Why We Need Others? (June 11)
Hebrews 10:19-25- “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And 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”
12:1-3 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
John Donne- “The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language… No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”
Flies in the face of the Post-Modern West, Buddhism, and countless other beliefs.
Primary Focus: How being in community helps us deal with sin & push us closer towards the gospel
SBP- It is an absolute privilege to dwell among other Christians- “since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses”- Christ lived among enemies. We are now called, privileged to live alongside others who are striving for the same thing- to see God’s name glorified in their lives and to the ends of the earth.
It is solely a beautiful gift of the grace of God that we are able to live with other Christian brethren. It is meant to encourage us and point us to the perfect fellowship that is to come. It may, presently, be taken away at any moment. A privilege.
“The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer” (19) –think of the sick or imprisoned (2 Timothy 4:9-17)
Our Intrinsic Need For Others
God in the garden said over & over again “it is good,” but when He created man, though man was perfect & sinless, He still said, “it is not good for man to be alone”- Genesis 2:18- we were created to exist in community.
Check Jesus in the garden- our perfect Savior longs to be in fellowship with his friends in his darkest hour- Mark 14- it is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of deep maturity
Even God Himself, the Three in One, has existed in perfect love & community eternally. If God was singular, He would be infinitely less than He presently is. If God is in community, how much more should we be?
I walked through LXA as a “Lone Ranger.” I was an idiot. I didn’t care for most Christians, became a Christian in high school, non-Christians were more genuine, etc. I knew my call, etc. Same in Montana.
“Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggles, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day, you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ” (Bonhoeffer, 77)
Our Near Infinite Capacity for Self-Deception
Satan is the Great Accuser; the Great Deceiver; the Great Distractor; the Great Confuser (remember: the heinousness of our sin does not lie in our action, but in the greatness of the One that we sin against)
Nazis “We didn’t know, but we knew”
We are so good at deceiving ourselves (1) that what we’re doing is not sin; (2) that what we’re doing is acceptable because of the other good things we’re doing; (3) that we’re more deserving of God’s rewards (or God is more pleased with us) because we’re better than others; (4) that if we act like we’ve got it together on the outside, it won’t really hurt anyone else
1. Check Saul coming down from Gilgal- where he was anointed king, where he’d already been rebuked for an unacceptable sacrifice- 1 Samuel 15:12-15- almost instinctively declaring his innocence before it is asked- “I have heeded the Lord;” “If you have heeded the voice of the Lord, then why do I hear the bleating of sheep?”)
-Romans 1- God has written on our hearts right & wrong.
2. Tied into #1. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Acts 5- Ananias & Sapphira give, but lie about it & God strikes them down. What good is it to give to the poor if we earn our money from embezzling or cheating? What good is it if we help the church youth group if we spend Saturday night chasing lust? Etc.
3. Re-iterate “older brother lostness”
4. Remember Achan’s sin- Joshua 7:2-5, 10-13, 19-21, 25-26 - Remember all the victories they’d had; see how God declares, “Israel has done this, done this, done this, etc.”; God kills 27 men over one man’s sin- he does not seem to separate Achan’s sin from all of Israel; while I am hesitant to draw a direct connection from Joshua 7 because we are the people of the New Testament, we must see how much God truly hates sin- it is very possible that God is withholding his blessing from us here, from our churches, etc. because of one unconfessed sin in our midst
-see who is killed with him… his whole family; let that make us tremble… we who will be fathers, who will be mothers, who are brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters- our sin affects our whole family: sons will model their fathers, a daughter who speaks a harsh word to her mother will change her, a father who looks at pornography will deeply harm his relationship with his wife. Sin begets sin.
“There is no sin in thought, word, or deed, no matter how personal or secret, that does not inflict injury upon the whole fellowship. An element of sickness gets into the body; perhaps nobody knows where it comes from or in what member it is lodged, but the body is infected… We are members of a body, not only when we choose to be, but in our whole existence. Every member serves the whole body, either to its health or to its destruction” (89)
I think, as Derek Webb has talked about, that if we’re really honest with ourselves, that we, especially as American Christians, really think that the Christian life is about how “little we are sinning,” or, at least, how well we can convince others how little we are sinning. Don’t we love to hide, hide our sins as though they weren’t real? Take heart not that your sins aren’t real, but that they are real and your Savior is real and He has really done all that is necessary to purchase your forgiveness!
Take heart! You’re worse than you think you are, but Your Savior is greater than you think He is!
We need others to help us to see how we have blinded ourselves! And to remind us that the reason that we have blinded ourselves is because we have failed to believe! We are just like the man in Mark 9, we believe, but God help us in our unbelief…We deceive ourselves, we hide, because we cannot bear the loss of the recognition, the honor, etc. because we do not truly believe that God honors us, loves us beyond compare, etc.
“The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation… The goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation” (Bonhoeffer, 23).
We need others to remind us of who we are in Christ
There is no sin that will not be uncovered, BUT He is faithful and just to forgive us. Why would we keep anything hidden in a tent when He will make it so that it is not even remembered anymore? “Our sins are carried as far as the east is from the west.” B. Manning “to be alive is to be broken and to be broken is to stand in need of grace… There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are”
What does it look like to live in spiritual community?
We read together, we pray together, we go onto the mission field together, we do service work together, we preach the gospel to each other, we challenge one another, serve one another, teach one another, we live, act, move, and breathe as ONE BODY WITH ONE GOAL: TO SEE CHRIST GLORIFIED IN OUR LIVES AND IN OTHERS. Look and see how all four wins are accomplished here!
Church- 1 Cor 12- Composed of people who are not like you who experience & display Christ in different ways so that we all can experience & display Christ all the more deeply… An arm can’t help another arm know what it needs to reach for & grasp, it needs an eye to see it, feet to help it get there, a stomach & intestines to digest food to give it energy to reach, a blood stream to carry those nutrients, a nerve system, etc. We are called to be inter-dependent & thus work as Christ’s body.
I hope you’ve seen, even in small degrees, this proven true here: (1) studying the Word together- others pull different insights, etc.; (2) talking through dealing with sin & reminding each other of who we are in Christ; (3) we help each other better understand how to communicate it & go out together to present a more clear picture; (4) Present each other with opportunities to step up, think, lead, etc.
FOUND & FOUGHT FOR:
FOUND
Look at Paul in Tyre, a church he did not start- they argue with him about returning to Jerusalem (he does not rebuke them or say, “No! I’ve heard from the Lord & that’s that!”) & Paul joins together with them praying & weeping
Our community consists not in who a person is but in what Christ has done for each of us
Our community consists not in who this person is, whether or not without Christ we would have a lot in common, but it consists in what Christ has done for each of us; we must remember that we will fellowship eternally… If we are searching for more, our motives are impure; we are looking, instead, for some extraordinary social experience.
Spiritual friends are “bowed together” before a bigger picture- friendships must always be founded upon something bigger than mere friendship (sports team, etc.), and nothing is bigger than Christ
FOUGHT FOR
Touch on life in my house- 6 Christian guys… be focused! Be intentional!
“the more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one thing vital between us” (27)
2 Timothy 2:10- Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
DEALING WITH SIN (Hebrews 12:1-3)
James 5:16- “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
There is something supernatural that happens in the confessing of sins to one another. There are sins in each & every one of us that we are ashamed to confess. I have them & you have them. It may be that our hearts are not truly brought to repentance until we confess, until we see its ugliness before others- “That you may be healed”- or that we will really understand that we are forgiven, that our guilt is paid for until we confess!
The essence of the gospel is to be “completely known & completely loved.” If our friends can forgive us (or if we can forgive ourselves), how much more will God, the author of forgiveness, forgive us?
This mindset encourages us to be bold with our sin, confess it before God & man, and maybe, just maybe, God’ll use it to challenge & convict someone else.
Galatians 5:25-6:4
The gospel gives us a new self-image. It humbles me before anyone, telling me that I am a sinner, a hopeless one, saved by grace. But it emboldens me before anyone, telling me I am loved and honored by the only eyes in the universe that really count. It makes me broken-hearted because I see the cancer that it is eating away at my brothers & sisters & because I know there are cancers eating at me. It makes me bold because it is cancer that it is eating them & they do not know it!
We are called to be bold and broken-hearted in bearing each other’s burdens
To bear with a burden, you have to really be willing to get into someone’s mess & understand your own. Their burden could be a simple responsibility or it could be a deep issue. The question is, “Are you willing to love people as Jesus Christ has loved you?” We are literally “taking on a weight” in order to make it easier for someone to see, experience, and follow Christ. We’re praying like it’s our sin, striving to help that person fight that sin… We mourn with those who mourn, rejoice with those who rejoice, and we listen to those who need an ear, because though we loved him not, He loved us to the utmost. If we really did this, the world would have to take notice, especially in America because we are so individualistic.
*Paul says that we are not to ignore a person who is “caught in sin.” What does that mean? It does not mean that we confront someone every single time we see them in sin, for, as 1 Peter 4:8 says, “love covers over a multitude of sins.” We confront someone whose sinful behavior is a pattern and has gotten the upper hand with them. Paul insists that we be neither quick to criticize nor slow to confront.
Who confronts? “You who are spiritual”-namely, if you claim to be in Christ, it is your duty to help your brother or sister by looking out for her & being unafraid to confront.
Pray. Then, if you’re scared or don’t want to confront, pray more. If you still are afraid or would rather hope it “works itself out”,” repent! Because you really don’t love that person as much you claim… Act like their sin may very well KILL them… because it may.
What do you do? “Restore”- dislocated bone- painful to set back in place, but it is a healing pain. You see someone’s pattern of sin. You pray. You confront them alone (Matthew 18:15-17). Do it “gently” –we must remember who we are- sinners saved by grace, just as capable of the same sin. We must profoundly examine our motives and be sure that we are not exposing sin to shame the other person or to make ourselves feel better; we are coming to help “bear their burden” that we both might better know the Lord. If we expose our brother or sister’s sin, take them to the Word in humility and they do not respond, we prayerfully bring someone else into the situation. If that still does not lead the person to repentance, we give it over to God.
EPHESIANS 5:25-27