Father, we just say that You are faithful and You are merciful and Your mercies are new every morning. Just as we sing, Father, Your mercies are 10,000 more than we even know and realize. Thank You. Thank You for Your undeserved love. Thank You for unmerited grace. Thank You for the shed blood of Your perfect Son, Jesus. We just pray our hearts and our minds would be Yours in this time and that Your Spirit would move freely to wield the sword to cut us deep, to expose where we need still to be transformed into the image of Christ. We just pray You would change us.

We pray You would take our tithe, our offering, Lord, all we have, and You would multiply it for Your name’s sake. We pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thank you guys for leading us this morning. I appreciate how much time they put in to do that. Just to get here early and work through those songs every week. It’s a huge blessing for us as a church and all that goes into

just leading us on Sundays. So thank you. And thank you to Richard and Jordan for always doing the tech stuff for us. So it’s a blessing. Things you don’t see that matter. So thank you guys.

We’re going to be in Matthew 12, verses 46-50. Matthew 12,

verses 46-50. Matthew 12, verses 46-50.

And Matthew writes, While he was still speaking to the people,

behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside asking to speak to him.

But he replied to the man who told him, Who is my mother? And who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of the Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Andrew Peterson is a folk song writer. He writes a lot of songs, just stories from the Bible. I’ve always liked him. He has an older song that says this. It’s called, Family Runners. It says, I’m a family man. I traded in my Mustang for a minivan. This is not what I was headed for when I began. This was not my plan. I’m a family man. I’m saving my vacation time for Disneyland. This is not what I was headed for when I began. This was not my plan. It’s so much better than I am a family man. And I think there’s just a sweet truth in that. No one really, as a young, person thinks, I just can’t wait to be a family man. You know, you’re just not thinking that. It’s something that you kind of come into and you realize the blessing of it. But it’s not a surprise or a secret. And, you know, it’s very common knowledge that people are growing up, unfortunately, slower. Young people want to stretch out youth as much as they can. I want to have as much fun as I can. I want my 20s to go on through my 30s and 40s. People are getting married much later in life. Having fewer children. If children at all. And I think it’s due to gross, honestly, individualism of our time. We’ve lost the virtue of selflessness. And how can I serve others? How can I live with the betterment of others? And it’s not just true in society. I’m afraid it’s very much so true in the church. In the church. Do we value what it means to be a part of God’s family? Or do we look much more like 20-somethings who think it’s all about me and my life and we’re not thinking about what it means to be a part of the family of God? That’s what Jesus is talking about. The great value and privilege of family life in the kingdom. Family life in the kingdom.

Verse 46. While He was still speaking to the people, behold, His mother and His brothers stood outside asking to speak to Him. But He replied to the man who told Him, Who is My mother and who are My brothers? And stretching out His hand towards His disciples, He said, Here are My mother and My brothers. So what did His mother Mary and His brothers want from Him? We don’t know exactly. We know from Mark’s gospel that they thought He was crazy and out of His mind they tried to seize Him. We know from John’s gospel that His brothers were crazy and out of His mind that His brothers did not believe Him, believe in Him. So were they embarrassed? Oh, what is Jesus doing drawing these crap? What is Jesus doing? Were they too concerned for His health and they just wanted to pull Him away from all this? Remember when He was a kid,

His earthly father Joseph and His mother, they came back and found Him in the temple. He didn’t go home with them. They said, what are you doing? Why didn’t you go with us? And He said, don’t you know I have priorities. I have the priority of my heavenly Father. So this becomes for Jesus an open door before His blood family, His disciples, to expose the priority of family. But not blood family, as important as that is, but family according to the Spirit. Family in the kingdom. Now let it be said, the Scriptures are very clear. You and I as Christians are responsible for honoring, obeying our mothers and fathers, fathers and fathers, mothers are commanded to take care of their children, to raise them up to know the Lord. Paul says if you don’t take care of your blood family, you’re worse than an unbeliever. So what Jesus is not getting at then is you should, if you’re a Christian, wholesale forget about your blood family, write them off, and they’re replaced entirely with this new kind of family that Jesus is putting together. That’s not what’s being said. What Jesus is saying though is this, this new kind of spiritual family He’s putting together, it takes a priority above and beyond loyalty to blood family. It takes a priority above and beyond your loyalty, in fact, to anyone. So He’s not degrading His mother and brothers. He’s elevating the significance of prioritizing family life in the kingdom. That’s what He’s doing. So He reaches out His hand and He says,

here’s my mother, here’s my brothers, points to His ragtag team of disciples, perhaps many more disciples that had given up their lives to commit themselves to Jesus’ life ministry.

He says, here they are. He doesn’t say that because of who they are and what they do. He says that because of who He is uniquely and what He will do. I want us to see this morning that you and I as His disciples, we live family life together with Jesus because one, we have freely received, we have freely received it from Him. You and I live family life with Jesus because we have freely received it from Him. Have you ever heard of an infant choosing the womb they grow inside of? Have you ever heard of a baby perusing a book of family profiles wondering, in what family will I have the most success in life? What family am I going to fit into the best? You don’t hear about that. That’s why we call life a gift, don’t we? David says, God knit me together in my mother’s womb. It’s God that puts babies in families. And when babies are born, what are they? They’re gifts to the family. They’re loved family members as equal as anyone else in the family. So Jesus looks on His disciples the very same way. They did not choose Him. And Jesus says that. He says, you didn’t choose me. I chose you. He said to them, come, follow me. He came to them. And He does so, church, because of who He is and what He will do. Jesus will defeat Satan. Jesus will die for our sin. Jesus will make a way for all those who are ruined by sin back into the arms of the Father. Jesus will renew us. Jesus will make us clean and new as babes. In Jesus alone are we made new again. And so, brought into the family of God. Paul says in Romans 6, verse 4, we were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in what?

Newness of life. It’s a new life we’ve been given. And you know, our newness as Christians, it’s nothing we’ve produced. It’s nothing that we can pay for or labor for, much like a new life. It’s not a new born baby. It’s a free gift. It’s a gift from the Father. It’s a gift from the Son. And it’s generously applied by the Spirit so that you and I could have a share in the new resurrected life of Jesus that we too are considered new in Christ Jesus.

Adam brought ruin on the human race. But Jesus, the better Adam, He brings renewal. He brings redemption to those who would freely receive it. He gives it to us freely.

Have you ever heard of a mother saying to a baby on the day she delivers, now look,

that was a long and hard nine months. And I don’t even want to tell you how hard labor and delivery was. And think about all the money I’m going to have to spend on you when you grow up. You’re going to outgrow your shoes every two weeks. I mean, come on. I’m going to have to feed you. I’m going to take you to the doctor. You’re going to disappoint me sometimes. You’re going to fail sometimes. You better start thinking about how you’re going to repay.

Of course, there shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be. Right? Because what’s normal is that love is innate between mother, father, and child. It’s innate. It’s innate. And so understand this. The blood of Jesus has so brought us. into His own perfect, pure life that we are eternally and forever bound to the love of the Father. The Father owning us is His very own children. United in Christ, we are in the family. We’ve freely received it. But I want to point out to you, secondly, this, not only have we freely received this new life in Christ, this new life, it’s an indestructible life. It’s an indestructible life. In Matthew chapter 28

speaks of the two Marys. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell His disciples. And behold, Jesus, this is the resurrected Jesus, He met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshipped Him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers

to go to Galilee. And there they will see Me. Isn’t that interesting? Jesus could have said disciples, servants. He could have said a lot of things. But what does Jesus say about those men who just betrayed Him and deserted Him? Isn’t that interesting? Jesus says, Hey, all those guys that think they failed Me and ran out on Me, go tell my brothers to go to Galilee. I want to see my brothers.

Church, our Christian lives in Jesus, they’re not based, they’re not based on who we are or what we can do. It’s based on who Jesus is and what Jesus has accomplished. You know, that truth so often evades us. We sin and we think, Oh, that failure. Surely God’s done with me this time. Oh, how Satan, he buffets me with more trials. Surely I’m lost to God this time. But hold on a second.

We are not we. Because we died with Christ. And we were resurrected to new life according to Jesus’ new life, not ours. The good news of the gospel is not that Jesus dusts us off and says, Okay, I died for your sin. You get a brand new fresh start. Try not to mess it up like Adam. Because if that was the case, you know what? I’d be messing it up real quick. And so would you. That’s not the good news of the gospel. The good news of the gospel is when I place faith in Jesus as my Savior, I am identified with His new life. And you know, His new life, it was resurrected over Satan, and over sin, and over failures, and over opposition. He is a perpetual victor. So being identified with Christ, you know what that makes you and I? It makes us perpetually victorious in Christ too. And it cannot be changed. We are a part of Christ’s new indestructible life. Earthly families fall apart. They divide. They end up hating one another. But Jesus’ family will go on indestructibly because Jesus is always victorious.

Third, I want to say to you that this new life we have in Christ, it is eternal life. It’s eternal.

You know, it’s good to be a father. It’s good to be a mother. It’s good to be in a family where you have love. You know, Thanksgiving’s coming up. Hopefully you’re looking forward to that, you know, with extended family. I mean, that’s good. But even the best of families, they fade. They dissolve, don’t they? None of us can go on in the state we’re in forever. The ground, it takes us, doesn’t it? We have to bury one another. Death has its way with us. Funerals are miserable things. But there’s this ray of hope in death. There’s this ray of hope. And it is the eternality of Jesus’ family. It’s the eternality of Jesus’ family because it’s based on the eternality of Jesus’ life. Jesus will go on forever. So having been united to Him, we will go on forever.

Titus chapter 3, Paul says, So that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope. What’s our hope? It is eternal life. There’s hope in Christ, not just of life new and life indestructible, but life that doesn’t expire. Jesus will go on forever in newness. So you and I will too if we’re united with His life. So I want you to see, Jesus is not belittling Mother Mary and His brothers. He’s stirring up the wonder in us to what it means to be a part of this precious new kingdom family and how it deserves our all.

John Newton once said, When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there. The first wonder will be to see many people there whom I did not expect to see. The second wonder will be to miss many people who I did expect to see. And the third and greatest wonder of all will be to find myself there.

You know, I think, you know, I always want to erase it, like what’s the good application here? What’s the good application here? I think the good application here is just to cherish it. Because when I cherish the free grace of God that makes me a family member and that can’t be taken away, it stirs me up to worship and it stirs me up to wonder. When Jesus said to Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, you come down from that tree, I’m going to your house, the Scriptures say, Zacchaeus received Christ joyfully. He received Him gladly. And that’s the great danger, I want to say to you, in assuming the Gospel. Assuming the Gospel. Of course I’m saved. I grew up in the church. It’s not your right. You know, that’s why rich kids are off-putting. We say that’s a denigrating rich kid. Not because money’s wrong, you have a problem with someone else having money. It’s generally the tone of entitlement that comes on with that life, right? When you’re very wealthy, you expect things as your right. But friends, I don’t care how long we’ve been Christians, and I think the danger is more present as we press on in the Christian faith. There’s that danger to assume the Gospel as my right. It’s not my right. It’s a free gift that God’s given us. And I want to wake up, I want the Spirit to wake up, and I want to live in the wonder of being called a child of God. I want to wake up the wonder of what it means to be called a brother to Christ. I want to wake up the wonder of what it means to be in the family of God with the church.

But also, I want to say, when we cherish what it means to be in the family of God, this new life, it gives us all that we need to look past now. Look past the suffering of now. Look past my sin struggles of the now. Look past the evils of my time. The diseases that affect so many I love. The crooked politics that wreck my country. Hope in this new, eternal, indestructible life. It keeps me going in obedience. It keeps me going in joy to what will be what will be. Because it is mine in Christ Jesus.

Do you have that kind of hope of this new life? It will be so much sweeter when I get there, but do you live like it’s true now? Do you cherish the truth of the Gospel now? Does it stir you up to worship and wonder now?

In verse 50, Jesus goes on to say, For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven, is My brother and sister and mother.

So salvation, being adopted into the family of God’s gift, we freely receive what God has done on our behalf. So how then can Jesus say, do? Quote, unquote, do. Okay, now you’ve got to do. I thought it was a gift we freely received, so it seems like Jesus is contradicting Himself. I mean, He says elsewhere, the work for you to do is to believe. So how can it be so? I have freely received my salvation, and at the same time, God says, you must do the will of the Father to be counted among God’s family.

The conundrum’s easily solved. It’s not really one.

It’s solved when you and I have a working biblical knowledge of faith, and not faith generic, like, I have faith that you’re going to pull through. I have faith in this person. Not that kind of faith. We’re talking about efficacious saving faith. That’s what we’re talking about. Saving faith is not simply something I believe about God. Saving faith is not me trusting in God alone. Saving faith, when I do trust and believe in Christ, it’s what God’s Spirit is doing in me. Saving faith is the means by which God comes into me and rearranges me and gives me the power to go on. In Romans 6, verse 17, Paul says, But thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin.

Now, he says,

you’ve become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching.

Faith in God is that conduit by which I’m joined to Christ, Christ is joined to me, and I become and I am transformed into something I was not before. Thus, I have the power to obey in a way I never had that power before. So understand something. Obedience does not save us, but because we have been freely saved, we have been transformed into obedient people. It is what we do because it is who we have become in Christ Jesus. I was disobedient, but the Spirit now makes me desire to be and gives me the power to be obedient. I was unholy, but now I love holiness. I was a lover of sin, but now I’m a lover of God. This is the work of God in us when we believe.

If it be so, obedience is not how I’m saved. That’s a silly thought. It is the inevitable outworking of a life freely saved by Christ.

Grant Osborn says, God faithfully performs His work of kindness in bringing us into the family and protecting us securely with His power, but we must continue to persevere in His kindness. So church, if the wonder has been awoken about this God that’s freely loved sinners, if it’s really so in us, I will want to cherish and protect the gift. I will want to keep on in faith. We could say, rightly then, faith is the first act of obedience in response to the gospel. You know, because the gospel is not a suggestion. Would you like to be saved? It’s a command. Peter stood up in Pentecost. He said, repent.

Believe the gospel. It’s a choice to obey God or not obey God. That’s what faith is. Faith is our first step of obedience going deeper and becoming like Christ.

I knew someone who, they had brought a

much older teenager into their home. It was kind of a foster looking towards adoption situation.

And this older teenage boy, he was grateful to be in the home. You know, he even called his foster parents mom and dad.

But he didn’t want to obey the family rules. He wanted still to do things his way. So he wanted the blessing of being called a family member. But he didn’t want to believe that. He wanted to be a family member. See the difference there? And it was heartbreaking for this family to have to remove them from their home. It’s the very same thing, friends. You and I can call ourselves family members all day long. The question is, do we have the heart of a family member of the kingdom? Because that heart will move us to want to live according to the rules of the family, if you will. According to the will of the Father.

And I want to just make a side note. I’m not talking about failure. I don’t want anyone to think, man, I have failed the Lord. I’ve sinned. I’m not a family member. No, God’s gracious and He loves His children, even in their failures. We’re talking about a heart that doesn’t desire obedience. And obedience is tough sometimes. Obedience sometimes is difficult. But when we love God, when we love His gospel, I want to press on in obedience. I want to do that for God. And to switch gears for a second, you know, sometimes you hear people say, what’s God’s will for my life? You ever heard somebody say that? And it’s like it’s this big mystery. And man, God’s got this secret pathway and He’s trying to hide it from you. And it’s like, what is God’s will for my life? And it’s like, God’s will for your life, it’s really simple. It’s to trust in His Son and live an obedient life.

Life is not always this big, exciting adventure. Does God sometimes allow us to go on big, exciting adventures for Him? Yeah. I mean, maybe God’s going to call you to the Himalayas someday. You know, I don’t think He’s going to be trying to hide that. It’s going to be like, hey, you should go to the Himalayas. It’s not like, how did you miss that? I was trying to tell you in your thirties to go to the Himalayas and I had the brochure there and you didn’t see it. I mean, it was on the table. God’s Spirit makes clear to us His will. A lot of times, the will of God is simply to follow Jesus. It’s to discover more of who Christ is and just be a faithful Christian where I go. God’s not trying to hide from us. And I think sometimes we think that He is. Part of the reason is because we live in a celebrity culture. We live in an entertainment culture. So we think, we see videos, we see pictures of big, exciting lives. And we think, well, something’s wrong with my life, even my Christian life, if it doesn’t look like this thing on the internet, right? But pictures and videos can lie really easy, can’t they, about the truth? So simple faithfulness. So what can we do? What can we say then? I want to flesh that out as best as we can. What does it mean then to do the will of the Father? What does that mean to do the will of the Father? Okay, well, the will of the Father is that you and I would be conformed to the image of His Son. How are you and I conformed to the image of His Son?

By obeying the Great Commission. Jesus gave us a dead giveaway. He’s getting ready to go up.

Go, baptize the nations. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, make disciples. I’m with you always. See ya. Jesus said it. We do the will of the Father when you and I press on in growth in Jesus and we help other people follow Jesus.

Matthew 28, 18, And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and what? Make more learners. Make more students. Make more disciples of everybody.

Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all that I’ve commanded you. And behold, I’m with you always. So that is what you and I have been called to do. Not one of us, but we have been called to do is become like Christ and help one another and help the world become like Christ. That’s the will of the Father. That’s the will of the Father that you and I can partake in the family of God and we can say, hey, you want to become a part of the family of God? It’s a free gift. And the Spirit will change you and transform you and He’ll satisfy you as you were designed to be satisfied by knowing your God. And you will grow in holiness and you will have hope of eternal life. That’s what you and I are supposed to do together.

And I just want to, you know, kind of revisit how do we say we do that at Providence? Because I think, okay, well, that’s great. What does that mean? Here’s what I pray for you now every day. I’m praying this daily for you. I’m praying this daily for us by name. I say, Lord, help us be a Christ-centered community that’s word-saturated, prayer-dependent, and gospel-proclaiming. If I had to boil it down, if we could be a church that was a Christ-centered community that’s word-saturated, prayer-dependent, and gospel-proclaiming. Because the beauty of the gospel is this, isn’t it? Jesus has come and He has repaired my broken relationship with God. He has come and shed His blood so that I can be in the presence of the Father and I can love God and be loved by God and become who I was always meant to be in Jesus. The beauty of that, it’s not just me, it’s all of us. We as a community get to press into who God is together. We go to God in prayer. We say, Lord, we need more of Your Son. Lord, we need Your help. We need protection from the enemy. Lord, show us Your will for how we can be faithful. We’re praying for one another. We’re encouraging one another. We’re stirring up one another to obedience. We’re pressing deeper into the Word to say, Lord, what do You look like? Who are You? Lord, where am I sitting? Where are we sitting? Help us show. And as we just sharpen one another as this family centered around Christ, growing in prayer, growing in the Word, it all spills out to the world. We say, hey, look, we’re like a city on a hill. We’re like salt, salt that tastes, salt that preserves. What we have is real and good. We’re a Christ-centered community. It’s word-saturated, prayer-dependent, gospel-proclaiming. I think that’s what every local church is. We don’t have to guess. What kind of church are we? What kind of church are we? That’s the kind of church we are. We’re this kind. We’re the Bible kind. The New Testament kind. It’s right there. It’s right there.

And I want to say to you, if that sounds cumbersome and . . . like, gotta like read the Bible and live in community and pray. I want to press back on myself and on you. It’s not cumbersome if we wake up the wonder. It’s not cumbersome if we remember the sweetness and preciousness of the gospel. It’s cumbersome when it becomes the means of salvation. If I pray good enough, have I read enough of the Bible? Have I come to church? How many times do I have to share the gospel before God’s like, all right, you’re good. You can come in now. That’s never going to happen. You’re never going to do any of that well enough. I’m going to say, I am freely saved into the family of God. Okay, now I want to go and obey. Grace is the root. My works are the fruit. Grace is the root. Works are the fruit. You see that? So that’s why you and I can keep coming here on Sundays and we can keep gathering on Wednesdays and praying together, encouraging one another, going deeper into the Word. It happens when you say to somebody prompted by the Spirit, hey, you want to start meeting on Tuesday mornings and get a cup of coffee before work and study the Bible? Or, hey, I’ve got this friend who’s a non-believer. You want to come over and just we can befriend him and hang out and just see what gospel conversations happen? Or, hey, you want to just start praying with me maybe Thursday night at 6 on the phone? You want to pray together? Hey, you know the Lord’s given me a passion and burden for this country and the persecuted church. You want to raise some money for them or maybe we could go on a mission trip there? So the Spirit just leads us deeper into Christ together. We’re doing that in here and it’s spilling out there. It’s family life. It’s us following Jesus together. That’s what Jesus is saying to the crowds. He’s saying these disciples right here, this is my family. Because they’re doing the will of the Father. They are prioritizing spiritual family life above everything else. They’ve given it all else away. And this is why this is my mother and my brothers and my sisters.

Family life is lived following Jesus together. And that’s the will of the Father. Let’s pray.

Lord, we can never merit Your love. We can never do enough good to wash away the wrongs we’ve done. Lord, we could never impress You. And Lord, how silly we are when we try.

So Lord, I pray just a freshness in the Spirit to rejoice in the free grace of God.

How Father, You eternally abide in us and we abide in You because of what Your Son has done. And it can’t be changed, Lord. You broke the serpent’s teeth. You have washed our sins away. You have made us new in Christ. Lord, I pray that’s something that one of us grab this morning. I pray it’s something that we as a church grab. That we together as brothers and sisters, we together are collectively passionate about knowing Jesus and making Jesus known.

Just as we can’t save ourselves, Lord, we aren’t powerful for that work. We need more of You. We need more of You to lead us on in obedience and faithfulness, God. So stir up a greater faith. Lord, stir up a greater hunger. Stir up in us a greater passion for the name of Jesus. For sacrifice and forgiving all the way that we would know You and be known by You, God. So that’s my prayer for us this morning according to Your Word. And we thank You and we praise You knowing that it will be so because You are with us. And Your kingdom will come. And Your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Will you stand and worship with us with one more song?