What's Expected of You?

What is expected of each of us in this church, when we are outside of Sunday worship? Let’s work our way out from the center: 

We are to glorify God. We do this best, as others have said, as we enjoy Him. In enjoying Him we have all the inner power we need to make much of Him. We find this joy in the gospel. Thus one of our first responsibilities is to pursue our own joy, by looking again and again at the gospel. 

That joy empowers the first step of gospel obedience, one that we must return to again and again: a single-minded determination to live to please God alone. The joy over what this God has done for us, and promises to do for us, in Christ, makes living for the pleasure of anyone else just flat-out illogical. This single-mindedness is a fundamental evidence of authentic Christians - not perfection, but a shift in weight, in whom we seek to please. You see this as one of the first points of application in several of Paul’s letters - most poignantly in Galatians 1. 

So the first step of gospel obedience is a joy-driven, single-minded loyalty to God alone, to God’s interests alone. Faith, and hope, lead to love. The Great Commission, working in us, leads to the Great Commandment: to love God and our neighbor. Just as we say we glorify God BY enjoying Him forever, so we love God BY loving our neighbor. 

This begins with your church. Who is less “fit in” than you, who would be blessed by your friendship? Don’t know? Community Groups are a great place to find out. In Community Groups we connect to each other, care for each other, and experience that sense of community that so many lonely people in our culture long for. Loneliness is the disease of our age. Actually it’s a symptom, of not experiencing unity with each other, via our union to Christ. Community Groups are where we want to foster this connection, care and community. It’s not so much that we expect you to “attend Community Group”. But we do expect each member to seek to deepen their joy in God, and live out that joy in love to God, by loving the Body.  Community Groups are meant to help that long. 

Our “job” is to glorify God. He is most glorified in us, when we are so satisfied in Him, that we forget ourselves and welcome those who seek a place among His people.