Family

Estimated Read Time: 20 Minutes

In our previous article (The Gospel), we talked about the gospel–the cosmic reality central to the identity of every believer. The gospel, however, doesn’t just save individuals, and it doesn’t just change an internal identity… The good news of Jesus Christ also creates a new community of redeemed and transformed people who devote themselves to new ways of thinking and living.

The Five Devotions

We read about the first manifestation of this community, known as the Church, in the book of Acts chapter 2:42-47:

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.


The context of this passage is that earlier in chapter 2, this group of people had just heard the good news about Jesus and what he had done for them. And what was their response? They responded first with saving faith, which inherently produced a string of actions– starting first with baptism as a sign of their union with and commitment to Jesus and his family, the Church. From this point, we see the Church devote themselves regularly and primarily to five things: the Word of God, fellowship together, worship of Jesus, unceasing prayer, and passionate and widespread mission. Here at MERCYhouse, we call these the Five Devotions.

We think of these devotions in two categories – vertical and horizontal - with the devotion of Worship at the center. Some of the devotions are primarily a means of growing in our relationship with God (the vertical) and others are primarily a means of growing in our relationship with others (the horizontal). The devotions of prayer and of reading the Bible have to do with our relationship with God- the vertical. Fellowship and mission have to do with our relationships with other people- the horizontal. Worship is where they meet and from which they originate.

WORSHIP

When you think about worship, likely, your first thought is connected to music, praise, and singing… but it’s not just music. More fully understood, worship is our right response to God’s merciful initiation with us. It is the proper response we can offer when we see God for who He really is. And we see God reveal himself most clearly in the gospel message itself.

The apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans writes a basic definition of worship in chapter 12, verse 1:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship.” (NIV)

In light of God’s mercy to us in the gospel, we rightly respond to God and His goodness to us in the gospel by offering Him our whole lives in absolute surrender… so much so that we are like a living sacrifice! Paul helps us see that this is worship, and this is the worship that the early church was devoting themselves to. They resolved to have an ongoing view of the grace and mercy of God, particularly looking at Jesus’ work on the cross, and then they offered a regular and joyful response of unconditional surrender to Jesus as their Lord. This is the core pattern of life for a disciple of Jesus in the Church.

As we mentioned before, worship is at the heart of all the other devotions--that’s why we have the other four devotions surrounding worship in our Five Devotions logo. It is this first devotion that gives life to all the others.

Simply put, the central motivator of our faith is gratitude for the Gospel. If this gratitude is not in place, the other 4 devotions will start to languish and may even develop into something that actually detracts from the glory of God. You may want to take a moment to pause now and consider: What happens to the other devotions if we take worship out of the picture? What happens if our other devotions are not motivated by and do not have an end goal in worship of Jesus?

As a church, we strive to keep Gospel-Fueled Worship at the center of our lives, and the urge one another and those we disciples to pursue the same. This gospel-centeredness is fostered through personal and corporate worship, regularly beholding Jesus and responding to him with repentance and faith.  Some ways in which we devote ourselves to worship include…

  • Seeking to make the gospel the central motivation of my life – As a Christian, it can be very easy to slip into “auto-pilot” mode, growing numb to the very Words of life that have given us life in the gospel. But at every turn, we want to bring our lives back to the gospel over and over again. This practice helps to weed out the heart’s desire to put ourselves or something else in the center of our lives.

  • Setting time aside in my daily life to dwell on the gospel through prayer and scripture study - While Sundays and Midweek meetings are helpful, nothing is as helpful as spending time alone with God every day. Try to make a plan for how to spend daily time with God. If you don’t know how to do it, seek help from a mature believer. 

  • Attending Sunday worship on a weekly basis – Songs and the weekly sermons bring us back to the grace and truth of Jesus. We roleplay our conversion by receiving the grace-filled truth of the Scriptures and then offering our lives yet again in absolute surrender. 

  • Taking communion on Sunday - Christ instituted this “breaking of bread and taking of the cup” for the purpose of bringing us back to His death, burial, and resurrection every time we eat the meal. We express our helplessness and need for the gospel every time we go up front to receive the free bread and juice that represent Jesus’ body and blood. We also anticipate eating this meal with Jesus one day, so we also gather with great joy over the communion table together with our brothers and sisters.

  • Being intimately involved in a weekly small group – In addition to church service on Sunday, there are small groups and midweek fellowship opportunities with others who are also striving for maturity in Christ. These smaller settings allow for you to share more personally with others the triumphs and challenges of following Jesus and be encouraged to continue running the race.

WORD

As we look to the next devotion, we’ll call to mind the Scripture we shared at the start of this episode from Acts 2. The time in history described in Acts 2 was a time when the New Testament of the Bible, as we have it today, was not yet written down. No, in fact, this portion of the Scriptures was still being shared orally, because the first hand witnesses, known as the apostles, were still alive to tell the story. They had been commissioned by Jesus as the officially sanctioned witnesses to the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ.  Not long after the time of this passage in Acts, the Apostles, and those in close relationship to the Apostles, began writing down what they had seen and heard so their message could be disseminated throughout the world and preserved for generations to come.  These writings eventually became our New Testament.  As a church family, we devote ourselves to the study and application of the Bible which serves as a means for the church family to increase in our understanding and appreciation of God and his gospel and respond with worship.  

We know that God reveals Himself through various means including general revelation such as through the natural creation, common grace, and human conscience. We also know that God has revealed Himself through special revelation–supremely through the Incarnation, which was when God entered into human history as the God-man, Jesus. Now, in the present time, God’s primary means for revealing himself to us is through his Word by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. The way we begin devoting ourselves to the Word is by first believing that the Scriptures are actually inspired by God and therefore, they are authoritative for our faith and practice. We draw this understanding from the Scriptures in Paul’s second letter to his friend Timothy. We read in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped with every good work.

Paul makes it clear that in order for God to use the Bible to teach, correct, and train us, we must first believe that the Bible is God-breathed, or given to us by God. 

So, how do we know that the Apostles’ teachings are given to us by God? The apostles were eyewitnesses or had contact with eyewitnesses who knew about the life and teachings of Jesus. But most importantly, the Holy Spirit inspired them and gave them wisdom to write Scripture.

Since God, who is the authority over all, is the source of the Scriptures, these writings are authoritative for both our beliefs (who we are) and practices (what we do). Authoritative means we can trust what is written in the Bible as being reliable, accurate, and true. It also means that the commands written within the Scriptures should be respected and obeyed because they come from God Himself. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit uses the Bible to bring about life change as He teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains us in righteousness. God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, uses the Bible to change us and form us. The Scriptures are deeply formative for our faith journey and spiritual growth. So, we devote ourselves to the Word by hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on the Word on our own and with the community.

PRAYER

The natural connection to the devotion of the Word is the devotion of prayer. We not only hear from God through his Word, but we can dialogue with him in prayer.  As a church, we build up our spiritual family and advance the Kingdom of God by devoting ourselves to prayer individually and corporately.   

From the beginning, the Scriptures attest that God’s people are a praying people. We see this as early as Genesis 4:26, which says that God’s people are people who call upon the name of the Lord. In the Old Testament, the Israelites had limited access to God. To speak with God, they had to go to the temple where a priest would mediate their approach to God through properly conducted animal sacrifices.

Under the new covenant we have unlimited, intimate access to God because of what Jesus, our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4, 5), accomplished on the cross. Through Christ’s death and resurrection it is possible for us to now have God dwelling in us by the Holy Spirit...When we think on this, our gratitude for this incredible gift ought to drive us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). And the early church did just that! They prayed and they prayed A LOT. We observe this pattern of prayer throughout the narratives of the New Testament and receive commands and exhortations to pray throughout the epistles. 

In Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, we are commanded in chapter 4, verse two: Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (NIV) In the English Standard Version, the first half of the verse is rendered, “Continue steadfastly in prayer.” The Greek word for “continue” means “to be courageously persistent” or “to hold fast and not let go” – Here we see that attitude and approach we ought to have in prayer–praying with fervent, persistent zeal. Not only do we pray persistently but we are commanded to be “watchful.” So, yes, we are to stay awake during prayer, but Paul also has in mind the broader implication of staying alert for specific needs about which to pray, rather than being vague and unfocused.

Ephesians 6:18 further informs us that we are to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” From this verse alone we see that the frequency of our prayers should be “on all occasions,” the variety should include “all kinds of prayers and requests,” the direction is “in the Spirit” as we submit to the will of God in everything, the manner is one of “alertness,” the timeline is “always keep on praying,” and the focus is “for all the Lord’s people.” With all that said, we recognize that this is a high call. But if our hearts are set upon Jesus in the gospel, we will see these realities of prayer begin to bubble up out of our heart’s desire rather than living under compulsion. Again, we get to engage with this devotion of our gratitude for the gift of relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Prayer is woven throughout our life together as a church in the Sunday worship service, through our prayer team, praying in small groups and Midweek, and periodically gathering together for larger prayer meetings. As we do life together in fellowship, rooted in the Word, driven by worship, we commit to praying with each other and we pray as individuals. 

FELLOWSHIP

Of course, God has designed us not only to be in a spiritual relationship with Him, but He has also given us to one another as fellow image-bearers, as fellow disciples, and as fellow brothers and sisters of our Heavenly Father. So, we devote ourselves in sacrificial love to our church family by giving of our time, talents, and treasure. 

Even from the brief paragraph from Acts 2 that we’ve been studying together in this episode, we can see that the community that came from those first converts was extraordinary. There was awe for God, extreme generosity, tight-knit relationships, and extraordinarily fruitful outreach among unbelievers. Jesus’ death was not only for the saving of individuals but also for the creation of a new community that would display his glory to the world. Here is one of Jesus’ descriptions of this reality in John 13 verses 34 and 35:

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Jesus wants the church to be a community made up of people who love one another like Jesus first loved them. Not long after he says this to his disciples, he demonstrates his love by laying down his life for undeserving sinners. This is the kind of love that Jesus expects to be manifested in his churches. John writes this description of the kind of love to be shown within the church in 1 John chapter 3 verses 16-18:

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

This kind of love is supernatural to say the least. What Jesus is telling us to do is impossible outside the saving and transforming grace of the gospel.  And this is exactly what you see happening in Acts 2! We read about sinful humans who have been saved by Jesus to live in community with other saved sinners to the glory of God and the good of their world. MERCYhouse, this is not just for the Christians in Acts. These commands and promises are for the church throughout history, which means they are for us today as we identify with Jesus as well. We have been given the mandate to love each other like Jesus first loved us. While church structure will manifest itself differently in different contexts, the essence of every church across the world is this self-sacrificing love that’s expressed by laying down one’s life for others in the church.  The way we can think about laying down our lives is by sacrificing our time, talents, and treasure for the sake of our church family.

Paul writes in Romans 12:3-8: 

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.


Paul begins writing about the community of the church with a focus on humility – which means having an accurate view of oneself, being able to see our strengths and weaknesses for what they are. Humility gives us the confidence to serve others according to our strengths, and to rely on others according to our needs and weaknesses. This attitude of humility is non-negotiable if we want to obtain the vision that God has for His church. 

His vision is that the church would work much like the human body. There are two aspects of church life that Paul wants to highlight by equating the church with a human body.

  • First, the human body is unified, working together to accomplish a single purpose, much like hitting a tennis ball with a racket. All the parts work together for this purpose of hitting the ball just as the church all works together for the purpose of glorifying God as we exalt Jesus through our collective life.

  • Second, the human body is made up of many specialized parts that are working together as individuals to fulfill their purpose. It takes legs, arms, fingers, shoulders, heart, lungs, etc. to hit the tennis ball. All these parts have different functions and forms, but all are needed to hit the ball successfully. Similarly, each part of the church body has a specialty, called “spiritual gifts” to contribute to the fulfillment of the greater purpose of the Church. There are many passages to read about spiritual gifts, but Romans 12 is a great place to start.

The reality is that Christians most likely have a mix of spiritual gifts. God has placed these gifts in them to serve the church. The gifts do not belong to the individuals, but to the church as a whole. One of the ways we discover what our gifts are is to start serving and trying out different roles in the church (here is a sermon preached at MH on Spiritual Gifts). Whether you are setting up chairs, comforting someone you see that is hurting, or secretly giving your money away– Every Christian is called by God to exercise their assigned gifts in different areas of service to their own benefit and to the benefit of others. 

We can think about giving our time by committing to a few people as if they are our family and investing in them materially, emotionally, and spiritually on a regular basis. We can’t do this with every person in the church, but we can do it with a handful of folks, and if we all significantly invest in a small handful of people, everyone will be deeply known and loved as we give our time to each other. We also give our time to the larger church family by participating in summit meetings and other essential gatherings for church members. We can view these as opportunities to connect with our “extended spiritual family.”

We give our talents by first discovering our spiritual gifts and then employing them in service to each other. A great way to start discovering your gifts or employing ones you already know is by joining a servant team. We will talk a little bit later in this episode about concrete ways to serve but we also acknowledge that not everyone’s giftings have an “organizational” slot in church life – some are very informal, spontaneous, and creative in their nature. We’d love to talk with you more about these creative expressions of gifts and service when you attend the Meet MERCYhouse brunch or in a one-on-one meeting. You can contact us specifically to talk through your spiritual gifts and opportunities to serve by filling out the form on our website at mercyhouse365.org/gifts.

And finally, we give of our treasure–in other words, our finances and resources– we give in a way that is generous, proportional, and consistent. 

As God’s children under the new covenant, we give because we love God, and we love to participate in His kingdom’s work through giving away resources which He has entrusted to us. We give generously because we’ve been given a gift of infinite value in our salvation through Christ; if we understand the gospel and its implications, we will be cheerful as we freely give our resources in response to being in a relationship with a generous God. And we give intentionally--in our consistency of giving and in the proportional amount given (1 Corinthians 16:2). We encourage people to tithe and adopt a 10% mark as the minimum standard for giving, although we should strive to grow in our generosity over time, growing in our trust of God by giving a significant portion of income away. It is a concrete spiritual discipline that tests our heart.

As we give our time, talent, and treasure to each other in love, the MERCYhouse family is built up and we witness to the world the great love we have experienced in Christ… which leads us to our final devotion: mission.

MISSION

The tight-knit Christian community we see in Acts 2 was also used by God to daily bring about new converts as they witnessed to others about Jesus in both their words and actions. Jesus commissioned his disciples before his ascension in Acts 1:8, 

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

We’ll speak more on mission in our next article, but just as Jesus commissioned the early church to tell all the world about Him, we continue to do that today, here with MERCYhouse. The specific focus of our mission here at MERCYhouse is three-fold: We reach, build, and send students of the Five Colleges. We connect, train, and mobilize our community members of families and singles. And we pray, partner, and support church planting efforts among unreached peoples. 


Membership Covenant

With these devotions in mind, we somewhat quickly bump up against one of the first challenges to figuring out how to love one another with the love Christ has shown us… we are tasked with figuring out who the “other” is that I’m supposed to love! In one sense, we are to love everybody, but in another sense we are called to love one another in the church in a unique way.  For instance, Paul writes about this unique, familial love in Galatians 6 verse 10:  

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Loving those in the church is paramount for the Christian. So how can we focus our efforts on the people who make up a local church–how do we identify who these people are? Here we have the reason for formal church membership and covenant keeping. When we identify ourselves with the church and officially devote ourselves in fellowship as official members we free ourselves, or fellow members, and leaders to know how best to “do good to…those who are the household of faith” by first knowing who those identified individuals are to begin with. 

Leaders, in particular, are given special mandates to care for and pay attention to the flock and “keep watch over their souls.” Knowing who is in the flock is the first step for these leaders to demonstrate the loving leadership to which they are called. By becoming a member, we submit to the leadership and discipline of our biblically qualified elders. These men, who are appointed by our church membership in an annual summit meeting, act as overseers, shepherds, and teachers and work to protect our body from false teaching. In the event that one of the “sheep” in this “flock” is living inconsistently with the way of Jesus, these leaders are tasked with graciously approaching the individual member and speaking the truth in love in an effort to build the person up and encourage them in repentance. Ultimately, while leaders are important, their main function is to make sure that every person in our church family is focused on Jesus and is traveling on the path toward spiritual maturity.

Becoming a member of the church is just the beginning. Not changing the way one relates with their church after becoming a member would be like taking marriage vows only to then treat your spouse like all your other friends.  By being baptized and/or joining the church you’ve entered into what’s known as a “covenant community” similar to how a wedding gives way to a marriage covenant. As a member of our church, you commit to love one another by agreeing to live by our church covenant which is based on the Bible. It’s a simple one-page document that affirms our basic belief in the gospel and our devotion to five different areas of obedience that we find in the depiction of church in Acts 2:42 and Acts 1:8. We renew our commitment to these beliefs and practices every year by resigning the covenant and standing with our fellow church members and saying the covenant out loud together. This helps us to be reminded of what we signed up for and to recommit ourselves to those things on a regular basis.  

Servant Teams and How to Serve

Earlier in this episode, we mentioned that we each have specific God-ordained functions as members of the body. Some of these functions are empowered through spiritual gifts and other functions are executed through learned skills, developed talents, and practical help. Just as a healthy family divides the chores of the household among the family members so that they can all enjoy the home and host guests and visitors, our Servant Teams are teams of people who “clean house” together to maintain and grow the church family. 

Again, some of these Servant Teams are clearly aligned with particular spiritual gifts. For example, someone with the gift of faith or mercy might be an excellent member of the prayer team.However, we also have needs that might not specifically or directly align with a particular spiritual gift, but they are tasks that are essential to the functioning of our household and are opportunities for us to work heartily unto the Lord, doing good to one another, despite our giftings.

Each of our Servant Teams has different levels of involvement and commitment, allowing people from all life stages and circumstances to participate. Some of our currently organized Servant Teams include Audio/Visual, Worship, Sunday Greeting, Prayer, Building/Grounds, MH:Kids, Finance Team, Admin/Events, and Men’s and Women’s Ministries. If you decide to devote yourself to this church family, we invite you to explore serving in at least one team to start. Let us know which team is of interest to you, or if you’d like to start a new team of some kind, and we’ll connect you with the appropriate members who can train you and schedule you for service soon! Check out mercyhouse365.org/serve for more details.