Word of Salvation – Vol.52 No.43 – November 2007
Redemptive Relationships
By Rev. John De Hoog
Text: Ephesians 4:1-6
Readings: Acts 2:42-47; Acts 4:32-35
Suggested music: BoW 447; 434
What does it mean to be a Christian community? In our celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, sometimes we read from 1 Corinthians 10:16-17. “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” Taking communion together is a sign of community. The “community” takes “communion”. In celebrating the Lord’s Supper together, one of the things we are celebrating is the fact that Jesus Christ has made us one body.
But what does it mean to be a Christian community? What would it mean for us here in South Barwon [fill in the name of your church here and below… ] to be more like a church community as the Bible presents it?
The early chapters of the Book of Acts help us to think about the kind of church community that the Holy Spirit was building in those early days of the church. Earlier we read the two descriptions of the body life of the church in Acts 2:42 47 and Acts 4:32-35. They are concrete descriptions of the kind of body life the whole Bible calls us to. What should our church life look like? What kind of community life would be magnetic to others? Acts 2 and Acts 4 give us a couple of descriptions.
The whole Bible calls us to live in this community way. To long for meaningful relationships is a fundamental human longing. This longing is part of how we are made.
Just think of who God is. God is the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit live in perfect harmony, love and unity. Here is the first and greatest community – the perfect, eternal community of the three Persons of the Trinity.
We are made in the image of this amazing Triune God! It’s no wonder, then, that a deep longing for love and intimacy runs in our very blood! We all have a basic longing for meaningful relationships with others; it’s part of how we are made.
And at the same time, we are often very careful to avoid meaningful relationships, aren’t we! A good relationship with someone else requires work, sacrifice, humility and real giving of yourself, doesn’t it!
Our society tells us to look after Number One first. And I don’t even have to tell you, you all understand, that Number One means yourself. Look after yourself first, protect yourself, keep yourself safe in all your relationships. No one else is going to look out for you, so care for yourself first. All of us avoid meaningful relationships to some extent. Relationships that go beyond the surface are messy, threatening, difficult, often boring and usually very demanding.
Simon and Garfunkel sang the theme song of our (my) generation in their song, “I am a Rock.” The second stanza goes like this:
Don’t talk of love.
But I’ve heard the words before;
It’s sleeping in my memory.
I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died,
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock.
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.
Here is the situation as it faces us. We are made in God’s image, made for community and meaningful relationships. We have a deep longing for love and intimacy. But because of sin, all of us also run away from such relationships to some extent, for we know how threatening and how damaging relationships can be to our own self-centredness, to our own agendas.
God is a redeeming God. The gospel of Jesus Christ reverses the effects of sin in our lives. And so the WHOLE BIBLE calls us into redemptive relationships with others.
I say the whole Bible, and I mean the whole Bible. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is overwhelmingly addressed to communities. The Old Testament was originally addressed to the people of Israel. The New Testament is largely addressed the local churches, or to communities of believers.
We are so prone in our day to take the Bible individualistically. We think about what a passage might me for me as an individual. And Yes, it’s true, we must do that. We must apply the Bible to ourselves as individuals. But that’s never the first purpose of most passages. The first purpose is usually to address the community of faith, the Christian church, and the first application of most passages must be to the Christian group of which we are a part.
Let me give you a rather startling example. Let’s take that very well-known verse, Romans 12:1. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” This verse is nearly always applied to Christians individualistically. In book and commentaries, one after the other, it’s applied to each of us as Christians. In view of God’s mercy – that is, because of all that Paul has said so far in the Book of Romans, because of all that God has done, so present your bodies – and here the word “bodies” is used as a shorthand way of referring to the whole person – so, present all you are as a person to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. And that’s OK as far as it goes, but it misses something very crucial.
For what Paul says to the church at Rome here is this: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Present your bodies (plural) as a living sacrifice (singular) to God. Present all that you are as individual persons corporately, as a body, to God as a living sacrifice!
In other words, if Romans was addressed to us as a church in South Barwon (which if course, it is!), then Paul is saying to us: You individual members of South Barwon, here is the way to respond to my work of grace in your life: As individuals, make yourselves into one corporate living sacrifice as a church to me!
Pause
What do you think of that? Do you find that annoying, intimidating? Surely not Lord! Surely you don’t expect me to respond to your grace in my life by working together with… (put in some names yourself) to become a living sacrifice of praise to you as a church! O Lord, I don’t mind responding to you as an individual, giving myself to you by myself. But please don’t ask me to work together with… (put in some names yourself) to become a living sacrifice!
It has massive implications, doesn’t it! It means that I actually have to obey the second great commandment! It means that I can’t just love God with all my heart and mind and strength as an individual; it means that I have to love my neighbours as myself as well!
Loving God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength – well, I can sort of conceive of doing that in a theoretical sort of way. But loving my neighbour as myself is so messy and difficult and demanding; surely you can’t expect that of me too Lord! Surely you don’t really expect me to take seriously all the hundreds of commands in the New Testament to love one another, care for one another, put one another first, comfort one another, and so on and on! Lord, surely it’s enough for me to love you! I can’t love all those others as well!
But here it is. You simply cannot obey Romans 12:1 by yourself! You simply cannot! Romans 12:1 calls you to offer everything you are as a person to God, not just by yourself, but along with all the other individual members of your local church, as a corporate, single living sacrifice that will be holy and pleasing to the Lord. You can’t do that without loving each other. You can’t do that without knowing each other. That’s what God has called us to! If you regularly take the Lord’s Supper in this church, there is a very real sense that this is what you have committed yourself to doing!
There are huge sections of the Bible that you simply cannot obey by yourself, on your own. It’s just impossible!
Pause
Where have we come so far today? First, we have seen that it is in the very nature of God to live in community – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the original, eternal and perfect community. Second, we have seen that because we are made in the image of this glorious God, we have a natural human longing for significant relationships. Third, we have seen that because of sin, we all run away from such relationships to some extent. Because of sin, they are just too difficult and too messy for us to handle. Fourth, we have seen that the redeeming God reverses the effects of sin in our lives and everywhere in the Bible God calls us to redemptive relationships with others. That call is fundamentally expressed in the second great commandment, in which we are called not only to love God with all our being but also to love each other. And we have seen that as a local church, we are being called to present ourselves as a single living sacrifice to God, holy and pleasing to him – this is our spiritual act of worship as a local church.
Now I’d like to take one more passage to take this just one step further: Ephesians 4:1-6. We need once again to see the corporate nature of this passage.
In the past we had some American friends from the Deep South who used the very useful expression “y’all.” You know: “How are y’all.” It’s great to see y’all.” In modern English, the word “you” serves for both singular and plural. I can say, “You must do the washing up” and be speaking to Joshua alone, or I can say, “You must do the washing up” and be speaking to Josh and Chris and Amie and whoever else is around. The word “You” is used in both cases. But our American friends used “y’all” to refer to more than one “you”. So, “You must do the washing up,” refers to just Josh doing it. But “Y’all must do the washing up,” refers to Josh and several others doing it.
Now read Ephesians 4:1-6 using that different expression. Ephesians 4:1-6 “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge y’all to live a life worthy of the calling y’all have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as y’all were called to one hope when y’all were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Here is a passage addressed not to individuals, but to a local church.
Consider just a couple of features of this passage. First, it is thoroughly grounded in the work of the Triune God. The word “one” is attached to each member of the Trinity. There is one Spirit who is at work in one body. There is one Lord (meaning, the Lord Jesus) through whom we have one hope, one faith and one baptism. And there is one Father, who is God of all and who is over all and through all and in all. All the blessings that this passage is talking about belong to us because of the redeeming work of the Triune God.
Secondly, Paul commands the members of the church at Ephesus to build relationships with each other that are worthy of the calling they have received. How? Vs 2 “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Just imagine for a moment what would happen if we took this verse seriously. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” He doesn’t tell them to create the unity of the Spirit; that already exists. Rather, he urges them to be vigilant to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. You are already in fellowship with God and with his people. So, because you are already in this fellowship, spare no effort to make sure that your relationships reflect the unity and love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Just as for Romans 12:1, we cannot possibly obey God’s command here on our own. God calls us into the messy, difficult and painful world of real, intimate human relationships with all the trouble and work and self-sacrifice, and joy and love and satisfaction that they imply!
This is the way God is at work today as he transforms us into the image of his Son, Jesus Christ. And we cry out, “O Lord, isn’t there an easier, more efficient way?” Couldn’t we be transformed all on our own, couldn’t you allow us to make Christian progress as individuals, separated from others and devoted only to you? The more I love others, the greater the risk that I will sin against them, or be sinned against! Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just change me on my own?”
And the Lord says, “No!” He simply will not work that way. His project for us is much larger than we can imagine or even want. His project is to transform us into the image of his Son by actually teaching us to be like his Son, learning to truly love others via the difficult and rocky road of genuine relationships with other human beings. God is not going to work in us apart from such redemptive relationships!
I think we all need to ask ourselves some questions. How much does my life now allow me to develop relationships that are deep enough to help me to grow and to change? What needs to change in your closest relationships – with your spouse, your parents, your children, your friends, others in the church, your neighbours?
Here are some common ways in which we avoid deep relationships:
You make life so busy that you have to keep relationships distant and casual just to survive.
You have suffered a great loss in your life, and you have not dealt with the hurt of that loss, so you do not allow anyone else in, for fear of being hurt again.
You keep your church involvement as a formal commitment, without really connecting with people. You are always there, but you are never really there!
You totally immerse yourself in friendships that are activity-based and don’t demand much closeness – you play sport together or eat together, but you never really connect with others.
You have adopted theology as a replacement for relationship. In other words, you pursue knowledge about God for your head rather than knowledge of God and of God’s people for your heart.
You have taken a private, independent, “just me and God” approach to life. No one can question you or challenge you, for you are committed to serving God first, and let no one dare question you about serving others in your church.
You distance yourself from others because of a particular problem in your life, and from that vantage point of distance you easily criticise the church as not caring about you. This attitude just drives you further away. It is always true that the less involved you are in church life the more critical you are of it.
Do you need to change your approach to the community life of this local church?
Do you need to let other people into your life more?
Humble community life is not the icing on the cake of a Christian life, it is the Christian life. It is the way in which God continues to transform you into the likeness of his Son. Don’t cut yourself off from God’s work in your life!
Amen