The Supernatural Community is a Biblical Community
Listening to the radio this morning they played Madonna’s ‘Living in a material world’. I remember strutting my funky stuff to it. It was a song that portrays a view of what life is like. I think it’s probably still quite accurate. I am not going to ‘culture watch’ here, instead I want to point to a culture that I would like to live in. I wonder what sort of Culture or community would you like to be part of?
As for me I want to live in a biblical world, I want to be part of a Biblical Community. I’m not talking about finding a time machine in order to do that, I’m talking about a biblical community here and now.
Doesn’t the bible just blow you away!?! I drew this picture years ago when we used Overhead Projectors. I spent hours on such things but now we just google them!
I can still remember drawing this one. I wanted to somehow convey how great reading the Bible is. There is so much in it. I’ve lost count how many times now I’ve read the Bible through and it is for me just about a daily activity. Yet still there is so much I don’t know and more amazing is the fact that there are times it does this to me.
Such a shame that so many see it as a dusty old book. It is a dusty old book only when you don’t read it. I will admit however to the fact that I have several dusty bibles. Or had! I decided to dust them all.
slide pile of Bibles from the side
That’s because now I most often I read the Bible on my ipad or phone or computer.
So many versions and different times of editions to help us understand it – and so many books about it. But I’d give them all up before I gave up a Bible.
Why because it is the primary source through which God communicates to us.
We uphold God’s word to be truth and to be a guidance for every area of life. We are to live by God’s word and therefore we need to live in it and allow it to live in us.
This happens as the Holy Spirit brings it to life. Indeed the Supernatural dynamic of coming to God’s word is essential otherwise it is just print on a page or pixels on the screen.
Paul tells Timothy to rightly handle the word. (2 Timothy 2:15)
Did you see Donald Trump the other day. Now there’s someone who doesn’t know how to handle the word.
And did you see James Corden’s on the Late Late show in America when His Dad gave an appearance to demonstrate how to hold a bible. Then he read Psalm 37.
Take a look, it’s well worth it.
I commend the Bible to you, I’d love for it to be a daily experience for you. I’d love for you to discover more and more of how God has communicated himself but more than that I want you to know what it is to have God speak to you directly through his word.
Someone has said ‘it’s not that we read the Bible but that the Bible reads us’. And the brilliant thing is this. The same Holy Spirit that makes the Bible alive to us also enables us to respond to what it says. The more we know this to be our experience, the more we become God’s Biblical Supernatural Community.
Building a biblical community is the most important thing that God does. Clearly this is important simply from the level of community emphasis in the Bible.
Community isn’t a modern idea – it’s in the Bible and was present from the very beginning. Why? Well because Community is in the nature of God and therefore as he communicates with us he is going to communicate community. So the primary source of communication we have is the Bible and in the Bible we find community.
Community is in the Bible by design from the beginning!
Read Genesis 1.1-3. God creates, the Spirit moves, Jesus brings it into being (“God said”, Jesus is the word of God). We are 3 verses into the Bible and already we have community. God is a community. Father Son and Spirit
Community is learnt as God calls a People to Himself
When God recreates His very nature is seen. Community is not an option; it is an essential. Therefore when Satan strikes he does so at the community (e.g. Babel), and God then restores community (Abraham). We must guard against his attacks by making sure that we keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace Eph 4:3.
He calls a people to himself, Gods chosen people to be in community with each other and with Him. We discover something of the nature of God as we see his interaction with a community of people that he has set apart for himself.
Community is Possible because of Jesus
God brings us back into relationship with him and others. An example is seen at the Last Supper, Jesus gives symbols to remember the cross and prays that the Holy Spirit would bring them together that they might be one! The success of our mission in the world will be conditional on our ability to express community.
Even in the activity of bringing us within that community is the action of God in community. “God was in Christ”, “Holy Spirit brings sanctification, Christ is our sanctification”.
Community gets going in the book of Acts and is refined in the Letters of the New Testament
Book of Acts shows us how the community got going and how they dealt with opposition.
The Letters help us see what was great and to be celebrated in community but also reveals the mistakes, the errors and even the absolute rejection of God’s Biblical Community just like the people of God in the Old Testament.
Community will be completed and perfected in the end
There is the vision of complete community (Rev 21-22). We read of a holy city, and of the Bride of Christ which is the community of faith. God is working towards making eternal community. Therefore from Pentecost, we see the new community breaking into the world.
This is just to illustrate that the Bible from beginning to end is about establishing and maintaining community.
In order for us to be a Supernatural Biblical Community we need to learn how to hear God through His word and be obedient to it.
What is God saying to me?
What am I going to do about it?
This is coming to the Book of Life in order to gain life in all its Fullness.
When we do this, whenever we do theology we need to remember we are clay pots pondering the potter.
If we are going to do so, then we need to understand how it all came about. God had intentions for His world. He not only expressed them in Christ He also made them possible through Christ. Then He entrusted them to the Church in the Power of the Spirit. This is what we call ‘The Kingdom’. It is community based. The Church is God’s Supernatural Community. It was God’s plan A for the Salvation of the world and there was no plan B.
I said I wasn’t going to culture watch and I’m not especially critiquing the culture in which we find ourselves. I’m not sure I’m qualified and we certainly don’t have the time to attempt it in a message like this but I am convinced that if we attempt to be God’s Supernatural Biblical Community we will find our culture to be quite attractive.