For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.(1 Corinthians 3:9 – ESV)
Many talk of the struggle between our old man and our new man, which is on a more or less individual level. Now we want to focus on another facet of what Paul calls the new man, the corporate nature of the new man, the Body of Christ. This universal, invisible body is manifested visibly as the local church body. It is in this new man that we are to experience the growth we need to fight our old man and live from our individual new man. Christians are all a part of the body, the seed of Christ being planted in all Christians, but that seed grows best within God’s greenhouse the local church. God had not only ordained a body but a community for that body to grow in, all of us growing as individuals, and as a unit.
People want God to change their situation, and a major, unavoidable, inescapable, irreplaceable part of that is becoming a part of and becoming a vital participant in a local church setting. This is God’s vehicle for growth. Yes bible reading and prayer and such are your vehicles for growth, but this is not to be done on an individual basis alone, but also within the context of a covenant community. Communion is for and with the saints in Christ. This is the God ordained way. Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life, and He is the head of His body the Church, which He died for. That universal body of all believers is manifested in local assemblies throughout the world.
Just as there are no perfect believers out there, there are no perfect churches out there, and just as we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ as individuals, we are predestined to grow up into the full measure as the bride of Christ, as a universal church with local expressions of like precious faith. The church is the way; it is the pillar and ground of the truth and the life of Christ, the new man in manifestation, which is revealed within that context. It is one Jesus but many faces, one Jesus many places.
None of these commands to love and serve one another have any meaning apart from the primacy of a local body. You cannot exhort one another if there is no other. Of course it is also about others we meet who are believers from other places, and people outside who aren’t Christians. But the word must dwell in us, as a unit towards one another, before it may dwell in us outside that structure, at least as far as growth is concerned.
We grow best within the context of community, we grow as a group of individuals and we grow together as a unit, each individual is growing deeper and higher and together we also grow deeper and higher. The well ordered church, one that truly has a right view of God, as all in all, this is the place of blessing. The Vinedresser is tending His fruit and pruning His crop in His greenhouse, and if you are not there, you are not planted in the right soil.
4 comments:
I think to fully grasp what you're saying here, we have to disregard what many churches have become and any bad experiences we've had.........and focus on the fact that the church is HIS bride......how could I not want to be a part of God's Greenhouse????
Indeed, and many of the other posts in this long series address those issues, because they are not excuses...
9-7-07
Still rings true...
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