The One Who Redefines Family (Derik Fuller) | Who is Jesus?

To Luke chapter 8 verse 19. So we're Family Day weekend.

Luke 8:19

Does anybody know how many official Family Day weekends we

have had here in the province of Ontario where Family Day has

been a statutory holiday? Any guesses?

It is a statutory holiday and I know if you're a federal worker

it's not. I get that it is 18.

This is the 18th official Family Day.

The first Family Day was February 18th of 2008.

So this will mark 18 years. Which is for those of you who

are keeping track, approximately the same amount of time that we

have taken to get through the 1st 8 chapters of Luke or so.

Because God is way better at scheduling than I am, we

actually find ourselves in a text this morning that deals

with family. I'm telling you, I could have

never scheduled this today. And and we're going to find

Jesus talking about this topic of family in the way that really

only Jesus can. Like one of the things that I

love so much about Jesus teaching, actually just about

the word of God in general, is that it has this dual capability

of both deeply encouraging us and, and, and strengthening our

hearts and at the same time really challenging us and

pushing in on some spots in our hearts.

We live in this polarized world where it's always black or

white. It's one thing or another.

And, and I love the fact that Jesus in in the very nature of

who he is. He doesn't allow us to live in

in polarizations. He forces us to live in

tensions. We like polarization because

polarization is comfortable. We don't like tension, but Jesus

is constantly pushing us into things, into places that don't

fit neatly in anybody else's boxes.

And so as we unpack Jesus's teaching today in in this area

of family, I am betting there will be moments where you just

feel like yelling out Amen at some of that.

That's OK, by the way. I know that it's a Baptist

Church, But, and if you didn't know it's a Baptist Church, we

are, we are baptistic in our beliefs.

That's OK. But you can be a little

Pentecostal here too. So if you feel like shouting an

Amen, go nuts. But there's also going to be a

whole bunch of times and maybe you want to keep this a little

bit more quiet where you're like, she says, I don't think

you got this one right, right. Because this is what happens.

We, we, we're confronted by Jesus.

And, and here's the thing though, if Jesus is Lord, that

means that we surrender everything over to him like

we've been saying about that. So we don't just go with him on

the areas where we we agree with what he's saying or we want to

believe what he's saying. We go along with him in the

areas where, oh, that's hard, that's difficult, that's

uncomfortable. And Jesus is going to say some

things in the area of family that I guarantee you aren't,

because it was really uncomfortable in the society

that he lived in to say some of the things that he was saying.

In a culture that was built on bloodlines and ancestry and

honor, and in in a world that often times idolizes the nuclear

family. He's going to say some things

that are just as challenging to us.

Because ultimately the teaching that Jesus is going to give us

today about family isn't just about family.

It is at its core about this truth that for a Christian,

loyalty to God Trump's all other loyalties.

For a Christian loyalty to God Trump's all other loyalties.

That's what's at the heart of Jesus teaching today.

It's a teaching that to say that you are a Christian is to say

that you identify with Christ before anyone or anything else,

that your allegiance to Jesus supersedes every other

allegiance to every other group or or individual or thing, even

those people that you call your family.

And so let's read these verses together.

Luke chapter 8, verses 19 to 21. Then his.

Luke 8:19–21

That's Jesus. Then his mother and brothers

came to him, but they couldn't meet with him because of the

crowd. And he was told your mother and

your brothers are standing outside wanting to see you.

But he replied to them. My mother and my brothers are

those who hear and do the word of God.

Now here's a here's a little truth for us that all of us

should understand as we open up an unpacked Scripture that if

you are going to learn to apply God's word in the here and now,

the first thing that you have to do is understand what it meant

in the there and then because God's Word then is what

determines what God's Word now means.

So we got to dive in and we got to see what is happening here in

this text. So let me just take us back.

If you go back to verse 4 in chapter 8, we know that Jesus is

teaching, right? He's got a large crowd that is

gathered around to hear his teaching.

And within this reality, his family shows up, His mom, Mary.

And you may or may not know this, but Jesus had half

brothers and sisters. After the birth of Jesus, Mary

and Joseph had children. We they had at least six

children that we know of. We've got four brothers who are

named in the Scriptures, so James, Joseph, Simon and Jude.

And then we're told that he had at least two sisters who are

unnamed in the Scriptures. In fact, two of those brothers,

James and Jude, they become very significant leaders in the early

church. They're the ones who wrote the

Epistle of Jude and the Epistle of James.

Now I always like to take a moment.

We talk about Jesus having half brothers and especially half

brothers who are significant leaders in the church.

And I always like to ask this question, what would it take for

you to believe that your sibling was the son of Son of God?

And I always say at the bare minimum, it's dying and arising

again, right? And that's the bare minimum for

any sibling to believe that their sibling is actually the

the the son of God and God become flesh who bore the sins

of the world upon them. Just think about that.

James and Jude had something happened that was so significant

that caused them to believe that Jesus really was who he claimed

to be. Just just just think about that.

If you're skeptical about who Jesus is, you're probably not

more skeptical than his siblings ever were.

But the resurrection is the turning point for them coming to

believe in Jesus. So, so here are his, his mother,

his siblings, his brothers for sure.

And they say, hey, hey, hey, we got to get through.

We got to speak to Jesus. Now in Mark chapter 320 and 21,

we're going to put it up on the screen because Mark gives a

little bit more detail about this situation.

And Mark says Jesus entered a house and the crowd gathered

again so that they were not even able to eat.

And when his family heard this, they set out to restrain him

because they said he's out of his mind.

Now there's debate about what exactly it means that his

brothers and, and certainly for Mary, what did, what did they

mean by thinking that he was out of his mind?

Was it just like they were really concerned for his

physical well-being? Because we see here in in that

text and Mark that he's so busy with ministry.

He's so wrapped up in in in doing the will of the Father

that he doesn't even have time to eat.

Could be that there was concern that the things that he was

teaching, we're making some powerful people really angry.

We've already started to see this, right?

Like there there's religious leaders who are really starting

to get angry at Jesus. And we know this is ultimately

going to lead to his death on the cross.

And it could have been that they had just deep concern for the

reality that he was ticking off the wrong people.

And it may have meant that they thought that some of the things

that he was teaching were just bonkers, just crazy.

In fact, to go back John 75, the apostle John tells us in his

gospel that not even his brothers believed in him.

Again, before the resurrection, Jesus brothers are really

skeptical about Jesus and his claims.

But someone we know comes and tells Jesus your mother and your

brothers are standing outside and they're wanting to see you.

And in this culture, there is an expected response that may be

different from what you would expect depending on the culture

that you've grown up in or the family of origin that you grew

up in. But if someone comes to Jesus in

this culture in this time and says, hey, your mother and your

brothers are standing outside wanting to see you, the expected

cultural response is, hey, everybody, it's just going to

take a pause here. I need to go out and see my mom

and my brothers. My family's here.

What he says is incredibly countercultural.

And again, This is why I want to impact this because for some of

us in a Western Canadian context is like, yeah, tell them I'll

get to them when I'm done in my meeting.

Tell them I'll get to them when work is over.

But that's not what would happen here.

So this is an incredibly countercultural thing to say.

My mother and my brothers are those who hear and do the word

of God in. In Jewish culture, family was of

utmost importance. Family is the place where your

economic security was tied up in, right.

There was no, there was no social systems and social safety

net. Your family is your social

safety net. It's your social standing.

Your standing in the community is directly related to the honor

or dishonor that your family is held in.

It was the source of your religious identity.

I'm Jewish because I was born into a Jewish family.

It's, it's all your whole identity is rooted and wrapped

up in, in this familial tribal reality and still really true

in, in so many cultures. Some of you know this, you're,

you've come out of cultures where family is incredibly

important, not just like immediate nuclear family, but

your, your extended family, your cultural tribal background and,

and history in, in Lebanon. When I visit Lebanon, you are

Shia or Sunni or Christian because you are born Shia or

Sunni or Christian and your your standing in society is so

wrapped up in the standing of your parents and their

grandparents. Talk to many people.

We have, we have a number of people, number of you here today

who come from a Portuguese background.

Talk to a lot of Portuguese people here in Cambridge who

will tell me they're Catholic and I'll say, OK, why are you

Catholic? Because I'm Portuguese, right?

You can not be both of those those things.

They just, they are together. Listen, this is a family above

all things culture, and to prioritize anything above family

was unthinkable. But that's exactly what Jesus is

doing here. Many of you will have heard the

saying blood is thicker than water.

That means that the ties that you are born into are deeper and

more binding and more important than any of the other

relationships or friendships you choose.

Jesus is saying there is a belonging that is deeper than

blood. They come and they say your

family's here to see you. And Jesus says, let me tell you

who my family is. My family are those who hear and

do the word of God. Now I'll pause here because

there's a danger that if we take just what Jesus says here out of

the context of all other Scripture, we're going to end up

in a spot that sounds a lot like this.

Belonging comes through obedience.

The teaching of Scripture is not that belonging comes through

obedience, but that belonging comes through the blood of

Jesus. It's the blood of Jesus that is

thicker than the blood of family.

John 112 to 13. And put that up on the screen

for you. John is setting the stage.

This is the very beginning as he's unpacking Jesus's coming in

the incarnation. And he says this about those who

receive Jesus. He says to all those who did

receive him, he gave them the right to be the children of God

to those who believe in His name, who were born not of

natural descent, right, not a biological family or the will of

the flesh or the will of man, but of God.

That there is a familial reality that happens through the person

of Jesus Christ that is deeper than even the biological

realities of family. And it comes about because the

2nd Corinthians 521 says God made him who did not know sin to

be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.

It is the blood of Jesus that drives us into a belonging that

is deeper than the blood of family.

I want to say this, you need to understand this.

There is only one answer at the end of the day to why should God

allow you into heaven. The answer has nothing to do

with who your parents were or your grandparents were and it

has nothing to do with the things that you do to build your

own identity and accomplishments.

The only correct answer to to the question that God, one day

we will all have to stand before God and give an answer to why

should I let you into heaven is because of Jesus, because Jesus

Christ lived for me and died for me.

That's it. It's the only correct answer.

It's the only answer that qualifies or counts for

anything. And if you have not come to the

point where you would say I am assured of my salvation, I'm

assured of the fact that I will spend eternity with God forever

in the new heavens and new earth because and only because Jesus

has died on the cross for me. The invitation is there for you

today to receive Jesus as Savior.

And that's what it means is to accept that and to say it's not

about what I do. I don't save myself.

My good works don't save me. Jesus work on the cross saves

me. But Scripture says again and

again, the evidence that you have truly believed that Jesus

did the saving work for you on the cross, the evidence that you

truly have been brought into the family and belong through the

blood of Jesus, that you believe that Christ lived for you and

has died for you, is that you begin living for Christ and

dying to yourself. So obedience to God is the

evidence that you belong to Jesus family, that you have been

purchased by Jesus. Listen again to the words Jesus

says. My mother and my brothers are

those who hear and do the word of God, who hear and do the word

of God. This goes back to the teaching

that Jesus gave last week. Remember, this is all Jesus is

doing, all of this. We're breaking it up.

This teaching is all happening kind of in together at the same

time. And Jesus has says the good

soil, the soil that truly has received the word of God, and

where that word has taken root is one that endures and bears

fruit. If there is no fruit of

obedience, there is no certainty that you have understood the

gospel in your life. James one again, James the

brother of Jesus who's well acquainted, He's the guy who's

trying to get in and see Jesus right now.

James 122. James says be doers of the word

and not hearers only. We had a friend who came over

for supper this week, hadn't seen for for quite a while.

And so, you know, if you've got kids at home, when somebody

comes over and they haven't been around for a while, they're

always stunned, right? I mean, we, if you're, you're

living life and your kids just kind of grow up day by day, you

don't see it as much. But when somebody hasn't seen

your kids for a number of years, they're like, I can't believe

how big they've gotten. And the first thing that she

said when she saw my boys is, wow, you look just like your

dad, but with way more hair. She she would have known that

those were my kids. Even if she bumped out in into

them on the street when I wasn't around.

How would she have known? Because they bear resemblance to

their father. I've met people through the

years who would say they were Christians because, well, they

went to church a lot, They've done a lot of Bible studies.

They knew they heard a lot of things about God.

But what this tells us is that information without

transformation does not equal family resemblance.

Information without transformation does not equal

family resemblance. You have to be not just a

hearer, but a doer of the word. If you've truly been saved, if

you truly belong to Jesus, if you've truly understood what

Jesus has done for you, it will reflect in the way that you live

your life. Not because you have to try

hard, because the Holy Spirit comes in and takes up residence

in you and begins doing the work of making you look more like

your Father. You know, to become a citizen of

Canada, you have to take a citizen test, right?

Some of you have taken the citizenship test.

You probably could answer a lot more questions about Canada than

most of us who have lived here. I can tell you that.

But you have to learn a lot about Canada to be able to pass

your citizenship test in the Kingdom.

The citizenship test is not a Bible knowledge test.

It is a hearing and doing test. It is a transformation test.

It is Are you reflecting the Father in your life?

Are you doing what you've heard? Now?

You can't grow if you don't know.

That's why it's important to be in the Word of God.

But if you aren't growing, then it's only knowing.

It is not evidence that you are part of the family of God.

The first step, by the way, of obedience is what we're going to

be doing next week here in the service, baptism.

Baptism is a step of obedience. It's a step of saying yes to

jumping into the waters and publicly declaring before

everybody that you believe that Jesus has paid the penalty for

your sins and you've chosen to follow him, that you're a part,

therefore, of his family. In some ways, I guess this is

true then that baptism is actually a declaration that

water is thicker than blood, right?

We step into the water and we claim that Jesus blood matters

more than anything else. And the by his blood I become

part of this thing called the church, part of this family of

God. And like I said, we've got a

baptism service next Saturday. If you have not been baptized as

a believer, because baptism is for believers, you can't declare

something to be true about you. That hasn't happened yet.

It is a declaration that you have now made a decision to

follow Jesus. And so if you've made a decision

to follow Jesus and haven't been baptized by immersion, we would

love to have you be a part of that.

If you want to learn more, you can sign up.

We've got a video that Pastor Kirk has done that explains

baptism. And if you got questions out of

that, we would love to talk to you.

But that's the first step in a whole lifetime journey of

growing to be more like our Father, of reflecting the Father

through obedience. So there's a belonging that's

deeper than blood. And the evidence of that

belonging is in our obedience. The last thing we can take from

this is this. If you belong to Jesus's family,

your loyalty to him has to come first.

Again, in Jesus time, family loyalty was expected to be your

first loyalty. When Jesus says what he says,

he's saying actually obedience to God outranks blood.

When he says that, he's not just reordering family, he's

reordering all of our allegiances.

I know in in in this culture, family is still a primary

identity and a place of belonging for so many people.

We do have an idolization of the nuclear family.

We can easily fall into that. This weekend can be a really

hard weekend for people who don't have that experience of

family because we got Valentine's Day and Family Day

and you just feel like you're on the outsides.

And I want, I want to say this, belonging to Christ does mean

honoring our family. I don't want you to hear that

like you just need to discard your family and be done with it.

In fact, quite the opposite. God created the family was his

idea. He put Adam and Eve together in

a garden naked. That's what happens.

He is the one who calls us in the 10 commandments to honor and

respect our parents. In First Timothy, 58 Timothy,

Paul says to Timothy, if anyone does not provide for his own

family, especially for his own household, he's denied the faith

and is worse than an unbeliever. It seems pretty clear to me that

the Bible holds family is an important value and that we

should honor, respect, and care for our family as far as we are

able to. But if it comes down to being

faithful to God or faithful to your family, God wins.

If your family is in a spot where they, because they see you

get hurt or wounded by somebody, are pushing on you to retaliate

and get revenge against the person who has wounded you.

Meanwhile Jesus says, hey, I want you to forgive and if

possible, I want you to reconcile.

You choose Jesus, not your family.

If your family wants you to prioritize young people, a job

where you earn a lot of money and gain a lot of status, but

Jesus is calling you to sacrifice and simplicity, you

choose Jesus. If you're a team, maybe you're

the only follower of Jesus in your household and you know that

Jesus is calling you to sexual purity and your family makes fun

of you. Stick with Jesus Allegiance to

Jesus Trump's allegiance to family.

Allegiance to Jesus Trump's allegiance to the family.

We choose, right? That's what a lot of people

today we call our friends. Some people will say, this is

the family I choose. When your friends are pressuring

you to participate in things that run counter to the way of

Jesus, you choose Jesus. Allegiance, allegiance to Jesus.

Trump's the tribalism that so divides cultures.

It it Trump's our ethnic backgrounds.

It Trump's our cultural backgrounds, it Trump's racial

realities, it Trump's our no pun intended tribal politics.

See, I said trump there. Just want to put that together

for you. In 46 years on earth, I have

never, ever, ever ever ever seen a political party that was

primarily shaped by Kingdom values.

None. 0. If your politics are more shaped

by your algorithm then they are shaped by the Sermon on the

Mount, you've got a problem. If you love people more deeply

because they agree with your politics rather than because you

share the same Savior, you've got a problem.

Now remember what I said about the words of Jesus.

They challenge and they encourage.

There's amens and there's oh no's.

I want to, I want to drive this home.

OK. There's a couple questions I

think that we need to reflect on that I think are going to be

simultaneously challenging but also also hopefully encouraging

as we wrestle with them. As we close.

The first question that comes out of this passage that I think

we need to wrestle with this. Who or what is your deepest

loyalty to? Is your primary allegiance to

Jesus above all things, even when it costs other things?

Even when it creates distance in certain relationships?

Is your relationship with Jesus more important?

Is your obedience to His Word shaping your choices, your

speech, your relationships? Be honest.

Is that really what is most shaping you in your life?

Is a loyalty to Jesus Christ above all things.

When Scripture conflicts with your preferences, your plans,

your wishes, your desires, what wins?

The words of Jesus are the wants of your heart.

When the approval of anyone else comes at the expense of obeying

God, who wins that battle? You'd rather please your spouse,

make your kids happy, make your parents happy, make your

siblings happy? Or is making Jesus happy of

utmost importance? Some loyalty to Christ reshapes

everything and it's not a one and done deal.

It is a constant learning and relearning of these things.

Obedience to Christ is not at the end of the day just a

checklist of rules that you go down.

It is the posture of a heart that says, Jesus, I am fully

submitted and surrendered to you in every area, in all things.

When I call you Lord, you rule and reign in everything, not in

most things, not in some things, but in everything.

If you call yourself a follower of Jesus, let your life look

like you're following Jesus. That's what family resemblance

means. That's what it looks like.

The second is this, does your life reflect that you belong to

a spiritual family? See if if belonging to Jesus

makes us a family, we need to act like it.

We should be the type of family that other families wish they

were. As a church, we should be the

type of family that sometimes our families that we come

through biologically struggle to be.

So let me just let me just paint a picture of what type of family

that would be. Is a family that that loves

across generations and life stages.

I yes, we need ministries to speak to different family stages

and, and, and, and stages of life, but we need individuals

who will work hard to step outside of those silos.

Seniors, we got young adults and young families who need you to,

to mentor them. I just know that there's a lot

of individuals who are dying for somebody who would just just

regularly pray for them and be a sounding board for them who've

seen more life than them. We need to be a church that

cares for one another when we're struggling.

Sometimes that means you're going to have to be honest that

you're struggling because we're not going to know.

We don't read minds. If you don't share that you're

struggling with somebody, how can anybody care for you?

It's it's one of the most frustrating things at times is

to hear that somebody is angry because they were struggling,

but they never told anybody they were struggling.

So how would anybody ever know to help you at the same time?

Do you come into church in the morning on a Sunday morning and

just think, well, I'm here for me, Lord, what do you have for

me today? Instead of saying, Lord, how

would you use me in the life of somebody else today?

How could I speak a word of encouragement or blessing or

welcome or invitation to somebody today?

It's a family that sacrifices for one another and absorbs

inconveniences and offenses. Solomon said that it is a glory

to overlook an offense. We could use a lot more glory in

our culture. We're just willing, OK, yeah.

Some listen. Family means we're going to do

things that annoy one another. Sometimes this is be honest,

we're going to rub against each other.

And so sometimes if if you're able to just be able to overlook

the offense, that's great, but you actually have to be able to

overlook it. Overlook it doesn't mean it

really bothered me. So I went and told somebody else

instead of them. That's called gossip.

Jesus has a lot to say and the Bible has a lot to say about

that. It all ends up like this.

Don't do it. If you've got a problem that you

can't overlook, then you go talk to the person that you have a

problem with and have the bravery to have difficult

conversations and then allow not bitterness to come up, but

reconciliation to take place through forgiveness.

Because it's a family that forgives quickly and forgives

much. That's what the family of God

looks like. It's a family that stays

connected even when it's inconvenient.

It's the family where everyone has value and everyone has a

role to play because everybody matters.

Some of us come from families that, to put it mildly, have not

been ideal. Listen, we won't get it perfect.

No. No family gets it perfect,

biological or spiritual. This should be a place where

nobody ever feels like they've been abandoned, forgotten about

alone. If Ford is truly a family, then

we don't treat each other like customers and consumers.

We treat each other like kin. We don't just show up on Sunday

mornings, but we'll make the effort to show up in one

another's lives. We won't just attend programs,

but we'll attend to the needs and hearts and struggles of the

people who are part of this family.

And it's a big church, so you're going to have to make the

decision to get involved in smaller ways because it's not

going to just going to happen. If you show up here on Sunday,

you're not going to have all of what you need.

This is like a family reunion, right?

We're all here. And you know, we need some

smaller places to be able to, to fit in.

And so I want to encourage you if you're not serving anywhere

to find a place to use your gifts to build up the family and

the body of Christ. If you're not in a group, to to

plug into a group and be in to connect with people who can help

encourage you and challenge you on your journey.

If Jesus makes us a family, then if you belong to Jesus, you've

always got a place to belong to, no matter what happens out in

the rest of the world. That's why this is a good news

on on Family Day weekend. Even a Family Day weekend

doesn't feel very good news to you.

There's a place for you here. There's a place for you to be a

part of a family that isn't formed by DNA and birth, but by

surrender, family shaped by obedience, a family shaped by

grace, and a family that spans the whole earth.

It is an amazing, amazing reality that I know some of you

in this room have had the privilege of and I've had the

privilege of experiencing so many times to walk into spaces

and places on the other side of the globe that are so many ways

so different from everything that is regular in my everyday

life. And yet immediately have the

sense that I'm at home because I'm with God's people.

Even we don't speak the same language, we don't eat the same

foods, we don't sing the same songs.

And yet there's just a sense of, wow, I'm with brothers and

sisters. How cool is that?

See, the question at the end of the day isn't who are your

relatives? The question is who is your Lord

and if Jesus is your Lord, then hear and do the word of God and

know that you are his family. Want to end this morning by

taking communion together? We take communion.

We're declaring some things. If you don't have one of these

cups, we've got some people. I just some of our hospitality

team just invite you to come forward to the front so you can

see the hands that go up if you don't have a cup.

Just put your hands up and our our team will make their way

back and they'll hand some out to you.

If you're a follower of Jesus, you're part of the family of

God. You've accepted Jesus Christ as

your savior. Then I want you to join in with

this because this is something we do together.

We declare some things together. We declare, first of all, we

declare that we belong to Jesus and take the the bread and the

cup. We declare that Jesus has

redeemed us. That word redeemed means that he

has bought us. He has purchased us by his

blood. He brings us into communion with

the Godhead, with the Trinity. We belong to Jesus.

The second thing is that we belong together.

This, this is something that is meant to be done in community

with one another. It is not just a me and Jesus

thing. When we take communion, there's

a truth of that in there, but it is a reminder that we gather

together to say it's not just me and Jesus, it's all of us in

Jesus. We're not isolated individuals.

We're the family of God, united around the table of grace,

united around this. There's one thing that outweighs

all other things, that we are sinners who have been taken from

death to life by the goodness and grace of Jesus Christ, who

died on the cross for our sins. It's a confession that's true

for all of us. Nobody is here by their own

merit. Nobody stands in front of God on

their own 2 feet. We all stand only in the person

of Jesus. We remember Jesus obedience for

us, that he and he alone heard the Father's word and fully

obeyed it. We want to live into that.

We want to emulate that. We want to mirror Jesus to the

extent that we continue to grow in that.

But it is a reminder that Jesus did what we couldn't do.

He obeyed even to death on the cross for us.

And when we take this, we're recommitting ourselves to to

walking in Jesus footsteps, to walking in obedience.

Yes, communion is remembrance of what Jesus has done, but it is

also a renewal of our allegiance and loyalty to him in a way of

saying Jesus, you are Lord and I, I choose obedience.

I choose to walk under your Lordship because I belong to

you. Then lastly, we take this, we

look forward, Paul says, we take it until he comes again.

This meal, this, this, this, this bread, this cup.

It points us forward to a great feast that will be the feast of

His Kingdom, where every follower of Jesus, everyone who

is brought into the family of God across all times, across all

nations, is going to gather together for this incredible

family dinner and banquet. It's going to be a party like

you've never seen. And when we take this, it's a

reminder of what's coming. What's coming is so good, and

we're going to enjoy it together.

So as we take the bread, as we take the cup, today, we do

something more than commemorating what took place

2000 years ago. We declare who we are and whose

we are today. So I'm going to invite you to

take the wafer together collectively with all of your

brothers and sisters through Jesus Christ.

Let me pray over it, and then we're going to take it together

as family. Father, thank you so much that

you have done what is unbelievable and impossible.

You've taken this ragtag group of people who are here, churches

who are crossed our region, churches who are crossed our

country, churches who are crossed the world and the church

across all centuries and cultures.

And through Jesus you've made US1 through his body, which was

broken for us. We are one.

We thank you. Let's take and eat together, and

we'll take the cup which represents the new covenant in

Christ's blood, poured out for the forgiveness of our sins.

If we're going to be the family that we have been called to be,

then we need to learn how to forgive.

And to learn how to forgive, you first have to know that you've

been forgiven. Now let's pray that Christ's

forgiveness would be known by us so we could extend it to others.

Father, when we take this cup, we confess that your blood

poured over and and washed clean all of our sins, past, present,

future. And because we are forgiven, we

can forgive. Lord, we know that if we're

going to be the type of family that you want us to be, we need

to be able to forgive. I thank you that as we take this

cup, we're declaring we have received all the forgiveness we

will ever need. So we are able to forgive.

If there's anything that we need to confess to you today to make

right with you, I pray that we would do that in this moment.

We would take it to you. We would nail that sin to the

cross again and be reminded that Jesus paid for it.

And if there are sins that are outstanding against us, where we

have been wounded and hurt, I pray that as we take this cup

and drink, you would fill us by the power of your Spirit with

the power to release and to forgive, so we'd be freed from

the prison of bitterness and unforgiveness.

Let's take and drink together. We're going to close by singing

a song about our unity together in Christ as a church.