We Need Each Other Means of Grace Pastor Josh Black January 28, 2018 We are now in the fourth week of our series on the means of grace. For those who are just joining us, let me give a brief introduction to this series. It’s clear in Scripture that Christ has given a mission to his church; we’re called to make disciples of Jesus Christ. But not only has Christ given us a mission; God has also given us certain means to carry out that mission. We’ve been given a number of ways we’re called to make disciples. The first two weeks we considered the Word and prayer. The Word does the work and prayer is powerful. God uses his Word and prayer to conform us into the image of Jesus. And this is not only true in your individual lives. It’s also true in our corporate life together. We minister the Word and pray for one another. Last week, we looked at Ephesians 4:11-12. In that passage we see that Christ gave the church pastors (v. 11). And pastors lead, feed, and protect the flock with the Word and prayer. And one of the pastor’s main roles is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (v. 12). So, pastors don’t do all the work in building up the body. Each member of the body has a role to play. And that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning. One Another How does this work? How does the body build up the body? What do we actually do? The New Testament uses the phrase “one another” over and over again. There are at least 58 commands that have to do with our responsibility to one another. These commands teach us specifically how we need each other in the church. About a third of the “one another” commands deal with unity in the body of Christ. We’re called to live at peace with one another (Mk. 9:50). We’re called to accept one another (Rom. 15:7). To be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another (Eph. 4:32). To confess our sins to one another (Jas. 5:16). Another third of the “one another” commands deal with loving one another. John alone gives this command at least ten times (Jn. 13; 15; 1 Jn. 3:11; 4:7, 11). Paul also uses it (Eph. 4:2; Rom. 12:10).1 And there are many other “one another” commands. We could do a whole series on the “one another” commands in the New Testament. But for our purposes this morning, I want to deal with two broad commands. First of all, we must speak to one another. Secondly, we must serve one another. SPEAK TO ONE ANOTHER (EPHESIANS 4:15)

The call to speak to one another comes from a very familiar verse. Ephesians 4:15 says, “Speaking the truth in love, we…grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ….”2 This verse is

1 Kranz, Jeffrey, “All the “one another” commands in the NT.” Infographic, overviewbible.com. 2 Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® unless otherwise noted. 2

often used when we think of confronting someone. We need to tell it like it is. Speak the truth. But we need to be nice when we do it. We need to speak the truth in love. This is certainly an appropriate principle. But this verse is referring to something more fundamental to spiritual formation than confrontation. The truth spoken of here is a very specific truth. It’s the truth of the gospel. It’s basically saying that when we speak the gospel to one another, we grow; we become more like Jesus. This is Discipleship 101. Like we said in our first sermon in the series—the Word does the work. Sure, pastors are involved in teaching the Word to the body, but all believers are called to build up the body in love. Romans 15:14 says, “I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.” We need to speak the Word to one another. All believers are called to do this. The Word of God in Jesus Christ grants us salvation. But we don’t ever graduate from the gospel. Any disciple of Jesus who wants to continue to grow, will daily hunger for more of the Word. Sure, we can read the Word on our own. And it will benefit us greatly if we do. But God especially delights to put his Word into the mouth of human beings so that it may be passed on to others.3 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, says, “God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings. Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. [In fact], the goal of all Christian community is to encounter one another as bringers of the [gospel].”4 How do we bring the gospel to one another? We do it through one-on-one discipleship. We do it in our small groups. In our classes. Even through singing to one another. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” But it’s not only in these formal ways that we speak the Word to one another. We also do so casually, as we live life together, day in and day out. But in order to speak the Word to one another in daily life, we have to have relationships with one another. And the best way that we establish relationships with one another is through serving one another. Bonhoeffer goes on to say, “Wherever the [ministry of] service…is being faithfully performed, the ultimate and highest ministry can also be offered, the [sharing] of the Word of God.”5 SERVE ONE ANOTHER

And so, with the rest of our time, I want to talk about three ways we should serve one another and build relationships with one another so that we’ll create a context in which we can speak the Word to one another. I could obviously talk about serving one another through using your spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ. That’s certainly very important here at First Free. But we’ve taught quite a lot on that over the years. And so today, I want to talk about three things that aren’t talked about as much. I want to talk about hospitality, encouragement, and correction.

3 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 5. Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 1996, 32. 4 Bonhoeffer, 32. 5 Bonhoeffer, 103.

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Hospitality The first way that we should serve one another is through hospitality. First Peter 4:9 says, “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” Why is hospitality important in the Bible? I believe hospitality creates a context to speak and serve. Why do I say that? In the Bible, the word hospitality is a combination of the Greek words philos, which means love. And the word xenos, which means stranger. So to show hospitality is to show love to the stranger. Josh Jipp, a New Testament professor at our seminary, says, “Hospitality is the act or process whereby the identity of the stranger is transformed into that of guest.”6 So hospitality, in the biblical sense, is not simply opening your home to a friend. It’s opening your heart to a stranger. It’s providing a space where someone who’s unknown to us can become someone who is known to us. Jipp says that hospitality is offered particularly to “the other,” the one who is not like us, the one who is an outsider.7 Generally speaking, we avoid people who are not like us. We spend all of our time with people who are like us. In fact, if we’re honest, we’re a little bit afraid of the stranger, we’re afraid of engaging with people who are not like us. The fear of the stranger is called xenophobia. We are called to xenophilia—love of the stranger—not xenophobia.8 When I was a young man, I was infatuated with strangers. I loved to pick up hitchhikers and homeless men. I’ll never forget when I was in college, I picked up a homeless man named Joshua and brought him home with me. We were just chillin’ on the couch watching TV when my roommates came home. Needless to say, they were not impressed. They told me he wasn’t welcome in our home. He was stinkin’ it up and he might steal something from us. So I put him up in a hotel. When I started dating Maggie, she knew I liked to pick up hitchhikers. But then there was the time I picked one up while she was in the car. This guy was a little volatile and he scared Maggie. My days with hitchhikers were coming to an end. She made me vow to never pick one up again. I don’t share this to illustrate my virtue. I don’t know if I had any. I just liked to live on the edge. But this does illustrate that people are generally afraid of strangers. Welcoming “the other,” the outsider, doesn’t come naturally. In fact, it can be somewhat dangerous. But what happens if we don’t love the people who are different from us in the church? First of all, we miss an opportunity to glorify God. You see, God is the ultimate host. He offers hospitality to us. God makes strangers his friends, people who are very different from him. But there’s more. Through Christ’s death on the cross, he makes sinners his friends. He welcomes his enemies. When we fail to extend hospitality to the stranger, we fail to reflect God’s character. And we also block the way for true community. We block the way for creating friendships where discipleship can take place. I wonder if that’s why it’s hard to make friends in a large church like First Free. We don’t have space and time for new relationships.9 And we’re afraid of even trying to create new friendships with

6 Jipp, Joshua W. Saved by Faith and Hospitality, Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2017, 2. 7 Jipp, 2. 8 The actual word for hospitality in the NT is philo xenos. 9 Cf. Nouwen, Henri J.M. Reaching Out. New York, New York, Doubleday, 1975, 76-77.

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people who aren’t like us. But this stifles opportunities for growth. Not only for others. It hinders our own growth as well. You see, it’s not just strangers that stand to benefit from a relationship with us. We stand to benefit from a relationship with them. It goes both ways. I’ll never forget Amy Longa. She is a woman from Uganda who was stuck in Wichita with a high-risk pregnancy. Through some mutual friends we agreed to open our home to her until her baby came. We thought we were offering Amy a service, that we were doing our Christian duty to her. But over the course of the weeks she lived with us, she blessed us more than we blessed her. She had lived a really difficult life in Uganda. And she taught us about trust in God and prayer in a way we would have never learned if we wouldn’t have offered hospitality to her. If we’re going to create a context in which we grow in Christ, we have to be willing to take relational risks. We have to be willing to offer hospitality to one another, even to those who aren’t like us. One way that churches block the way for hospitality is in our emphasis on the nuclear family. Sometimes we make it feel like the only way to be a mature Christian is through getting married and having kids. What this does is make single people, who make up a large segment of our church, feel like outsiders. This also creates a barrier for faithful Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction or other things that are stigmatized in our culture.10 Josh Jipp says that if we want to obey the Bible’s command to offer hospitality to one another, we have to “hold loosely to our own personal, cultural identities and preferences and to consider the good and edification of one another—and precisely those with whom we [have differences].”11 How do we do this? You may start by simply making an effort over the next few weeks to invite someone in this church over for dinner that you don’t know, maybe even someone who is very different from you. It’s not easy! But you may be surprised by the blessing it will be to them and to you. Hospitality creates a context for community. And it’s in the context of community that we build one another up in Christ. Encouragement Let’s look now at a second way we can serve one another in the body. Hebrews 3:12-14 says, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” Hebrews lets us in on a sobering truth. There are people in the church, who by all outward appearances look like real Christians, but who in the end fall away from the faith. True faith, by definition, perseveres to the end. But there have always been and will always be those in the church who don’t endure to the end.

10 Cf. Jipp, 73. 11 Jipp, 74.

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What’s the antidote to falling away? The main thing the book of Hebrews draws out is the supremacy of Christ. We fix our eyes on Jesus, the one who is greater than all else, the one who endured the cross and is seated at the right hand of God. If we keep our eyes fixed on him and follow him, we will persevere. That’s the first way to endure. But these verses list a second way. We also endure through the encouragement of the community. Encouragement facilitates endurance. In fact, we need one another in the body of Christ, if we’re going to persevere to the end. How do we keep from having unbelieving hearts that lead us to fall away from the living God? Through exhorting one another every day. Or as the NIV says, by encouraging one another daily. One of the reasons we meet together every Sunday is to stir one another up to love and good works, to encourage one another, until Christ returns (Heb. 10:24-25). When we meet together, when we sing to one another, when we serve one another, when we welcome one another, we encourage one another to endurance. There are so many things in this world that war against our faith. So many things that cause us to lose heart. We need one another to give us courage. When I was preparing for this sermon, I read the sermon I preached last year on serving.12 I don’t know if it’s a good sermon. But I think it’s an important one for our call to serve one another. I’ll post it on the blog this week, and would encourage you to read it. I simply want to highlight one thing from it. At the end of that sermon, I interviewed my friend and longtime mentor, Wes Penner. In that interview, I asked Wes why he serves as a greeter in this church. This is what he said. “I pray each morning on the way to church that God will use me to listen to and encourage at least one person. God always answers that prayer and also provides people to listen to me and encourage me.” Wow! Is that how you view your time on Sunday mornings? Are you looking for opportunities to find people to listen to and encourage? Or are you simply making a well-worn path on the carpet between your car and your pew? You don’t have to be an official greeter (or serve in any official capacity for that matter) to be able to identify someone you can encourage. But you may have to get out of your comfort zone, and consider the interests of others as more important than your own. The ministry of encouragement is so important that it’s one of God’s ways of keeping us in the faith. Houdini Needed Encouragement In 1904 the great escape artist Houdini was challenged to a contest by [a newspaper] in London. The paper dared the showman to escape from a complex form of handcuffs with six locks on each cuff and nine tumblers on each lock. The performer took the challenge with thousands gathered at the London Hippodrome to see if he could escape these new bonds…. Houdini ducked down into a box to struggle out of sight of the crowd. After about twenty minutes [he] popped up out of the box. [The crowd] roared their approval but suddenly quieted as they realized the cuffs were still in place. Houdini smiled…and went back into the box. Fifteen minutes passed, and once again the escape artist appeared. Again the crowd cheered enthusiastically. Houdini smiled, saying that he just needed to flex his knees. Down he went. After another twenty minutes he

12 Black, Josh. “Committed Community.” Sermon, First Evangelical Free Church, January 22, 2017.

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emerged a free man holding the cuffs in his hands. The crowd gave an extended ovation for the master of escape. Later the reporter asked Houdini why he kept popping up out of the box when he was not yet free. He replied that he needed to hear the encouragement of the crowd.13 One commentator says, “Those of us who live in Christian community struggle, often in dark solitude, against discouragement… [and] conflict…[and] fatigue…that close in around us. When we come out of our solitude into the light of Christian fellowship, we need to experience applause and encouragement from others in the body of Christ. This gives us the courage to go back to our struggles with new energy and hope.”14 Correction When we create an opportunity for community through hospitality and we foster that community through encouragement, it provides an opportunity to also challenge one another in the community and even correct them when needed. In fact, correction is one way we can encourage one another. And that’s what I want to look at now. Galatians 6:1-5 says, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.” This text clearly teaches that correction helps restore the sinner. The basic assumption in this passage is that sometimes we will fall into sin. We will be caught in a transgression. Now being caught doesn’t mean we’ll be found out, that we’ll get caught red-handed. Although that does happen. The idea here is that sometimes we get caught up in sin, we become ensnared by sin. The other assumption is that we need each other in the body of Christ to get out of sin. Our fellowship in the body of Christ is a means of grace. God uses other Christians to restore those who are enmeshed in sin. If only we could come to see these truths. We are sinners. We’re not perfect. And we need each other’s help. Christianity is not a privatized religion. It’s “a family religion.” “We live the faith dependent upon brothers and sisters” in Christ.15 The only way to make it in the Christian life is to have an attitude that admits our faults to one another and accept help from one another.16 Let me say that again. We must admit our faults and accept help from others if we’re going to make it in the faith. We live in a day when people in the church don’t want to be corrected or restored. But this is frankly quite un-Christian. Correction is at the heart of the gospel. Think about it. Thabiti Anyabwile says, “The gospel is a divine word of correction and restoration, is it not?”17 The gospel announces that we are sinners in need of God’s salvation. And that in Christ we can be forgiven of our sin and

13 Illustration from Guthrie, George. Hebrews. The NIV application commentary. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 1998, 147. 14 Guthrie, 147. 15 Anyabwile, Thabiti. The Life of God in the Soul of the Church, Christian Focus, 2012, 112. 16 Anyabwile, 112. 17 Anyabwile, 112.

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restored to relationship with God. So, not only does hospitality reflect the gospel; correction reflects the gospel too. It’s a needed component of our life together, of our service one to another. Hopefully you see that we need to correct one another in the body. But how do we go about correcting those in the body who have fallen into sin? Galatians 6 lists three ways. First, we need to correct in a spirit of gentleness. If someone is out of step with the Spirit we don’t want to correct them by acting out of step with the Spirit ourselves.18 And we know that gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit. So we shouldn’t be harsh with people. We should be gentle. O how I wish I could learn this lesson! One of the problems with confrontation in the church is many of us are trying to set someone straight because they’re acting in a way that’s out of line with our desires. That’s not the right attitude. If that’s our goal, we’ll certainly get bent out of shape in the process. But the goal isn’t to get people to straighten up and fly right. The goal is to get people to follow Christ. Second, we need to keep watch on ourselves, lest we too be tempted. We saw this last week too in our discussion of pastors. You can’t look after others if you won’t look after yourself. We’re all sinners and susceptible to falling. This perspective will keep us humble. And humility is of utmost importance if we’re going to be involved in restoring others. We shouldn’t think we are something, when we’re nothing. When we see someone else caught in sin, we shouldn’t say, “Oh, how could they?” Instead we should say, “That could be me, but for the grace of God.” Don’t be so busy catching others in sin that you don’t catch yourself.19 Keep watch on yourself. Third, we need to bear one another’s burdens. Correction would go so much better if we were willing to walk with people through the valley of the shadow of their sin. It’s easier to correct people like a seagull. This happens when we sweep in, and dump on people, then fly away. But we can’t correct and restore as Christians from a distance. We have to bear one another’s burdens. We have to be up close and personal. And this is difficult. It’s hard to listen to people who are caught in sin. It’s hard to be patient with them. But we must remember that Christ himself bore our sins on the cross.20 If we’re going to be effective in restoring people caught in sin, we too have to bear with one another in their sin. And thus fulfill the law of Christ. This is part of what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Conclusion Like we said in the beginning, the main way we build up the body of Christ is through speaking the Word of Christ to them. But we also need to serve one another in the body. When we serve them through hospitality, encouragement, and correction, we reflect the gospel. And we create a space for the gospel to be spoken. We establish relational credibility. We establish trust. And trust is needed to speak the truth in love.21 We don’t minister to one another in a vacuum. We minister in the context of covenant community. And we enter into covenant community with one another because we believe that we need each other.

18 Anyabwile, 119. 19 Anyabwile, 121. 20 Bonhoeffer, 102. 21 Cf. Bonhoeffer, 103