This morning, I want to try something different. Usually, I give at least three points in a message. Some of you commented… you know who you are…God also knows… that at times I try to cram so many things in a sermon. You feel like you’re trying to drink from a fire hydrant. So, to give you a break, I would only focus on one point today. It will not always be like this. But I just would like to see how it works out. Any reaction, violent or otherwise, you can text or call or e-mail me. You can also talk to me personally. Help your pastor improve, okay?
Now, there’s nothing like the body when it is working right. I believe the same goes for the church, which the Bible calls the body of Christ. Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church and included in Time magazine’s “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America,”[1] wrote, “There is nothing like the local church when it is working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. Still to this day, the potential of the local church is almost more than I can grasp. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.”[2]
Let us open our Bibles in Romans 12:4-5. “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”[3] Note the last part of verse 5: “each member belongs to all the others.” I like how The Message version goes: “Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body.” Do you want to find your meaning and function in life? You will find it when you see yourself in the context of our community, our church, as parts of His body. That’s why I believe we cannot really enjoy life unless we enjoy it together as a church. That’s the body of Christ when it’s working right.
We continue our study of the “one another” in the Bible. In Romans 12, we see four “one another’s.” In verse 5 we read, “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”[4] This will be our focus today. Verse 10 says, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” Lastly, in verse 16, “Live in harmony with one another.” We will study them some other time.
Verse 5 in the New Living Translation goes like this: “And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.” I like that. We belong to each other. We need one another. Life is all about God… and EACH OTHER. That goes against the selfish, consumer mentality that is prevalent in our times. For we tend to ask, “What’s in it for me?”
In one of our classes in the International Graduate School of Leadership, we discussed philosophy or worldviews. Now I know philosophy can be boring. In fact, while reading one of our textbooks, I realized I just discovered the cure to insomnia! But as I tried to make sense of it, I noticed a pattern. Let me simplify it. At first, man believed, “It’s all about God, not me.” Life revolved around Him, not us. However, later on, man thought, “I think it’s also about me.” Actually, it’s an old lie in a new packaging. Satan tempted Eve with this promise: “For God knows that when you eat of it [the fruit of the forbidden tree] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”[5] The enemy did not deny that there is a God. That fact that there is a God is too obvious to Adam and Eve. Satan instead gave a subtle but deadly lie, “You can be God, too.” To wrest control away from God is to swallow this lie. Though God is not denied, He is defied and dethroned. Man in turn is deified and enthroned. But man is not satisfied sharing the stage with God. In the end, man said, “It’s all about me, not God.” It’s a shallow boast. Man realized and felt it’s empty. That’s the reason why I believe Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” became a bestseller. He brought back God in the spotlight. Life is not about me. It’s about God.
However, let me expand on that. I fully agree with Rick Warren on that point. But, we tend to say, “All I need is God.” Is it the truth? It’s a half-truth. It is just one side of the coin. The whole truth is, we need God and each other. Let me ask you, what was the first human crisis?[6] Most of us would say, “When Adam and Eve fell, that was the first human crisis.” But that was not the first. In Genesis 2:18, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” When God created light, He said it is good. Every time He creates, the Bible says, “God saw that it was good.” But then, He looked at man and said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
Wait a minute! Adam was created perfect. He was crafted in God’s image. God placed him in a perfect environment, the Garden of Eden. He enjoyed a perfect, intimate relationship with God. How can God say, “It is not good for the man to be alone?” The words “it is not good” here does not mean “it is bad.” The Amplified Bible clarifies it for us: “It is not good (sufficient, satisfactory) that the man should be alone”. God created Adam with physical needs and He took care of that. He created Adam with spiritual needs and He Himself met that need. But He also created Adam with relational needs. God and man or vertical relationship, He took care of that. But, what about human-to-human or horizontal relationship? That’s why God had to provide Eve. The verse continues, “I’ll make him a helper, a companion.”[7]
In his book, “The Never Alone Church,” David Ferguson wrote this, “Yes. God is the ultimate source for meeting all our needs… But we are biblically incorrect when we asset that God is all we need… we have a need for both God and other people.” When our child is hungry, in need for food, we cannot say, “Here. Let me give you a hug.” That won’t satisfy his hunger. You cannot fulfill a physical need with an emotional solution. So also we cannot fulfill man’s horizontal needs with vertical solutions. In other words, we cannot say, “All we need is God.” We need both God and one another.
One time, a lawyer asked Jesus, “‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[8] Note the words “the second is like it”. In The Message version says, “But there is a second to set alongside it”. The New Living Translation goes like this: “A second is equally important”. Loving others is equally important to loving God. Loving others is set alongside loving God. The Communicator’s Commentary says, “A dimension of ‘oneness’ is missing if the love relationship is limited to communion between God and man. To make ‘oneness’ complete, the same self-giving love must flow in person-to-person relationships.”[9] Ferguson adds, “Love for God is incomplete without love for our neighbors.” 1 John 4:21 says, “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” The Message translated it this way: “Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.” We are to love God and each other.
Let me give another biblical example. The church in Corinth was quarrelling with each other. They were divided. Note how Paul described their situation: “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.’”[10] They were wrong. That’s why Paul sent them a letter to correct them. Let me clarify. When it comes to salvation, when it comes to getting to heaven, we are to put our trust in the Lord alone. But when it comes to fellowship, we need the Lord and one another. It is wrong to depend on people alone. It is also wrong to depend on God alone. We are to depend on God and people.
How does that apply to us? Well, it is wrong to say, “I don’t need anyone.” According to Romans 14:7, “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone.” Facing the challenges of life is like playing as a team. None of us is as good as all of us. Remember the saying, “No man is an island?”
We cannot also say, “I have you. I don’t need God.” That cannot be for people can and will disappoint us. I like what Rick Warren wrote, “The sooner we give up the illusion that a church must be perfect in order to love it, the sooner we quit pretending and start admitting we’re all imperfect and need grace. This is beginning of real community. …We must remember that the church is made up of real sinners, including ourselves. Because we’re sinners, we hurt each other, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. But instead of leaving the church, we need to stay and work it out if at all possible.”[11]
We cannot also say, “I only need God.” Where do we see this attitude? When a person asks for our counsel, we tend to say, “Just pray. Read your Bible. All your problems will be solved. That’s all you need.” Does it really work that way? That’s why we come across as insensitive, know-it-all people to others. Ferguson wrote, “To do so is to communicate a message of condemnation: ‘You should be able to take care of yourself without needing other people. If you still have needs, you don’t have enough of Christ. If you were more consistent in your quiet time, if you had more faith, if you loved God with all your heart, soul, and mind, you would not be needy.’ As important and necessary as faith and quiet times and loving God are, God has chosen to involve people in meeting the needs of other people.” People don’t need our pat answers. They don’t want verses prescribed to them as if they were pills. They need us… to listen… to care… to be there.
Let’s go back to Romans 12:5, “So we, numerous as we are, are one body in Christ (the Messiah) and individually we are parts one of another [mutually dependent on one another].”[12] If you only go to worship in our church, that is not enough. You are missing out on fellowship. If you only go to fellowship in our church, that is not sufficient. You are missing out on worship. We are here both to worship God and to fellowship with each other. Some of us come and go in our worship services. There is more to church life than attendance. I am not just asking you to join as a member. By the way, we will have a baptismal and membership class right after the service. If you think you found MGC as your church family, feel free to join the class. But there is more to just being in the list of members. I am not just asking you to serve or to give. I am also asking you to get connected. There is more to church than what you are seeing. Join one of our small groups. If you are perfect, you may not join us. It’s okay. I understand. We are way below you. But if you are not perfect, welcome. We are not perfect, too. We also have our problems, we also have our struggles, and we also have our issues. We will understand you for you are one of us. We belong to each other. We need each other.
Someone wrote, “Recently a pioneering band of researchers studied the age-old mystery of what makes people happy. Their answer is not what you might expect. What appears consistently at the top of the charts is not success, wealth, achievement, good looks, or any of those enviable assets. The clear winner is relationships. Close ones. Nothing reaches so deeply into human personality, tugs so tightly, as relationship. Why? For one reason, it is only in the context of connection with others that our deepest needs can be met. Whether we like it or not, each of us has an unshakable dependence on others. We need to belong.”[13]
Brothers and sisters, it’s all about God and each other. We cannot really enjoy life unless we enjoy it together as a church. That’s the body of Christ when it’s working right. Let us pray…
[1]Time Magazine, February 7, 2005.
[2]From the illustration database of Sermon Central.
[3]All Bible verses are from the New International Version, unless otherwise noted.
[4]NASB.
[5]Genesis 3:5, NIV.
[6]I am indebted to David Ferguson in his book, “The Never Alone Church,” for shaping my understanding on this issue.
[7]The Message.
[8]Matthew 22:36-39.
[9]As quoted by Ferguson.
[10]1 Corinthians 1:12.
[11]Fellowship: Protecting the Church.
[12]The Amplified Bible.
[13]Sermon Central.
