Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.

1 Peter 2:10 (ESV)

 

Our union in Christ is the basis of our community.

We converge as one people in Christ because each of us is joined to Christ. Our joining to Christ enables us to have real unity and community with other believers. As we continue to build our church life on the gospel alone, we are transformed in Christ to further the Kingdom of God.

Unfortunately, many Christians don't really have any real friendship with other Christians. Often, we allow experience or preference keeps us from doing and participating in life together. Our Western individualistic culture creates expectations that are too idealistic and ignores what Scripture says about being a community.

Wishful idealism is the enemy of true community.

The Acts of the Apostles gives us many examples of the good, bad, and ugly of real community life. As much as people can disappoint us, we can also disappoint them as well. But by God’s grace, we stay together and press on, as broken but forgiven people, to mutual love and submission.

Church life is messy. It should be messy because we are all at different stages of our spiritual development. This implies we should be loving and patient with one another, eager to maintain the unity that we have in Chris and share in each other's joys and sorrows. It is only when we do these things to the best of our ability that we develop the credibility and integrity to go and serve others “outside” our church well. When these people do come in, they want to be with us because of the way we genuinely live and love through the power of the gospel.