Community 9 - Conclusion

Living as God’s Covenant Community

“Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none less than this. Whether it is a brief, single encounter or the daily community of years, Christian community is solely this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

1. HISTORY OF COVENANT COMMUNITY
All community begins with God before time.

In Jesus Christ, we were chosen by the eternal community of the Trinity before time began, reconciled to Christ in time by his grace, and united to the church for all eternity past the end of time.
(Eph 1:4, 18, 22-23; 2:14-15; 3:21)

In the beginning, God. (Gen 1:1)

All community began with the perfect community of the Father, Jesus the Son, and Holy Spirit since before the beginning of time. (Gen 1, Eph 1, Jn 1, Col 1)

In love, humanity was formed for community in the image of God. (Jn 1:1-3, Gen 1:26-28)

God wants to reveal His character and nature to the entire world through his community.
(Gen 12:1-3, Ex 19:3-6, Dt 4:1-8)

Jesus was born into God’s community, and is the perfect, exact reflection of the character and nature of God. (Jn 1:14-18, Jn 5:19-23, Col 1:15-20)

Everything that Godly community expresses, everything that God intends for Godly community to do in the world, Jesus has fulfilled. He was with God in the beginning, in perfect community. He came to us as God as man and fulfilled perfect community with us. His life and death as us seals the covenant of God so we can be freed from sin.

God plants his eternal community in us through faith in Jesus. We receive it by faith.

Jesus Redeems Community - Colossians 1:19-20 – For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Jesus Models Community - 1 John 2:6 - Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

God’s covenant community follows Jesus, as Jesus follows the Father. God’s community prays as radically as Jesus, gives as generously as Jesus, and speaks as boldly for truth and justice as Jesus. Through his redeemed covenant community, God continues to reveal his goodness to the entire world.

2. COMMUNITY IN PRACTICE
In Christ, by the power of Holy Spirit, God’s community reflects the nature of his eternal community.

a - Joyful Love
(Trinity - God is Love – 1 John 4(esp. vv.7-8), Psalm 16:11)
Godly community is a community of love.
b - Humble Unity
(Trinity - Mutual, Humble, Willful Submission – Phil 2)
Members of Godly community are humble, considering others before themselves, submitting to the authority of scripture, and respecting the diversity of gifts in the community.
c - Mutual Generosity
(Trinity - Common Ownership - Matt 11:27 – Father handed everything over to Jesus - John 16:15 – Jesus and God share everything.)
Godly community is generous and shares together.
d - Honesty and Understanding
(Trinity - 1 Corinthians 2:11 – Only the Holy Spirit fully understands the thoughts of God.)
Members of Godly community are honest, seek to know each other better, and live in understanding.
e - Fruitfulness
(Trinity - Co-Creating, and co-redeeming – Genesis 1:26, John 1:1-5)
Like a family, the love within a community only grows in fullness as the community grows. As a parent’s love grows with each new child that their love produced, so also does Godly love in community seek to share that love with others, and see the community grow. God’s love (and therefore our community’s love) is an outward focused love, a love that includes anyone who would receive it.

3. COMMUNITY ON PURPOSE
God blesses the entire world by revealing himself through his covenant community by their INTERCESSION, MERCY, and JUSTICE.

John 17:3-5, 20-23
3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus is God incarnate, and the perfect fulfillment of all God intends for his covenant community. Because of his death and resurrection, by grace and through faith in him God’s community is able to sit in the righteousness of Jesus, and walk as he did on earth.

a - Revelation by Demonstration
1 John 2:6 – Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. - INTERCESSION, MERCY, and JUSTICE.
The world sees the community in practice, and is blessed as the community lives out God’s purpose.

b - Revelation by Proclamation
Romans 1:14-17 (esp 16) – The preaching of the gospel of Jesus is the power of God unto salvation.

Romans 1:14-17
14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.
16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Our community of Jesus followers, the Body of Christ, dwells in the eternal community of God, and God dwells in us by the Holy Spirit. His Kingdom is growing on earth as we plant our lives in him.
Through the demonstrated and proclaimed gospel of Jesus Christ by God’s community, the world comes to know and believe in who God is, and the Kingdom of Heaven is planted on earth.