A man had just built a fire in his fireplace on a Saturday morning when there was a knock at the door. To his surprise it was his pastor. The man hadn’t been at church in several weeks so the pastor was stopping by to check on him. The greeting at the door was awkward but produced an invitation to have a seat. In silence they were mesmerized by the fireplace until the pastor stood up taking the fireplace tongs and moved the top log over just beside the fire. Sitting back down they both watched as the fire in the single log slowly died. The pastor got back up and moved the log back into the fire and it quickly lit right back up again. No words were exchanged but the man looked at his pastor and said, Thank you Pastor. That was one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard. I’ll see you at church tomorrow.
A huge myth is that you can become spiritually mature on your own. We can only grow in community. If you are not in community then there are at least 58 commands in the Bible that you can’t do.
God loves you with a perfect love. God’s family loves you with an imperfect love. God’s family is a family of forgiven, dysfunctional people. Our mistakes are frequent and our love is imperfect. But we are still the bride of Christ. Even in the church’s imperfection our spiritual well-being is tied to our submission to her.
Community is rooted in very nature of One God who is Father Son and Holy Spirit. The Doctrine of the Trinity reveals that God is a community of love, communication, affection and respect. We are created in the image of this Community God.
For you to grow in your relationship with Christ you simply must be in loving, authentic, accountable, community with God’s people. You should treat the people as if your spiritual-well being is tethered to relationships because it is. This is why Community Groups are so important.
1 Cor 10:2 and all were baptized into Moses… (NAS)
Moses is a type of Christ. As Moses rescued the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt Jesus rescued us from the bondage of our world’s system. As the people of Moses were baptized into Moses we are baptized into Jesus and all of us are one in Christ.
Rom 12:5 we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. NAS
The word baptize comes from “baptidzo” which literally means to “make fully wet, to dye, to dip, to plunge under or to immerse.” It’s interesting that part of this definition is “to dye” and something rich is revealed here. Looking at Psalms 22 we see an incredible revelation of Christ.
Ps 22:18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. (NIV)
Clearly this is a prophetic Scripture speaking of Jesus. Looking at verse 6 we see something fascinating.
Ps 22:6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. (KJV)
This word that translates as worm is the Hebrew word, “Towla” and refers specifically to the crimson grub worm. This is a specific worm that was protected by the king. It’s rich red blood was used to make dye for garments a color that the royal family would wear.
Interestingly when this worm was about to die it would attach itself to a tree. Its eggs would only hatch when it died so life came from its death on a tree. The worm would be scraped from the tree and crushed to make this special dye. However this was only possible for three days or the window of opportunity would be missed.
Jesus died so we could be baptized into him and into each other as part of the royal family of God.
Rom 12:4 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. (Message)
GP4RL: Reach out to somebody in the Destiny family you don’t know very well and connect further in some way. Attending a Community Group is a great way to do this.