“The closer we draw to the Church, the closer Christ draws to us.” ~ Kenneth B

I’m still posting some excerpts from this past Sunday’s sermon on how we are transformed more into the image of Jesus in and through the local church. I am also sharing some lines from the excellent article I found Monday–a few days too late!–written by Kenneth B on Substack about the same topic. You can read his outstanding piece here.

The main point of Sunday’s sermon is that the differences we have with one another in our churches are precisely the areas where our Father shapes us into his image. It’s in those differences and disappointments that the Spirit changes us to more consistently think like God and more regularly and predictably act like Jesus. We have different ideas, different preferences, different buttons and triggers–there’s never going to be anything we all agree on together within our churches.

And that’s okay.

If we had to agree with everybody in our churches on everything, Carrie-Anne and I would be at two different churches.

If unity means uniformity, a bunch of us are going to have stop thinking. Nobody wants that.

God’s people are messy in community. But I think that’s the point.

“You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people, and members of God’s household… In him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” ~ Ephesians 2:19-22

“In fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” ~ 1 Corinthians 12:18

I believe that every man, woman, and child in your church is there because God placed them there. You are a part of your congregation for a reason: God’s reason. We need each other if God’s going to work in us and through us the way he intends. Our mindset must be: We are together in this church because of what God is doing in Christ. If that’s the mindset, then we commit to one another. We vow to make it work.

We were watching a TV show a couple of weeks ago in which two of the characters work together, and they’re dating. They’re in a relationship. He did something at work she didn’t like, something that messed up what she was trying to accomplish, and it made her angry. So she broke up with him. It’s over. And he said, “So, that’s how it is? You don’t get your way and you sever the relationship? You’re going to be a sad and lonely woman.”

Some people leave their church when they don’t get their way. They just leave because something’s not going the way they want.

No! That misses the whole point of Christian community! It’s a family, it’s like a marriage. You work it out. You don’t leave. You work through it. And it’s hard and it’s painful and sometimes it’s disappointing and sometimes it hurts. But this is precisely what leads to spiritual growth. This is what facilitates increased Christ-likeness. You don’t treat your church like you treat your car or your shampoo. Your mindset is: I am all in with these people in this place because God has put me here and he’s doing something.

“In Christ, we, who are many, form one body. And each member belongs to all the others.” ~ Romans 12:5

We belong together in our church communities. And it’s in your church community where God’s grace transforms you. Being together all the time with people you don’t necessarily agree with, worshiping and serving together, living and dying together with people you didn’t choose, forces us to grow in Christ-likeness.

Love one another. Build one another up. Encourage one another. Honor one another. Be in harmony with one another. Pray for one another. Be devoted to one another. Instruct one another. Greet one another. Accept one another. Serve one another. Be patient with one another. Be kind and compassionate to one another. Submit to one another. Forgive one another. These biblical commands can only be obeyed in community. We can only follow our Lord’s instructions if we’re together, if we really belong to each other. And when we do these things, by God’s grace, when we commit to this way of being together in Christian community, we’ll find that we are more consistently thinking like God and more regularly and predictably acting like Jesus.

This is how God works. And where.

I’ll end today with this paragraph from the Kenneth B article. Again, I urge you to read the whole thing here.

“A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is real, but it is not solitary. It is lived through the Church. You do not discover Christ by escaping the community, but by joining it. You do not grow closer to God by seeking exceptional moments, but by entering the ordinary pattern of worship, repentance, fasting, and love that has formed saints for two thousand years… We meet him as members of his Body. We are saved together, healed together, shaped together, and restored together. Even our most personal experiences of grace arise from the shared life of the Church, it’s sacraments, its Scriptures, its prayers, its elders, its martyrs, and its saints… In the ancient world, to speak of knowing Christ personally was to speak of being united to his Body, standing shoulder to shoulder with the community he founded, and learning from the people who had already learned to pray, to repent, to love, and to die with hope.”

Peace,
Allan