A Family Legacy

I'm glad to be here this morning.

I was nervous I wasn't gonna be able to make it.

Uh yesterday we had a I had my alumni soccer game, so I played uh against a bunch of uh 17, 18 year olds, and I was didn't want to tear my ACL, but I'm glad I made it.

Um my uh it's funny because my youngest three, when you know you're at this big stadium, uh dad's out there on the field, the lights like, man, this is he's super man out there.

He's like a professional.

Look at him go.

And uh my oldest though, after the game, he comes up to me, he's like, Dad, uh he's a little bit more mature mentally, he says, You looked like you were going to die out there.

That was the longest 16 minutes of my life.

So uh we are continuing our sermon series, Bearing the Marks.

Um, we're looking at our four identities of what it means to be a healthy disciple.

Last week, Pastor Tim covered what it means to be a missionary.

This week we're gonna look at the letter of John and unpack the markers of what it means to be a healthy family member.

Right?

Everyone in here has a family.

We come from a mother, we come from a father.

Now, how that plays out in our lives can look very diverse.

For me, my mom was a single mom.

I've only met my biological dad once.

He was a first-generation American.

I have a brother and his dad is who I call dad.

My mom and dad divorced when I was in second grade.

I have a stepdad, stepsisters, half-brothers that I haven't met.

Um, you guys still tracking, right?

The family tree can be uh messy, right?

The story of the Bible is one of families.

Families that are not necessarily all on the same page, pages filled with genealogies connected to children in real time, real places, and history.

But the redemptive story of the Bible is a God who comes down to redeem the family for his glory.

If you've been in a family long enough, you know when the stresses are applied, lack of communication, unclear expectations, sin, it's a recipe for disunity.

Our text this morning comes from 1 John 3, 11 through 18, where the author is stressing the dangers that can cause disunity within the local church family.

There's false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, selfishness, jealousy, internal strife within the body.

John is trying to help them to operate within a healthy family.

When the family engages in health, it's a powerful thing, one that can leave a lasting legacy.

Every year, at the beginning of the year, our family likes to revisit.

We have our values, visions, and mission.

It's kind of what grounds us and gives us a space to kind of look where we're going.

You can see up on the screen, the pain family vision is that we will pursue God and make him known.

Our mission is every moment for God's glory, right?

And all the small details with our boys, from what from the way that we eat, from going to bed, the way we play sports, every small moment for God's glory.

How do we work these things out is through our values, love God and His Word, being creators, not consumers.

I have four, I should say, destroyers.

I have four boys, so we do a lot of destroying, so we're working to be creators, right?

Being hungry, we want to have a zealous passion, but also humble.

Protectors and servants of our friends and neighbors and speakers of truth.

John sets up in verse 11 the vision the church should be rooted in as a healthy family.

You see, John's saying the family vision is that we should love one another.

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

While I might adjust our vision and values and mission, John is reiterating only the same message that Christ has done.

In John 13, 34, which we've seen in our previous sermon series, a new commandment, this is Jesus talking, I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

You also are to love one another.

Jesus is only reiterating the same exact message.

The family vision is marked with one of love, to take pleasure in, to treat with affection, be fond of, be well pleased.

This love is what the disciples in the church have heard from the beginning.

He's not trying to reinvent the wheel.

Who should we love, right?

He uses this word one another.

This one-anothering word occurs over a hundred times in the New Testament, 59 of them being a specific command or teaching us how or how not to relate to each other.

Obedience to these commands is necessary as it forms the foundation for all true communities.

It marks us as disciples of Christ and as a powerful witness to the world.

I do want to pause, and I'm going to put up here on the screen, it's going to seem like a lot, but I think it's healthy for us to see what this uh what this looks like for our family, envisioning our family motto.

Love one another, be devoted, honor, live in harmony, build up, be like-minded, accept, admonish, greet, care for, serve, bear one another's burdens, forgive, be patient, speak the truth in love, be kind and compassionate, speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Submit to, consider, look, bear, teach, comfort, encourage, exhort.

And these are in your notes, and uh there's more.

This isn't exhaustive, but I want us to see what John has envisioned for his church.

This is the call to the Christian family.

This is our family vision lived out.

But John takes this story from the scriptures to help us to see that oftentimes we don't live up to the calling that we have been assigned.

We fail to operate in the love and the charity we've been called to.

What destroys this family?

What causes disunity?

Sin.

Right?

We're not too far into the story of the Bible where we have our first murder.

First John gives us an example from the Old Testament of two brothers who share this same bloodline.

This is what creeps in and causes a dysfunctional family.

Verses 12 through 15, we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him?

Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.

Do not be surprised, brother, that the world hates you.

We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.

Whoever does not love abides in death.

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Was Cain's sacrifice wrong?

When we look back at Genesis 4, not necessarily, but his heart posture was.

It was not done in faith.

In Hebrews 11, it elaborates a little bit more on this story.

It says, by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous.

How is that the connection?

By faith.

God commending him by accepting his gift, and through his faith, though he died, still speaks.

And without faith, we see now in Hebrews 11:6, it's impossible to please him.

Hebrews 11:6

For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Cain's actions were evil, and Abel's brothers were righteous.

Jealousy was behind this hatred, not a jealousy that necessarily covets another's greater gift, but which resents another's greater righteousness.

This is the same envy that the Jewish priests demanded when they demanded the death of Jesus.

John uses this as an example of how not to love.

Jealousy, hatred, murder are natural and terrible consequences of those who live outside of the faith.

Imagine the fissures for a second in that family, right?

The history up until this point, you know, as young brothers growing up, playing in the fields, wrestling over bedtime, sharing the fruits out in their labors, out in their farm, racing one another.

But as I got older, hardness growing in Cain, and in one choice in a moment, out of jealousy that had been building up over time, manifested itself by the killing of his own brother.

And forever that family dynamic has changed.

Sin can have devastating impacts within the church when left unchecked.

Sin can have generational effects on the body.

How many of you have ever been a part of a church that's been left unchecked with sin?

Have you experienced the pain that comes in that?

John is connecting Cain and Abel's story to the church and the disunity and issues at hand.

In verses 14, those who do not love the brothers remain in death.

This is the fruit of their faithlessness.

It's the rot in the inside, and if not addressed, can destroy.

It's fascinating here because the word or the language used here is active, right?

Abiding in death.

Opposite of John 15, right?

When we're abiding and it's producing life and fruit.

In this case, though, you're abiding.

There's an action, you're producing death.

I think it's a good reminder to the church that there is no neutrality.

You're either abiding in life and in faith and in trust to the gospel, and the result is that you're loving the brother.

Or you're abiding in death and hating the brother.

I want to be slow and pause and kind of work through John's logic in verses 14 and 15, because the consequences are heavy.

If we do not love the brother, then we're hating the brother.

If we're hating the brother, then we're actively abiding in death.

And we see in this text that there is no eternal life in him.

John lays out this logical flow of consequences.

Now he unpacks how this hate and murder manifests itself within the church in verses 17 and 18.

John is pressing the church in how our actions or our inactions is a deeper issue of what's going on within our hearts.

Let's look at 17 and 18.

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

I think oftentimes we see, we choose not to see.

We choose not to see.

We choose to do this by not being involved with the people of God.

We intentionally remove ourselves, yet closes his heart against him.

We're shutting the doors of our emotions, our affections, our core to those in the body.

Our hearts operate like the suburbs, right?

We close our garage doors, we close our blinds, we put our headphones in, and we tune out.

Out of sight, out of mind.

People are an inconvenience, they're frustrating to be around, so it's easier for me to just remove myself.

There's a parable that Jesus uses in Luke 10 of the Good Samaritan.

There was a man going down to Jerusalem from Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, departed, leaving him half dead.

Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road.

So a priest, you know, someone religious who's going to maybe help out.

And when he saw him, what'd he do?

He passed by to the other side.

So likewise a Levite, another one you'd think maybe would he stop.

When he came to the place and saw him, what'd he do?

He passed by to the other side.

Sorry, I want to help you, but I have a lot of work that I need to get done.

I'm on a tight timeline.

I want to help now.

Just financially, it's just hard, right?

But if we pause to look at our own Amazon accounts to see where our money's even going.

You know, I have my kids' sports in their extracurriculars.

You know, we're in four club sports this season, so it's just, we're we're just packed to the gills.

You know, I have my kids on this type of schedule.

It's just gonna be hard to flex.

Not that those excuses are bad in themselves.

We have responsibilities, we have families, but I think often we fill our lives first with our own pleasures rather than operating out of a priority to strive to love the brother.

It's like we fill up our own plate so full that we can't we don't have any room for the brother.

They get the leftovers.

Where are our priorities?

Are we creating schedules that lock us up to where we cannot love?

Are we spending recklessly on ourselves or mismanaging our own finances that we cannot love the brother?

We choose not to see ultimately because of a selfishness.

The notion it's hard here in this our Western culture to fight that individualism.

The story of the scriptures does speak against that and fights for the collective.

Have we put ourselves in a position where we choose not to see?

I think it's easy to think we're kind when we're not held accountable to others.

It's easy to think we're always right when no one disagrees with us.

We know that the cost is going to be high, so we choose to remove ourself.

But the sobering reality is in verse 17 is that those who choose not to see, how does God's love abide in him?

We love to talk, but not love indeed and truth.

So we choose not to see, but also sometimes we love to talk, but just not indeed in truth.

Right?

We might put ourselves around others, but we're not truly invested.

We can talk all day long about the things that we're going to do, but unless we follow through indeed and truth, what is the point?

We're afraid to get into the mess.

We actually probably like the information.

We know, you know, we like to know things, but we have no intent of getting involved.

Imagine this good Samaritan on the side of the road walks up to the man who is bleeding and half dead.

It's in a hard spot.

Brother, I'll pray for you, right?

You know, I'm going to put a message out there to see if others can come and help you.

You might even have a good story to share in town.

But I would propose that that's not the type of family we desire to be a part of.

One where people are so removed relationally to not even see the needs of their members or choose not to engage in deeds of love and mercy.

What hope do we have for a family when it's so broken?

How can a family have a legacy if it's polluted with sin, selfishness, and things that feel so dysfunctional?

What's going to restore that family?

We all long for a united family, right?

We all long for a family that's going to leave a legacy.

And John knows exactly what's going to restore that family name.

In verses 16, we see self-sacrifice restores the family.

Self-sacrifice restores the family.

By this we know love that he laid down his life for us.

We ought to lay down our lives for the brother.

Where we fail to see, you have been seen.

By this we know love.

I remember as a 16-year-old, in trouble with the law because of the choices I've made, friends who I thought were my friends, the prodigal son leaving his home to find my own path, only left in a pig sty, crying out to God, do you even exist?

Do you even see me?

And in that moment, realizing for the first time, like Nathaniel, feeling seen.

Where we fall short of seeing, God condensates down from heaven and sees you this morning.

He's not an absent father who has left and abdicated his responsibilities.

He didn't even need to take the responsibility, but the one who makes himself known to his family.

Look at the response of the good Samaritan when the Levite and the priest left the man for dead.

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and what did he do?

When he saw him, he had compassion.

We are the beaten up, broken down, left for dead person on the side of the road.

Nothing to offer.

We are a burden, yet we are seen.

But being seen is only one part of it.

Not just being seen, but we are loved.

By this we know love.

As we saw with the prototype of Cain, hate is negative.

It seeks the other person's harm to the point of murder.

Here, John gives us a better example, Christ.

Love is positive and seeks the other person's good to the point of self-sacrifice.

True love is costly.

True love is self-sacrifice.

Christ lays down his life for his church.

Christ is the prototype for our church family.

Our true family is made through self-sacrifice.

And as we look more into this parable of the Good Samaritan, we see the demonstration of that cost.

He went to him and bound up his wounds.

This is the Good Samaritan, pouring oil on him and wine.

Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an end and took care of him.

And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.

This Samaritan could have used his own free time to go do other things, but he chooses to pause and to see.

He binds and cleans his womb, probably staining his own clothes in the process.

He goes and gets a medicine, costing him his own resources, purchases an end for him, and gives him a day's wages for when he leaves.

We are the man on the side of the road, left for dead, and God in his loving kindness and compassion pays our price.

Christ sacrificing love is the only way to restore the broken family of sin and selfishness that's rotted.

Love is going to be costly, but it's what marks a true family member.

God is a great botanist.

He takes the vine that we were on, right?

The one that was abiding in death.

There was no eternal life.

It was a diseased plant.

So it makes no sense that he would cut and want to graft it into his vine.

But what he does is he splices the true vine by nailing Christ on the cross and God pouring out his wrath on him, not because he needed it, but God in his infinite wisdom and holiness and justice and goodness and out of love grafts us, wraps us, binds us sinners like you and me into it.

And it's not just one branch, but many.

We get to be a part of this new family tree to display the glorious nature of God among the nations.

And now that we are in this family that established by the death and resurrection of Jesus, he's establishing a true family tree.

A tree for all to see, Christ's coming, a new inauguration of a new family legacy, a kingdom that would be everlasting.

His love and outpouring of the Spirit demonstrates for his disciples the legacy that we are to represent.

Our salvation is a beautiful thing, and it's layered with many components.

You see a biological family we're born into, but we know from our series in John that we're not saved because we're born into something.

But we're saved by a work of the Spirit and that what grafts us in and some would call being adopted.

We are adopted into the family.

In legal terms, we're no longer under the bondage of sin.

I was looking up a statistic the other day, and it was the percentage rate at which those who have gone to jail and return back to jail.

It was around 76%.

76%.

Think about, think how defeating that number feels.

A lot of times it's because when they leave, they have nothing that they're a part of, nothing new.

While they're no longer a criminal in the state's eyes, they walk out neutral, they walk back into their old friends, their old circumstances, familiar stopping grounds, and it sucks them back into their old habits.

But the beauty of the gospel is when we when we become adopted from enemies of God, we simultaneously in that moment are brought into the family of God.

There, our exoneration is more than neutral.

We are net positive, our legal and family status change.

Let's see what Ephesians 1, 3 through 5 has to say.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has what?

Blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

So when we're grafted in, when we are adopted, we receive the benefits and blessings that come with being a part of the family.

And in that family tree, though, now, not just blessings, but there's a responsibility that we have as children.

My boys, we talk often about being a blessing or the blessings that they have about being a part of a family.

When you have the pain name, there will always be a safe place here.

They know that they don't have to hide from mom or dad in their mistakes and in their sin.

There still may be consequences, but we they always have a safe place to come and talk through that.

Them.

They know they never have to earn mom or dad's favor in our family, that they're loved the way that God has made them.

They never have to perform to display how great they are to earn our affection.

We want things to be done in excellence.

We want them to be hungry, but within their own abilities and giftings, not something that they're not.

They have access to mom and dad.

They can confidently know that we have their back, their best interests.

There's protection from harm, financial blessing, home, food, shelter.

But this is just a small taste of what it means to be a part of God's family.

The London Baptist Confessions describes this condition and privileges of being adopted into the family of God.

God has granted that all those who are justified would receive the grace of adoption in and for the sake of his only Son, Jesus Christ.

By this they are counted among his children of God and enjoy the freedom and privileges of that relationship.

Here's the blessings.

They inherit his name, they receive the adoption, spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry, Ah, but Father, they are given compassion, protected, provided for, and chastised by him as a father.

Yet they are never cast off, but are sealed for the day of redemption.

And inherit the promises that and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation.

Isn't that a beautiful reality of our adoption into the family?

And as we've been adopted and received these blessings, though, right, it's not just blessings, but there's a responsibility that we have as families, family members.

You see, the boys in my house, uh, they are not just to take, but they have roles and responsibilities.

We're trying this thing, uh, it's called blessing hour.

While mom is cooking dinner, uh, boys, this is now your time to go pick up the house, right?

So after dinner time, we can spend time together and enjoy it as a family.

We do chore charts to help with different chores.

We have bringing dishes to the table when you're done, setting the dinner table.

As they mature, the responsibilities become bigger.

Uh, Simon got the uh the other day, you got to use a big knife to help me cut potatoes, you know, for a nine-year-old boy.

That's pretty exciting to get to do.

Uh Harvey, though, can barely take a pillow out of his car after a long trip to his bedroom.

So we're working, right?

But the point is that we're not just called to receive blessings.

But in that calling and blessings, we're motivated to serve and to use our gifts.

Love is not to be admired, but to be copied.

We ought to.

We ought to.

This is no longer a burden or a duty, but a joy that the gospel empowers us to do.

We have to operate first under the gospel and know our position before God as adopted members in the family before we can see, before we can love our brothers and our sisters.

I could say this morning, you know what?

Just go love your brothers and help them out.

But that wouldn't be transformative.

It would be law.

It has to be out of the work of the Spirit that moves us to see and to have compassion.

So I think two things in this text that John is calling the church to do.

First is to see the needs of your brother.

See the needs of your brother.

We have been seen, we have been loved, and now we are called to model.

How many of us are even looking or praying for opportunities to be sacrificial in the family?

God, where do you want me to use my talents?

Where do you want me to use my time?

You've given me all of these things.

Help me to invest them well.

Give me the eyes that you have to see the family of God the way that you do.

Notice this language is brother, right?

It's familial.

You do not have to, you don't choose your family.

It's something you're born into.

And oftentimes, I think in the church, we look for this perfect friendship or perfect relationship.

But I believe, and I think those do come.

But a family is something unique.

God makes this family and we are united into it.

There are many people who I would say I'm not naturally friends with here in the body.

But because of the common thread of Christ, I can look to see them as adopted members and that we're one together.

I talk about this in our mission group class.

If you are looking for a place to find community, you're not going to find it.

If you're looking for a place to serve self-sacrifice, you will find community.

When we are truly loving others, it's not about our own pride or being right.

It's about helping others grow in faith by using our God-given gifts.

Also, though, allowing others to see our needs.

We're actually diminishing the value of God's family by not allowing others to use their gifts in our own lives.

We won't be able to love one another well.

There's no actual vulnerability or relationship.

Let us bear one another's burdens together in order that we actually share them and be open to seeing them.

So we have to see our brothers' needs, but we must not just love in word, but also love in deed and truth.

He's not saying here that if you love, you can, and by some special sense, be rescued from death to life.

Rather, we know and can observe those who have passed from death into life by their love of the brothers.

You see, our actions or our inactions is really a marker of if we actually do love and have life in us.

It's not our loving actions that make us abide in life, but the very loving is what is our assurance that we are abiding in life.

We can have well-established websites, we can have well-run Sundays, our mission groups can be going at all gears, but if there's no demonstration of love, we are nothing but a noisy gong.

Our actions speak louder than words.

Love is neither sentiment nor talk but deeds.

If our love is to be genuine in truth, if our love is to be genuine, being in truth, it will inevitably be positive and constructive with actions.

When we love others, our actions do more than just serve others.

It's not just a means to an end.

The way that we love finds its origins in Christ's love.

And because of that, they serve and honor and glorify Christ by the way that we love.

And it can be often difficult to live in community with others.

You'll meet challenging people and encounter situations that require you to continually pray, to ask God for renewed strength, the ability to serve.

You're going to face conflict, but you'll be met with wisdom.

But ultimately, through the prayer and the work of the Spirit in our lives, we can love and serve others with the love of Christ.

The love that we see modeled for us in the life of Christ was costly.

And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus asked this final question: Which of these three do you think proved to be the neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?

He said, the one who showed him mercy.

And Jesus said to him, You go and do likewise.

Before I wrap up, I want to make two quick practical suggestions for those of you who desire this family to be a part of this legacy that God is building.

At SMC, we do this functionally through two things.

The first is through church membership.

John is addressing a local church.

Yes, we're called to love the big sea church, but when you put the when but when the rubber meets the road, there's real, tangible people doing the one-anothering.

There's real geographical places.

The elders who are shepherding and carrying over real people.

And we believe the scriptures are clear that this is happening within the local church.

If you have felt like you've been coming around a while and maybe just dating the church, I want to encourage you to pray and to think through what is God's vision and idea for the family?

How can we live out these one another's if we're not committed to one another?

We offer membership classes.

The next one's coming up in a few weeks.

I encourage you to sit through that.

Ask your questions.

This is not a perfect family, but it's a family that's striving to be faithful to King Jesus.

A second way that we do this is through our mission groups.

On Sunday, our Sundays are amazing.

Our RA team, the fellowship, the preaching.

But in the week, we meet collectively as the church scattered to walk out those one-another.

If this is our family reunion, right, weekdays are our local family gatherings where we encourage and build one another up.

Care for one another, unpack the scriptures, pray with each other.

It's where we see the one-another's walked out in love, in deed, and in truth.

Let the gospel this morning be a reminder of who you once were and how God has now adopted you into this new family tree.

The blessings you now have, but also the responsibilities that we carry as the local church.

Let us be a people who are self-sacrificing, setting aside our own needs, our own time, our resources for the brothers and sisters as Christ has modeled for us.

Not just for our family, but for the world to see.

So we might leave a family legacy for generations to come.

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.

Let's pray.