A Colorful Family
Maybe the best news about our adoption into God’s family is that it is not dependent on us. He doesn’t call the righteous, he redeems sinners. God also doesn’t look at our outward appearance to determine whether he will adopt us. He doesn’t discriminate based on ethnicity. His concern is the heart. We know that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We are saved by faith alone through grace alone—all our boasting is in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). The gospel is for all nations.
We know this is true, and yet so often we allow the differences in the color of our skin to dictate whether or not we accept people. God doesn’t discriminate in his family. Racial reconciliation has been accomplished in Christ. There is no distinction. Those who trust in Christ for their salvation are adopted, and therefore we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. As a result, we should be united in Christ. He’s got a colorful family, and therefore so do we. Russell Moore puts it like this in Adopted for Life:
Our adoption means … that we find a different kind of unity. In Christ, we find Christ. We don’t have our old identities based on race or class or life situation. The Spirit drives us from Babel to Pentecost, which is why “the works of the flesh” Paul warns about include “enmity, strife, jealousy … .” When we find our identity anywhere other than Christ, our churches will be made up of warring partisans rather than loving siblings.
What would it mean, though, if we took the radical notion of being brothers and sisters seriously?
RELATED: God’s Extraordinary Work in the Ordinary Family
What would happen if your church saw an elderly woman no one would ever confuse with “cool” on her knees at the front of the church praying with a body-pierced 15-year-old anorexic girl?
What would happen if your church saw a white millionaire corporate vice president being mentored by a Latino minimum wage-earning janitor because both know the janitor is more mature in the things of Christ?
The Family of God – Different and the Same
As we begin to view members of our churches as members of God’s family, and thus as members of our family, our prejudices begin to crumble. Racial reconciliation is not only possible, it’s a must because we are the very family of God.
One way for us to truly love and care for the church is for us to get a big God view of the family of God. Understanding the family of God is yet another weapon against racial intolerance in the church and beyond.
As we recognize, accept and embrace our new family, we experience the walls of hostility abolished, torn down, no more. Only in the family of God can people so distinctly different be the same (equal in creation and redemption) and counted as sisters and brothers in a new family.
