Member Relationships

Member Relationships
(Psalm 42-43; Romans 12)
Sunday, June 23, 2013, Windsor UBC, J G White

RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER MEMBERS

We commit ourselves to watch over one another in brotherly love, to pray for one another, to aid one another in sickness and distress and to foster a fellowship which is centered in Christ and characterized by encouragement, concern, openness, honesty and the spirit of reconciliation. Thus, we will seek to avoid all gossip, slander, bitterness and an unforgiving spirit. (Romans 12:6-8; Eph. 4:11-16; 1 Cor. 12 & 13; Matthew 5:43, 44).

Examples of Christian Camping ministry websites...  Kingswood, Arrowhead, Bayside.
Many kids get to experience  a different fellowship, different relationships, different communication and teamwork than they do back home. (Aside from being introduced to Jesus and His disciples.)
Could our local church offer the same experience to people?  Year round?  In gatherings like this, in small groups, in choir, Merry Marthas, and so forth?
I used some of Romans 12 at a funeral the other morning.  Talked about the deceased and how he had some of these “marks of a true Christian.”  ...
What elements of Christianity do we display, as a Church Family?  Our unused covenant calls upon us to 'live together' in such ways. 
Churches today are critiqued harshly for our failures – unfairly and fairly criticized. 
And look at how many people drift away from our pews, or into our pews from other local congregations.  How do we stay together? 
Illustrations: Furniture being held together by wire instead of glue.  Duct tape in a pants pocket sealing the hole, instead of having it sown. 
Sometimes, the things holding people together in a church are not the main things.  We sometimes fall into relying upon other things to “bind us together.”
Charismatic leader/preacher
Dictatorial leadership (David's predecessor in Regina)
Traditions of worship, teaching, child and youth ministry, senior ministry.
Power structures (those who say “I have my say, I get my way” and others who say “Things are in good hands.”)
a Building...  I wonder if, in our age, Church buildings are often too powerful, too influential.  Does our building have too much power in our psyche, are we too attached to this, does it take far too much of our attention?  Maybe only when we let go of our building and say goodbye to it can we develop in such a way that we will then need a big building!
I relate it to Sharon and me, with our house.  I've felt that all our financial attention has been on paying for it, not other things.  We don't even use the property well – don't have people over a lot in all the space we have – don't plant and grow lots of things.  If we are not using it nearly to its potential, why have it?  If we are not studying or traveling or giving money because of our house, why keep it?  So, it's for sale. 
What else could be the cords that bind us together?
What about LOVE?  Is how we lovingly conduct ourselves based on our Covenant, which is simply rooted in texts like Romans 12?
You may know this song...
There is only one God, there is only one King,
there is only one body, that is why we sing:
Bind us together, Lord, bind us together
with cords that cannot be broken;
Bind us together, Lord, bind us together, Lord,
bind us together with love. 
If we pay attention to the beginning words of Romans 12, it's possible we see how better fellowship is possible with Christ than on any other basis.  The loving mercy of God...
I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 
It is as a living sacrifice, not a dead one, that we put ourselves in the Lord's hands, and get to go on living in new and wonderful ways.  The temptation of the 'living sacrifice' is not to stay there, but crawl off the altar!  We put other things, bits and pieces of our life there, when the whole of our lives is to be there. 
This is the same message as in famed Micah 6 (6&8).  With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?  Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? 
Some of the details of what this kind of life looks like are spelled out in Romans 12.  They are described in our Covenant – how we live together. 
It is a beautiful picture here.  But our real life today may not be so beautiful. Some friends aren't friends anymore in the “church family.”  Some committees are strongly criticized for their work.  Some worshippers quit our fellowship, dissatisfied. Sometimes it's depressing! Do the words of Psalm 42 and 43 now speak the prayer of our heart? 
My heart breaks when I remember the past,
when I went with the crowds to the house of God,
and led them as they walked along,
a happy crowd, singing and shouting praise.
    Why am I so sad?  Why am I troubled?
    I will put my hope in God,
    and once again will I praise Him
    my Saviour and my God.
This whole song – both Psalms together – calls for the Lord to restore the singers to the fellowship.  It's not just about getting right with God, even if other people won't like me and get along.  “Jesus and me got our own thing goin”?  No, it's about the Lord bringing the singer back into fellowship, into right member relationships. 
    Send me Your light and Your truth;
    may they lead me and bring me back to Your sacred hill,
    and to Your temple... 
There is healing to seek in the fellowship; there always is. 
At the heart of church as a healthy family becoming more and more our reality is that injunction from Romans 12: Do not be conformed to this world [age], but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. 
To be transformed by God is to be different.  To be different people.  Our behaviour, the things listed here, come out of the new me and the new you, on the inside.  Heart and mind – our soul.  Redeemed – set free, renewed. 
So our priorities change, in the congregation, when we want to be a church family, a family of God, a community of redeeming love.  Listen to the vision of life together in Romans 12.  Keep these words ringing in your ears.  The Holy Spirit will speak into our hearts, and we can be transformed. 
Here is our Windsor Baptist Website... still looking for a webmaster, er, webservant or two. 
Can this describe a devoted fellowship, a committed community, a membership that relates in God's ways to one another? 
Do we want to be all about providing the place for people to have fellowship that is better than any available elsewhere?  Not for the sake of being better; because people need better community life than can be provided in this world.  Like the child, the teen, going to summer camp:  a greater experience of relationships than was known back home.  We get to take the Kingdom of God into our home community.  This is what we are here for today. 
This is who Jesus died for – for His 'bride,' the Church.