Christian Community

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors. Select a time to jump to that point in the recording.

0:00Because I'm just here one morning to preach, I'm not building off of some amazing foundation in a series that Joel has laid. I just want to share with you what has become one of my favorite passages in Scripture. And I want to do that in part because I like it, but because it is, I think, very foundational for thinking. The topic it addresses is very foundational for the church because it deals with the identity of the church. What the church is.

0:31It talks about community, Christian community. I think we live in a moment that is particularly confused and challenged when it comes to community for a few reasons. One is, ironically, that almost everybody agrees that you need some sort of community in your life. You don't have to be a religious person to say, yes, you need friends, you need people in your life. You might be an atheist who believes we're here all by accident, but you say, well, but we're like monkeys or dolphins or animals.

1:02We're social creatures. We need people in our lives. So, of course, you need people like you need a good diet, right? It's good for you to have people in your life. And interestingly, I think that makes it actually very hard for us to think really well about Christian community when everybody has some vague sense that you need it. But the reasons for having it are very different. So that's one reason it's very hard. Another reason, I think we just kind of know this intuitively, is that we live in a digital age.

1:32If you follow any YouTube accounts or you listen to podcasts, you'll hear them talk about their followers as a community, right? I love this community, which might be true in some sense. You are connecting with people online, but you do so by being physically separated. And so talking about community in that way is radically different than any other kind of community that people have known throughout history. And then finally, I think this is more to where we live in particular.

2:00And maybe you disagree, but at least 20 minutes over in Midlothian, I would say we live in an area that is basically designed to keep your kids busy in the name of success. So if you want your kids, if your kids want to be involved in sports, it's going to be every day. You're going to practice every day. If you've got an extracurricular, you're going to be doing that most days of the week. If they want to work on top of that, that's more time. Every night of the week is busy with this.

2:26Most weekends are busy with this. And that just makes it hard to be together with people because we're incredibly busy and we live in a place that's almost designed to do that, I think, to our kids in the name of success. So I think many of us view Christian community as important but not essential. It's like visiting your extended family. Like, it's nice. You've got to do it a couple times a year, but it's not the most important thing about being a Christian.

2:51It's not one of the fundamental things. But I think the passage we're going to read, I think, was going to say that the Bible doesn't let you believe that. That the Bible says that community is a means of grace. It's a way that God, that you can taste and see and touch the grace of God. And it's actually a way that God has designed you to experience his grace. So we're going to talk about what community is, why you need it, how to get it, how to be in it.

3:18Let me read Psalm 133. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It's like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls in the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. Father God, we pray that you would bless not only the reading, but the understanding and preaching of your word.

3:54That we would not just be content with a surface level understanding, but a heart that is transformed by your word. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So immediately, the psalmist gives us talks about community in a way that I think is very intuitive for us in terms of connectedness or closeness. It says how good it is when brothers dwell in unity. And this is, I think, just intuitively how we think about relationships, right? When you talk about people you're in a relationship with, you say, I'm close with him.

4:25I used to be close with them. I'm not very close with her anymore. We talk in terms of closeness, togetherness, connectedness. And that's certainly the case with community. And I think every, we know that any relationships we have involve connectedness. Even a church, you know, there's almost no way that you could really have a meaningful, deep relationship with every person in this room. It's just not really feasible. But in any church community, there is some level of connectedness that you all have with each other.

4:57You serve together. You worship together. If you're a member of the church, you've taken vows to each other. So there is some level of connectedness that happens in any church. And that's essential for any group. And certainly the writer wants to emphasize that. But I think he wants to say more than that. And I think he does that by using this illustration of oil. There's more that he wants to say about community than just that you're connected to each other.

5:23So he says that community, when brothers dwell together, it's like oil falling down the beard and the garments of Aaron. I remember reading this kind of seriously for the first time a few years ago and thought, how does that, that is like the worst illustration ever. How does that help you understand what community is like? But now I read it. I think it's actually more here than we have time to talk about. And let me just point out a few. The first is that community sanctifies.

5:51So the illustration here is coming from Leviticus when the tabernacle is complete and Moses goes around consecrating all the things in the tabernacle and then finally consecrates Aaron. He pours this oil down him. And that word consecrate just means to make to make holy. And that just means to set aside for God's purposes. And so Aaron is being sanctified and set apart for the special task that God has for Aaron. And he's saying, the writer of the psalm is saying, that's what Christian community is like.

6:27It is like being set apart for God's purposes. That to be involved with other Christians, to be in Christian community is to be set apart for what God is doing in your life. And so this is not just a place where you feel connected to people. It is a place where God makes you into who he wants you to be. It's part of what community is. But second, more than that, I'm really going to milk this oil thing. That's a weird mixing of metaphors, milking oil.

6:55But more than that, oil is restorative. So I don't know if anyone else can relate with this. Every winter, my hands dry out. The skin dries out a lot. To the point I had one of my high school students say, you should need like some special gloves or something. Because this is like really gross. But, thanks Joel.

7:18But what helps drying cracked skin is lotion, right? And when you know, almost in every lotion, almost one of the main ingredients is oil. Because oil restores things. It brings dead and dry skin back to life. And so this is also one of the things I think he's saying community does. It restores dry and lifeless people back to life. And I think you notice this. Whenever you try to do something for the kingdom of God and you're not in community, it just feels like a burden.

7:50It's so hard. Nobody's doing it except me. I'm the one who has to do everything. Because you're not in community. You're not being restored and refreshed. And so everything is a burden. This is what would probably happen in nursery, by the way, if only a few people did it. And there wasn't the whole community doing it. Anyway, that's, yeah. But third, community highlights the gifts of its members.

8:23One of the things, especially with oil in the ancient Near East, was that it was often had a perfuming quality to it. So you put it on in order to smell good. We also know about oil. If you look at oil in the sunlight, it refracts light in really interesting ways. We use oil to cook because it directs the heat in such a way. Oil has this ability to either put on or kind of draw things out of other objects. And one of the things that I think that means is that oil is a symbol of drawing goodness out of something.

8:56And that to be in community actually draws out the gifts of the people in the community. I think we know this, too, kind of intuitively. There's probably a lot of people here who are very good dancers. But you wouldn't know it unless they were with the right people, right? At the right time, with the right music. But really it's dependent on the people. If you're around the right people at the right time, that's when we would see it come out. And I think this happens.

9:22Our gifts are drawn out by certain people. C.S. Lewis talks about this really well in The Four Loves. He's talking about three of his friends, Ronald and Charles and himself. Ronald, who we know as J.R.R. Tolkien. And Charles was a writer friend of theirs. And Charles died. And Lewis said, kind of in a silver lining way, at least I'll get more time with Ronald. But this is what he discovered. He said, In each of my friends, there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out.

9:54By myself, I'm not large enough to call the whole man into activity. I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald's reaction to a specifically Carolyn joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him to myself, now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence, true friendship is the least jealous of loves. So when we're not in community, we're actually missing out on parts of ourself, parts of other people.

10:27It's not enough to say, I have me and my best friend, I'm good. Actually, the Bible would say, no, you need more than that. Community draws the gifts and abilities of a community out. So community is more than just a place where people feel connected. It's where God is restoring and drawing out the gifts of and sanctifying his people. That's what community is and that's what it does. Now you might be thinking, I'm taking that image a little bit too far.

10:55You got all of that out of oil, really. But I think verse 3 really confirms this and also says more of why you need this. In verse 3, it says that there, meaning when brothers and sisters dwell in unity, community, there the Lord has commanded the blessing life forevermore. And he draws that even further with this other illustration, that it's like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. The fact that it says dew there is actually very helpful.

11:29The word there for dew, it's not synonymous with the word for rain. We know it's a different word. So he's talking about dew. And that's very helpful because when it's raining, you know it's raining, right? You hear it, you see it. Maybe you're one of those people who can smell it or feel it in your bones or something like that. But you know when it's raining. But dew just kind of appears overnight, right? We know it's the result of condensation and temperature changes.

11:58But dew, experientially, just kind of shows up. You go to bed and it wasn't there. You wake up the next day and it is there. And on an experiential level, dew seems supernatural. It just shows up. And he's saying one of the things about community is that God has blessed it. There is life there, and it appears not like rain where you see it all the time, but it seemingly appears supernaturally. He's saying God is at work in community. The reason that community is so special, the reason it can do all of these things is because God is blessing it.

12:34And he's doing so in a supernatural way. A way that you can't always see how it's coming, but it shows up. And you can't deny that it is there. And so community does what it does because God is there supernaturally working in the community. And I hope you realize how unique that is. This is not just my chemistry and my personality interacting with yours to become friends, but God is doing something in the midst of his people that is supernatural.

13:07One of the verses, we read it earlier in Matthew 18-20, is one of these verses that will get cited a lot when we think about Christian communities. He says, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am also. You get all these warm feelings of, yes, when I'm with the church, God's there. And yes, that's true. But one of the things that's interesting to note is that comes at the end of several verses of Jesus telling the disciples, when somebody hurts you, here's what you have to do to work it out.

13:32And he ends by saying, because when two or three are gathered in my name, there I am. In other words, you have to figure your stuff out because if you don't, you're missing out on something. There's something that I do when the people are together that doesn't happen when you're not together. And so you need to confront and repent and forgive each other because when you're together, I'm doing something in the community that can't happen otherwise.

14:01The way theologians like to talk about this is as a means of grace. Community is a means or a delivery device for grace. It is a way that God gets grace into your life, that you can see and taste and touch it. If I were to tell you right now that there was out in the parking lot was a briefcase full of a million dollars cash, I would guess that there would be some sort of stampede, probably led by high schoolers, to get out there. I would hope also that if I were to tell you that out in the parking lot, somehow Jesus Christ in the flesh is sitting out there, I would hope that we would also be rushing, oh my goodness, I need to get out there.

14:41I need to talk to Him. I need to see Him. And yet, when the Bible tells us that God is supernaturally working in His people, we think about that and I'm sure many of us on Sundays will come and be like, oh, Sunday again. Okay, I guess I need to go. I guess I need to do this. Or, oh my gosh, it's community group again. Or, oh, we're having another family over from church for dinner. This is exhausting. And yet, the Bible is saying, what are you talking about?

15:14You need this. God has commanded the blessings of life there. God's grace is there. You need this. So community is necessary and needed because God promises to show up in community. That's why we need it. I think one of the things, just on an application level, that this means, and perhaps this happens more often because new creation is young and it's been started by a group of people who have decided we're in on this from the beginning. But I think for every church, every church member needs to ask themselves, and as a family, how often are we willing to not be here every year?

15:57That might be easier for some people. I'm on staff at a church. I can only miss three Sundays a year. That's radically shaped my family's life around church. But if the blessings of God's grace are here, how willing, how many times a year are you willing to not be here? If this is really a delivery device of grace, I think we all have to sort through that.

16:21Now, if you haven't noticed, this is a really high calling. To be in community is, if this is true, this is essential. This is so important. This is radically necessary for your life. And yet we know, most of us, I think, being in community is really hard. It can be really hard. It's hard in part because our lives are really full. They're really busy. We fill our schedules up with things. And being in community means reprioritizing, sacrificing certain things.

16:48But community, I think, is also hard because some of us don't really know how to do community. Maybe it's never modeled for you at any point. Or maybe you're actually nervous about being in a church and being vulnerable with people. You notice when you're around churches for long enough, there's some people who will come in and they're there for six months to a year. And then they move on because it's very, they realize if I were to really invest here, it would ask more of me.

17:14I would need to be more open, more vulnerable, more challenged. And they're not willing to do it. So some of us are that way. And some of us have just been hurt by the church. So community is hard. There's all these reasons that community is hard. But it all boils down to one thing, which is sin. Sin makes community really hard. It's sin that makes it hard to love each other. It's sin that makes it difficult to, that causes us to hurt each other accidentally or intentionally for us to be hurt.

17:45It's all sin. And the reason for that is that sin is fundamentally a breakdown in relationship. It's a breakdown in our relationship with God. It's a break in our relationship with ourself, with other people, with the created world. It's a breakdown in relationship. And that's what causes all of, causes community to be so difficult. And I think it's for that reason, it's not arbitrary that Psalm 133 has, offers this image of community that is rooted in siblinghood.

18:21Or it says it's good when brothers dwell in unity. Um, this summer I spent a lot of time in the book of Galatians and I noticed just in those first few verses, Paul takes, he takes great effort to highlight the fact that God is our father. He's writing to the Galatian church. He says, um, grace to you and peace from God, our father in the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, according to the will of our God and father. And he's about to get into some really difficult stuff and say, I'm really disturbed about what's going on in your church.

18:55But he takes his time to remind them, we have the same father. And I think that this is, this is essential. The implication is, and you guys are siblings. Eugene Peterson says this really well. I think it's on the front of the bulletin where he says, if God is my father, then this is my family. If God is my father, then this is my family. Um, and what he means by that is there's this fundamental shift that happens when you put your faith in Christ, that your relationship with God is fundamentally changed.

19:27It's the status of your relationship with God is changed. You're no longer an orphan. You are the child of God. He is your father. You have the rights of a child. But what that also means is that you have a fundamental status change with everybody else who's got his father and that you have obligations to other believers. Your relationships with other believers has changed whether you like it or not.

19:55Psalm 30, one 33 is saying it's good when brothers and sisters literally sit down or lie down together or where they remain or stay or settle together. In other words, when Christians live together, when they stay together, when they are with each other, then the only way that that's possible is when you've recognized that Jesus Christ, God himself, came to stay and live with me, that he has set up his camp and chosen to be here with me. And that is the only way that you could possibly and if Jesus Christ was no, he has no obligation, he has no need to come and live and stay with us.

20:35And yet he has chosen to do that. That's the only way that you're going to be able to see other people as to be able to imagine yourself staying and living with other with other Christians is if you believe that that's true, that God has chosen to make his camp with you. And therefore, we have to make our camp with each other.

20:55Three quick pieces of application about this before I end this point. If that's the model, that the fact that Christ has our relationship with each other is changed and because of what our relationship with God is now. We need to know that Christ didn't ask people to meet on his turf. He comes to us. We just finished the Advent season, right? God has come to us. And that being in community requires the pursuit of other people. Who in your church are you intentionally pursuing?

21:30Who are you going to and coming to and bringing deeper into the life of the church? I think that's one of the things we need to pull out of that. But also, in coming to live with us and dwell with us, Christ doesn't ignore our sin. And therefore, we should not ignore the sin of each other. He confronted, Christ confronted it using clear and gracious words. This is actually one of the things a writer named Miroslav Volf says that it wasn't radical that Jesus came and told poor people that they should follow him.

22:07Any revolutionary would do that. What's really radical about Jesus is that he told poor people to repent. Why would you do that if you're just trying to build a gathering? He was telling people to repent. And he did that lovingly and graciously. And therefore, the Christian community is supposed to be a place where we are able to lovingly confront. It's much easier to complain about people behind their backs. It's much easier to go to another church.

22:31It's much easier to daydream about getting revenge. It is hard to confront and be in relationship and restore relationship through forgiveness. And I think the church is seriously lacking in that church in general. But finally, in coming to dwell with us, Christ did not confront us and tell us to get our act together and leave. He forgave. And so when there is difficulty and strife in the church, we have to forgive. That doesn't mean you don't confront.

22:59It doesn't mean you have to necessarily be best friends. But it does mean we need to forgive. It's part of the calling of Christian community. There's more that could be said about that, but not for the sake of time. To be in community requires that you reflect on how your faith in Christ fundamentally reorganizes, heal, changes every relationship in your life. The gospel changes your relationships. And it changes the relationships in the church.

23:27Community is a means of grace. It's one of the ways that God enables you to see and taste and touch the grace that he offers in Christ. When Christians get together, God is there. So community is not this nice thing that you can add on when you have time, like reading Christian books or something. That's nice. Do it when you can. Community is essential. It's an essential part of life as a Christian. Let me close with just two final quick insights.

23:56One comes from Charles Spurgeon. He's commenting on Psalm 133. And he says this about, he says, he notes how, how much oil you would have had to pour on Aaron's head to get it to go all the way down his beard and all the way to the edges of his cloak. And he said, what a waste that would have seemed like. I wouldn't, I mean, it's just a symbol, right? Just a couple drops would have done it. But he says, in that very waste lay the point. And what he means is, I think that from the outside, being in Christian community will look and feel like a waste.

24:29This is a lot, a lot of effort. Again, we're doing this again. We're going to church again. We're going to see those people again. What are we doing? This is too much. Not everybody does this. We could go to another church where this is a lot simpler and we don't have as many expectations. And yet, it is never a waste to experience God's grace. It is not a waste to be in the presence of God. And that's what's happening in community.

24:58The last thing I want to say is for anyone who's just doubtful about whether or not this would really, if this really true or really works. Let me illustrate it. My daughter, my oldest daughter, Emerson, is five years old, but several years ago, when she was probably two or so, she had hand, foot, mouth. And you get sores on your hands and feet and mouth. And she was up in the middle of the night because she had a fever. She's uncomfortable. And we knew that, just take a little Tylenol.

25:27This will, like, your fever will come down. You'll be comfortable. You can sleep. And that had worked the night before. But there were so many sores in her mouth that taking the Tylenol was really, it was stinging or painful somehow. And so she's spitting it out. And we're, you know, in the middle of the night and we're frantic. But what you want to say to a kid is, I know this stings now, but this is what you need. This is what you need long term.

25:52This is what you need in order to sleep and to recover. Community will often feel like it stings at first. To be in real relationship with other people, it requires vulnerability. It requires sacrifice. There's some short-term pain that comes with being in community.

26:14And maybe you've got reasons for that. Maybe you've been hurt by the church. Maybe you have some self-righteousness about other people in the church. And you think, I, you know, it's hard for me to be in a relationship with people like that because of X, Y, Z. Maybe, whatever the reason that it's hard for you to be in community, whatever that, wherever that sting is, to not be deeply involved in community is to tell God that you think he's wrong.

26:41I don't think your grace is there. I don't think you're working there. And yet he tells us, I am there. This is good. You need this. Take the medicine of community because Christ is there. The medicine is Christ and community is a delivery device. Will you trust God and be in a relationship with other people? Continue to do that. If you're already doing it and you're feeling exhausted by it anyway, keep going. This is a way that God communicates his grace to us.

27:10And it is never a waste to experience grace.