Co-Laborers; Co-Heirs: Brothers and Sisters

We're gonna turn our attention to God's Word, and if you want to find the scriptures that we're preaching from this morning, from Mark chapter three and Hebrews chapter two, it's our custom to read God's Word aloud together. So if you will join your voices with me as we read.

A crowd was sitting around him and told him, "Look, your mother, your sisters, and your brothers are outside asking for you." He replied to them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Looking at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." — Mark 3

For in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was entirely appropriate that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters. I will sing hymns to you in the congregation." Again, "I will trust in him." And again, "Here I am with the children God gave me." Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in their humanity so that through his death, he might destroy the one holding the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. For it is clear that he does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham's offspring. Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way so that he could become a faithful and compassionate high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. — Hebrews 2:10-17

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Siblings, brothers, sisters. I wonder what emotions come up that you associate with those words. Some of those words you're going to be saying very soon around a Thanksgiving dinner table. Sibling relationships, they're unique, aren't they? They bring up a lot of complex emotions. Whether they're good or bad, close or distant, it's kind of complicated.

As I was thinking about all the famous siblings that I could think of in literature and in our pop culture, I thought of lots of these that display the complication of these relationships. Think about Luke and Leia in Star Wars, or Jenny and Ron Weasley in Harry Potter, or Klaus and Violet from A Series of Unfortunate Events, or Phineas and Candace from Phineas and Ferb, or Jon Snow and Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, or Shuri and T'Challa from Black Panther, Bart and Lisa from The Simpsons, Katara and Sokka from Avatar the Last Airbender. I could keep going, right? I hope I hit most of y'all with some knowledge of one set of siblings in there.

But siblings are also sometimes characterized by rivalry, aren't they? That sense of competition. Some of you are Marvel fans, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe gives us a host of characters. From Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, you see particularly highlighted this relationship between two sisters, Gamora and Nebula, that's characterized by sibling rivalry. If you don't remember, one's blue, one's green. And since childhood, they're adoptive sisters. But Gamora has grown up with besting Nebula all her life, and that, like many of your sibling relationships, creates this intense series of competition when, really, what Nebula wanted the whole time was a close relationship with her sister. They end up forgiving one another, as I hope some of you have an opportunity to do. But it just shows these are complicated relationships.

Being Siblings in Christ

Today, as we are wrapping up our series on gender—co-laborers and co-heirs—I want to end on siblings: brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers in Christ. How being siblings in Christ is such a powerful image for us that we may not think about very much. We're not one of those churches that uses "brother" and "sister" a lot. There are churches where it's like "Brother Bob opens the sanctuary every Sunday. Sister Sally closes the meeting in prayer." We're not one of those churches that does that very often. But I think in not using those words or not being very thoughtful about them, we miss out on some of the beauty and power that's actually resident in those words for God's people.

So I want to start this morning and think about Jesus described to us as our older brother. Now that was in that passage here from Hebrews 2. It's also repeated in Romans chapter 8. Jesus, our older brother. Now I recognize that that title for Jesus is probably one of the more pedestrian or boring titles in the New Testament. Next week, we're gonna start a series for Advent on the book of Revelation. Jesus on a war horse with the sword coming out of his mouth—a lot more powerful, right? That grabs you. Jesus, our older brother? Not so much.

But it's a sleeper doctrine of the New Testament, and it's one I think we really need to think about because in the ancient Near East, being a sibling meant more—particularly the older brother status—than it means in our families. I want to reflect on that by referring back to a story from the Old Testament.

One of the patriarchs, Isaac, his wife Rebecca, have twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Even in the womb, Rebecca experienced wrestling going on with these two brothers. During her pregnancy, this prophecy is said over her. She inquires the Lord, what's going on inside of me right now? And God says to her:

Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples will come from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.

From their birth, this is a competitive sibling rivalry relationship. Esau was born first, born the normal way, but as he's coming out of the womb, there's a tiny hand holding onto his heel, and his younger brother Jacob was born breech. Jacob's name from that moment means one who grasps the heel, and it defines Jacob for his life—one who's always wrestling to be first.

The boys grow up. One day, Esau, who's a big hunter, is coming back empty handed from a hunting expedition. As he returns to the family tent, he is famished, but he smells somebody cooking something. He realizes it's Jacob cooking stew, and he collapses at the tent saying, "Please give me something to eat." Jacob, the younger brother, always calculating, says, "I tell you what, if you give me your birthright, you can have stew."

Now birthright was a symbol of position and inheritance in the family. The firstborn inherited a position of leadership after the father died and judicial responsibility for resolving all the family conflicts. This is a big deal. Jacob deceives his brother and wrestles away the birthright from him. And here's the verdict given to Esau: Esau despised his birthright. You hear the judgment behind that? It's like, Esau, what are you doing? How could you get rid of this?

The story goes on. Genesis 27—Rebecca overhears her husband, Isaac, who's on his deathbed, and he gives these instructions to the older son, Esau. He says, "Go out, go hunt, and prepare for me some choice game and bring it back the way I like it. Cook it the way I like it, and I'm gonna bless you." So Esau goes off to hunt. Well, mom overhears this, and mama's favorite boy is not Esau, it's Jacob. So she pulls Jacob aside and says, "Here's what you're gonna do. Dress up in your brother's clothes, put some fur on your arms from an animal because Esau's really hairy, right? And then I'm gonna prepare some food and you take it into your dad and you get the blessing." And that's what he does. He goes in and pretends to be Esau and takes the blessing that was rightfully Esau's. The blessing was for dominion and fertility, for the dominance of his family over that of his brother.

As he's leaving the tent, Esau returns. He makes a meal, brings it in to his dying father and says, "Father, bless me." Isaac says, "Who are you?" And he realizes in that moment he's been deceived. He begins to shake and says, "Come on, father. Bless me. Bless me." He's like, "I don't have any blessing left to give. Your brother Jacob has taken it." Again, this verdict: Jacob stole his brother's blessing.

Jesus as Our Older Brother

Now that's a really helpful backdrop to hear this language about Jesus, our older brother. We read this here in Hebrews chapter two, and also in Romans eight, that Jesus is firstborn among many brothers. Here in Hebrews two, it says:

Our brother, he was made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God's grace, he might taste death for everyone and in doing so and becoming our older brother, he brings many sons and daughters to glory.

I know this sounds really weird language to us, but listen. Against the backdrop of Esau and Jacob, Jesus doesn't despise his brother's birthright. Jesus takes the blessing of God and does some really, really important things for you with this. Three things that begin with an I so you can remember. First: identification.

It means that Jesus is like us in every way except for sin. If you listen to verse 14:

Since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shares in these.

We're doing a series on gender. Jesus was a male person. And if you study your Bibles carefully, you'll know that there is one person in heaven right now who has a body, only one.

Jesus died, was raised from the dead, ascends to the right hand side of the father, and he alone in heaven has a body, and he has a male body, the only body in heaven. So does that mean that Jesus can identify just with men? One of the things you might understand from the church, if you grew up in the church, is that men and women are so different. They're different in such a distinct way that Jesus identifies with the men. What about women?

Listen again to what this says. Jesus identifies us in every way. Women, Jesus identifies fully with you. Men, Jesus identifies completely with you. He knows what it's like to be weak. He knows what it's like to have a body that gets sick and breaks down. He knows what it's like to walk in suffering. He knows what it's like to be you. He identifies completely with you. He had to be like that so he could be your representative in his death and resurrection. Full identification. So important. Jesus, our brother.

In Intimacy

Second, in intimacy. Verse 11 says:

For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one father. That's why Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters.

What does that mean? Sister or brother of Jesus. Think about that with your family. I didn't grow up in a family that's super tight, but right now we're watching my dad go through a long process of death. It's a degenerative illness, very similar to Alzheimer's. And it's interesting how, as we walk through this together, the people I want to talk with the most are my siblings. We've not been particularly close, but something about walking through this with the people that I grew up with—there's something intimate about that.

What does it mean that you are a sibling of Jesus? Doesn't it mean closeness? Doesn't it mean intimacy? Doesn't it mean privileges and access and protection? You think about what the stereotypical big brother is supposed to do—watch out for you on the playground, right? Fight your enemies for you. We have the ultimate big brother, people. We have the biggest big brother. In Hebrews 2, it says that Jesus has supremacy over all things. Everything is subject to him. What does he have power over? The universe. This is the biggest big brother. This is the best big brother you could come up with on the playground. There's nothing better than this.

And how does Jesus feel about his little sisters? How does Jesus feel about his little brothers? He's not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. Has anybody ever been ashamed of their family? I have. I've been embarrassed of my family. Jesus isn't. He is not ashamed to identify himself with you. He's not ashamed to call you little sister, little brother.

Inheritance

And finally, inheritance. Romans 8 tells us how Jesus is different from Esau and Jacob. The birthright that Esau was supposed to get, that Jacob stole—remember that story—was that he would get a double portion of the father's inheritance and be the spokesperson over the family from that point forward. This is so different though from what Jesus does with his inheritance.

Have you ever heard about somebody reading a will? When they read the will, it tells you what's gonna happen with the property of the deceased. Well, the property of this deceased, Jesus, all goes to his siblings. He takes his inheritance and rather than holding on to it, he distributes all of it. He's like, "Full access." This is why Paul says:

The spirit bears witness with our spirit. We are children of God and if children, therefore heirs, fellow heirs with Christ.

He inherits all of it just to give it away. And that is simply breathtaking. For people like me, for people like you who find ourselves to be poor and weak and afraid, struggling—to know we are fellow heirs of God with Jesus by adoption, by being brought into his family. God's estate we inherit with Jesus is the universe, all things.

Now, here's what's weird, and I want you to think about this with the people in this room. What is a sibling? A sibling is somebody who's related to you and your family either by being adopted into the family or by being biologically related through birth as a DNA connection to you. Somebody you're related to one way or the other. But for Christians, it's both. It's not just adoption, and it's not just by blood. It's by both.

See, adoption means—think about adoption. What happens when two parents decide we're gonna adopt this child? There's a deliberate process. There's all kinds of paperwork. There's great financial giving to make sure it happens, and it's a very deliberate, "I choose you to be part of my family. I want you." That's such a great picture for us of what God does for us in Christ. "I want you." And then biological family—we call that being blood in the South, right? Blood kin. Related to each other by blood. What is it?

Whose blood is it that connects you to me to you to you to you to you? Is it our biological parents? No. It's the blood that flowed on the cross. The blood of Christ is what unites us to one another. So we look at this picture for us of what it means to be siblings. We're double related to one another by blood, by adoption, and this changes. This should change both how we think about one another and how we act toward one another.

Being Brothers and Sisters

So this is this idea of being brothers and sisters. We live in a culture right now where there's a lot of bro talk. You know? Hey, bro. Lots of guys say bro to each other, but they don't mean what we're talking about this morning. Bro is just a term of familiarity and greeting. When we talk about we mean bros in Jesus and sisters in Jesus. This goes so deep. This is so powerful. This is a new status that's been given to you in relationship to one another, and this status takes precedence over every other family status.

Let me tease that out. This is what we read in Mark three. Jesus is in this house, and he's teaching. There's a whole bunch of people in this house. It's very crowded. And one of the disciples passes Jesus a message. Hey, your brother and your mom and your sisters, they're all outside waiting to talk with you.

And at this moment, Jesus does something really different from what I would do as a speaker. If that message came to me while I'm in the middle of a sermon, I do one of two things. I'd be like, okay, can you guys wait just a second? My family's here, and I go hear what they have to say. It must be urgent. Or, hey, tell my mom and my siblings, I'm almost done, and when I'm done, I'll come out and talk to them. But Jesus does something really weird. He looks at the people in the room and says, who are my mother and my sisters and my brothers? You. You are my mother and my sisters and my brothers. You take priority over them.

Isn't that odd? Isn't that amazing? I'm not suggesting you do this at Thanksgiving this year. Like, you say, actually, what's really important is my church family much more than you people. But do we think that way? Do we have a sense of ownership of one another as siblings? Our discipleship should be a sibling discipleship. This is so important. I want us to be more deliberate about this, particularly in first prioritizing our relationships within the body of Christ.

I hear people talking all the time about family time. This is the ultimate excuse in Raleigh. We're supposed to go get together for dinner, but, oh, we're having family time. Okay, no problem. I'm backing off because you're having family time. And people can use that excuse for it's the ultimate hand you can play that hand, you win. But what would Jesus say to that? What would he? That doesn't compute with Jesus. This is his family. These new family, these sibling relationships, so important.

In First Timothy five, Paul is discipling his younger junior pastor and what it means to be a pastor, and he says, this is what I want you to do:

Don't rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters with all purity. — 1 Timothy 5

I remember the first time when I came into this denomination, I went to our presbytery meeting, a meeting of all the pastors in an area together. And they started introducing and greeting one another as fathers and brothers. It's like where am I? Fathers and brothers that talk to women, mothers and sisters. It's like, this is weird. No, that's biblical. That's biblical.

I want us to think about how much we need to sort of reverse some of the trend in our culture that we prioritize this family time, and we don't set up our individual nuclear family time against this family time. That's really dangerous. The reality is, whether you're married with little kids, or you're single, or you're an empty nester, you all need this family. Nobody's nuclear family has got all that they need to do family life. You need this family time, and you need to prioritize this family time and not set those in opposition against one another.

Our discipleship is a sibling discipleship. We need to become more deliberate about this. For example, how we read the Bible and particularly what translation we read of the Bible. I'm preaching this morning from the Christian Standard Bible. This is a new translation for our congregation and I've been wrestling since January when I started preparing for this sermon series on Bible translation because we've been reading for years from the ESV, English Standard Version, very reliable, very readable version of the Bible. But there's some problems with it. Bible translations are on a spectrum.

On one end are those that are super, super close to the literal meaning of the Hebrew and the Greek, and they're kind of clunky to read. And on the other end are those that are paraphrases and really sound good, but maybe they have a lot of interpretive choices that the translation committee's made. The ESV's kind of in the middle. But one of the things that troubled me as I studied the ESV was one word, and it's the word adelphoi, which means brothers and sisters. It's an all-inclusive word. Literally, it means brothers, but it's used the way that we use the word mankind instead of humankind. We all understand that that's meant to mean not just a bunch of dudes, but men and women together. And humankind better expresses that.

Adelphoi—brothers and sisters. I used to live as a family in Philadelphia before this. City of brotherly love, the most ironic name of any city in the country. But adelphoi means brothers and sisters. And one of the reasons I have changed us over, first to the NASB and now to the CSB, and this is what I want to use in the pulpit going forward, is the way that it renders in all the cases where it's meant to be inclusive. It renders adelphoi as brothers and sisters.

Now, unless you think that I'm caving into some kind of feminist impulse, this is a Southern Baptist translation. They're not overly sensitive to those subjects. But it really matters how you hear God's word. Let me give you some examples of this.

My brothers and sisters, I'm convinced about you that you are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and able to instruct one another. — Romans 15:14

Do you understand how that reads with brothers and sisters? It means both the brothers and the sisters are potentially filled with goodness and able to instruct one another.

What is it then, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each one has a hymn, teaching, a revelation, a tongue, interpretation. Everything is to be done for building up. — 1 Corinthians 14

You hear that? When we gather in this place, in your homes for community groups, when we gather together, both the sisters and the brothers are to bring your reading of scripture, your prayers, your interpretations of things, bring them to one another and encourage one another, both.

My dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord because you know your labor in the Lord is not in vain. — 1 Corinthians 15

Again, we need to hear this, that it's not just the brothers who need to stand strong and without wavering as they excel in the gospel mission, but the sisters too, the sisters with.

Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore a person with a gentle spirit watching out for yourselves that you won't be tempted. — Galatians 6

Again, both brothers and sisters. It's the calling on all of the church for us to come along like one another in times of temptation, in places of weakness, and to bring restoration. Do you see how important this is? I mean, the translation you read informs how you think, particularly for you who are women. Our discipleship is a sibling discipleship. We need to become more deliberate about this, particularly with regard to really prioritizing healthy brother and sister relationships.

The Billy Graham Rule

Now we're part of the larger church family that's been called the Evangelical Church. And one of the things we've received from that family tradition is something we call the Billy Graham Rule. Has anybody ever heard of the Billy Graham Rule? Alright, very few of us. Let me explain.

Billy Graham was an evangelist in this country who, after the Second World War, did a series of campaigns—big coliseum, sports stadium gatherings where he would preach the gospel and thousands of people would come to faith in Christ. As he was planning this, he got his team together and said, "What's the biggest thing that people hate about the church? What undercuts the church's mission?" And people said, "Oh, sexual scandals. That's one of the things that tells people like, this isn't real." And so Billy Graham came up with this rule: never to be alone in any setting with a woman who was not his wife, in order to protect himself both from temptation and also from rumors of other people.

This was well-intentioned but has had some negative implications for the church since. And it's brought about kind of a chasm of suspicion between brothers and sisters in the church.

Here are three reasons we should reconsider the Billy Graham Rule. First, it didn't work. Am I right or am I wrong? Is the church still riddled with sexual scandals? Yeah, it is. Second, it oversexualizes women. It was put in place seemingly to protect the sexual dignity of women, and yet it's based on this assumption.

If a man and a woman are together, they're gonna fall into sexual sin—this is based on an assumption, a supposition that women are dangerous sexual beings, temperate temptresses who are looking to lure men into their trap. You know what's come out of this? A huge chasm. Men who can't talk to women, women who don't want to talk to men. A lot of division.

Third, it limits the opportunities of women who aren't a wife or a daughter of someone influential to have access to somebody in leadership. This shouldn't be the case, but let's be honest, in the church, there's a glass ceiling for a lot of women and it's been really hard. It's due in part to cultural norms like the Billy Graham rule.

And I'd like to suggest to other pastors, if you were here, if other pastors were listening: if you think that spending time one on one with a woman will automatically cause you to fall into sin, you probably shouldn't be a pastor, right? But the fallout of that is really bad for our church. If we're guarded with one another, if we avoid one another, if we're scared of one another, we're not gonna be brothers and sisters. We're not gonna cherish those words.

So here's my question: How can we become not just brothers and sisters—and that's true because of Christ—but how can we become sisters for brothers and brothers who are for our sisters?

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

I'm gonna borrow a phrase from the corporate world. Anybody heard the phrase "culture eats strategy for breakfast"? A couple of y'all from the corporate world know this lingo. What it means is that any corporation can have the best mission statement and motto and structure. But if the corporate culture is unhealthy, it's gonna poison the whole thing.

And I think that's really true with regard to the church. We can talk about creating space for women. We can talk about prizing women's perspectives and voices and using women's gifts in our church. But if we have a culture where men and women don't prize each other, and we're not sisters for brothers and brothers for sisters, it doesn't matter. It undercuts the whole thing.

Amy Bird writes this: "I think this is why so many women in egalitarian churches feel just as undervalued as in complementarian churches. Because even though there is an ostensible consensus that men and women are equal, the work hasn't been done to acknowledge the enrichment that distinct feminine and masculine contributions make to the church." The reverse is also true.

Yes, culture eats strategy for breakfast, but a beautiful sibling relationship lived out in a church—even a complementarian church—is one of those things that argues for the reality of Jesus, that the gospel is really true.

Have you heard the name Catherine Alsdorf? Some people in our church have, like, moved here about six or seven years ago. She was on staff at Redeemer New York under Tim Keller and moved here to help start the New City Fellows, which a lot of folks in our church have been through. But here's the experience that she has of working under pastor Tim Keller in that church. She writes:

"Tim and many others have come to their position about the roles of women in the church and marriage based on biblical study and deep reflection. I chose to submit to that view during my many years at Redeemer because of the way God was at work in the lives and the work of the congregation. I use the term 'submit' there intentionally. There are many things I have and will submit to in order to live out the life to which God has called me. I have worked in a PCUSA church in which women, even when ordained, were marginalized more than those at Redeemer. I have worked in aerospace and tech which are notoriously challenging environments for women because the work I was called to do was worth it. Now we ask our fellow Christ followers to go into every sphere of work regardless of how hard it might be, to do the work that Christ has equipped us to do in order that he may be glorified. Tim has lived out for me and many others how to live with biblical integrity, humility, generosity, even on and especially in places where we disagree."

So how can we do this? How can our discipleship as siblings create a culture as a church where we are not just brothers and sisters because of Christ, but we experience what it means to be sisters for brothers and brothers for sisters?

This is so important. Let me remind you: in the Bible, if you search scripture, there's never a place where it says, "Men, be more masculine. Seek to be more manly." And there's never a place where you'll find in any passage that says, "Women, seek to be more womanly, seek to be more feminine." But there's a billion passages about one anothering. And if you would go home and type in your Bible Gateway on your computer and type in these two words—"one another"—hundreds of verses will come up.

But I want to particularly read several of these to you. I could read lots and lots. I have two pages of these where I'm gonna add three words as brothers and four words as brothers and sisters to all these. And I want you to listen and see what this sounds like to you.

Love one another as brothers and sisters.

That's 16 times in the New Testament.

Be devoted to one another as brothers and sisters. Honor one another as brothers and sisters above yourselves. Live in harmony with brothers and sisters. Build one another up as sisters and brothers. Be like minded toward one another as brothers and sisters. Accept one another as sisters and brothers. Admonish one another as brothers and sisters. Greet one another as sisters and brothers. Care for one another as brothers and sisters.

I keep going, right? There's hundreds of these. And if a church hears these and we really take these to heart, siblings in Christ can change the world or can at least change a life.

I'm gonna close with this. Probably my favorite sibling pair in all of literature is this old brother and sister, both single, who live together in a book called Anne of Green Gables—Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. And the story takes place on Prince Edward Island, and this old couple, they're getting on in years. Matthew keeps the farm, Marilla keeps the home, and they begin to realize Matthew is not gonna be able to keep doing this. So they send off for an orphan to come and live with them. They're looking for a young orphan boy, maybe early teens, to come and help take over some of the farm work, take some of the load from Matthew.

And so the day comes for the orphan to show up, and Matthew takes the horse and buggy and goes down to the train station to pick up this young boy. And yet, what he finds there is not a boy at all, but Anne, this young girl with bright red hair and a lot to say. And he picks her up and he knows this is not going to go well. I mean, Matthew's a big softy, but his sister Marilla is very stern. And so he's both afraid of women and afraid of what's coming, so he's kind of silent on this ride home.

He's all the way back to the farm and Anne is just chattering the whole time. And as she does so, he is just taken. He finds in her a kindred spirit. And as they get back to the house, he knows what's coming. Marilla's like, "Absolutely, she can't stay." Yet, over time, she does stay and they adopt her and everything changes for them because of Anne.

It's such a beautiful picture to me of what happens when brothers and sisters partner together. What if it would look like for brothers and sisters in this fellowship to partner together? What beauty and life might come from that, that might change the very nature of what our church is like? Let's pray that it's so.

Prayer

Would you come to the Lord and pray with me?

Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. Lord, we pray that you would give us a redemptive imagination as a community of what it means to live as brothers and sisters. We pray that that would go deep into our bones. We thank you for Jesus who is our older brother and all that means for us—identification, intimacy, inheritance. Lord, we pray to fill our hearts with joy in being called siblings of Jesus. Lord, we thank you for these gifts in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's respond to God's word together in song. Would you stand with me?