Good Morning!
This past weekend we enjoyed our annual trip up the mountains to Bonclarken. For those of you who may not be as familiar with that little slice of heaven it is the campgrounds and spiritual home of our ARP denomination. To be at Bonclarken is to be truly ARP. I may slightly overstate it, but not by much. There is just something special about the place and what it means to so many of us. Becoming ARP by adoption and God’s grace Bonclarken was not part of my upbringing, and serving a church in Mississippi my first seven years of ordained ministry meant that my only trips to the place of a good, clear vision was for Synod. And while that was all good and everything there is a different feel to the location when you are kind of up there on your own with a small group experiencing the blessings of God’s providence. But what really makes it special? Is it the location in the western North Carolina mountains? Or is there something more that would have made Bonclarken “Bonclarken” regardless of where it was. In today’s prayer and worship help I want to make a case for the fact that while it is hard to imagine an ARP without Bonclarken, there is a special sauce that could be with us wherever the Lord in His mercy would have had our denomination to meet, though I have to admit that seems like a pretty difficult argument to make. Some would say impossible.
So where would one begin to reason out that idea? Well, for one it’s worth remembering first what makes the ARP, the ARP. I don’t mean the Erskine’s or even the Grier’s or the Pressly’s. I want to talk about a thing that’s far more important, and that is the people. In our children’s lesson yesterday I talked to the kids about the difference between our earthly family and our spiritual family. While we are called in obedience to the 5th commandment to honor father and mother, and we are duty bound by Christ’s own words in Matthew 15 to see to the care of our elderly parents, we also hear our Lord say in Matthew 12 that His true brothers and sisters were not the folks who shared a house with Him in Nazareth, but, “…Pointing to His disciples, He said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.’” I can remember hearing that story for the first time in Sabbath School as a kid and being perplexed by it. What exactly does Jesus mean in that passage? He’s not disrespecting His mother, or His brothers. His purpose there is to testify to all who heard Him and would hear His words later on that there is a bond which is closer than blood. A relationship whose connection was made in something stronger than flesh, and that was none other than the incarnated Son of God and what He would do for them at the cross. What He had joined together no man could turn asunder. That common relation in and to the shed blood of the Lamb, and through that the inward work of the Holy Spirit makes each heart bolder in love for one another. Each of the true disciples of the Redeemer had been adopted into the very household of the Lord God. Seeing that bond between brothers and sisters in Christ to be a spiritual blessing almost defies explanation. It is an eternal connection that marks out particular members for an incredible and unique mercy, which none outside of those given and granted in faith by His grace can experience.
In Hebrews 10 the Apostle sends out a warning to the people about why they need each other, especially when it comes to gathering together on the Lord’s Day in worship. As Paul has been explaining the superiority of the new covenant to the old covenant, primarily because of God’s timing and purpose through Christ, the mediator of the better covenant, he is helping the Jews to understand something about the nature of their new life in Jesus. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the Scribes, etc… had many rows with Christ, but probably the strongest and most heated before the crucifixion itself was in John 8. There as they are disputing with what our Lord was teaching they kept pointing to their physical relationship with Moses as being the source of their current hope. Jesus keeps reminding them that they know not Him, or Abraham, because they serve a different God than those men, which is why eventually Christ calls them sons of the Devil. If they would place their earthly bonds above their heavenly ones then the former would be all they had.
That goes back to yet another Biblical lesson we learn from John as to how it is we become members of the spiritually faithful line of Seth. Hear what the Beloved Disciple says in John 1:12-13, “ But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” That very gift of new life in Christ comes to men not because of who they were born to, or where, or by the reason of the mind. It is something that can be attributed to the Almighty alone. There is an old saying that says, “You can’t pick your parents”, and while that is true and while most of us are incredibly blessed to note who our mom’s and dad’s are, it is in a sense also the case with our Heavenly Father ,that none of us chose Him to be our God. We love Him because He first loved us. This salvation we possess is a free gift we have only by His sovereign love. It is the public reality of that mercy that makes the eternal relationship we have with our brothers and sisters in Christ so perfectly extraordinary. We who have been bought with a price have been brought into an already existing family made by God for His people to enjoy together. That is really what makes the Church, the Church. We are not individuals sailing the seas of life alone. We are made perfect in Him, to dwell together in brotherly unity.
So what does make Bonclarken special?
Well, it is Bonclarken to be sure. The events that led to the Heidelberg House becoming available for our purchase were exceptional. However, if it wasn’t for the members of Christ’s body with whom we get to share it, it would just be another old house in Flat Rock. What makes it special is the men and women who have dedicated their lives to the Savior who made them. Want to really experience the blessings of Bonclarken? Do more than just go there. See the peace available from the only place where you can find it, not the Nibble Nook or the YAB, but in the very good news of hope in Jesus Christ, and His gift of new life in Himself.
It’s not the building it’s the people you get to share it with.
Another word on this:
https://thecripplegate.com/beloved-brethren/
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church