Sometime God is weaving a wonderful tapestry before our eyes and
it's important to take notice of it. The church where I serve has four
pastors/elders. By God's providence He has brought together four men
from different ethnicities. One of our pastors is of Jewish descent,
another is of Lebanese descent, still yet another is of Mexican descent
and the other is of European descent.
Four races, one body.
Four careers, one Spirit. Four men, one Lord. Four ethnicities, one
faith. Four backgrounds, one baptism. Four individuals, one Father. This
is not a byproduct of political correctness because none of us sought
this out. This is a natural outworking of God's providential work in
our church.
When you look at our church you'll see all sorts of
walks of life represented, all sorts of races and all sorts of
differences. There are some you might consider wealthy or poor. There
are most likely democratics, republicans and other parties people are
affiliated with. But in Christ we are all united through His loving
death, burial and resurrection that brings peace between us and God.
This love shown to us is then shown to others within our church and it
is then taken out into the community, or at least it should be that way.
Scripture constantly calls us to correct our sinful self-centeredness
in order to move forward in Christ's likeness.
In light of
recent tragic events in our country our hearts grieved. So we prayed and
tried to do our tiny part to make a difference in our community. Last
Friday several people from our church fed the Sheriff's department of
Victorville to let them know we love them and are praying for them.
Sunday, after church, several men went walking around a park handing out
free pizzas to families, in the name of Jesus.
To each group we
explained that our outward diversity is united in inward transformation
due to the loving and saving work of Jesus Christ. And even though we
want people to know Christ the way that we do, we know that not everyone
will believe in Christ the way that we do. Nevertheless, we still have
to live together in this community.
Protests can be helpful.
Handing out free food to people who are different than you can be
helpful. But only the cross and empty tomb of Christ truly unifies for
all eternity.
The reason all human life matters in all stages is
because God made us in His likeness. Sin wrecked that image. And Jesus'
mission consists of forgiving that sin through the cross and
resurrection and THEN giving us His Spirit to live in us to slowly rid
us of sinful desires and actions and THEN finally restoring that broken
image completely at His 2nd return so that sin will be extinguished in
the new creation forevermore.
You see, salvation is more than
just rescue from hell--rescue from God's judgment. It's also rescue from
ruin, rescue from sin, rescue from Satan.
Those are pretty big
things to be rescued from. And those in the church have all that in
common and we can look at each other as former 'death row inmates' and
say, "Wow, we are all blessed to be redeemed. We have such immeasurable
riches in common. Let's work TOGETHER to pass this great news on to
others as we love our Savior TOGETHER."
From leadership in our church to those being led, a wonderful tapestry is being knit together around the God-man, Jesus Christ.