These are some notes that Adam prepared for our last Kingsgate Members’ Meeting. If you’re not yet a member then please consider joining and sign up for our Membership Course. You can find out more by clicking this link: https:www.wearekingsgate.org/membership
I want to take a few minutes to help us consider how we should be approaching these coming months. You see, we’ve had over a year of unparalleled strangeness! None of us would have thought that we would have spent the vast majority of a year locked away in our houses with very little human contact, yet we have! And with all of this strangeness, we’ve been changed! As a result, I would like us to take a few moments to consider how we might move out of this lockdown into a new season of life and mission together.
At the end of the book of Romans we read these words:
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Romans 15:5-7
A few things to reflect upon from this beautiful prayer by the Apostle Paul for the church in Rome:
“May the God of endurance and encouragement …” I love how Paul turns the eyes of the church in Rome away from the problems and day-to-day battles and shows them that endurance and encouragement, which let’s be honest, is at a low ebb for many of us, comes from our God. He is the source! This is classic Pauline discipleship — turn the eyes of your heart away from self and situations and gaze upon who our God is because there we will find all that we need — including endurance and encouragement to live the life he has called us to.
“To live in such harmony with one another” – For some of us, especially those of us who are more task focused, we can lose sight of the fact that unity, harmony and togetherness is a vital part of our witness to Jesus’ transforming work in our lives. Also, notice how the Apostle Paul prays that the church would be living … not just thinking but practising … an intentional and deliberate lifestyle of harmony. Friends, my observation is that we are going to need to pray this prayer much together over the course of this next season. Why? Because, like in any family, when you’re at a low ebb, things irritate more easily and things can escalate more quickly. In addition, it’s much easier to misunderstand one another. Added to this, all of us have been living in our own little bubbles, consuming our own curated news feeds and social media content and think that everyone else is seeing the world and the challenges the same as us, and then there’s a potential to ‘bump’ as we come back together when we realise that this is not the case and so need God’s empowering to live such harmonious lives. Please note that the standard and context for our harmony is our shared life in Christ! Put bluntly, disunity dishonours and makes a mockery of Jesus’ unifying work!
“That together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” – what is the goal of living a freshly empowered and encouraged life and one in sweet harmony with others? Is it to have a blissful life here and now? No; the goal is that together we would have one unified voice in glorifying God. The aim is to live in such a way that the gospel of Jesus is heard loud and clear in and through our “one voice”.
As we re-emerge from this lockdown, one of the ways we will glorify God is to live simple and straightforward lives which prioritise the things that matter to God and by so doing glorify him! Sometimes people can get a bit of a crusader mentality whereby they think that they need to witness to everyone. However, this passage is showing that part of our witness and part of our worship is caught up in the way that together, with one voice, we glorify God. This speaks of unity of doctrine, unity of purpose, unity of mission, unity of church life, unity of simplicity, unity of fellowship and on and on. My prayer for us as a church is that we will come out of this lockdown leaner and more focused on living for and glorifying God in the day-to-day reality of life here on the East Coast.
“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you” – Here Paul shows that the standard for our unity, fellowship and hospitality towards one another is Christ’s welcome of us – objects of wrath turned into children of God. Aliens and outsiders welcomed into the community of God’s people. This is the radical and transformative ‘welcome’ that is meant to be our standard of welcome here among us. Friends there are a hundred and one reasons why you shouldn’t go for a walk with someone, or have someone over for a BBQ – busy lives, not knowing them very well, fear of awkward silences, etc… However, I want to urge you to look beyond these things and to see the welcome that you have received from Jesus and make that your standard as you look to be a welcoming part of this church. Come on church we can do this together!
