THE CHURCH BECOMING A HEALTHY FAMILY

“The Son is the dazzling radiance of God’s splendor, the exact expression of God’s true nature—his mirror image!” (Hebrews 1:3 TPT)

As we become healthy sons and daughters, empowered by the Lord’s joy for us, we are enabled to become the healthy, redeemed family the Lord has always dreamed of. The church, as the corporate expression of mature children, reflects the health of the Godhead, and thereby credibly reveals the plan of God to the world (John 17:21-23).

Jesus has invested all of Himself in bringing to birth His church. The purpose of his incarnation as the God-man was to reveal God to man and to reconcile man to God. His atoning work brought about the birth of his church. In His prayer to the Father just prior to the cross, Jesus places the highest priority on His church becoming a healthy family. Jesus prays that the church will become an accurate and authentic reflection of the Godhead as a healthy family. The vibrantly healthy interpersonal relationship between God the Father and God the Son has become the pattern for God’s redeemed family, the church.

God’s primary intent for His church is for it to be an expression of a healthy family. However, local churches in modern times are not always expressions of healthy family as their primary purpose. Churches can be primarily institutions, businesses, or religious ceremonies. The church becoming a healthy family needs to be as much a priority for church leaders as it is to the Lord Himself.

The Godhead is heaven’s prototype family. It provides mankind with the perfect pattern for relational health in God’s redeemed family. The relationship between Jesus and His Father is the template for how a healthy multigenerational church should operate.

The Godhead is one God manifested in three persons. The main reason God revealed Himself to us in the form of three persons is to show us His high priority for a family. The way members of the Godhead interact with each other is God’s demonstration of a healthy family to us.

In John 17, when Jesus gives his church “glory to become one” (John 17:22), He is empowering his redeemed family on earth to become just like heaven’s healthy family, the Godhead. God’s redeemed family on earth becoming an accurate corporate expression of God is God’s plan for revealing Himself to the world.

Throughout history, God has been progressively revealing Himself to mankind, but the most accurate revelation of God to man is Christ Himself.

“The Son is the dazzling radiance of God’s splendor, the exact expression of God’s true nature—his mirror image!” (Hebrews 1:3 TPT)

So, God, in the form of a man, is the perfect expression of God to man! Since Jesus is a flawless expression of God to man, if the world was able to accurately see Jesus, then God’s goal of revealing Himself to the world would be accomplished. Following this logic, Jesus could have easily prayed something like this in John 17, “Father, I have revealed You on earth, so I pray that You will help the world to see Me so they will know You sent Me.”

Amazing as it is, Jesus is not asking the Father to help the world to see the revelation of God through the person of Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked the Father to help the world see the revelation of God through the mature church. Jesus is confident the mature church becoming a healthy family will provide proof to the world that God sent His Son to redeem us and restore relationship with us.

The church becoming like the Godhead will be the credible source that convinces the world to wake up to the eternal plan of God. The key to reaching the world is the life, maturity, unity, and love of the disciples.

The world will only be reached when the disciples come into the fullness of Christ and in unity of the faith (Ephesians 4:13). This is what consumes the heart of Jesus as He prays for them before the cross.

Twice in John 17:21-23, Jesus prays “that the world may know”:

“...that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me...”

Jesus is staking the entire redemptive purpose of God – revealing Himself to man and inviting us into relationship – on His church becoming as glorious, mature, and healthy as the Godhead. The church that has become “one, even as the Son and the Father are one” (John 17:21) is the church that will inspire the world to recognize Jesus. Jesus considers the definitive evidence of the reality of God will be demonstrated to the world through the mature church.