This morning we begin a four-week series entitled “Community.” Today, I want us to see that if our lives are going to make an impact in the world then we our lives need to be connected to what God is doing in the world.
Contrary to popular belief, the Bible is not a series of disconnected stories and verses. The Bible is one story about what God is doing in the world. And what God is doing in the world is making a community of people who love him and want to live for him and with him for all eternity. The only way our lives will make a difference is if that is the story of our lives.
This begins in Genesis 1, the Garden of Eden. In the opening pages of Scripture we see God creating Adam to have a perfect relationship with him. It is important to understand that God is not creating Adam because he is lonely. God has always existed in perfect community as Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – one God who exists as three distinct persons – experienced perfect fellowship and joy among each other. To display God’s complete goodness and mercy, he created man.
God creates Adam and Adam is alone without human companionship. For the first time, God looks at his creation and say something is not good, “Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him"
(Gen 2:18). God wanted Adam to experience the fellowship and joy he had as Trinity, so he made Eve. What God originally intended for creation was a community of people who love him and want to live with him and for him.
In Genesis 3 we see the destruction of that original community. Satan deceives Adam and Eve and the results are devastating. Genesis 2:25 shows the first couple naked and not ashamed. After disobeying God, “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths”(Gen 3:7). For the first time shame enters the picture as Adam and Eve attempt to hide from one another. The perfect community Adam and Eve had was broken, but not simply between them. The community they had with God was also broken as we read in Genesis 3:8, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden”.
Not only does sin separate us from God, it also separates us from each other.
However, we see the grace of God in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”. This is the first promise in the Bible that Jesus is coming.
From this point on, God puts his plan into action of rescuing his people.
A few chapters later, in Genesis 12, God calls a man who would later be known as Abraham. God comes to Abram and tells him, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:1-3). Notice that God tells Abram a great nation would come from him. God is speaking about Israel. God creates the community of his people, Israel.
In the book of Exodus, we read the following in account of Moses’ calling, “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and
with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord” (Ex 6:6-8).
Do not miss all of the times God says, “I will” in this passage. Do you see the love God has for his people? He frees them from slavery, brings them into the wilderness so that he could be with his people and his people could worship him. But Israel, over and over, turned away from God. The rest of the Old Testament shows God refusing to give up on his stubborn people. It becomes clear that because of Israel’s sin, they cannot be the community of people God made them to be.
They are regularly offering animal sacrifices, but they need a perfect sacrifice.
Centuries later John the Baptist appears to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. The story of the Bible thus far begs the question “how can God have a community of people who love him and want to live with him and for him for all eternity?” The answer is that Jesus would buy that people.
One of the first things Jesus does is put together a group of twelve men, a new community of people. Jesus begins to talk about the church. The Holy Spirit comes in Acts 2 and gives birth to the church. In Ephesians, Paul describes the church as Jesus’
bride (Eph 5:25). In Galatians, the church is called “the Israel of God” (6:16). Meaning that God does not have two people, Israel and the church, he has one people, the church.
God has grafted Gentiles into the tree of his people so that God’s people are the church.
The church is at the center of God’s plan, it is not an afterthought.
Revelation 21 describes the return of Christ and the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth in a renewed creation. In the middle of the description, John hears a loud voice proclaiming, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their
God” (21:3). God tells us the end of the story and he will be with his people. He has saved us and we will be with him.
You might be hearing this thinking, “what does this have to do with me?” It’s simple, you are the church. You are the people of God. You have not come to church, you are the church. God is speaking to you about your life in this story. He says ‘I have saved you and made you a part of the community of people who love me and want to live for me and with me for all eternity and right now I want to use you to build that
community.” God never saves anyone in the Bible and ten they go on with their life as planned. No one comes to God in a saving way in the Bible and then they fit God into the story of their life.
Every time God saves someone, he makes them a part of what he is doing.
Abraham, Peter, Paul and he wants that to be true about you. I’m convinced one of the reasons the church today barely resembles the church described in the Bible is because we are trying to fit God into our lives and our plans instead of wrapping our lives around him. Instead of giving our lives to his kingdom we are devoted to our own. When we come to Jesus we forfeit ownership of our lives. We stop being the author of our lives (even though we never were).
Does your life look like the story God is telling? He has made you a part of his church and wherever he has placed you, you want to give your life to being a part of what he is doing. It might be controversial for you to realize but God does not simply have an individual plan for your life. Instead his plan for your life is a part of the larger story he is directing in the world. Have you ever asked God how your life and your plans fit into his bigger plan?
Some of you, when you think about community or church you think, “I don’t get anything out of this”, and that is the problem. You are looking to get instead of looking to give. There are to be no benchwarmers or spectators in God’s kingdom. God
did not save you to sit and watch, he saved you to be a part of what he is doing. What we need to realize is that our lives, connected to God’s purpose, can make an eternal impact.