Welcome to discover faith my name is Terry Bates I’m the pastor here at Faith Church and we’re so delighted to have you join us with us again today this has been Thanksgiving weekend as many of us have had the privilege of enjoying family and friends gathering around a
Time of Celebration and honor and gratitude I hope you had some valuable time with your family and friends and I’d like to encourage you to come and be with us this weekend we’re having a second Thanksgiving weekend as we’re going to celebrate what God is doing in
This ministry and what God is doing through us uh around the world we’ve got some powerful testimonies of what God is doing in Africa and Asia and around the world you’re going to be blessed if you take the time to listen in and celebrate with us this incredible work that God is
Doing through the extension of Faith Church we support over 60 full-time missionaries around the world and you get a chance to hear a few of those testimonies this weekend why don’t you come and be with us at Faith Church it either 9:30 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. on this Thanksgiving weekend and come and
Celebrate what God is doing around the world but right now open up your heart as we go into one of our services where you get a chance to celebrate through worship and the word as I share another message from the series reimagine everything I want to talk about reimagining your
Family and I have to tell you that this is probably today is probably going to be a little different than normal message it’s a little more challenging to me to lay this groundwork because it’s maybe something that we haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about
Processing in days gone by and as I was going through it in the first service I’m trying to figure out how the best way to bring these uh perspectives together to get you to the full appreciation of of what what I believe the the heart of the message is today so
Bear with me a little bit today as I’m trying to communicate this in a little different format and a little little different manner because we’re going to talk about the family of Jesus and that’s not something we really spend a lot of time in scripture talking about
We know uh from the uh the immaculate uh beginning of Jesus how that the angel appeared to Joseph and told him that Mary that that he was spoused to be married to was going to conceive by the Supernatural work of the Holy Spirit we know that the angel appeared to Mary and
Prepared her for the special work that she was going to be involved in and and probably if if I think probably in my my lifetime those have been probably the two people that we’ve spent the most time thinking about in the concept of the family of Jesus but in Scripture it
Does tell us that Jesus had other family members and I wanted us to understand what that looked like because sometimes we think that well Jesus doesn’t understand my family he do understand my family Dynamics and yet the scripture says that we do not have a high priest
Which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points all points that means he he understands the struggle of your family he understands the dynamic of what it is to deal with family members that maybe don’t believe in you don’t believe the
Faith that you have in God and so I’m it’s a little challenging for me and it probably will be a little challenging for you but I want to try to help us understand this process let me let me nutshell it first of all by telling you that what you’ll discover today in this
Message is that there were his Jesus’s own family members I’m talking about his brothers and sisters did not believe in him as the Son of God I mean Mary and Joseph did because they had Angelic divine revelation that was hard to argue but his own family members stru
Struggled to believe that he was the son of God or that he was this Divine person because they grew up with him they they they hung out with him as a child and and lived with him in this environment and then for him to one day stand up and
Declare that he was the Messiah that he had an anointing to do Miracles this this is a little bit of a shift for them it was hard for them to process and so I I want you to see that from this perspective that some of us in this room
Maybe um when you came to know Jesus Christ as your personal savior maybe your family members have struggled to see you in a new light maybe they’ve struggled to see your faith maybe they don’t believe what you believe and you’re trying to figure out how do I get
Them to believe on Jesus how do I help them see the truth of the Gospel how do I get them to believe on Jesus Christ as the Lord and savior because Jesus himself had to help his own family members go from being unbelievers to Believers in his lifetime in his
Assignment so again it’s a it’s going to be not an easy Journey but I think if you’ll pay attention and listen in I think there’s some value to what we’re going to share today but again to kind of give you the starting point let’s go to the gospel of Matthew Chapter 13
Let’s let’s start there because I want you to see at the very Foundation that there are other family members besides Joseph and Mary father and mother to Jesus that are a part of his story and how interact with him during his time on Earth Matthew Chapter 13 beginning in verse number
53 now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these Parables he was doing some teaching that he departed from that place and when he had come to his own country remember as a child he grew up in a place called Nazareth which is away from the city of Jerusalem and he taught
Them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said where did this man get this wisdom and these Mighty works is not is this not The Carpenter’s son is this not Joseph’s son Joseph was identified with a a craft as a carpenter is not his mother called Mary are not
His brothers James Joseph which is a kind of a nickname for Joseph Simon and Judas not Judas es scariot the betrayer but one that we would later come to know more by the name of Jude and his small book that he wrote in the New Testament
The book of Jude and his sisters and we’re not given exactly how many sisters he had or their names and so but the very fact that it is plural here tells us that there was more than one sister in his life so at least two sisters in
His life so what we see right now is that he has a family mother father at least four brothers that are identified here and two at least two sisters and he and they said are they not all with us where then did did this man get these
Things so in other words they’re hearing him teach they’re hearing his ministry and they’re just kind of overwhelmed because they knew him as the boy who grew up in Nazareth the son of the carpenter the son of Mary the brother to Four Brothers the the brother to two
Sisters at least and they’re trying to figure out how is it that this same Jesus is now supposed to be the Son of God the Messiah the Christ the anointed one on an assignment from Heaven verse 57 so they were offended at him they they they hear him teaching and they hear him
Instructing and they’re like who are you to tell us I mean you’re not better than us you’re not above us you’re just one of us and yet you’re saying that you have this authority to teach us moral and spiritual principles that that we should be listening to you and so they
Were offended but Jesus said to them a prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house and basically basically he’s saying to them what I’ve been saying to you that growing up among them and you know being in their everyday lives it was hard for
Them to make this transition from everyday Jesus to the Son of God Messiah Jesus that was it was a difficult transition for them to process and as a result of that he did not many mighty works there according to verse 58 in his hometown or his region of Nazareth
Because of their unbelief their inability to believe that he truly was the son of the Living God made it difficult for them to believe his teachings or to put Faith In The Miracles or in the power that he declared that he had and so I’m trying
To show you that even Jesus lived in a family that didn’t believe on the Lord did not believe on God the same way that he believed or understood it but as we go through this message I’ll try to get there quickly you’re going to discover that in the end he’s able to persuade
Them and they end up becoming a part of the Kingdom a part of the ministry of the early Church in the New Testament my point being how can God use us what are the principles that Jesus used to take an unbelieving family and move them into
A believing family who were a part of the Kingdom how many how many in this room just by show of hands real quickly you have family members whether immediate family or extended family members that don’t know Jesus Christ or they’re not serving the lord Jesus Christ and you you would love to see
Your family members get saved you’d like to see them serve the Lord all right but you’ve seen some barriers like they don’t really believe what you believe they don’t really have confidence in the same principles that you have how do you take someone who has a a disbelief and
Turn them into a place of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ I’m going to try to draw that out of the life of Jesus here this morning so bear with me for a few moments while I do my best to get this message conveyed to you here today but let’s pray
Father thank you so much for the opportunity we have today of looking into your word we know that you’re your own word declares that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it’s profitable it’s beneficial to us for correction for reprove for rebuke for instruction and righteousness so today
We need some understanding because we have family members and friends that we consider like family that ultimately we would love to see put their faith and confidence in you and so Lord we need your help to understand what would be the pathway if you had to persuade your
Own family to put their faith in confidence in the plan of God what can we learn from your example that would help us lead our own family into a relationship with our heavenly father as well in Christ’s name we give thanks and praise and everybody said
Amen amen so obviously this is a massive task in front of me here today and I I tried to figure out what’s the best way how can I put us in a and a starting point that maybe would be easy for all of us to kind of build upon rather than
Assume that we all have the same level of starting place in our understanding so let me just start with this premise that I believe if we’re going to reimagine family from being unbelievers to being Believers how are we going to help people who are Skeptics or cynics
Or just downright don’t believe in Jesus or the gospel or Heaven or Hell how are we going to move them from the ranks of unbelievers or disbelievers or Skeptics into the ranks of those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ have their name written down in heaven and are actively
A part of helping us Advance the cause of the purposes of the kingdom of God how we do that I believe the first thing we got to do at least for me I want to start by helping us understand what constitute family what does family look
Like and so in in the context of what does a family look like or understanding family because I want you to see it in the light of Jesus I’ve discovered that there’s a whole world full of definition as it would apply to family the US Census Bureau for example when the US
Census goes around and they do their census every 10 years did you know that every household in America every household in America falls into a classification by the United States census organization into one of 50 categories so doesn’t matter who you are doesn’t matter what your age is where
You live what your ethnicity is what your income is or your education the US Census Bureau will ultimately label all of us in one of 50 categories and then they cluster you as that type of a household well I’m not going to do 50 households but I’m going to kind of talk
About family in the context of five simple ways first of all would be the most obvious which would be what we call genetic or genealogies or Bloodlines or some might call it the legal aspect in Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3 in the New Testament we have Jesus’s
Bloodline we have his descendancy we have uh him as the lineage of the House of David the King David in the old Old Testament and Matthew lists that lineage going back to David whereas uh Luke goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in the
Garden and does it in reverse but in Matthew’s gospel and particularly uh he does something that’s a little out of the normal and that is that while he’s listing the lineage While most genealogies would go from the male being the lineage uh he actually lists three
Women as a part of the lineage of the genealogies in Matthew chapter one he lists a Woman by the name of Tamar he lists Ruth and then he also lists the mother of Solomon which was also the wife of Uriah that got killed because David had had relationship with her so
It’s odd but I believe it was necessary because when you get to the New Testament and you get Jesus we know that Joseph was not if you will the biological father of Jesus he the there was the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit Mary being the mother but Joseph being
Somewhat of a a foster parent or a steep parent however you might want to interpret that he was not the biological so they give the lineage of both Joseph and Mary because those lineages are going to trace them back to both Adam as well as to the David to affirm that he
Meets the qualifications of being the Messiah so one way of describing family is to say I’m the son of or the I am the brother of the relational factor a second way of looking at this is the way that Jesus described it in Matthew 12 when uh he was teaching and someone
Comes to him and says your mother and your brothers are outside and they want to talk to you and Jesus said I I I will get to them in a moment but let me tell you who my brothers and sisters really are look at it this way in Matthew 12
Beginning in verse 46 while Jesus was still talking to the multitudes behold his mother and brothers stood outside seeking to speak with him and one said to him look your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to talk to you verse 48 but Jesus answered
And said said to the one who told him who is my mother and who are my brothers and he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said here are my mother and my brothers for whosoever does the will of my Father in Heaven is my
Brother and sister and mother so now he was redefining family not just as bloodline genetics but he was saying that family is a spiritual aspect as well it’s people who are part of the family of God the body of Christ I grew up in a church environment where
Everybody referred to each other as brother this or sister that because we were identifying that we were a part of the family of God and so Jesus said yes I have a genetic family that’s through the Bloodlines but I also have a spiritual family anyone who does the
Will of my father is my brother or my sister so we are part of the family of God so so this is another family if you will Jesus went on to to show us that in addition to the genetic bloodline and in addition to the spiritual family that
Does the will of the father there can be people in your life that are so close to you that they are like family do you have people in your life friends that you would consider like family they’re maybe they’re not even your mother but they’re like a mother maybe they’re not
Your father but they’re like a father maybe they’re not literally a brother but they’re like a brother to you well when Jesus was on the cross dying and he was about to give up the spirit or give up The Ghost and go on to the next stage
Which was to be buried in the Tomb he looks at his mother and a disciple who was next to his mother and says to that Disciple This was not his brother biologically it was not uh his brother in that context but he was a close
Friend or a disciple to him he said uh take care of your mother she’s not your biological mother but she’s like a mother and so he entrusted this disciple with his mother’s care why because as we’ll discover his own brothers were not present at the crucifixion his own
Family members were not convinced of who he was so they weren’t there supporting his mother or him during the trial or during the beatings or during the crucifixion nor were they there on the first day when they went to look for him at the at the tomb this brother s his
Family members are absent from all of this so he looks to this one disciple and said take care of my mother since my own family members are not here to do it raises another issue and again I I wish I had more time to drill down on this
But you might ask why didn’t he say to his father Joseph make sure you take care of Mom because according to what we can see in scripture Joseph has been missing for a long period of time now the last time we see Joseph in the story
Of Jesus is when ever he went to the temple at 12 years of age and was teaching the scriptures and after that Joseph is nowhere mentioned history indicates the very high probability that Joseph died somewhere shortly thereafter and so Mary is actually a widow and actually a single mom raising kids so to
All of you out there you’re beginning to see another perspective not only of Jesus and his family but you’re seeing another perspective of Mary and her role with her siblings or with her children as well so he says to this disciple you’re not my biological brother she’s not your
Biological mother but take care of her you know proverb says that he that hath friends must show himself friendly and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother we often use that to refer to Jesus and talk about how that he is like a friend that sticks closer
Than a brother but he’s actually saying we have people in our lives that actually are closer to us than our own blood relatives anybody understand that concept say I know this is a hard way to go but interact with me just a little bit all right to make sure I’m not
Losing you completely so you have the biological you have the spiritual you have that relationships that are so tight they feel like family even though they are not necessarily family and then you have these entities that because they have so much in common and because they sh have so many shared values they
Are they’re what we call a community of people they’re like a group of people who have common elements that they’re connected to they have shared Vision they have shared values in the in the old in the New Testament they might look like the Pharisees or the Sadducees they
Had similar belief systems in today’s world we might call them fraternities they might be groups of people that are so closely knit together and Share value so great that their organization is described like a family it might be the military when someone in the military uh dies the the military families gather
Around them and they say we look after each other because we’re family and so we have this connectedness that is tying us together because we have something else common a and we’re together on that commonality and then you have maybe a fifth potential and that is maybe we’re
Identified as a family because we have some kind of a shared identity by location or ethnicity maybe because we are African-American or Latino or maybe because we were raised in a particular part of the country maybe we’re considered ois because we’re from Oklahoma maybe we’re from other parts
But we are branded or identified by the region Jesus was uh noted as being from Nazareth in fact it said can anything good Nathaniel asked can anything good come out of Nazareth he wasn’t sure that that Community could produce anything good so what I’m trying to show you is
That family has a lot of diverse meanings But ultimately it’s about people who are connected in some way relationally on some premise but they don’t necessarily all agree I I’m wanting to strive and drill down just there for a moment just because your family doesn’t mean you always agree
Right if you do good luck and the larger the family the more complex the family the probability is the more disagreement is probably going to exist as a result of that so Jesus has a lot of different families that he’s trying to that he is connected to not just biological not just spiritual
Not just geographical he’s got a lot of different families and not everybody believes that he is the Messiah not everybody believes that he is the Son of God and so he has to take them on a journey to help them understand who he is and to ultimately Point them to the
Father and God’s Plan of Salvation and so the challenge is quite large so I think one of the the things I want you to understand by me bringing this to your attention is that the first thing that I appreciate is the fact that Jesus understands family what I mean by that
Is you can’t say to him God you want me to love my honor my mother and my father you don’t know my mother and my father you don’t know what it is to honor a mother and father he said yeah I do I I have a mother and father so I
Understand that you don’t understand what it is to deal with my siblings I’ve got these brothers and sisters and they’re just difficult to deal with Jesus said like I understand that my own brothers and sisters rejected me and didn’t like me and didn’t believe in me
And uh didn’t want anything to do with me well I trust you enjoyed that time of worship in the word and I really want to encourage you to take time to come out and be with us this weekend because we’re going to share some powerful testimonies you’re going to see some
Firsthand things about what God is doing through some of our 60 full-time missionaries around the world we get some field reports and we get to see some images of what God is doing globally through our ministry it’s going to be a a powerful day love for you to
Join us at either 9:30 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. to celebrate what God is doing through Faith Church and our Global partnership with 60 full-time missionaries around the world join us at either 9:30 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. this Sunday to celebrate what God is doing and give thanks unto the Lord For All His
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