Christ in Our Community

Joe, Nate and Tim showed up first which quickly turned into a backyard bocci ball game.  A little while later Lucy, Nychelle and I sat around the fire enjoying its warmth and enduring its smoke as we discussed everything from rafting to apologetics.  Inside others stood around the kitchen counter preparing the shish kabobs for the grill.  Xavier strummed the guitar sending its melody throughout the house.  This was our last small group meeting for awhile, and we wanted it to be a special time. 

Small groups have played a key role in our family for quite a long time now. Togetherness happens here.  We pray together, eat together, think together, laugh together, discuss together, grow together, hang out together, open up together, worship together, and encounter Christ together. 

Our first serious foray into this realm began twelve years ago when we lived in the double wide beside the round house in Shady.  Diana would cook up a simple meal of beans and rice, then we would wait for the outside adventure folks to descend and devour.  Sometimes two or three would come, but more often than not the place was packed.   Music and song flowed spontaneously with prayer and scripture mingled throughout.  Afterwards tea and dessert kept us together to talk and catch up with each other.  Life on life happened.  Struggles were shared, plans were made, insight was given, Christian fellowship was developed. 

When we took up residence in Mexico another small group eventually came together.  It was different- taking on its own personality and distinctive.  This group was intercultural, so we had to feel our way along, but eventually barriers began to come down.  Food would always be served after worship, except this time it was corn tortillas and roasted chicken.   

Arriving home we needed someone who would listen, care for us and be available in some of our darkest moments.  The Lord provided just the couple and group we needed as we set off on a two year journey of sharing authenticity, admitting struggles, and discovering the gracious fullness of Christ. 

Tonight as we conclude, Diana and I want to inspire this group of young adults to always seek out true community.  I remind them that God is always at work in their lives.  Diana tells them that being together is a highlight of our week.  She shares that our time outside of vocational ministry is teaching us to be content and to trust what God is doing in our lives. All together we are experiencing Christ in our community.

Supernatural Relationship

Relationships can be tricky.  Commitment gets tangled with misunderstanding, trust with poor communication and partnership with selfishness.  Some seem to enter into them fairly well, while others not so much.

If human relationships are so precarious, how can one ever hope to have a relationship in a supernatural realm with a Father God who can be known but not seen, followed but not proven, worshiped but not touched?  There certainly are no pat answers for a genuine encounter with God.  A divine relationship does not concede to a formula.

That being said let me offer a few dynamics worth considering: 

God graciously initiates this relationship.  We love Him because He first loved us.  It is His gracious dealings with us that set us on the path of pursuit.  It is His continued gracious dealings that stir our hearts to know him more.  

God is speaking to us….through the Scriptures.  He affirms and counsels, directs and encourages, corrects and explains, exposes and shares.  We read and listen.  We come to the Bible convinced that God is presently interacting with His universe...with us.   

Willfully harming the relationship creates a strain and sets up barriers.  Sin has a way of weaseling its way into our lives to the detriment of an intimate friendship.  If we call sin what it is (confession) we will discover His forgiving and restorative nature.   

It is impossible to overemphasize  the Holy Spirit’s role in drawing us into this relationship.  We are not naturally robust pursuers and intimate knowers of God.  The Spirit creates space for this growth.  We open ourselves up to His control in nurturing this relationship. 

Giving attention to God through worship and prayer opens the door for personal interaction.  In prayer we have conversation with God.  “Prayer means keeping company with God who is already present.” 

In worship we have opportunity to express strong and heartfelt affection.  “True worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.” 

(Quotes by Phillip Yancey and John Piper)

Knowing God on Sandstone Mountain

 

Traveling across Sandstone Mountain in the spring is a majestic adventure.  As the car winds around innumerable curves, huge century old trees rise up to meet you.  The hills invite all comers to the summit experience.  Flowers burst forth and birds enliven the forest with their song.  At Brooks Overlook the valley stretches on for miles as the river cuts through the land by sheer force of strength.  In this rugged outdoor setting I think about relationship...relationship with God. 

It is one thing to say our interaction with God needs to go beyond intellectual understating.  It’s quite another to “know God” in relationship.  A formal judicial standing is secured, a servant position is expected but what about communion relationship, intimate friendship, camaraderie fellowship?  Is this possible?

Yes, the answer is yes.  The overarching story arc of Bible theology (creation, fall, redemption, restoration) suggests that it is not only possible but confirms it.  We see it in the beginning with God strolling in the garden with man and woman in the cool of the day (Gen 3:8) and in the end with John on a desolate island envisioning the revelation of Christ (Rev 1:1,9).  The vast middle includes a cast of characters who all knew their God – Enoch, Noah, Job, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, David, Jeremiah, Daniel, Mary, Peter, Anna and Paul.

Hear the psalmists’ and the prophets’ call to communion relationship: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God (Psalm 42:1-2).  "Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).  "Let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

Hear Jesus’ call to intimate friendship, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).  “Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’” (Matthew 22:36-37).

Hear also to the voice of Sandstone Mountain as it reminds us of a God of infinite invisible qualities, a God of eternal power and divine nature.  This one and same God welcomes us into the circle of camaraderie fellowship to know Him.  

 

Lessons from a Tavern

 

I well remember listening to the vacuum tube radio in my grandfather’s house.  At the time it seemed agonizing to wait the couple of minutes it required to warm up.   When it finally did it was  usually tuned to programs like Back to the Bible or Nightsounds. 

 One of my favorites on that old Zenith was Insight for Living with Chuck Swindoll.  His practicality, laughter and honesty drew me into his message.  Listening soon developed into reading his books.  I read Improving Your Serve thirty years ago while recovering from wisdom teeth extraction and Grace Awakening three years ago while recovering from prideful judgmentalosis.  Three days ago I stumbled across one of his articles entitled Lessons from a Tavern in an old copy of Leadership.  It’s worth the following read: 

 "An old Marine Corps buddy of mine, to my pleasant surprise, came to know Christ after he was discharged.  I say surprise because he cursed loudly, fought hard, chased women, drank heavily, loved war and weapons, and hated chapel services.

 "A number of months ago, I ran into this fellow, and after we’d talked awhile, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You know, Chuck, the only thing I still miss is that old fellowship I used to have with all the guys down at the tavern.  I remember how we used to sit around and laugh and drink a pitcher of beer and tell stories and let our hair down.  I can’t find anything like that for Christians.  I no longer have a place to admit my faults and talk about my battles–where somebody won’t preach at me and frown and quote me a verse.

 “It wasn’t one month later that in my reading I came across this profound paragraph: ‘The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit that there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church.  It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality–but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship.  It is unshockable.  It is democratic.  You can tell people secrets, and they usually don’t tell others or don’t even want to.  The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek counterfeit at the price of a few beers.  With all my heart,’ this writer concludes, ‘I believe that Christ wants his church to be unshockable, a fellowship where people can come and say, ‘I’m sunk, I’m beat, I’ve had it.’  Alcoholics Anonymous has this quality–our churches too often miss it.’

 Now before you take up arms to shoot some wag that would compare your church to the corner bar, stop and ask yourself some tough questions, like I had to do.  Make a list of some possible embarrassing situations people may not know how to handle.

 "A woman discovering her husband is a practicing homosexual.  Where in the church can she find help where she’s secure with her secret?

 "Your mate talks about separation or divorce.  To whom do you tell it?

 "Your daughter is pregnant, and she’s run away–for the third time.  She’s no longer listening to you.  Who do you tell that to?

 "You lost your job, and it was your fault.  You blew it, so there’s shame mixed with unemployment.  Who do you tell that to?

 "Financially you were unwise, and you’re in deep trouble.  Or a man’s wife is an alcoholic.  Or something as horrible as getting back the biopsy from the surgeon, and it reveals cancer, and the prognosis isn’t good.  Or you had an emotional breakdown.  To whom do you tell it?

 "We’re the only outfit I know that shoots it wounded.  We can become the most severe, condemning, judgmental, guilt-giving people on the face of the planet Earth, and we claim it’s in the name of Jesus Christ.  And all the while, we don’t even know we’re doing it.  That’s the pathetic part of it all.”