United: Blood

Jesus, help me as I talk.

Lord, I didn't get much sleep last night, but that's normal for me.

I just pray, Lord, that you uh help slow me down a little bit and uh and get me focused on you.

Lord, speak through me.

It's not what I have to say, it's what you have to say this morning.

And I just pray that you would speak to all of us.

I pray that you would you would grow us closer together as a family, that we would be more united, that we would be more together, that we would be focused in the same direction, Father, focused on you.

And I pray this in your name, Jesus, amen.

Well, if it's your very first time at His Hands, my name's Justin, and uh one of the things we're really passionate about here is just diving into Scripture.

We believe that there are things that we can learn through what God has shared in his word that we can never observe on our own.

Never settle for what a person can observe when you can know what only God could reveal.

And so we'd love to just jump into the Bible and read it and study it.

And we know that a lot of us are coming from different places.

Some of you, maybe you grew up in church and you're like, the Bible, it's my favorite book, absolutely, let's do this.

Some of you, it's like, oh, the Bible, that thing, uh, I don't know anything about it.

I'm skeptical.

That's fine.

We just like to say, hey, let's open this up, let's read it, let's see what it has to say, let's wrestle with it, and let's see if maybe there's something there that has the ability to greatly impact and change our lives.

I believe it does.

I've experienced that, but no matter where you're at this morning, just have an open mind and let's see what God, what God has to share with us.

Before we actually do that and jump into what we're gonna study for the next several weeks, I want to ask a question, and it's a rhetorical question, but I think I think most of us will find ourselves having been in this situation before, and it's simply this have you ever accidentally started a really serious debate?

Okay?

In other words, I'm saying, have you ever put your foot in your mouth?

Anyone?

Anyone else ever put your foot in your mouth?

Okay.

You may not believe this, but I am really good at putting my foot in my mouth.

Those of you who don't know me well, you're like, you know, but if you know me well at all, you're like, oh yeah, because I have this problem, some of you may have the same condition.

I don't know if there's a medical term for it or not, but my mouth moves faster than my brain.

It's like it's almost impossible, but somehow words come out before my brain has a chance to really process and think, is that really what you should say?

It's always been like that for me.

And so sometimes I just say things and then I go, oh, that came out a little bit more intensely, or I didn't think of the ramifications, and so I accidentally start a lot of really serious debates because I just I say something.

It happens in the office here from time to time.

So about two years ago, I accidentally started this debate because someone, someone who's on our staff, mentioned uh an activity that they did when they were in high school and they called it a sport.

And then I said, that's not a sport, which is offensive.

I know.

And look, hey, I'm just I'm being honest, okay?

Where we all have our stuff.

Sometimes, sometimes I say things and it's a f I'm sorry.

So I just said, Well, yeah, that's cool, but that's not a sport.

And they were offended, and they're like, it is a sport, and I'm like, it's not a sport.

And what ended up happening was all the other people in the office like chimed in, and it was like a borderline civil war kind of thing, you know?

Like half the room said it is a sport, half the room said that's not a sport, and then this entirely like two-hour-long, very intense discussion broke out over what actually constitutes a sport or not, because you have to draw a line, right?

Like we've we have to draw a line somewhere.

Not all sports are as sporty as others, right?

So so you can have you can have something that's a sport, but is it like a sport sport?

Or is it like a not a sport sport, you know?

And we had this long conversation, then diagrams were drawn on our whiteboards.

I'm serious.

We had we had categories like is it a game?

Is it is it an athletic competition?

Is it a sport?

And it was it was really intense, really, really cool.

You should have been there.

It was a really fun two-hour waste of of a work week.

So um, so so a lot of sports kind of got brought into this.

One of those was bowling, and we had this long debate of like where does bowling fit on the sport spectrum?

Is it a sport sport or is it a not a sports sport?

And so I actually I actually posted this on social media this week, and I found that the answers are divided.

So let me let me just see where we stand.

And I want you guys to be bold and honest.

Don't worry about offending the people around you.

They love you, we're a church, we're a family.

Who would say bowling is a sport?

Who would say bowling is not a sport?

Okay.

Who's offended at the people who just raised their hand because you really like to bowl?

Yeah.

Lee Glydewell, no, I here's the thing, Lee, no one would look you face to face and say bowling's not a sport if you were they're like, okay, hey man, you know, because Lee's a big guy, he's got a big beard, you know, he's like, bowling's a sport.

And you're like, it is now, I believe you.

Very deep voice.

That's good.

So we had to figure out like where's the line, and we started discussing things.

For example, for example, if you can drink alcohol while you play it and it not drastically affect the result, it's not a sport sport, right?

Like if you're watching professional bowling and they're they're in between sets or whatever, like roll, what do they call that?

Bowls?

In between bowls, I don't know, not a bowler.

So in between their bowls, they go and they they like eat pizza and drink a beer, and like you don't see that in football.

You would never see in between downs, Tom Brady go and grab a Budweiser and take a drink and then go back out.

If they did that in football, it would be hysterical by the fourth quarter.

You know, dangerous, but like amazing.

We would all tune in for like fourth quarter football because beer has been added to the game, right?

Gatorade gone, that would, I'm not saying it's a good thing, I'm just saying it would be funny at the very least, right?

So that was one of our criteria.

If you can, if you can like, if you don't have to hydrate your body, if you don't have to be in shape, you know, if you're if you're in a sport where it's like, just really do whatever you want to your body, it doesn't matter, you know?

Is that a sport or is that a a sport sport, a not sport?

It's like we were really divided, and people were upset, people were angry, not as angry, and I'm just gonna go ahead and ask for for can I ask for forgiveness for you guys?

I've been here for 12 years.

I I I was the children's pastor, the youth pastor.

I I've I love you guys very much, and I'm just asking you on the front end to forgive me if we disagree.

Can we do that?

Because we don't have to agree to love each other, correct?

Do we believe because our country right now believes if you don't agree with me, you hate me, which is so stupid.

Um, if we can't, I agree, isn't that dumb?

Like, if you don't agree with me, it means you hate me.

No, no, no, no.

So one day, and guys, some of you, and my mom is included in this, by the way, some of you just need to forgive me because that's an opinion.

I believe it's right, but I also know that it's controversial, okay?

Some of you are gonna go, I don't like him anymore.

A person in our office had a pet dog who died, and said, but you know, they're in heaven.

And then I said, Do you think dogs go to heaven when they die?

And then they were like, Well, yeah.

And I was like, Dogs don't go to heaven when they die.

I know, right?

I know.

I said forgive me on the front end.

I said that.

Alright, now hold on.

Those of you who are like, oh, okay, are you saying some dogs go to hell?

Is that what you're saying?

You know, or you're like, those of you who are like, then then all cats go to hell.

That's what I would respond, right?

Is that what you're saying?

Are you telling me that every dog that has ever lived is going to be in heaven?

Every single, every single dog.

Heaven is just gonna be overrun with chihuahuas everywhere.

You're gonna take a step, you're like, ah, there's all these freaking dogs all over the place.

Are you serious?

Dogs, uh, like we could we could theologically discuss the merit of domesticated animals having a soul, like, that that lives forever, or if we are special as human beings and that God actually breathed his spirit into us and that's what makes us different from all creation, but you know, or we could just believe dogs go to heaven to feel better.

But are we who thinks dogs go to heaven?

Who thinks I'm a horrible person for saying they don't?

Who thinks cats go to hell?

Okay.

Oh, if it's your first time, welcome to his hands.

We discussed the important things here with our church.

So the day I said bowling isn't a sport, the office was a little divided.

The day I said dogs don't go to heaven, oh my goodness.

People cried.

People cried, like legit.

Courtney, who runs our children's area, the grove, she she she almost quit that day, like literally almost quit.

And it's funny I talk about all this because it's it's amazing.

It's amazing to me how easy it is to divide a room of people.

It's so simple to cause division, you know, like it's so easy for me just to say something that's that's honestly ridiculous.

And it it either A doesn't matter, or B, there's no way of even knowing.

There's just no way.

So you can just say anything and you can cause division.

You can you can divide a room in half, no problem whatsoever.

If you don't believe me, walk into your office on Monday, Tuesday, and just say, wherever you work, dogs don't go to heaven.

See what happens.

See what happens.

It's not hard to cause division, it takes no effort whatsoever.

But creating unity, that's a whole different story.

Getting a room full of people to pick sides is the simplest thing in the world.

Getting a whole room of people to come together, to really come together, that's a challenge.

That's a challenge.

For the next few weeks, we're gonna talk about what it means to be united.

We've been going through Ephesians for most of this this last year.

If you're just joining us, Ephesians is a letter in the New Testament written by a man named Paul.

He wrote it to a group of early Christians, and he kind of covers this huge spectrum of topics.

He talks about who Jesus is, and he talks about what it means to follow Jesus personally, and then he talks about what it means to be the church, to be the people who follow Jesus, to live together with one another.

It was a very diverse group of people that began to follow Jesus.

And then he talks about how we should live our lives in response to what Jesus has done.

So we've been kind of going through Ephesians since April.

We're in chapter two.

Um, I'm sorry, but in the next four weeks, we're gonna go through about two chapters because there's this theme that shows up in the middle of chapter two, and it really goes all the way into the middle of chapter four, and that theme is unity.

Jesus dreamed of his people, his followers, his church being completely and totally united.

That was a dream of his.

In fact, in John chapter 17, Jesus is praying right before he's arrested.

John 17 · chapter mention

And one of the things he prays in verse 11, now I am departing from the world, but they are staying in this world, but I'm coming to you.

Holy Father, you've given me your name.

Now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are.

Jesus prays that they will be one just as he is one with the Father, that we would be just as united as Jesus and God the Father are.

He goes on a little bit later in verse 23, and he says, I am in them and you are in me.

May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

Jesus actually says here that the way the world will know that we belong to him, the way the world will know that he's real, that he's who he says he is, is by our unity.

Our ability to come together, to put our differences aside.

Whether we believe bowling is a sport or dogs go to heaven, whether we're Democrats or Republicans, no matter what our racial background is, no matter what our socioeconomic status is, no matter what our opinions are on major hot button issues, that no matter what all of that looks like, that we will be able to set our differences aside and come together.

That that would be the proof to the world that Jesus is from God.

Jesus said once to his disciples, the world will know that you belong to me by the way you love one another.

And I think that's so interesting.

It is so important that we as Jesus followers, and I know not all of us are, but those of us who say I'm a Jesus follower, it's very important that we love the world, that we love everyone, every person.

But Jesus didn't say that the world would know that we belong to him by the way we love everyone.

He actually said that the world would know that we belong to him by the way we love each other.

That there should be an uncommon love that exists between us, that there would be an uncommon unity that we would have together.

Paul once wrote this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10.

1 Corinthians 1:10

I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other.

Let there be no divisions in the church, rather be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.

Does that describe the reputation of the church in America today?

Is that the story of our faith?

Christianity.

All these Christians came together and they've all just gotten along so well for the last 2,000 years.

You know, they say, hey, we might disagree on some doctrinal things here and there.

You you dunk people in water, you sprinkle people with water, but that doesn't really matter, right?

Let's hug it out, let's let's all come together and be united.

No.

No, that's that's not the way the story has gone.

Paul said, let there be no division in the church.

Jesus said, God, give them such perfect unity that the world will look at it and go, wow, that's not normal.

It's the dream of Jesus that we would be unified, that we would be united together.

And if that's something that we want to see happen, if if we want to be people who help Jesus' dream and vision come to fruition, then we have to be uncommonly committed to unity.

So Paul goes on in the first, in the second chapter of Ephesians, he begins to describe what this unity should look like.

And we're going to begin to explore that together because I just want to say this.

I want to be united with you.

I love you guys.

This is my family.

I've been, I'll just be honest with you.

Um, this was a really hard message for me to write this week.

Probably the hardest message that I've I've had in a really long time because this is very challenging to me.

It's challenging to me on a variety of levels.

I've been on staff here for 12 years.

I've been the lead pastor here for the last four and a half years.

I've had three children in those four and a half years.

It's been a very, very busy four and a half years.

And sometimes I get tired.

Sometimes I get burned out.

Sometimes I don't do this, but sometimes I wake up and I go, hmm, if I called Elon and said, Hey, Elan, would you give the message this morning?

She'd probably say yes, because I'm I'm spent.

That's just the truth.

But the reason I would never do that is A, that's not what God's told me to do.

And B, I love you guys.

I love this church.

I love this group of people, and I'm committed to you.

I know that we're committed to one another, but I do believe that there's a unity that's meant to exist in this place that maybe we haven't even seen yet.

I really do.

And I believe it's a unity we haven't seen yet because we don't see it anywhere in the world.

We live in a very divided world.

Our country is so divided right now.

I mean, you just have to watch the news and you see so much division.

And even if you don't believe that we're divided, we're at the very least disconnected.

We're so disconnected.

You know, we all have profiles on social media, or many of us do, and we and we curate the things that we put out there to the world.

And if everyone looks at our pictures, they think, wow, they're a really happy person.

Life's going really well for them.

And in reality, what we often find out is, oh, some massive part of their life is struggling, but I have no idea because I'm not connected to them.

I'm just looking at at pictures of them assuming that everything's okay.

There is supposed to be a unity that exists in this place that is unlike anything we can find in the world.

And the only person who can teach us how to live like that is Jesus.

And I want to live like that.

I want to be more united with you.

I want us to be more united as a church.

I want to see what will happen in our community.

I want to see what will happen in our lives when we really come together.

When the people that sit around us go from being, you know, nameless faces to friends.

I want to see what would happen if we actually looked at it as our responsibility and our our calling to walk up to the people who are here on a Sunday that we sit three feet away from every single week, but we don't know them and just say, Hey, what's your name?

How can I pray for you?

I want to see us become united as a church.

Because that's Jesus' dream.

That's his vision.

God, let them be so united that the world will know that you sent me.

So let's let's be united.

Let's let's learn how to do this.

Jesus is the only one who can teach us.

But do you see the value in this?

Do you see the unique beauty in what Jesus is describing and how how rare it is in the world?

You see it?

There's nothing like it.

Let there be no division in the church.

Cat people, dog people, doesn't matter.

Let's be together.

So, with that said, let's jump into Ephesians chapter 2, verse 11.

Ephesians 2:11

Paul writes, don't forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders.

Gentile just means anyone who's non-Jewish.

You were called uncircumcised heathens by the Jews who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts.

In those days you were living apart from Christ, you were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God made to them.

You lived in this world without God and without hope.

But now you've been united with Christ Jesus.

Once you were far away from God, but now you've been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.

For Christ himself has brought peace to us.

He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when in his own body on the cross he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations.

He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups.

Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.

So what Paul's describing right here is something really interesting.

This phenomenon happened in the early church where the movement of Jesus began with the Jewish people.

The Jewish people were a very separate people.

They didn't really mix with other cultures.

And they were separate on purpose.

And so Jesus was Jewish.

And the movement of Jesus, it was born out of Judaism.

It came through Jerusalem, it came through the Jewish communities, but then it quickly began to spread outside of the Jewish communities, and Gentiles, meaning non-Jewish people, began to follow Jesus.

And that created a huge problem because the men weren't circumcised.

We're really talking about the important things this morning.

But that was actually a huge deal to the Jewish people.

Because the way that they judged whether or not you were someone God was pleased with was simply based on how well you adhered to the rules that God had given.

And even more importantly, were you Jewish or not?

It was really, it was really about that.

Like the Jews and the Gentiles, they didn't get along.

The Gentiles had oppressed the Jews for a very long time.

So it wasn't hard to understand why the Jewish people were hostile toward them, because they had been oppressed and conquered and then conquered again and conquered again and just changed hands.

It had been about 700 years when Jesus came since the Jewish people had had independence as a people group.

At least for more than a few years at a time.

So the Gentiles didn't treat the Jews very well, and the Jews, they were really hostile to the Gentiles.

And so in Jewish culture, there's some really interesting sayings.

For example, it was taught that it was bad to help a Gentile woman give birth.

Because that meant you were bringing another Gentile into the world.

And so if you were a Jewish person, a Jewish doctor, and a Gentile woman was in like labor, it was looked down upon for you to go help her.

Because that meant you were bringing another Gentile into the world.

That's the degree of hostility that existed.

The Jews would teach that the Gentiles were created to be the fuel for the fires of hell.

That's what was taught.

In the temple, for example, you really see this in the temple.

The temple was this place where people went to worship and had all these different zones, right?

Think about like our building, if you've been here for long, we've got the lobby, we've got the coffee shop, we've got the big room, we've got the kids' areas, right?

It had all these different zones.

And in each zone, you had to be a little bit uh better in the eyes of Judaism to advance.

So the outer court, that was called the court of the Gentiles.

Which meant that even if you were a Gentile, a non-Jewish-born person who believed in God, who had faith in God, they didn't look at that and go, man, it doesn't matter where you were born, it doesn't matter what's in your DNA, all that matters is that you have faith in God.

No, no, no, that didn't exist at all.

Basically, it was the opposite.

It doesn't matter if you believe in our God and want to worship him and want to sacrifice to him, which is what they did at the temple, you're a Gentile, you stay on the outside.

Gentiles were not allowed to go any further than the outermost court.

Next was the court of the women, because the men didn't let the women in the inside areas.

That's not how it went in that time.

Even if you were a Jewish woman, you could only go to that place.

Next was the court of the Israelites, then it was the court of the priests.

That meant you had to be from a specific family in the Jewish community, the Levites, and then it was the Holy of Holies where only the high priest could go.

So there was all this division, and the Gentiles were on the absolute outside, and it was taken seriously.

In fact, not that long ago, some archaeologists uncovered an amazing piece of the old temple wall.

And they recovered a piece of the wall that was the wall separating the Gentiles from the rest.

And here was the quote that they found on that wall Let no one of any other nation come within the fence and barrier around the holy place.

Whosoever will be taken doing so will himself.

Be responsible for the fact that his death will ensue.

In other words, if you step foot in here, you die.

You'll be put to death.

That would be like if here at his hands we made a rule that said, redheads can go no further than the lobby.

If you have red hair, stay in the lobby.

And if we find a redheaded person in here, we're killing them.

Right?

That's just what they're doing.

In fact, Paul, who wrote Ephesians, Paul who wrote most of the New Testament, he was imprisoned by the Jewish leaders and then ultimately executed.

And the reason he was arrested and imprisoned was because he was accused of bringing a Gentile further into the temple than he should have.

That was their grounds for arrest.

Paul brought, or allegedly brought, he said he didn't do it, and it was just something they could just say and have him arrested, that he brought a Gentile Christian further into the temple than he should have, past that wall.

And so all that to say in the Jewish community, the only thing that mattered, the only thing that mattered was whether or not you were blood.

Are you blood?

Are you family?

That's all that mattered.

Didn't matter what your character was, didn't matter what your faith was like, didn't matter how generous and kind you were, didn't matter how well you served people around you, it didn't matter how well you reflected God and his kindness and his goodness.

All that mattered was this.

Are you family?

Are you blood?

That's all we care about.

That's all we care about.

Martin Luther King Jr.

said that one day he had a dream that his children would not be judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character.

That we would be looked at not as just people who belong to some group, but that we would become people who are seen as individuals, unique people, with a soul, with a spirit, with a mind, that that's how we would be viewed.

But that didn't exist, that didn't even exist in that culture.

That was such a foreign concept to them.

They had no understanding of that.

It's just simply, are you blood or are you not?

And if you're blood, you're in.

If you're family, you're in.

But if you're not, you're on the outside looking in, and there's nothing that you can do about it.

There's nothing that can change that.

Now, is that unity?

Or is that division?

It's not hard to answer that question.

And we we look at that, and I think it's so easy for us to look at that and be like, that's so horrible, but man, is our culture right now in America moving toward unity or division?

It's moving so rapidly toward division, and there's so many people profiting on it.

What's what most politicians do is they just divide people and try to keep one group of people really happy with them, and the easiest way to get this group of people really happy with you is to make that group of people really mad.

If I can say something that angers them, it makes these other people happy because they are at odds with them, and that's that's how our world is working right now.

That is not the dream of Jesus.

So in the early church, Gentiles are becoming Christians, and the Jewish people who are Christians are like, ah, what do we do with that?

Like, what do we do with that?

Because these people aren't blood, they're not family.

Anyone here who who has family that just if you're don't raise your hand.

This is bad.

Just like, I'll just try to gauge the room based on like some subtle nods.

Like, if that person was not blood, you would never hang out with them.

You know?

Again, don't raise your hand.

I do see some nods though.

You know, sometimes we have people who who they're they're like, I would never hang out with this person, I have nothing in common with them.

They get on my nerves, but we're related.

And so they're at Thanksgiving.

You know?

That's just how it works.

They're blood, their family.

You know, one of the hardest things for me with being someone who worked with kids for a really long time.

Like I was a children's pastor here for a long time.

I love kids, but then I have my own kids.

And once you have your own kids, it's harder to love other people's kids.

It's just the truth.

You know, at least for me, it was like, oh, you're not my child.

Why am I putting up with this?

You know, quit it, stop it.

What are you doing?

Go to your go to your room.

Like, what do you like?

It's like I have to spend so much energy on my children that I have very little patience left for other people's children.

That's what started to happen.

So maybe I shouldn't be a children's pastor.

That was like a a wake-up call.

Maybe that's not my calling.

But there's something about blood, there's something about us just going, man, that's family.

And family, I give grace to.

Family, this is how it should be anyway.

If you're family, you know what?

You can mess up a lot.

You can say a lot of really hurtful things, you can do a lot of really horrible things, but it takes a lot to break the bonds of blood.

Because that's that's that's family.

The Jewish people understood family well, but it was exclusive.

And so then these Gentiles come in, they're getting saved, they're Jesus followers, they're not blood.

And let's go back to Ephesians 2 and let's listen to how Paul describes them.

Go back to verse 11.

He says, Don't forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders.

And he's being literal, like you had to stand on the outside physically.

If you wanted to worship God, you were in the outer court, you were on the outside looking in.

You were called uncircumcised heathens by the Jews who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts.

In those days, you were living apart from Christ.

You had no hope, he says.

You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel.

You didn't know the covenant promises that God had made to them.

You lived in this world without God and without hope.

You were on the outside looking in.

Because you weren't blood.

And then verse 13.

But now you have been united with Christ Jesus.

And this changes everything.

You have been united with Christ Jesus.

Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.

For Christ Himself has brought peace to us.

He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when in his own body on the cross he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

He's actually referring to that wall in the temple.

The wall of hostility.

He's saying it's broken down.

It doesn't exist as far as Jesus is concerned.

He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations.

He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups.

Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.

Translation.

By the blood of Jesus, we're all blood.

By the blood of Jesus, by his sacrifice on the cross, we have been made into one people.

A few months ago, we were partnering with this amazing organization called One Race.

And it's born from this same teaching.

We are one people through Jesus.

One people.

If there's any group of people in the world that you don't like, you're gonna have to reconcile that with the fact that God loves them.

If there's one group of people in the world that you're like, I really have a hard time with that group of people, you're gonna have to come to terms with the fact that God's like, oh, they're like my favorite.

Because Jesus created one new people.

Through the blood of Jesus, we're blood.

This is something that Jesus would often teach, and it was so foreign to the people in that day.

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus' uh brothers and his mother, they came to shut him up because Jesus was causing this big stir, and he's he's like really, really turning the tables on the religious community, and he's rocking the boat big time, and people are mad.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And so Jesus' mom and his brothers, they actually show up to where he's teaching to like take him away.

Like, Jesus, you don't know what you're doing.

You're you're really making people mad, what's going on?

And so these people come up, and uh, here's what it says.

As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother, his brother, and his his his uh let me start over.

Hi, good morning.

I got three hours of sleep.

As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brother stood outside speaking to him, asking to speak to him.

Someone told Jesus, your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they want to speak to you.

Now, picture that you're at work and your mom and your brothers, let's say you have brothers, they come, and someone at your work comes up to you and says, Hey, your mom and your brothers are outside and they'd like to talk to you.

What would you say?

What would you say?

Okay.

That's not what Jesus says.

He goes, Who is my mother?

Who are my brothers?

And then he pointed to his disciples and he said, Look, these are my mother and my brothers.

Anyone who does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother.

Now he's not he's not being rude to his parents here, he's not like disowning his family.

Jesus was not a jerk.

Just always remember that.

Jesus was not a jerk.

But Jesus is saying, Look, if you follow my father, your family.

Your blood.

We are brothers and sisters.

And worshiping you guys can make your way out a little closer.

We're brothers and sisters.

Do we believe that?

Do we really believe that?

When we look around the room, do we see people or do we see family?

Do we see strangers?

Or do we see brothers and sisters?

You are my brothers.

Men, you're my brothers.

I have two brothers.

My oldest brother used to beat me up.

He was eight years older than me.

And I loved him.

I still do.

It's the unique thing about brothers, right?

Like, like any anyone here have a brother?

Okay, like any men have a brother.

I would venture to say that your brother is probably someone who you have physically harmed or attempted to, but in a unique way, like when your brothers, like guys, when you have a brother, you can go in one second from trying to like maim the person to being like partners in crime.

I remember once my little brother and I got in a huge fight.

I have a younger brother as well, and I pushed him really hard into a door, and the door flung backwards and it knocked a hole in the wall behind it.

Like the doorknob went through the wall.

And instantly our fight stopped, and we're like, okay, how are we gonna keep this from mom?

Like, all of a sudden, no hostility.

It's like, okay, we're brothers.

Like, we're gonna go down together or we're gonna deceive mom.

Those are our options.

And our solution was just to keep the door open forever.

And we did for two years.

Then one day, mom shut that door because we were moving, and she's like, when did this hole get here?

And we're like, what?

A hole?

That's weird.

You know, one time, I wasn't planning on sharing this, but one time I was, I'm six years older than my little brother, and I can say honestly, with total honesty, yes, I pushed him a few times.

I never punched him.

He was six years younger than me.

I never actually punched him growing up until he was 12.

He was 12, I was 18, and he hit me in the face.

And a lady just went, oh, like brothers.

Like all the guys are like, yeah, that happens, you know?

And for the first time in my life, I was like, well, he's old enough now.

And so I just lit into him.

And I like, I mean, I punched him on his side like probably 10 times, really hard.

And the next morning, he was super bruised all the way down.

Like, I mean, I lit into him.

Uh I'm I'm sorry, by the way.

Now I'm realizing that you know, I don't think dogs are going to heaven, I don't think bowling's a sport, and I beat up.

I'm like, I'm a really bad person, but I'm your pastor.

So um, you gotta deal with that.

So he comes down the stairs the next morning, and all this is bruised, and my mom goes, Aaron, what happened?

And he went, I fell.

Because brothers, that's what brothers do.

It's weird, like in one moment you're fighting, and the next moment you're covering for each other.

You know, I've got I've got a sister, an older sister, and uh, and I love her.

And I I have a daughter, and she's one girl with three brothers.

Pray for her.

To be honest, pray for them.

And I watch the bond that exists between her and her brothers, and it's really special.

It's really special.

I guess this morning I just want to reiterate this.

You are my brothers and my sisters, and I love you guys, and I consider this my family.

So much so that if something ever happened to me, I'm not really worried about it because I know that my wife and my kids will be taken care of by their family.

And if you've been part of this church for long, we've been through some things.

You know, we've had ups, we've had downs, we've had interesting seasons, but this is family.

And I just want to pray and I want to ask God that we would really live that way, that we would really live that way.

Because I don't want to view myself as your pastor and you're the attendees or the members of an organization.

This is a family.

It's okay to drop things in a family.

I just want us to love each other because that's what Jesus wanted.

And so we'll pray, we'll wrap this up.

But if you're here, you're family.

And if you look around this room, those aren't just people that live in this community, those are your brothers and your sisters.

We gotta start treating each other like that.

That's why it's so important that we pray for each other.

We started this with our last series, our prayer series.

If you haven't done this yet, download the app, the His Hands app, and then use that to start praying for each other because we gotta pray for each other.

We've got to come alongside each other.

Life is not easy, and all of us have issues, and you don't have to keep that from these people.

This is the one place where you can come and say, hey, I don't know what's going on right now, I don't know what to do, and you will be surrounded and encouraged with love, like genuine love.

Not because it's our job, but because you're blood.

By the blood of Jesus, you have been made blood.

You have been made family.

And it's time for us as a church to say, you know what, Jesus, we're gonna live the way you asked us to.

We're gonna be the people you asked us to be.

We wanna see your dream come true, Jesus.

Your dream of us being just as united as you and the Father are.

Let's go for it.

Let's love each other, let's like really love each other.

Let's let's go for it.

When we show up on a Sunday morning and we we look for a seat, let's not look for the empty row.

Like, let's not be the people who go, ooh, there's a lot of people over there, so I will sit over here.

Because we're brothers and sisters, we're not distant cousins, we're brothers and we're sisters.

We gotta live that way.

By the blood of Jesus, you have been made blood.

So enjoy that.

Enjoy that, live like that, take advantage of that.

I guess that's what I'm saying.

Pray with me, Jesus.

Thank you so much for this amazing group of people, for this family.

I wanna thank you personally, Lord, for the brothers and sisters that I have in this place because I need them.

We need each other.

This group of people has amazing, an amazing variety of gifts and abilities and talents and resources, Lord.

And we have this opportunity to come together and unite together and share what you've given us and share the ideas and share all the knowledge and the wisdom and the passion, God, and the ability, we can come together and make something really special happen.

But only when we come together, only when we're united.

So I pray, Jesus, as we discuss this over the next few weeks, as we dive into your word, as we keep going through what you inspired Paul to write in Ephesians, that we would become more united as a church, as a family than we've ever experienced before.

I pray, Lord, that you fill us with a love for one another because that's what you wanted, Jesus.

You said that the world would know we belong to you by the way we love one another.

So, God, let us love one another.

Lord, help us love one another.

Help us truly believe that we are brothers and sisters, that we are here for each other, that we support each other, that we set our differences aside, that we come together, God.

We will not be a group of people easily divided.

We will not allow the divisions in this world to affect us here.

We will not allow, Lord, the political divisions to affect us, we will not allow, Lord, the racial divisions to affect us, the economic divisions to affect us, God.

Here we are brothers and sisters always.

Help us see each other as nothing less than brothers and sisters in Christ.

We love you, Jesus.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.