Acts 2:42-47, 4:23-37, Romans 12:1-21, Luke 6:12-37, 46-49

The community of disciples Jesus gathered was the re-birthing of an ancient dream in the heart of the Father. God created Adam and Eve and Israel and the church and you and me to have a people for himself, to be his image in the world, to share in his passion and purposes. To have such a community lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. The church is not plan B, some kind of divine afterthought. The church was not an accident. The church that Jesus was gathering and building was the rebirthing of God’s new community, a people called to share with him for eternity in his glory and plans.

There are three great purposes of church as community:

1. Church as community is the core of a Christian’s identity.

Being part of a gospel community of believers is the essence of our identity. The question, ‘Who am I?’ is answered in community with other believers, and cannot be answered any other way.

• Xhosa proverb, “A person is a person through persons.”


• Romans 12:5 says, “We are individually members of one another.”


• Titus 2:14 says, “He offered himself as a sacrifice to free us from a dark, rebellious life into this good, pure life, making us a people he can be proud of, energetic in goodness.” The Message


• The NKJV says in Titus 2:14, “He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”


• An identity that I build for myself is different than the identity I receive by grace. We cannot earn, build, perform, or protect our way into our true identity.


• Personhood is defined in communal terms in Genesis 1 and 2, for God and for us. God’s image cannot be borne by an individual. Genesis 2:18 makes it clear that the only thing in all creation that is not good is a human being on his/her own.


• The Father is the Father because he has a son. Just as the trinity is defined as persons-in-community, so human identity is defined in relational terms. I am person, real and human and alive and good as person-in-community.


• Peter tells us we are a new community, not a tribe first, not a country first, but God’s family, church-as-community. We are strangers to the world (1Peter 2:11). The word stranger literally means “without home” or “without family” but family for each other and for those who are without home and without hope.


• We are koinonia, not just the anemic word fellowship, but deeper:
  
  
  
  • We are the community of the Holy Spirit – 2 Cor. 13:14
  
  
  • We are community with the Son – 1 Cor. 1:9
  
  
  • We are the community who shares our lives, our souls – 1 Thess. 2:8
  
  
  • We are the community who shares our property – Acts 4:32
  
  
  • We are the community who shares in the gospel together – Philippians 1:5, Philemon 6
  
  
  • We are community is shared finances – Romans 15:26, 2 Cor. 9:13
  
  
  • We are community in sharing the life and death of Jesus through communion – 1 Cor. 10:16-17
  
  
  
  

2. Church-as-community is central to our mission on the earth

Love is the language we speak in community. If we are not fluent in this language to each other we cannot speak to the world.

• We have no mission as individuals without being part of a loving missional community.


• God’s primary missionary method is His people. We are created in his image, and the purpose of an image is to represent something: we represent God as loving Father.


• We are God’s incarnation in the world, we are the continuing presence of God for the world; the meeting place between God and man.


• Our mission is not something we do as part of a schedule, something we turn on and off. Mission and evangelism takes place as they experience us loving one another.


• People are often attracted to community before they are attracted to God. It is through our love for one another. They belong before they believe.


• Belong = believe = behave. This is the gospel. There is no true belief without true community.


• Two times John says that no one has seen God. The first time is in John 1:18. He goes on to say that Jesus has made him known to us. (John 1:18). The second time John says that no one has seen God is 1 John 4:12. Listen to what he says now:

• We give love – that is what we do in community. No love = no community.

• Before we are leaders, disciples, business persons, we are lovers of each other. If we do not love, we do not truth. John 13:34-35:

3. Church-as-community is the channel for our character development.

• 1Corinthians 3:16-17 “Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 God will bring ruin upon anyone who ruins this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you Christians are that temple.”


• Acts 5 – Ananias and Sapphira lied and God struck them dead. Why? They were working against the purposes and plan of God to establish the new temple, the dwelling place of God, the church-as-God’s people-community.


• See Romans 12:5 and following: instructions for how to live the gospel together as church-as-community.

Conclusion: The three strands of evangelism