Your Church Is Your Family

y Megan Hill

Behold, Your Brothers and Sisters

In biblical terms, the people in the pews around us are our family. Like the members of our biological family, we haven’t chosen them for ourselves, but they have been chosen for us, and we are therefore inseparably bound to them. Because we belong to Christ, we belong to his family.

In John’s account of the crucifixion, we read, “When Jesus saw his mother and disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (19:26–27). At Christ’s declaration, Mary and John became family to one another and demonstrated all the loyalty we would expect from a biological mother and son.

Later, when Paul wanted the Roman church to welcome and help Phoebe, he called her “our sister” (Rom. 16:1); when Peter wanted to commend Silvanus, he called him “a faithful brother” (1 Pet. 5:12). When the apostolic writers wanted to address an entire congregation, they frequently called them “brothers” (or “brothers and sisters”). The people in the pews around us are, in fact, our family.

Life in the Household

Acknowledging the fact of our sibling relationship isn’t an intellectual exercise; it’s a profound truth that should stir deep emotions and overflow in tangible expression.

Because these people are family, we learn their names (3 John 15), and we find out their interests. We display “brotherly affection” (Rom. 12:10) for all of them, renouncing any hint of partiality (e.g. James 2:1). In hundreds of ways, we seek to say: you are my brothers and sisters, and I love you.

Throughout the New Testament, God commands us to mutual care in the local church. The epistles, in particular, tell us what it means to be brothers and sisters and teach us “how one ought to behave in the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15). With their various “one another” commands, these letters remind us that life in God’s family will reorient our allegiance—not just on Sunday, but every hour of every day.

The church is not a man-made society that we can participate in—or opt-out of—according to our own level of comfort. The PTA, the neighborhood association, or the library booster club don’t obligate us to personal sacrifice when things get tough. Family does.

Because God’s people are our family, we will hold our own preferences and priorities loosely (Acts 4:32; Phil. 2:3–4). We will open our hearts and our doors; we will pull up another chair to the dinner table and add another name to our prayer list. We will give them our groceries and furniture and smiles. We will share their grief and trials and disappointments. We will look for ways to show love.

As a result, we will expect to have less money and less free time than we would have on our own. We will expect to have added sorrow. We will also expect to have great joy.

Jesus, Our Brother

Ultimately, our joy in our spiritual family comes from something greater than our daily experience of life with the ordinary people who belong to the local church.

Our joy comes from Christ, our brother, who is making everyone in the family like himself. Romans 8 tells us that “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (v. 29). The whole work of redemption has this in view: a vast family where all the members look increasingly like their older brother.

Knowing this, we can delight in the particular people God has given us as brothers and sisters, no matter how unexceptional they may seem, because, in them, we apprehend something of Christ. As they grow and mature in the family circle, their character and conduct become more and more like the One our souls love best. Because of the work of his Spirit, they speak his words, love his ways, hate his enemies, reflect his holiness, and serve his ends. The more they—and we—become like Christ, the more we will love them.

Article excerpt taken from The Gospel Coalition’s (U.S. Edition) adaptation from A Place to Belong: Learning to Love the Local Church (Crossway, 2020). Read the full resource here: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/church-is-family/