My Eternal Family

Read: Luke 8:19-21

Record: Someone tells Jesus that his mother and brothers are waiting outside for Jesus.  Verse 21 says:

He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”

Reflect: Jesus doesn’t deny that his mother and brothers are outside, but what he does do is provide a definition as to who his family is.  His family is anyone who hears God’s word and puts it into practice.  This paragraph comes just after Jesus’ Parable of the Sower where a seed sown on good soil is described as one who hears God’s word, retains it, and produces a crop hundredfold.

Needed in all of this is the Spirit who works in a person so that God’s word would produce fruit.  The Spirit is the one who enables a person to cry out Abba, Father.  The Spirit guarantees sonship to the Father.  Adoption is the work of the Spirit and a most ultimate blessing of salvation.

Jesus considers his family to be those in whom the Spirit is working to hear and obey the Father’s words.

Respond: Therefore, the family of God is a Trinitarian work.  It’s a massive blessing this side of eternity (and one that will be perfected in heaven).  Our family at New Life is a glimpse into the church universal and of heaven to come.  And so, the life we live at New Life begins now and has eternal ramifications.  In other words, our relationships and interactions with one another matter a great deal, because those with whom we worship are very likely those with whom we will be spending the rest of eternity.

One of the defining aspects of our church is that we corporately hear the preached word of God.  Hopefully we also put these sermons into practice too.  This is why fellowship matters so much; we need to encourage one another to put into practice what we hear preached.  And so often what we hear preached is to grow in faith.

New Life is my family and what defines our relationship is our unity in Christ.    Fellowship must therefore cause us to grow in faith and the best way to do that is to meditate on Christ, both his crucifixion for our sins and his resurrection for our justification.

The Good Soil

Read: Luke 8:1-15; focusing on 13-15

Record: Jesus is traveling from town to town teaching about the kingdom of God. He has his disciples with him along with some women who were paying to help support them. Another large crowd has gathered and Jesus explains this parable…

A farmer scatters seeds

1. Some fall along a path, were trampled upon and birds ate them up.
2. Some fell on rock, grew a bit and withered because they had no moisture.
3. Some fell by thorns, grew but were choked out by the thorns.
4. Some fell on good soil, grew and yielded a crop a hundred times more than was sown.

Of course, the disciples ask what this all means. Jesus says the secrets of the kingdom have been revealed to them but to others parables act almost as a litmus test.

Verses 11-15 tell the meaning of the places of the scattered seeds.

1. Those seeds on the path are destroyed by the devil even though they hear.
2. Those on the rock, receive the word with joy, but when are tested, they fall away.
3. Those on the thorns are those that hear the word but do not mature and are drowned out by:
a. Life’s worries
b. Riches
c. Pleasures
4. Those on the good soil hear it, retain it and persevere with a crop.

Reflect: Jesus tells this parable to those are most likely hearing his teaching for the first time or are new to his teaching, excluding those who follow him around like the women and disciples. I am not new to his teaching.  I’ve been raised in a Christian home and in the church since I was born and have fully embraced the faith as my own. As I move along in life, #3 is creeping right alongside me…

Respond: I always tell Cindy that we are rich. She laughs at me, but I say that because more often than not we don’t worry about money (though lately we have). We buy what we need and get many things we want. I know our standard of living beats out about 99.9% of all people in the world (maybe I’m wrong), but that’s what I constantly think.

Now as I move along my Christian life, the obvious goal is to always be the good soil of #4. Yet #3 is right there with me. I need to be super careful and not take the grace that God has poured out on me for granted. This means that I can’t assume I’m always at #4. #4 is the goal but I need to ask myself where I am at and when I do I am not far from #3.

Often I push the riches of the kingdom aside for pursuits of my own pleasures. TV and the internet are the biggest pleasures that I succumb to all the time, and this is no good. I worry constantly over my family, which at times drowns out the wisdom of the word. I need to trust my family to God and not let family worries overcome that trust, knowing that the very God who has given me my family will better care for them than I ever could. Finally, I need to constantly be careful with money so that it doesn’t grip me and destroy my kingdom living in response to the word.