We live in a neighborhood that has the word "estates" as part of the title. We live in a neighborhood where most of the houses probably sell for about half a million dollars (at least the updated ones!). We live in a neighborhood where there is an unspoken message being proclaimed that unless you have the right car, the right job, the right amount of kids, the right salary, the right clothes, send your kids to the right schools, keep your yard a certain way and so on and so on you just don't quite belong or fit in. I don't have the right things so it goes without saying that I don't quite fit in. I'm ok with that, I don't really care for my own benefit to fit in, but I would like to be some influence--namely I want to proclaim Christ to the people that I live around. But that's rather a hard thing to do when you don't know the people. (Ok, we do know the people that live right around us and they are lovely people) I am mainly thinking about people that are close to our age....we are poor compared to them! Anyway, I've been thinking how can I be of more influence to the people that I live around if we hardly see or talk with them. I think there are things that can be found in common, things that will bridge the gap between our worlds, but it's a tough nut to crack. So, all this thinking about how hard it has been to get to know people and find things in common has lead me to think of how utterly unique and beautiful Christ's church is.
The Church, the Bride of Christ, while still imperfect, is a glorious picture of how rich people and poor people and all sorts of people can be friends and more important, family. People that I would not normally think of being friends with I am able to be friends with because of the common denominator of Christ. The more I think on that the more it blows my mind. When I think of the barriers that are up towards us from peers in our neighborhood and then I think of the friendships we have with believers the more I see that only Christ can bring people together! It seems like although people are polite, hell would freeze over before people in our neighborhood would allow more than a mere socially correct conversation to happen.
I was so blessed to hear my father in law preach today on Romans 15:5-6 which says all that I was thinking about the unity of Christians and it says it much better than my feeble ramblings. Here is the handout Joshua's dad shared with his congregation. I hope it will encourage you as much as it did me.
"Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you many with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 15:5-6
In this wonderful passage of Scripture we are given a wish-filled benediction identifying one of the great all-consuming purposes that God has for human history. Why did God send His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Why did Jesus die upon the cross and rise again from the dead? Why did God give birth to the church in the life and miraculous work of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? Why is Jesus coming back to earth to consummate and culminate redemption and history in His Lordship? Why? Here we have a reason that gives a true and great ultimate purpose to these things? God is putting together a people, His people throughout history, through redemption in Jesus Christ so that the day will come when these people will with one voice rise up together in unity of mind and heart to glorify God in all His worthiness, goodness, and transcendent wonder. This is why God does everything He does--He is putting together a people from all over the world to possess one mind in Christ and speak with one voice the unifying praise of the Lord in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. The text tells us the following concerning this overarching theme:
1. Perseverance and encouragement, a vital necessity in Christian living and experience, is actually a work of God given to us in the journey of our salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ in the work of the Holy Spirit.
2. Although God loves every Christian as His own child, yet God wants every Christian to experience the important blessing of Sharing the "same mind" with other believers in Christ. This same mind is centered on the nature and meaning of the true gospel of free sovereign grace through the saving work of Christ on the cross and resurrection, made real in us individually and among us corporately through the unifying love and work of the Holy Spirit. See Philippians 2:1-2
3. The work of God's saving grace and the glorious work o the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification baptizes the believer into the on Body of Christ (See 1 Corinthians 12:13), gifting us for living and service in the Body of Christ (See 1 Corinthians 12:27-31), and giving to all believers a common life (the life of Christ), which we share in love and covenant together in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus Christians are to live together in Christ "in one accord."
4. This inner oneness shared by CHristians finds expression with one common voice praising and glorifying God because of and focused on the gospel of His saving grace in Jesus Christ. This is what the church celebrates in worship, and this worshipful celebration of the gospel in oneness of heart and voice reflects the triumphant church's experience in heaven for all eternity.
Application to LIfe
1. Christian oneness is a gift from God and not a human creation forced upon people either by effort or institutionalization.
2. Christian oneness in essence is the church in love with God because of Jesus Christ and through the work of the gospel, grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, thus this oneness is founded on truth, birthed in regeneration and nurtured in love.
3.Christian oneness is a miracle of God's power in salvation that transforms sinners from selfish, caustic, irritating rebels causing division and hurt into selfless saints sharing, promoting, and living in the love and joy of God's eternal transcendent goodness in the context of human history and life's difficult fallen environment.
4. Therefore, the more the Christian loves and rejoices in Jesus, the closer the Christian gets in affection and mind to God and to other Christians in the church.
5. And the more the church experiences Christians growing in love and joy in Christ, in the light of the gospel, the more the earthly church will together rejoice in and love the Lord.
6. Furthermore, the more this happens on earth in the life, worship, and experience of the earthly church, the more the earthly church resembles the heavenly church.
7. The greater the earthly church rejoices in the Lord, joining in the heavenly church glorifying and honoring the Lord God of heaven and earth, the more redeemed humanity manifests the entire point of why God made people, the more glory God is glorified on earth, and the more frustrated Satan gets.
"May the God who inspires men to endure, and gives them constant encouragement, give you a mind united with one another in your common loyalty to Christ Jesus. And then , as one man, you will sing from the heart the praises of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So open your hearts to one another as Christ has opened his heart to you, and God will be glorified." Romans 15:5-7 J.B. Phillips "The New Testament in Modern English."
Amen!
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