THE COMMUNITY OF THE WORD

THE COMMUNITY OF THE WORD Colossians 3:16 December 31, 2006 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction Over the course of the next few weeks the Sunday messages will be centered on biblical themes that are highlighted in our Mission and Vision Statement. The subjects are included in our Mission statement precisely because they have to do with the mission of any church committed to serving the Lord Jesus. In your bulletin this morning you will find a cutting from the “Values” pages of the Mission Statement. These two paragraphs have to do with the importance of the Word of God as the centerpiece of our ministry. We are a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching fellowship. Take the two minutes to read over these two paragraphs, review them and recommit yourself to the principles. So, come along with me for a few minutes as we consider the Word of God and its primacy in the community of believers we know as the church. By the way, what is the church? The building we meet in? The programs we operate? Or is it the people who make up the body of Christ? One of my favorite stories is from Gaylord Kambarami, the General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Bible Society. He told of the time when he tried to give a New Testament to a very belligerent man. The man insisted he would tear out the pages and use them to roll cigarettes. Mr. Kambarami said, "I understand that, but at least promise to read each page before you smoke it." The man agreed and the two went their separate ways. Fifteen years later, the two met at a church convention in Zimbabwe. The scripture-smoking pagan had found Christ and was now a full-time evangelist who was to speak that night. He told the story of his encounter with Mr. Kambarami. "I smoked Matthew, I smoked Mark and I smoked Luke. But when I got to John 3:16, I couldn't smoke anymore. My life was changed from that moment." The Goal of the Church’s Ministry – Colossians 1:28-29 The apostle Paul once wrote to the believers in the church at Colosse the words referred to in the values we referred to. Colossians 1:28 and 29 reveal to us the passion and calling of this great apostle and evangelist: We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. Two chapters later Paul urges the same vision on the church at large. Colossians 3:16 is his memorable exhortation to every believer in Christ. I make it a point to preach on this text at least once a year because it is so fundamentally crucial to the life of the church and every disciple who is a part of the body of Christ. Let’s study this key verse together, a phrase at a time. The First Step in Getting There – Colossians 3:16 Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly... The Word of Christ is the gospel, the teachings of the scripture, most especially the New Testament. The teachings of Christ and the apostles are absolutely fundamental to us. By the Word we were brought to conviction of sin and saving faith in Christ. Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17) Paul urged the pastors and elders he trained to preach the Word, to diligently and accurately teach the Word, to devote themselves to the public reading of Scripture. We know we are to hide the Word of God in our hearts that we might not sin against God, and we are to brandish it’s truth as a sword in our spiritual battles. It is sharper than a double-edged sword; it is alive and dynamic; it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. It thoroughly equips disciples for every good work. Here’s how to be the kind of disciple who not only pleases the Lord, but experiences a deep level of spiritual satisfaction: Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. The term Paul uses for “dwell” is ENOIKEO. The discerning among us will recognize the root word OIKOS in there—it’s all about household. Paul says to get the Word of God into “house” of your life, your family—become “familiar” with it. Let your life get fully saturated with it and it will influence everything you do—that Christ will be honored. But he goes a step further, insisting that you let the word dwell in you RICHLY. That’s the word for “fully”, “generous”, even exorbitant. Get stuffed with the Word! Sonya Thomas is a little lady with a hefty appetite. The 105-pound Virginian again out-ate a 400-pound male runner-up in an international Federation of Competitive Eating contest. Two years ago Ms. Thomas won the title Fruitcake Champion by downing almost five pounds of fruitcake in 10 minutes. Ms. Thomas holds the female world record for eating 24 hot dogs in 12 minutes and 68 hard-boiled eggs in eight minutes. You know when you eat good Italian food (and it’s all good, as far as I’m concerned!) you’re going to encounter a pretty good dose of garlic. Many Italian dishes don’t simply have garlic as an additional ingredient. Pastas and meatballs and vegetables and noodles—everything is drenched in garlic. Rightly and liberally applied, garlic makes the food taste so good! You might say that garlic “richly dwells” in the meal. And besides tasting good, garlic is also notorious for, well, shall we say, “hanging around” for quite a while. You eat a good Italian meal and you gonna smell like a good Italian meal for awhile! It’s in your system, it’s on your breath, it’s coming out your pores! There! That image perhaps best catches the flavor (pardon the pun) of what happens when the Word of God gets in you “richly”. You start to “smell” godly. The way you act, the things you say, the way you affect those around you—it’s all smothered in the truth and love you’ve taken in from the Word. This is what Paul is getting at—be “saturated” with the Word of Christ, and you’re going to influence not only your brothers and sisters in Christ, but you will be influencing those who are not yet believers to become disciples and to give their lives to Christ and serve Him. You see, the Word is essential nourishment for us to become all we are called to be. Knowing, obeying and sharing scripture is bedrock discipleship. Let me say this—if your spiritual drive is drying up, I can almost guarantee you that it’s starved for the milk and meat of the Word of God. You need to excite your appetite for the Word, or you will spiritually starve yourself into not even caring. And there is only one good way to excite your appetite for the Word—get into the Word and let IT excite you. …as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom What seems to jump off the page here is the ONE ANOTHER. It speaks of the mutual sharing of this Word. Everybody is part of this Word ministry! Let me ask you a familiar question: who are the ministers of this church? That’s right! We are all priests in the kingdom of God. Paul wrote to the Roman Christians (15:14) and commended them: I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another. Elsewhere that was not always the case. Hebrews 5:12 issues a stern message of disappointment, if not rebuke, to a Word-weak church: …you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! I say to you with deep conviction—I want MECF to be a Romans 15:14 church, and not a Hebrews 5:12 church! That is the church that will please her Lord. That is also the church that will be better equipped to reach others with the truth of the gospel. When the Word of Christ dwells richly in you, you will teach and admonish others in all wisdom. The words “teach” and “admonish” mean exactly what they say: didactic instruction in biblical truth and training others to think correctly/biblically about their lives. We all need that—AND we all need to be doing that. Again, we are all called to be disciples and disciplers, and that will mean encouraging others in the truth of the Word in both soft ways and hard ways. Does it seem a little presumptuous to you to imagine you will be teaching and admonishing others with all wisdom? That is not an absolute statement, but a commentary on the fact that when you use the Word of God for your manual, you ARE drawing from the source of all wisdom. When you serve and disciple others, you do so with all wisdom—that’s what the Word is—all wisdom. We will never be perfect at instructing and edifying others, but the Word we share IS perfect, and our being imperfect is precisely the reason that those who disciple others should always be learners and disciples themselves. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom …and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. It should come as no surprise that those who are saturated with the Word of Christ would be a worshiping people. David modeled this great truth best, I suppose. He was continually extolling the Lord (and often questioning Him), for His creation (especially human beings), His faithfulness, His righteous rule, and so often for His Word. While we encounter the Word of God we get to know the person of God. The better we get to know Him, the more we will love Him and honor Him and praise Him, and the more diligently we will serve Him. How we need to be drenched, saturated in the Word! We need the ongoing motivation to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, in word and in deed. Is your worship dead? Has the sacrifice of praise become more sacrifice than praise? My guess is you are not in the Word like He wants you to be. But people who have learned to prioritize time with God and His Word, who have moved beyond reading the words and are in ardent pursuit of the Lord—these are the passionate worshipers. Paul paints a picture of their obsession. They sing Psalms—the Word they’re drinking in is now coming out of them in wonderful musical ways as they sing back God’s Word to Him. They never miss a chance to glorify Him with their words and their songs of worship. They seem to be continually thinking and relating from a deep place of genuine spiritual maturity. It oozes from them. The apostle always adds the caboose of thanksgiving—every time he writes of prayer, or Christian living or worship, he always adds an encouragement to give thanks. I prayed recently with a man in this church family who is going through a very tough time. As we bowed for prayer his first words were Thank you, Lord. He went on to mention several blessings that were hidden from me in my concern for all that seemed hard in his life. CHARITI is the word Paul chose as he was carried along by the Spirit of God. That’s not only one of the Greek words that means gratitude, but it is primarily the word for grace. If you have stopped being gracious or if it has become hard for you to find reasons to be thankful, you need to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Maybe you are angry or mean-spirited. The Word of Christ can bring you healing. Turn to Him in the pages of the Bible, learn to trust Him and let Him deliver you from all that binds you. He promises you peace, rest and joy. You’ll find your way to these blessings in the Book. The Community of the Word There is another dimension we dare not miss in this text and in the whole tenor of New Testament teaching on Bible study. It shows up in the “one another’s” of the Bible. There is very frequently attendant to the New Testament admonitions to study this aspect of community. In the example of the early church meeting in homes and other convenient places for worship, word, fellowship and prayer the Holy Spirit seems to speak strong endorsement for gathering with other believers for Word time. Not to disparage personal devotional time with God for individual believers—we are certainly encouraged to cultivate intimacy with the Lord in our closet time with Him—but you’d have to ignore so much in the New Testament to not see the importance of community interaction in the Word. Little pockets of believers getting together daily, devoted to the apostles’ teaching; teaching followed by Q & A time; the open sharing of spiritual gifts in the assemblies; multiple teachers sharing in meetings; countless discipling events, one-on-one and in other small group fashions. We must honor the community dimension of the Word. That is, the church must provide for and encourage opportunity for the community of the Word. We do that through Life Groups. Small groups that meet at times other than Sunday mornings during which meetings believers are given the chance to cultivate deeper fellowship and friendships, spend more personal time in prayer with and for one another, experience worship and inter-family dialogue at a meaningful level, and, of course, encounter the Word of God together in a group large enough to solicit broader wisdom, insight and experience, but small enough that each participant feels engaged, important and loved. The community of the Word in such settings takes advantage of teaching gifts, as more teachers are released into settings where they can exercise their gifts to the benefit of other disciples. The teachers also often have the benefit of interacting with other gifted teachers and leaders. There is the advantage in such settings of dynamic interaction. By dynamic I don’t mean powerful or high impact necessarily, but I refer to the blessing of letting others exchange questions, testimonies and additional insights—things that would not be possible in the larger meeting. The teaching of scripture deals with very practical aspects of life and as such the principles beg for personal application. In a small group setting, such as a Life Group, time can be taken to not only help each individual who has a need, but also hear from each one whose observations and experiences are usually helpful to others. Have you ever sat in on a sermon that created lots of questions in your mind? You try to get to the teaching pastor right after the service, but you get distracted or he’s busy, and you forget all about the question? In Life Groups you can ask and answer questions in a safe and helpful environment of trusted others. More than likely you aren’t the only one with the same question. Often a simple question will spark an enlightening time of study in the Word, as well as additional ministry of prayer or worship. Overall, such small group experiences afford every attendee an invaluable opportunity for “one-anothering” among fellow believers. One week you may find much-needed ministry through someone’s comments or group prayer over a felt need. The next week the Lord may open an opportunity for you to serve another in some meaningful way. If you will think back over your Christian career to the times and seasons when you were most challenged to grow or when you in fact experienced a great move forward in spiritual maturity, my guess is it was in a small group environment. Think about it. There really isn’t a more conducive place for God to stimulate you, challenge you, bless you and use you than a small group. Our Life Group program begins a brand new trimester a week from now. What a perfect time to enroll in a group. Get in on the ground floor of what could be the most meaningful thing to happen to you in years. Give the Holy Spirit the opening to bring you to a new level in your Christian walk. All of our groups except one is brand new in January, and will run between January and Easter. There are groups that focus more heavily on Bible study—like Daphne Hs study in the book of Titus (meeting Sunday morning before Celebration), or the Precepts study of Ephesians (led by Patrice B, who happens to be the regional training director for Precepts Ministry, on Sunday afternoons at 3:30). There are two groups focused on the ministry of discipleship—both giving and receiving. Larry and Sonny are teaming up to continue leading this Tuesday evening group. And another group exploring the various aspects of discipling one or two others meets on Wednesday nights. Both these groups will meet in homes. Unit Three of our Design for Discipleship growth track will meet Monday nights—it is an in-depth study of the Ministry of the Holy Spirit from scripture. Another group is formed for those interested in learning the beautiful art of worshipfully signing worship songs for the hard of hearing (and everyone else)—Thursday evenings here at the Worship Center. Ed and Marge W are offering their very effective Marriage Builder course for one couple at a time. Our Junior High “C.O.P.S.” group meets weekly as well, under the capable leadership of Katie C (who is looking for more adult help). Beyond that there are individuals who are ready to sponsor anyone who wants to take the Beginnings course—Unit One of the Design for Discipleship course. It is a one-on-one several week study of the fundamentals of the Christian faith as lived out in the context of Metro-East Christian Fellowship. Now is the time to enroll… Now. Conclusion I would like to close with a related exhortation. As your pastor, I can think of nothing more important to tell you than this: Get yourself into a Community of the Word and get growing. Do whatever you need to to hang around others who are “Word-wise” and among whom you can give and receive discipleship. Some of you have avoided involvement in such groups for a long time. I simply can’t imagine what would keep you from something so helpful (not to mention, so fundamentally inherent to the vision of your church family). I urge you to be meaningfully and vitally involved in the study of the Word, the sharpening of your life and ministry through the valuable venue of Life Groups. You’ve heard my heart. Pray about these things.   [Back to Top]