Pastor the People – 1 Timothy 5:1-2

We are in First Timothy. We've been studying this book of

the Bible since the beginning of the year and we are now entering

into the 5th chapter in a series in First Timothy that we're

calling trustworthy. And I just I love that one

simple word to give us a constant reminder of why this

book is so good and necessary to know because it it is God's

design for in some ways the church to have an instruction

manual, a blueprint. How would the whole operation

should work so that it is a place where you can come and

find the trustworthy God faithful for all our lives

represented in a trustworthy gathering.

And so as we enter into this new chapter, and as you think about

everything we've we've looked at and studied so far, it's almost

as if if the study stopped now, we, we just about have

everything that we would need as we've studied and looked at the

word to, to see a vision of a trustworthy and healthy church

in the 1st 4 chapters of this letter.

If, if a church executes and really takes seriously

everything we've looked at so far, they, they'd be so close to

being a healthy and good church. And so just think about what

we've already talked about. The, the, the, the letter starts

by Paul writing to young Timothy, his mentor or his his

disciple in the faith. You got to have sound doctrine.

You got to stand on the truth. You can't get, you can't get

sidetracked by arguing over fables and mythology.

It's like have sound doctrine and a church that does that

teaches the truth has a really important part of being a good

church. And there's a huge emphasis.

As we've read this time and time again, Paul is saying wherever

you find bickering and arguing, turn it into a reason to pray.

A church that's praying is going to be a solid church.

We went through and looked at all of the important

qualifications and characteristics of having a

healthy, trustworthy leadership and having elders and overseers

in place that have the, the right characteristics and the

right marks of a good leader and, and having that as a

church. And you're close, you're getting

really close to being a healthy church.

And then we talked about being a church that has qualified

servants that are serving, washing the, the, the church

representing the hands and feet of Jesus.

Again, all of these beautiful blueprints.

And we're so close just in these 4 chapters.

And yet there is something that we now still have yet to cover

that if you don't have this, none of it matters.

And it's it's, it's almost so obvious that you can miss it.

It's like losing the forest for the trees.

And sometimes that's how it is. The most obvious thing is the

thing. You forget it.

I'm mindful of that several years ago as my wife and I

welcomed in our third child to the family.

And by by child #3 you've got, you know, your training wheels

are off in a sense, you're ready for the mission.

And I'll never forget our very first time doing our family

outing as a family of five. So we've got oldest daughter

now, middle daughter now and youngest daughter.

And we were ready to kind of step out in faith, do our first

excursion, run a couple errands, come back and, and see how it

went. And we just had the order of

operation down. You know, my wife has got the

diaper bag locked, loaded, ready to go.

We're ready for anything. It's like, you know, you got a

diaper bags. Sometimes you feel like, you

know, you're about to go on a Mount Everest hike.

You got everything. We've got the older kids fed

ready. They've got some entertainment.

We've got them buckled into the car.

They're ready to go. They're they're excited.

Take our first excursion. We've got some places on the

list of errands that we're going to run and we get to our very

first stop and I go to get our newborn baby out of the back and

I realized I'd left her at home. Forgot the baby 100%.

You know you got everything on the checklist and none of it

matters if you don't have the baby.

And I've learned to finish stories by the way.

We went home and grabbed her and she's fine.

She's part of the family and she's with us.

But parenting is a lot like pastoring.

There are a lot of lessons I have learned that go both ways

in pastoring for parenting and for parenting for pastoring.

And the story I just described is like reading First Timothy

one through 4 and closing the book and saying I got it because

what Paul is about to say to Timothy is starting with this

chapter and towards the end of the letter, now focus on the

people. You've got the procedures and

the policies and you've got how to preach and how to raise up

leaders and how to care for the church.

But if you don't put the whole thing around serving and caring

for the people, you'll lose it. And, and I know I'm blessed for

that refreshment and that reminder because sometimes in

the pursuit of God in the congregation of a church, in

leadership, you can put the policies and the calendar of

events and the budgets and the building and all of the things

that we do to gather can sometimes take precedent over

the actual people. I know it's true of all of our

lives. Sometimes the, the planning

takes precedent over the parenting over the, the, the

people that we're planning around.

And, and now we, we cannot miss this.

And, and if this chapter kind of was a mini series within our

series, it would be called pastor the people.

It's going to be an entire chapter of ways that Paul's

going to say with everything in mind about a healthy operation

of a church. Now you have to have a healthy

pastor and a people, and so we won't get to all of it.

Today. We're actually only going to

cover 2 verses, but for the chapter that we're studying,

which will resume after this Sunday, after Easter, there

there is a clear emphasis on the importance of a good and healthy

church caring for primarily and as utmost of importance, the

people of the church. Verses 1 and 2 is Paul telling

Timothy how to care for all the people of the church.

When we resume after Easter, we're going to look at verses 3

through 16 that that is all about how to care for those who

are in the most need. The people who have desperate

needs of a church care for them in, in the context of this

letter, it's the widows, but it's the, the idea is how do you

care for people that need care the most?

Then we'll look at 17 through 19.

It's all about the the elders. Once again, a word for the

overseers and leaders. Make sure that you're overseeing

with a heart for people. And then as we look at the last

part of this chapter, it will be verses 21 through 25.

And it is really practical people skills for a pastor.

How do you just interact with the church and make sure the

preaching is good, but the pastoring is sound.

You want sound doctrine and sound pastoring.

And so with that in mind, we're going to look today, pass

through the people and specifically the categories of

old and young men and women. And we'll look at that in the

1st 2 verses. And just if you take nothing

else from this, just know that the whole emphasis now is the

importance of the people of the gathering.

Starting in verse 1 of chapter 5, he says do not rebuke an

older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers

and older women as mothers, younger women as sisters with

all purity. And This is why this headline is

how to pass through the people with all categories in mind.

You got old men and young men and here's your here's your

pastoral duty to serve them and categorically different.

And then you've got older women and younger women and here's how

you handle them. And so we're going to just look

at those 4 sections that we just read in these two verses.

But we before we do, we we have to catch the vision once again

that Paul is encouraging Timothy to have for the church.

And it is very simply a family that is multi generational.

This is clearly working under the assumption that Timothy is

going to be pastoring using a reference points for family,

fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters.

And also there's going to be old and there's going to be young.

So when we think of when we look for a vision of a healthy church

body, when we look at this and study this and and measure our

own church against the the New Testament writing, we have to

acknowledge and celebrate that the church is supposed to be old

and young, multi generational. It is not healthy for a church

to emphasize a movement towards youth at the expense of the

older generation. And it's also not healthy for

the church to defend traditions of the older generation at the

expense of welcoming new people in.

And I think that our church from season to season needs to hear

that. But no doubt all churches feel

this tension. Last week we looked at the

advice that Paul had to Timothy. He said, listen, Timothy, you're

going to be a little bit younger than some of the people in your

church. Let no one despise your youth.

And churches need to hear that as young leaders are being

raised up, they're, they're going to do their best.

And as long as they're acting in maturity, don't despise them

just because they're young. It's good to have young people

at the church. It's good to have young leaders.

And now the counterweight of that is it's also good to have

older people in the church and throughout time, different

cultures emphasize their age preferences.

In Ephesus, it was actually much more honor honorable to be old

people. They lived in a culture not

unlike other cultures in our world where old people had a

certain honor as patriarch or matriarch of the community.

Our culture is the exact opposite.

Our culture emphasizes the youthful spirit.

And I think sometimes that creeps into the church and

sometimes the church feels like it's doing everything to be hip

and attractive to young people. And sometimes, and I know I felt

this for our own congregation, sometimes the the older

generation is like, hey, are we still noticed, recognized and

valuable? And so the answer is, according

to the Word of God, absolutely yes, the church must honor the

young generation coming and honor with respect and value the

generation that is part of the church now.

And so that is the vision that you will find all throughout the

New Testament. And that's also as an extension

of our church practicing this. That is the vision that that we

have for our house church Calvary communities, that when

you go into the smaller communities of our church, we

want to reject the idea that those should be, you know,

pockets of friends getting together and sharing a meal,

young with young and old with old.

And that's why we encourage all of the communities to come into

houses, not based off their age, but based off their location so

that you will be in a community of believers opening the word

and eating together. And the older and wise can pour

into the young and the young can be encouraged and also support

the older people. So if you're part of the Calvary

community, that is the vision. And we celebrate those that are

multigenerational because this is giving a vision for the

family to represent old and young because that's what the

family does represent. And so now let's look at the

categories. He said in verse one, do not

rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father.

So now we have our first category, the older men of the

church. So we we think of the context of

what Timothy is going through through Paul's encouragement.

He's got some pastoring to do in this church.

There's all sorts of things that are happening by inference in

this church that Paul has chosen to correct through the

leadership of Timothy, and that's going to include older

men as well. So the older men of the church

need to be pastored. And there's a way that Paul

wants the older men to be pastored that's going to look

different than Timothy's peers and younger.

And so the, the question that maybe all of you are asking is

where is the line of old and young?

You know, I've got to apologize because last week I put my cat

myself in the category of older pastor.

And some people came up to me and said, you're not old yet.

You're not old until you get the discounts at the, at the early

bird specials. I said, well, I guess I'm not

old in that sense, but I'm definitely older than a lot of

people in our church. And so here's the line for all

of us to use as the lens of this sermon so that we can do what

it's calling us to do for the older and the younger people

among us. The line is not an age or a

median age. It's not as though Timothy is

being said like, hey, you know, the average age of Ephesus is

this, and here's where the line is.

The line in this context is Timothy himself.

The line is Timothy. You're going to be pastoring As

you pastor men and that are older and, and more experienced

than you, then you're going to do it this way.

And as you pastor men that are younger, do it this way.

And so the line is you. And that's a beautiful way to

look at how to show honor and respect to older and younger,

because that line is going to follow you wherever you go.

And you're always going to have people.

Every person in this church has someone that is older than them

that they need to listen to this and say, OK, how can I care for

this person? Of course, except for one

person. I don't know who the oldest

person in the church is, but we got somebody who's the oldest.

This message is, you know, just respect all the young people for

you. But that everybody else, you got

somebody who's older than you. And there's somebody that's

younger than you. And that line follows you for

the rest of your life. And here's what we're supposed

to do. Pastoring, caring for people in

a church. And as you take this message and

apply it to the community that you're a part of requires

relationship. It's not a policy.

It's not a number that you just find it.

It requires you to treat older people different than you treat

younger people. So as I read this as a pastor,

what it's telling me is when I have to go through those moments

of correction, when I have to stand before you as the the

leader of the church teaching the word correcting sometimes

for the older men in our church, I'm not just supposed to rebuke

them. I'm not supposed to put men in

their place and say, you know, I'm sick of you guys not getting

this. There is an honor and a respect

that is due to all of the men of this church that I'm pastoring

that have gone before me. And when we look at this word

rebuke, it's saying don't just sharply criticize.

Well, of course rebuke is good. But in this context, Paul is

saying don't treat older men as you would treat a younger

person. You treat them with honor,

respect. So he says, rather than just

sharply criticize their mistake or need for correction, you

encourage them. You exhort them in a category.

You honor and respect all of the older people in your gatherings.

And, and I will say I want to grow in this and I want to do

this well because I think it accomplishes 2 things.

One, for just the outside world culture.

As stated, we live in a culture where sadly, we have lost the

respect young people pay to old people, older people.

We, we have lost the respect that you can just see in

children obeying their parents. There is, it's seemingly a chaos

happening in a in the homes of the culture we live in where

young people just do not care or respect older people.

And I would love to be wholly and set apart because God's word

has washed us from that cultural problem.

I would love to be a group of people that look for opportunity

to honor and respect and to have relationships with older people

that are caring and kind. And I, I would, I would love to

do it in the context right now of the church culture as well,

because I do think that the, the, the culture of our world

creeps into the church and, and old people sometimes feel out of

place as the church, you know, tries to become more relevant.

And let me just say to those of you who are older, who have been

faithful members of our church, who have come and just prayed

and cared for the younger people of our church who have joined

Calvary communities, and you're supporting the younger, the

younger members. I am so glad that you're part of

our church. I'm so grateful that you're

willing to be pastored and to sit under the teaching of

someone who's younger than you and in some ways less

experienced, less wisdom than you.

I think that shows such great maturity on your part that you'd

be willing to be part of our church.

And it blesses this church to have you among us.

And there's no small thing because no doubt there are

pastors who have to read this passage of Scripture and think,

wow, maybe we should try to get some older people to join our

fellowship. Maybe we shouldn't have

emphasized so much to the college and youth movement at

the expense of all of the older people.

So I just thank you guys for your grace sticking with a young

pastor who's doing his best to grow and and I appreciate all

that you do to make our church multi generational.

So please be honored, be respected and and I will do my

best to where where I can bring any kind of exhortation into

your life. I want to do it with honor and

and respect for you. And so we pass through the

people differently because now the word says to Paul, to

Timothy, where you're dealing with the younger men, I want you

to treat them as you treat a brother, you know, so the honor

and the respect and the the going out of your way to to

really encourage the older. He says, now you're going to do

that differently with people that are your own age or

younger. And he says for the younger man

in the second-half of verse one, you treat them as brothers.

Now, for me, I never had a brother growing up.

I always wanted a brother. I love my sisters.

I'm the middle child of an older sister and a younger sister.

So for years I would ask for my Christmas present to be a

brother. And I gave up on that.

And I'm sure my parents were grateful because that would have

required a lot of work on their part.

But, you know, I was under the impression as a young kid that

brothers were just always best friends, you know, that brothers

would just always play together and they would share their toys

with one another. And eventually they'd grow up to

start a business together or a band and tour the world.

And it was just like brothers, you know?

And now I know that so often the Bible is referencing a position

or an office that God designed that the world broke.

So often in scripture, brothers are actually used for Jesus as

teaching moments. Here's a couple examples.

Luke chapter 12. You'll remember the the parable

Luke 12 · chapter mention

of the rich fool where Jesus is teaching about how fleeting

riches are is actually Jesus trying to teach two brothers

that were arguing over their inheritance.

They were divided. They were more concerned with

stuff than a relationship with one another.

Couple chapters later, Luke chapter 15, we get one of the

Luke 15 · chapter mention

great stories, One of the great parables of the Bible is the

prodigal son. A great time to be reading and

thinking about an Easter because there's someone who is so dead

and lost in his rebellion that the father who sees him coming

from afar says, this is my son. He was lost and now he's found.

He was dead and now he's alive. Let's throw a feast for my lost

son. And of course, it's actually a

story about brothers. Because the older brother sees

him come to the feast and this, this younger brother who wasted

the money and disrespected the father gets a party.

The older brother goes, I hate this guy and I hate that you

love him and I hate that you have grace for him.

And brothers can despise one another.

They can. They can be the opposite of what

we're supposed to represent as a a loving family in the household

of God. And honestly, that journey goes

all the way back to the unraveling of humanity.

It starts with brothers hating each other or one brother hating

the other. Genesis chapter 4, verse 8.

Genesis 4:8

This is the very beginning. The man has just been cast out

from the good perfect paradise that God created, and it wasn't

long before brothers represent the downfall of humanity.

Chapter 4, verse 8. Now Cain talked with Abel, his

brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that

Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and killed him.

First murder of the Bible is a brother who's despised the other

and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain,

where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know.

Am I my brother's keeper? Doesn't matter where my brother

is, I don't care. I'm going to live my life.

I'm not going to concern myself with his affairs.

And I'll never forget teaching this years ago as we went

through Genesis as a as a church.

The next week after I taught on this passage of Scripture, Gage

Duke, faithful friend, just being part of our church

forever. He came up to me at church and

he gave me a little plaque that he had made.

And all it said was I am my brother's keeper.

And he says, if you never need anything, just know that I'm

here for you. I'm praying for you and I love

you. He reversed the entire curse by

the Spirit of God making him my brother in Christ in my

brother's keeper. And that is what Paul is getting

at to Timothy. He says listen, the the brothers

in the in the the men, the younger men, you are their

keeper. Concern yourself with their

affairs. Think about their lives.

Figure out how you can help them, how you can love them, how

you can do anything you can to lay down your life to help them.

And that is the family of God. Younger men, I am my brother's

keeper when I share the word and I and I exhort it and I

encourage you and, and I hope give you some sort of vision

that God has for his perfect will for your life.

It's because I desire you to have that life more abundant

that God has planned for you. And I am receiving this as the

pastor and I share this as you brothers and sisters one

another. You're your brother and sisters

keeper, honor the older men, care for the younger men as

though they were your brothers and you are reversing the

brokenness of the sin of this world by caring and not

despising each other. And so then we go on and now we

come to verse 2, which is our category for women, the older

women and the younger women. Not lost on me, this verse,

perfect verse as such an encouragement, a vision for the

women of our church at an imperfect weekend because the

the the women ministry has just gone and off to a retreat.

So I picked a bad time to honor the women of our church.

It would also have been great a couple weeks later if we could

have done it on Mother's Day. Also not perfect.

So I'm hoping that wherever we are on Mother's Day, mothers of

the church, women of the church, just just remember this sermon,

OK, we'll do something else. But this is a preview of

Mother's Day, first Timothy, first Timothy chapter 5 verse

1 Timothy 5 · chapter mention

two older women as mothers, younger women as sisters with

all purity. So once again, Paul is writing

to Timothy. He's going to be pastoring in a

congregation that is multi generational and he's going to

have to care for, encourage at times, correct exhort and pastor

older women of the congregation. And he says for that, have a

vision for caring for a woman as though a son cares for a mother.

And once again, this is just a moment to say to those of you

who call Calvary Chapel Boise your church family and you are

willing to be pastored by a young man who is younger than

you and you are an older woman. I am so grateful for the culture

that you have brought to this Church of the, the, the love and

the care. You know, I'm grateful for the

reference points God has given me for what it looks like to

have a relationship with a mom that are so healthy.

And when I think of the role a mom plays, my mom and my life,

and then, you know, the motherly spiritual moms of a church,

there's too many things to name. So I'll just share 3 very quick

meditations, let's say, of encouragement that I have

thinking about treating the older women as mothers, women of

the church. Three things amongst a million.

They are so good at bringing favor to the church, at giving

in in ways only a mother could feedback to the leadership of

the church and in ways that I welcome more of.

I love the food that is brought in.

I feel so cared for just in that practical calorie Chapel kind of

way. I am so blessed through all the

food and, and, and I will say they all kind of work together

as one. My mom of course, raised me and

she she gave me food and she was very patient with a picky eater.

Food is a great way to just encourage the pastoral team and

just each other. I love the the idea of the

Calvary community is breaking bread together.

It's a beautiful picture of the family.

A meal is really important for families to have that time

together. And you know, food goes really

well with feedback. Mothers are so good at giving

that feedback that only a mother could do.

And my mom is an example when she come to church and she just

gives the most motherly feedback, she'll say, hey, great

time in church today. I think you're due for a

haircut. And I'm like, oh, thank you,

mom. I do.

I'm going to do better. I'm going to do better.

There was a stain on your shirt. I'm like, I'm so sorry, mom.

And you know, I, I love my mom for that.

And I'll say this, I love the older women, older than me,

women of the church, because you guys give feedback and only a

way mother could. It's so good.

A pastoral team needs feedback. We are not free from error or

correction ourselves. And I love the just a little

comment in grace the, the, the things we can work on.

I'll never forget when I first became a pastor, it was actually

a group of women that were older than me and they had feedback.

And of course, I gave so many good opportunity for feedback

and I still do, but especially when I first started, I'm like

trying things and learning on the fly.

And I had a lot to learn. And, and, and I had this, these,

this group of women, they invited me into one of their

houses and they had just just a, just a list to go through with

things that we could do better as a church.

Love it. And you know, you've got to,

you've got to be willing to receive that.

And, but the beautiful thing about it was it seems as though

their list perfectly aligned with all of the, the things on

the cheese board. So I'm just getting the feedback

and just getting the cheese and crackers.

And it's like, you know, the sounds a little loud and the

lights are a little dim. Your pants are a little skinny,

but here's some cheese and crackers.

You know, I'm like you guys, it's got to go together.

And so to this day, please continue.

Men give feedback as well, but but maybe channel it through

your wives or you know, the the women give such great feedback.

To this day. The woman that had me to her

house, if she ever has a comment, if she ever has

feedback to give me, she always does it with cheese and

crackers. And I'm like, this is great.

I love this relationship and I want I want us to have a good,

healthy culture of loving anyone who's older than you the way you

would your mom, because they give such amazing blessing to

the church. And and that is the third

category that I'm so grateful for.

Moms, spiritual moms, the the women of any church gathering

from the New Testament. Just read it.

You see it all over the place. They bring such confident faith

that turns into favor. And I probably don't share my

testimony enough. I was not, you know, a pastor in

my teenage years or most of my 20s.

And I had, like anyone, a, a story of coming to Jesus and

wayward turns. And the consistent part of my

story is that I had a mother who prayed and she submitted prayers

and she joined prayer groups. And, and I just want to say as

we honor the mothers and we, I'm so thankful for the mother.

I would not be here, no doubt, if I didn't have a praying

mother and I'm I wonder how many people can say that about their

lives if they just had those people that never stopped

praying. Older women of our church, you

guys are so faithful. The Lord has blessed our church

because you are so faithful in prayer and commitment as you

open the Word and study it. And our campus, if you just come

to our campus the other week, you're going to see all of these

faithful women caring for the needs of our body through the

power of prayer and the confidence they haven't got.

And for that, it's like, that's our culture.

I receive this, I get reminded and refreshed as a pastor, but

please, this is the message for the culture of the people of God

that you as younger people would see these women who have gone

before you, these men who have gone before you as wise and

caring and integral parts of your story.

And if you don't know those people, this is a great reminder

of things we've already mentioned.

Join a Calvary community house church gathering because you're

going to find the food you're going to find the the the favor

in those people that are willing to walk with you in your

Christian life. And so we we care for the older

women as mothers and then it says younger women as sisters

with all purity. You know, we'll go back again to

the reminder of what this series is all about to be a trustworthy

and healthy church gathering with strong, healthy leadership

with a vision for the church that is in line with God's word.

And I'll just say that that this should just be underlined in

everyone's Bible as to one of those sound just just guards of

a church that the younger women of the church should be so

protected and cared for. And specifically talking to to

leadership, talking to any interactions that that someone

like Timothy would have with a a a young woman in a gathering.

You know, Paul was so wise in writing this.

Timothy was a single guy in a sinful city.

And Paul in in all of his encouragement in all the

categories we've already looked at said now now when the young

women come in, Timothy, remember and and be an example for

generations to come. And anyone who would read this

encouragement to Timothy, listen up.

These women are your sisters and that's why he attached with all

purity. This is not a place to just act

like you're at the the, the social hour at the bar.

And now by God's grace, he's going to bring together man and

woman in his perfect timing, in his perfect pure way.

But in the meantime, how healthy would the church age we live in

if more people just memorized that verse in leadership?

Care for the women. They're your sisters.

Protect them as such. Care for them.

Don't RIP them off. Don't take advantage of them.

Don't give anyone a reason to walk into church hoping to meet

God and leaving church heartbroken.

Care for the younger women as sisters.

And so we'll just put it all together as almost a, a

benediction as a, as a cultural creed kind of moment.

This is the church family that God wants to represent to the

world. You know, every category we

looked at, I could have prefaced by saying, of course, when we

talk about fathers, when we talk about brothers, when we talk

about mothers, when we talk about sisters, some of you have

some real hurt and some pain and some open, open wounds with

those categories. And I, I probably don't even

have to say some of you, all of you have been part of earthly

families that have hurt you and broken your heart and have been

less than ideal at times. We all feel it.

And what God wants to do is to redeem the design.

There's somewhere that's continually trying and by God's

grace, glorifying him in the way that we operate as his design

family. And so let's just put it all

together. Older men, you need to be

honored and respected. The older men of this gathering

of this church should have such honor and respect that we just

look different than the world. Younger men of the church should

be part of a brotherhood where men are caring for men and

praying for men, and they're not in competition.

They're in community of love and grace and support.

The older women of the church should be celebrated as these

amazing gifts, like a son would celebrate a mother.

And the younger women of the church should be protected and

cared for as sisters with purity that no one would be ripped off

when they come. And so we're going to, I pray,

be refreshed and renewed for that.

I pray that we would be known as a culture of a multi

generational family of God that loves one another, that respects

one another, that cares for one another, that protects one

another. And we're going to remember how

it all started. Every time we gather we we

remember the the body and the blood of Christ and so

beautifully. Whatever I'm preaching on, it

always takes us back to remembering Jesus.

There is no family of God apart from the Father sending His Son

that whosoever believed in him would be part of the family.

We're not a family that can love each other like father, mother,

brother and sister because of the building we come to on

Sunday morning. We are not a family because we

we all, you know, have the same little church calendar and try

our best to fall under the same teaching schedule.

We are a family for those of you who have given your life to God,

accepted the free gift of His love to redeem you, to give you

newness of life, and to take you from darkness to light and put

you in the family of God. We're a family because Jesus

died on the cross and he gave us a new citizenship and we have to

remember what makes us a family every time we gather.

This is why we're a family because God so loved us that he

sent his son. And today specifically, I'll

I'll tell all of you that take communion regularly to remember

that we're a family and it's because of Jesus dying.

And for those of you who don't consider yourself part of the

family of God, this is the day that you should join.

Everyone apart from the grace of God redeeming your story and

giving you newness of life comes from a broken family.

At some point or another, your family's going to break down.

And we would love for you to join the family of God and call

this little corner of His Kingdom your living room with

us. And all you have to do is to

believe that the Father in heaven so loved the world that

He sent His Son to die on the cross to forgive your sin and

welcome you into the family of God.

And if you want to join the family of God, you just take

that communion and say, I accept this free gift that your body

and your blood were given to make me part of the family of

God. So if you're a long time member,

celebrate, remember that this is not just, you know, a your name

is stamped in heaven, which it is.

But God has got you set aside in His family to show the world

what a family looks like.