One Anothers

For the past five weeks Pastor Steve has been preaching through a great series entitled Doing Church Together. Yesterday's message, Wise is the Connected Christian, Part 3, was fantastic. You can click here to hear it.

The core of the message was that the church is to be made up of contributors not consumers. In light of my recent post Consumerism And The Church I thought it appropriate to post some thoughts from the message.

God desires to show Himself to the world through the Church. In all our imperfections He desires to reveal His presence through us. He could do it a lot better Himself, but instead prefers that we do it. C.S. Lewis was quoted saying, God "seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye." There are two ways that the task of revealing God's presence is accomplished ... love and unity.

In a consumer based church this task is not possible. The Church must not be made up of consumers but rather contributors. Throughout the New Testament we find a number of "One Another" statements all pointing to the fact that we as God's people must be focused not on ourselves (consumer) but rather focused on one another (contributor). Here are a few:

• Accept one another. (Rom. 15:7)
• Instruct one another. (Rom. 15:14)
• Serve one another in love. (Gal. 5:13)
• Carry each other's burdens. (Gal 6:2)
• Be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Eph. 4:2)
• Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph. 5:21)
• In humility consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)
• Spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Heb. 10:24)
• Do not slander one another. (James 4:11)
• Don't grumble against each other. (James 5:9)
• Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. (1 Peter 5:5)
• Comfort one another. (1 Thess 4:18)
• Forgive one another. (Col. 3:13)
• Meet with one another. (Heb. 10:25)
• Minister one to another. (1 Peter 4:10)
• Be at peace with each other. (Rom. 12:10)
• Honor one another above yourselves. (Rom. 12:10)

May this be what the world sees. May His presence be clearly seen through us, His imperfect Church.