A VISION FOR COMMUNITY
I have come with one purpose, to capture for myself a bride.
By my life she is lovely, and by my death she’s justified.
I have always been her husband, though many lovers she has known.
So with water I will wash her, and by my word alone.
So when you hear the sound of water, you will know that you’re not alone.
‘Cause I haven’t come for only you, but for my people to pursue
And you cannot care for me with no regard for her;
If you love me you will love the Church.
“THE CHURCH”
- Derek Webb, from “She Must And Shall Go Free” – 2003
A central theme that runs through the whole Bible is that God is creating for Himself a people who are His own possession. God is not merely saving individuals; He is building a new community in this world. He is forming a new humanity from the ashes of Adam’s fallen race. The gathering of this community is at the heart of God’s covenant promise: “I will be your God and you will be my people.”
God calls us to a community mindset:
- When God created the human race, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Allender and Longman (in Intimate Allies) write: “God does not exclusively fill the human heart. He made mankind to need more than himself. The staggering humility of God to make something that was not to be fully satisfied with the Creator and the creation is incomprehensible.” As hard as it is to understand, we need one another!
- God addressed Israel and dealt with Israel first of all as a community, not as separate individuals. God’s covenant and commandments were given to the PEOPLE of Israel. He called them to Himself as a nation, not just as separate individuals.
- The solidarity of the covenant people is seen in the way God dealt with Israel when Achan disobeyed God by taking plunder from Jericho. The entire nation suffered because of the sin of one man. Israel had sinned, not just Achan! God could have singled him out. Instead he taught Israel this lesson that the actions of one person in the covenant community affect the whole community. We are connected to one another and responsible for one another.
- When Jesus gathered his twelve disciples, it seems he is intentionally re-constituting Israel. The Church has replaced Israel as the community that represents God’s character and ways to the world. God did not stop caring about developing a people, a community, and shift his focus to saving individuals. The Church is the new Israel. It is the new community God is forming and to whom He has given himself.
- Jesus expects His people will be able to rely on one another as members of a new family (Mark 10) created by God. People who are followers of Christ are now brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers and children in a family.
- Romans 12:1 – “I urge you, therefore, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies (plural) as a living sacrifice (singular), holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship.” It is the church as a corporate body that is the living sacrifice, not the lives of individual Christians (though it is certainly true that the body is made up of individuals who give themselves as living sacrifices to God). We give ourselves to God as a community of believers. See how often Paul addresses the lifestyle and conduct of the community of believers in his application of doctrinal truth.
- Individual Christians receive the Holy Spirit and are being built together into a “spiritual house” as “living stones.” It is TOGETHER that we are the building God inhabits.
- The letters of the NT, for the most part, were not written to individuals but to communities of believers. They were meant to be read, understood, and applied in community, not just as privatized, individual believers. The question, “What does this passage mean for US?” should take priority over “what does this mean to ME?” It’s not that your individuality doesn’t matter, but we are more than individuals in Christ. Maybe the best question for applying God’s Word is “What does this mean for me as a member of this community of believers?”
God’s Purposes in Community
1. God made us to enjoy Him and to enjoy other people, to share our lives together. He takes delight in being in relationship with His people.
2. The Church exists to provide support and encouragement to one another so that we might lead lives that honor God – “that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us…” (Romans 8). Living up to God’s standards in isolation is too hard. We need each other for strength and encouragement. In community, we can remind each other of our calling in Christ. We can remind each other of the gospel.
3. The Church is to be a “city set on a hill.” The church is to be light in a dark world, to stand in contrast to a culture in such a way that the nations are drawn to God. That was Israel’s calling before Christ. The Church now fulfills that calling. We exist to make the character and ways of God known to those who don’t yet know Christ. By the quality of our life together – our love for one another – we become a compelling example of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed.
4. Therefore, it is impossible for a person to grow to spiritual maturity without a love for the Church and without an involvement in the Christian community. Spiritual maturity is an idea that makes no sense apart from community.
Some Implications of God’s Call to Community
1. We can’t have this kind of community without some intentional effort. You can’t have this kind of relationship with others in the Body in a worship service. Just by gathering together in large groups, we won’t necessarily experience what God intends the Body to be. To do this requires closer, face-to-face relationships in various kinds of groups. It requires ongoing relationships in which we are consciously pursuing Christian community and not settling for casual social involvement alone.
2. Every member must see himself/herself as a minister. The pastoral staff can’t build up the whole body. The Scriptures talk about believers building up one another. The Body grows as each part does its work.
3. Community is something we will have to work at. Is it truly a priority, a value? If so, how will we live it out? How will be help it happen? We live in a very privatized, individualized, isolationistic, “cacooning” kind of culture. To work for genuine community in the gospel will be to work against the flow of our culture. We will naturally default to individualistic approaches to the Christian life. We don’t know how to do community. We’re not good at it. But this is no reason to avoid doing what God has called us to do!
4. One of the major road-blocks to growth right now in our church may be the number of fellowship groups, not the number of seats available on Sunday morning!
The Challenge: Will We Be Committed To One Another?
- Love one another (John 13:34)
- Be devoted to one another (Romans 12:5)
- Honor one another (Romans 12:10)
- Rejoice with one another (Romans 12:15)
- Serve one another (Galatians 5:13)
- Carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2)
- Be patient, bearing with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2)
- Forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32)
- Encourage one another (I Thessalonians 5:11)
- Offer hospitality to one another (I Peter 4:9)
- Confess your sins to one another (James 5:16)
- Pray for one another (James 5:16)
The challenge is to pursue a biblical pattern of sharing life together as a family of believers. You can’t do these “one another” commands alone!
In his book, Stop Dating the Church, Josh Harris asks, Do you want to grow as a follower of Christ? Then commit yourself to a group of Christians and share your life with them - not just on Sunday morning in worship services, but through small groups or some form of gathering with a smaller number of people than you have on Sunday morning in public worship. Commit yourself to loving them. He says:
Our assurance of salvation must include a changed life. Confidence that we’ve truly been saved shouldn’t rest on an emotional experience or a prayer we prayed during an altar call years ago. I don’t care how much you cry during singing or preaching…if you do not live a life marked by love toward others, the Bible has no encouragement for you to think you’re a Christian. None….
…Do you want to know that your new life is real? Commit yourself to a local group of saved sinners. Try to love them. Don’t just do it for three weeks. Don’t just do it for six months. Do it for years. And I think you’ll find out, and others will, too, whether or not you love God. The truth will show itself.”
The local church is the place where our new life in Christ is lived out and proven. Joining a church won’t save you…it’s only the death of Christ that saves you. He alone is our righteousness. But if He really is our righteousness, if we really love Him who we have not seen, it will show itself by us loving those that we do see.”
Your commitment to the church family will be tested when the church as a whole does things differently than you would prefer to have them done or when someone in the church says or does something that you don’t agree with (we’re not talking about the church compromising on the truth of God’s word but about decisions on the way things are done that you may not like). What will you do? Will you run away and look for a different family, or will you put into practice the commands to be patient with one another, to bear with one another, to overlook an offense, to practice humility and put others ahead of yourself.
Living as a church family, as a community of believers, is not easy. Just as the intimacy of marriage forces you to grow by seeing things about yourself that you’d rather not see and having to work through what it means to grow and change, being committed to a church family will also force you to see things in your own heart and life that you’d rather not admit are there. Devote yourself to a group of people, and you will see more of your own selfishness, pride, impatience, a demanding and critical spirit. But in the process you will also discover what it means to be loved, forgiven, and accepted in spite of your sins. You will grow deeper in understanding what it means to love God and to be loved by God than you can learn by remaining in isolation from this kind of fellowship.
This is the life to which Christ has invited us – a life lived together as the people of God in a local community, devoted to the loving Lord Jesus and to loving one another. | 
