What it means to belong to a church community.

Valentine's Day represents a day of love for many. It’s a day when you demonstrate affection for someone that you care about. It's a day that you buy Flowers for a loved one and a pink card. It's a day of affection.

Yet ironically Valentine's Day also punctuates loneliness. It can be tempting too focus on what you don't have on Valentine's Day. If you don't have a date it can be hard. If you don't have someone you love it can be hard. If you've lost someone you love you can spend your day as yet another day of being reminded of what you lost.

Well, regardless of where you stand today on Valentine's Day know that the gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope. It offers hope because it offers every man woman and child a community to belong to. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers us family. It offers us loved ones. It offers us the opportunity to not be lonely.

So what does the Bible say about this community we belong to?

The Bible actually has quite a lot to say about this biblical idea of community. It's an idea that sits on two fundamental convictions.

First of all it rests on a conviction that God finds people who are forsaken and alienated from hope and well being and he calls them into a covenant and reconciled relationship to all that makes for peace and freedom.

God finds people outside community and brings them into hope and peace.

That's one of my favorite things about belonging to the church ... We are fundamentally a community a broken, hurting people that God has called us to become family.

Secondly it is the conviction that redeemed people respond to God by physically living out the Salvation that God has given them in their hearts. to put more concisely it's the conviction that In other words

God gives us the job of living out this generous forgiving love in the world around us.

So we find Salvation from a God who finds us and in community we live out that gift of Salvation with other people.

Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

With church community there is also in the biblical tradition this idea of a balance between appreciating the divine grace of God and our own human responsibility. We are called to receive the grace of God and yet challenge ourselves to live rightly before God.

The people of the Exodus

Throughout the Bible a community of people special to God has looked differently. Of course in the Old Testament we had this idea of a people special to God. They were tied into a relationship with God by virtue of a covenant. A covenant is a great promise. It's a extraordinarily powerful bond tying the nation of Israel to God. And so the nation of Israel from the very beginning understood themselves as a community covenanted to God and also to each other because of the exodus event. Because God saved them together out of Egypt.

And so the SWATH of the Old Testament literature is defined by this idea of a people made special to God because of the promises of God.

The followers of Jesus

The New Testament community looks a little bit different.

He said the earliest Christians were not just biblical people who sought to obey their scriptures; They were followers of Jesus.

And so as Jesus talked he formed a movement of men and women who are called away from the concerns of this world

Luke 9:57–62 ESV

57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

these men and women were called to a a worship of the one true God alone.

Matthew 6:24 ESV

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Matthew 4:9–10 ESV

9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”

Jesus emboldened his disciples with a call to follow God with all they had. The timeless teachings enshrined in the gospels call us away from the concerns of this world to trust in God. To follow God.

Jesus formed a Messianic community.

But then when you continue reading your New Testament and you get to the book of acts you see the church take on a new shape. You see the community start to look different.

Jesus’ followers become a missionary community

First of all in the book of acts the church transforms wholeheartedly into a missionary community. It grows into something whose purpose is to bear witness through the power of the spirit to the resurrection of Jesus. The purpose of the church is to bear witness that Jesus is both Lord and Christ.

Acts 1:8 ESV

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus’ followers become the church

In Acts chapter 2 the followers of Jesus go from just being a group of people following Jesus to becoming this thing called the church. It is through the Holy Spirit coming to living in us that we become a living organization. We become the church.

The church is an Apostolic community.

What does an Apostolic community mean? Well someone who is an Apostle is sent by someone else with an important message. In the same way I might have Isabel go tell Christina it's time for dinner she would be my Apostle . She would be bringing an important message to her sister.

It's a community with a number of individuals who penned the records of the New Testament. That's why we value and read so many of the writings of Paul and the other apostles and disciples. As a church community we prize and we believe strongly in the power of men and women that God has equipped to carry his message forward.

Again, Church community is also a missional community.

You see the church expanded very quickly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to reach beyond the Jews to include Samaritans and gentiles and many others. The whole world as the goal of the church.

Yet despite having a global goal the focus remains the same. We are focused on our savior Jesus. And without him on earth physically to lead us his rule is carried out by the spirit Of God. And the spirit of God speaks to us through the teaching and life of the apostles; Through their writings and witness to Christ.

The church community also has this fascinating sense of restoration. Through the work of Jesus we can experience restored community. We can experience God's love. Our faith in Jesus and his faith restores a sense of community between the God who created us and our broken lives. We can experience community and peace with each other and with God and within our own hearts.

We are a community able to function in unity because of the forgiveness we know through the sacrifice of our savior.

And you know what's powerful about Christian community? It is through the church that Jesus completes the purpose for which he originally took on human nature. It's through us that Jesus finishes his work. You know when we take communion we remind ourselves that we are a covenant community in relationship with God. We are reminding ourselves that God is doing his work through us.

The church truly is the hope of the world today.

But are we truly living as the church community God calls us to be?

You see the concept of community found in the Bible is centered on our shared experience of an exodus from alienation to restoration.

1 Peter 2:10 ESV

10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Believers gather together to respond and worship and witness what God has done.

We are a special people called together to worship God and celebrate what He has given us. We are a charismatic community that lives as a witness to God’s salvationg and grace and all that this new life entails. We are an alternative to the community around us.

What should the church look like today?

First, we are an exodus community like the Israelites. We are forever called out of slavery into freedom. Our lives must be marked by gratitude to God for all He has done.

Second, we are a messianic community. Our faith is all about Jesus and worshipping Him. He showed us how to live and love. We imitate Him.

Third, we are a community founded by the Holy Spirit who spoke to us through the apostles....through God’s Word.

Fourth, we are a community on a mission. Jesus actually accomplishes His work through our lives as a community.

Fifth, we are a community. We are a people united by a high calling and values. We are a people united by a mission. We gather regularly as much as we can with a pandemic for the sake of loving God and loving each other. We spend money, time, and energy to get the message of Jesus out.