Sermon Cloud

August 30, 2009

“Ground War”

            Let me repeat a brief introduction from last week that will get us caught up.  Most churches and Christians like to really go after one of these ways to fight for joy in Jesus (which is the goal of the Christian life).  Air war people put most, if not all, of their resources into public, large gatherings.  Positively, they see the value of the things we talked about last week and believe that large group gatherings are the primary way that people begin relationships with Jesus and they are the primary way that Christians learn the Bible, grow in love for God, and develop obedience. 

            On the other end of the spectrum, you have ground war Christians.  They feel like large group gatherings are cold, produced, and not helpful.  Almost all of their energies are spent on more organic, relational gatherings.  Positively, they have captured the importance of the ideas that we’ll cover this morning.  They see how important it is to have life-on-life connection.   The Bible actually does have a lot to say about this very personal, life-on-life part of the Christian life.  This group thinks that these ground war practices are the real essence of Christianity.

            To let you know where we land here at Redeemer, we believe that God has ordained both as means of grace for Christians to grow and for non-believers to be introduced to Jesus.  Its not one over the other, but both/and.  The reality is that there is more overlap here than we might realize.  Air war is a relational thing, too.  We are encouraging and helping one another on our Sunday gatherings.  In our more relational, smaller gatherings, we still have elements of air war type things like Bible teaching, some groups might choose to sing from time to time, and some take communion and a few have observed baptisms.  We’ll look at the same text again this week.  42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Ground War:  How We Relate

            Notice how they met in the temple courts (large gatherings) and in homes (smaller more relational ones).  We need to see air war truths lived out ground war style.  Notice Acts 2:44.  They were together and they all things in common.  Really??

            So they all like to cook and fly fish and watch the same romantic comedies, huh?  No.  That’s what I think most of us think it means when go looking for churches and lots or you are here looking for a church this morning.  We are looking for people at very similar life stages that we could be friends with.  Nothing wrong with wanting relatable people to do life with, but this is not what Acts 2 meant.  They were together and had things in common because of Jesus.  Jesus had saved people from very different walks of life and they now saw their primary identifier as walking in community with Christians.  They did life together, ate in each other’s homes, and were on mission together (47).   One way to say it is that they didn’t just “go to church.”  They were the church.  For them, air war and ground war went together.

            In fact, I think we can make a very good case that one of the main points of the Bible is a redeemed new people of God.  Let’s do a quick recap of the Bible:  God made the world and people and it was great.  People rebelled against God and they were then alienated from God and their relationships began to be fractured, too.  God picks one guy, Abraham, and makes a promise that He would bless Abraham’s family and through his family, He’d bless the people groups of the earth.  This family would become the people of Israel.  But it (Israel) was imperfect and it eventually unraveled.  But then God sent His Son Jesus who obeyed the Law in a way Israel couldn’t do and He died on the cross to take the punishment that was due to us and then was resurrected from the dead.  When He accomplished that, the Holy Spirit came.  Jesus’ death and the coming of the Spirit formed a new community, the church!  It was an internalized, Spirit breathed transformation of individuals that would bring people together in a more profound way.  And this doesn’t stop there.  In Revelation, God will finally restore us and make a new earth and a new humanity that will walk in the presence of Jesus with no division and we will finally experience complete unity and love for one another.  All of this to say that Acts 2 is a snapshot of the effects of the cross in making a new community and shows that we are saved not just for individual justification, but also for one another.

Problem:  Individualistic Christianity

            It’s kind of hard to argue that God is forming a people through Jesus’ ministry and that its one of the central themes of the Bible.  We want to have Jesus in common and to be together.  That happens at some level now and someday it will happen completely. Want to hear it again from 1 John 4? 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  See the deal?  If we receive God’s love, then love for Christians around us will be in us.   We were saved not just for individual relationship with Jesus, but for a renewed relationship with one another.

            Enter the problem:  I don’t think that’s how most Christians think about the Christian life.  We think that God saves individuals to restore people as individuals with God.  I guess that’s true as far as it goes, too.  But that’s where it stays and we live out our Christian life with that assumption.  We think, “I’m an individual that has been saved and needs God’s mercy.  When I feel like I need a boost, then I’ll come to a worship service (air war) or maybe call a Christian friend (ground war) for some encouragement.”   Sometimes we might have a rough week and we might endure a boring service and feel like you’ve done your penance and you are good to go.  Again, this is a snapshot of a guilty individual seeing services, preachers, and friends as ways to feel better about ourselves or (in the best cases) to grow.  Am I wrong on this? This is why lots of us feel no need whatsoever to engage relationally at almost any level with people around us right now.  It’s almost like its extra credit or something.  Lots of us are relying only on the air war to fight for joy in Jesus.  Others are relying only on the ground war.

            Let me extend grace to you for a minute.  And lots of you are in this category (around half), so this is really pressing.  You aren’t in community.  There’s no ground war going on or at least not much.   I don’t think that me yelling at you is going to change that reality.  Instead, let me appeal to you on the basis of God’s grace in Jesus.  Wouldn’t you love to have people around you that show you how to love Jesus, how to fail and receive grace, how to hurt each other and then make things right?  Wouldn’t you love to form a group that had everything in common even if nothing was in common? I think you do want it if you are a Christian.  The problem is that your previous attempts here were met with failure in some way or another.  Maybe you are afraid that your life wouldn’t be accepted.  Maybe you don’t know anyone and you are afraid to jump into a group.  Maybe you’ve been stung by people.  Maybe you are trying to figure out if Redeemer is for you.  There are lots of reasons why people would put off being on mission in community.  Some of them are good.  There might be short seasons where it proves very difficult to engage other believers like this.  We have grace for you here at Redeemer on this because Jesus has grace on all of us for where we struggle.  The ultimate reason for your community and for the early church in acts 2: Jesus is so valuable that we want to demonstrate this reality in our love for each other. I think that motivates much better than saying, “You need to be in classes or groups.”

            And I realize to another group of you, this is the most irrelevant thing you’ve ever heard.  Let me tell you why.  The first group struggles with this because they have mistakenly thought they were more or less on their own.  You could care less about the ground war because you could care less about Jesus.  I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that if you don’t have a desire at all for community with other believers that you aren’t a follower of Jesus.  And notice that we aren’t talking about just finding some nice folks where you can have good clean fun.  Even the most hardened of individualistic Christians desire encouragement from other believers.  Let me direct you to the value of Jesus because my case for a ground war (or the air war for that matter!) is absolutely pointless if Jesus is valued by you.  If He isn’t your only hope to be right with God, you’ll blow off this picture of community in the Bible.   

            Acts 2 is an aspiration for Redeemer.  We don’t feel like we’ve attained it.  In fact, I feel like we have tasted little parts of it from time to time.  Do we have all things in common because of Jesus?  I think its growing, but it has a long way to go.  I’ve seen people wage the ground war (flowing from the air war) and help repair struggling marriages. I’ve seen people choose to love one another when they disagree on secondary theological issues.  I’ve seen people in their late 40’s and 50’s involve themselves in groups that had no one within 15-20 years of their life stage because of the value of Jesus and their love for their family at Redeemer.  Same thing with lots of us with a few years/decades of bad experience with churches learn to trust and be together in Jesus.  

            But we do know that Jesus is so great that we want to meet in the temple courts and in homes.  We want to commit ourselves to the apostles teaching and break bread in homes.  We want the air war and the ground war.  He is worth it.  Where we see resistance to it, its not just personal preference, but rebellion and will ultimately wound us. Will we be willing to come together not because we like each other or because it will be easy, but because we want all available means of grace and we want to demonstrate the reality of the new community that Jesus has purchased?  Let’s be together and have everything in common because of Jesus.