The Family Of God | Pastor Adam Peterson

Help me welcome all the men and women and correctional facilities. Come on. We're grateful for you If you're one of those welcome to the rise church family and then to the rest of our online family We're so grateful that you are with us again today We're kicking off a brand new teaching series today that we're simply calling Relation all because we're gonna talk through all things Relationships, we're gonna talk through marriage in this series. We're gonna talk through parenting in this series We're gonna talk through what a healthy friendships look like. What do unhealthy friendships looks like? We're gonna talk about what do healthy relationships within the dynamics of your family look like and what do some of those toxic? Relationships in your family look like and today we're gonna kind of start in a different direction We're gonna talk about the family of God Let me preface this by saying all week this week I prepared a different message something. I felt like the Lord had put on my heart. I started writing it Thursday afternoon rolls around I look at my wife and I'm just like I don't know why this doesn't happen all the time I just feel like the Lord's leading me in a different direction that I'm not supposed to preach this message This week and so we're gonna shelf that message for another time. And today's message is the family of God I love the church. I love it God saved my life at the age of 17 radically changed my life at the age of 19 I felt the Holy Spirit tell me I am calling you into ministry You are gonna give the rest of your life to serve the local church at the age of 20 I got hired as a children's pastor. My pastor shouldn't hire me. I was only 20 I didn't know what I was doing, but that was on him. I'd have done it for free, but he started paying me. Let's go And for the last 20 plus years man, my life has been Involved in the local church, and I love it I I believe it is the hope of the world and there ain't nothing like it and we're gonna talk about it today And when we talk about the family of God the church Here's one of the ways that the Bible describes this says the human body has many parts But the many parts make up the whole body so it is with the body of Christ That's what it's saying some of us man. You you got you got arms. You got legs. You got ears. You got eyes You got nose. That's the body of Christ when we all come together We make up this beautiful thing called the body now if you're old enough, and you've ever had your back hurt raise your hand

All right, you know when your back hurts come on It throws off everything else in the body raise you if you've ever had a shoulder hurting So I'm gonna like my shoulder hurts right now. I can't even raise my hand That's how bad it hurts right now. You know like it affects the whole body. That's the reality of the body of Christ Now I'm gonna give you an illustration that I heard a pastor use years ago, and it's kind of gross It's a little bit like you're gonna like why are you talking about this? But you're gonna get the point okay? Let's say today as you exit out of church And you're walking to your car that on your way to your car you see a severed foot just on the ground Now it's the west side, so we've seen a lot of stuff You know what I'm saying, but that one probably we would take you a little off You'd be like what just a foot on the ground like what if you saw just a hand or a couple ears Just laying on the ground you you would probably be a little weirded out raise your hand If you would probably let let let us know hey I just want to let you know I saw this in your parking lot how many of you think ma'am Maybe I should actually call the authorities to let them know there is a body part at the property of Rice Church, how many of you would just pick it up and bring it to me? Yeah, wouldn't even put a bag in it. Just barehanded like here's somebody's hand right here all right Here's the illustration you ready When you're not connected to the body of Christ you are a severed hand and And we would all say there's something disturbing about that When you're not connected to the body of Christ man that should disturb you a little bit It should bother you it should actually cause you to go I'm not connected to the very thing that God called me to be connected to the church the body of Christ and so the message is very simple today that if you just show up here on Sundays from time to time you're here, but you're not connected You're here, and we're grateful that you're here But you're not really a part of the body and the message is this you need us, and we need you We want you we want you a part of the body because you're gonna make us better We're gonna make you better. We are the Church of Jesus Christ the body of Christ come on the family of God amen

So Matthew Jesus says these words. I will build come on somebody my church That's why I can't take like if I try to take credit for all the good things that are happening here at rise church Then I make it my church And I it ain't my church. It's his church This this belongs to him and and the church isn't even a building. It's the people you are the church and so What is Jesus saying? I'm gonna build you guys up. I'm gonna build you up so strong that all the powers of hell will not conquer it. Meaning, all the powers of hell are gonna try to stomp this thing out. But how many of you know, 2,000 plus years ago, Jesus died and rose again, and he said, I'm gonna build my church. Here we are, 2,000 plus years later, and the church of Jesus Christ is still going strong across the world. And all of hell has tried to stop it, but it cannot win. And only Jesus could do something like this. Listen to this, this is so crazy. Only Jesus could take broken, jacked up, messed up people, bring them together, all these dysfunctional people, bring them together to fight against all the powers of hell. Now before you get a big head and start thinking, dang, we're doing pretty good, we're only able to do that because the power of God lives in us. Because here's what we've got.

We've got people coming from different walks of life, different ethnicities, different genders, just different brokenness, and God's like, yeah, I'm gonna take all of that, and I'm gonna meld it together. And I'm gonna make something so unstoppable that even hell itself cannot defeat it. Now that is pretty powerful. And we are the body of Christ, and he is the center of every single thing we do. But if we're not careful, we will forget what we get to be a part of, and how special this is, we'll even take it for granted. Maybe we'll treat it like this, that from time to time, we just kind of show up when it's convenient for us. Let me say it in another way. Maybe from time to time, you treat us like your drug dealer. And half of you know what I'm talking about, the other half of you are like, drugs, I don't do drugs. The 1130 will know what I'm talking about. Woo! They'll be like, amen, pastor, we know exactly where you're coming from. That you'll get with your drug dealer from time to time when you need a hit. I mean, I've had a couple bad days, I'm gonna go get a hit, and that'll sustain me until I need it again. And so if you're not careful,

you'll look at church and be like, well, I'll just show up when I need it. I'll get around this, when I'm going through something difficult, hell yeah, that's when I'll show back up. And we want more for you. God has more for you, and we want you connected to this body, to this house. Not just when you're going through something difficult, but every day. Guess what? There's a lot of us that are going through something difficult. And it's the church. Man, I say this all the time, but there is nothing else like the church. Please hear me when I say this, that when you're having a bad day, and you're connected in the body of Christ, the family of God, now you have people who can encourage you, build you up, and strengthen you on your bad day. That's amazing, right? And then three months go by and you flip it. Now you're having a good day, you're good, but the person that was encouraging you now they're having a bad day, and the same person that brought you encouragement on your bad day, now you're able to bring them encouragement on their,

there ain't nothing like that on the planet, man. We are the church. How many of you football fans in the house? Football fans, I know it's not football season, so I'm not trying to stir up anything negative right now, but football, I can't wait for football to start back up. There is a statistic in football for running backs that's called YAC. YAC, Y-A-C, yards after contact, meaning that when the quarterback puts the ball into that running back's stomach and he starts taking off, that when somebody hits him the first time, he doesn't go down immediately. He gets taken that contact, but then he keeps going to get three or four more yards, and you might go, three or four yards, that's not a big deal, they gotta go 100 yards to score a touchdown. Yeah, three or four yards is a big deal when they could have gotten zero, when they could have gotten negative yards, and so they take that first initial spin out of it, and they keep going forward. This is what the church does. We wanna help you with your YAC. We wanna help you once the enemy comes and makes contact with you, brings some discouragement into your life, brings some despair into your life,

tries to knock you down. We wanna come alongside you and go, oh, no, no, no, no, you're not staying down. We're gonna help carry you. Come on, it's the family of God who love you too much. We're not gonna judge you when you're down, we're gonna carry you through it. We're gonna keep moving forward. We're not giving up, we're not staying here. But if you don't have the right people in your life, who's gonna pick you up when you fall down? Who's gonna be there to encourage you when you're just feeling hopeless? Like we need each other. We are the body of Christ, the family of God, and we fight for one another. All of hell's trying to come against you. You're not strong enough to fight hell on your own. You need the people of God. Come on, Ephesians says it like this. So now you Gentiles, and this is just talking to all the people that were far from God, you're no longer strangers and foreigners. Man, you are now citizens with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. You, listen, you are a part of something bigger than yourself. Now how many of you would be honest, and if you're sitting by them right now, don't look at them, look at me,

don't look at them, look at me. How many of you would say, I've got some dysfunctional family members? Yeah. I said it the first service, I'll say it again. It's my dad, he's the dysfunctional, I'm just teasing, dad, he's here somewhere. He was like, why do you always have to use me? Easy target, right? And if you're sitting in the crowd, you're watching online, you're like, man, I can't really think of the dysfunctional family member in my family. It's you, it's you, okay? And everybody knows that, amen. Listen, family is dysfunctional. You stick around this church long enough, you're gonna see light. You're like, man, this church is pretty awesome. We've got some dysfunctional family in here. And we have to fight for unity from time to time. You're not always gonna see eye to eye. You're gonna frustrate each other. You're gonna get on each other's nerves. And some of you have had some bad church experiences in the past, and this is what the devil will say. Hey, listen, those people hurt you, you can't trust anybody else. And what he'll do is he'll take one experience to keep you from stepping into the next place that could actually help bring healing

from the hurt that you had in the past. Why does the devil say, don't get connected, don't jump in, don't do this? Because he knows how beneficial it's gonna be for you. So all those excuses that you're making right now, oh, I don't have time, I don't have this, I don't know if I, no, no, no, no, no. That's the enemy trying to keep you from experiencing what God orchestrated, the family. Some of you are like, I don't want anything to do with my family. Well, pray about that, but don't let that affect what God wants you to be a part of here. And as the family of God, come on, we're putting Jesus at the center of all of it. And you don't get to pick your family that's in your life, but you do get to pick your church family. And we want Jesus to be the center. And when he is, a love that we don't have on our own is gonna fill us up. See, people are hard to love, some people are impossible to love. Because you don't have enough love, but you're impossible to love and God still loves you. So what you need is that love from him to come and fill you up so that you have it to give to others, amen? And this is what John says, this is the words of Jesus, your love for one another, it's actually gonna show the world that you are my disciples.

Like when you love each other, it's actually gonna prove to everybody in the outside world that you're my followers. Meaning this, when somebody walks through the doors of this church who does not know Jesus, does not have a relationship with God, and if that's you in this place, we're so glad you're here. But when you show up here today, you should actually be blown away by the love in this place. Like literally, they should look on and go, these people like each other. Look at them, they were excited that they showed up. They ran and gave them a hug. Look at them all smiling with each other. Like they should be like, what is happening here? That's the testimony that we want for this church. If somebody ever says, man, what do you like about Rise Church, why do you go to Rise Church? You can tell them all the good stuff, right? Tell them about, man, our music is incredible, amen? Come on, you can tell them, you can tell them, man, our Rise Kids ministry, man, it's safe, it's clean, some of the best volunteers back there. You can tell them, man, the iced coffee at that church is on point, let's go. The preaching is next level. Right? Yeah. But at the end of the day, here's the testimony I want for our church.

So when somebody asks you, this is what I want you to say. The presence of God lives in the people of God. And the people at that church are some of the nicest, loving, and welcoming people that I've ever met. It's why when you pull onto our parking lot, from the moment you drive by, like we don't even wait for you to get in the parking lot. We're waving at you on the street corner because we want you to know we're excited to be in church and we want to let you know, man, we love you even if you're not. coming to our church but when you pull into the parking lot we got a parking team that's not only gonna show you where to park really suggest to you where to park because you're gonna park wherever you want that's okay just a suggestion but we want to make you we're gonna smile at you and then when you walk up man we're gonna greet you with some smiles some more some signs that are happy some iced coffee some regular coffee some bottled water we're gonna have some people that are greeting you in the lobby some people that are helping you find a seat in here people that rise kids making you feel welcome bubble machine rocking let's go why because we want this to be the most genuine welcoming place that you've ever been because the rest of the world is probably trying to beat you down and all we want to do is build you up it's why we're called rise church and not down church listen we want to point you to Jesus and we want you to know you're you're in a safe place man you're a part of a family that's why Hebrews would say it like this man we need to actually start trying to think of ways to encourage one another toward love and good works like think of ways so here would be the challenge and I don't mean to like like yell at you or get on to you I'm just here to challenge you I love you as your pastor here's the question I would ask you did you show up to church today only thinking about yourself or did you

show up thinking about other people like did you pray that God would move in somebody's heart today and change their life did you did you pray for this the discouraged person that's had the hardest week of their lives did you think about them today did you pray for them like that's how we should show up to church that's how we should show up for any gathering whether it's a small group in somebody's house eating out at a restaurant or here on a Sunday morning Wednesday night prayer or anytime we get together yes we need a move of God in our own hearts but I don't want to just think about myself because I'm a part of a family I'm a part of something bigger than just myself and I know there are people that are coming here today who they need a touch from God they need some encouragement and I want my mind I want to think of ways that I can love them I want to think of ways that I can encourage them we've been thinking about you we knew you were coming today we were ready for you we're so glad you're here we have first-time guests in our church today half of you are excited about that that tells me that maybe we need more work to do within our church to let you know when a first-time guest shows up in our church that's a big deal we actually give them front-row parking because we want them to know we're so glad if they come back the second time we're putting them in the back corner you know what I'm saying like I'm just teasing here's what I'm saying when somebody shows up to our church whether it's their first time or their 100th time we don't know the week they've necessarily had so what can we do to love them and encourage them to remind them God's good God's faithful God's strong and you're not alone you're a part of the family hey and you need us and we need you come on we want to get you connected and one of the ways that you can do that here at our church man is I mean you can serve people let me use a fun illustration I've told you this illustration before but it's worth repeating the first six years of my wife our marriage wasn't great a lot of it was me I was the problem and just super selfish cuz she would say something to me like this hey I left something in the car can you go get it and I look back at her and go that's interesting I didn't

leave anything in the car yeah I wonder why the first six years were rough I don't know I said I didn't leave it literally I didn't leave anything in the car you go get it I had the wrong mindset of what it meant to serve my wife now I pray oh man I hope I'll take stuff out of her purse just so she leaves it in the car and she'll be like I left something in the car like whoa girl I've got you you stay right where you are it is the honor and joy of my life to serve you men get over it she gonna leave something in the car she's gonna do like let's go like it is the joy of my life to serve that woman why because I was only thinking about myself but the moment I got out of that and go no no I want to love her and serve her any you stay right where you are see I was all curled up in the bed yeah yeah I was comfortable I was nice and I was about to fall asleep and take a nap but I'll get out of the bed for you you know we have people that served did I give you a number I didn't give you this number 290 kids were at Easter at Rye's Church last weekend 290 kids and again don't clap for this that's that's more more people than the average church size in America significantly more. And we were blessed with 290 of those bad boys back there. That's why you should hug a Rise Kids volunteer. Hey, do you know this? We have people that serve in Rise Kids that did not contribute to the problem back... I know they're not a problem. Your kids are not. Your kids aren't a problem. That's the wrong language. We have people that serve in Rise Kids that do not have kids. They could easily look and go, but I didn't... I didn't do that. But it's the joy of their life to be back there to serve your kids. We pass that offering bucket every Sunday. You have an opportunity to give. To go, God, could you use just the little that I have or the lot that you have that you're not trusting God with yet to make an impact in somebody else's life? See, 27 people told us that they were saying yes to Jesus for the first time. If you give in this house, you got to be a part of that. The 4,000 plus people that are watching on God Behind Bars and the five people that said yes to a relationship with Jesus, when you give, you made that possible for them. And we say it, listen,

we say it, but we mean it. They're our church family. Got a letter just a couple weeks ago going, when I get out, I'm coming. Let's go. We have groups that meet across, you know, the city. Groups that meet here. Amazing people that lead. Like, our group session semester is about to come to an end, but you can jump in for the last week. Like, it's not too late. Get to know somebody. You know, one of my favorite things to watch is when you're out on the patio and I see you're standing out there on the patio in the sun with your phone. I know what you're doing. You're waiting on somebody to show up. You invited somebody and you're texting them like, where are you? Where are you? Where? Like, but you're waiting on them because you're so excited that they're here. We had somebody last week, we actually had a couple people within our church invite the same person. Some of them, they knew them through different channels and they showed up. And the guy walked up to me that was one of the guys that invited the person and they were like, hey, I got a friend coming, don't screw up. And I was like, I got you. But they were all so excited. Can I tell you something? I found that person afterwards and I shared this on Wednesday night, but it's worth repeating and I don't know if they're in the room right now watching online, but that person told me, they said, I wish I could experience every day what I felt in that room today. That's awesome, right? You know what they were saying? They didn't even have the words to say it. I felt something when I was there and I want more of it. What they felt was the presence of God through the people of God. And they go, how can I get more of that? Well, it's available when you get connected to the family of God. Pastor Jonathan, you can come up as I close. I wish I could have done this every service. I wish I could have, but I wasn't gonna ask the guy to sit in here. We have a member of our church that his health just started kind of going downhill last week and didn't know what was going on, so went into the doctor, got diagnosed with two tumors on the brain. They're doing a biopsy to find out exactly what's going on. And this guy in our church, his wife has been faithfully connected to our church for years, for years. He just jumped in about a year ago. All in. All in. He's serving on a team.

He's in groups. He was that severed foot, but now he's a part of the body. And I kid you not, I say this in jest, I literally got tired this week of so many of you asking me about him. His name's Robert. How's Robert doing? How's Robert doing? How's Robert? Just shut up about Robert, okay? I kid. Why? Because this is family. And the only reason they knew about Robert is because he's connected in the family. And when Robert hurts, and Sherry hurts, the people that know them, and there's a lot of people that know them, they hurt. And this was the questions. What can we do? Can we make some meals? Can we go visit him? Can we do this? Can we do that? Can we do that? Like, what can we do? How can we help? Like, that's the family of God. I grew up Southern Baptist. I don't know why. I don't know why I grew up. I know why I grew up Southern Baptist, but I don't know why this was a part of the tradition. But almost every guy in the church that was older was called Brother. That was their first name. Everybody's first name was Brother. Brother Bob. Brother Jerry, Brother Leroy, everybody was brother. Not all the women, but some of the women, Sister Sally, Sister Beatrice, you know, Sister Susan, like, and you know, let's just be real. Like, I was just always like, this is weird. I don't know why we do this, but you know what? It actually feels right. Now, we're not gonna do it here at Rise Church, so don't get it twisted. Yes, this is the one thing that's been missing here. I have some people that call me Brother Adam. I'm okay with it, but you don't start if you don't. What you need to know is that you are a part of a family, and when you're walking through something difficult, you need to know, man, I got a brother. Not just one brother, I got brothers.

You know what we need here? We know we need more of? We need more men strengthening other men. And the fact that that didn't get a lot of claps from the men in our church tells me we got work to do, because the men of Rise Church are getting significantly outpaced by the women of Rise Church. You see how they did that? You see how they did that, men? Take notes. I don't even care if I say something, men, and you go, woo, you can do that, it's okay. You know what we need, women? We need more women that are celebrating other women, not comparing, not judging, not having jealousy, but celebrating. When you win, I win. We need more women that'll stand side-by-side with other women. We need more students and more young adults who are there to encourage one another. It's hard to follow Jesus, but it's really hard to follow Jesus at a young age, because a lot of young people aren't following Jesus. And I'm grateful for every student and every young adult, and there is a place for you here Wednesday night. Get in the house, students and young adults, because you need each other. We are the family, we need to link arms and go, you are not alone.

So here's how we're gonna close, a little bit different than we normally do. This is something we do on Wednesday nights. If you're walking through something difficult right now, man, life is not easy for you, and you just need to know, man, I need to know I got some family that are here with me today. Would you just lift your hand right now? I'm walking through something difficult. I could use some extra prayer. Come on, hand up, hand up, keep it up. Don't put it back down, keep it up, keep it up. Yeah, look around just to make sure you know you're not the only one, okay? So many hands up. The way we do it here is this. If your hand is up, all we're gonna do is just ask somebody near you to put a hand on your shoulder. Don't make it weird. If you're a man, find a man. If you're a woman, find a woman. All right, and once somebody puts a hand on your shoulder, you can put your hand down. And we're not moving forward in this service until every hand is down. That means if you gotta get up and move across the aisle, we'll do that. Hands are on, hands are on, we're moving. Yep, hands down.

Let's pray. It is a joy to be a part of your family, God. We acknowledge that you are our perfect heavenly Father. You are the center of this family, and we need you, God. Life is too hard to do it on our own. We need brothers and sisters who care, brothers and sisters who will remind us of your strength, your goodness, your faithfulness in our lives. God, I pray peace into every single person that raised their hands. I pray the provision of God into their life. God, if it's healing that they need, we pray for the supernatural, miraculous healing of God. If it's relational healing that they need, God, you're starting it, and you will complete it. We pray peace in their mind and in their heart. In Jesus' name, all God's people said amen. All God's people said a better amen. Amen, amen, amen.