God's Extended Family

Today's Old Testament lesson comes from the book of Isaiah, chapter 56, verses 3 through 8.

Isaiah 56:3–8

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,

The Lord will surely separate me from his people.

And let not the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree.

For thus says the Lord, to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath,

who choose the things that please me and hold fast to my covenant,

I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him,

to love the name of the Lord and to be his servants,

everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant,

these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar.

For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Well, as I said at the beginning of the service, we're so glad that you are here,

especially if this is your first Sunday with us.

We want to do everything we can to make sure you feel welcome,

and I trust that that has already happened to some extent.

There will be an opportunity to hang around after the service if you'd like a chance to meet some people,

to shake some hands, and to make some connections here before you head out.

Certainly, if I've not met you, I'd love the chance to do so.

We started a series last week called Church, God's Family in the World.

And as the title would indicate, we are looking at these places in the Bible where we see very clearly

that the church, God's people, is really meant to be thought of as a family.

That of all the images that are used to describe God's people,

the image of family is perhaps the most helpful, the most comprehensive.

It runs from the beginning to the end of Scripture.

And we're doing this for a lot of reasons.

I mean, I think, first off, the idea of family or the topic of family is immediately evocative to us all.

A lot of you went and traveled to see your family over the holidays not too long ago.

Maybe you were freshly reminded both of the joy and also the struggle of family.

Maybe some of you had no family to visit.

And maybe every time the concept of family comes up, you feel the ache of that absence.

But certainly family and the idea of family is evocative to us all.

But there's a deeper reason that we're talking about this.

And that is that I personally believe that the church, especially in the West,

has largely lost sight of the fact that we're called to be a family.

Because we don't operate that way.

And what I hope that we will see over the course of these few weeks of looking at this

is that we are called to be a family in the deepest sense of the word.

And so last week we looked at this place where God promises a family.

He comes to a man named Abram in Genesis 12 and he says,

I see all the brokenness in the world.

I see all the tragedy.

I see all the injustice, all the heartbreak.

And here's what I'm going to do about it.

You know, people say, well, what's God's response to the suffering in the world?

God says, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to build a family.

It's going to be a new family, a new humanity.

And through this family, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

So that's what we saw last week.

And then this week, we're going to learn a little bit more about what this family's like.

We're looking at Isaiah chapter 56, verses 3 through 8.

Isaiah 56:3–8

And at this point in Isaiah, Isaiah's just talked in chapters 52 and 53

about this servant who's going to come, the servant of the Lord.

And he's going to suffer on behalf of the world and God's people.

And then in chapters 54 and 55, Isaiah says that because of his suffering,

God is going to pardon and forgive sin.

And that this grace is going to be open to all who come.

Chapter 55.

And so it could end right there.

You know, Isaiah, forgiveness for everybody.

End of the book.

But it goes on.

And chapter 56 begins to show us the so what.

So now that this servant, whom the early church immediately recognized as Jesus,

now that the servant has done this, so what?

What changes?

And that's what chapter 56 is all about.

As a result of the servant of the Lord coming and suffering,

God's family in the world becomes unlike any other family.

And so we're going to see a couple of things about this family.

First, we're going to see why we need a new family.

And then second, we're going to see what's so new about God's family.

What makes it different?

And then at the very end, there'll be a little word on how we join God's family.

So why do we need a new family?

What's so new about God's family?

And then lastly, just a little bit on how we join God's family.

Let's pray.

Lord, we do recognize that this is a topic fraught with emotion, fraught with struggle.

It evokes specific memories.

Lord, as we think about potentially the fragmentation, the division, the brokenness that we experience in our own families here,

those of us with families, and also those of us who struggle because we don't have family, we feel alone in the world.

May this speak to all of us, Lord, and give us a kind of hope that can only be found in you.

We pray this in your son's holy name.

Amen.

So the first question we want to ask is, why do we even need a new family?

Why would this be good, relevant news for any of us here?

The fact of family is this.

Family is necessary.

To some extent, family is necessary.

It was necessary to bring you into the world.

And it's very important and very central to what it means to be human.

But there's one Achilles heel in every family.

One weakness inherent to all families.

And that is this, that families are by definition exclusive.

By definition, families are exclusive.

What makes you family is that you share a unique family lineage, a unique bloodline, a unique DNA.

And while in some ways you can marry into and be adopted and all of these things,

there's still this sense that blood ties us together more closely than anything else in the world.

And there's no way to get that DNA unless you're born in.

There's no way to really, truly be family in the DNA sense of the word unless you're born into it.

And over the course of human history, what history has shown us, if anything,

is that we have inherited a tendency to prefer people who are like us,

to prefer people who are family,

to prefer people who are similar,

to prefer the closer kinship ties over people who are not.

We give preference to our family over anybody else.

And most people in the world would say, as it should be.

But by definition, family is exclusive.

And that way of thinking had become entrenched in Israel.

They not only preferred personally Israelites to anyone else,

but they had actually come to believe that God was the same way.

That the family of Israel, the nation of Israel,

occupied a special place in God's economy.

That they were uniquely blessed because they were Israelites,

descendants of Abram.

And so we have this place in Isaiah 56,

where God addresses this very thing.

It says this in verse 3,

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,

The Lord will surely separate me from his people.

And let not the eunuch say,

Behold, I am a dry tree.

So here we have two groups of people,

two categories,

who under the old covenant,

the old standard of relationship between God's people and God.

According to the old covenant,

these are people who were not allowed into the temple.

They were not allowed into the presence of God.

They were not allowed to have fellowship with God's people.

They were excluded from the family of God.

They were on the outside.

And I want to look at each just in a little more detail to help you understand this.

First of all, we have this category of foreigners.

We need to understand that originally God, as we said a moment ago,

God came to Abram and said,

Here's my plan.

I'm going to make out of you a family and a nation.

And through your family, all the families of the earth are going to be blessed.

So it was important for a while to make sure that Abraham's family remained distinct

so that it would be clearly seen when God fulfilled his promise.

If the family became diffuse and ceased to be a family,

how could we ever see whether or not God fulfilled his promise?

And yet, we see this progression.

Abraham and Sarah miraculously get pregnant.

They have kids, and they have kids, and they have kids,

and eventually this becomes a huge family.

Abraham, a small nation.

And so naturally, by Isaiah's time,

many Israelites had come to believe that they were somehow favored by God

because they were related to Abraham, were sons of Abraham.

So their racial identity had become an idol.

Right?

You ask a Jew in Isaiah's day,

What is your hope of salvation?

What's your hope of fellowship with God?

Well, you have to be born an Israelite.

You have to be of the right race.

It's salvation through race.

And if you're not, well, tough luck.

And still today, this doesn't exist in the same form today,

but still today, I would say that the church, God's people,

our world, our society in general, is deeply divided by race.

As we all know, I don't have to make that case for you.

We're reminded of it again and again and again in the news.

We're reminded of it when we look around this room.

Deeply divided by race.

Here in D.C. there are white churches and African-American churches

and Hispanic churches and Korean churches.

Because of our tendency to want to be around people who look and act like we do.

And there's been a tendency all through the history of the church

to assume that God must be with you more.

That God must prefer your kind of worship music more.

That God must be more glorified by your culture of worship than anyone else.

That God, the way you talk about God, that you must have it more right.

Now, we don't say this, but many of us think it.

On some deep level.

So that's foreigners.

But also, it goes on, and it doesn't just address people who are of other races.

It addresses eunuchs.

Let not the eunuchs say, behold, I am a dry tree.

Now, eunuch in the Bible is a complicated category.

It's a very broad category.

It can refer to any number of situations.

In the ancient Near East, you don't have a free market society.

Right?

You have the entire political and economic sphere was governed largely by kings and emperors.

Who had, you know, it was monarchy.

And many of these rulers had harems.

And one of the ways that you could, if you were just an average guy,

and you wanted to climb the ranks and have success in your career,

one of the ways that you could really put yourself, you know,

one of the things that would make your resume stand out from the pile,

is if you were castrated.

Because if you castrate yourself,

that king who has that harem,

knows, well, I can trust this guy,

not to fool around in the harem.

And so eunuchs would get promoted.

They would be put in positions of great trust and great responsibility.

They were given enormous amounts of power because these monarchs could trust them.

And it was one of the only ways you could climb the ladder of success,

was to castrate yourself.

But beyond that, there's also references, like Jesus says in Matthew 19,

that there are other kinds of eunuchs.

There are eunuchs who have been so from birth, he says.

People who are either asexual, or they lack sexual attraction,

or because of any number of sexual desires other than the opposite sex,

they would never procreate.

And what we need to see here is that in Isaiah,

the focus is really on procreation.

So when we hear the word eunuch,

and we think about people,

we think about any number of people who, for any number of reasons,

will not go on to procreate.

And the reason that that's the focus is because in the ancient Near Eastern culture,

I know I'm giving you a lot of context here,

but it's really important to understand this.

In this culture, family was everything.

Now we can't imagine that really in the same way because of the society we live in.

We're much more individualistic.

But in this society, if you had a family,

if you had kids, if you had a lot of kids,

and you could pass on the family name and the family land,

that was everything.

That was all of your hope.

To not have a family, to not have kids,

to be barren, to be unmarried,

to be a widow,

was a death sentence.

A death sentence.

To not have a family was a death sentence.

You were a nobody.

You were worse than a nobody.

So let's think about how this would apply today.

I mean, luckily today,

castration isn't as necessary

for career success and ascension.

Luckily, that's not really required for most jobs.

But here in D.C.,

here in D.C.,

we still have plenty of people

who have so prioritized career and success

that they have forsaken family.

They're not castrated,

but they're people who have basically said,

I can either choose to invest in a family

and finding somebody and getting married,

or I can invest in my career,

and I choose my career.

And that's a very viable choice today.

More and more and more people are making that choice.

And they get older and older and older,

and at some point,

their ability to get married,

their ability to have kids is gone,

and they're married to their career.

So this happens a lot.

Also, some of us are here and we're single,

and maybe we want to get married,

but for whatever reason,

it hasn't happened.

You just haven't found the right person.

It just hasn't worked out.

And though many people who are single

who want to get married

will end up getting married probably one day,

there will probably be some of us who don't.

And we're looking at life

as a single, unmarried person.

So there's also some people who have been married,

but you got divorced.

And so because you got divorced,

that's the reality that you face,

and you may not ever get remarried.

Some of us are married.

Some of us are married

and we really want to have kids,

but we struggle with infertility.

And no matter what you do,

no matter how hard you try,

no matter what methodology you employ,

no matter how much you research it,

for whatever reason,

doctors don't fully understand it.

You just aren't able to get pregnant.

Now I bring all these things up,

and you do a list like this,

and I want to recognize

each one of these things

is a source of great pain and great struggle.

Great pain and great struggle in our church.

These are very relevant issues

in our community right now.

So whether you've forsaken these things

because of your career,

or you haven't been able to get married

and you want to,

or you were married but divorced,

or you're unable to have children,

they're all categories of people

who would in some way fit

what Isaiah's talking about.

Because here's the thing.

Even though our culture is very individualistic,

I'll make a contention here.

You can feel free to disagree with me.

This is an observation.

Even though we're individualistic,

I think that paradoxically,

we still have a high idolatry

of the nuclear family.

I think they both coexist in our culture,

and it's a weird paradox.

But we still have a kind of paradoxical

idolatry

idolatry

of the ideal

of getting married and having kids.

It's as though

the only valid way

to grow up

is to get married and have kids.

I don't know if that resonates with you at all,

but I know that

at least in the conservative church world,

this is very much encouraged,

this way of thinking.

Not overtly,

I think largely unintentionally.

But in the conservative church,

Christians have perpetuated this.

They've put the vision

of traditional family

kind of up on this pedestal.

And it said,

here's this ideal,

and they've defended it

from onslaught,

from all sides, right?

And what this does unintentionally

is it sends a message.

It says,

the only valid way

to become a grown-up

is to get married and have kids.

But,

unless you're marriageable

and fertile,

this is not for you.

And so then the question becomes,

well, what is there for me?

Silence.

Well,

I don't know.

You can join our singles ministry.

So if you're single or divorced,

or you're married but you're infertile,

or you're a gay or lesbian person

or transgender person

who's chosen to remain unmarried,

or you're an orphan,

you're a widow,

if you diverge in any way

from the ideal,

then you're made to feel

somehow incomplete,

like a second-class citizen,

like there's really not a place

for you here,

like you're somehow less than.

So this is why God,

from the beginning,

promised to establish

an entirely new kind of family.

This is why

the concept of nuclear family,

as good as it is,

is not good enough.

Because there are

way too many people in the world

for whom that's not going

to be a reality.

That's a huge need

right here in this city,

right here in our congregation.

So that leads us

to the second question,

what's so new

about God's family?

And I just want

to read you this.

Remember,

in light of the fact

that the servant

of the Lord has come,

in light of the fact

that Jesus has come,

here's what God says.

To the eunuchs

who keep my Sabbath,

who choose the things

that please me

and hold fast my covenant.

In other words,

to those who bind themselves

to the Lord

and say,

your way is my way,

I trust you,

I want to belong to you.

To those people,

I will give in my house

and within my walls

a monument and a name

better than sons and daughters.

I will give them

an everlasting name

that shall not be cut off.

So in other words,

you're worried about

not having kids?

In my house,

in my family,

in the family of God,

you're going to have

so many kids,

you're not going to know

what to do with them.

You're worried about your name

not being passed

to the next generation?

I will give you a name

and a monument

greater than sons and daughters.

Whatever blessing you think

that you might have

through a nuclear family,

you're going to find

so much more

in the family of God.

And then he goes on

and says,

and the foreigners

who join themselves

to the Lord

to minister to him,

to love the name of the Lord

and be his servants,

everyone who keeps the Sabbath

and does not profane it

and holds fast my covenant,

these I will bring

to my holy mountain

and make them joyful

in my house of prayer.

So what's he saying here?

Jesus came to establish

a new family.

And it's a family

that unlike nuclear families

is radically inclusive

in a way that no other family

on earth could be.

And you see this

regarding foreigners,

regarding racial division.

Regarding racial division,

this is why when Jesus came,

one of the first things he did,

and he did this multiple times,

in John's gospel,

he does it early,

in the other gospels,

he does it later in his ministry,

and what that means is

he probably did it multiple times.

He goes straight

to the temple in Jerusalem,

and he goes into the area

called the Court of the Gentiles,

where foreigners

were allowed to come.

You couldn't come in the temple,

but you could come

to the Court of the Gentiles.

It had been filled

with money lenders

and vendors

and animal sellers,

and so the Gentiles

couldn't get in to pray.

And so Jesus comes

and he kicks all those people out,

and what does he do?

He quotes this passage.

For it is written,

my house shall be a prayer,

a house of prayer

for all people.

In other words,

he's blatantly accusing them

of racism.

He's saying,

you're racist.

You've forgotten

what you're about.

You've forgotten

that this is meant

to be for everybody,

not just you,

but a global family.

Let not the foreigners say,

I am a second-class citizen

in God's family.

And the early Christians

got this,

and it's so beautiful

when you see

how the early church

lived this out.

I've said this before,

but one of my favorite

illustrations of this

is the story of Antioch,

which is the place

where Christians

were first called Christians,

and it was a derogatory term.

But in the city of Antioch,

when they built Antioch,

they didn't just build walls

around the city,

but they built large walls

to separate all of the ethnic groups

from one another.

And so there were at least

18 distinct

walled-off sectors

of the city.

So life was completely divided

along racial and ethnic lines.

Now, if you looked at a map of D.C.,

now we don't have physical walls,

but you could probably draw

some pretty strong lines,

and you'd see the same thing.

And guess what?

Until the Christian gospel came,

that was the way it was.

But when the Christian gospel

hit Antioch,

what the Christians began to do,

because they recognized

that the purpose

of the family of God

was to be a family

inclusive of all people,

they began to climb

over the walls.

And they began to share

the good news of Jesus

with everybody.

And so that's why

in that great place in Acts,

when we see the leaders,

the leaders who represent

the church in Antioch,

it's leaders from

all different races,

all different backgrounds,

who represented the leadership

of the church in Antioch.

And you know,

this is especially important

to remember on this weekend,

Martin Luther King weekend

of all weekends,

and to recognize

how much work

there is still to do.

So there was an overcoming

of racial division

because God's family

was never meant to be limited

to one race,

one ethnicity,

one culture,

one country.

All of the rhetoric

about America being

God's kind of chosen

Christian nation,

it completely

loses sight of this.

But then he goes on

and it talks about

all the people

who for various reasons

don't have a nuclear family

or a spouse

or they're not going to have

kids of their own.

It says,

let not the eunuch

say I'm a dry tree.

So it's saying this,

to all of us

who are single

or who are infertile

or who are divorced

or who have lost

our parents,

for whatever reason

we don't have

a nuclear family,

God is saying this,

that even the best family

in the world

is only a shadow

of what the family

of God is

and is becoming

and will be.

Even the best family

in the world

is only a shadow,

a preview

of what God's family

is going to be

in the world.

The family,

the church,

is our family.

The reality

of the church

is this,

everybody around you

who's a part of the church,

this is your family.

So all of the people

who are older than you,

those are your mothers

and your fathers.

They took this literally.

All of the people

who are younger than you,

those are your children.

You didn't know

you had so many children.

Why do you think

every week we pray

for our children together?

Have you ever thought

about what we pray?

We pray together

for our children

and then we pray

for ourselves

that we would be able

to raise them

knowing the Lord

and loving the Lord

because we recognize

that we share

in the responsibility

for raising our kids.

So when my five-year-old

is dancing up here,

for those of you

who can see him,

you know,

everybody should be thinking,

I wonder if he should

be doing that, right?

Not just me.

But I think it's great.

I love to see him dance.

But we should all

have a sense of responsibility

over one another's kids.

The people who are

your same age,

those are your brothers

and sisters.

You have many, many,

many brothers and sisters.

Everybody in here,

if you keep the Sabbath,

in other words,

if you have put your life

in God's hands

in Jesus Christ,

we are family.

And again,

the early church got this

and it radically changed

their lives.

You know,

Rodney Stark,

the sociologist,

historian,

researched the early church

and he says,

this is one of the main reasons

the church grew so quickly

in Rome.

It's because they took in

and cared for widows

and orphans

and eunuchs

and slaves,

people who didn't have

a family.

The Christians said,

we will be your family.

Right?

So they would say to widows,

you don't have to remarry

unless you want to

because we will

be family for you.

They said to the orphans,

we will be your mothers

and your fathers.

You know,

they said to the eunuchs,

here you're going to have

more children

than you know

what to do with.

And they believed it

and they lived it out.

Christian households

were full of people

who were not just

biological family,

but people who had been

taken in and adopted

and become a part

of their household.

This is a vision

for what the church

needs to be today.

It's a commitment

to rethinking

what it means

to be family.

See,

most of us think,

I have a family

and I go to church.

This is saying,

no, no, no, no, no.

The church is your family.

That is the source,

that is the locus

of your primary loyalty

if you're a Christian,

is to the Christian community.

Now,

if you have a family,

that's great,

but that's a part

of a larger thing.

And that's why

it's so amazing

when you see guys

like Stanley Hauerwas

talking about

how radically

this redefined

the concept of family.

He says,

the thing that made

Christianity unique

among all the

traditional religions

is that this is

the only place

where you see

singleness

and marriage

as two equally

viable vocations.

No longer

is marriage necessary.

No longer

is it the only vision

for a way

to be an adult

in the world.

Then all of a sudden

you have singleness

and marriage

and they both

represent something

about God

and they both

represent something

about the Christian community

and they're both

necessary.

And in fact,

a lot of the early writers,

the church fathers

would say that

singleness was preferable

to marriage

for all of these reasons

because they recognized

that in the church

they had gained

a family

that is unimaginably

large

and inclusive

more than you could

ever dream of.

There's a great example

of this in C.S. Lewis'

The Great Divorce.

If you haven't read

The Great Divorce,

it's a shorter book.

It's essentially

about a field trip

that some people

take from hell

to heaven

and it essentially

becomes a kind

of character study

and you see

a series of characters

excuse me

you see a set

of characters

who are all

kind of on the edge

of a choice

between the self-absorption

of hell

and the joyful loss

of self found

in heaven.

And so the narrator

is witnessing

all of these people

and also seeing

these heavenly beings.

And at one point

the narrator turns

and sees this

beautiful procession.

You know,

think of the greatest

bridal possession

you've ever seen.

It's this glorious

procession with singing

and dancing

and all of this

and down either side

of the street

streams of children.

Boys on one side,

girls on the other,

these children dancing.

And at the very center

of it all

is this beautiful woman

who's surrounded

by attendants.

And so he says,

he asks who she is

and his guide

says this,

his guide says,

it's someone

you'll never have

heard of.

Her name on earth

was Sarah Smith

and she lived

at Golders Green.

And the narrator

says,

well she seems

to be a person

of particular importance.

And the narrator

says,

aye,

she is one

of the great ones.

You've heard

that fame

in this country

and fame on earth

are two quite

different things.

So the narrator

says,

and who are

all these young men

and women

on either side?

Who are all

these children?

And the guide

responds,

they're her sons

and daughters.

And he says,

well she must have

had a very large

family, sir.

And listen to

what the guide

says,

every young man

or boy

that met her

became her son.

Even if it was

only the boy

that brought the meat

to her back door,

every girl

that met her

was like her daughter.

And the narrator

still not fully

getting it says,

isn't that a bit

hard on their

own parents?

No,

says the guide.

There are those

that steal

other people's

children.

But her motherhood

was of a different

kind.

Those on whom

it fell

went back

to their natural

parents loving

them more.

And here at the

end,

here is the

summation,

the explanation

of how this

is possible.

The abundance

of life she

has in Christ

from the

father

flows over

into them.

So what is he

saying here?

That there's this

woman who nobody

had heard of,

who likely

didn't even

have kids.

We meet her

husband,

but we hear

no mention

of them

having children.

Her husband

is a little

wispy ghost

who ends up

choosing hell

rather than

choosing to

remain with her

in heaven.

And,

but we never

hear of any

earthly kids,

and yet in

the heavenly

reality,

which is

more real

than the

earthly reality.

That's one of

the things

about this

book,

that the

heavenly reality

is more

real.

She has

countless

sons and

daughters.

Why?

Because of the

way she loved

them.

They weren't

biologically her

own children,

but the love of

Christ flowed

through her

into them

and joined

them to her

as a family,

a family that

is more real

than her

nuclear family.

We see her

husband

disappearing,

withering,

into this

hellish existence.

But we see

her as this

beautiful,

radiant queen

attended by

children for

miles and

miles and

miles.

Let not the

eunuch say I'm

a dry tree.

See,

though Jesus

Christ has

established,

or through

Jesus Christ,

God has

established an

entirely new

kind of

family.

So the

question becomes,

how do we

become a part

of this

family?

And I said

this would be

very quick

because we're

out of time.

I knew we

would be out

of time.

So how do we

join God's

family?

I'm not

going to get

into all

kinds of

bullet points.

I just want

to tell you

a story.

I want to

remind us

as we close

here of the

story that we

see in Acts

Acts 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8.

You heard it

read a little

while ago.

I just want

to remind you

of the story.

Here's how you

become a part

of this

family.

You read

Acts chapter 8

Acts 8 · chapter mention

and you see

the story of

this Ethiopian

eunuch.

Double whammy,

he's a foreigner

and he's a

eunuch.

And we see

that he's this

great high

official in the

Ethiopian court.

He's over all

the money.

Israel.

And he's

obviously been

reading and

hearing about

this God of

Israel.

And he's been

studying and so

he wants to

come and see

is there anything

that this God

has to offer me?

Is there anything

that this God

has that's

relevant to me?

And if you know

anything about that

journey, it was

incredibly long,

incredibly perilous,

incredibly dangerous,

incredibly expensive.

Travels all the way

to Jerusalem.

What would have

happened when he

got to the temple?

Can't come in.

Sorry.

So Acts 8 tells

us that he's

returning from this

trip and he's

reading in Isaiah.

He's reading in the

chapter in around

the 50s.

No chapter

numbers back

then, but he's

reading around the

50s where we are

in Isaiah.

Why is he reading

Isaiah?

Because he's trying

to figure out why

they wouldn't let

him in.

And he's reading

it and he's

reading about this

suffering servant in

chapters 52 and

53.

And it says he's

reading about this

person and surely

he's read a little

bit later when it

says, because of

this servant, because

of what the servant

has done, let not

the eunuch say, I'm a

dry tree.

I will give the

eunuch a name and

a monument.

And so you can

imagine him reading

that, going back to

the servant, reading

that, going back to

the servant, and

wondering who in the

world is this servant?

And so Philip shows

up and he says, do you

understand what you're

reading?

And he says, no I

don't because I need

somebody to explain it

to me.

And I almost think

that's a veiled

reference to the

people in Jerusalem.

I want to understand

this.

And they slam the

door in my face.

Who is this servant?

And he says, is it the

prophet or is he

talking about somebody

else?

And what does

Philip do?

And Philip began

to share with him

the good news of

Jesus Christ.

And what does the

eunuch do at the

end when he hears

about Jesus?

He sees water, maybe

nothing more than a

little puddle on the

side of the road.

And he says, well

there's water.

Baptize me right

now.

Now why does he say

that?

Because of what it

says in Isaiah 56.

Let the eunuch who

binds himself to me, who

throws his lot in with

me, who says I want

your way to be my

way, I want your

people to be my

people, I want your

name to be my name, to

replace my name.

Let not that person

say, behold I'm a dry

tree, I will give you

a monument better than

sons and daughters, an

everlasting name.

And he says, I want

that, I need that, and

Jesus can give that to

me, and what does it

require of me?

It requires that I

repent, that I accept

his forgiveness, and

that I'm baptized.

Why?

Because baptism is what

marks our entry into the

family of God.

It's baptism.

baptism.

That's the distinguishing

family characteristic.

And so he says, I want

that right now.

So what we see here is

this, the new family of

God is not a family of

blood, it's a family of

faith.

And what this story shows

us here is this profound

truth that we're going to

continue to unpack over the

next several weeks, that in

God's family, water is

thicker than blood.

Water is thicker than

blood.

God, let's pray.

Our Father, we're talking

about things that are big

and maybe even seemingly

abstract.

May we not hear this and

simply think it's something

curious to ponder, but

rather, Lord, I pray that

whatever of this is from

you, that it would strike

us, that it would strike

our hearts, that we would

look at our own houses, our

own families, our own

friendships, that we would

look, those of us who are

a part of this church, that

we would look at the way we

think about this community

and that this would kindle

and inspire our imaginations

to wonder what would it look

like if we lived this out?

What might our church, what

might our community, our

friendships, how might our

houses look different if this

became more real to us?

We pray this in your son's

holy name.

Amen.

Amen.