Included in God’s Family
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!
Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
(Psalm 100)
—
I wandered in those doors
again,
more habit than
conviction,
propelled more by duty
than joy.
I’d made that entrance
ten thousand times,
more muscle memory
than spiritual
energy.
I was afraid not to
be there
more than I wanted to
be there.
Habitual words of
hello and welcome
greeted me,
sprinkled with random
Bible words.
I smiled and mumbled
niceties in
return,
not wanting to linger
long enough to be
personal.
I went directly to
my seat,
I had claimed it
years ago,
no nameplate, but it
was mine.
I sat in it every week
and was unsettled
on this Sunday when
someone else
claimed it.
Wait, what?
Don’t they know?
I looked around at the
unremarkable
group of people,
surveying the crowd,
as they shuffled to their
self-assigned seats:
students
plumbers
clerks
piano teachers
housewives
doctors
dads
delivery drivers
bosses and
baristas.
All living in the endlessly
mundane,
occasionally
marked by moments of
tragedy and triumph.
Many troubled,
many sad,
many burdened with
regret,
many weary,
many carrying scars of
worlds no more,
many searching and
hungry,
many temporarily
satisfied,
many hoping for a better
day,
those who knew they were
needy
and needy ones who
didn’t,
many with questions
not soon to be
answered,
everyone an interpreter,
theologian, and a
philosopher,
holding with both hands onto
belief,
visited regularly by
doubt.
No one in the room
had the kind of
life
that would become a
book
or Netflix miniseries.
Most lived in occasionally disturbed
anonymity,
in a world too busy
too driven
to notice.
Good day-by-day people
enduring
surviving
faithful
but
not the kind of
power people
you want to post an
Instagram picture of
being with.
I bowed my head for a
moment
and when I looked
up
everywhere I
looked I saw
grace.
Every person a
story of sin forgiven.
Every person a
story of divine love.
Every person a
story of reconciliation.
Every person a
story of restoration.
Every person a
story of new identity and
potential.
Every person a
story of destiny secure.
Every person knit
together
with every other person,
in a miracle of divine
love.
Together each story had been
embedded in God’s
great
eternal
redemptive story.
Beautiful people,
made beautiful
by grace.
Precious people,
precious to the heart of
God.
Now gathered together
to celebrate their
inclusion and
connection
and to hear once again
that old old story of
grace.
I sat in my little
self-assigned seat
and smiled,
glad that I had
walked in those doors that
morning,
glad to gather with my
remarkable family,
glad God thought to
include me.
—
You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
(Joel 2:23–27)
A Prayer for Today: God, I need to see and appreciate your story of grace in the lives of others and in my own life as well. Help me to cherish it, particularly in the lives of my church family. It can be so easy to switch into autopilot once I walk into church, but please help my heart in those moments when it’s effortless for me to check out and go through the motions of a Sunday morning service. Help me to appreciate the church family you’ve given me, and help me to never tire of communicating my gratitude toward you for providing for me in this specific way. In Jesus’ name, amen.
God bless,
Paul Tripp
Discussion Prompt for Children
• Why do you think it can be easy for us not to appreciate the fellow Christians God has placed in our lives?
• How can our hearts change toward the people God has purposefully placed in our lives (especially those in our church)?
Reflection Questions
1. Most Sundays, what is your typical heart posture when you go to a worship service? How do you usually view the people in your congregation? Does worshiping amongst the people in your church feel more like duty than a privilege? If so, why do you think that is?
2. What might need to change in you before your perspective can change regarding the others in your church congregation whom you may currently regard as unremarkable? Have you ever taken the time to ask the Lord to change your heart toward the family of believers he has placed around you? Regardless of your answer, take a moment to pause and thank God for fellow believers he has placed in your life. If you have a negative attitude toward any of those people, ask God to help your heart change toward them so that you might see them how God himself sees them.
3. How can a heart posture of gratitude transform a heart posture of criticalness toward the fellow believers God has surrounded you with? How can a proper perspective of God’s grace alter the way you view the family of God?
4. How does the fact that God has included you in his family impact the way you treat the family itself? How does it affect your weekly routine of church involvement beyond just Sunday worship services?