Friends and the Church

I preached this past Sunday. Technically, the topic I was given was “friends” but I tweaked it and talked about the role of individual in the body of Christ. Here are some of the high points (devoid of my illustrations).

******************************

The church is a group of friends who care about more than just knowing names, but who care about helping them in any way.

The church is a part of the kingdom of God. The kingdom is a place where people have value regardless of their inadequacies. The kingdom is a place where there is joy in the Lord. The kingdom is a place where there is love. And our hope is that such a place can be found, not just in heaven, but here on earth. It is a hope that keeps a firm grip on the promises of God. His promises keep us going even when we want to let go. We hold on to the promise that God is making us better people. We hold on to the promise that God is making the church a place that people want to be. His promises will keep us from just dropping the reigns. God is faithful. He has been faithful to this church in the past and will be in the future, if we hold on.

Though it is easy to love the loveable, how about those whom no one cares about? God calls us to love them even more. Jesus displayed this friendship wherever he went, accepting the outcasts, losers, prostitutes, sickly, and discarded people in his society. A victorious church is a friend to all, and prods one another forward with love.

And it may seem easy to give up on the church and on each other. We see it all the time. Why do people give up meeting together? Perhaps they leave the church when they get offended. Or, they have lost the hope of finding a place that they can be accepted. Or, maybe they don’t like what is going on. But when we focus on the big picture of the kingdom we can look past offenses. We can see the good that the church is doing and work to reform the bad. God has had the reason and the opportunity to give up on us but he hasn’t. He has been faithful and given us hope. And our response is to be faithful back to Him.

If you miss connecting to the body of Christ, you miss Christ. There is no healthy relationship with Jesus without a relationship to the church. Church is not a building with pews and an organ. The Church is you and the church is me. And if you think that you are doing church by coming once a week for an hour, you’re missing it. You’re missing the body of Christ. You’re missing a healthy relationship with Christ.

A living, breathing congregation is the only place to live in a healthy relationship to God. As Christians we are responsible to both be involved in such a congregation and make such a congregation victorious. If there's something wrong, we should look in ourselves and ask, “Am I being the kind of friend God desires?”

"Lord, I want to be the person You called me to be so Your church can be all You want it to be."