Morgan Teruel: Welcome to the Sandals Church podcast. My name is Morgan Terrell, and I'm the online campus manager here at Sandals Church. We're so happy to have you join us today as we listen to this message with pastor Fredo teaching from our home series. If you've enjoyed our content, consider leaving us a rating to help this podcast reach more people. But for now, let's get into the message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: The author Ernest Hemingway tells a story about a young man named Paco. This man had a falling out with his father so bad that he runs away from home. Now his father actually pursues him and and looks for him all through Spain, up and down Spain, searches. His search ends in Madrid. And we're told there as a last ditch effort, he puts out an ad out in in the local newspaper and says, dear Paco, come home.
Meet me at the hotel on Tuesday at 12 o'clock. All is forgiven, he says. Love, papa. So So Tuesday comes around, it's 12 o'clock, the father shows up to the hotel, and to his surprise, 800 young men named Paco have all shown up to go home and be restored to their father. Now Hemingway, I think, pricks at something that is so universally true to the human experience, which is this, we all long to go home.
We long to be home, and we long to experience this this love of a family that we know that we were designed to have. There's something about going home. And when we say home, we think not just of like a a physical building or, you know, or house or, you know, the TikTok inspired design that we all wanna model our aesthetic after. When we think about home, home is ultimately a relationship more than it is a location. That's right.
It's about being home with people, which is why over the last several weeks we have been in this series called home, trying to navigate through as a church what it looks like to follow Jesus in the most intimate environment we all live in, our homes, knowing that the people we live with get the best and the worst of us simultaneously. And so what is it about following Jesus that radically transforms the way we live? Now for our attention today, we're shifting gears a little bit from our physical homes really to our spiritual home and asking the question, is it possible for the church to become a kind of home for us? Yes. Now I say that fully aware that for a lot of us we experience the immense rise of skepticism around going to church while at the same time the decline in attending church, but that still does not neglect the call of Jesus, that the church is meant to be a special place for people.
The church is not to be just an event, a location, it's not a product to be consumed. It's not even an experience that gets you spiritually high for 1 week. The church ultimately is to be a family. The church is to be a family. Now again, I say that realizing that family can mean a lot of different things for all of us.
You know, on the lighter side, you hear family and you think of that terrible Olive Garden commercial when you hear your family. When the breadsticks came out, I for sure believed them. Right? Amen. Or for others, it it can be, a word that that sparks irritation, pain, loss, anger, disappointment, realizing that the story of Paco is in fact your story in a lot of ways, which is why the good news for all of us today is that god and his son Jesus is making a brand new family.
Morgan Teruel: That's right. It's good.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: And we're all invited to it. Amen. And here's the invitation for us today from Matthew chapter 12. And so I'm gonna ask that, wherever you're with us today, that you would pause whatever you're doing. You would take a moment just to take a deep breath in, and if you're willing and able, that you would stand with us for the reading of god's word.
We do this as a church just to to bring ourselves to attention, knowing that god's word is being read and we wanna hear him speak to us. So here comes the story from Matthew 12 starting in verse 46 while Jesus was still talking to the crowd his mother and brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him someone told him your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you He replied to him, who is my mother and who are my brothers? Pointing to his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. This is God's word. Let's pray together.
Heavenly father, what a gift it is to gather today here. And as we take a moment to pray, God, we recognize that you are here with us too. And so we ask now that you would speak to us. And as Jesus said, would you give us ears to hear today and eyes to see so that we might receive all that you have for us in Christ? We pray these things in his name.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. You can be seated.
And as you take a seat, let me just ask this question. What in the world is Jesus saying here in this passage? At first glance, the the gentle and lowly individual named Jesus seems a bit spicy and rude. Who is my mother and who are my brothers? Now if that is a a source of curiosity or even bothers you at some point, don't run from that.
So I would encourage you anytime you're reading scripture and and you feel a sort of resistance, pursue it, don't run from it, and see where it actually might lead you because you might read that and say, well, man, maybe he's just venting some childhood issues like Mary was a bit overbearing. After all, she gave birth to God the son Or is he just so engrossed because he's, you know, Jesus the teacher that he doesn't like to be interrupted? Or or really just at some level is the weight of being the savior of the world just starting to wear on the man Jesus? Or is he doing something and saying something so profound that actually gets lost in translation. It gets lost because we don't know the setting for which this saying and teaching is given.
Yep. I say that because this particular event and teaching is recorded in all 3 of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke. And according to scholars, there's only 30 critical things in Jesus' life that all 3 of them want to highlight. So for them, this moment is a big deal, and and it cannot be, and it is the furthest thing away from an event that we just kind of read and shrug and be like, oh, I don't know what to do with that. He just had mommy issues.
And it should elevate our intrigue around that question, who is my mother and who are my brothers? As we settle in with that question, let me just get something else off my chest that I've really been bothered by lately. What happened to all the romantic comedies? Where are the rom coms? Everywhere I look and go I'm told that the nineties are back.
I mean I'm kind of dressed like I'm in the nineties again right out except for romantic comedies. What happened to rom coms? Yesterday's rom coms have been replaced by today's coming of age stories. In other words, self discovery is the new romance so, you know, camera panning back, main character's face looking up. The soundtrack hits perfectly reminding you I gotta download that song to my Spotify because it's so good.
And then you realize the character has overcome some internal external struggle, and they have discovered who they are. That ending scene has replaced the Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks just kissing each other in downtown Seattle. Self discovery is the new romance, and I say that not at all as a critique. I love all kinds of movies. It's simply a cultural observation, and this is what I'm observing that the ache and and the deep questions we ask ourselves just changes over time.
So rabbit trail over, if we're going to hear what Jesus is saying here we need to ask ourselves what is the deep ache of their time? What was their culture asking? What mattered to the people then when Jesus is giving this saying? In Jesus' day, the greatest sin, listen now, was disloyalty to your blood relatives. Two examples, Herod, apparently over some holiday drama and beef in the family, noticed an issue between his wife and his sister.
Surprisingly to us, sides not with the one whom he married but with his sister to the point of having his wife executed. Octavia, the the the the famously, you know, apparently pretty woman who married Mark Antony, the powerful man there, also had a little bit of beef in the family. Her brother Octavian took issue with Mark Antony at one point, and she also sides with her brother and leaves one of the most popular powerful men in Rome. Why? Because there was no greater cultural wrong than to turn your back on your brothers and your sisters.
The tightest bond in the world that Jesus grew up in wasn't marriage, it wasn't romantic love, it wasn't about self discovery, it was profoundly about family. The strongest bond was the bond relationship of siblings and that loyalty trumped everything else in the world. Answer now Jesus' pretty provocative and yet spicy question, who is my mother and my brothers? He is what many have pointed out so brilliant in the way that he subversively fulfills us with his questions. Subversive in the sense that he challenges our assumptions, and he challenges the things that the things that we're clinging so tightly to, Not to just bankrupt us, but to fulfill us, to give us something much better.
It's not that Jesus hates family, but that he has a better one for all of us. That's the invitation here. So then the church becomes our home, listen now, when Jesus radically transforms our understanding of family. Listen to another little spicy exchange from Luke chapter 9. These are all over the gospels.
If you think Jesus is just nice and never pushes the boundaries, read the gospels. Amen. Luke chapter 9 verse 59. He said to another man, follow me. Seems like a kind thing to say.
But the man replied, Lord, first let me go bury my father. Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go on and proclaim the kingdom of God. Again, seems a bit rude especially to an apparently grieving son, but scholarly consensus would tell us that the likelihood is not that he's grieving the loss of his father, but that he's delaying discipleship until his father dies. In other words, he's hanging at home until, you know, he can collect papa's coin, which isn't a terrible idea if you're a young adult, right, but in this exchange Jesus is saying exchange your father's inheritance for my father's inheritance and see which one is better and will last longer. In the end, this is the bargain of a lifetime as he radically transforms his understanding of family.
This issue continues. Mark chapter 10 verse 29. Truly I tell you, Jesus replied, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a 100 times as much in this present age. Homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children of fields, along with persecutions, notice the little fine print, along with persecutions, like Jesus just snuck that in there, and in the age to come eternal life.
Morgan Teruel: Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today at Sandals Church online. Before we continue on in the message, I just wanna take a moment to invite you. If you'd like to be a part of the work that God is doing in and through Sandals Church, we would love to invite you to go to give dot sc right now. For now, let's hop into the message with pastor Frida Ramos.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Now when is this promised to us? Notice Jesus says, in this present age and the age to come, he's offering us a brand new family, a family that expands beyond the bounds of just sibling love. Church can be this kind of home for us. Would you say it's like you for this? Like, right now you experience church in this kind of way.
Is is church a kind of home for you? Now I know it's maybe hard to to kind of, you know, think about that, but it's even harder to read the bible and not see how family centered it all is. The created world comes into existence by God the family, the father, the son, and holy spirit. Genesis 1, page 1, chapter 1, we're told God, Elohim, this mysterious divine person who is God is also 3. The spirit who creates everything is in everything.
The creative agent, the word who is making all things happen and the God who creates all of it. The world came into existence by God the family. Jesus taught us to pray, our father in heaven. It might surprise some of us to see that there is no mention of a personal savior ever in the new testament. In fact, Paul, when he's speaking about Jesus over 50 times in his 13 letters, uses the phrase our lord and only one time my lord, and I share all this because I'm concerned as a Christian and even more so as a pastor that our current commitment level to the church is drifting away and I'm not just saying, you know, we're we're we're no longer watching services or watching Christian content, I'm talking about the kind of drift that keeps us from relationships, that keep us bonded to God and to his people.
It's the drift of spiritual companionship. You are turning into Paco, just a Christian version of 1. It's time to come home and if this sounds a bit crazy to you or even a little bit cultish to you, I totally get it. But consider for a moment that's because you've been more shaped by the culture and not by Jesus who again is not trying to dismiss your family or even get you to not care for them. On the cross while he's dying, he looks at his mother and his disciple John and says, mother behold your son, son behold your mother.
He cares about your actual family, he's just trying to invite you into a much more grand vision of what it's like to live in one and who you belong to. And so this idea that you can kinda just come into church once in a while, have a few friends, like some of the songs, that's just not found in the new testament. It's not found in scripture and and the invitation as we think about home is to think about the church becoming one for you. And so let me just ask you, in in what ways do you experience Sandals Church as your family? If a healthy family is one marked by sharing life together, sharing meals together, and sharing love, listen now, and accountability together, do you experience that?
In other words, here at Sandals do you share your life with other people? Do you share a meal with them? Does someone know you? Do you know someone here? And have you experienced both love, you know, fully acceptable love and also accountability in Jesus?
Because, yes, we declare in the good news of Jesus you are fully accepted and you're held accountable to Jesus' teachings and his life. Do you experience both here? Because the hope is that you would and let me press just a little bit further as we continue. As we think about church as a family, the convo oftentimes can be so centered on people in the family who are married and with children and can neglect a significant part of who our family actually encompasses. And the church has not always done a good job specifically in talking about the singles of our family, the singles in our church.
Amen. It's said today that today's current generation will be single for the longest. Some of you who are single are like, dear God, not me. So much so that the median age for your first marriage has gone up for men 29.5. Well, 29a half.
Be weird if you said I'm 29.5 years old, but, for women it's gone up to 27. By the, by the time this age or I'm sorry this generation turns 50, 1 in 4 of them will be single. Again, some of you are, like, dear God, not me. But when we talk about singles we need to think about their significant role today and how they experience the church. This book, entitled Celibate I think does a good job of kind of capturing the concern singles have.
The author writes this, singles today are a widow of sorts needing to be listened to and needing a framework for who we are and how we fit into the Christian family. What does it mean to abstain from sex while respecting sexual wirings? What does it mean to be content in one singleness while longing toward marriage? These are all good questions. Can I be sexual without a spouse and and is a spouse something I'm allowed to keep hoping for?
What does it mean to be beautiful and embody sexuality? What does it mean to wait well and proactively or to desire genuinely and passionately? For those of you who are single, have you ever asked that question? Yes. It's a good question to ask.
Especially here in the church where it's very common for people to feel as though, like, you know, life really happens when you grow up, finally get married, and have kids, and until then you're just like a junior member of this church family And so you run through questions like, can I date a supportive non believer? Are there enough eligible singles in this church for me to date and even break up with if it doesn't work out? And if there's not, will there be enough eligible singles at that other church I know of? It's real. It happens.
Right? Most of the young people that I disciple today all go to multiple places. Why? Because they are single, and they're trying to address this. And so I wanna say this, the church becomes our home when we collectively create a space for single people to thrive.
Morgan Teruel: Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Here's what I mean by that. Here at Sandals Church, according to a survey done just last year, shout out to Roman, thank you brother for all these stats, Singles make up 40% of Sandals Church. Imagine having a family meeting where almost half the people are not allowed in, or considered, or cared for. Nonmarried folks here at Sandals Church are younger than they've ever been, more diverse than they've ever been, and the newer guests that we're receiving actually have 0 church involvement before they get here, which means their church their their first church experience of this being quote unquote home as a single person is an important one that we should be caring about. Stats also show that the singles who, serve, get into a group, and are baptized are genuinely more happy and joyful in their life with Jesus.
That's saying something. Now when we say single let me be very specific this could be someone who's single but you're, you know, you're believing for a spouse, like you turned into a Calvinist and you believe God's got a soulmate for me, they're destined to be mine one day, right. It also could be you're single and content, like, in this moment you're you're okay, you're content. Some of you are single because you just got out of a serious relationship, others are single because, your spouse passed away and you're a widow or a widower, or you're single as a result of a door divorce. There's a lot of different ways for us to understand the 40% of people who we make up as part of our church family here, and I say that and I draw our attention to that because, listen, we have done a poor job of offering a theology of singleness.
Meaning, we should never downplay the power of a single person devoted to God. To my knowledge, 4 singles in Babylon did not bow down even when they were thrown in the fire. A single named Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem from the ground. A single named Daniel was given special access to serve the kings of the world. It's important the great prophet Jeremiah was single, John the Baptist was single, God used a single woman to bring revival in Samaria.
A single woman named Martha took care of Jesus in her own home. She was an independent woman before Beyonce was talking about it. And then, of course, you have Jesus, the archetype of a human being was fully functioning, deeply happy, and a joyful person, and he lived single his whole life. Come on, sir. Come on.
Paul, single. Yes. Most famous church planter, and he even described his life as as one that's devoted to this upward call to follow Jesus. We can never downplay the power of a single person devoted to God.
Morgan Teruel: That's right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Which is why then I think Paul has the audacity to say something like this in 1st Corinthians 7, but I wish everyone were single just as I am. Yet, each person has a special gift from God of one kind or another. Some of you are like that's a gift from God, where's the return aisle, right? So I say to those who aren't married and to widows, listen to this, it's better to stay unmarried just as I am, but if you can't control themselves but if they can't control themselves they should go ahead and marry. It is better to marry than to burn with lust.
Morgan Teruel: Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: In other words, Paul has a vision in which a healthy diversity of both married and single church members serving alongside each other can create mutual flourishing. That's how he visions the church. Meaning if marriage displays commitment of Jesus, then singleness displays the satisfaction of Jesus. Right? So if you see a married couple here at the church, by the grace of god, hopefully what you see in their home is commitment.
If you see all the great single people here at our church, hopefully what you see beyond just their body is someone who is deeply satisfied in Jesus Christ. Amen. That's the beauty of what this family is and what it means to be here. Single people need married people to show the type of love that Jesus offers while married people need singles to show that his love is more than enough for them.
Morgan Teruel: That's right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Because without the meaningful involvement of both singles and married people, our church family, this home will suffer greatly.
Morgan Teruel: That's right. That's right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: We need something more profound. Amen. And so what would it look like for us as the church to treat our singles as honored members in this home? Because we cannot talk about the church as a home if we don't acknowledge every member who lives in this home.
Morgan Teruel: Come on now. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: And if you're watching this message, your your default thought could not be, well, this just isn't for me, there's no singles here. That's the exact reason why this message is for you. This is to be a home for all people who are learning what it means to follow Jesus. They are a crucial part of the family, they're a crucial part of the body. Now what's profound about this is that oftentimes in church experience, it's very natural to kind of, you know, as you follow Jesus and you're at church, like, you really idolize marriage, Like, you cannot wait to get married and then you get this view of marriage and then you wake up next to that person and you realize your view of marriage is not reality and that also crushes you.
At the same time, in the world today, we have a culture that's increasingly at best skeptical and scared of marriage and at worst thinks it's an antiquated institution. 1 writer Eddie Eddie Kantor says this, marriage is an attempt to solve problems together that you didn't even have when you were on your own. In other words, why bother with it? So in the midst of both, you know, idolizing and obsessing or opposing it, Jesus offers us another way when we think about church as a home. He says this, we neither obsess nor oppose marriage but rather we see singleness as an opportunity.
Singleness is a profound opportunity. There's this very, you know, interesting, also bizarre conversation in Matthew 19 where Jesus is in the middle of a debate about marriage and divorce with both his disciples and his hearers and in the middle of this debate he's like hey let me give you a quick lecture on eunuchs, like who wants to hear about eunuchs? And Jesus actually lays out 3 types of them. He says those are some are born that way, meaning they're they're just biological parts don't work. They can't reproduce.
Others are made that way be because they, you know, potentially serve in some high ranking office and so to keep from, you know, naughty stuff happening behind closed doors, they're castrated. They're made eunuchs. It's it's even, like, a sign of oppression in that day. And then he says there's a third category, eunuchs, people who live like them, Jesus says, and they can serve the kingdom of God, he says. Amen.
It's opportunity and then he says this unique phrase, if you can receive this teaching, receive it. That word there receive means if there is space inside of you for this to take root and grow. In other words, again, Jesus sees this situation not as one, you know, we don't obsess over marriage nor do we oppose it, but if we're hearing Jesus rightly, if there is space in our hearts today, we see it as an opportunity.
Morgan Teruel: That's good.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Opportunity first found in freedom. That's right. Single people, you are free today. You're free, like, you can do whatever you want to do today. This message wraps, you're out.
You do what you want, right? They're clapping and so channel that will power, channel all that willpower and energy to do whatever you want to the glory of Jesus. This this is a profound moment of your life where you are free, use it for that. There's opportunity found in that. Secondly, there's opportunity found in time.
You have an immense amount of time and and this season should not just be deemed as, you know, my season of waiting. No, this is this is your season of now.
Morgan Teruel: Come on, man. Excuse me.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: It's not just defined by, you know, what you can't do but but what you actually have time to do right now. In the modern world it's possible to get anywhere in the world in 2 days' time, that's incredible. The apostle Paul would have loved that. We're gonna get to heaven he's like you know how many shipwrecks I got into just trying to cross the ocean and you're watching Netflix in in a in a sky plane, right, you you have this immense amount of time and this isn't all like, you know, get out and do something this is just to point out like the state of things, Yep. Right?
Any any married person will tell you the the the time they have and the freedom they have automatically get sucked into a black hole called obligation to your loved ones.
Morgan Teruel: Right? Right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: So there's a moment for all of us now. Thirdly, there's an opportunity found in passion. What are you passionate about? And I say that especially to our singles because so often in our world today passion is framed primarily around romantic passion, but but what about a passion that's birthed out of a burden for the world? Like, do you have a vision for your singleness today?
Because my hope and prayer is that you would you would go home today with your freedom and your time and you would get on your knees and you would pray to God for a vision for your singleness in which you embrace the moment you have right now because the world is waiting for you. The world needs you to place your hands into its wounds and to stop the bleeding through your energy, passion, and creativity. Your time isn't coming. Your time is now. Serve, extend your hands, and serve in passion.
And lastly, opportunity found in wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness is a great word that's found in scripture, but it's not often found in our language today, but it's an important one. To be wholehearted means you are without distractions, you're you're focused, I raised my glasses, I'm focused, right, but like you're zeroed in. Paul says it like this in 1st Corinthians 7 in that same conversation around singleness, I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. Oh, what a gift.
Free from the concerns of this life. That sounds a lot like Jesus' teaching on worry from Matthew 6, doesn't it? An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord's work and thinking how to please him but a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities, thank God for those, and how to please his wife. His interests are divided, they're not wholehearted all the time. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit, but a married woman has to think about how her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband.
I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best with as few, what, distractions as possible. Amen. In this season of life, there is an opportunity of wholeheartedness that you may never get again. Resist distractions.
Now in the modern world where we all carry smartphones that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Here's how I think about distractions for single people. This means by the grace of God to pull yourself out of always operating in scanner mode. Here's what I'd be in my scanner mode, let's just go into story time for a second. It's late Wednesday night, you've had a long day of work, maybe you served at Sandals Youth so you definitely need to go home and rest, and you know on your commute home you open your favorite app and you just start to swipe through profiles, and you're just looking.
Maybe for a spouse, maybe for a good time, and you surprisingly find a match. You get a little excited, wow, a match. You go home, no response, you go to sleep. Thursday, same thing, no response, go to sleep. Friday, you're out late hoping man Friday night I'm bound to get a response, we had a match.
Nothing. Saturday night, you're excited, you're hanging, you know, with your friends, your boys or your girls, nothing. Sunday comes, you're like, alright, well, okay, I guess I'll go to church today. And you get into church, and you're still thinking in the back of your head, like, but we had a match, no response? Of course, the worship's playing so you're like, bless the Lord, oh my soul, but you're like still in your head no response and then all of a sudden a response comes through.
I don't have these apps so I'm just making this up right as I go so bear with me. And surprisingly, you know, by the grace of God you match yourself with a Christian who's also at sandals and they're like, hey let's meet up after service. They're like, oh man, we we started a community group, right? And so worship continues, but now you're starting to overthink because they're here and maybe they saw you, but you don't see them. So now you're wondering, well, how should I worship in this next song?
Do I go full Pentecostal? Hands up. Or does that show too much commitment? Do I go, you know, hands down, open, I'm receptive, you know, I'm curious, I'm receiving from God today. How do I respond to the sermon?
Pastor Matt gives a good word, calls us forward to pray. Do I go forward for prayer? Does that show I'm in need or do I go forward as a prayer team leader showing that I'm mature, right? You think through all these crazy things as a single person. This these are all real y'all.
This happens to people and and what happens is you have a lost sense of what it means to be wholehearted because you you live in scanner mode constantly and you miss the opportunity of just being devoted to Jesus in this moment and actually helping the rest of us in the church family see how good he actually is and just how enough he actually is because you're living your life in that way. You you've by the grace of God and with the Holy Spirit in your body, in your mind, and heart, you've embraced opportunity in this season. This place is your home and you're leading the way for us because it's an opportunity. And and I say this fully aware that for some of you singles, you need the church family. The family will help you grow up.
It will help you grow into the person you want to be either as a single person or someone who no longer wants to be single. It will help you grow up. As pastor Matt would say, you're not a 3rd wheel, you're a wheel on a very big bus. We need all of us. You play an important role and not only that, you have an inheritance.
As Jesus said, mothers, brothers, sisters, anyone who does the will of my father, this is who they are and I can't imagine that Jesus is saying that to an audience that would have despised and seen as lower class citizens the singles of that day. And as he's seen the world he's growing up in, you know what he's thinking about? How would put money he's thinking about Isaiah 56. Listen to these words, for this is what the Lord says, to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant, to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial, a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever.
That's an incredible, incredible promise to those who devote themselves to God. A name better than sons and daughters. A name that will outlast your family lineage. Why? Because you belong to this Lord.
The eunuch is blessed, a single person is blessed, fully sufficient devoted to God. Now, as we think about this I want us all to keep in mind just this last idea as we imagine the church becoming our home. Listen now, this happens when we anchor our identity, not just mine or yours, when we anchor our identity in who we are together in Christ. The new testament is very clear that the church is not just to be a home and a family but the church is the bride of Jesus. It's the bride of Christ.
It might get lost on us that the bible begins with a wedding in a garden and it ends with a wedding in the new heavens and new earth, but the bride is welcomed in. And I and I say that because you belong to Jesus. If you're his bride, you are his beloved but we're all his bride which means you belong to him and you belong to one another. Amen. This is a unique picture of what it means to belong both to God and to who God is making his own And so here is the biggest challenge that I have found in trying to communicate to you your need for the church is to move from seeing the church as merely an idea to making it a reality in your life.
And the problem is there's no good magic trick to make this happen. There's no good strategy for community groups. There's no meal train long enough to figure out the situation. There's no powerful sermon big enough to help you understand, to move the church from just a theory in your mind to a lived practice in your life. You are the bride.
You are the bride. This is our identity which means the person we're all waiting on is you and me. The invitation to be the bride has been your invitation since the day you confessed Jesus as lord. He's been waiting for you. He's been waiting on all of us and it is so much easier to stand back and just remind ourselves of why we don't like this about the church and what's the problem with here and if they would just do this, if they just figured out this, if Matt just taught more, right, if the light just turned on more, if we just had this, we we have so much paperwork, you know, step into the situation.
Become the person that Jesus is calling you to be because a theory will not hold you when your child is sick. An idea of the church will not help you when you are in financial hardship. A theory about the church will be a no good to you when you're trying to practice reconciliation with your family members. It will require you living who God says you are. You are his bride.
Act like his bride.
Morgan Teruel: That's right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Act like his bride. The reality is we all entered earth single and we will all enter heaven single.
Morgan Teruel: That's right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Listen to Revelation 19 and this profound picture the scripture ends with. Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like like the roar of rushing waters, and like the loud pearls of thunder shouting, hallelujah, for our lord god almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory, for the wedding of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God's holy people.
What a picture. Then the angel said to me, write this down. The angel tells you that, you write this down. So John did. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the lamb.
And he added, these are the true words of God. We are all going to a future marriage. As beautiful married people, listen. As beautiful as your marriage is and will be, make no mistake about it, I think the greatest gift as married people offer the world is our marriages, but they are temporary. They are temporary.
We will one day be united in in what Jesus describes as a feast, a celebration, and and we're invited to be ushered into him. And and what we get to do every time we gather with each other, every time we greet one another, every time we serve one another, every time we do the most small ordinary task as the church, we are displaying what we will all enjoy one day at this feast. That's what we're going to. We will stand before God in eternity, all as single, swept up by our groom, Jesus. Will you be ready for that?
Morgan Teruel: Yes.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Let's pray. Heavenly father, what a gift it is to think about the wonderful reality that that we are going to be with you and god, we even confess now how difficult it is to live out that reality today. It is hard to practice who we are together. It is hard at times to make church feel like a home for people and so we ask now for your holy spirit to help us, that we might be renewed in our vision of Jesus, that we might have his spirit to give us courage and to make us obedient so that we might experience what it means to be home with you and what it means to be home with one another. Make that happen.
Make that real in us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Morgan Teruel: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you want more content from this series, we have a YouTube playlist linked in the description.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: And if
Morgan Teruel: you want more information about who we are and what we do, you can go to sandalschurch.com.