Friday Communication - 14th July 2023
Rebuilding and Re-establishing our common life
When Jayne and I visited her mother in the second half of 2022 we went down to Lismore to see the damage caused by the February and March flooding. We drove on potholed roads through her childhood suburb where many homes were still unoccupied and in various states of disrepair, and to her old school Richmond River High that had sustained so much damage it was now abandoned. Floods are destructive, disruptive, and energy draining, leaving many grieving and uncertain, and it takes communities not just many months but years to recover. In the course of that recovery, after the immediate need to care for displaced neighbours and to give hope for a future has passed, communities need to consider their situation and decide what to leave, like the school, and what to rebuild and re-establish with their limited energy and resources.
Our experience of Covid has been a bit like experiencing the damage and disruption of a slow moving flood. The rhythm of our individual and common life, our training for ministry and recruitment for leadership, were all disrupted. There was the temporary cessation of many ministries, damage to some relationships, and a great draining of energy. Our recovery is not just a matter of months, but years and as part of that recovery we also have to decide what to collectively invest our time and energy in rebuilding and re-establishing as we continue to encourage each other to persevere and grow as followers of Jesus together.
"Our experience of Covid has been a bit like experiencing the damage and disruption of a slow moving flood. The rhythm of our individual and common life, our training for ministry and recruitment for leadership, were all disrupted."
That is what I want to talk about today and in the next few Friday communications. Today I want to talk about what principles should guide our collective rebuilding effort, and then over the next three communications show how those principles encourage us to focus our service and support on our participation in Sunday services, our ministries to children and young people which are deliberately comprehensive, integrated and purposeful, and then on growth groups. Some of you will be thinking there are no surprises there, and that would be true, for the reasons that led to the church investing in these from the beginning continue to exist. If anything, our current cultural circumstances make these activities more vital to sustaining our life and witness and should give us greater zeal in engaging with them. It is my hope that will become the conviction of us all as we think about them in the coming weeks.
But first let me elaborate the three principles that should guide us in deciding where to keep investing our money, time and energy as a community of believers in the Lord Jesus.
What hasn’t changed
Firstly, recognition of what hasn’t changed. While Covid was experienced by many as a disruptive shock to our prosperous and complacent lives, much hasn’t changed. The LORD reigns, and His purpose which He prosecutes every day in all things is to unite all things in Christ, to bring everything into submission to our Lord Jesus [Eph. 1:9-10, 1 Cor. 15:24-27]. People are still sinners, rebels against God, knowing no peace with God now and who will die and face God’s just judgment where He will give to all what their works deserve – eternal death [Rev. 20:11-15]. It is still true that the Lord Jesus came into the world to save sinners [1 Tim. 1:15] by His death and rising, and He is the only One in whom salvation can be found, the only one who can bring us peace with God our Father [John 14:6, Acts 4:12, 2 Cor. 5:18-21]. He pours out His Spirit still on all who repent and believe in Him, the Spirit who gives us a new heart that wants to live for Him, that makes it possible to say no to self and yes to Christ each day, and who gives us gifts for service and empowers the life of faith. And our lives are short, ‘like a breath, our days like a passing shadow’ [Ps. 144:4], and the day will soon come when we stand before the Lord to give our account to Him [2 Cor. 5:9-10], when we will hear either ‘well done, good and faithful servant’ because we have used our time well in service of the Lord Jesus with what he has entrusted to us, or ‘I do not know you’ because we have not used our present to prepare for that day [Matt. 25:12, 21]. The truths of God’s Word have not changed and should continue to shape our thinking and engagement with life.
"The truths of God’s Word have not changed and should continue to shape our thinking and engagement with life."
We are meant to live the Christian life together
The second principle is recognition that we are meant to live the Christian life together, and that living the life of faith together facilitates and enhances each other’s service of our Lord Jesus. Covid has given many of us conviction that we are not meant to live isolated from each other, that we need our brothers and sisters and their encouragement to flourish as people and as believers. But beyond that personal experience the image of the church, including the local congregation, as the body of Christ [1 Cor 12:12-27, Rom. 12:4-8, Eph. 4:15-16] tells us we were made, with all our differences, to live the life of faith together, and that it is only as ‘each part, not in isolation but joined and connected to the other parts, does its work that the body grows and builds itself up in love. This is an image of mutual interdependent service by all, not of passive consumerism by any. It is God’s arrangement, the way He has ordered our relationships with each other, and the way He wants us to think of our relationship with each other. We enjoy His provision for our growth and encouragement, for the health and perseverance of our Christian lives, in relationships of mutual loving service with the gifts the Spirit has given to each of us as He wills.
"...we were made, with all our differences, to live the life of faith together, and that it is only as ‘each part, not in isolation but joined and connected to the other parts, does its work that the body grows and builds itself up in love."
Making disciples is our agenda
The third principle is recognition that the task our Lord left to His disciples is to make disciples and that this is to be our collective agenda until the day He returns. We come often to our Lord Jesus’ words in Matthew 28 – “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to do all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Sometimes we can think of this command to make disciples as a kind of add on to living the normal Christian life, something isolated from and extra to the faithful obedience of each day. It is not, for it expresses what it is to love God and love our neighbours which is the sum of our covenant obedience, what it is to love God and neighbour now that the Lord Jesus has been raised and exalted as the one with all authority, the authority to forgive and judge all [Acts 10:42-43]. You cannot live that life of love without giving yourself to making disciples. Those who love God want the truth that He has revealed of Himself in sending the Son into the world heard and believed, for it honours Him when people confess Jesus as Lord and worship God as He has revealed Himself to be, Father, Son and Spirit. Preaching the gospel, which is how people come to the saving faith confessed in their baptism, is the proclamation of the victory of God. It honours our God. And teaching those who believe to live godly lives that do all the Lord Jesus teaches is also love of God, for it is the means God has given to have a people who will be the light of the world, whose good deeds will cause others to give glory to our Father [Matt. 5:16]. And making disciples by preaching the gospel and teaching others to do what Jesus has taught is love of neighbour, for believing the gospel brings forgiveness, peace with God and eternal hope, and living as Jesus has commanded, doing what He has taught, is the best life, the life of children of God in this world. Committing ourselves to make disciples together is saying that our common life will be characterised by that love of God and love of neighbour our God calls for from His people at all times and in everything.
"Committing ourselves to make disciples together is saying that our common life will be characterised by that love of God and love of neighbour our God calls for from His people at all times and in everything."
So, three principles to guide us in choosing where to invest our time, energy and money as we continue our recovery from Covid – recognition of what has not changed, the abiding truths revealed in God’s word. Recognition that we are, by God’s provision and ordering, the body of Christ, meant to live and serve together. Recognition that our abiding task, one that embodies the obedience of love, is to make disciples of our Lord Jesus by making the gospel of Jesus known and calling people to believe it, and then doing ourselves and teaching each other to do all that our Lord has taught.
In the next three communications I hope to show you that these principles will encourage us to prioritize service in our gathering, in our children’s and youth ministries, and in meeting together through the week in small groups, that this service is worth your time and energy when both may be in short supply.
