The Holy Family

Thank you for the beautiful special music. It's really nice sometimes to hear familiar words in a different setting. It makes the words kind of pop a little more. It makes you think about them a little more deeply. Thank you for preparing that. Happy Sabbath to everyone here, to all of those on the webcast. And I hope you're enjoying this lovely winter weather that we're having.

Sometimes we talk about ourselves as being something different, and we refer to mainstream Christianity as something that is not what we're part of. We use the term mainstream as almost a distancing term, sort of a way to say, well, there's the mainstream and then there is us. It is a term that creates distance, and that's intentional. We're not mainstream. I think everybody here realizes that. If you didn't realize that, welcome.

But what does that mean? What does that mean when we say we're not part of the mainstream of Christianity? What does it imply? To you and I, it probably means a certain set of things. It means things that you are probably deeply familiar with, that you think about frequently. To those God is calling. The things that are different for us are things like being here on the Sabbath. We're not somewhere on a Sunday. It's observing God's holy days and understanding what those holy days mean, what they point to. That is something unique and outside of the mainstream. We understand the role of God's law in our lives in ways that the mainstream does not.

Those are practices that require change. They require that you do something different. For those who have had to come into this way, many of us were raised in this way, but for those who had to come into this way, there were hard changes that you had to make in order to be a part of this. Choosing to not work on the Sabbath was probably a big step. Choosing to cut a week out of your life and go to the Feast of Tabernacles was probably a big sacrifice. When we think about doing things that are different from the mainstream, we probably think about those things that required a lot of sacrifice on our part, or that look a lot different. There are ideas, too. There are things that we think differently about. The second resurrection is revolutionary and mostly unheard of in the mainstream. The spirit in man. We teach that there is a spirit in man, and that is unique and different from what is understood. We think about those things. Those are things that change our thinking. They change how we think about things. They shape our thinking. There are other differences, too, that you probably think, these set us outside apart from the mainstream of Christianity. But that's probably not what anybody outside of, well, in the mainstream, when they think about us, those are probably not the differentiators that they primarily think about. There's probably one dominant one. There's one litmus test, and that's really our rejection of the Trinity. We do not believe that God is a Trinity. And so, across the country, over time, we have been rejected from being able to rent certain church halls, or we've been pushed off of certain TV networks, or we've not been allowed to use, we've not been allowed to have copyright for certain translations of the Bible, because publishers knew we did not agree with this doctrine of the Trinity. And so, it put us squarely outside of what they considered to be Christian belief.

So, it does make us different. It makes us different. And if you're a veteran Christian, if you were raised in the church, you probably think a lot less about the Trinity than you do about truth. But this is the one belief that sets us apart, that makes people look at us and think of us as a cult, or some sort of heretical sect, because this is the litmus test for the mainstream. I have a really good friend, a guy that I've worked with for a long time. He's not a part of the church, but a really great guy. We've talked a lot about religion over the years, and about faith, and gone back and forth with things. He was raised Catholic. He's not a Catholic anymore.

One time we were talking, and he said to me, he said, oh, I've never asked you about this, but I assume you're not Orthodox. You're heretic, aren't you? I said, yes. I said, I am. I said, I'm firmly heretic. He said, I figured you were. I said, yeah. That is how much of a litmus test, how much of a boundary it is for many people, because this is something that has a very long history. There's a 1700-year history that's the dividing line between mainstream and heretics. So today, I want to look at that. This is going to be a sermon in three parts. So the first part of it, I want to look at the history. We'll talk about the history of the Trinity. I think it's important to understand where this came from, how it developed, how it evolved, and the actual heresy behind it. Then I want to talk about the truth, the actual truth, and then I want to look at application. I want to look at what that means for us in our lives and in our practice. So we'll go history, truth, and application. Let's dig into the history. Let's talk about the history.

The closing decades of the very first century, right, so 80s, 90s, AD, there's really not a lot of information about what was going on in the church. We don't have a real clear picture of that period. It goes a little dark. And so what we mostly see, the primary records we have, are from John. We think that his gospel and his epistles and definitely the book of Revelation were written in the close of that first century. And we see John, he's writing, he's combating these ideas that start circulating. And we know these ideas started circulating around them because we see them really come out in full force in the centuries that follow. But we get a little hint of that. If we go to 1 John, go to 1 John, and we'll start to see some of the ideas that started to evolve and that started to creep into Christianity, mostly from Greek philosophy, but from these influences from the outside.

1 John 1 and verse 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life, he's talking here about, like he's being really clear. This is not a second hand account. He's not telling you a story. He's saying, I saw this. I was there. I touched this person. I handled this guy. He's saying, I hugged Jesus Christ. We were buds. This is firsthand information. He's combating ideas about Jesus Christ being an illusion or a ghost. Those started to go around. The idea that, well, physical things are corrupted and evil, so God couldn't have possibly been physical. So he just would have appeared. He just would have been sort of an apparition. He's this, like, first century hologram there, just appearing to them. But he wasn't real. And he's saying, no, I saw him. I handled him. We've touched him. He was real. He was a physical being. Verse 2. The life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. When he says that eternal life, he's talking about Jesus Christ. He's not talking about eternal life that's going to be granted generally. He's saying, he's saying, we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, that eternal one he was and is eternal, and he was the one that they handled. The Word, the Son. Verse 3.

That which we have seen and heard, he's emphasizing this over and over. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. So here we see him talking about these two beings, the Father and the Son, and he puts it in familial terms.

Right? He's using the same thing, the same terms that Jesus Christ used and that he taught. Father, Son. We hear those so often, I think, that sometimes we take for granted just how revolutionary that is. He's, you know, we talk about God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son. God could have chosen a number of ways to talk about himself, to reveal himself, but he chose family words. He chose family words.

But this is what we see from John. So this is where we can understand that John is combatting these ideas that are out there and he's writing to really emphasize what he saw and who Jesus Christ was. That's our glimpse into the first century. When we get to the second century, it starts to look a lot less like Christianity, at least like the first century Christianity. This is where we start, we see writings and we see letters back and forth between people where they're debating doctrine and they're trying to figure out just who and what Jesus Christ is and and they're arguing with each other.

But most of what happens is you have this person who's combating some doctrinal error with another doctrinal error. And so we see error versus error and it's just confusion. An example of this is this idea of modalism that developed in the late second century. The idea was taught that the father and the son were actually the same being. They just had different modes. It's like it would shift from this mode to this mode. It was the father and he was the son.

One being but sort of two modes. And a counter to this, right, well this idea was developed because they were trying to combat the idea that Jesus Christ wasn't divine. So there's this one bad idea that says, well Jesus Christ must have been created. He wasn't really God. So they say, well no, no, here's this other idea. Jesus Christ actually is God and they're one person with two faces or something.

And then one of the early writers, Tertullian, he counters that idea. He says, no, no, no. He says God is three distinct persons but one substance. Now you start to, these are the roots of the Trinitarian teaching. This was actually the first known appearance that we have of the Greek word for Trinity is Tertullian, writing around 200 AD. So these ideas about who and what God is, the nature of God, they develop over time.

And by 325 AD, Emperor Constantine is ruling. And the fights over the nature of God have gotten so bad that it's causing political unrest throughout the entire Roman Empire. Because the church and the politics got interwoven. And having church authority meant you had authority over lands and you had power. And it was real power that these people had. And so their disagreements became a big deal. And it started causing some political unrest and violence. And Constantine just wanted it all settled down. Just wanted everything to chill. So he convenes a council in a town called Nicaea.

And like 300 bishops come to settle this matter once and for all. Because that's his mandate. You go back and you can read some of his letters. A historian named Eusebius has recorded portions of his letters. And it's very clear that he is not really interested in the theology. He's the emperor. He's running the empire. He's trying to make sure everything's running smooth. He kind of doesn't care about the theology. He thinks it's pretty trivial, actually. He just wants him to go figure it out. Figure it out, decide on something, set the standard, and that's what we'll roll with. That's really what Constantine is after.

So 300 guys get together in Nicaea, and they all sort of bring their ideas about things. There were two main ideas being pushed. One is being pushed by a bishop from Alexandria. His name is Arius. And he taught that Jesus Christ was a special creation of God. So he says, no, Jesus Christ maybe became divine, but he was created by God.

He was a special creation of God. And he's not really God the way the Father is. There was a deacon also from Alexandria. His name is Athanasius. And he believed that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were one but also distinct from each other. So he's teaching this sort of triune God, as we would call it now. Both of these, again, opposing views, right, and very sort of violently opposing views, and both of them in error. What's very interesting is that neither one of those views had majority support of the bishops that were there.

But more people hated Arius's ideas, and so they said, well, we totally reject that. And they had no other alternatives. They had nothing else to choose from. And so they said, well, this one. We'll go with this. But it was actually a minority view. Most of the people there probably were somewhere in the middle. They didn't really align with either of them.

But because they rejected the one and they didn't have a good alternative, they went with the Athanasian view, which was this idea of Father, Son, and Spirit in one being. From then on, the Roman Church—this is quoting from our steady aid, Is God a Trinity—it says, the Roman Church was in the odd position of officially supporting a belief held by only a minority of those attending.

So the official view of the Roman Church became something that most of them would not have really wholeheartedly supported. But because it was the approved thing, it got the stamp of approval from Constantine after this meeting, and that was it. So that's the view. But they wrote a statement—the councils come together and they produce an official statement—and the statement they adopted was primarily concerned with, again, with proving that Jesus Christ was not created.

So all they say about the Holy Spirit in this first statement they produce is that they believe in the Holy Spirit, and that's it.

You can go look up the first Nicene Creed, and you'll see there's a big statement about God the Father and about Jesus Christ, and they say, and we believe in the Holy Spirit. And that's the extent of it. It's not until 60 years later, after many, many Christians have killed many other Christians, actually, that the new emperor at that time, Theodosius, he convenes another council. They're in Constantinople this time. They're trying to resolve these disputes around, well, what is the Holy Spirit? What's the Holy Spirit? They're trying to figure that out. And they all come together, and the bishop that's in charge of this council, he actually gets sick, and so they replace him with a governor from the city who's not even a Christian, but he's going to preside over the whole thing. And that council produces what has been the definitive statement about the Holy Spirit in mainstream Christianity for 1700 years. And it reads like this, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

That's the conclusion that they came to, and that has been the Orthodox view for 1700 years.

There are a lot of problems in that statement. We'll talk about some of them. But again, this is why for us, there's a 1700-year history, a 1700-year dividing line that we are on the other side of, that makes us something outside of the mainstream. But you look at that history, and you recognize that it took over 300 years to get to that place. A lot of trial and error, mostly error.

That's how the definitive statement on the nature of God in mainstream Christianity was developed. It was very haphazard, and it's very strange. And it's very strange that that's the thing that is the dividing line. This was an innovation. This was not exposition. It was not something that they drew from the Scriptures. It was something that was innovated. They had a lot of Greek philosophy baked into it. It was creative. There were some ingenious ideas woven into some of the explanations. But it was innovation. It was not exposition. The truth is very different. The truth is very different. Let's talk about the truth. Specifically, I want to talk about one major error in this idea.

There's a subtle but major error in this three-in-one system, and it's a closed system. It's not an open system. It's not a system that grows or that expands. It's three-in-one forever.

The Bible not only describes, though, two God beings, but it describes a God family that can grow, and it will grow. That's what the Bible teaches. It doesn't teach this closed system that says, well, this is what God is, and this is what God will be forever.

It teaches that this is what God is right now, and this is what he's doing, and this is what he's building, and he's actually creating a family that will expand into eternity.

I don't actually want to go into today... There's a lot of biblical statements that we could go into about counting. Is it two? Is it three? The short answer is two. We're not going to go into all the is it two or is it three. It's two. You can read through all of Paul's statements, all of his introductions, where he says, grace and peace to you from the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. He's either very neglectful of the Holy Spirit, or he understood God is God as two beings. And so we're not going to dig into the counting side so much today. I want to dig into the fact that the truth is that the Trinity locks out is this idea that God is family.

Let's go over to John chapter 1.

John chapter 1. Again, John writing probably late in the first century.

The other three gospels are the synoptic gospels. Those are the ones that are written all, you know, from that sort of first-time first-person view, kind of describing Jesus Christ. And John's gospel is very different from the other gospels because he's trying to combat a whole set of different ideas. He's coming from a different place with what he's trying to teach and what he's trying to convey. And you see it right here in the beginning of John. John chapter 1 and verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. It's kind of like, how many ways can I say this?

He was in the beginning. He was God. He was there. He was with God. It can literally be translated, the Word was God and was with the God. He's talking about Jesus Christ being God and being present with God the Father from the beginning for all time. He's battling this idea that Jesus Christ was somehow created, saying there's two of them. There's two of them. They existed forever. They existed forever. It feels very basic, right? I know. It sounds like I'm saying the same thing over and over, but John's saying the same thing over and over. And guess what? Everybody's gotten it wrong for 1700 years. He's very clear and he's very direct, right? But somehow we've humans have managed to make this confusing.

Verse 3. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. He didn't make himself. He wasn't created. All things were made through him, and nothing was made without him.

Let's go to verse 10. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He made the world, and then he became a creation in his world. He became a human being in the world that he made.

It's pretty amazing. Verse 12.

As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.

Those that receive him are given the right to become children of God. They're given the right to become his children.

The son is the begotten son of God. We'll read that here in verse 14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He's the begotten son, and believing in him gives you the right to become children of God, begotten children, just like him. Not some inferior creation, not pets, just like him. He's the only begotten of the Father so far. So far. John's writing this way down the road. He's saying he's the only begotten of the Father, but just for now, this is going to change. Let's go over to Psalm 2, because we find that this was the plan from the beginning. Psalm chapter 2 and verse 7.

Psalm 2 and verse 7. I will declare the decree. The Lord has said to me me is capitalized there in my Bible, and I believe that's correct. The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Here we see, you know, going way back to the Psalms, this was the plan. This was always the plan. You are my son. Today I have begotten you. Let's go over to Acts 13. Acts 13 and verse 32.

Because the apostles understood, they understood the fulfillment of this verse.

Verse 32. We declare to you glad tidings, that promise which was made to the fathers. God has fulfilled this for us, their children, and that he has raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. They understood that Jesus' resurrection was his begettle as the son. The first, and so far only, begotten son of God. They knew that this was a fulfillment. You go over to the book of Hebrews. We won't turn over there, but Hebrews 1 and Hebrews 5 quote from Psalm 2 as well. They go back to this and they recognize that Jesus Christ is not only God, but he's been begotten as a son, as a member of the family. God is the father. Jesus Christ is his son. And this was always the plan. This was the plan from the very beginning, that Jesus Christ would become his son. Let's go over to 1 John again. 1 John chapter 1.

1 John 1 and verse 3. Again, here's John kind of hammering home what he's seen and what he's heard. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Father and son, so again, family. The two, and we have fellowship with them. Chapter 3. 1 John 3 and verse 1.

Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know him.

The world doesn't know us. We're a little weird. We're outside that mainstream.

But John tells us the reason.

And look, he says, Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed that we should be called children of God. He doesn't just call us friends. He's not making us to be his pets. He's making us to be his children. Verse 2. Beloved, now we are children of God. He's talking about how God sees us now, even. Beloved, now we are children of God. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. This is revolutionary. This is heretical in most of mainstream Christianity to say that we will be God. We will be like God. We will have the same essence that he does. But this is clearly what John is saying. He's saying, look, we're going to be his children. We're going to be like him. When he's revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

We're going to have his nature. We're going to have his essence. We're going to be his children. How many of you as parents, you want your children to be, you know, just a little bit shorter than you, a little bit uglier than you, a little bit, you know, maybe weaker than you. My kids, every one of my kids has, well, one of them hasn't outgrew me yet. But when they get there, they're like, dad, I'm taller than you. It's like, well, keep going, you know. That's good, but keep going. That's not a big achievement. But you want them to be taller. You want them to be stronger. You want them to be smarter. You want your kids, you don't want your kids to grow up and be, you know, just a little bit subservient to you, and you can keep them under your thumb. You want your kids to grow up and thrive and succeed. God is no different. And that's not, we don't feel that way, you know, just by coincidence. God has put this familial instinct in us because that's who He is. That's what He is. He wants family. And so He's put this drive in us to want family. We want family, and we want our families to be healthy and strong, and we want our children to grow up stronger and faster and taller and better than we are. God wants us to be His family. He wants us to be like Him. Right? Let's go over to Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 and verse 14. Now Romans 8 is just packed full of great material. I mean, Romans is packed full of great material. Romans 8 especially. And here in verse 14, He says, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Verse 15, For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry out, Abba, Father. This idea of sons, of being His sons, and that includes daughters, it's inclusive in that way.

Sons is a legal term, and it's connected to adoption as a legal pronouncement in their society. There were formal practices around adoption where someone could adopt another person officially as their son and pronounce them as a son, and it was full sonship, regardless of bloodline. And these are those words that He's using here, that we are sons.

We've received the Spirit of adoption. These are these legal terms where He's saying, this is what you are. You're His children. He's made it that way. Children, the word children in here emphasizes, as from Expositor's Bible commentary, it says, children emphasizes family relationship based on regeneration, while sons stresses legal standing. So God already considers us to be His sons and daughters, legal standing before Him. When we are begotten as His children, we will be fully like Him.

Here, when Paul talks about, when he says, you know, the Spirit by which we cry out, Abba, Father, God as our Father, this is, he's echoing Jesus Christ's prayer. If you go back and read Jesus' prayer just before His arrest in Mark 14, this is the same word Jesus is using. This is what He's referring back to. Verse 16, the Spirit itself is the correct pronoun there because the Greek has no gender there. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Saying it's bearing witness with our spirit, right, which also, by the way, your spirit is not a separate thing, right, it's not a separate entity. You're not to, you, and your spirit.

But God's Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children. Verse 17, and if children then heirs, this is more legalese, really, he's using more legal terms, but he's saying if you are His children, then you inherit all the things that children would inherit from their parents. We are heirs with Christ, joint heirs, it says, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. We are His children. We're His heirs. He wants to give us everything. This idea, this idea of being His children, of being family, this is the part of our teaching that really sets us apart from the mainstream, more than just counting. Is it two? Is it three? It's this, right? We believe we will literally become part of the family, part of God's holy family. We're going to share in the nature and the likeness of God, like a child does to a parent. That's what we believe. That makes us heretics.

This is a quote from the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions by John Ankerberg and John Weldon. And here's how they sum up our heretical belief on God.

Say our belief on God is that we believe God is currently two persons, the Father and Jesus, now reproducing themselves into billions of persons.

And they're correct. They're absolutely correct. That is correct about what we teach, and that's correct about what the Bible says. So if that puts us in somebody's book of cults and heretics, it's a welcome place to be. So how do we apply all this?

How do we apply this idea? Because so far it's kind of been theoretical. So where does the rubber hit the road? We stayed with some friends, some members in another area recently, and we were, I think, driving on our way home, and we thanked them. I said, thank you for making us feel like family in your home. And they just texted back and said, you are family. And I texted back and said, careful there, family has to do dishes. Family members, right, it is a joke in our house. If you come over in your family, you get help with the dishes, or you help with the cooking, one or the other. But it's because family members are obligated to each other in ways that non-family members are not. Right? I think that's very clear, that's very well understood.

And just like family, in this family, we don't get to choose who. We don't get to choose who, who else walks in the door, right? God draws those people. We don't get to choose our human family. We don't get to choose who shows up in our congregations. But we still have an obligation. We still have an obligation to our family. Go over to 1 Timothy 5, verse 8.

1 Timothy 5 and verse 8.

It says, but if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Worse than an unbeliever, because even unbelievers, even everybody recognizes that as family, you are obligated to each other. If you choose to have children, then you have an obligation to those children, to care for them. That's just part of being human, and everybody recognizes that. So he's saying here, especially in the church, if somebody doesn't do that, they're worse than an unbeliever. He's just saying that as family, we owe certain things to each other. We have obligations to each other, and so we owe each other certain things. That's the implication of being family. Let's go over to Galatians 6. Galatians 6.

If you recognize that, if you recognize that you're family, and that you have obligations to each other, then when you read some passages like this, it reframes a little bit of what you might be accountable for.

Galatians 6 and verse 1. We're going to go through about 10 verses here, and just read these and think about what that means, what it means to be family, and what you owe to your family members in this context. Galatians 6 and verse 1.

Now, we read that, and it just, it can almost feel very generic, if a man is overtaken in a trespass. But this is really specific about restoring their spiritual state. This is talking about other people in the church.

This is talking about your family members, right? He's saying the thing that we owe to each other is a certain amount of loving intervention. When we see each other going astray, we see each other going off the rails, see each other going toward harm. If we see each other going toward harm, we owe it to each other to say, hold on, are you sure that's the direction you want to go? And to be able to restore each other back into your right path. Verse 2.

Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. We owe it to each other to assist with the heavy burdens that people bear. This word for burdens means extreme loads.

And it refers to severe trials, hardships, major things. When we see each other going through those things, the instruction here is bear those. Verse 3. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. He's saying, as you do this, as you assist, as you help bury each other's loads, as you intervene and try to bring people back around to things, you also owe them humility. We owe each other humility, not elevating ourselves over others, because those first two there, it can make it sound like, well, I'm going to bring these people back around, or I'm going to help them carry that load. But he says, you have to do that in a spirit of humility. We owe that to each other as well.

Verse 5. For each one shall bear his own load. Wait a second. We just said, bear one another's burdens. This is a different word. This word for load is actually talking about if you're on a backpacking trip, it's saying, here's your pack weight. You bear your load, and somebody else will carry their pack, and they'll carry their pack. This is the reasonable load that an individual might be expected to carry. He says, for each one shall bear his own load. Meaning, we owe it to each other also to not burden each other with things that we can carry ourselves. If you're going on a backpacking trip, and I've gone on backpacking trips where somebody was carrying way too much, and their knees started giving out, and it was clearly painful for them. We took from their pack and we redistributed it among a bunch of other packs, right? It got a whole lot easier on that person. It wasn't much harder for anybody else. We went along great. It worked out well. We bared one another's burdens, but we all had to bear our individual loads. If somebody just said, I don't like carrying this pack anymore. Can we just redistribute it among everybody else so I don't have to carry one? Well, that's not reasonable either. So we owe it to each other, in that sense, to bear our part, to carry our part. We owe that to each other. Families do that. Verse 6, let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches. You know, we owe it to those who serve us. I think the principle extends out not just to those who teach us, but to those who serve us in other capacities. We owe it to them to care for them. They're giving up something in order to care for us, right? And so we owe it to them to care for them in the ways that we can, in the ways that they need. They serve us in ways that we can't help ourselves. And so oftentimes we have some way to reciprocate in a way that they can't. We owe that to each other. That's part of bearing one another's burdens. Verse 7, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. This talks about how we use our time and how we use our resources.

If we are sowing to the flesh, we will of the flesh reap corruption, he says. If we're taking of our time and of our resources, and we're using that purely for ourselves and for self-gratification, it's, you know, we're going to spend it and it's going to have no real long-term benefit. But if we're using those things to build up this family, this family is something that's going to last forever. It's eternal. And we can actually do things with our time and with our resources now that help build up this family in ways that will last permanently. And here he says the implication is it's not just like, oh, that's a good idea. It's like, well, we owe that to each other. Verse 9, and let us not grow weary while doing good. The implication being you can sometimes, right? Doing good, even when you know you're doing good, it can wear you down some. But he's saying don't let it wear you down.

For in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all. So he's saying do good to all. We should. We should be doing good even outside the context of these walls. We should be doing good to all. But he does say, especially, to those who are of the household of faith. You owe it to each other. We owe it to each other to be taking care of each other, to be doing good for each other, looking after one another, treating one another well. This household, this is the family that God's creating. Let's go over to Mark chapter 3.

We'll end over in Mark chapter 3.

Mark 3 and verse 33.

Well, in verse 31, Jesus' brothers and his mother, they come to him and they are standing outside and they sent to him, calling to him. And a multitude was sitting around him and they said to him, look, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. And it seems like there just, there wasn't room. They couldn't get in. Right? Maybe he's in the house and the house is full and they're outside and they're trying to get to him. And so they send the message on in and they say, hey, your mother and your brothers are, they're outside. And what would, what could have just been a normal event that maybe wouldn't have been recorded, Jesus turns it into something. It's a teaching moment.

But he answered them saying, who is my mother and my brothers? And Mark's more descriptive than the other accounts of this event. He says, and he looked around in a circle at those who said about him. And he said, here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother. He, you know, he doesn't, he doesn't just say, oh, these are my friends, these are my pals here, I'm hanging out with my buds and they'll, they'll, mom and mom and my brothers, they can wait for me. He says, no, this is, this is my family right here. These. And he looks around in a circle and these are them. The implication for us is the same, right? If this is what we're called to, you can look around the room sometime, right? Sometimes in those, in the moments, maybe after church, when everybody's fellowshiping, right? You can just take it in sometime, just look around, you'll see, you know, the, the family that you have around you. These are not your friends. I mean, hopefully they're your friends.

These are not just your friends, right? It's not like these are just your best friends. This is, this is your family. This is your eternal family. Right? The teaching of the Trinity really loses all of that, right? It denies all of that. And it misses this, the depth of this, this eternal relationship that we have with each other and that we have with God. When you understand the true nature of God, you understand what all of us are going to become. And you understand how God already sees us, how He already views us.

Let that frame how you think about every interaction and every word you speak to every potential child of God.