Sermon Central
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Getting To Know God - Part 8 - God’s Family Series
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Nov 20, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: The Lord God is a family God. This is a look at the "Three Families of God", what they mean to us and how we can become a member of the family.
Getting To Know God - Part 8 - God’s Family
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
“To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy –
“To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall ever be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Please open your Bibles to Matthew 3:13-17
At one time or another you have probably heard about some man who had two families at the same time. Usually it is a business man who will be away from home days or weeks at a time over many years. When he is away from his first family they think he is “away for business”, and, that is probably true but at that same time he is living with his second family. And, when he is away from his second family they think he is “away for business” and that is probably also true but at that same time he is spending time with his first family.
One such scoundrel even gave two of his daughters from the different marriages the same exact name. He argued in court that being married to two women at the same time was an “honest mistake” because he considered himself to be a bachelor who was just living with two different women.
He was convicted of bigamy.
Now, you may say that that is a strange opening to a sermon and indeed it is. That is the evil end of the spectrum of unfaithfulness.
On the furthest opposite end is the faithfulness of our God and Savior.
This may sound odd to you but I am proposing that the Lord Himself has three families. But unlike the bigamist, God is faithful to all of them and He is righteous in all of them.
His first family is the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Let’s take a look at a passage where the Holy Trinity is clearly displayed in Matthew 3:13-17
(prayer asking the Lord for help)
In the past when we have looked at the mystery of the Holy Trinity we have seen it revealed in a way that must have been confusing to the Jews of Old Testament times.
We see Him revealed as a singular AND plural entity in the same Scripture passage. For instance in …
Genesis 1:26-27 where He says:
“Let us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.”
We also see this same sort of confusing singular/plural descriptions of God in
Isaiah 6:8 where the voice of the LORD (Yawheh) is heard saying:
“Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us?” And [Isaiah] replied, “Here am I. Send me!”
So, Yahweh, the God of Heaven says;
“Whom shall I send?” (referring to Himself as singular)
“And who will go for Us?” (referring to Himself as plural)
Isaiah replies:
“Here am I” (referring to himself as singular)
Followed by “Send me” (once again referring to himself as singular)
Is God confused? I don’t think so.
These are just a few examples of the eternal love and cooperation within the Trinity:
The Holy Spirit caused the miraculous conception of Jesus, God the Son who came to earth as God the Man.
“But after (Joseph) had considered (breaking his marriage betrothal with Mary), an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.’”
Then we see that Jesus, God the Son was sent by God the Father.
Jesus says when speaking to unbelieving Jewish leaders in …
