Life Together in Christ
In our journey through Believe we are halfway through on what we are called to do in our faith. The first 5 of our doing was focused on deepening our relationship with God.
They were:
- Worship
- Prayer
- Bible Study
- Single Mindedness
- Total Surrender
Now we shift from God on how we are to deepen our relationships with others. Let us never forget that the wonderful news of the gospel is that God is creating a new community of people who came from darkness into light to be in relationship for all of eternity because of the work of Christ.
This new community is the church – the household of faith – the body of Christ – the family of God – which we are all called to be part of…
This week let us consider the call to do life together in Christ. In our day of individualism where we prefer the solitary life with a few hand picked family and friends – we are challenged to see how we are called to enter into a household of faith.
A symptom of the struggle to do life together in Christ are the statistics that tell us that church attendance is on a decline. Over 50% – 70% of people who are identify with a church community are not in attendance on any given weekend.
Perhaps the observation by Heather King strikes close to home for many of us. She says this about the reality of biblical community: We worship with people we did not hand pick. This shatters our egos. We experience a humbling effect of discovering that we are thrown in with extremely unpromising people!—people who are broken, misguided, wishy-washy, out for themselves. People who are … us. And when we come to church we discover this is the best place – the only place – to hear about the two greatest scandals of God’s grace – 1.) that he loves us – AND – 2.) that he loves everyone else. (Adapted from Heather King – The Better Church)
Let me share one more observation by Carmen Renee Berry – author of The Unauthorized Guide to Choosing a Church (Brazos, 2003) – She writes, “Where human frailty once served as a reason for me to withdraw from the church, with its unruly and divergent congregants, this is now what compels me back to spiritual community. I had overlooked one essential factor—that I am as finite and flawed as everyone else.”
We see the the quality of life in the early church from the description in our key memory verse birth of church in the key memory verse of the week.
“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:44-47
That leads us to the key question we need to wrestle with – If I am called to do Life together in Christ with those who believe – How do I…
KEY QUESTION
How do I develop healthy relationships with others?
I want us to consider that as we grasp the marks, the qualities of biblical community – we will start to connect with the church the way God intended. When we get a hold of these qualities – the KEY IDEA of this week – I fellowship with Christians to accomplish God’s purposes in my life, in the lives of others and in the world. – begins to make sense.
So what are the marks of doing life together in Christ?
Work Together
The Israelites returned from 70 years of captivity and were rebuilding their lives under God. Nehemiah was called by God to give leadership in the rebuilding of the wall around the city of Jerusalem.
Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” 18 I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me.
They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work.
One mark of Biblical community – engages all its members to use their gifts resources and and time together to accomplish a task important to the plan of God.
Life in Christ means we work together –
- Alpha,
- Calling pour nextgen pastor,
- refreshing our buildings
- Multisite
- Embracing our community
- Serving in a ministry
Stick Together
One of the marked differences between the church and the rest of society is the call to live for others. We are urged to “look out for one another”
Romans 12:10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Romans 15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Romans 15:14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
Galatians 6:2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Ephesians 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
I Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
The call of one another is a radical love – we will be inconvenienced, interrupted and intruded.
We can’t make it just about us. It is a call to break free from self centeredness.
Pastor Ray Ortlund writes, “The kind of God we really believe in is revealed in how we treat one another. The lovely gospel of Jesus positions us to treat one another like royalty, and every non-gospel positions us to treat one another like dirt. But we will follow through horizontally on whatever we believe vertically.”
Ray then goes on to identify the “One Another’s” he could not find in the N.T.:
Sanctify one another, humble one another, scrutinize one another, pressure one another, embarrass one another, corner one another, interrupt one another, defeat one another, sacrifice one another, shame one another, judge one another, run one another’s lives, confess one another’s sins, intensify one another’s sufferings, point out one another’s failings …
C.S.Lewis:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.
It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” ― C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Share (& EAT) Together
Hebrews 13:1-2 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
Hebrews 13: 15-16 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
We see the importance of hospitality – inviting others in – sharing our homes and our lives – mysterious about eating together – it breaks down barriers – it is an act of worship before God!
Risk Together
Paul the apostle and great christian missionary had friends who were with him in ministry. Two of these were Priscilla and Aquila
1 Corinthians 16:19 The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla[a] greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house.
Romans 16:3-4 Greet Priscilla[c] and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
“I believe He wants us to love others so much that we go to extremes to help them.” Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
I can’t help but think we may risk our lives for our family but will we risk them for our brothers and sisters in Christ…
Risk means we become vulnerable and sacrificial. We forget about rights and move into
Go Deep Together
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
1 John 2 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.
1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
We must have a profound sense of the gospel – what God has really accomplished in our lives – radical salvation – from darkness to light – that is the profound basis of our relationship…this context we treat each with a profound sense of depth
Spiritual formation is so often couched in more individualistic terms, that it’s easy to forget the important role the church community plays in our growth as individuals. In her bookTraveling Mercies, Anne Lamott shares a story she once heard from her minister that illustrates well the necessary presence of others in our journey of faith:
When [my minister] was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, “You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.”
Lamott further writes:
And that is why I have stayed so close to [my church]—because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home.
Our linked is the profound relationship we have together in Christ – we are forgiven – we have moved out of darkness into light because of the work of Christ – who we are in Christ means we are a new creation – but all of us are new creations – profound implications
Love cannot exist in isolation: away from others, love bloats into pride. Grace cannot be received privately: cut off from others, it is perverted into greed. Hope cannot develop in solitude: separated from the community, it goes to seed in the form of fantasies. No gift, no virtue can develop and remain healthy apart from the community of faith. “Outside the church there is no salvation” is not ecclesiastical arrogance but spiritual common sense, confirmed in everyday experience. (Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder (HarperOne, 1991) p. 43).
God places a high value on the community of believers – the church – How important is it to you – how is it making a difference in your life?
This week what one idea of life together will take a step toward?
- Work – share in task that is important to the plan of God
- Stick – look out for others
- Share – practice hospitality
- Risk – make yourself vulnerable
- Go Deeper – embrace the forgiveness of Christ and come into the family of God.
Francis Chan in his book Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God makes this observation: “We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God. You’ve probably heard the expression ‘I believe in God, just not organized religion’. I don’t think people would say that if the church truly lived like we are called to live.”
[This post is based on the manuscript written by Pastor Dave Morehouse]