A mess. We even sat with a beloved older friend, a cousin of mine,

80 years old now, and we love to stay with her because she's a trusted believer

and loves the Lord. But we also always talk about family.

And I'm always learning things about my family that I didn't really want to learn.

Did you know that grandma ABC is like, what? My grandma?

I can't believe that. This is my dad's side, by the way, I will defend my mom's

side, but my dad's side, the more I look into the Jackson side, the uglier it gets.

And you think, whoa, these are my people?

And there's some abuse and drunkenness and scandals and sexual stuff that you're

like, ah, these are my people.

And the answer is, no, they're not. These are my people, right?

The church of Jesus Christ.

The church of Jesus Christ is where we begin to develop a sense of our identity

and our purpose and therefore our future in how we live.

Not merely in our family. Not merely.

Many of us, by the way, come from great families. Praise God.

Some of us don't come from such great families. And by the way,

no matter how great your family is right now, if you look far enough back and

if you look carefully enough, you'll find, what my dad said,

you'll find a horse thief.

That's what he used to say, sooner or later. because you can't get your identity

from your family, not in terms of your blood.

We do have roots, significant roots. That's why Hebrews talks about all our

fathers in the faith who lived by faith, built an ark by faith,

left a country by faith, left Egypt by faith, led the people of God by faith

because that's our family.

And that's where we gain our sense of identity, not in the family here on this

earth, not in our job. By the way, many people try to find their identity in what they do.

Job? How much money I have? How popular am I? How many things do I have?

These are all useless and hopeless ways of finding your identity.

And again, living in a culture where they stress fractured division on purpose.

If you want to be confused about your identity, and I don't encourage this,

it's sarcasm. I'll tell you that in advance.

If you want to be confused about your, or learn about your identity.

Take a gender studies class in a modern American university.

It is what my family member once called gobbledygook. How's that?

That's a good theological word. It's gobbledygook.

Listen, this is intersectionality is the big word.

You know, they want to focus on your race, your gender, your sexual preferences, and then roles.

The interconnected nature, I'll just read, this is directly from intersectionality book stuff.

It's the interconnected nature of social categorization, such as race,

class, and gender, as they aptly apply to given individuals or groups regarded

as creating overlapping and independent systems of discrimination and disadvantage.

You need to study gender and race and intersectionality because you need to

know how you're discriminated against and how disadvantaged you are and how

much of a victim that you are.

So if we live in a culture where these are played upon, one group played against

another, one identity played against another identity, as a matter of political

and cultural everywhere, in our universities, in our media, in our politics.

And the only answer for that is finding our identity in Christ and in his people.

Our roots are apostolic roots in the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, the new founders.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, you have roots, and they don't go to your family per se.

They go directly to Christ and all of his promises.

I can't tell you, even in discussing with our family member this weekend,

how many times adopted this, anybody who doesn't know who's my biological father,

who's my biological mother, why was I adopted, what happened?

It can be inherently confusing and people go on massive searches for them and

they oftentimes ask the question, who am I then?

I'm adopted. I don't know who they are. The answer, beloved,

is that you are beloved in Christ.

You're a child of Jesus Christ, where you find your ultimate identity,

not in knowing your genealogical connections to this or that person,

but knowing that you are in Christ and your identity, your new family,

is the family of God, the family of God.

When you search for your identity and your family history, you won't find ultimate

answers. You'll usually find discouragement.

When we look at our family history in this text, we see that the 12 new tribal

heads provide us significant connections to our roots and to the promises of Jesus Christ himself.

We are in Christ. We are one people in Christ.

And the name that we're given, the name that we're given has nothing to do with

our race or ethnicity or identity, whether we're adopted, whether we're from

a good family or a bad family. Our new name is beloved.

That's who we are. the loved people of God.

It's a title that you see consistently used in the works of the apostle Paul.

Beloved. Our family, our roots, our identity is the beloved.

Whether or not your parents even loved you, you are beloved.

Paul says in 1 Romans 1, verse 7, he addresses the Christians in Rome as the beloved of God.

Romans 1:7

It's a virtual name that we have. We are the loved.

This love is based on God's choice and grace and not on merit.

Paul in Ephesians 5, he urges the Ephesians to be imitators of God as beloved

children. You are the beloved children of God as beloved children.

And Paul talks about being a chosen people.

Paul in Ephesians 1 doesn't talk about predestination so that you can win an

argument with your Armenian friend.

It's not a theological argument. He wants us to know, of course,

God predestined us. That's a given. And it's put there so that we can know that we're beloved.

He chose you in him before the foundations of the world. You're beloved.

Predestination is a great, encouraging doctrine. It tells us who we are.

He thought about us and loved us before he even made the world,

let alone some choice that we made.

1 Thessalonians 1, 4 and 2 Thessalonians 2, 13, Paul refers to the Thessalonian

Christians as beloved by God and beloved by the Lord.

Could summarize Paul's use of the word beloved as a virtual name for the people of God.

We are the beloved of God.

And as we get ready for the Lord's Supper, that's exactly what the Lord's Supper

reminds us of. This is a reminder that he loves us.

You should be longing to come to this table. You should want to come to this

table to be reminded of who you are and what your identity is.

As a loved sinner, forgiven by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,

a special treasure of God.

This table is a reminder where Jesus Christ literally wants to eat and drink with you.

He loves you so much. And behind this is that he loves you so much,

he has given his own life.

He's been dead and buried and raised and ascended into heaven.

Close by just reading again Peter's words about us, the beloved,

and about who our identity is in Christ.

He says, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,

his own special people, that you might proclaim the praises of him who called

you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We who were once not a people, but now are the people of God,

who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Let's pray together.

Oh, Father in heaven, we thank you for the 12 tribal heads of this new nation and how they connect us,

not in terms of blood genealogy to anything or anyone, but how these new tribal

heads connect us to the deep and ancient promises of the love of God through Jesus Christ.

We are in Christ. We are his people. We are beloved.

I pray, Lord, that for your people this morning, that as we prepare to take

this Lord's Supper, we would be reminded that our roots and our identity do

not come from our family, from any action or collection of actions that we've taken in our lives.

Our identity is in Christ as his beloved.

Feed us on that, encourage us and strengthen us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.