In this enlightening episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes delves into the profound concept of the royal family of God. As believers, we are not just individuals on different spiritual journeys but members of a grand, interconnected family ordained by God Himself. Rick explains the privileges that come with this divine family membership, the responsibilities we shoulder, and the unique position we hold in spiritual history. Tune in to explore how understanding this family can redefine your spiritual life and impact your perspective on community and service.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. It won’t be long, just about 30 minutes of some motivation, a whole lot of inspiration, a whole lot of education. And absolutely not zero, zilch, any manipulation. That’s right, we’re not gonna con you. We’re not soliciting money. We’re not trying to sell you something. This is not an infomercial. This is simply me teaching the Word of God, trying to help you orient and adjust to God’s plan for your life. My job is to verify and identify that plan. Your job, if you want to orient and adjust, is go for it and do it. Remember, you only got one shot at it. You got one life. You don’t get two or three. You get one shot at it. So I pray you’re listening. I pray you’re paying attention. The Flatline is brought to you every Sunday morning by Rick Hughes Evangelistic Ministries, and you can always find us on the Internet. at rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org. And from there, you can see the many books we’ve written, and we offer free of charge. We don’t sell anything. Hopefully, you’ll go and find those books and maybe order one or two that’ll help you or your friends in your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. There are a lot of things we talk about on our radio show. Sometimes we get into inspirational topics and sometimes we get into theological topics. Today I want to teach you something that I think is very interesting and something very unique that we all need to remember and we all need to pay attention to. So stay with me as I go through this study today because I believe it will challenge you and I believe it will encourage you as well. We’re talking about the royal family of God. the royal family of God. You know, some of us have large families. I don’t know how big your family is, but some people have large earthly families. They enjoy getting together for meals and fellowship, and it’s always refreshing to catch up with your siblings, your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, and hear what everybody’s been up to. Well, as a Christian, you have a family of believers called the royal family of God. And as such, we have certain privileges and certain responsibilities, even duties that we need to be carrying out as members of the royal family of God. So if you are a Christian, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are in God’s royal family. You’re a royal family member. the title royal family refers to church age believers only we’re not talking about old testament believers old testament saints i’m talking about those people that have come to understand who and what christ is since peter’s sermon there in acts chapter 2 called the church the body of christ the church and the royal family refers to the church age believers only When our Lord resurrected from the grave and ascended into heaven, he was seated at the right hand of the Father, and that is the place of highest honor in the entire universe. In Acts 2.32, the Bible says, Thus this Jesus has God raised up. That’s the resurrection. Wherefore, we are all witnesses to that. This is Peter speaking now. Therefore, being by the right hand of God, he is exalted in having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, which he hath shed forth this, which you now see and hear. That’s the preaching that Peter’s doing. For David did not ascend into heavens, but thus he said to himself, the Lord said to my Lord, sit you on my right hand. So we understand the Lord Jesus Christ after his death, burial, and resurrection, he ascended into heaven and he’s seated at the right hand of God the Father. And there he’s known as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. In 1 Timothy 6, 15, which in his times he shall show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. That’s our Savior, Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God. As a result of this glorification, where he’s now seated to the right hand of the Father, a new royal family was established by God the Father, and he set aside the age of Israel, and he inserted what we know as the Church Age, which is the foundation of God’s royal family. If you’re a Christian, today you live in the Church Age, and you are a member of the royal family of God. We are placed into this spiritual dynasty by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that occurs at the moment of our salvation, and Ephesians tells you about that. We’re sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. But keep in mind, there’s no race, no gender involved, We’re all joint heirs of God and all share in what Christ has done and what Christ will be. Each one of us, you, me, each one of us are now spiritual aristocracy. Let that sink in. You are spiritual aristocracy. That means we are believer priest and we are also royal ambassadors for God. So as a member of this unique family, the royal family of God, we have an honor code. And that honor code instructs us how to conduct ourselves with the highest integrity and the highest honor so that we reflect the thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s our job. So spiritual aristocracy. I bet you never thought of yourself as that, did you? You are spiritual aristocracy because you are a member of the royal family of God. This royal family that you and I are a part of will be completed at the rapture of the church. You say, what’s the rapture of the church? It’s the exit resurrection of 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 through 17. Turn and read it when you want to. 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 through 17. It’s here that Paul talked about how we’ll be caught up together to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds, and thus we’ll evermore be with the Lord. The rapture of the church is a very unique thing, and it could happen at any time. It could happen today, tomorrow, the next day. But if it does happen, we’ll just disappear. We’ll just be gone. And we will then, once we go to heaven, we will all receive our resurrection body. In other words, if you’re already passed away when the rapture occurs, you’ll come out of that grave and get a resurrection body and you will undergo evaluation. That’s what’s called the judgment seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. Every member of the royal family of God will be evaluated. 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. Each one of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to evaluate us. That doesn’t mean evaluate our sins. They’re not going to show a movie projector of all the stupid things you’ve done. Nobody’s going to be selling popcorn and peanuts, letting people laugh and get a good kick out of your failure. That’s not the way it goes. If you read 1 Corinthians 3, you’ll see that some of the rewards will be called gold, silver, and precious stones. And some of those rewards are wood, hay, and stubble, which means they’re useless rewards. The useless rewards are those things you did in the right thing, but you did it in the wrong way. A right thing done in the wrong way, as you know, is still wrong. So a right thing done in the right way, well, that’s right. And the judgment seat of Christ will disclose what’s the right thing done in the right way called gold, silver, and precious stones. Okay, now as a member of the royal family, which you and I are, that royal family may be identified as the church, called the church. And I’m not talking about your local church, I’m talking about the universal church made up of all individuals who have received Christ as their savior. Sometimes you’re identified as the, quote, body of Christ. not just the church, but sometimes the body of Christ. And sometimes the royal family of God is referred to as the bride of Christ. In Revelation 21, nine, and there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues and talked with me and said, come hither and I will show you the bride, the lamb’s wife. And that’s the church, that’s you and I. So here’s some points for us to consider today as we look at the royal family of God. Number one, the royal family of God is defined as every church age believer, everyone that’s ever accepted Jesus Christ since his resurrection, church age believers, regardless of antecedents, regardless of background, regardless of race, regardless of classification, all of those distinctions are erased the moment you believe in Christ The moment you’re reconciled to God through what Christ did for you, no more individual distinctions. You’re now a member of the royal family of God, the body of Christ. Two, whatever you were before, you are now royal family, spiritual aristocracy, and this is a permanent royalty that will last forever, forever, throughout all eternity. Our royalty is eternal and it’s secure since it’s related to our regeneration. And this means that all church age believers like you and I are in full time royal service for the Lord Jesus Christ because we are royal priests and we’re royal ambassadors. So point three, the royal family is to provide an invisible impact on human history. The uniqueness to the church age, that’s us. That’s the impact on human history, the unique to the church age. Because as goes the church age believer, so goes the history of human history. And this phenomena is true only during the church age. So I’m gonna say this again. I’ll break it to, say it a different way which you’ve heard me say it. As goes your spiritual life, so goes the history of the world. As goes your spiritual life, so goes your family. As goes your spiritual life, so goes your nation. It’s not depending on who’s in office as president. It’s not depending on anything like that. It depends on the spiritual aristocracy of believers in the church making up the body of Christ in any generation. And hopefully that’s you and that’s me. Okay, so point four. The scriptural declaration of our royalty is found in 1 Peter 2 verse nine. Listen to what Peter wrote. But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, that’s you and me, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that, or in order that, you may proclaim the virtues of him, that’s the Lord Jesus Christ, who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So, as a royal family member, we have a code of conduct, and we are called to live by this code of conduct. It’s a system of spiritual integrity that we are required to live under. And it’s revealed in the mystery doctrines of the church. No one ever knew about this before. There was nothing in the Old Testament talked about the insertion of the church. That was all a mystery. Paul taught the mystery doctrines of the church. That was all new stuff. They just thought that, you know, the Lord would come back someday and that’d be it. Nobody thought about it this way until we understood exactly what the scriptures are telling us. We are in a unique dispensation called the church age. The age of Israel has been set aside and will be completed during the tribulation. Seven years of tribulation is the final seven years of Israel’s history according to the book of Daniel. So we are in a unique time, unique dispensation with a unique code of conduct, okay? And this is a system of integrity that we’re required to live under. And it includes impersonal love for all people and motivated by personal love for God. So here’s the key to this thing. If you’re a royal family member, you are motivated to be motivated to use impersonal love, motivated by your personal love for God. What do I mean by that? I mean, you’re not allowed to hate people. You’re not allowed to be mad at anybody. You’re not allowed to be jealous of people. Those are sins. Listen to James 2.8. If you’re in the royal family, I want to give you the royal law. Here it is. If you fulfill the royal law, James 2.8, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself, end quote. You do well. Now that passage that James wrote is a direct quote from Leviticus 19, 18. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. That almost seems like an impossible task, doesn’t it? I mean, what if you got a jerk for a neighbor? What if you got a weirdo for a neighbor and you’re supposed to love him? Does that mean you got to go over there and hug his neck and look him in the eye and say, I love you, brother? No, that’s not what it’s talking about. Impersonal love means that you treat that person the same way God treated you. God loved you when you were a sinner. The Bible says God so loved the world, there it is right there, that he gave his only begotten son. Before you became a Christian, you were loved by God and now that you are a Christian, you are still loved by God, you’re just a member of the royal family now. So we are under this royal law. We’re not allowed to hate people. We’re not allowed to be jealous of people. We’re not allowed to be critical of people. Since you are aristocracy by adoption into the family of God, we were adopted. Romans 8, 15, For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we now cry, Dear Father, Abba, Father, So you and I represent our Heavenly Father while we’re still stationed on planet Earth. And we are to obey the laws of divine establishment, freedom, marriage, family, nationalism, those four things. We are to obey the laws of divine establishment, as well as the spiritual mandates taught in the scripture. This means that you have to learn to think the right way. You have to have the right kind of thoughts. If you’re not thinking right, you’re not living right. That’s why it’s so critical that we understand. The soul’s mentality is never to surrender to emotional override, which is seen in some form of self-pity or some form of arrogance, including the dreaded arrogance of self-justification. Our lives as royal family members, spiritual aristocracy must consist of learning the scriptures and thinking or applying the scriptures that we’ve learned. and solving the problems that control us or confront us by using those 10 problem-solving devices that we teach on our radio show called the FLOT line, F-L-O-T, FLOT line. The FLOT line is made up of 10 unique problem-solving devices. My pastor taught those to me a long time ago, and I’m reteaching them to you. But if you are a mature believer, and that’s the objective of you, to get to maturity, if you are a mature believer in the royal family of God, that means that every member of the royal family of God is not mature, I promise you. But if you are, then you have cognitive, or you’re aware, you have awareness of your independence. And you don’t depend on drugs, you don’t depend on alcohol, you don’t depend on the opinion of other people. to give you direction or confidence in your life and in the conflicts that you face. So unfortunately, as I just said, not all members of the royal family of God go on to reach spiritual maturity. After salvation, many never grow up. That’s a sad part of that life. They never grow up. They never advance due to distractions and discouragement, and they wind up drifting away from their objective. This is something you have to remember. In Hebrews 2.1, therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things we’ve heard, lest at any time we should let them slip away. One of the things that Satan does is once someone gets saved, he’s gonna try to distract them from ever reproducing. He will try to distract them from growing up spiritually. Anything that he can. You know how he does it sometimes? Through religious organizations. They’ll get you involved and they’ll make you think you’re worshiping because you’re singing some songs and you’re worshiping and getting all emotional and you’re never really having an impact for the Lord Jesus Christ because you never learn enough scripture to understand what’s going on. You just function under your emotions and that doesn’t work that way. Not all members of the royal family of God reach maturity. So it’s obvious Satan wishes to prevent the lost man from hearing the gospel, yes. But it’s also true that once any individual makes that decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that Satan, aka the devil, will then do everything within his power to distract them from ever fulfilling God’s plan for their lives. And it is especially true that he does not want the Christian to reproduce. In 1 Peter 5, eight through nine, the Bible says, be sober. In other words, pay attention. Be vigilant, be on alert, because your adversary, aka the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking who he may devour, whom resists steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. You know, a lion is an amazing individual. It’s an amazing animal. It can cover 100 yards in about four and a half seconds. So you don’t have much time to get your gun up and aim and shoot. You better not miss. You got four and a half seconds because if you miss, you’re dead meat. This is exactly what Satan wants to do with you. Turn you into dead meat. And then you just wind up being a big old pile of stinking leftovers. So Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking who he can devour. Has he devoured you is my question. Has he distracted you? Has he discouraged you? Even though you’re a member of God’s royal family and spiritual aristocracy, do you live like that? Do you follow the royal law? Questions to be answered. St. Peter wrote that word of warning to believers who are under attack by satanic forces every day. And this is why members of God’s royal family must, must, must consistently be aware of the enemy’s tactics. Solomon wrote about it in Proverbs 4, 23 through 27. Listen carefully. This should be a warning to you. Keep vigilant watch over your heart. That’s where life starts. Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth. Avoid careless banter and white lies. And go forth. All right, don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth. Avoid careless manner and white lies and gossip. And keep your eyes straight ahead, ignoring all sideshow distractions. Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you. Don’t look right and don’t look left. Leave evil in the dust. Now that’s a modified, expanded translation of that verse in Proverbs 4, 23 through 27. I’d like to read it to you one more time. Please keep vigilant, watch over your heart. Remember you have a memory center, you have a heart, you have a mind and a heart. The Bible talks about both of them. The mind is the nous, N-O-U-S in the Greek New Testament. And the heart is the cardia, K-A-R-D-I-A. We get the word cardiology, cardiac. But the heart is where the memory center is. The mind is where we accumulate information. The heart is where we apply the information. So this verse says this is where life starts, in the heart. And then he went on to say, don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth. Don’t say one thing and do another. And this is what Christians are bad about doing. People will call you a hypocrite because of that. Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth. Avoid careless talk, careless banter. Avoid white lies, little lies, you know, like cheated on your income tax or told a lie to your buddy. You know, I love to bass fish. I used to tournament fish all the time. You talk about a bunch of liars. Whoa, my goodness. They’d be more than happy to tell you where they caught fish, but they didn’t really catch them. They just don’t want to tell you the truth. Oh, yeah, brother, I caught a big one over there by that pier. But actually, he caught it downriver about five miles away. White lies, little lies, trying to distract people. And gossip, stay out of that. You know the difference between gossip and slander? Well, gossip is when you repeat a rumor. Slander is when you repeat a lie. So keep your eyes straight ahead. Don’t look around. Don’t look at what I’m doing. Don’t look at what your sister’s doing. Don’t look at what your preacher’s doing. Look straight ahead into the Word of God. And ignore all the distractions. Watch your step. And then the road will stretch out smooth before you. And don’t look right and don’t look left. Leave evil in the dust. Again, Proverbs 4, 23 through 27. So in closing, let’s not forget we are spiritual aristocracy and our aristocracy is not achieved by means of achievement. Our aristocracy is given on the basis of our relationship with Jesus Christ because we are royal family. And as such members of the royal family of God, we are granted an inheritance of all that Jesus Christ is and all that Jesus Christ has, thus we are here to proclaim the excellencies of him. In 1 Peter 2.9, but you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, Chosen to be holy people, God’s instrument to do his work and to speak out for him and to tell others of the night and day difference that he made for you. From nothing to something. From rejected to accepted. And that’s a quote from what’s called The Message, another way you can interpret the Bible. First Peter 2.9, a quote from The Message. So we do this in our daily lives, which can be seen in Paul’s writings to the church at Ephesus. What did he say? God, but you did not learn Christ in this manner. If indeed you’ve heard him, you’ve been taught him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former way of life, you are now to rid yourself of the old self, which is corrupted according to the lust of deceit, and you are now to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, the way you think, and to put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God that has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. So there’s the new you, spiritual aristocracy. You’re to wear that with honor, with great integrity, with great poise, and it’s an amazing thing. Don’t forget it, you are spiritual aristocracy, why? because you’re a member of the church and because of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for you, you’ve been adopted into the family of God and made heirs to all that Christ is heir to. What an amazing thing. Now when you leave today, look at your wife, look at your husband, look at your children, and tell them we are spiritual aristocracy because of who and what Christ is. It’s wonderful, it’s a great blessing, it’s a marvelous thing. to be a member of a great family called the royal family of God. Not your earthly family, but your heavenly family. And one day in heaven you will be reconciled with all those that you’ve known in the past. I can’t wait to see a lot of great friends that I know that have gone on to be with the Lord. And you and I will meet up there and we’ll all be together. as a great family, the bride of Christ, the church, the body of Christ, the royal family of God. Never thought about that, have you? You are that. You are the royal family of God. That’s a good thing to put on your tag. That’s a good thing to put on your refrigerator. I’m royal family. Don’t forget it. Don’t forget the royal law and James and live like you’re supposed to live according to Proverbs, what we just read to you there. Any questions, contact us through the website, rickhughesministries.org. And I thank you for listening. We’ll be back same time next week, same place. Until then, we appreciate your prayers and your encouragement. And I’m your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
