Building a spiritual community

I was not here last week because I was attending the funeral of a young woman, killed in a car accident. Her parents are naturally in shock and grief, but taking it fairly well, all things considered. About 400 people attended the memorial service, and lots of people showed their support for the family. One of the songs that was sung was “Blessed be your name,” which says that we accept both good times and bad from God. The last stanza says, “You give and take away…. Blessed be your name.” That’s a quote from Job 1:21 – what Job said after his children were killed in accidents.

The minister who spoke was commenting that even though this young woman was a Christian and is assured of salvation, we are still sad, because death is still an enemy, and tragic accidents are not the way things are supposed to be. That’s why we look forward to a better world, because this world is messed up, and people do things they aren’t supposed to do. Our grief is an acknowledgement that life isn’t supposed to be like this, and love is not supposed to hurt like this. There is a better world coming, and we will see our loved ones again.

God is love, and he made us so that we would learn to love, too, and the process of learning love requires that we live with other people, and that we make commitments to other people, and that we make sacrifices for other people. A funeral is not for the dead – it is for the living. It is a time when everyone can not only show their respect for the person who died – it is a time when they can express their support for those who still live. And the people who came to the funeral, and the flowers that were sent, and the food that was brought to the house, all said that other people cared. And lots of people said, If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know. And there were the people who simply saw what needed to be done, and they did it.

But there was something else about the funeral that made me think about community. You see, my sister and her family attended a very large church. They have a great preacher, and about 10,000 people attend there every week. But there’s no way that the pastor can keep up with that many people, and he can’t perform all the weddings and do all the funerals. So when they asked for a minister to do the funeral, somebody came over who they had never seen, a man who had never known the deceased or her family. He was a good speaker, but it just seemed impersonal, a little routine, a little generic. It was a good message, and yet it seemed to lack feeling, and for all I know, my sister will never see that man again.

Now, megachurches know that they cannot have a sense of community in their big worship service. There’s no way that you can know the 3000 people who come to church at the same time you do, much less the 3000 people who attend the service afterward, or the 3000 other people who meet 20 miles away and watch the sermon on TV. Megachurches know this, and so they rely on small groups to help people have a sense of community.

Not everybody goes to a small group, of course – some people like to hang out on the fringes and not get involved too much. But the day will come when they need a friend, and won’t have any. They might ask, Where were you when I needed your help? The question could be turned around a little, too: the person might just as well ask, where was I when you needed my help?

And truthfully, help in times of need generally comes from relationships that are built when there is no need. Real community comes when we share life together, in good times as well as bad. We journey together so that we are together when needs arise. If we wait until the need is there, then the relationship won’t be there. It has to be built ahead of time, before we see the need for it. Sure, somebody can step in and help, but it won’t be as good as it should have been.

Now, there is another thing going on in my life that makes me think of community, and that is the book I’m working on. I am studying the book of Hebrews to see how the covenant is used to support the main purpose of the book. And to make a long story short, the book of Hebrews gives us lots of information about Jesus – but it doesn’t just stop there. Whoever wrote the book wanted that information to make a difference in how we live. And when we come to chapter 10, we see an interesting transition between information and exhortation.

It basically says, We have a new covenant with God, a covenant in which he forgives our sins and there is no more need for sin offerings. Therefore, it says, we should hold fast to our belief in Jesus and we should continue meeting with other believers.

And as I studied this, I began to wonder, what is the connection between forgiveness on one hand, and meeting together on the other? Why can the author conclude that we should meet together simply because we don’t need sin offerings anymore?

You see, he does not explain his logic, but as far as I can tell, the word covenant is a clue to how he is thinking. He is thinking in terms of a package deal. The old covenant was a package of laws and priesthood and sacrifices, and Hebrews explains how they are all related together. Now, the new covenant is also a package deal, but it just so happens that the author does not explain how all the parts are related together. Jesus is the high priest, and he is the sacrifice that paid for our sins, and he is the standard by which we live our life. And just as the old covenant formed the people of Israel, a community of people who went through life together, the new covenant forms a people, too – a people who are supposed to stick together.

So the book of Hebrews is presenting a choice between two packages: the old covenant package, or the new covenant package. And it just so happens that meeting together is part of the new covenant package, and that is why the author can exhort people to meet together simply because we don’t have sin offerings. We don’t have the old package, so we need to be part of the new package. We need to get with the program.

So that’s something I’ve been working on, and hopefully will finish it soon. But it is telling me something about the importance of community to the people who look to Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. Community is part of the package. Hebrews does not tell us why, except to say that we should meet together to encourage one another in our faith. But I think Paul tells us a lot more about why community is a reflection of Jesus himself. When he is the standard by which we live our life, then we will put a high value on community, on being with a group of people not just on the fringes, on visiting when we happen to feel like it, but on having a sense of commitment to this group of people we are going through life with.

Well, now, I have a lot to learn in this area. This does not come naturally for me. So for some instruction in this, I turn to the Bible, and today I’d like to take a closer look at Ephesians chapter 4, because it says quite a bit about our relationships with one another in the church, and we can go through it together and hopefully we can learn together as we go. The NIV heading for the chapter is “Unity in the Body of Christ.” The chapter has 32 verses, and we don’t have much time, so we will skip a few verses here and there.

Eph 4:1 [NIV] As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Paul is in prison because of he has been preaching the gospel, and now in prison, he is writing to his people to remind them that their faith should make a difference in their lives.

He has already said in chapter 2 that we are saved by grace, not by our works, but he also says in Ephesians 2:10 that ^“we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God made us not just to believe, but also to have our beliefs affect our behavior, and we will find life most satisfying if we are living the way that God designed us to live. And the calling that we have in Christ tells us something about how to live.

When we say that God is worthy of worship, we mean that his qualities are worth imitating – and his qualities are shown to us most clearly in Jesus Christ. Jesus shows us by example how a child of God should live as a human being in the flesh and in this world. This is what we are called for, this is what we are called to. We are to live a life worthy of this calling, worthy of the name of Christ. This behavior does not save us, but it should be one of the results of the salvation that we have been given in Christ.

Verse 2: Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. The church is not a place for self-seeking, for self-promotion, for pushing to get our own way. Rather, it is a place for being considerate of what others need. In that, we are simply following the example set by Jesus.

Verse 3: Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. We are to try hard to be at peace with one another. If conflicts arise, we need to resolve them, rather than harboring grudges.

So those are some basic principles we need in the church, if we want to build a spiritual community: humility, patience, peace, and love. That will go a long way to help us share life together in a way that is good for all of us.

Let’s skip down to verse 11: It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers…, Christ puts people into the church, and he puts leaders into the church – but he does not put them there for personal privileges and self-importance.

Rather, verse 12 tells us that the purpose of these leaders is to prepare God’s people for works of service. Our pastor encourages people to get involved in ministry, to do good works, and to help other people. We who teach are supposed to prepare people for service. We preach the gospel of grace, certainly, but we also have the duty to encourage one another in putting our faith into action in our lives, in our marriages, and in our neighborhoods.

And what is the purpose of this teaching and preparation?

Verse 12 tells us that it is so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. So we are supposed to become more mature –

And what is the standard of maturity? It is the fullness of Jesus Christ. We are supposed to be like he is, and as we all get closer to that goal, we will have more unity in the faith.

We need to know Jesus Christ – we need to learn more about him, and we need a relationship with him. Knowing a person involves a lot more than knowing information about that person – it comes from having a relationship, from spending time together, and when we come to know Jesus, it means changing so that our behavior is more like his. The qualities that make him great and wonderful to us are also qualities that will make us better persons, and more in tune with the way God has planned for us to be, and that’s not only better for us, it’s better for everyone around us.

And when we are growing in this way, the body of Christ is built up – it grows larger and more mature.

Verse 14 gives us the result: Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. The more mature we are, the less that false teachings will affect us. And there are many false teachings out there, some religious and some secular. There are false teachings in the movies, false teachings in the newspapers, false teachings at the busstop, false teachings in the schools, and false teachings in the pulpit.

But maturity means that we are not blown around by these teachings. We have a sense of perspective, a sense of what's important, and one of the ways that we get this, Ephesians 4 says, is by being involved in works of ministry. When they help us become more like Jesus Christ, they help mature us and give us balance. They help us think about how the teachings are relevant to day-to-day life.

Now, I must admit that false teachings can sometimes be attractive. If they always looked bad, we wouldn’t have any problem with them. But they can be packaged to look good, because people are crafty and cunning in the way they try to deceive us. But Jesus gives us a good perspective on the issues as we get involved in works of service, and God has put pastors and teachers into the church to help us in this.

Verse 15: Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. Some people speak the truth without love, and it hurts and is not helpful. Some people speak love without truth, and that feels good, but it doesn’t do much good in the long run. What we need is both truth and love, and that’s a balance that is not always easy to find. But as we work together and speak to one another in truth and love, we will grow up into Jesus Christ. We will become more mature.

And verse 16 says that it is from Christ that the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

So, we get our growth from Jesus Christ, and we are held together by every supporting member. Every member is important. If anyone fails to give support, if they fail to let Christ work in them, then other people suffer, and the church as a whole doesn’t do as well as it should.

Now, God is doing his work through us, but Paul still says that the church builds itself us. We all have a part to play. Our cooperation is part of the work that Christ is doing – but it has to be done in love. Love is our goal and our method. Love is the way in which the members support and hold together the body. This is the work that God is doing in our hearts, and that is the reason that he distributes different gifts to different people and has us work together for the common good.

And the last part of the verse says that the body of Christ grows when each member does his or her work. When we work together in love, each according to the abilities that God has given us, we grow. Some people have the gift of compassion, some people have the gift of service, some have the gift of generosity, and some people don’t know what their gifts are because they’ve never tried to do anything.

As we work together, as we cooperate in works of service, our church is becoming more like Jesus Christ, more mature. Although we are different, when we work together, we are growing toward unity in Christ. The church grows as every member does his or her work. We should all be supporting the work of the church, because God has enabled each person to contribute something of value to the church.

Now, we are not here to do the pastor's work for him — we are here to do our own work. The work we do is for our benefit, not his. It is for Christ, not for him. It is for each other, not for him. The pastor's role is to help us do our work, to help us get involved, to teach us, to encourage us, to help us grow in experience and skill — and we do that as each person does his or her work. Everybody gets involved, so that everyone grows and everyone gets the benefit. Because the truth is, that the better we are in tune with God's purpose for us, the more satisfied we will be in life. This is what we were made for, this is the way God created us to be.

After this, Paul begins to get a lot more specific on what Christian behavior should be. In verse 17 he says, So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. When we have faith in Christ, we do not continue living the same way we did before. Rather, we re-evaluate our life based on Christ.

People without Christ, Paul says in verse 18, are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. Yes, we can look around in society and see lots of impurity: greed, selfishness, cheating on taxes, filthy language, racism, and promiscuous sex – and since none of these things are satisfying, people want more and more of them. They are trapped in a cycle of running harder and harder on a treadmill that doesn’t get them anywhere but tired.

Verse 20: You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

The truth in Jesus is that salvation ought to make a difference in the way we live, and what we live for. As we are taught the way of Christ, we learn that self-indulgent behaviors are bad for us – and our new self is more life God, in being righteous and holy. We see that God is love, and we try to have more of that in our life. We see that God is patient, and we try to have more of that. We see that God is gracious, and we try to be more gracious toward one another. The new self that we put on is being created in us. There’s a God-shaped hole in each of us, and we will be satisfied only when that God-shaped hole is filled by God, when we become more like he is – because that is the way he designed us to be.

Therefore, verse 25 says, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. This is one of the areas of life that should change for us. We should stop trying to deceive people, and tell the truth in love, because we are not living for self anymore – we are all members of the same body. We are going to be with each other for eternity, so we need to be truthful with one another now.

Then in verse 26 he quotes Psalm 4:4: “In your anger do not sin”: - you can be angry, but don’t sin. In fact, when you look around the world and see things that hurt people, we ought to be angry – but anger should not dominate our lives. So Paul give us this advice: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.

If you are angry with someone, resolve the problem before you go to sleep – that’s probably good advice for mental health, anyway, but Paul’s reason here is that we should not give the devil a foothold in our mind. Although anger isn’t always a sin, it often is, and it is such a powerful and potentially destructive emotion that the devil can use it to mess us up. So Paul advises, as one of the basic principles of getting along together, that we should not hold any grudges – we need to resolve our anger.

Verse 28: He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. Well, of course we should not steal – but Paul’s advice is not just that we stop stealing – it is that we learn to give to people who have more needs than we do. We are not just to go from greedy to neutral – we should go all the way to generous. Now there’s a thought for the offertory message. Are you paying your fair share, or are you expecting others to do it? The church grows as each member does his or her part, and every part is important.

Verse 29: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Wow, that could really put a damper on our conversations, eh? Well, I don’t think we should take it to an extreme. For example, when we need help, I don’t think it’s wrong for us to let other people know what our needs are. It’s not wrong to have conversations about our jobs and what’s going on in our lives, because that helps other people get to know us, and what our needs may be. It’s part of the time that we spend together that helps bond us together as a spiritual community.

But Paul’s point here is that our conversations should be helpful, not hurtful. As he says in other places, it shouldn’t be gossip about all the bad stuff that other people do; it shouldn’t belittle people of other races or the other gender. Or as he says in chapter 5, verse 4, there shouldn’t be any obscenity or coarse joking. And some topics are simply inappropriate. Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and some of the things that we say can reveal how unclean we are inside. Paul’s point is that we need to think before we speak, and make sure it is the sort of conversation that Jesus would be happy to listen to.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, he says in verse 30, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. He doesn’t directly say what he means here, but apparently he means that bad behavior on our part, or bad language, hurts the feelings of the Holy Spirit.

God is disappointed when we do things that hurt other people, or when we hurt ourselves by inappropriate thoughts and behavior, when we try to get attention for ourselves or try to make ourselves look better through a lie, or by running someone else down. Those kinds of things are like running on a treadmill that doesn’t get us anywhere. Those kinds of things do not prepare us for life in eternity. Those kinds of things are not good for the spiritual community we are in, and that’s why those kind of things grieve the Holy Spirit. He wants the best for us, and when we choose some other path, he grieves for us. He doesn’t grieve for himself, because we can’t hurt him any, but he grieves for us because we are hurting ourselves.

Verse 31: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Yes, get rid of animosities and desires to harm other people. A basic ethic for all Christians is to be kind and compassionate, and to make our behavior more like God. In Christ, God forgives us, and we should forgive one another.

Do you know what that means? It means that we sometimes do things to one another that hurt one another, things that might cause anger, things that require us to forgive other people. Paul knows that we are not perfect, but he tells us to get on the right path. If someone offends you, help the person know what was done, and try to resolve the problem. But if you can’t, forgive them. It doesn’t mean you have to loan them a hundred dollars again, but it does mean that we shouldn’t harbor grudges and desire revenge. Now, we don’t always forgive other people as well as we ought, but Paul is pointing us in the path we need to go, the direction we need to go. And the model we have is God himself, as shown to us in Jesus Christ.

As Paul says in chapter 5, verse 1: Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. You know, we can be a fragrant sacrifice, too – we can be something that pleases God, and that’s if we act like he does, if we model our behavior on him, if we act like children in his family. Now, we do not do it all on our own strength – the Holy Spirit in us will help – but we still have to make choices along the way. This is the basic pattern of building a spiritual community – it is living a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. So also we ought to give ourselves up for one another, in both words and deeds.