Several weeks ago, the Long family got back from our annual summer trip to spend time with our extended family in North Carolina. It’s always good to step away from the busyness and pressures of daily life and be with the people who helped shape us into the people we are today. It’s also wonderful for our children to get to know their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins so that they can learn more about who they are and from where they have come. It was good to be with family. 

Theologically speaking, however, it is when we returned to Birmingham that we came back to our true family, the church. In each of our baptisms, we were adopted into a new family, the family of the triune God, which supersedes all other familial relations. We have been claimed by Jesus Christ, and together we make up his body. We are now brothers and sisters in Christ. Therefore, “we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:16-17). The church is our true family, and God’s kingdom is our inheritance. 

This Fall, I am going to continue preaching about some of the earliest members of our Christian family in the book of Acts. In August, we looked at more of Peter’s story after the gospel spread out from Jerusalem following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. But now we turn to the dramatic story of the Apostle Paul, a Jewish Pharisee who once was an enemy of the gospel but who became the greatest missionary of the early church after he was encountered by the risen Savior on the road to Damascus. 

Hopefully, by looking at our ancestors in the faith, we can learn more about who we are and from where we have come, as well as gain a greater understanding of what it means to be a part of this special family that Christ has called together. One of the best parts about this family is that we get to have family reunions at least once a week! But we also get to eat together, work together, study together, and pray together. 

I hope in the coming months that we can begin to think about how we might become even more of a family here at Independent Presbyterian Church. As I begin my fifth year with you, I want you to know how grateful I am that you called us here to be a part of your church. And though it was nice to be away on vacation, it is wonderful to be back with you all again. After all, it is good to be with family. 

Fall at IPC

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