Fellowship and the Means of Grace

Finding Hope in the Church of Jesus Christ

Good Morning,

We recently finished with an awesome vacation bible school and are back from doing the same VBS for a church and kids outside Middlesboro, KY. I am currently in Tampico, MX serving as part of a team working for the ARP to renew and strengthen our bond with our IPAR brothers and sisters in Mexico. There is so much to be thankful for in Christ’s grace. These times of joyous labor in the kingdom of God are largely what make it so pleasant not just to be a believer, but allow us ultimately to persevere when the times are difficult and trials come on us like a thunderstorm on a southern summer night. We often fall into sin when we are not doing the work that God has called us to in all areas of our lives. Discipleship is played out in keeping focused.

When we talked about envy in the Lord’s Day morning service a few Lord’s Days ago I made mention that unlike some of the other sins we have talked about so far during our most recent series at Bethany envy does not always come upon us until it’s too late to recognize. Proverbs 14:30 uses the illustration of rotten bones to witness to what that looks like. For our prayer and worship help today I am going to expand a little bit on what causes this, and how we fix it.

Milk does a body good, I am sure you’ve heard someone say before. Your skeletons need the calcium to stay strong and mighty. However, when they get to the point where they are causing the rest of the body to collapse it is usually too late to do much about it. Spiritual apathy creates spiritual weakness. It is imperative for the Christian to seek God’s remedy at all times so that we will not fall into the lazy habits which cause trouble for our spiritual bones. Eating a ton of sugar has an adverse affect on the marrow that keeps our blood able to fight off the enemies which get into the body. Likewise if we feed our inner soul candy and fluff our center will never hold when it is attacked by the evil one, and the temptations of our own hearts.

Talking a little more positively about how we can strengthen our frames so that this does not come to pass in our own lives should not be hard. Like most things in the Christian life the means that God has established for this is not complicated nor is it something that takes a lot of convoluted planning and operations. The means of grace are simply all you need. Prayer, sacraments, praise, and preaching. That’s it. However, it is important that we not forget the other important component of this growth process. The Church. Helpfully God has not designed us to be alone. We not only have the great gift of the example of the saints who have came before, but we also have this large and unique institution in the purpose and plan of the Lord with Christ as its King. The Church is made up of the members of the congregation of the faithful. Sometimes we can talk about the church as just kind of an amorphous blob and forget that human beings make it up. Often the devil likes to make us think only about the negatives of the church. We are moved to think about that person who annoys us, or we only remember the bad someone did, or we think they did in the church. Our hearts are moved to be anxious about someone leading something we are not. Vexatiousness drowns our soul as we hear rumors and gossip and even the truth about someone who is a member of our local community. We need to be careful about this.

Our fear of asking for help from brothers and sisters in Christ often manifests itself because we ourselves do not know one another as we should. We only know by appearance, so we judge by appearance. How much better off would we all be if we took the time and the effort to get to know one another in a deep spiritual sense? Think about how much stronger your worship experience would be, and how much more you would gain from worship if you truly loved the people around you at the throne of grace? Your enjoyment would skyrocket as would what you gain from the blessings of Christ and His gifts of prayer, praise, and preaching.

That’s the really the question before us. Relational Christianity begins with the fact that as Jesus says to His Father that we are one, we are one in Him, and that is where our story begins. We who are united by faith alone, by grace alone must see one another as that redeemed human being wherein we share the blood of the cross. That changes everything about how we see that person in the pew across from us, the one we maybe groan about, or mumble about, or don’t care about. What an odd thing for me to write, but we all know it is true. Remember what Solomon said above about rotten bones? That’s how they come about, when the body doesn’t seem to care for itself. That has to change if we are going to benefit from all the blessings of which are promised to us in Christ. Peace and love begat itself.

In closing, being able to pray for one another is one of the greatest blessings in the Christian life. There are few more precious gifts we can give to a fellow believer than to life them up to the throne of grace. Think of how many people have prayed for you and how those prayers have providentially guided you to places that bring joy to the king of heaven and earth. The content of our prayers matter much and it is so much easier to bring the needs of brothers and sisters to God if we know what they are. Of course things like this are a two-way street. We need to not only feel like we can be comfortable bringing personal matters to another Christian, but it is good for us to make other people feel comfortable bringing those to us. Cultivating that culture of trust is something that can only happen if God’s people are gathering together not just at the physical building we call the church, but in one another’s homes and other types of interpersonal relationships at sporting events, parks, camping, whatever it is that people do together for fun.

Here is a last word:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-forgotten-habit

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church