Biblical Community

INTRO

[Opening Illustration]

Over the course of this series, we have been talking about these spiritual pathways, these rhythms that serve as “a way of achieving a specified result; [or] a course of action.” And we said in week 1 that the goal is godliness. But since “godliness” is kind of a church word and a bit fuzzy, we defined it as “closeness with God and likeness to Christ.”

It has been said that we don’t accidentally grow toward godliness. We are more naturally pulled away from it. That’s why we must be intentional and strategic about how we structure and live our lives so that we may have closeness with God and likeness to Christ.

It has been said, “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” There’s a reason for that saying. The people you spend your time with will have the biggest impact on how you think, how you behave, what you believe, and the things you care about.

If you will naturally drift away from and not towards godliness, and you link yourself close to a group of other people naturally drifting in the same direction, that combined drift will be enormous. But, if you join yourself to a group of people committed to walking all these spiritual pathways together, committed to growing in your relationship with Jesus together, think of how much stronger your combined efforts will be to fight against the natural drift away from God. Think about how strong your combined efforts toward godliness will be when you commit to the pathway of biblical community.

The author of Hebrews says this: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to loveand good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near,” (Hebrews 10:25, ESV).

So, tonight, we’re talking about the 4th spiritual pathway: community.

Before we dive into the text today, let’s [PRAY].

BODY

Tonight, as we talk about the pathway of biblical community, I want to do 2 things:

First, we need to define what we mean by “community.”

Think about your life for a second and imagine 4 concentric circles. On the outside edge, there are acquaintances, then classmates/teammates, then you see what you might consider your friend group in red there, and finally in the middle we have your close circle. I’m calling this graphic “the Friends Circle” because each of these layers of people play their own role in our lives and they exert a different amount of influence on us and they should be handled with different degrees of intentionality.

Your community = your friend group + your close circle. (+ your family)

Now, none of us can choose our family, and you have really very little intentionality about how much they influence you at this stage of your life. So, tonight, we’re largely going to focus on those other 2 components that make up community. These are the ones that you have more intentional control and influence over.

Now that we’ve defined community in general…

We need to look at the pathway of biblical community.

For this, let’s turn to the Scriptures and see what the apostle Peter had to say in 1 Peter 2, starting in verse 4.

“As you come to him, a living stone, rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ … [jump to verse 9] But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:4-6, 9, ESV).

Like coming back from a long vacation, there’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s start back at verse 4 and work through this.

“As you come to him, a living stone, rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,” (v. 4, 6).

So, who is “him”? Peter’s talking about Jesus. The first thing he’s showing us is that…

Biblical community is one built on Jesus.

He goes on to quote the prophet Isaiah, saying:

“For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,” (v. 6).

Here, he is identifying Jesus as this “cornerstone.” Many of you may have grown up singing “Christ alone, cornerstone,” and this is where that song’s language came from. A cornerstone was a construction term—it was the first stone laid by builders that the rest of the structure was built on and around. The rest of the building was based on the placement of the cornerstone.

A biblical community is one that is built on Jesus—ask yourself, does this describe your community (Family + friend group + close circle)? Think back to the picture and think about the people that are in your “friend group” and even more specifically about those in your “close circle.” The closer someone gets to the center of those circles, the greater their influence will be on you. To use our analogy from earlier, the greater their gravitational pull is going to be on you. Are the people in your community pulling you toward Jesus because they’ve built their lives on him?

As we keep going in the text, verse 5 says:

“you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house.”

A biblical community exists to build each other up.

Just like the stones of a house stack together and work together to build up the house, so the community that Peter is writing to is meant to a) build their lives on Jesus and b) work together to build each other up.

In Ephesians, Paul uses this same metaphor of a “spiritual house” to refer to the community of believers in Jesus:

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit,” (Ephesians 3:19-22).

You see the common themes popping up here. This metaphor of Christian community being a “house” was common in the early church. Because the community is built on Jesus and the members build each other up as they come together to form this spiritual house. Notice, Paul explicitly names this “spiritual house” that Peter alludes to. We are the new Temple. In Christian community, God finds a new place to dwell on earth. That’s crazy.

So, again, think about your community (family + friend group + close circle) and ask yourself—is this a place where you are being built up together? Is your community a place where God’s Spirit is welcome? Does God feel at home in your community?

So, biblical community exists to be a place where we build each other up, but what does that really mean? What does it look like when members of the community are “built up?” Peter goes on to answer that in the rest of verse 5 and even more so in verse 9.

“to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ [skip to verse 9]…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light,” (v. 5, 9).

Biblical community exists to live on mission.

Peter uses a funny phrase in our minds here when he calls believers a “priesthood,” and he does it twice!

When he says “priesthood,” he’s tapping into the historical Jewish roots of the early Christian movement and he’s calling up images of Israel’s priestly order. These priests were tasked with representing the people before God and representing God to the people. They communicated with God on the nation’s behalf and they communicated with the nation on God’s behalf. They handled the relationship between God and the people. They did “the ministry.” They were the light to the nation, helping people who were far from God be close to God.

Now, Jesus has made it possible for all believers to be like that.

And we do it as a community, because doing that alone isn’t just challenging, it’s impossible.

Paul said back in Ephesians that Christians are all built up and collectively, together function as the new Temple for God. He said that as we are built up together, we are able to better fulfill this high calling we have been given. He describes the community of believers building one another up like this:

“to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” (Ephesians 4:13).

How beautiful is that picture? This is why biblical community exists. This is why we need biblical community to build us up—so that we can all grow into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Are you guys hearing what he’s saying there??

Our maturity in Christ is not an individual sport. It does not happen alone!

And as we work together to build each other up into Christlikeness, we are better able to individually and collectively “do the work of the ministry” as Paul says. This is what Peter in our main text tonight refers to “spiritual sacrifices.” This is how he viewed the Christian “priesthood.” A community of people built on Jesus, building one another up, so that they can live on God’s mission in the world.

So, think back again to your community (family + friend group + close circle) and ask yourself, is your community causing you to live on mission? Are the people closest to you encouraging you to reach out and “do the work of the ministry”? Do you function in any way like the “priesthood” that Peter is describing? Do you guys regularly find yourself “proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light?”

This last part is really key about biblical community, because it’s really easy for you and your people in the “close circle” to start only thinking about each other. Your “close circle” unintentionally becomes a “closed circle” and that’s called a clique. That’s not a biblical community. A biblical community is one that is fundamentally outward focused. It’s living on mission. It is focused on building up those that are inside, but always looking to those on the outside in order to bring them in.

Now that we’ve defined what a biblical community looks like, I want us to be able to visualize it a little better.

[VISUAL – THE CHURCH CIRCLE]

A biblical community is one that is built on Jesus, dedicated to building up its members, and focused on living on mission in the world.

You guys, that’s the definition of the CHURCH.

When we talk about the spiritual pathway of community, we’re not just encouraging you to have godly friends. We’re imploring you to be tethered to the body of Christ—be committed to His Church! Remember that passage from the book of Hebrews?

“Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near,” (Hebrews 10:25, ESV).

This message has not just been about finding godly friends—though you should aim to surround yourself with godly friends—this message has really been about the critical role that the church plays in your discipleship to Jesus.

CONCLUSION

So, as we close out tonight and we close out this series, I want us to take a second and look at this graphic.

At the center, we see a Cross. That represents the first principle of biblical community = it is built on Jesus. We cannot build our lives on anything less, and a group of people gathered together built on anything else is not a biblical community.

Next, we see that first circle, which in the first graphic we called the “close circle,” those select few 2-3 people that you intentionally give the greatest amount of influence in your life. Look at it now. Guys, this is your D-Group. D-Group isn’t about coming together with all your best friends and having a bunch of fun. We want D-Groups to be fun, we want you to be friends with the people in your group. But first and foremost, D-Groups are intentionally designed spaces for a small group of people who have built their lives on Jesus to dedicate themselves to building each other up.

Then, look at the circle beyond the “D-Group” layer. That’s FSM as a whole, and more broadly, it’s the whole local church! FSM is just one part of the larger body of Fellowship. If you guys are just plugged into your D-Group or just FSM and you think that’s good enough, you’re missing out on a huge part of biblical community. The church is designed as a place to be built on Jesus, to build you up, and to constantly encourage you to live on mission in the world.

You see, the goal of the church is really to remind us all that we are built on Jesus, he is our foundation. And then to build us up until, as Paul said, we all achieve the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And as we are built on Jesus and built up ever more into maturity, our eyes will be turned outward to these last 2 circles—our classmates/teammates, and our acquaintances. Notice that those 2 circles haven’t changed. All that changes when we look at those circles through the lens of biblical community is how we relate to them. We now relate to them as priests, to use Peter’s language. Our mission is to show them what the love of God is like and do everything we can to help draw them close to Him.

So, in this time of response and worship, think about your circles. Think about your relationship to biblical community and ask yourself:

Am I connected to biblical community?

If I am in a D-Group, have we been prioritizing the right things? Have we truly been centered and grounded and built on Jesus or something else?

If I am in a D-Group, have we been dedicated to building each other up in Christ?

If I am connected to a D-Group and involved at FSM, is my biblical community motivating me to live on mission in the world around me? How am I actively reaching out and extending a hand to those “outer circles” in my life (classmates/teammates + acquaintances)?

If I am not in a D-Group, why not? If I haven’t been consistently plugged in at FSM, why not? If I am not regularly attending a church on Sundays, what’s stopping me?