Family of God No.3 Within the Family Circle

My Savior, living in me from day to day, By His power and power controlling, All I do and say. May love enrich me in my heart, So that all days may I triumph, Only through His power. May all deeds of God my Father, Prove my life in everything, That I may become to comfort, Sick and sorrowing.

May the love of Jesus fill me As the waters fill the sea, May my soul, in self-pervading, Fix its victory. May our faith seep for me Strong and brave to face the foe, Loving only unto Jesus as my own. May His beauty rest upon me As I seek the lost to win, And may they forget the chamber Seeming only in me.

Let's read from Psalm 148. And from the 7th verse. If you have the NIV version of the Bible, read it with me, will you? Verse 7, Psalm 148.

Praise the Lord from the earth, You great sea creatures, And all ocean depths, Lightning and hail, Snow and clouds, Stormy winds that do His bidding, You mountains and all hills, Fruit trees and all cedars, Wild animals and all cattle, Small creatures and flying birds, Kings of the earth and all nations, You princes and all rulers on earth, Young men and maidens, Old men and children, Let them praise the name of the Lord, For His name alone is exalted, His splendor is above the earth and the heavens, He has raised up for His people a horn, The praise of all His saints of Israel, The people close to His heart, Praise the Lord. And there's a piece of praise that involves you, because you have been made, as I shall be reminding you, in a moment or two, you've been made part of the company of folk who can be described as the people of God. Let's ask the people of God to sing His praise again, and let's turn in our songs of fellowship to God of glory.

We exalt Your name. It's 1-3-6 if you can't see the overheads, and let's lift up our anthem again to our Lord God. God of glory, we exalt Your name.

Stand and sing. God of glory, we exalt Your name. You who reign majesty, We lift our hearts to You, Praise and magnify Your holy name.

God of glory, we exalt Your name. Your word is mighty, In peace encountered, Your love is gracious, You're my God. Father God, I wonder how I managed To exist without the knowledge Of Your parents' good And Your loving care.

But now I am Your son, I am adopted in Your family, And I can never be alone. So Father God, Your word is mighty, I will sing Your praises, I will sing Your praises, I will sing Your praises forevermore. I will sing Your praises, I will sing Your praises, I will sing Your praises forevermore.

And it's good to be back here amongst you, after what seems to be an awful long time, though it wasn't terribly long as far as the calendar was concerned, but I covered quite a few miles in the United States of America the first time I'd been. I had my prejudices removed in terms of certain things that I thought in regard to evangelicalism there. I was told that it was 3,000 miles wide and quarter of an inch deep, but actually I came across some very, very great men and women of God, and was especially glad to be at a remarkable congress on the inerrancy of Scripture in Washington, a congress which I think in God's grace has affected my life quite deeply.

So I was glad to have an opportunity, the first time I'd been to America, of spending time with brothers and sisters across there, and I bring greetings particularly from churches in California. I went on a tour de force of churches, described by William Ring as a church binge tour. William always has the right expression.

I went to three different churches the other Sunday in Los Angeles, very much a variety in terms of emphasis and attitudes and approaches to worship, but not one of them with a congregation less than 2,000 people, and not one of them that only met once on a Sunday morning. So in other words, you've got two lots of 2,000 going up to 3,000 people coming along to these three churches on a Sunday, and some of them, and this is quite unusual in America, some of them actually meeting on a Sunday evening. Now one of the things the Americans can't generally do, with some exceptions, is to get people to come out on Lord's Day evening, and I think some of the men feel very, very convicted about that, and it's a tendency, alas, that's coming through into the United Kingdom as well, and I would encourage you here at the tab, where you can, without becoming legalistic, but where you can, to be present in the Lord's House for the evening sacrifice as well as the morning, out to listen and to praise and worship the Lord God, our Heavenly Father.

So I've been glad to be away, also glad to be back. You'll have gathered in notes and news that I sustained a car smash. I wasn't driving in just south of San Francisco.

I really thought I was going to heaven at that particular point. I was looking forward to that, but I would like to have, you know, had a few more years down here, at least to have said goodbye to my wife, but I was gone in good company. The driver was one of the leading Bible teachers in the United States of America, so we'd have gone as an international representation of the old country and the new, but that wasn't to be.

How it was that we missed a fatal accident, I really just do not know. A matter of just a split second, the car that was coming straight towards us hit the tail end of the car and sent us into a spin in more ways than one. And I thought, you know, well, that's it.

I'm safe now. And then three days later, two earthquakes in Los Angeles. So I arrived back in the United Kingdom thinking, I'm safe now.

Bless my soul. Well, the rest you know. So I was saying to friends earlier this morning, I think the Lord is trying to tell me something, maybe about the fragility of life.

Let's turn to a verse of Scripture I want to share to you again on the concept of the family of God. Let's go back to that lovely verse of the Apostle Paul's writing to the church at Ephesus when he tells us in his prayer, in the third chapter and the 14th verse, For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. And let's go back to Psalm 66 where there's another precious verse which was impressed upon me in my readings while I've been away.

Psalm 66 and verse 8, where we read of the Lord, I've got the wrong verse there. Psalm 68, thank you. And verse 5, Our Lord is a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling, God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Well, you will see how those two verses of Scripture bring together the concept of God as our heavenly father and you and me as children of God, therefore brothers and sisters who should be relating together in ever deepening friendship and association and this brings honor and glory to our father. We have an expression, do we not, like father, like son. There are certain characteristics, probably facially about you that resembles one or other or maybe both of your parents.

If God is our heavenly father, then there must be characteristics about us, surely, that resemble him. We pick up his reflection in some way. Now the Bible makes it very clear that God, our heavenly father, is interested in community.

That's the reason why he made man, wasn't it? You find in that lovely setting, the beginning of the world described in Genesis 1 through to 3, God coming down in the cool of the day and having fellowship with Adam. You later on in still an early chapter of Scripture find Moses talking to the Lord and receiving conversation from the father and the father speaks to Moses as a man speaks to his friend. And then you go through into the New Testament to the same thought is sustained, here is our Lord Jesus, the disciples are in front of him and he says, No longer, fellows, do I call you servants, douloi, slaves.

I call you friends. Why? Well, because a servant, a doulos, doesn't know what his master does. But I have revealed to you the very secrets of the father heart of God.

That therefore raises you from the position of servants, slaves, to that of sons and daughters. The Lord Jesus makes it very plain. That not only do we therefore relate to one another, or rather not only do we relate to the heavenly father but we relate to one another as those who are precious in the sight of God.

You know, you can put an imbalance in your understanding of the doctrine of man as you deduce it from Scripture. It is true that man is sold under sin. It is true that man can be described in some categories and for some reasons as a worm.

There is that which is worm-like about man in his sin. But that's only one side of the doctrine. The other side of the doctrine of man in Scripture elevates our understanding of man and lifts him almost to the highest pedestal of all.

The Mormons utterly misunderstand the text in Psalms which refers to men and women as gods. Small g. But there is that which is God-like about you and me. In the whole evolutionary hypothesis, it seems to me that the basic argument falls on the rocks on this basis.

That there is an infinite distinction between the highest animal and man. There is that about you which is unique, which differentiates you from any other species in the animal kingdom. Theologically explained, the stamp of God is upon you.

You have great value in God's sight. He made you in his image. Mother Teresa is certainly right in this aspect of her mystical theology when she goes on the streets of Calcutta with her valiant nuns late at night rescuing, bringing in dying Indians to her sanctuary.

She's right in believing that they have value. Every man, every woman has value in the sight of the God who made them so that he might fellowship with them. The old habit, and I'm sorry that some of the old customs go, was a good one.

When men sometimes wearing caps or hats walked down the street and a funeral cortege went by and they would bear their head as a mark of respect for the person who had died, it is good to have respect for ordinary men and women. For ordinary men and women were made by the creator. In his image they have value to the extent that he longs for fellowship with them.

There is a high doctrine of man which is adumbrated, it is argued for, that is set out clearly in scripture. Now having said that, have you appreciated this? That when we read the Apostles' Creed, and I make no apology for getting us to read the Apostles' Creed, I know we're not Church of England, but the Apostles' Creed predated the Church of England. I'd like you to know that, and I've got no argument with the Church of England in this area or in many other areas actually, but in reading the Creed we say, I believe in the communion of saints.

What does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean a holy club of the world's most sanctified people all coming together in a high-powered conference. The communion of saints is when you and I as brothers and sisters relate one to the other. In other words, it's the family of God coming together and enjoying fellowship.

Do you know how the Bible describes you and me? Well, it uses some of the most remarkable language. It doesn't give this designation, alas, to every son of Adam. It gives it to a specialized people.

What term am I referring to? Well, turn, will you, to Exodus chapter 6. And here is Moses speaking on behalf of God to the Hebrew people. It's one of the earliest books of the Bible, the first five books being written largely by Moses, part of God's revelation to him. And this is what the Lord had to say to Moses' contemporaries, that is, in the day when Moses was actually ministering.

Exodus 6, 6, Therefore say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. Now here's the punchline, verse 7. I will take you as my own people.

The NIV there strengthens the AV's rendering. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. That's how the Lord describes you at the beginning of his book.

My own people. Now let's go to the last book of the Bible, and you'll see how the same thought is clearly sustained and developed. We go to the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation.

John on Patmos has a vision, and this is part of what God shows him. Chapter 21, Revelation. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

One of the most wonderful things in the Bible is this. It teaches that those who follow the ways of God in the Old Testament and set forth in the New Testament are the people of God. Listen to David Watson.

From beginning to end, the Bible reveals that one of God's greatest desires is that human beings, insignificant as we are, might enter into such relationship with him that he might call us his people. Now, if you are part of the people of God, and if God longs for your company, as Scripture emphasizes he does, then the conclusion is this, that within the people of God, there is a relationship. There are possibilities of experience, of interest, of knowledge, of showing affection, which is greater than in any other category you might find within the human race.

The people of God, who have God as their father, are blessed indeed in the subsidiary relationships that are there as brothers and sisters. So, we are the people of God. That's what the Scripture makes very plain.

Let's just turn to one or two more verses which will even nail the point and the honor further. Psalm 144. Psalm 144 and verse 15.

Blessed are the people of whom this is true. Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. Those of you who've got the NIV and have been quickly enough with your nimble fingers to have found it, repeat it with me.

Blessed are the people of whom this is true. Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. And when you continue to the next psalm, or rather to, yes, to Psalm 149, not quite the next psalm, Psalm 149 and verse 4 you read, For the Lord takes delight in his people.

He crowns the humble with salvation. And in the psalm that we read together earlier, verse 14 of Psalm 148, He has raised up for his people a horn, the praise of all his nations of Israel, the people close to his heart. So you see what we've discovered thus far.

Let me emphasize so you've got the point. God made man in his own image. You are unique.

Unique against all the other animals in the animal kingdom. But you're even more specially unique if one dares stretch the English language to try and make a point which is really unmakeable at the logical level. There is even a greater speciality about you.

If not only being human, you have committed your life to Jesus Christ. You become part of the people of God, people who are close to his heart. Now that brings to the Lord God not only great pleasure, but if I can speak almost tremblingly of him, it brings him to a great risk.

What do I mean? Do you have someone who's close to your heart? Well, you say, yes, I'm a married person or I've got a very dear friend. I've got children. Now it's nice, isn't it, to have that sort of close, intimate relationship.

But intimacy brings its own risk, doesn't it? The people who give you most pleasure can often bring you the most pain. You see, you wouldn't really be bothered about how ordinary people react, at least not with the same degree that you're bothered about the people who are close to you, how they react. You parents know this more than I do.

The children who you love, the children who in one sense were the idol of your life can bring you the greatest pain and the greatest heartache. You don't stop loving them because of that. You probably love them even more as a result.

But nonetheless, the truth is that where there is intimacy, there is the problem of the possibility of pain. Now so it is with Father God. He makes Adam, and he's pained by Adam.

There is no greater demonstration or illustration of this in the whole of the Old Testament than the book of Hosea, which it seems to me is comparable with the Gospel of John. Hosea teaches on the mercy of God. John teaches on the love of God.

But do you know how Hosea learned his lesson? Do you remember? He's a married man, and his wife plays fast and loose. Promiscuity is not a child of the 20th century. It is as old as man.

Goma goes off into the wilderness, and she leaves the clergymen almost desperate, the family reputation thrown to the wind. They're just fodder for the gossip market as they're discovering in America with one of the leaders there having publicly been disgraced as a result of infidelity. Now here is Hosea.

His copy book is clean, but his wife is estranged, and he had some ideas of the affair, even in the very conceiving and the giving birth to the three children that were theirs. And ultimately, she's distanced from him. But Hosea still has the capacity to love his wife, prostitute though she be, in the slave market though she becomes.

And Hosea has this great revelation given to him. You see, you're never a greater theologian than when your theology is borne out of your experience. This is why people will listen to someone who can speak from life as it is, rather than from some academic in an ivory tower.

And Pastor Hosea was a great man of God for his people in his day. He learned of God through his own experience. Hosea, as these daughters, sons of yours, as you've questioned their parentage, as you have questioned the fidelity of your wife, so I question the fidelity of Israel.

And you move into the 11th chapter of the prophecy of Hosea. And you read, There are the pained, God. How shall I give you up, Ephraim? How shall I give you up, Israel? You see, there is God.

Pain. Intimacy brings its pain. It's the people of God.

It's within the family circle that the pain has come. Have you ever thought of God in pain? No? Then when did you last read the Gospels? O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathers her chicks. But you were not.

The people of God bringing to the Son of God the greatest of pain. Because you see, within the family circle, it was all wrong. It was all in a mess.

Family circles can be like that, can't they? They're not always tidy. Relationships are not always just as you would want them. Homes are sometimes disheveled.

When Father God looks down upon this church, our relatively small group of people in the center of this coastal resort, is the pain as to the way that his children relate. I'm not assuming a positive answer. It might well be that there's no pain.

I hope before God that there's every reason for him to take delight in his people here. But I put it, too, as a possibility that that may not be the case. That within the family circle, there is that which displeases the Father because of relationships which are skew or responsibilities that are not fleshed out, not lived up to.

So that leads us to a question which I can now bring to you as I develop my subject matter. How do you... How do the people of God please the God of the people? It's an interesting question, isn't it? How do the people of God please the God of the people? How do the children of God please their Heavenly Father? Well, in terms of family relationships, let me suggest at least three lines, and there are many, many others. I'm only giving you here a brief summary of my own convictions.

What about by fostering fellowship? No words of our Lord have been as misunderstood as those in which he is revealed to Peter and the rest of the disciples as being the Son of God, the rock on which the Church is to be built. Now, that's been misunderstood not only in terms of the Protestant-Catholic divide, but even on the Protestant side in terms of what the Church is that has to be built. Now, I illustrate the point.

You go down Montague Street on a Saturday, if you dare stop any one person and ask them what the Church is, and they will tell you of the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, or if they're really informed, they might even refer to the tabernacle, but they'll be describing the building because the Church is very often thought of in terms of a building, in terms of an institution. But when we read of the words about our Lord Jesus that on him the Church is going to be built, it is not a building whatsoever that is in mind. It is a community.

It is an organism. It is a family. The Church means the called-out people of God, if I translate it directly from the Greek language.

Wherever the people of God are gathered together, there is the Son of God, right? That's an amplification of our Lord's promise, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am. Who said anything about a building? You see, sometimes we're so building and organization-orientated and denominationally-minded that we miss out on the simple truths that our Lord came to express, and we import back into Scripture what never existed in the first century, Church buildings and organizations. He was building community.

You know, in one sense I'm very grateful for the monastic movement. You see, it seems to me that the monasteries, they were actually started by my namesake, Saint Anthony, in Egypt. It seemed to me that the monasteries, they were emphasizing but also distorting the truth.

Why did people go into monasteries? Well, they wanted to be different from the rest of the world, and in one sense that was quite right. But it was a withdrawal, withdrawal into a sort of holy huddle, behind closeted walls, although that wasn't always the case. Sometimes the monks could go out from those walls into society, as often they did.

But there were those who were constantly in retreat. But you see, here is, if you like, the positive area of the monastic movement, the positive principle. What were they trying to do? Bringing a community to birth.

So you get the great Benedictine movement, with Saint Benedict's rule of faith. And there were the monks, and they were trying to live out their lives in responsibility to God and to one another. Now I say that that was a good thing.

And there is that of the monastic movement, but at that level, which ought to be incorporated into every Christian community, by fostering fellowship. You see, one of the problems I have with mega-churches is that fellowship is more difficult to sustain. It's hard enough to handle 500 people here at the Tabernacle.

That's why you must have a group structure. You must be splitting down, because you can't relate to 500 people. But you can relate to 20 or 30.

How do the people of God please the God of the people? By fostering fellowship, I answer. By coming together, would be my second point. Hebrews 10.25 tells us about those in the early days who alas neglected the assembling of themselves together.

Listen to this. No new Christian is born into a vacuum. He is delivered into the fellowship of the church.

He is baptized by the one Spirit into the one body of Christ. He joins the society of the saints. The more the day, says Hebrews 10.25, the more the day of return approaches of Christ, the more there is ungodliness manifest in the world, the more you Christians need to stick together.

That's what's being said. But do you assemble together, as you ought to be assembling? Why? Because this is sort of pleasing to the pastor or to the elders. No, not a bit.

It's pleasing to God. How do the people of God please the God of the people? By fostering fellowship. By coming together.

By corporate worship. How is it, brethren, says the Apostle Paul, when you come together, 1 Corinthians 14.25, 1 Corinthians 14.26, each one of you has. There's something that you've got to contribute.

Here's Paul. He's referring to the same sort of context in Ephesians 5. He says, what is it when you come together, you sing one to the other, psalms and spiritual songs. You contribute in worship to each other.

This pleases the God of whom we are the people. Now, I could extend on that point, but I can't, because time is rapidly going along. But these were my headings.

How do the people of God please the God of the people? By fostering fellowship. By corporate worship. By coming together.

Someone has written this. The church of Christ needs servants of all kinds and instruments of every sort. Pen knives as well as swords.

Axes as well as hammers. Chisels as well as saws. Marthers as well as Marys.

Peters as well as Pauls. We come together with value. Value because we're created in the image of God.

Even more value because the blood of Christ has been spilt for you and for me. Now, do you honestly refer to your own brothers and sisters in Christ at that level? Are you relating at that level, or are you an anonymous member of a fairly large club that meets on a Sunday morning in the heart of respectable Hurricane Stricken-worthy? Most buildings were not erected for the glory of God. I know church buildings are reckoned to be such, but that's not exactly the case.

Most buildings that were erected at the turn of the century and in earlier centuries had an aesthetic and a religious objective. It seemed to be a noble designation that they were for the glory of God, but it seems to me that that was a misleading goal. You see, the people of God worshipped not so much in ornate buildings, but in spirit and truth.

That's what Jesus taught, wasn't it? John's Gospel. He's speaking to the woman by Syke as well. She puts up the theological problem.

Where do we worship? Jesus said, well, it's not a question of Zion. It's not a question of Gerizim. It's a question of spirit and truth.

You see, in one sense, I would be almost as bold as to suggest to you that the temple in the Old Testament wasn't necessarily within the direct purposes of God. It came as a suggestion of David. He suggested that a temple be raised to the Lord.

And the temple was functional. It served its purpose. But in one sense, it was only predictive of something greater than the temple, wasn't it? It's the place where the people went to worship, but Jesus taught that ultimately true worship would be offered in spirit and in truth.

Where people are, there is a temple. So the apostle Paul and Peter makes it clear that we are the temple of the living God. You and me.

If that hurricane had taken down this building, the tabernacle would still be here. Not to the eyes of those in Montague Street, but to you and me. Why? Because a hurricane can't smash a relationship.

It can smash a person. It can smash a building. But it can't smash a testimony.

Are you understanding what I'm trying to say? Please smile if you are. It would encourage me. The people of God relate as the children of God towards one another.

Listen to this. The church is never a place, but always a people. Never a fold, but always a flock.

Never a sacred building, but always a believing assembly. The church is you who pray, not where you pray. A structure of brick or marble can no more be a church than your clothes of serge or satin can be you.

There is in this world nothing sacred but man. No sanctuary of man, but the soul. That's phenomenal, isn't it? Nothing sacred in this world but man.

Born in the image of God. No greater sanctuary than the soul. Bring the man with a spiritual soul and place him alongside another man and another woman and another man and another woman.

And build together the whole aggregate of those who would claim to name the name of Christ. And there you've got the church, the people of God. Come together to worship the God of the people.

The God who takes the risks of being hurt by his children squabbling and getting it wrong and not working out relationships as they ought to within the family. This, I believe, is a message for our church just at this moment. Not only to recognize the doctrine of the fatherhood of God, but the doctrine of the familyhood, if you please.

Our brothers and sisters, I'm working it through. Not because the man in the pulpit said it was important, but because with conviction in your soul, you believe that mere church attendance is not a full entry into the Christian faith. I believe in the communion of the saints.

I believe in the family of God. Let's sing. 518.

Thy hand, O God, has guided thy flock from age to age. Verse 4 is superb. Thy mercy will not fail us, nor leave thy work undone.

With thy right hand to help us, the victory shall be won. 518. True faith and peace with all angels ask of thee.

Faith, faith, trust all their teaching in every deed and word. To all our life proclaiming, one church, one faith, one Lord. With thy work undone, the victory shall be won.

This shall be their anthem.