2. Community by the Gospel
The second part of our vision for The church in DeKalb is to be a Community by the Gospel. We recognize that the Gospel has reconciled us to community, to the Church. Our desire is that, since we have been brought to new life through the Gospel, we ought to now become a community by the Gospel.
Tim Chester and Steve Timmis begin their chapter on community in Total Church quoting Sinclair Ferguson’s comments on Titus 2.14 saying, “Christ wants to create ‘a people’ not merely isolated individuals who believe in Him.”
Yet we live in a North American culture where faith has been privatized and is far from the concept of having “everything in common” like the early church. Also, our language of “church” has shifted from the concept of the group of Christian believers in a city to now a place that people go to.
Our desire is to restore the biblical ideas of what the church is in regard to community, to change the language of “Where do you go to church?” to “Are you a part of a church?” and, most importantly, to actually be an authentic Gospel community.
The Gospel that reconciles us to our Creator is the same Gospel that motivates and enables us to be an authentic Christian community. Peter explains this clearly in 1 Peter 1.22-2-3
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
What Peter is saying here is simply this: Having been purified and born again through the Gospel, love one another by the Gospel.
The first thing to note in this passage is that we have been purified and brought to new life through the Gospel. We see this as Peter’s words are rich with Gospel imagery. Of course we are purified by the blood of Christ, which was spilt on behalf of the Church on the cross. Peter says that our souls have been purified by this blood as we have become obedient to this Gospel truth that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Likewise, Peter says that we have been “born again,” reminding us of language like Paul’s in Romans 6.4: “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
Having been purified then, and since we are born again, we ought to love one another earnestly from a pure, authentic heart. This is the essence of true Gospel community: Gospel-motivated authentic love.
“If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
The second point in this passage is Peter explaining how we are to become an authentic community: by putting away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, and instead, like newborn infants, he says, longing for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.
The point is that, not only is the Gospel our motivation for community, it is also our enablement for it. Peter explains that just as our new life through the Gospel is not of perishable seed, neither should our love be for each other in community. He does this quoting Isaiah 40 that all flesh is like grass and grass does and will always wither away but the Word of God remains forever and this is the good news, or Gospel that was preached to you.
Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander are all fleshly, perishable vices that are purged by the Gospel. And, as we grow up to a more complete understanding of the Gospel by longing for the pure spiritual milk, these vices are pushed out and replaced by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Our vision is that we would be a community by the Gospel. We have a desire to be a diverse church that is multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-socio-economic; the demographics of our church community should reflect well the demographics of our city community. Yet, socially many of us are hesitant to approach and build relationships with people who look different than us, talk different than us, listen to different music than us, or even smell different than us. Outside of the Gospel which is our motivation for us to love each other authentically and the Gospel that enables us to be a community this will never happen.
Yet, we have the Gospel, and it does enable us to be this community. As flowing waters of rivers produce smooth stones from jagged rocks, so the Gospel is the living water that softens us and refines us to not be cutting or dangerous, making us safe to each other in our community and making us a safe place for the people of our city who need that refuge.
Timmis and Chester write in Total Church, “By becoming a Christian I belong to my brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity.”
Our identity is not in ourselves, it is always tied to the community we tie ourselves too. Generally our community dictates the kind of clothes we wear, the sort of music that we listen to, the types of food that we eat. Imagine an authentic Gospel community freed by the Gospel to wear varieties of different clothes, to listen to vast arrays and genres of music, and to eat a great assortment of food, yet united in a common purpose and driven by the desire to love God and love people.
This is the community that we are developing at The church in DeKalb.
32 “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”
Acts 4.32-35
