Communicating with God (week 3)

Communal Conversations: Connecting with God Through Others

In week one, we discussed how prayer with God is highly relational because God is an active listener. We don’t serve a genie but an active and influential God who cares, loves, and nurtures when we speak. Last week our discussion moved into how God speaks to us through Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience in a very noisy world. We explored how important it is for humanity to also be an active listener when God speaks in every stage of your life. This week our topic of communicating with God brings in other people that God can use to connect humanity together. We will see how the body of Christ, disciples of Christ, followers of Christ, believers in Christ, et.al. remain effective and empowered when they actually act like an actual family that prays together, worships together, desires to gather together to share with each other.

The church of Jesus Christ is not a building where people come together for a religious service, but it is a gathering of people who come together in order to worship God and to build each other by mutual faith and strength.

Donald Grey Barnhouse (American Minister)

The Acts scripture reading defines the community of believers and how they engaged with one another through remembrance of Jesus’ teachings as passed down from the apostles. The community became a tight-knit group of Jesus followers that loved and supported one another emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. Unity in meals and prayers became a staple where they witnessed with one another to testify about the works of God in their life and those that were being added to the “fold” or the community.

The Importance of Community

Meeting together as a unified community was so important that various stories in scripture discuss what people should do and not do. In Hebrews 10.25 the pastor writes a sermon and encourages the community to continue to meet and not let this act of unity fade away. It is written,

Hebrews 10:25 CEB

Don’t stop meeting together with other believers, which some people have gotten into the habit of doing. Instead, encourage each other, especially as you see the day drawing near.

I dare say that this lack of consistent communal worship remains a problem to the present day as many of life’s noisy events tend to usurp the importance of worshipping as an united community. The community that the body of Christ can offer should be as relevant as a sporting event, a school event, a trip, or any other commitment that we tend to make. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I will never say that someone needs to be in Sunday worship every single Sunday or something bad will happen, that’s simply inaccurate. I will say that when we neglect to meet together on a consistent basis, or at all, we will inevitably lose the feel of community, lose the family connection, lose interest in spiritual matters, and lose the support of the family of God as you choose to increase the distance between what was once a solid foundation and now appears to be very loose connected strands of thread, that’s not so tight anymore. Me, myself, and I is not community, it’s not the holy trinity, it is the antithesis of the character of a disciple of Jesus. Alister McGrath said,

We need to be challenged by alternative perspectives.

Alister McGrath

We all must take heed to the sermon text of Hebrews and not allow the lone ranger mentality to shrivel our spirit and soul into one that appears to be on hospice care. There is a time and a place for solitary mindful meditation when one can reflect upon scripture, creation, and the divine. The key phrase here is “a time”, which means the time for solitude ends and the time for community resumes. You cannot impact other people with your faith while remaining in solitude forever. A disciple of Jesus will never only occur alone in the field, in the truck, in the cabin, on the beach, on the mountain, in the RV, in your lounge chair, out in the woods, or in the garden; you need community. You cannot grow in solitude and become a spiritual giant; you need community. A weak and unconnected spirituality will only lead to spiritual apathy and immaturity and never spiritual growth. Jon Courson says,

There is no room in the body of Christ for lone rangers or independent agents. There is to be linkage and submission, accountability and humility. You’ll never be in authority unless you are under authority.

Jon Courson

Family, we all need a community of like-minded believers that will foster a depth of spiritual growth. Fellow believers that will challenge your faith, strengthen your spiritual desire, and equip you with support during the toughest times. It’s never too late to regain and reinvest into a spiritual community from which you may have wandered.

Not only is meeting together for worship in community significantly important, intentionally gathering with the mind of Christ while thinking of others as your equal is essential. Humanity can tend to group into cliques that unintentionally disinvite those who may have some differences from the majority. In 1 Corinthians 11.27 ,33-34 Paul discusses the importance of eating meals together while recognizing the place of Jesus in the community of believers. He writes,

1 Corinthians 11:27 CEB

This is why those who eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord inappropriately will be guilty of the Lord’s body and blood.

1 Corinthians 11:33–34 CEB

For these reasons, my brothers and sisters, when you get together to eat, wait for each other. If some of you are hungry, they should eat at home so that getting together doesn’t lead to judgment. I will give directions about the other things when I come.

In other words, those who had financial means were gathering together and starting the meal before those who were working could come and be part of the believers communal meal. Those who were rich or had a powerful status were eating and drinking beforehand while the poor and disenfranchised arrived later on to an empty table and inebriated and unsound minds. When the believers gather together, the whole premise was to imitate the supper of the lamb for all people, while they received the teachings of Jesus, witnessed to their faith in Jesus, and to testify of all the good works being done in the name of Jesus. The body of Christ was starting to dismantle, unravel, and lose their connection with each other and their communication with God by not looking out for the best interests of everyone and only the interests of themselves.

Sunday morning worship services or the time that a group gathers to worship God, should not be relegated to a one time weekly event. For an ongoing community and communication with God, the collective body of Christ should gather throughout the week in some type of small group that may emphasize an interest to serve the wider community while encouraging growth in Christ.

God Speaks through Others

Since God does speak divine words, guidance, and motivation through other people, gathering with spiritually like-minded believers should have a priority in your life. In Luke 19.37-40 Jesus proclaims that those praising and welcoming him into their presence should not be silenced for they are speaking the very words of God. We read,

Luke 19:37–40 (CEB)

As Jesus approached the road leading down from the Mount of Olives, the whole throng of his disciples began rejoicing. They praised God with a loud voice because of all the mighty things they had seen. They said, “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.” Some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, scold your disciples! Tell them to stop!” He answered, “I tell you, if they were silent, the stones would shout.”

Jesus stated that the communal belief and proclamation of the people should not be silenced because God is speaking through them. The glory of God is so great that if the community of believers were silenced then the rocks themselves would sing out in praise for creation also cannot restrain the glory of God. Communication with God on the community level is significant as we can speak light into the darkness of another person’s tribulation. Think about a very rough, dark, and trying time in your life that you were able to journey through because you knew people were not only thinking about you but interceding in prayer to God on your behalf. I guarantee it didn’t matter if the person was of the same denominational faith as you because if they said, “I’m praying for you” then that meant the entire world to you.

The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12.14-20

1 Corinthians 12:14–20 CEB

Certainly the body isn’t one part but many. If the foot says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell? But as it is, God has placed each one of the parts in the body just like he wanted. If all were one and the same body part, what would happen to the body? But as it is, there are many parts but one body.

One part of the community of saints is not enough, it takes all the parts to get the job done. A thumb can’t think thoughts, a brain can’t turn the wheel, an eye can’t chew the food. One person’s gifts, talent, and encouragement can lift up another person who may lack a certain ability. Douglas Moo says,

Paul is then not just listing gifts; he is exhorting each member of the community to use his or her own gift diligently and faithfully to strengthen the body’s unity and help it to flourish.

Douglas J. Moo

My friends, as a community of believers we impact and influence each other more than any individual person will ever be able to know. I think back to the not so distant past when we took community for granted. You all remember back in 2020 when the world shut down because of this thing called Covid-19? Before we shut down one community after another, we never would have thought that venturing out to Walmart (God-forbid), a friends house, or visiting an elderly family member in the nursing home would have meant so much, until it was taken away for a couple months. Covid-19, briefly, showed humanity the importance of community because we all need some type of touch, some type of personal, intimate conversation. We need to know that someone or a group of people are available for support, even the slightest relational contact. Family of God, community is where the relational is fulfilled. Community is where the spiritual is developed. Community is where we mature in the faith while influencing others on their own spiritual journey. Community is the greatest force to impact another person, a village, a school system, a government to think of others before they start to withdraw and think only of themselves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said,

[God] confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Lutheran Pastor)

As we communicate with God, to gain a deeper relationship, we also need to communicate with our neighbor. We must extend our boundaries to go beyond the comfortable and enter into the uncomfortable wilderness of life where we will be challenged to trust in God and believe that God might use another person to speak the words of life into us. We also may be that person God uses to speak life into someone else. You will never know the impact you can have on your neighbor unless you gather together in community. We all need community in Jesus’ name. Amen.