Ep. 5 | A Communal Necessity
Speaker: Jesse Turkington
Summary: Christianity is best with friends.
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Music created by Chad Hoffman
Artwork created by Anthony Kuenzi
Jesse’s Personal Notes:
A Communal Necessity
Introduction
Hey welcome to Pickled Parables. My name’s Jesse.
This podcast has been rolling along for like a month now. So, if your still here, hey thanks. I want to give you a shout out you and thank you for sticking around.
This fifth episode is the conclusion of our introduction series and I really feel like this has been as much of an introduction for me as it has been for you.
As you’ve learned more about the heart of this ministry and our passion, I’ve been learning how to do this. It’s a pretty steep learning curve to figure out this software and all of the ins-and-outs. It’s very different than teaching in front of people.
Hopefully, this series has been helpful for you. If it has, let us know because that would be really encouraging for the team at Parable to hear. Send us an email at contact@parableministries.com or interact with one of our social media accounts.
This lesson is a really important capstone to our intro series. Especially, after surviving a year of isolation and change during the year of 2020 and even now living in 2021.
Our topic today is about communal Christianity and the importance of having Christian fellowship.
My Testimony
I want to share with you my testimony of how I learned about Jesus’ gospel.
Everything that we’ve talked about so far has given us the vocabulary and the understanding for this story and so that’s why I’ve saved it for last. But I want to share it with you because I want to honor the Lord and allow Him to be recognized as the Savior that He is.
When I was a kid, I had a lot of nightmares. And this was something that affected lot of my life. It challenged my confidence. It disturbed my sleep and most of all, they scared me.
It seemed as if my nightmares had a presence to them, like they had an authority over me and it wasn’t something I could escape from.
So as a ten-year-old, it made sleeping over at friend’s houses really hard because I would always wake up and be afraid and end up in their parent’s room seeking comfort.
It was embarrassing but there was nothing I could do about it.
By the time I was twelve, I was haunted with fear. I was scared about so many things. I was ok during the daytime but once the sun went down, I was terrified because I knew I had to sleep.
I was tired, I was pretty depressed and I was scared. I remember praying one night, “God save me … do your job.”
You see, in my mind, God existed to fix things. That was His job. That was who I understood Him to be. And since He wasn’t fixing my situation then He was failing to me.
My perspective shaped God.
Eventually, I reached a point in my apathy where I didn’t even care about Him. Because He didn’t fit in the space that I had made for Him. He wasn’t fixing my problems, so He became irrelevant to me.
Does this relate to any of you?
Jesus would often say, “Those who have ears, let them hear. Those who have eyes, let them see.”
My sight was blinded with my own eyelids. My hearing was absorbed by my own voice. I couldn’t see passed myself.
One evening, my brother took me aside because I think he noticed my apathy and he was concerned about my wellbeing. In our conversation, he walked me through the book of Galatians and he told me the Gospel.
I don’t think it was the first time I had heard it but it was in that evening that my eyes were opened and my ears were retuned. For the first time I understood why God didn’t fit in my box.
This understanding took me to the center of my 12-year-old being and it changed my entire make up. Because the Spirit of God had responded to my confession.
That Jesus is the Messiah and through Him I have relationship with the Father.
It was through Jesus that the guilt I felt, the shame I felt and the fear that I felt, were taken away. He gave me an innocence, an honor and a confidence that I had never felt before.
Through Jesus I am innocent before God. I have been given a place of honor before God and I am protected by God.
Interestingly, even with this divine protection, my situation didn’t change, at least immediately. I kept having nightmares. But I noticed a new authority over my life.
And even though I continued to have nightmares, they didn’t scare me as bad. It felt like I had a shield in front of me. Arrows would still pierce the shield but they couldn’t get to me.
I believe that my nightmares were a work of God’s enemy. The trickster of the garden. The prince of this world. The Satan. He’s never given a real name in the Bible, just titles.
Once I entered into God’s protection and lived in His authority, Satan had very little that he could do to me.
You see, for Christians, the power that Satan has over you and me, are the lies that he gets us to believe. That’s why the Spirit works to renew our minds and reset our mindset. Having a biblical worldview that is influenced by Jesus’ teachings and righteous writings, realign us to God’s will.
I found so many lies that I was holding onto. I’m still finding them.
The Spirit works diligently to correct my thinking and to lead me into an understanding of truth … but another resource that God provided for me was Christian community. People who each had their own story but were also discovering lies that they were holding onto.
Relationships
This community was full of curious people. We were all interested in understanding our Christian identities. We all wanted to know how a Christian life worked.
· What did it look like?
· What did it mean to be imitators of Christ?
So, we would meet together almost every day of the week to find out. That group of people became so special to me. Some of my most cherished friendships have come from this group of people.
Something that is important but neglected is the understanding that Christian community is a vital part of our spiritual growth.
Relationships are highly valued in the Kingdom of God because God is a relational Being. All of Jesus’ teachings about practical living involved people. How to live with people, how to with deal with people and especially, how to love people. It all required a degree of honesty and openness.
The Bible talks a lot about relationships because a major theme that appears over and over again is reconciliation.
You don’t have to be in a relationship for very long before you find out that friendships can fracture. It could be something that was said, maybe something that was insensitive or untimely or maybe it was just offensive.
Maybe it was something that was done. An action that caused harm or some sort of separation.
Mankind has dealt with this problem ever since our rebellion in the garden; this problem of sin.
Sin is a pretty popular word, especially if you live around religious folk. But in its simplest definition, it means failure or falling short of the goal. Those are easier words to throw around because in reality, sin is a horrible and visceral problem.
In educational circles, the study of sin is a difficult and sobering subject because everyone sins.
And a consequence that comes from sin is separation. Sin destroys relationships.
That’s why God hates sin because He a relational Being who wants to have connection with everyone. God is described as righteous and holy. Righteous meaning He is in the right, He is correct, He is true. And holiness means He is other than, He is set apart from failure. God does not sin … but we do.
Throughout our history, God has tried over and over again to reach out and establish a lasting connection with us. We have a book full of examples.
Actually, a great example is found in the Ten Commandments.
At the time they were given, God was establishing a covenant relationship with a group of people called the children of Israel. The Ten Commandments were given to instruct and promote healthy relationships. The first four commandments were for relationship between mankind and God and the other six commandments were for relationship between each other.
Here I’ll read them.
1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make idols (to replace me).
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain (don’t devalue me).
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
The other six were:
1. Honor your father and your mother.
2. You shall not murder.
3. You shall not commit adultery (don’t have an extramarital affair).
4. You shall not steal.
5. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
6. You shall not covet.
All of these commandments have to do with relationship and unhindered community.
In a letter written by the apostle John, we find statements like this:
Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:9-11 ESV)
Throughout this letter, which we call 1 John, the author talks a lot about fellowship and he uses light and darkness as illustrations for relational positions. When in the darkness you’re closed off and when you’re in the light you’re revealed, you’re opened up, you’re exposed.
When I was apathetic towards God as a kid I was in darkness because I had closed myself off to Him.
John said, This is the message we have heard from (Jesus) and (we) proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
God doesn’t sin. He wants connection with us. He’s not closed off to us. He wants openness.
John continues:
If we say we have fellowship with (God) while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:5-7 ESV).
So, if we say we have a connection and an openness with God but not with other people then John says we’re lying about having a connected and open life.
The connection we get to have with God is provided through His son Jesus. And if we are in relationship with God, we will begin to see the world like He does. When God looks at the world and everybody in it, He thinks, “I love them. I want to have a relationship with every single one of them.”
This attitude was demonstrated by the life and sacrifice of Jesus His own Son.
John said in his letter:
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, (know that) we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins,
Propitiation meaning, He is the appeasement or satisfaction for our sins.
and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps (Jesus’) word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in (Jesus) ought to walk in the same way in which (Jesus) walked (1 John 2:1-6 ESV).
Because if we look at the world through God’s eyes we will be inspired to react in a godly way.
What this means is that even though we may continue to fail and fracture and falter, Jesus continues to advocate for us saying, “Yeah, but they’re in relationship with me and I’ve got them covered.”
This doesn’t mean that Jesus enables us to sin without consequence, the apostle Paul talked about that quite a bit in Romans 6. This simply means we are secure.
We can live in complete openness with God without fear of ruining it.
That’s because God is a relational Being and relationships are highly valued in the Kingdom of God. He wants connection with us and He even offers us His Holy Spirit to help correct us and lead us and nurture us. But something else He promotes is Christian community.
Living a Communal Life
Christian community, simply, is a group of people who live in relationship together. Deep friendships can form, because of a divine inspiration of connectivity.
Even if you meet someone for the first time and you realize that they worship the same God as you, an instant connection is made. You might not agree with each other on certain topics like personal preferences or politics, but you both live out the same confession. That Jesus is Lord and through Him we have relationship with the Father.
Christian community is not meant to create uniformity. Everyone is not meant to become identical. Rather, Christian community is meant to create unity, where differences live in harmony together. You can’t have harmony without differences; think of a choir singing.
This is a vital part of our spiritual growth. Opening up to each other, building each other up, encouraging each other, correcting each other; these are all important things for developing a life that is molded by Jesus’ teachings.
I would go so far to say that you cannot fully live out Jesus’ teachings without living in Christian community.
So practically speaking, what does that look like? Especially for right now in the years of Covid-19.
Well, it requires an intentionality. The best advice I think I could give you is to pray. Go to God first and ask for help in finding peers – other Christians who are as intentional as you and who are devoted to uncovering the lies that they still live with.
Remember, for Christians, the power that Satan can has over you and me, are the lies that he gets us to believe. The Spirit works to correct our thinking and renew our minds but Christian community has a role in that too.
Everyone comes with their own story. Every Christian has experienced God’s grace uniquely. And together, we are able to build each other up in our spiritual growth by encouraging each other and pointing out truth.
Now, I know that this can be difficult. It could be hard because of simple logistics. Maybe, it’s just not possible for you to have social interaction at this time. Or, maybe you’ve tried opening up in the past and have been hurt. The consequence of sin is encountered every day.
These are very real obstacles that can get in the way of community; personal reservation or external limitation.
That’s why I advise you to pray. Bring your concerns and your worries to God.
We know from the Bible that God wants us to have community with each other and if we align ourselves with His will, then we will find others who have done the same.
But we must be intentional.
We also need to have compassion for each other because we all need grace.
To be clear, you don’t have to share your deepest, darkest secrets with a whole community of people but we do need to live in the light. Don’t cut yourself off from others and live in darkness, as John would say.
Find people who can build you up but also find people you can help. We should live out our faith with others.
- the end
Conclusion
Thanks for tuning in today!
This episode is the conclusion of our introduction series. I hope that it has helped you and that it can be a resource for you in your spiritual growth.
If you have any questions or want to have a further discussion, you can reach out to us at parableministries.com/contact or you could email us directly at contact@parableministries.com.
We’d love to hear your feedback, especially as we continue on now into a new series starting next week.
This next series is a lot shorter. It’s a small collection of lessons but I’m excited for it because it’s a unique take on some bad practices that we do as Christian’s sometimes.
It’ll be great.
I can’t wait for you to join us then but for now, thank you for listening and I hope you have a wonderful day.