Speaker: Good morning, brothers and sisters.
Good morning.
I said Good morning brothers and sisters.
Good morning.
My name is Marcel Hall and I have the honor and privilege being able
to, uh, serve full time in the ministry here in this wonderful OC
church, uh, with my wife Karina.
So grateful.
We have three kids, uh, Sanaiya, Desiree and Dominique.
14, 12 and, uh, as of Thursday, or was that Wednesday?
Wednesday.
Uh, a 7-year-old, so it is active at our house.
Amen.
So if you're ever thinking about praying, pray for us.
Okay?
We definitely need that.
Uh, we're going to get into the word of God right now.
We're excited about the word of God.
Thank you so much, all who are visiting here with us in person, and those of
you who are worshiping with us online.
So grateful to have you.
We know we have a number of people that have been coming out since Easter.
We're so grateful that you've been worshiping with our spiritual family,
and that's what we strive to be.
Is a spiritual family, not just a, a church that gathers on Sundays,
but really be a family that supports and strengthens one another.
And in fact, uh, that's the title of today's message is Family
Matters because the family matters and we have some family matters.
You know what I'm saying?
The verb and noun sense.
I know some of you might be thinking of the show Family Matters.
Remember that show.
Amen.
I know I've dated myself.
All those who are younger than me, you have no idea what I'm talking about.
But there was a show called Family Matters with a guy named Urkel.
You remember Urkel?
Did I do that that?
There you go.
You know, it's crazy.
So I used to get my haircuts at the same place with Urkel.
Well, he wouldn't like me to call him Urkel, but Jaleel White.
And so I remember going in one time and I'm like, man, that looks like Urkel.
And sure enough, it was Urkel.
You know what I mean?
And, uh, we had a good time there, but that was the one I
used to live in in Los Angeles.
Uh, speaking of family matters, we have a prayer request I just received,
uh, for one of our, uh, brothers.
He actually was just baptized last year.
Uh, he's, he's, uh, in his eighties now.
And that's David Jones, Sr.
And so right now he's, uh, with the family in the hospital.
I don't know any of the details, but ask for all of us to pray
for David, uh, and the situation.
So can you go ahead and pray with me?
Father, thank you so much for this time to, uh, gather as a family.
We're grateful for the chance to worship you, to be, uh, able to respond to
your goodness and your faithfulness.
Thank you for being a God who provides Thank you for being a
God who is worthy of our praise.
We thank you that you not only call us your friend, but you call us your child.
Father, we pray right now for one of your children, David.
God, as you know, you know the situation I.
Don't know the particulars, but I know Father, that you are present.
I know that you want to work in the situation.
We pray for your grace and mercy in the situation.
Father, for you to instill faith and peace that is divine during this time.
And God, we pray that we can get an update soon.
But pray that we can be helpful and supportive to the Jones family.
We pray uh, for our time in the word God, that you will speak clearly to
all of us and that we will come away with greater conviction, greater
courage, and greater trust in you.
It's in Jesus name.
Amen.
I want to give you some encouragement.
Uh, I also want to give you some reminders and even a, a challenge in our time today.
And so first let's start off with some encouragement.
Amen.
And it says in John chapter one in verse 12, the what we call the Gospel of the
Book of John is a letter written by one of Jesus's followers named John.
And he writes this biography, if you will, about Jesus's life.
And he's talking about how there was a, a forerunner, someone who
would prepare the way for Jesus.
And that being John the Baptist.
And he gets in here in verse 12, and he writes this powerful statement
that says, yet to all who did receive him talking about Jesus, to those
who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or
a husband's will, but born of God.
We'll stop right there.
This passage is rich.
Just these two verses.
There's a whole lot in these two verses right here, we see really captured the
essence and the reason behind the gospel.
The gospel being Jesus came, he died and he rose for your and my salvation
for the world's salvation to be redeemed with the great King, God Almighty.
But it also tells us there is a response to the gospel message.
That we can respond in two ways.
We can respond by not having faith, or we can respond with true faith that
responds with a commitment to Jesus.
And we see the blessing of responding to this gospel.
It's to become a child of God and have eternal life To be a child of God,
now we have to be spiritually born.
To be a child of God, and we're reminded of this in Galatians chapter three.
Let's go ahead and read that.
It says, so in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith.
For all of you who are baptized into Christ, have clothed
yourselves with Christ.
And so we are spiritually born when we repent and we ent trust Jesus to
be savior of our lives, and we get baptized into the waters of salvation.
We are now clothed with Christ.
He no longer sees the sin, but he sees a son and he sees a daughter.
Therefore, we are becoming children of God.
Did you hear what I said?
You are a child of the living God.
Amen.
That is your identity.
Now, you may may be the son or the daughter of maybe Mr.
Or Mrs.
Hernandez or Mr.
Or Mrs.
Kim or Johnson Smith or whatever it may be, and that is your identity.
But spiritually speaking, and first and foremost, you are a child of the
God who reigns from heaven above.
That's who you are.
You are not just average Joe.
Or average Susie, you are a child of the living God.
That's who you are.
So you're having a bad day.
Just go to John chapter one and say, I'm a child of God.
When someone gets to trip you say, do you know who my daddy is?
That's what you have the opportunity to do.
You say what?
You don't know who I am, do you?
You don't know my pops.
Do you?
And if some of us, especially maybe some males back in the day, at least, I'm not
sure if that's the culture now, but when you would get into, you know, spats and
competition with your friends and you'd be like, Hey, my daddy can beat your daddy.
Every one of us can say that my daddy can beat your daddy.
'cause my daddy is the living king of all the universe.
Who's your daddy?
That's who we are.
Children of God.
So that means if we are children of God, that means we are
part of the family of God.
You get that logic and connection.
That means you and I are part of the family of God, from God's creation,
from Adam and Eve all the way to 2025 ad we are part of this universal
intergalactic family of believers.
That's who we're a part of.
Now, I don't know about you, but that's a, that's a, that's
a good family to be a part of.
That's better than being part of the royal family in, in England.
That's better than being part of the Walmart family.
I think the Walmart family is like the richest family in America,
and so that might be cool.
One sense.
But we're part of the God who has the treasures of all
eternity.
That's our inheritance.
You know this plan has been the plan of God from the beginning.
I wanna read this passage here in Ephesians chapter two.
Church, are you still with me?
All right.
It says, for He chosen us in him before the creation of the world to
be holy and blameless in his sight, in lovey predestined us for adoption
to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and
will, what does it say right there?
It says, this is God's plan from the beginning.
That when Jesus would come, he would establish his church, but his
church wouldn't just be a gathering, his church would be a family.
And this is powerful, especially for those reading it back then, because in
those times you would only adopt sons.
And so now what he's saying, he said, no, we're all adopted,
male and female in the kingdom of God, we all become part of God's.
Family.
And so Jesus established a church which is the family of God.
So when you are a part of God's church, you're a part of his family.
So now, if we all have the same dad, we're a part of the family
of God, what does that make us?
Brothers and sisters.
I appreciate those who got as in class saying that, but
the logic is simple, right?
That means you and I are family.
So guess what?
We are family.
Right.
Let's go pointer sisters.
We are family.
Come on now.
All right, Vicki, I see you.
I got all my sisters with me, all.
You know what I'm saying?
We are family.
Now, some of you that excite you, some of you're like, uh, I don't
know if I like that so much.
I like so and so, but, uh, that's my family.
Can that be my distant fourth cousin?
But can we keep it 100 up in here?
This can be viewed in different ways.
Some of us, we rejoice.
Yes, we're a family of God.
Yes.
Some of us, it, it, it, it doesn't resonate as well with us sometimes,
in part because we can have views of family that are different.
Some of us, we come in and maybe we have, well in all families, there's
some form of dysfunction that I haven't met a family yet that didn't
have some form of dysfunction.
And if you do just wait till next week 'cause your dysfunction will come.
But we come in and we have this view and sometimes our dysfunctional view
or view of our dysfunctional fa, we place it onto the family of believers.
So we're a little hesitant about that.
So we'd rather be church goers.
What up homie?
Some of us, our view of family, it's, it's, it's just a nuclear family.
It's just my mom, my dad, and those live in my house.
We don't really talk to cousins and aunts and uncles, so that's the family.
So the idea of this family seems overwhelming.
Or does it seem appealing?
Some of us, hey, hey, we come from a culture where you're not
technically family, but you're family.
If you lived on our block, you're family.
Some of us are like, if you didn't live in this house, I don't know, you
and I don't wanna be close to you.
So what happens when all these views come together?
There can be some challenges sometimes.
Right?
Right.
Because I, my view might be different than yours.
And so sometimes what happens is when we view with things and we see others
who don't adopt and have the same philosophy of family, the spiritual
family that we have, then we think, well, they're in the wrong and they're in sin.
Or there's a problem with this big church because they don't
view it the way I view family.
So here's the thing, and here's the challenge for every one of us, is
that we have to be careful to not allow our cultural, our background.
Views of family distorts our views of the spiritual family.
We have to allow God's view and biblical principles of what the spiritual
family is like to form and transform our view of the spiritual family.
Are you with me here now?
It's a challenge, but it can be done.
And I would say this real quickly, for those of us who maybe can struggle with
people's view, we have to be patient.
We have to understand, we come from different backgrounds and so
we're all on this journey, and some of us might be further along than
others, and we have to understand.
Sometimes we use the word unity and we misapply the word unity where
we say everybody has to do the same thing in order to be unified.
But that's not accurate when it comes to the family.
I take my family and my, my in-laws, for instance, we all come together
on Christmas Eve and Karina.
She's, she's, you didn't know she's Guatemalan.
So there's about 65,000 of us in the house
and we all come together on Christmas Eve and we rock and roll.
We have a great time.
But on Christmas day, a lot of us go with the other sides of the
family and we do our own thing.
We have different traditions.
Are we disunified on Christmas day?
No.
We're doing different things.
It's smaller, but we're still unified.
We're still a family, but we're doing some things different.
And the same thing as spiritual family.
Sometimes we need the whole big thing.
Sometimes we have the smaller families together and it's still family.
Are you with me?
Church, again, we have to make sure that we allow biblical
principles to influence us.
Here's what I'm gonna say here real quickly, and this is controversial.
Here's my controversial statement for the day, at least one.
If you don't like it, talk to Kyle about it.
Here's the thing, the church is a family and not just a community.
I know that's been a cool phrase in Christianity.
Hey, we need to be a community.
And that is true, but that's limited.
See, here's the thing.
We're all part of communities, but we're not all part of a spiritual family.
How you view your community is different than how you view your family.
It's so easy to leave a community, but it's hard to leave a family.
There's a difference in commitment and understanding and values with
a family than there is a community.
And so God wanted to establish his spiritual family in the church.
And so let's talk about some of these dynamics, these values and expectations.
Again, here's a reminder for all of us, or maybe perhaps for some of
us this might be new information.
First off, here we see the family's heart.
We love and forgive.
This is the family's heart we love and forgive.
Look at his passage.
The Apostle Paul wrote this to the church that met in the city of Colossae, and
it says, therefore, as God's chosen people wholly and dearly love, clothe
yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another.
If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you.
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect.
Unity we love because our father loves,
we love the family because our father loves the family.
He has set the president an example for us, so therefore we're part of his family.
We're like our dad, so therefore we love one another.
Even that sister who is hard to love, you know who I'm talking about.
But here's the thing, you might be that person too, and you probably are for
someone else, but we love one another.
We also forgive one another.
The F word,
forgive.
Y'all better stay with me.
We forgive.
Now if you forgive, what does that imply?
What does that mean if I have to forgive you?
That means what?
You hurt me or you sinned against me.
So it's implied.
No, it stated it is a hundred percent and abundantly clear.
You and I are going to hurt one another,
but we forgive.
You
see, in God's family, love isn't optional, and forgiveness is
what keeps the family together.
Let's move forward and let's talk about the family's responsibility.
We ride or die.
Come on.
Here we go.
All my fast and furious friends, come on.
Ride or die family.
That's how we decorate family.
That's okay.
We ride or die with and for one another.
Look at what it says in Romans chapter 12.
It says, be devoted to one another in love.
Honor one another above yourselves.
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord.
I think James read this passage earlier.
Be joyful and hope patient and affliction faithful in prayer.
Share with the Lord's people who are in need.
Practice hospitality.
We ride or die for one another.
Yeah.
That means we're faithful to one another.
We support one another.
We serve one another.
We protect one another.
We're compassionate with one another.
We sacrifice for one another.
It's who we are.
It's what we do.
That's what our father was like.
That's what Jesus is like.
They're our role models.
This family affair.
So therefore, this is who we are and this is what we do.
We stick together, we support each other through the challenges.
We support it.
We sacrifice.
That's what we're doing with our special message.
We're supporting locally, our family, and we're supporting those across the,
the, the border, our spiritual family.
We're sacrificing to give why for the greater good of the
universal family of believers.
We're there for one another through thick and thin.
I know we can raise hands to a t and those who have been members longer than
a week, you can say, I've had people in this room who have served and helped
me through some hard times, or just to get over the hump to make Jesus Lord.
I'm so grateful for the many people just in this room.
I could think about, uh, uh, you know, Kenny Barber.
I think about Chris Glossy, uh, I think about Martin Chare, uh, uh,
uh, I think about Daniel Samo, uh, uh, wan, I, I I, I, I can go on.
I know I miss some people, so please forgive me.
That's where you forgive.
I think of all those.
I can think of memories, recents.
I can think of those in the last couple of years.
Who have helped and prayerfully I've been able to serve and
be a good friend in return.
You know, in when we ride or die together, that means everyone contributes.
You go to a family meal, a family gathering, who's supposed to bring food?
Everybody.
Somebody's like, yeah, I got a cousin that don't bring food.
Think about that.
Let me ask you, are you that cousin that doesn't bring food?
We're all coming together.
We're all contributing our talents, our recent, our experiences.
You're going, uh, I just came here to get some free corn bread
or some macaroni and cheese, so I got hungry.
All of a sudden.
In a family, we protect, we protect each other.
That impressed me so much when I came into this fellowship.
I got, I got baptized in Washington DC and it was part of the DC church.
It was part of our church in New York, and then part of our church
out here in the Los Angeles area, and then moved down to Orange County.
And that's one of the things that, that just wowed me because I had went
to church for most of my life and, and it was church goers, but when
I saw the spiritual family, I saw those who were protecting each other.
I saw brothers who would protect the sister.
They weren't for any jokers to come in and swindle their way
and try to take out a sister.
I saw sisters who were mindful of the brothers who cared about the
brothers who saw little Susie walk in and said, don't worry, bro.
I'll talk to Susie for you.
I hope we still have that going on.
Well, we're protecting one another.
Danger.
I got you bro.
Sis.
Let me help you out here.
I know that's going on and I hope it still is going on beyond even my understanding.
You know, in a family also, everyone in a family looks out for the youth.
Think about your family.
Think about your family gathering.
Does everybody look out for the youth?
If a little kid is about to run off, not just the parent, and go, Hey, hey, you
better go get 'em, that you snatch them up and depending on your family, you
might have the authority to discipline.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't know how it goes for you.
But we all look out for the youth.
We all come in, Hey, how's my nephew doing?
How's my niece doing?
You engage with the youth?
Hey, what's going on?
Hey, gimme a hug.
Hey, don't you come out here without giving me a hug.
Hey, I got a little gift for you.
Hey, we're doing this.
You look out for the youth in your family.
So what's it happening in the church?
Oh, that's just Daniel and Savannah and some teen leaders.
Is that a family or is that.
Community.
See in the community you can do that.
In a family you can't because that youth you care about as if it was your own.
You know, I, I wanna mention this here real quick.
I, I wanna take a second here to talk about the youth.
You know, OC has traditionally, and, and our Fellowship of
churches has traditionally been great at investing in the youth.
And I've been here now, it's going to actually just hit 10 years.
Uh, no.
July.
It'll be 10 years, right?
10 years we'll be here and, and, and man, OC has a rich tradition of investing
time, resources, money for the youth.
And you see the fruit of it today.
I mean, Kyle was up here.
Kyle leads our campus ministry with his wife.
Guess what?
They were both teens in the church.
Daniel, Savannah, SMO.
Teens in the church that, that, that, that cool dude that was singing up here.
Dallas
Teen in the church.
In fact, several people in the worship team, teens in the church.
We have family group leaders who were teens in the church.
We have many servants who were teens.
Church that was from years of a collective investment in the youth.
And some of you can testify you, I'm looking at little Kylie over here, and you
can remember when little Kylie was running around in the little kids' classes with
just a diaper on yelling and screaming, or when Derek Lale was doing his thing.
And we all know, oh look, oh Derek, Derek is notorious.
Oh boy.
That was something else.
But now Derrick's a faithful disciple of Jesus.
I love Derrick.
I can be, I can say that the lales know it is all love.
But what happened there was an investment.
People decided I will sacrifice some of my worship so I can be with the
children's classes so that these kids can have an opportunity to know more about
God, so that later on they can make a decision to follow Jesus for themselves.
I want to give you a stat here real quickly.
Daniel told us this the other day, starting in June.
So what are we, three weeks, four weeks from June, we're gonna have
about 58 60 teenagers here in Orange County, just in our fellowship.
That's a lot.
And we have what we call, uh, teen leaders.
These are our, our adult mentors who mentor teens and, and help put on the
events every week for the teenagers.
And so we've always had a model in which we've had teen leaders.
And so starting on June for those 60, about 60 kids, we
will have three team leaders.
And you don't have to be great at the math, but that's one per 20.
Is that sustainable?
How's that gonna work out by July?
And so what we need is what?
She already said it.
You quit, girl.
Thank you.
We need people to invest in not just the next, but I call it the now generation.
We need people in here.
Yes, you.
We need you to be able to invest.
We need some, we know we can't have 35 of you guys become team leaders,
but we can have 35 mentors for kids.
We can have people decide I can get together on a consistent basis and
engage and build a relationship.
Studies have shown that those who grew up in a church who have made
it and stayed faithful to God in their thirties and forties, they had
on average five adult relationships through the years growing up.
And that's excluding mom and dad.
And so what are we gonna do for those 60 plus?
We have about 30 or 20 something junior high students coming up right after them.
Brother and sister, this is a call for you and I to ride or die
with and for each other that we're gonna all care for the youth.
We're gonna protect one another, and we're all gonna have some form or
fashion in which we help the youth.
When we got married, Kareem and I got married.
Uh, and, and I think this is, is common beyond just, uh, uh,
Guatemalan culture, but there's a, a, a thing called Pinos, right?
I think that's how you say it.
Hopefully I said my, I wrote my R correctly.
Alright, you're nodding in your head.
Thank you, sis.
Okay.
Thank you.
Alright.
And so what happens here is when we got married, part of the family, every part
of the Corina's family decided, Hey, I'm gonna be a, you know what I'm saying?
That I'm gonna be that for you.
So one person's like, well, we'll get the cake for you.
Well, we'll help out with this.
We'll help out with, with some of the decorations.
We just, we had about 25 family members helping contribute.
We didn't have any money, so we're like, hallelujah, thank you.
But they all found a way to contribute.
Brother Sisters, every single one of us can find a way to contribute.
We could be their spiritual pacinos for our youth today.
And maybe that's being a mentor.
Maybe that's providing your resources, your expertise,
maybe that's Amen's mission.
We share the gospel.
Here's what it says here in John Chapter 20.
Jesus, he says, peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.
We have a family hearts we love, we serve.
We have a family responsibility.
We ride or die together and we have a family mission.
We share the good news.
We share it with those we live with, we share it with those that live next to us.
We work with, we go to school with that.
We meet at the grocery store.
We have an opportunity to join our father in his mission, to redeem his creation,
to go from creation to child of God.
And so we have that opportunity.
That's our mission as a family.
And just like Jesus, we follow the family and sharing the good news.
What an opportunity we have and why are we talking about this?
Why is this important?
Well, it, it does go with our special missions because we're giving to
help build the family of God again, locally and across the border.
But really the main thing here is that family, the family of God
is at the center of God's heart and the center of God's will.
It's at the center.
Jesus came to establish his family and so that others.
Enter and become children of the most high God.
And we have to avoid the trap of letting worldly and cultural views
distort our view, and therefore misalign us with God's will in his design.
But if you think about this, this is our desire as well.
We wanna be a part of something special.
We wanna be a part of something that's filled and established and rooted in love.
We wanna be a part of something that's bigger than us.
We all desire to be a part of something that leaves and impacts upon this world.
We all desire to be a part of something that's eternal and divine, and that's
what we have in the family of God.
It's who we are and it's what we do.
And so how do we respond?
I believe it's real simple.
We build up the family of God.
We have to own our particular role in the family and help build up the
family of God The father is working.
It's what his children join him in building.
And I know we have so many that are, but I'm afraid some of us we're not building.
It's a call for every single one of us to continue to build or for
some of us to get back up and build.
Because you are a child of God, therefore you have a role in the family of God.
Every single one of us is needed, just like every single one of
your family members are needed.
And I wanna say this for those who may be.
You don't know her, it's clear you're not a member of the family of God.
I wanna encourage you to make a decision today to become a family member.
I wanna encourage you today to make a decision to join the family.
God.
See, Jesus didn't invite you just to believe Jesus invited
you to belong to his family.
Enjoyed him in building something that's eternal.
And so I wanna encourage you today to study the Bible and get help 'cause
we've all done it and make a decision.
To follow Jesus for those who have been members for many years.
Here's a question.
What kind of family member am I
and what kind of family member does God want me to be?
Reflect on that and then make some choices.
You can give to the youth, you can mentor a single professional.
You can help an an older and elderly brother or sister in Christ.
You can protect a sister, whatever the case may be.
But go ahead and do your role in building up the family of God.
And if we were to do this, we will fulfill the father's vision and the
father's will for his family picture here.
Real quickly, what would this picture look like if we were all committed?
Every single one of us to building up the family of God.
What if we all lived out the family's heart?
What we love and we forgive
picture, what it would look like if we were all devoted to the
family's responsibility where we ride or die for one another.
We protect, we sacrifice, we serve.
Picture what it would look like if we all joined the family
mission in sharing the gospel.
What kind of spiritual family would that be?
Would you like to be part of that spiritual family?
What kind of spiritual family would that be?
Would that be a spiritual family that you would.
Give yourself over to that you would contribute to would others
see the glory of God and therefore wanna be part of that family of God?
Here's the thing, brother sisters, that's who we are, and that's what we do.
So let's be who we are and let's do what we're supposed to do.
Let's close out here as we take communion.
This is where we take the emblems, the, the juice, and the bread
symbolizing Jesus's body and blood that was sacrificed for our salvation.
And it says here in John chapter one and verse 12, we'll
go back to where we started.
Yet, to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave
the right to become children of God.
Children born not of natural decision, nor of human decision, or a hu
husband's will, but born of God.
If we get a chance to be the children of the most high God, part of God's
universal, intergalactic divine family because of Jesus' life,
death, and resurrection, let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for Jesus.
Thank you that he is the center of our faith.
He's the focus Father, he's the example.
We thank you for your love.
We thank you that you've had a design.
From the beginning, before the creation you designed that those who would choose
to respond will be a part of your family.
We thank you that we have the opportunity to be called a child of yours.
Thank you for the brothers and sisters here.
Father, we thank you for your grace and mercy that has been lavished upon
us every single day of our lives, and we wanna respond with faithfulness to
you, faithfulness to your plan, and your desire and your will, and to your people.
We thank you again for Jesus, the author and perfecter of
our faith in his name, amen.