Multiplied Homes

Amen. Well, please turn your Bible to Luke chapter 18, that can be found on page 877 if you're using the

Pew Bible in front of you. Luke chapter 18, continue this pericope about the rich ruler, and we'll be looking at the last few verses of this passage, but I'll read the whole passage for context beginning in verse 18.

So Luke 18, when you have that, please stand for the reading of God's Word. And a ruler asked him, good teacher, what must

I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good?

No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.

And he said, all these I've kept for my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, one thing you still lack, sell all that you have and distribute to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

But when he heard these things, he became very sad for he was extremely rich. Jesus seeing that he had become sad said, how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God, for it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

Those who heard it said, then who can be saved? But he said, what is impossible with man is possible with God.

And Peter said, see, we have left our homes and followed you. And he said to them, truly

I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come, eternal life, amen.

You may be seated. Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that you would continue to show us our own covetousness, that it might be mortified.

We pray that you would also show us the blessedness of Christ, his promises, in order that we might desire him rather than those things that compete with him.

In Jesus' name, amen. So this is a passage that speaks of covetousness.

This is a passage that speaks of contentment. And so we have looked at the rich young ruler and how he desired his things and was unwilling to depart with them.

The need to be able to lose possessions and today see the need to be willing to even lose family.

This is a passage that deals with not only just where does this heart to give, where does this heart to lose and sacrifice comes from as we looked at last time, but also what encouragements does

God give to that? How does he sustain us in order that we might be able to do that?

And he gives us a blessed promise in this passage. Everyone who leaves behind wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life.

So these blessings are twofold in this time. There are many more things, many more homes and wives and brothers, etc.

Right? Speaking of a spiritual family, you know, Jesus said, this is your mother, right, to John describing the spiritual family.

So more mothers, more brothers, more fathers, more sisters. And in the age to come, eternal life, it's this twofold thing.

Look at how Jesus gives us and then what that means for us and how we should respond to these truths.

So look at Peter's question or Peter's statement rather. Peter said, see, we have left our homes and followed you.

So these disciples, they've left their homes in order to literally follow Jesus around, right, to follow

Him as He is going onward toward Jerusalem, as He is teaching the people. And Peter asks this in response to all that has come before, this statement that it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

In fact, it is impossible. If it is impossible for the rich man, but possible with God, the question is, well, what about the case of us?

Have we been made able to do this? Have we done this? Look, we might have left many riches, but we have left our homes and families.

Is that enough? Jesus answers positively. And remember, the original question the ruler had asked is, good teacher, what must

I do to inherit eternal life? Notice that this is the final thing that Jesus says in verse 30, in the age to come, eternal life.

So part of Peter's statement is also asking, will we receive eternal life? The answer is yes.

Everyone who is willing to leave behind all those things will inherit eternal life.

This is something that God requires of every disciple. It requires that every disciple, they renounce all that they have and follow him.

Now as I've mentioned each time that we've gone through this passage, what that looks like for each person is going to be very different.

It is not necessarily going to look like selling everything that you have, but every last resource that you have, every last relationship that you have needs to be dedicated to the service of God.

It is not God's things that are over here and your things over here. All of your things are

God's things. If you are his servant, if you are a slave, he owns you.

All of your relationships, all of your possessions are owned by him, must be dedicated to his service.

Those who would expect the blessings described in this passage must be willing to leave these things behind. These things are impossible to receive apart from leaving behind.

All these blessings described in this passage are impossible to receive apart from leaving behind all that you would hold dear.

You must be willing to renounce all those things. This is a command that has been given us, and it is one that Jesus has said earlier in Luke 15.

In 15 and 26 he says, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

This is what is required. Think about how many people out of a desire to preserve their relationships, preserve their families are not willing to follow

Christ because of these things. It is so frequent. I know some of you know

I have done a good bit of apologetics toward a particular cult known as the Iglesia Ni Cristo, a Filipino group.

One thing I find, often there are people in that who have become convinced of the truth that they are unwilling to leave the organization because they know what it means for their family relationships.

They are unwilling to pull the plug because it means that they won't be talking to their mother anymore.

It might mean they're not talking to their brother or sister anymore. They don't know what it means for their family, but they are afraid of the consequences.

And so, when they are asking themselves, well, do I want

Jesus? Do I want my mother, my brother, my sister? They answer that they want their family instead.

And so, Jesus is calling us to be willing to leave all these things behind as a matter of hyperbole, to even hate one's own father and mother and wife and children, for that to be nothing to us compared to the kingdom.

You must value kingdom over kin. Kingdom over kin. Think about people you know who have experienced this.

Maybe you are one who has experienced this, who is not able to communicate to their family easily because you have followed

Christ, because you have followed Him in purity, and they follow some other religion.

This is a very frequent thing that happens. And even those whose parents follow the truth as they ought, this often happens.

Consider the disciples. There is nothing here that has said very directly that any of their family is in serious disobedience or disdain for the gospel, but yet they have had to leave that family behind in order to follow

Jesus. Many people go on missions for the sake of Christ. Many people go and serve the body of Christ away from their larger family because this is what they have been called to do, and they have decided that the kingdom is more important than their kin.

And so this is the case even for families that love the gospel, that often they must be left behind in order to pursue the gospel, in order to pursue the kingdom.

And one must be willing to do this.

This is a very serious thing. It is a very serious sacrifice. It might be, even though many people feel that pain, it might be somewhat lost on us how great a sacrifice this is because so many homes are homes of one, and we're not used to thinking of homes as larger things that are really integral parts of our society, right?

So many homes are homes of one, and they're already living apart from the rest of their family that it might not seem like that much of a sacrifice.

But if you're living in a society where everyone is part of a larger home, right, and the thought of leaving your home behind to follow

Jesus is a significant thing. It's a shameful thing, right? It's bearing a lot of shame to be without a home.

And consider that even people recognize this, even in the way that they talk about this.

You know, you're not supposed to call people homeless because that's offensive, right? They're unhoused people, right?

This is like the world even recognizing how shameful it would be to be without a home, right?

And so you don't want to say that these people are without homes because that's insulting, right? So even the world recognizes this to a great extent.

This is shameful to leave the home behind, but it is a shame that must be borne for the sake of Christ.

And so what consolation is offered? What consolation is given that we would have the strength to be able to do this, to be able to leave behind family, to be able to leave behind father and mother and brother and sister?

The answer is that Christ gives a greater family. He gives a more family and greater.

It says here in Luke 18, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life, who will not receive many times more in this time.

There is much more that will be received, a great blessing of extended family, of a greater spiritual family.

These are exceptional blessings. Now the blessings that God gives in this life,

He gives physical blessings. You know, it's rarely the case that we receive many riches, but He has promised us our daily bread.

He has promised us everything we need in order to serve Him as we ought. He gives us spiritual blessings.

There's the peace that passes all understandings in Philippians. Right? He gives us physical blessings.

He gives us spiritual blessings. He also gives us a family, which is physical in the sense that it is, they are real people, but it is spiritual and that the unity is spiritual, and so we receive physical blessings through a spiritual blessing or otherwise considered physical, spiritual blessings through a physical blessing.

God has given us a great thing in giving us, in giving us a family, and this is not a matter of any kind of prosperity gospel, right, because what it says in Mark in the parallel passages,

Jesus said, And Mark, it's clear that these things all come with persecutions.

So this is not, this is not to suggest that it's going to be easy. It will still be difficult, but there is a great consolation giving in having a spiritual family.

And this spiritual family is better in a couple of ways. First of all, it is a greater quantity.

He says many times more, right? If you think about your family, think about your extended family, you try to add it up, and it's not that many.

You think about your spiritual family, you know, anywhere you go, you can, in most of the world, you can find a church where you can find family, people who would welcome you in and recognize you as a spiritual brother and sister, even address you as brother and sister.

So you have a much greater family in Christ in terms of number. You also have a greater family in Christ just in terms of the quality of the family as well.

You might know the saying that blood is thicker than water, referring to the fact that, you know, family ties end up being more important than other things.

Blood is thicker than water, but the blood of Christ is much greater than any kind of mere human blood.

You know, it has drawn us together in a substantial way that is far more valuable. And keep working with those analogies.

God says that we are of His seed, right? That is a physical analogy.

You know, it's referring to the male product that creates children, right? His seed, we are of His seed.

Think of us as having His DNA, His genetics, right? And so this family is established more than a legal way, right?

When we think of adoption, we might think of something that's solely happening in a legal fashion, right? You write on paper, now the child is adopted or described as adopted.

Yes, there is a legal adoption, but there is more than that when we're admitted into the household of God. We actually have, in this analogy, the

DNA of God such that we're united more organically than that, so that we have a likeness to Him that makes brotherhood and sisterhood appropriate as we are like each other in that we are like Him.

And so there is an increased quality of that. You see also that we are bound together by the

Spirit, right? We are spiritually unified in Christ by the Holy Spirit, drawn together in a substantial way that does not exist just naturally in human relations and family relations.

And to explain this further to you and to show you how unique that bond is,

I think it might help to understand a certain theological concept known as creationism.

Now when you hear of creationism, you might think of the idea that God created the world in six days rather than, you know, it coming about by evolution or the

Big Bang or some other means, right? That is not the kind of creationism I'm talking about. When I say creationism right now,

I'm talking about the biblical notion that God creates the soul. Okay, God creates the soul.

The physical body is a product of your parents, right? Your mother and your father, you've got features of each of them, right?

You look a little like your mother, you look a little like your father, but your soul is created directly by God.

Now there is a rejection of this that's known as traducinism that says even your soul is created by the product of your mother's and father's soul.

But you see passages like the one in Ecclesiastes 9 that speaks of you do not know the way that the soul is knit together in the bones of the woman with child, right?

This is God doing it. He is the one that is creating the soul, right? There are passages that teach us that it is

God creating it. And so your soul is distinct from your—your body has a relationship, has a natural relationship to your parents' bodies, to your brother's and your sister's bodies, right?

But your soul does not. There's not something that really unites your soul in that way.

Yet through Christ, through the spiritual unity that we have in Him, our souls are united together in a way that does not exist just with physical, natural family.

And this is a—this is a wonderful truth. And if you've never—if you've never experienced this before, as you have gone around and met other

Christians, I hope you—I hope you have. If you are a believer, I hope you have. If you are not a believer, then it is—like

Christ is saying here, it is one of the best blessings of the Christian life. Okay, there are not many things that are guaranteed in this life.

There are very few things that are guaranteed in this life. It is a—it is a difficult road to be a follower of Christ.

But this is—this is the one thing, one of the very few things that He promises. And He promises here right in parallel with eternal life.

Like, you don't get—you don't get much in this life if you are a follower of Christ, but you get this one.

And it is a—it is a beautiful thing. You know, I—I know there is a part of my family, my physical family,

I was—I did not know because my grandfather had not remained in touch with part of my family.

When I got in touch with him and was reunited to that side of the family, it was so amazing to be welcomed in by these people that I had never met before, but you know, they—they trusted me and they treated me like family because we were family, right?

Even though I did not know them. That was a—that was a very unique experience that not a lot of people get to have, you know, being united with long -lost relatives that you never got to meet, right?

And that is—that is what I have experienced in churches where I go places, and we have a brotherhood that is established in Jesus Christ that can be enjoyed without all the legwork of trying to figure out someone—who someone is because you already know that they are a brother and sister.

And just to—just to illustrate some of the small ways that I've gotten to enjoy this, um, there was—there is a website called

Candle in the Window where you—for Christian hospitality where you can stay at other people's places and they can stay yours.

We've hosted other Christians at our house just through that site. I've stayed at other Christians' house just through that site, and there is an understanding of brotherhood that just makes people willing to open up their home for free, right?

Just without any—without any expectation of anything other than the blessing of your presence with them.

I remember one time I was traveling in Denver with a friend, and we did not have a place to stay that Sunday evening.

And my friend was not a believer, and he said, like, what's our—what's our plan? What are we going to do here? I said, well,

I'm going to go to church. I'm going to talk to people. They are going to ask me, you know, what

I'm here for, etc. I'm going to tell them. They'll ask where I'm staying. I will tell them

I don't actually have a place to stay. And watch, it may be the case that we end up getting to stay somewhere. Now, perhaps this was presumptuous, but this is exactly what took place, right?

People asked where I was staying. I told them I didn't have a place to stay that evening, and they welcomed me in, including my friend who is an unbeliever, right?

These are the kinds of things that happen in this brotherhood where there is an understanding of who you are that builds a trust without all the legwork that you would normally need to do to build trust with a neighbor, right?

This is a very, very beautiful thing, and a lot of people have not tapped into it because they don't understand the blessing as they ought.

Now, after that, he speaks of eternal life. He says, and in the age to come, eternal life.

Now, what is this eternal life? Okay, this eternal life is more than just a continued existence.

That's what I used to think when I thought eternal life. Eternal life is like a continued existence because it goes on forever, right?

It's an everlasting life. When the Bible talks about eternal life, it is talking about something that Adam did not even have, right?

He was able to continue existing, right, even before he sinned and that day he died, right?

He was able to continue existing if he did not sin, but he did not have eternal life. When we have eternal life, it is something much greater than that.

It is a glorified existence that it's referring to when it's speaking of this as a future thing, and here in the present life, because the

Bible also talks about us having eternal life now, it is a status of being, it is a life, a being bound to Christ that has certain qualities and certain promises that Adam did not have.

There is a guarantee that we will be united to Christ forever. There's a guarantee that we have this source of life forever as we are in the vine, right, that is not something that Adam have, okay?

So this life, eternal life is something more than just a continued existence.

Don't think of eternal life as continued existence. Now, also consider when is this?

Now, like I said, there are some passages that speak of eternal life being now. This is a passage that speaks of eternal life as being in the future, in the age to come eternal life, all right?

So it is, this is referring not just to the quality and promise of life that we get to enjoy now, but the full manifestation of it later.

You know, that life will be fully manifest later when we have renewed glorified bodies, when we are able to enjoy the presence of Christ more fully, when we are able to enjoy others more fully.

And so, yeah, this is talking primarily about its full manifestation. Now, you might ask, what is the relationship between these things?

And in part, they might look like just complimentary blessings that God has given. Okay, well, here you get this thing, and there you get that thing.

Really, you shouldn't think of it that way. You should think of it as an extension of the other. Here in this life, we get many more homes and families, etc.,

and that life, we will have eternal life, which implies the greater enjoyment of those homes, etc.

Recall what Christ has said earlier just two chapters back. He said, and I tell you, this is

Luke 16, 9, and I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, talking about just normal money, unrighteous means, not having a moral quality to it, not being evil but being unrighteous, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Okay, so he's already talked about eternal homes that we should be working towards in this life.

So in the context that Jesus has given already, these are not unrelated concepts, you know, homes here, eternal life there.

They're actually related concepts because he's explained in Luke 16 that one of the rewards that we get is eternal dwellings.

So here we get to enjoy those in some measure, there we get to enjoy them in an even greater measure.

Okay, so this is an extension. The eternal life that he's promising is an extension of that blessing that we get to enjoy here in this life.

And consider what this also means in terms of time.

He uses two different phrases here, right? He says, who will not receive many more in this time, okay, in this time and in the age to come eternal life.

All right, so he uses two different phrases. He uses time and age. Now, the first thing to be observed, there are two distinct periods that we're talking about, this time, the age to come.

In some passages, it talks about this age and the age to come, right, using a different Greek word.

So this age and the age to come, I want to make a couple of notes on that before getting back to the main point.

First note, you know, this is, you know, we teach amillennialism here, right, amillennialism being the idea that Christ reigns now.

The thousand -year reign that it's talking about in Revelation 20 is not talking about something future that hasn't happened yet.

It is talking about something that we are enjoying right now as he reigns and as Christ is bound so that the nations are no longer deceived.

Even though he prowls about like a roaring lion, he is no longer deceiving the nations in such a way that the gospel can't go forward to the nations.

Now, think about this. What are the other views? The other views, pre -millennialism, post -millennialism, both of them posit that that thousand years is some blessed time in the future, right?

It is some time, this is known as Kiliasm, the idea that there is some golden age yet to come.

But what does the Bible say? The Bible repeatedly speaks of two ages. It speaks of a two -age eschatology, a two -age view of the end times.

There's this age, there's age to come. There's this time, there's the age to come. It doesn't really leave room for a third age.

So to build a third age out of that one passage is to miss the repeated statement in Scripture that there is this age and the age to come because that's one kind of doctrinal takeaway from this.

The other that I'd have you consider is what this means for something like full preterism.

Okay, full preterism is the idea that Christ has already come back at this point. The resurrection has already happened. We are not waiting anything new.

Okay, if that is the case, and we have passages even after the resurrection that talk about this age and the age to come, there is still an age to come.

That eternal life that Jesus is describing here is not one that is fully enjoyed yet.

The eternal dwellings that Christ spoke of in 16 are not things that we enjoy here. This is, it would be a sad hope if this was it.

Like this is, he's given us good blessings in this life, but it'd be a sad hope if this were it. It is not. There's more.

Okay, so consider that. Now, consider also that in using these two different words when he says, this time and in the age to come, speaking of time, kairos is the

Greek word, he's talking about something limited. When he speaks about the age to come, the word age is the same word for eternity.

In fact, a more literal way of saying this would be, and in the eternity to come, eternal life. Okay, these are the same, you know, one's the noun, one's the adjective.

In the eternity to come, eternal life. So that is eternal.

This time is a short time. That should be an incredible motivation for us to be willing to leave behind these temporary families.

We can't hold on to these families anyway. It's just like the riches and wealth, right? You can't take those to your grave. The pharaohs in Egypt might have made their pyramids to try to keep all their stuff, but they're not enjoying it.

Same goes with family. That's even more obvious. You cannot take your family with you. You know, there are some who try to, just like there are, you know, religions, typically more pagan ancient ones, right, that have some way of culting your, cargo culting your possessions into the afterlife, okay, there are religions that also try to do the same with family.

You know, Mormonism, this is one of their main things that they're trying to sell you on. One of their main slogans is family is forever, right?

Family is forever because they believe that your family is forever. This is why it's really important in Mormonism to, not that it's not important biblically to have lots of kids and to, yeah, to have good families, but in Mormonism, and the reason why you have things like polygamy in Mormonism's past is because they believe family is forever, that you're trying to build up something that you're going to take with you forever, right, and just cargo cult that into the afterlife.

This is not the case, and what would this do for Jesus' statement here? He's telling us we should be willing to leave all these things behind because they're temporary, right?

The idea behind Mormonism calls those things eternal. You should hang on to them. You should want them at all costs.

You should, not only are they good things, I acknowledge they're good things, but you should be willing to, you need to have them because they have internal implications.

Now, yes, they are good things, but they are not going to last forever, and so they are totally sacrificeable on the altar of the kingdom of God.

Now, you should care about your family. You should love your family, but if there ever comes a time where you need to decide between serving

Christ and not serving Christ, you need to serve Christ. Now, I am not saying that everyone who feels some kind of internal call to some sort of ministry that is unwise and disregards their family obligations, et cetera, now has warrant to do that.

Okay, I'm talking about this in a biblically balanced sort of way, right, if you truly are called, if it really is according to Scripture.

There are a lot of people who make very foolish decisions devaluing their family in ways that they are not called to do.

I'm not talking about that. Okay, so yeah, this is a blessing that is not only, there is a blessing for this time, and in the age to come, eternal life, eternal life.

And these are all things that are enjoyed in Christ. It is through Christ that we have these things.

Consider the words of 1 John 5, 11, and this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life.

How do we have this eternal life? And this life is in His Son. Okay, this eternal life that we have is in Jesus Christ, it is in the

Son of God. How is it that we are bound together with other mothers and brothers and sisters?

Ephesians 2, 18 through 19 says, For through Him we both have access in one

Spirit to the Father, so that you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Through Him, through Jesus Christ, you have become members of the household of God. That's the home of God, right?

You belong to His home now through Jesus Christ. So it is in Him you have eternal life. It is in Him that you, if you believe that you have, you are in the household of God, and you have other sisters and brothers.

Now, if you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you do not have these things. You do not have any of these blessings. Christ has not guaranteed you any of this.

These promises exist in Him. It is only through trusting in Him and His sacrifice that you are bound together by His blood.

You are bound together in the Spirit with others. This is not a unity that you can accomplish by your own will, by your own doing.

It is a unity that only He gives to you, right? And you can try to fake it. You can try to con others into giving you some of the blessings of that familyhood, but ultimately it will be for nothing because it will all fade away.

This is a family that is truly eternal. This is the forever family. And then on that last day, we will not just be together with each other, but we will be with Jesus Christ.

It says in Revelation 21 -3,

He will dwell with them. Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be

His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. This is speaking of Jesus Christ.

He will be with us as our God. We will dwell with Him forever. We will be in His house, and He will be with us.

Hebrews 3 speaks of Him as being faithful over God's house as a son.

Moses was faithful in God's house as a servant. Jesus is faithful over God's house as a son.

And so Him being over the house, Him bringing us into the kingdom, giving us the spirit of adoption that we belong as sons, makes us brothers and sisters with not only

Him but each other in order that we would be bound together with an incredible blessing that is enjoyed in Jesus Christ.

Now, I would like you to consider some of the things that this might mean for you and yourself, what you are, how you go about your

Christian life. First thing, obvious, be willing to lose the relationships that you have, right?

This time is short. It does not, you know, a thousand years into that age, you will not regret having made the right decision to seek first the kingdom of God.

If you find yourself between kin and kingdom, choose kingdom. Do not engage in man -pleasing.

Do not fear man as though he can take things away from you, take your joy away from you, et cetera. You do not need those relationships for joy.

God may have blessed you with relationships for joy. I'm not saying you can't derive joy from those things, but He will supply everything you need.

And if He calls you to sacrifice something, be willing to sacrifice it, even if it is a relationship that He is calling you away from.

The other relationships that you enjoy in the body of Christ, they are deeper, they are sweeter, they are better.

And so know that. It's not just, well, realize you need to devalue this. You need to value this more.

Those two go hand in hand, just like the Bible calls us not only to put off, but also to put on, right?

It calls us not only to devalue the things of this world, but to value the things of God that we would fully enjoy them.

And note also, this is an important detail, and it might be one that's kind of rained through your head as I've been speaking very idealistically about this unity and family, is because this unity is established in Christ as we are being made like Christ and we are not perfectly like Christ yet.

That unity is also not perfect yet. And you might experience times where you are at odds with even brothers that you should not be at odds with.

Understand that God one day will write all that. And once again, if He is calling you to something for the sake of His kingdom, know that He will write that relationship at the right time and you do not need to worry about pleasing man in order to...

Yeah, this doesn't change the rules at all. You still need to choose kingdom over kin, right? You still need to choose

God's ways rather than trying to please man, even if he's a brother that's misguided, right?

That is requiring something of you. This is a case for many families, right? There are many families who, especially once you discover

Reformed theology, you know, Calvinism sounds pretty crazy to a lot of people. Even people who truly do believe the gospel but haven't given it real thought, it sounds offensive to them.

They might kind of shut off from it, right, in ways that are unhealthy, but they haven't rejected it in such a way that it would reflect on them to show that they do not truly know the gospel, right?

And so a lot of people find that their relationships are tainted, even with brothers and sisters the closer they come to Christ, because others are not as sanctified in those areas, whatever the case may be.

There's all kinds of things. It's not just, you know, it's not even just doctrine. It might even be over a holiness of practice, right?

You really, you know, maybe it's a wedding that you don't feel that you can attend because of what

God commands regarding marriage, and this so offends your family that you're no longer able to be around them, even though they are believers, but in disobedience on that matter, right, there's all kinds of things that you can get into where you find that this ends up applying even to other believers.

That is part of the scope of this command, and it should not be— yeah, don't let that surprise you, because it may surprise you as you look at this and might come away with a very idealized vision of what this is supposed to look like in this life, all right?

It will be idealized in the age to come. In this life, it is a great blessing, but it won't be that ideal.

Have gratitude right now for the fellowship that you have. If you are in Christ, have a great gratitude for what

Christ has done. Thank him for it. You only enjoy those things you appreciate. You only appreciate those things that you understand where they're coming from, right?

And if you understand where they're coming from, you give thanks. So you will not appreciate the brotherhood that you have if you do not give thanks for it, okay?

It will not be a source of joy for you if you do not give thanks to God for it. So give thanks to God for it.

Remember that in your prayers. Thank him for the brotherhood that you have in the church, for the friendships you have among other believers. Another obvious one, give hospitality, okay?

Think of this as if you are united to other brothers and sisters, you ought to be being hospitable to brothers and sisters, you know?

And this includes not just brothers and sisters that you know, but even especially those that you don't know.

Consider that the command in Hebrews 13 too, it speaks of even some have entertained angels, is to be hospitable to strangers, okay?

A lot of people would say, oh, well, I'm willing to do this for someone I know, but man, if I don't know them, yeah,

I'm not going to take that kind of risk. This is what God is calling you to. For strangers, be hospitable even to strangers.

Yeah, open up your home if you have a home that can be opened up. And if you do not have a home that can be opened up, have other ways, find other ways of being hospitable and kind to those who are strangers, but part of the brotherhood.

And then the next part of this is receiving hospitality, receive hospitality. If someone invites you over to their house for Christian fellowship, don't make excuses.

We live in an age of introverts, you know? Don't say, oh, well, I just, you know, need a little me time or whatever, right?

Don't make those excuses. Proverbs 18 .1 says that whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire.

He breaks out against all sound judgment. Okay, don't make those excuses. Don't say, oh, well, you know, my kids have a really, you know, finicky nap time, and if it's tampered with at all, you know, we can't do that.

Or I had one friend who would always make excuses about his dogs. He had little dogs that were not, you know, their bowel control just wasn't what it should be when he was away.

Right? So he's like, oh, I can't leave them for more than an hour, etc. Right? And this was the excuse every time.

I'm like, man, we're good friends. Why can't we ever meet up? And it was always just his dogs. You know, if you find yourself so inhibited by dogs over Christian fellowship, maybe you shouldn't have the dogs, you know?

This is, like, think about your priorities here, right? Your brothers and sisters. You should receive hospitality, and you should, and I'm going to take that farther.

Not only should you receive hospitality, you should boldly request it. Okay, you think this way with your family, right?

You're like, hey, mom, I'm going to be in town. Can I stay there this week? Right? Like, you do that, and you don't think anything of it, right?

That's totally normal. But I know a lot of you feel awkward doing that with brothers and sisters in Christ.

Do it. You can do that. I mean, just recently, a couple of weeks ago, we went down to Joshua Tree, and one of the things

I did was in a couple of the social media groups I'm in of Christians that I've, yeah, grown together with in some ways,

I sent out a message saying, hey, if anybody's willing to host me on my way down or my way up,

I'd be interested in that. And I got multiple people, more than, you know, more than two.

So I wasn't even able to stay at all the places that people were offering for me to stay at. Right? Don't think of that as you being a burden on someone.

Think of that as something that is a blessing to them. And so boldly request hospitality.

Like, if you really believe this, you know, consider these verses. And I know that this is Paul, and he's an apostle, and so there's a special way that his presence is a blessing.

But this really applies to all believers. Second Corinthians 115. Because I was sure of this.

I wanted to come to you first so that you might have a second experience of grace. Right?

The first experience of grace being when he was there the first time, the second experience when he's there the next time. Right? He understands it is—they are blessed by his presence.

Philemon 22. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers,

I will be graciously given to you. You know, graciously means as a gift. Right? How bold. Just to say in a letter, hey, prepare a guest room for me.

You know, it's not a request. It's just, hey, do it. Get the room ready. I'm coming. Right?

Really, really step out in faith in this area. Boldly request hospitality, knowing that it is not just good for you, it is good for them.

Right? If you really do believe it's good for them, you will do what's good for them, and you will ask for this. You will encourage them in that area.

You know, and when I have been rejected, when I've asked for hospitality, I have, you know, encouraged people to whatever it is that's standing in the way to pursue that.

You know, don't be afraid of offering gentle rebukes in this area either. I know this is all like very countercultural, but do it.

This is good. This is the family that God has established. You know, if you called your parents up and said, hey, can

I stay with you? And they said, oh no, you know, this is, you know, we just kind of need a little me time or whatever.

You'd be like, what's going on? Why can't I stay? You would have, yeah, you would have things to say with them if they didn't have a reasonable excuse.

If it was just like, yeah, I don't know about, I don't know about hosting you. You know, this is what family does for each other. If you really believe this, act like you believe it.

Act like you believe it. Yeah, and then look forward to the life to come. You know, where you find this failing, where you find this failing and you don't feel the unity that you ought to feel, and it's not the family it ought to be.

Just know that it is getting better and better. Christ is maturing people. He's working on you. He's working on them. And then eventually, it will be that thing with the eternal dwellings.

And in this life, become more and more like Christ. But often the burden of unity is placed on the one who is more like Christ, that they're the one who's supposed to kind of compromise and set aside values in order to be like the others, right?

But that's not what it is. The burden of unity on the one that's less like Christ. But more and more, be like Christ so that you could experience this unity and enjoy this unity.

When I have felt the deepest connection with other brothers and sisters, it is with those who are further along in their journey of being like Christ.

When I have been around brothers and sisters where I know we've got that spiritual unity, but it is less enjoyed, it is less felt,

I know it's because there is a lacking of being like Christ on either of our ends that is preventing us from enjoying that blessing as much as it ought to be enjoyed.

So become more like Christ with the objective of getting to enjoy that brotherhood to a degree that you are not able to enjoy it currently because of your lack of Christ -likeness.

Because this is the blessing that is to be enjoyed in this life, and you're missing out on it in as much as you are not like Christ and unable to enjoy it more fully.

And in all this, yeah, give thanks to God. Look to Christ. He is the one who has provided this.

He is the one who gives eternal life. It is Him that all these things are in. I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life.

Amen. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful blessing and promise that we have that's not just for the age to come, but even now we get to enjoy a wonderful brotherhood, a wonderful family.

We pray that we would enjoy it more and more, that we would not neglect this blessing as though it is not something to be enjoyed or it is even something to be avoided.

I pray that you would grant us hearts that devalue the things of the world and value highly your things.