Life Together 4 - On Mission together with Jesus

Life Together 4 - On Mission together with Jesus  

Giles Fouhy

1 John 4:12-16

We're thinking about church; about the Christian community.

Community, real relationships - to know and be known, to love and be loved is something we all long for. It’s inherent to our humanity.  The God in whose image we are all created is in himself a community of loving relationships. The glorious Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

When humanity fell out of relationship with this God - we also lost one another. Community is fractured at every level of existence. 

So.. part of God’s salvation through Jesus Christ, his restoration of humanity back to the image of our creator is to bring us back into true community together, Christ is our peace.  And the beginnings of that - the full realisation will only be seen when Jesus returns to establish his kingdom - but the beginnings, the first fruits is the Christian church. 

So  

Church is not a human institution. It’s not an optional extra that you can tick or leave when you become a Christian.  As if being a Christian is just about my personal relationship with Jesus which occasional church attendance may or may not resource. No, becoming a Christian means being incorporated into Christ’s body - the church. Becoming part of the new humanity. 

Furthermore It is for the sake of the watching world outside that the church exists

The church at its heart has a missionary dynamic. That’s what we’re thinking about today. 

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury during the second world war said that,  ‘The church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not yet members.’ 

Jesus’ last words on earth to his disciples, his church before he returned to his Father were things like:  John 20:21 ‘As the Father sent me now I am sending you’

Matthew 28:19 Go… and make disciples of all nations’ 

So right at the heart of what it means to be the church is the idea of mission..  The church takes the message of Jesus to the world. 

Now of course there is a big problem in our contemporary global culture with mission or, as it’s sometimes called evangelism - which comes from the greek for the word gospel- ‘evangel’. 

Mission is a taboo practice. It’s fine for you to believe what you want but other people are fine believing what they want and to try and persuade them that you are right and they are wrong is not acceptable. it’s the kind of superiority and arrogance that leads to the conflict in our world. Why would you want to abuse people like that? Keep it to yourself. 

So what do we do? If Mission is at the heart of who we are? Struggle with dread on the one hand guilt on the other? 

Well i think we can deal with some of those of that dread, some of that fear by thinking about the gospel again, thinking about our cuture’s voice and whether it’s right and by thinking about what it means for the church to be sent on mission together with Jesus. Mission as a community project. 

Lets start with the gospel the message that we share and live out because sometimes we forget, we forget what God has done. 

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

In the news a few Christmasses ago, some extraordinary footage emerged of the rescue of a man who was stranded at the bottom of the Atlantic in an upturned boat. Harrison Okene, was in the tugboat off the Nigerian coast when it capsized and sank. The rest of the crew drowned but he managed to find an air pocket in the boat’s hull - where he stayed, semi submerged in pitch darkness, sipping on a bottle of coke for sustenance and praying for a miracle. 

3 days later, divers arrived at the scene to search for the bodies. One was carrying a camera. In the footage, a hand can be seen suddenly emerging in the darkness. Assuming it to be attached to a corpse the diver reaches out to grab the limb, only for it to grab him back. Both the diver and those watching on a screen on the surface can then be heard screaming in shock, which turns to excitement when they realise they have found a survivor. 

“The rest of my life is not enough to thank God for this wonder” so said Harrison Okene - hours after his rescue. 

It’s a wonderful story of rescue, survival, relief. Light breaking into darkness and despair. But that story is only a snapshot…a tiny metaphor for the REALITY of the salvation of God that we have received if we are Christians. 

Humanity turned away from God into spiritual dakness, rejecting His life and glory - the valley of the shadow of death.  In a place of great danger - invoking the express train justice of a holy God. 

And God who is rich in mercy came himself - the one we had irretrievably offended - and he put on flesh and bone to rescue us - Jesus. To sacrifice his innocent life. To take our place in front of the express train of God’s justice - to in himself absorb it’s full and mighty blow. That we might live through him. Forgiven forever. THIS IS LOVE. The love of God for his world. A love to be received. It’s not forced upon anyone. A love who is a person, a saviour - JESUS. 

“The rest of my life is not enough to thank God for this wonder”

Sometimes we forget the wonder. You were dead and God has made you alive. Transferred from the dominion of darkness into the Kingdom of his Son. You were outside and now you are home. 

Sometimes these realities don’t drive our hearts and our love and our joy like they could. we need to pray and remind each other..  And we need to step out Philemon 6 

The love of Jesus compels us to go to people because they are loved and they don’t even know it.  Because they are in danger but Jesus has come. 

The problem with Churches deciding that they won’t do evangelism for fear or being accused of offence. The problem with that is that Jesus is not just for us. God’s love, his salvation is not just for us.  The gospel is not good advice that you can take or leave. It’s Good News 

The word gospel - evangelion was in existence long before the NT. For example, when the Athenian army, against all odds, defeated the mighty Persian forces at the battle of Marathon in 490BC a runner was sent immediately to announce the victory inorder to quell the panic, the suicides in Athens. That very first Marathon proclaimed literally the Gospel before he dropped down dead!  ;

The Christian message is Gospel. A News announcement that needs to be heard.  News of great joy for all people; News that changes everything. 

There’s a probem with us deciding to be silent

But there’s also a big problem from our secular culture’s side telling Christians it’s ok to believe in Jesus but you shouldn’t try to convert anyone; you shouldn’t claim that you have the truth. 

Because when a culture says that what they’re really saying is YOU christians have to abandon your view of the universe (that Jesus is God) in favour of our view of the universe (That he is not). And i want to say, OK but how is that any less narrow than me saying to you I want to persuade you to abandon your view of the universe in favour of mine! 

The point is we all have our exclusive convictions. everyone is proselytising for their view of the universe.

We as a culture are rightly trying to deal with the superiority, the anger, the violence, the disunity that absolute religious truth claims can create. But The solution of saying ‘everyone can believe what they want to believe but no-one is allowed to claim they have the truth and seek to persuade others’ - is itself an exclusive truth claim.  It is ONE view of the universe that trumps and silences all others - doing exactly that which it seeks to outlaw.  And that at best is disingenuous at worst it is dishonest - and it doesn’t work.  To silence people from talking just drives us further apart. 

But this brings us to the question of How?

How do we share the gospel with people in a culture where it’s taboo to seek to convert others ideas? How do you even engage where there is such suspicion and apathy? 

two things i’m gonna say now 

Mission as a whole life thing 

and Mission as a whole church thing 

one little aside - don’t assume there is always just apathy and suspicion. I’ve been amazed by Matt and Janita doing second saturday and often the willingness of people to talk about spiritual things and even be prayed for on the street. You see God is at work he supremely is the great evangelist and we are called to get involved to seek to be sensitive to God the Holy Spirit. 

but anyway 

Mission as a whole life thing 

What comes to mind when you think about missionaries? The past and starchy englishmen travelling to Africa and India or the Jesuits in the amazon rain forest. Giving their lives. Or perhaps you think of contemporary missionaries. We pray for a family who were part of our church here in Hackney - The Aylings who felt called to go to Japan - and they were selected and trained and commissioned and now they are full time missionaries in Sapporo.  Learning the language and culture, immeresed, making friends - Taking the gospel to an alien culture. Very exciting and challenging. 

But here’s the thing. Sentness, Mission, evangelism is at the heart of what it means to be church. Why does the church exist? To worship God but at the heart of worship is making God known, his fame his deeds, sharing his love and calling the nations to worship Him. 

The church doesn’t exist and occasionallly we do some evangelism. The church is a community of the SENT. We don’t do mission. We are missionaries.Learning the language and culture, immersed making friends. Bringing the alien message of Jesus to the community in which we find ourselves.

We need to reclaim this central part or our identity, our purpose together. 

It’s so utterly differnt to the reigning worldview that biological life is just here by accident you’re not here for any purpose. Heidigger called it ‘thrownness’ You’ve just been thrown into the world. There’s no meaning, no purpose, no point. 

But Jesus says no, not thrownness but sentness is the mark of your life 

i send you everyone has a mission.  

Perhaps you’re bored in your job and in life, a bit aimless. Perhaps you’re frustrated because you always wanted to do something for God. Perhaps you wanted to be a missionary. You read biographies of missionary courage and adventure. Well get this. YOU ARE A MISSIONARY.  We all are. Here’s the mission team for Dalston. Let’s get on with it. 

Just like the Aylings sent to Japan. You and I - sent to London. On Mission. Primary identity 

And if we take that to heart how will that affect our lives?

How will it affect our prayers? for each others’ workplaces and colleagues and book clubs? do we need up together at lunchtimes if we work near each other? do we attend each others book clubs?

How will it affect the way we use our money? our giving?

The way we use our time? Are you too busy with the practicalities of your life, your job to think about people? Have you forgotten what you were sent here for?

How will our missionary identity affect the way we make decisions about our jobs? about our future? about our children? presumably we make those decisions with lots of advice and prayer from one another??

I was talking to my 9 year old Zac about this aspect of the sermon while he was playing Roblox on my laptop.  And i told him that He was a missionary to Queensbridge Primary school to which he answered, “Then I don’t do my job good.” I said, well people know you’re a christian and you invite your friends to church and to TRU. ..How can your parents and your church help you to do your job better?”

“Teach me what to say to people” 

“OK .. and we could pray for you?”

“Yeah” he said 

how do we communicate the alien message of Jesus to people. It was Leslie Newbigin who was a missionary in India in the early 20th C and who thought and wrote loads about mission who said that the the Church is the explanantion of the gospel - the bridge of understanding to our culture. 

This is why - second point. Mission is a 

Whole church thing

Talking to friends about concepts like sin, judgement, salvation, resurrection can just feel very difficult - so weird, such a gear change.  Perhaps we have spoken to our friends and they’re just not interested. We want people to know Jesus and what he has done but where do we go to try and make connection. 

Here’s a suggestion. Start with church. People understand concepts of friendship, support,, love, challenges of forgiveness, reconciliation. Community - to truly know and be known, love and be loved is what we all long for. So start with church. Tell people what you did this weekend. Cos there’s nothing like the church when it’s working right 

When our kids were small and at nursery or reception at school we invited some of their little friends over for a Chrismas dinner. One couple - it was the first time they had been out in a year! another couple - the first time since their kids were born! because baby sitters - you can’t get them, and you don’t know if you can trust em, and it’s such an expensive night out! Fiona and I rather embarassedly told them that we’d been going out quite alot. Because we were part of a church where people we love and who love us and our kids want to and offer to come and be with our kids for FREE!! These other parents couldn’t believe this. Tell us about your church they said.

I remember a good friend of mine telling his colleagues on a monday morning that 15 different people from his church had been round through the weekend and helped him completely redecorate the council flat he had just bought and moved into saving him thousands of pound or hours of work. They couldn’t believe it. tell us about your church. 

Even if you can never bring friends or work colleagues who live in the depths of surrey to meet your church family you can tell them.  And describing this community of different persons united by love could open a doorway…

It’s great if you can invite your friends to meet your church. 

In fact it’s good to maybe have a slightky different perspective of what evanglism could be. Rather than thinking how can i convert my friends, think of it this way, we want to extend our family how can we welcome people into that?

Jodi was telling me about getting invited to Joel Palmer’s 8th birthday last sunday. Taking Zoe, hanging out with parents of Joel’s school friends. It reminded me that Pete is always first person on my son Zac’s birthday party invite list. We are family. We love each other like brothers and sisters abd love our neighbours like they are the lost children of God. 

One of my greatest joys is a Saint Barnabas’ wedding. And not just because we tear up the dance floor and welcome new friends into the party. But because friends and family of the bride and groom say to me. “Your church people are amazing: the welcome, the friendliness, the musicians, the flower arrangers, the people who cleaned the church and decorated the garden and made a thousand cucumber sandwiches” and i say thanks ‘and did you like my sermon?” 

whether it’s a wedding, or our carol service and kids party, or the arts festival and 5th birthday we did here involving performances by all our friends who create music or theatre here. these are amazing examples of mission as a community project. all the different parts of the body, different gifts and strengths working together. one person who designs invites, another who moves chairs and get’s things ready, another who’s an inviter and welcomer, another who makes music, another who’s a delightful encourager, another who cracks ridiculous jokes, another who explains things really well..  We need each other, We work together.. 

And it is as we are seen to love one another - a community of different persons united in love that the true community of different persons united in love - God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is SEEN 

1 John 4v12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Life together 3 - No more secrets

Life Together 3 - No more secrets

Giles Fouhy

1 John 1:5-10

No more secrets 

in our community. in our church 

by which i mean: NOT that everyone knows your deepest secret but SOMEONE does. 

No more secrets among us

What is it that no one else knows about you?

Maybe there are details of your life that you would hate to be disclosed. The idea fills you with dread, with terror. A decision you wish you’d never made; an event you want to forget, a pattern of behaviour that you can’t shake. Maybe it’s not something you did but something done to you. Perhaps you wrestle with tormenting thoughts and feelings that you are convinced no one will understand. 

Secrets. We all have them. Human nature seems wired to withhold and tuck away areas of our lives we deem undesirable. The best option seems to be keeping our secrets in check and out of sight. 

We dare not come into the light to show who we truly are because we fear shame and we fear rejection. 

But there’s great danger in keeping secrets hidden. Secrets have the power to hurt everyone you know and love. 

Brené Brown is a straight talking social scientist from Texas who had a breakdown and who’s TED talk ‘the power of vulnerability’ went viral. It’s been watched 33 million times.

She describes Shame as ‘the swampland of the soul’

The warm wash of shame is something we all know. Those who feel no shame have no capacity for empathy or connection. But that doesn’t mean that shame is a good thing. 

Shame runs two tapes on loop in our heads ‘You’re never good enough’ and ‘who do you think you are?’ 

Shame is not the same as guilt, says Brené Brown 

Whereas Guilt is a focus on behaviour 

Shame is a focus on the self 

Guilt says I did something bad 

Shame says I am bad 

Guilt says ‘I’m sorry i made a mistake’ 

Shame says ‘I’m sorry, I AM a mistake’ 

Shame is highly correlated with addiction depression, violence, aggression, bullying, eating disorders, suicide. Whereas Guilt is inversely correlated to those things.

This is very biblical stuff from someone who wasn’t a christian when she gave that talk. 

guilt is good - leads us to forgiveness and life. 

shame paralyses us. 

And shame only needs 3 things to grow. Secrecy, Silence and judgement. 

No wonder shame is an epidemic in our super-judgemental, PC, witch hunt culture. 

And the church with its expectations of good behaviour and sorted lives can all to often be tragically judgemental also: 

Listen to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his classic book Life Together:

“the pious church permits no one to be a sinner. Hence all have to conceal their sins from themselves and from the community. We are not allowed to be sinners. Many Christians would be unimaginably horrified if a real sinner were suddenly to turn up among the pious. So we remain alone with our sin, trapped in lies and hypocrisy, when we are in fact sinners!”

Secrets and shame.

we keep our secrets, they end up keeping us.  

Keeping us isolated and alone. 

Isolated from others. Parts of us unavailable - a piece of my heart walled up and you can’t come in. 

Isolated from God. If your highest motivation is to protect a secret you’re not gonna choose to put yourself in a relationship with God who knows all

and Isolated from ourselves. ‘keep our secrets long enough and we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are as little by little we come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in the hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the REAL thing.’ 

Sin and Shame grows in the darkness. Already affecting things far more than we care to admit. But secrets also have a horrible way of bursting into the open creating mess and harm. It’s a bit like when you’re in the swimming pool with a beach ball and you try and keep it under your body under the water and it’s difficult and any moment it moves around the side of your body and bursts the surface of the water. So Secrets have the power to hurt everyone you know and love. 

No more secrets 

God does not want us to live burdened in fear, hiding, pretending, lacking assurance, in the darkness. 

God wants us to live in freedom. in fellowship with others, known for who we are struggles and all, assured and loved. In the light… with the hope of change. 

But how? 

The path to freedom begins with an act. the act of confession. 

firstly confession to God.

1 John 1:8-9 “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess ours sins God is faithful and just and will forgives us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness…”

Relationship with God never ever has been about us having to have it all together before we can come to him! 

The people who God engages with and uses in the Bible are sinful, selfish, broken people. Why? because these are the only kinds of people there are! People like you and me. All of us are broken. We all have issues and struggles and baggage. If we could have cleaned up our act would God have sent his son to die for us? He knows what we are! he loves us as we are. So stop hiding from God! 

Start living raw and real, brutally honest before God. Confess to him your sin. Pour out your true self to God. 

We’re often tempted to simply give an excuse or to offer to God a justification or explanation of our motives and intent. Now of course there may well be reasons; brokenness behind the sins that we commit that God wants to heal in us - we’ll come to that. But there’s a danger that we use these as excuses to minimise the importance of the sin we’re confessing. Don’t do that. Be raw and real. be like David in Psalm 51. Chastened by the discovery of his secret adultery and unlawful killing he doesn’t just resolve to change. (He probably knows that he can’t). He repents to change. He doesn’t deflect, minimise or rationalise. He calls himself a sinner and evil and admits his inability to fix the problem. Brutal honesty before God. Speak what you’ve done. It makes it real. Pour out your heart. he wants you to receive his forgiveness. 

Confession to God …is the key but it’s only the beginning. 

the second crucial step is to confess to someone else. 

be raw and real, specific, hide nothing, face to face with another. 

that sounds hard doesn’t it? excruciating? No way. They’d be so disappointed. They’d reject me. They’d never understand. … You think? We’re all sinners. None of us are sorted. We’re to love one another. 

some people say - you don’t need to confess to others as long as God knows.. He forgives!

But James 5v16 says, the Bible says..

‘confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.’

you cannot heal without this…

confess your sins to one another

It’s not confessing your sins to a priest - it’s any christian can hear and pray 

Neither is this open confession - it’s a trusted person, an other.

It’s not imply your sins - it’s confess your real. Be specific. Raw and real.The other person can’t read your mind..

It might feel excruciatingly embarassing but look at the result … that you may be healed..

‘you’ individually and ‘you’ as a community - healed …as you confess your sins to one another. We need to be healed. 

why is confession to another so powerful in healing the individual and the community? 

2 answers (there’s undoubtedly more): 

because Confession to another brings assurance 

and because confession to another exposes sin. 

Confession to another brings assurance of forgiveness. Listen again to Dietrich Bonhoeffer from life together:

“Why is it often easier for us to acknowledge our sins before God than before another believer? God is holy and without sin, a just judge of evil, and an enemy of all disobedience. But another Christian is sinful, as are we, knowing from personal experience the night of secret sin. Should we not find it easier to go to one another than to the holy God? But if that is not the case, we must ask ourselves whether we often have not been deluding ourselves about our confession of sin to God – whether we have not instead been confessing our sins to ourselves and also forgiving ourselves. And is not the reason for our innumerable relapses and for the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living from self-forgiveness and not from the real forgiveness of our sins? Self-forgiveness can never lead to the break with sin. This can only be accomplished by God’s own judging and pardoning Word. Who can give us the assurance that we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins? God gives us this assurance through one another.’ 

Confession to a wise and compassionate friend brings the powerful healing assurance of God’s forgiveness.  

And second confession to a wise and compassionate friend exposes sin. Bonhoeffer again:

‘Sin wants to be alone with people. It takes them away from the community. The more lonely people become, the more destructive the power of sin over them. …Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of what is left unsaid sin poisons the whole being of a person … In confession the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and closed isolation of the heart. All that is secret and hidden comes to light.’ 

Confession disempowers shaming sin… Brene Brown says “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.” We’re sudddenly on the journey towards real healing. Sin is not going to keep us away from the community in doubt and despair. No. “If we walk in the light as God is in the light we have fellowship with one another (we’re brought back in to community) and the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin (assurance of forgiveness)”

Do you see how important this is? Don’t deny yourself this grace out of fear. Don’t pretend that confession to God is enough. Don’t listen to the lies of shame. You can come out of darkness into light. The world won’t end. On the contrary if you own up to your struggles you will be loved as you are. I assure you. If anyone judges you.. they are wrong. Someone you confess to might not have the resources to help you, their struggles might be too great but they can tell you that you are forgiven and loved. 

Before I talk about how to choose someone to confess to. Let me say a little bit about the journey of healing. 

It would be nice to say that as soon as you’ve confessed honestly to God and confessed honestly to another you will never have a problem with that particular sin anymore - healed! 

But that’s not going to be the case. 

What is the case is that confession starts you on a journey towards freedom in which confession and being prayed for will continue to play a part. 

Confession brings secretive sin out into the open - makes it real and out there but disempowers its shame so that by God’s grace and in his way and with the help of others you can begin to unpack the baggage that lies beneath your secret sin: your addiction, your destructive thought patterns, your relational difficulties. We’ve all got baggage. Some of us have been dragging around a Transit Van load of the stuff for years. Baggage from your relationships with parents and siblings and peers. Stuff you’ve said and done; Stuff said and done to you. Stuff that should have been said and done for you but never was. Baggage. Baggage that Jesus died for on the cross and now he wants to relieve you of. To exchange beauty for your ashes, joy for your mourning, honour for your shame. 

Uncomfortable as it is to revisit painful things He wants us on the journey of unpacking our stuff that he might heal us. 

Some of us are already on that journey and we need to continue. We might need bible and prayer in a small group of honest friends, maybe a refresher conference. Don’t give up..

Some of us haven’t started on the journey and we need to begin. That might mean reading a practical book in this area with a trusted trio of friends. It might mean seeing a counsellor - a professional baggage unpacker. I’ve had plenty of counselling and found it helpful in beginning my journey. 

Let me point you to one organisation that I am full of praise for. Journey UK. I am currently half way through their 6 month course called Journey of Grace. It’s Monday nights and a few Saturdays. You hear a short powerful talk and then in small groups (and they ensure that you’re in groups with no one that you know) you don’t pray for others..you’re there for yourself..you’re given time to pour out your heart brutally honestly to God and the two group leaders sit on either side listening, bringing assurance of forgiveness, occasionally asking a question or sharing an insight, or a bit of the bible, or putting a hand on your shoulder, blessing God’s work in you.

Journey UK has a 'taste and see' day in March - details on this postcard - and they run one off days and retreats and one to one services. They are gold dust. 

The reason why I think kick-starting your healing journey with an outside organisation is helpful is that the people are so experienced in running these courses. AND you’re not then placing the burden of accountability and healing work on your close friends who you have chosen to confess to and asked to pray for you. 

When you do the Journey of Grace course they won’t let you get away with just confessing to strangers. You find 3 friends - preferably local so you see them regularly - who you can confess to and ask them to be praying for you. You tell them your baggage and your progress. That’s where freedom really comes … being known, being loved and supported.

They’re not there for accountabilty or to fix you. I actually have a bit of a problem with accountability because it tends to focus on behaviour successes and failures rather than direction of the heart. What you need is to find wise and pastorally hearted friends to give you assurance of forgiveness when you confess and who just pray for what God is doing in your life. 

We’re all different and we need different things on our healing journey. But we all need honesty and support. No more secrets. I hope you know you can talk to me, no judgements. just love. Look around and you will find people to talk to.

And let me end with this. If you don’t feel that you can share your secret at the moment - that’s ok. You still belong. This is God’s work and God’s timing and we can’t do it without his help. You’re not forced to do anything. God will never let go of you. But maybe this is the time for us as a church and you’ll be able to step out in courage.

What’s the stuff that you’ve never told a soul? Maybe writing it down is the first step for you. Put your secret on paper. Expose it to the air, and get it out of the confines of your heart. 

This tiny spark of courage will smoulder and spark into reality when you tell that stuff to another. 

No more secrets …freedom is coming 

Life Together 2 - Speaking the truth in love

Life Together 2 - Speaking the truth in Love

Giles Fouhy

Ephesians 4:1-16

A small boy was at church with his dad and asked, "Dad what are those names carved into the walls?”

“That’s a list of names of people who died in the services,” his Father answered. 

The boy’s eyes widened. “The morning or the evening services?”

We’ve been talking about the centrality in the plans of God of this peculiar thing called church!

The church is the beginnings of God’s New world. Humanity restored in his image.

It’s the community that all people are made for!! Come to church!

Here’s the story we told last week:

God the Trinity.. God who is in himself the perfect community of persons united in love -Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 3in1

Creates humanity in his image - that is, to be in community. Relationships are at the heart of what it means to be human. 

That community is lost and broken when humanity breaks contact with God 

But is now being restored again by Jesus Christ IN THE CHURCH 

[BBC 1 - interludes before each programme. Playing on the idea of oneness. By showing little communities of people - fell runners from Derbyshire or kayakkers from Worcestershire]

But the church is different. We’re not an interest group or a social club. We didn’t choose each other. God arranges the parts in the body as he sees fit. The church is that part of humanity NOW being restored in the image of God - a community of different persons united in love! 

Look at the church and even through its human imperfections you should be able to  glimpse God himself! 

Now, when we hear this vision for church some of us are daunted and some of us are frustrated. Some of us think - where on earth do i find the extra time and energy in my already hectic busy life to become part of church??  Even if i recognise - as i was trying to say last week - that church isn’t just another activity i’m juggling but THE community that supports all the other activities of my life .. that doesn’t make it any easier! I’m daunted. 

Others of us have tried getting involved but we’re frustrated.. our vision of what church should be has not been realised. 

Well here’s the thing and it’s really important. Our passage tells us in vv4-6 that God has ALREADY laid the perfect foundation for our fellowship. He HAS bound us together in Jesus Christ. So, our common life isn’t something that we have to strive to get in on or strive to create. It is rather a gift for us to receive with thankfulness.  

Listen to Dietrich Bonhoeffer - the german theologian who opposed Hitler - in his classic little book Life together as he reflects on this: 

‘Christian community is not an ideal which we must realise it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.’ 

Christian community exists and we belong. So here’s Bonhoeffer’s warning: 

"He who loves his DREAM of a christian community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial."

That’s so important. Whenever you feel frustrated. Watch out that you’re not loving your dream of church of what church could be at the expense of the church that is.

Our first calling is to just love each other. We don’t create the community we receive it and as we receive it and love one another - we grow.. 

And that brings me to what i want to focus on this afternoon. I want to spend our time today not doing a detailed study of this passage but by focussing on one verse and one idea. v15 “speaking the truth in love..…” I want to think about our speech life in the church. How we use words. 

words are powerful things. 

the tongue, says the apostle James (James 3) - such a small part of our bodies can set a world on fire!

Words are powerful. 

I remember driving home from a day and night at Latitude festival with Dan Sayer early on a sunday morning and i’d had my fill of thrsah guitar and industrial techno ao I was listening to morning worship from Oundle school chapel. Celebrating a festival of music. The chaplain was speaking about the power of music as against the power of words. One interesting thing that struck me is he said that unlike the more ephemeral nature of music words ‘concretise things’. when we receive words we file them, retain them, they go onto ‘the bookshelf of our lives.’ Words are powerful. 

God speaks words and the world comes into existence - Genesis 1 

We’re not God but made in his image our words to have the ability to create new realities

for example 

--what is a self image made out of? your regard for yourself which shapes the rest of your life? - is it not words? isnt your self image he accumulation of all the verdicts made about you by parents and teachers and colleagues and friends over the years..

So say to a child ‘you’re stupid’ and that word goes in and it affects things like a toxic chemical poisons soil. You know it does. Words have Power.

So -- words make or break community. 

at a macro level if you fundamentally cannot trust the words of your government, or news media, then there is no community, there is no society. 

at a micro level. you have a relationship with someone but you lie to them. the person doesn’t know… but already there’s a distance. You know you’ve got to watch what you say now. There’s a barrier between you.. established by words..

if you’re critical, or harsh… angry words… or an accusation of something … gossip.. grumbling can all do so much damage to community.. breaking trust …words have power.

‘life and death is in the power of the tongue’ says the book of proverbs. 

Just as words can damage, for the same reason, world can also heal.. build, strengthen, and transform.. 

"Speaking the truth in love we will in all things grow up into him." (Ephesians 4:15) 

So Let’s think about what this means - speaking the truth in love - by looking at two areas Rebuke and encouragement. 

1. Rebuke  

‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend’ Says Proverbs 27

The New Testament says that we are to rebuke, admonish, correct one another. (Matt 18:15, Romans 15:14; Colossians 3:16; 2 Thess 3:15) And always this is to be done with wisdom, with gentleness, in love. 

When i do marriage preparation.. when we’re talking about conflict and resolving conflict we talk about two types of people/responses - shaped by our own family backgrounds and personaility. The rhino - who leaps into an argument; loves a bit of conflict; loves a fight. At the opposite extreme is the hedgehog - the passive aggressive who when hurt curls up in a ball, extends his or her prickles and applies the silent treatment. Suffice to say, neither extreme is good. 

The rhino is a nightmare. Destroys community. Words harm. Trust is destroyed. 

But the hedgehog is equally dangerous. Culturally we are hedgehogs. Our culture is marked by tolerance. You don’t disagree. You don’t point out someone elses faults. Don’t cause a drama.. It’s impolite. But what are you really doing when you never rebuke another? Well, because you’re afraid - You just leave the offending person to it. You don’t want any more conflict. You nurse the hurt they’ve caused you.. You care just about yourself. 

Hebrews 12v15 says this “See that no-one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled.”In the Christian community. For the sake of all. When we are offended by one anothers’ sin. We are to speak the truth in love. For the sake of the person who has offended. But also for our own sake. Because bitterness grows and poisons the community.. 

For many of us hedgehogs that will be really reallly difficult. But we must grow in this..

For those of us who are towards the rhino end of the spectrum - speaking the truth can be too easy. ‘It’s loving to tell the truth,’ we say ‘It’s my duty’and we launch in. But actually, just like the cowardly hedgehog, it might be that the only thing we’re loving is ourselves..

Proverbs 25v15 says ‘a gentle tongue can break a bone’

what’s it mean? It means, i think, this: Truth, while so essential, is almost always not easy to hear. And gentle words are most able to break through that resistance. To break through our pride and fear. If you’re trying to tell a person something that they don’t want to hear, that they might find difficult and painful. If you are in any way harsh, or hasty, - ‘It’s loving to tell the truth, it’s my duty’ - you’ll just be enhancing their resistance to the truth.. you’ll just get their back up.  

which could mean that you’re not really not really on the sude of truth at all. Truth didn’t win, you just covered yourself by doing your duty and ended up hurting someone.

Admonish one another with gentleness AND WISDOM  

Prayerful wisdom to know when to speak, how to speak 

The only way to speak truth in a way that can break down a person’s resistance is to be kind, gentle, humble, timely, show the utmost respect. Because when you’re on the receiving end.. when you hear someone telling you something you don’t want to hear - you want to dislike them because you want to dismiss them. But when a person loves you, is gracious and humble … it breaks down your resistance. It actually strengthens the relationship… ‘a gentle tongue can break a bone’

words that never speak the truth for fear of hurting or offending are not committed to love. 

But unloving truthful words are not actually committed to truth. 

Only when your words are truthful and loving at the same time is your tongue life giving.. 

Are we prayerful and loving .. in a fit place to rebuke others?

AND

Do we regularly give those who know us a green light to rebuke us because we need that? Can we take that? what will help us grow in maturity in this area..?

the answer is our second area of gospel speech 

2. encouragement 

We are St Barnabas church.  Barnabas isn the Book of Acts, co worker of Paul, co author. Acts 4 gives a Big Gift of money to the work of the church. Acts 9 Conversion of Paul - trusts him - brought to disciples. first gentile Christians - Antioch - Encouragement 

His name that he was given Barnabas, (he was orginally called Joseph) means son of encouragement. 

encouragement - wonderful to be st barnabas

see.  that phrase -  speaking the truth in love - is first and foremost not about rebuke but about encouragement. speaking the truth of the gospel, of christ to one another. is the most loving thing we can do. 

see it in the context. Earlier in the passage in v11 Paul talks about the gifts in the church that equip the church for works of service and they are gifts of communicating the gospel. the church is built up in love and maturity as the gospel message about what God has done in Jesus, the glory of Jesus and who we are in him is heard and received and celebrated.  And that is something that all Christians are to be involved in. Speaking the truth in love to one another… 

Words are powerful. 

So many false and unloving words create in us our broken sense of self. Dictate our outlook and behaviour. But the gospel - that we are loved from eternity, that in Christ we are forgiven and not just forgiven we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness. we are the delight of the father. These realities must be proclaimed and heard and affirmed and received. 

Whatever your earthly father or mother said to you…

What ever you think about yourself 

This is what God, your heavenly Father says.. The only one whose opinion really matters … let this word go deep into your soul.. let this word become the foundation of your self image, let this word fill your heart.. God says, You are my child.. whatever happens, whatever has happened .. You are my child.. I love you… I’m pleased with you. You are mine. 

when these realities grip your heart - you and i are so much more able to receive living rebuke - welcome it bring it on.. and as we look at one another our dear brothers and sisters we are far more likely to offer rebuke wisely and gently in love.. 

how do we speak to one another in all kinds of different ways?

we need each other.  Speaking of this Bonhoeffer writes ‘The Christ in our own hearts is weaker than the Christ in the word of our brother or sister.’

we need words from outside. i need your encouragement. 

Hackney Half Marathon. - clapping as hundreds of runners went by.  such a joy to spot people you  know! Alessio from football and Ms Perry from school and Jo and Jonny and Sarah. It’s moving to be a part of spurring them on. One of the images given to the spiritual life of the Christian is the race.. the marathon, the long distance slog of faithfulness to Christ. Fighting the desire to give up, to turn off, to stop.  We need encouragement constantly that it’s more than worth it.  we need the word of christ .. To keep going, keep trusting, keep rejoicing! 

We need one another. We have been given one another. 

v15, “…”

Life Together 1 - Belonging to one another

Life Together 1

Giles Fouhy

John 17:20-26

4weeks think about the subject of Christian community; Church. 

Here’s a radical conviction: 

That it is inside the church that is found THE community that we were all made for and that we all long for.  All people

Does church matter? Does church have a future?

it is inside the church that is found THE community that we were all made for and that we all long for. The church is where it’s at. It is the showhome of the New Creation!!! It is the trailer for the main event!!!

—

I’ve always been struck by a couple of little quotes about community 

The first is a definition .. I don’t know who it’s attributed to: community is ‘the place where the person you least want to live with always lives’ 

The second is similar - from the RC novelist GK Chesterton: 

‘the man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world, the reason is obvious in a large community we can chose our companions, in a small community our companions are chosen for us’ 

We live in a consumer culture where it’s all about choice and it’s all what i want and what serves me best. But could it be that True community that we were made for, that we deeply need is where the person you least want to live with lives, where your companions are chosen for you - less an interest group more a family ..

That is what the Christian church is .. It is God’s gift to us, through Christ for the sake of human flourishing .. for the sake of the world.. 

 ———

Let’s start at the beginning of community. 

one of the great revelations of the Christian faith is that the eternal creator is not a lonely solitary being but a community of different persons united in love. 

3 persons to be exact who find their identity in their relationship with the other - God the Father, God the Son in the unity of God the Holy Spirit. This, claims Scripture, is the true God - God as he is - 3 persons  1 God.  Trinity. 

We can see something of the depth of this loving tri-unity in the passage we had read for us. John 17. 3 times, as he prays, Jesus refers to his Father’s love for him.  A love, v24, that predates the creation of the world. 

In mysterious language Jesus speaks about how he and the father mutually indwell one another v21.. So close is their relationship! 

In one sense the Trinity, of course, defies the dimensions of our human understanding, but what we can see and sense gives us deep insights into the nature of God.. That God is not some static lonely being; God is not even a person – he’s more personal than that … he is a dynamic, pulsating activity; he is a life, a drama. CS Lewis described God as a kind of dance. Because he saw in scripture that at the heart of God was this living relationship between the Father and the Son and so real was their bond of love that it too was a person - the Holy Spirit. ‘God is love’ says the Bible.  The Trinity. 3 in one. A circle of glory, a dance of life.. 

A community of different persons united in love from all eternity.. 

Now move the story on and listen to what God says when he comes to create humanity.  Genesis 1v26 

God said .. Let us (notice the plurality of God) make humanity in our image in our likeness,                                             

 … So God created man in his own image,                                                                                                                         in the image of God he created him;                                                                                                                                 male and female he created them. 

God is in himself both many and one; a community of different persons united in love and it is in this likeness that human beings are made, NOT to be persons alone, persons who, as we are alone, reflect God’s likeness, but persons in community who as we are together reflect God’s likeness. This was our original human calling – to be in community with God our Creator and to be in community with one another. 

But of course it is short lived. 

Genesis 1 is closely followed by Genesis 3.  

Humanity falls. 

(they shun his command, they eat the fruit of the one tree God had withheld from them) Humanity breaks community with God and the immediate effect is the loss of community with one another. Humanity is shamed. Adam and Eve hide, they pass the blame. There is conflict. The community is broken. The image of God is marred. In Genesis 4 Cain kills Abel. Human society becomes fractured and fragmented. We have lost our true humanity. 

One of my favourite films of a few years ago was a little film called  

rampart. Woody Harleson plays a corrupt LA cop in the 1970s. Law unto himself - violent, drinker, womanizer - lives with his two ex-wives who live next door to each other and happen to be sisters - so that he can live near his children… 

There is this tension in the film between rampant individualism and yet the longing for relationships.. 

See individualism says that the thing that defines personhood is my individuality, my independence, my difference from you. A person is a solitary rational individual “I think therefore I am” 

But the Bible says the opposite. The Bible says that human personhood is realized  in relationships. We find ourselves by relating rightly to others .. not distancing ourselves from each other. We find ourselves in giving and receiving 

And when we act in a way to diminish relationships - we dehumanize ourselves. 

When we become a law unto ourselves, when we boast of our self sufficiency and give ourselves up to individualism then it is that we begin to lose our true selves.  

If we pursue fulfillment in our career to the detriment of relationships  we don’t realize our individuality we dehumanize ourselves. If i choose to divorce because my marriage is not ‘fulfilling my needs’ I dehumanize myself. If a society organizes itself around individual consumer rights alone it impoverishes its members. 

At the end of the film there’s this bitter scene where harleson’s character weeps over the loss of his children’s trust - he considers the choice between taking his own life or confessing to a crime he has committed - but it turns out that he simply loves himself far too much to do either. 

What hope is there for us if our true humanity is found in relationships and yet we by our selfishness constantly retreat from and screw up community life? 

The Bible’s remarkable answer is church!! Come to church!! Ha!

Because this is the gospel: Humanity has fallen from its calling to be a community of different persons united by love. But God the Trinity, in mercy and love stoops to draw people into his community that we might become the community that we were made to be. 

Notice in our passage three times Jesus refers to his being sent by the Father into the world (v21, v23, v25) 

God the Father sends God the Son into the world and crucially INTO OUR HUMANITY. Jesus becomes our human brother in order to pay for human rebellion in his death on the cross, to win US forgiveness and adoption into God’s family. 

It’s wonderful and it’s remarkable. It is as though the trinity extends towards us, to encompass US! … we are invited in.. into the loving community that is God himself! 

See it in the passage.. Praying for us Jesus prays to the Father v21 “Just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us..”!!!

Human community is being redeemed. Made Divine. We, sinners!, are drawn in by the Holy Spirit into the very relationship that God the Father shares with Jesus the Son. God becomes OUR Father.. And of course that brings all Christians into a radically close relationship with one another. We are children of the same heavenly Father - we are brothers and sisters.. we are united in Christ. 

A unity that we are to live out! 

v21 ‘I pray that all of THEM may be one Father .. just as you are in me and I am in you.’ End of v22 ‘that they may be one as we are one.’ V23 ‘May they be brought to complete unity…'

This is extraordinary stuff. You don;t realise how closely related you are to the people you are sitting next to. Closer than your biological families! 

Here’s the point: 

The church is not a human invention, it’s not a somewhat embarrassing outdated institution that’s probably going to die out sometime soon. No the church is a community of different persons united by love. The church is God’s new humanity being renewed in the image of its creator for the sake of the world.. 

Let me say that again. The church is God’s New humanity.  

Which is being renewed in the image of its creator for the sake of the world.. 

BEING renewed. It’s a process …going on. Jesus prays that the church may be brought to complete unity.. Unity in diversity is not easy … love is something that the church works at by God’s grace in order to become in practice what it is in fact. 

God pushes us into relationships with people we wouldn’t normally hang out with, people we find difficult, companions we wouldn’t choose and God says love one another. Be united. Because in God’s eyes relationships are not functional - for what i can get out of them.. They are formational - they challenge and change me. 

Unity in diversity is not easy … love is something that the church works at by God’s grace in order to become in practice what it is in fact. 

So here’s what God says to us in his church 

He says 

love one another 

be kind to one another..

be concerned for one another

be devoted to one another…

serve one another… 

do good to one another

confess your sins to one another…

admonish… 

exhort 

comfort.. 

encourage…

be at peace with ..

forgive … 

instruct and teach..

agree with … 

be humble and gentle with ..

accept  

Bear with 

live in harmony with .. 

ONE ANOTHER

stir one another up                         

spur each other on 

do not judge one another….

Do not lie to one another .. 

Do not grumble with one another.. 

Notice we Do this because of the gospel! Christians don’t love and forgive and accept because we are inherently morally better people than other people (often times we are worse.) 

No

Christians forgive because we have experienced forgiveness

bear with one another because God bears with us 

We love because he first loved us. 

So these actions towards one another arise out of an ongoing experience of God’s grace in the gospel. The dynamic for community, (the love that we need) is given to us. 

Notice also how many of these exhortations are about persevering through relational difference and difficulty.  - 

We tend to think that conflict is bad,  a sign of relational dysfuntion, to be avoided at all costs. But conflict is both inevitable and necessary if we are to mature and grow as human beings! See when you’re experiencing conflict it’s not just ‘the other’ you’re butting up against .. isn’t it more the case that the conflict originates within? you’re encountering yourself - your issues.. your sin.. ! Difficulties in relationships send you back to Jesus. Back to the gospel. They deepen your dependence on grace and open up the possibility for personal and communal healing, forgiveness and growth!

The church is the new humanity being renewed in the image of its creator. 

Now. 

What we’re talking about requires a paradigm shift in the way that we are used to thinking about out lives.  The prevailing view of life today is that of an individual standing on his or her own, heroically ‘juggling’ various responsibilities: family, friendships, career, leisure, chores, decisions and money. We could also add social responsibilities like political activity, campaigning organisations, residents groups, and school associations. From time to time of course the pressures overwhelm us and we are forced to drop one or more of the balls.  All to often church becomes one of the balls. We juggle our responsibilities for church - measured predominantly by attendance at meetings - just as we juggle work or other social involvement. 

Well. Here’s an alternative, more biblical model:  To view our various activities and responsibities as spokes of a wheel.  And at the centre of life, the hub of the wheel is not me as an indivdual but us as members of the Christian community. Church is not another ball for me to juggle, but that which defines who I am and gives Christlike shape to my life. 

when pressure comes church is not one of the things that might need to be dropped, church is the thing that sustains my life. 

Think about this in terms of one area: decision making. 

Where am i gonna live? Where am i going to work? Who am i going to marry? How will i spend my money? Because of individualism it is deeply rooted in us that we are masters of our own lives. ‘It’s my money, my life, my future’ we say, ‘so it’s my decision’ or ‘ours’ if we’re a couple or a family. 

But what if God has drawn us into a totally different kind of life to the life of the individual. ‘In Christ’ writes the apostle Paul in Romans 12:5. ‘we who are many form one body and…each member belongs to all the others.’ 

When something valuable belongs to you - a car, a home - you’re repsonsible for it .. you make decisions about it. Paul says in the church we belong to one another and so we are responsible for one another and therefore presumably make decisions together.. 

I know of one church who covenant with one another. ‘we expect one another to make decisions with regard to their implications for the church and to make signifcant decisions in consultation with the church..’

We are right to be wary of any hint of cult-like manipulative tendencies in human communities.  But this is not ‘heavy shepherding’. The church does not make decisions for people. Rather WE are all called to make decisions with regard to the community to which we belong. 

‘In Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others.’ 

The church is the new humanity being renewed in the image of its creator. 

And being renewed, for the sake of the world

Look with me for the last time at what Jesus prays to His Father : 

V21 May [the church] be in us so that the world may believe you have sent me. 

V23 May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 

As the world sees the Christian community it believes in the divine community. 

This community of different people united by love points to God the ultimate community of different people united by love 

The church loving one another is the new humanity -  the image of God being renewed on earth. 

we’ll talk about this more in coming weeks and how we relate to one another, how we cause one another to grow. But i leave us with that image of OUR community - SBD - at the hub of our lives. How do we do that?