"I Will Not Leave You Orphans": The Church Is a Family

23 min read

I Will Not Leave You Orphans: The Church Is a Family

When you open the first chapters of Genesis, you hear a phrase that keeps coming back like a refrain: "God saw that it was good." The light is good, the earth is good, the lights in the sky are good, the plants are good, the animals are good. And then, suddenly, for the first time in the Bible, God declares something radically different: "It is not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18 WEB).

Yet Adam lives in the Garden of Eden. He has work, a mission of great nobility, the very presence of God around him. And still, something essential is missing. He is alone.

Pastor Kévin GONÇALVES PALHEIROS shares with you a principle you cannot get around: you can be surrounded by blessings, carry great responsibilities, and yet still lack what matters most in God's eyes, being in relationship with others. Man was never created to live alone, and he will never fulfill his calling by staying solitary. If Adam, in an earthly paradise, could not live alone, how can a Christian in a fallen world claim to manage it?

1. A principle that goes beyond marriage: we are relational beings

The text of Genesis 2 first finds its fulfillment in the marriage of Adam and Eve. But the principle it carries goes far beyond that. It teaches you about the nature of humanity.

Every human being has a fundamental desire to be loved, to be in relationship. Put a baby without a mother, without contact: it will let itself die. Why? Because you are created in the image of God. And who is this God? The triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), a God who has never been solitary, a God who is love and communion from all eternity.

That's why it's not normal to see Christians boasting about growing in their communion with God while increasingly fleeing communion with the saints. Spiritual maturity does not consist of needing others less and less, but of entering ever more deeply into love for others. If loving communion is the very essence of the God who saved you, where does this pull toward individualism come from? It doesn't come from God.

2. Individualism: a perversion of humanity's calling

Everything that turns a person inward on himself and separates him from communion (with God and with his neighbor), does not come from God. It is the dynamic of sin.

Today's self-centeredness is a deep perversion of what God wanted for you. A Christian who lives centered on himself can confess with his mouth that he believes in the Trinity, yet deny it by the way he lives. Where the gospel reveals to you a God who gives himself, the Father gives his Son, the Son gives his life, the Holy Spirit is poured into your heart, selfishness is another gospel. "Me first, my fulfillment, my flourishing." Kévin calls it "the Hollywood spirit": we watch so many movies that we end up thinking of ourselves as the star, the hero of the film who comes before everyone else, even before the unity of the church.

Behind this idea lies an old voice. That of the serpent in the garden: "You will be like God" (Genesis 3:5 WEB). Man, who should have received all his life from the hand of his Father as a son, chose instead to become his own father. He denied his source. And Psalm 2 describes all the nations moved by this same spirit: "Let's break their bonds apart, and cast their cords from us", ending with: "He who sits in the heavens will laugh" (Psalm 2 WEB).

3. The countermodel of Christ: Joseph, Ruth, Abraham, Jesus

Against this self-centeredness, the Bible shows you men and women of flesh and blood who let the spirit of Christ fill the way they lived.

  • Joseph, alone in a foreign land, rejected by his brothers, sold as a slave. Potiphar's wife finally offers him "arms of comfort." A modern man would have given in: "After everything that's been done to me, it's my turn to be happy." Joseph instead answers: "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9 WEB). His happiness was not more important than his neighbor's happiness.
  • Ruth, when her husband dies, is under no obligation whatsoever to stay with Naomi. She could have said to herself: "What does this family have to offer me?" She chose faithfulness, even when it cost her. And God set aside for her a worthy husband in Boaz and a worthy line of descendants, for the Messiah descended from her (Ruth 1-4 WEB).
  • Abraham had the right to choose first when it came time to part ways with Lot. He let his nephew take the lush pastures and settled for the desert. Why? Because he would rather lose land than lose a brother (Genesis 13 WEB). And his desert became a place of blessing, while for Lot, the lush land became a place of torment.
  • Jesus gave up his right to be equal with God, humbled himself to bear the curse on the cross. It's this very path that earned him glorification "above every name that is named" (Philippians 2 WEB).

If it was through self-denial that Christ saved you, how do you think you'll lead your children or your family members to salvation by taking the road of quarreling? The Bible says that "by pride comes only contention" (Proverbs 13:10 WEB), and pride does not come from Jesus, who is gentle and humble in heart.

4. The dynamic of sin: it isolates in order to devour

Sin centers a person on himself and cuts him off from others. Watch the escalation in Genesis. Adam sins: his communion with Eve is broken. Then Cain kills his brother and becomes "a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth" (Genesis 4:12 WEB). He no longer has peace, so he builds cities, develops technology. People today do the same thing: living in constant unrest, in every kind of agitation and distraction. They say "peace, peace," but there is no peace.

And all the while, the devil rubs his hands together. Because if he isolates people, it's the better to devour them.

You think these are stories from the Middle Ages? Here's what researchers say. Social isolation raises the risk of premature death as much as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It increases the risk of early death by 30%. It promotes depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, and speeds up cognitive decline. In some Western countries, one household in three is made up of a single person. That's the paradox of our society: you were promised paradise by focusing on yourself, and you reap loneliness and desolation.

5. This same spirit finds its way into the church

Does this spirit stop at the church door? Kévin would love to tell you yes, but reality forces him to say no. This is not a new problem. The church in Corinth was already living it.

There, they argued over who was the favorite pastor: "I am of Paul, I am of Peter." They dragged each other into court before unbelievers. Even at the Lord's Supper, the rich ate their fill while the poor stayed hungry right beside them. And some were so self-centered that, on the pretext of being "free in Christ," they mocked the faith of those who were weaker.

Don't you find any of that in your church today? You come on Sunday, you sit down next to someone, you worship the Lord with your eyes closed, and meanwhile, the life of the person next to you is falling apart. A family loss, a lost job, depression. You could go a whole year without noticing. Why? Because you come and you go. You didn't come to meet your brothers and sisters. You came looking for your own little slice of salvation.

Remember that salvation is personal, yes. But the moment you enter the body, it becomes collective. Jesus grafts you into a body. And Paul, seeing the Corinthians' carelessness, wrote: "If food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forevermore" (1 Corinthians 8:13 WEB). Your brother is worth more than your rights.

6. Where the saints gather, God shows up in a special way

Where does God promise his presence in a particular way in Scripture? Where the saints gather together.

Remember Thomas. When Jesus rises and appears to the disciples, Thomas isn't there. He can't bring himself to believe. When does Jesus appear again? When they're gathered together again, Thomas with the others (John 20:24-29 WEB). It's in communion with the saints that the risen Lord made himself known.

Remember Pentecost. It's when the hundred and twenty are gathered together in the upper room that the glory was poured out and filled them all (Acts 2 WEB). Jesus himself says it: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20 WEB). And the psalmist adds: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity! (…) For there Yahweh gives the blessing, even life forever more" (Psalm 133 WEB).

Understand the aim of redemption. Jesus found you, a precious stone. But his purpose is not to collect individual stones. He gathers stones to build a temple, a church, in which his presence will dwell. The church is the place of encounter.

7. The hidden signs of a heart still stuck in individualism

But gathering together doesn't yet prove that the crown of individualism has been removed from your heart. We can all sit right next to one another without being one soul. How do you spot the signs that you still carry this selfishness inside you? The Bible gives you three markers.

  1. You abandon the assembly. Hebrews 10:24-25 describes such people: "Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the custom of some" (Hebrews 10:24-25 WEB). The one who walks in the light comes to fellowship; the one who loves darkness flees fellowship so that his works won't be exposed (John 3:19-21 WEB).
  2. You keep changing churches. You move from one church to another without ever staying long enough to be known, loved, corrected, strengthened. But we don't grow by constantly changing family. "Iron sharpens iron" (Proverbs 27:17 WEB): it's by bearing with the character of your brothers and sisters that the Lord sanctifies you.
  3. You drift from sound doctrine. Hebrews 10 ties the two together: leaving the assembly and drifting from the faith. How many Christians swear by "their own" interpretation, because the Holy Spirit "personally" revealed something to them? The very same Spirit who inspired Proverbs says that "a fool doesn't delight in understanding" but rather in not listening (Proverbs 12:15 WEB).

Paul writes: "If any man thinks himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him recognize the things which I write to you, that they are the commandment of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 14:37 WEB). Yes, the Spirit lives in you and leads you; but if he inspires something in you, you must still submit it to the judgment of the saints. There is a cloud of witnesses around you (Hebrews 12:1 WEB), a history of twenty centuries of fervent believers. Believing that you alone have understood what they would have missed is a pride that leads you straight into heresy.

8. The mind of Christ, the opposite of self-centeredness

So what mindset do you need to recover? The one that was in Christ Jesus.

Jesus existed from all eternity in the Father's love. He needed no one. But his heart was so generous that God did not want to be satisfied with his Son alone. He wanted to take men out of nothing, out of dust, to raise them to the dignity of sons, to form for himself a great family. Jesus did not want heaven without you.

He saw a world of orphans where everything was divided, and he said to himself: "The first Adam introduced this life of self-centeredness. I, the second Adam, come to create a new humanity and give it my life, so that it learns to love the Father and to love its brothers and sisters."

That's why people are struck when Jesus arrives as a Son in a world of orphans. They see in him something they don't have. Orphans live in insecurity, in worry, in stress; Jesus, faced with trials, seems full of confidence. Why? Because the Father is always with him. "The Father is in me"; "He who has seen me has seen the Father"; "I and the Father are one" (John 14:9-11 WEB; John 10:30 WEB).

And Jesus begins to announce that he has come to broaden his sonship. After the resurrection, he tells Mary: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17 WEB). What Jesus has, he gives to you. He came to give you his life.

9. Eternal life, a relational nature

When you hear "eternal life," you might picture something about duration. Life that lasts forever. That's not the primary meaning.

Eternal life is the relational nature of the Son. The Son who loves the Father. When Jesus gives you eternal life, he gives you the Spirit of adoption. This Spirit moves you to look at your brother and call him "brother." That's why, wherever the Lord accomplishes his work of redemption, a family is born.

And this family is greater than biological families. When Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are standing outside, he stretches out his hand toward his disciples: "Behold, my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother" (Mark 3:31-35 WEB).

Jesus calls you to honor your biological families, "Honor your father and your mother" remains among the Ten Commandments. But the biological family is not an end in itself. It's a shadow meant to lead you to the more excellent reality: the family of God. And when the two come into conflict, it's the family of God that must take priority. The disciples left their father Zebedee and the family business to follow Jesus. A great scandal at the time. But "they chose the good part."

10. The cross, where the family of God is fulfilled

This family Jesus announced had to find its fulfillment on earth. Where? There is only one place in Scripture where it is said "it is finished": at the cross.

Listen to John 19: "But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Therefore when Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' From that hour, the disciple took her to his own home" (John 19:25-27 WEB).

At the very moment Jesus bears the wrath of God, one of the few words he speaks concerns this bond: "Behold your son, behold your mother." In other words: "If my flesh is torn apart on this cross, it is so that you can receive the Spirit and together form a family, a true family."

What comfort. Maybe you never had the family you should have had. Maybe your soul has been pierced by a sword, like Mary's. But look at the tenderness of the crucified Jesus: at the hour of history's greatest abandonment, he is still thinking of those who might be left abandoned. He does not leave Mary an orphan. He entrusts her into John's hands.

And you, beloved, do you think that now that he is seated in the heavens, he no longer cares about your loneliness? Through his Holy Spirit and through his church, he wants to give you the family love you need.

11. The reign of Christ produces relational transformation

How does this love spread through your heart? John gives the answer. At the very moment Jesus speaks these words, what is written above his cross? "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

John shows you that it's when Christ is received as king and reigns in your heart that you can truly live out the reality of the church as family. What are the visible proofs of his reign? There's his resurrection, which proves his words are true. There's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when Christians speak in tongues. But there's also (a dimension of Pentecost worth rediscovering), relational transformation. When Christ reigns, his Spirit is poured out into hearts, and you are no longer an orphan. He unites you with others to form a family.

Didn't Jesus say: "I command these things to you, that you may love one another" (John 15:17 WEB)? That's not vague. If Mary comes to tell you about her loneliness at the end of the service, you must not listen through gritted teeth. You must love her fully, love her as your own mother. What an obedient disciple John was: right after Jesus' words, he took her into his home. Spiritual reality has to become concrete.

12. The church as God's household: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters

Paul writes to Timothy: "that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the assembly of the living God" (1 Timothy 3:15 WEB). And he adds: "Don't rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father; the younger men as brothers; the elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters" (1 Timothy 5:1-2 WEB).

If you start living out the church as family, you'll quickly learn to live that way in your own home too. That's why Paul asks elders to first manage their own household well. Their role isn't to sit on a board of directors, but to become, through how they care for the church, a living model of husband and father.

To you who are fatherless: you grew up without hearing that firm, tender word that builds a man. You carry a weariness in your soul. You doubt your own legitimacy. Faced with figures of authority, you're afraid, because deep down you still feel like a small child. Jesus has provided. He came to give birth to a family where you can find fathers "a hundredfold." Paul became Timothy's spiritual father. Aren't there, in this household, men called to pass things on, to correct with gentleness, to encourage, to protect, without crushing? And if the men fail to answer the call, your heavenly Father remains faithful. He will provide, he will teach you, he will fight for you while you keep still.

To you who are motherless: you don't know arms of comfort. You're afraid of being abandoned, rejected. The Holy Spirit that Jesus gives lavishes motherly care. He is the Comforter (John 14:26 WEB), he wipes away your tears. Come rest on him, as John laid his head on Jesus' chest. And remember Paul's words: "we were gentle among you, as when a nurse cherishes her own children" (1 Thessalonians 2:7 WEB). If a man like Paul, who once breathed murder, could write that, where in the church are the mature women able to open their arms, to listen without judging, to comfort with faithfulness?

To you who never had the chance to have children: you carry that legitimate desire to pass something on. Look around you. There are young people in the church left to fend for themselves, struggling to do their own shopping, giving up their studies for lack of means. If God had given you a son, you would have put up with him, paid for his studies, been there when it cost you something. So why not do that for these young people?

To you who have only known sibling squabbles: King David himself, brave and courageous, needed a faithful friend like Jonathan to endure his trials. Isn't that exactly what Jesus wants to give every man in the church? "There is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother (…) for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News, but he will receive one hundred times more now in this time" (Mark 10:29-30 WEB). Jesus wants to give you brothers. You too, tell your brother: "I won't go to heaven without you. I'll carry your burdens with you."

13. Concrete proof: seven questions for your church

How do we prove that the family of God is real, and not just a well-organized religious gathering? This truth has to become flesh, or we're only deceiving ourselves. Kévin leaves you with seven questions to ask yourself honestly.

  1. Can an elderly person living alone say among us: "I no longer have my spouse, but I'm surrounded by sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters who watch over me in the church"?
  2. Do we look at these people who are alone as our own fathers and mothers, needing our comfort?
  3. Can a young convert with no Christian family say, arriving at our church: "I found fathers and mothers, brothers who will teach me to become a man of God"?
  4. Can a student find in this church wise parent figures who will counsel him, and younger brothers and sisters he can in turn help?
  5. Can struggling couples confide what's wrong to someone who won't betray their secrets? (Remember Noah's sons who exposed their father's nakedness, the curse fell on them and their descendants: Genesis 9:20-27 WEB.)
  6. Do the children have father figures in this church, older brothers who invest in their lives?
  7. Does a weary woman find real sisters in this congregation?

And Jesus, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, reminds us: on the day of judgment, the separation will also happen according to the concrete love shown (Matthew 25:31-46 WEB). The old man in you will cry out in protest: "That's impossible." Yes, it's impossible for the old man. But Peter says that "his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness" and that it has made you "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:3-4 WEB). So let the sword of truth crucify that old man, and let the new man carry out works worthy of God.

Those who live this way show that the Spirit is at work in them. They're already walking toward that day when people will be perfectly united, as the Son is united with the Father. And in that family, there will never again be an orphan.

Key takeaways

  • "It is not good that the man should be alone" isn't just a word about marriage: it's a principle about the relational nature of humanity, created in the image of a triune God.
  • Individualism isn't neutral: it's the dynamic of sin. It isolates in order to devour, and the research confirms it (isolation = 15 cigarettes a day, +30% early mortality).
  • Joseph, Ruth, Abraham, and Jesus teach you the same lesson: your brother is worth more than your rights.
  • God shows up in a special way when his saints gather together: Thomas and the risen Lord, the upper room at Pentecost, "two or three gathered in my name."
  • At the cross, Jesus establishes the family of God: "Behold your son, behold your mother" (John 19:26-27). The church isn't a religious gathering, it's a family.
  • The reign of Christ in a heart proves itself concretely: fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters caring for one another in the local church.

Personal application

  1. When you come to church on Sunday, do you come to "consume your little service," or do you come to meet the brothers and sisters God has given you?
  2. Do you actually know the life of the person sitting next to you? Their struggles, their joys, their losses?
  3. Is there someone in your church, fatherless or motherless, to whom you could become a father, mother, or sibling figure this week?
  4. Are you the kind of person who switches churches the moment a guitar shows up or a brother corrects you? What is God trying to sanctify in you that you're running from by leaving?
  5. When a brother confides a secret in you, are you tempted to spread it around? Remember Noah's sons.
  6. Today, to whom will you say, like Joseph: "My happiness isn't more important than yours"?

Verses cited

FAQ

Why does God say "it is not good that the man should be alone" when Adam is in the Garden of Eden?

Because man is created in the image of a triune God, who is love and communion from all eternity. Even in the Garden of Eden, with noble work and God's presence, Adam lacks something essential: relationship with another being. This word goes beyond marriage: it teaches you that man was never created to live alone and that he will not fulfill his calling by staying solitary.

Is individualism really a spiritual problem, or just a social phenomenon?

It's a spiritual problem before it's a social phenomenon. The dynamic of sin centers a person on himself, separating him from God and from others. Adam sins: his communion with Eve is broken. Cain kills his brother and becomes a wanderer. Even today, social isolation raises the risk of premature death as much as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, and one household in three in some Western countries consists of a single person. The devil isolates in order to devour.

How is the church a "family" and not just a religious gathering?

Because Jesus founded it that way at the cross. Looking at Mary and John, he says: "Behold your son, behold your mother" (John 19:26-27). Then Paul writes to Timothy that in the church we should treat "the older man as a father, the younger men as brothers, the elder women as mothers, the younger women as sisters" (1 Timothy 5:1-2). This reality has to become concrete, otherwise we're only deceiving ourselves.

All articles on “Famille”

to take notes and ask questions.

Related articles

ECFOI
“In the Name of Jesus, Get Up”

Efficient Church

ECVIE INTÉRIEURE
Jesus, Prince of Peace: Light in the Darkness

沼津シオン・キリスト教会

ECRELATIONS
Recognizing Your Sin, Receiving the Forgiveness of the Cross

Efficient Church

Sermon published by Efficient Church. Watch the full teaching on their channel.

← Back to Blog

"I Will Not Leave You Orphans": The Church Is a Family | Efficient Church