All right . Today we are talking about exploring healthy biblical community .
Speaker 2Can you better explain what we're talking about ? Yeah , because when I first saw this , I thought what are we talking about here ?
Speaker 1Yeah Well , the body of Christ , the church , is a community . It's made up of individuals that are called to be accountable to one another , called to love one another , called to pray for one another , called to serve one another , called to proclaim the gospel together . And we live in an era where this has seriously become just a lost virtue , if I could call it that .
Speaker 2Can I say something here ? Yeah , the church is hidden from the world , it would seem . You ask most secular people what's the church ? They really don't know that . It's the community of believers around the world . The foundation of God stands , sure , having this seal . The Lord knows them that are His , and so the true believers are those who are trusting in Jesus , despite their so-called denomination .
Speaker 1Right . For most people , they hear the word church or think about church and they're immediately going to the building . Right , they're going to just . You know , I go to a church . You know , rather than seeing , that the church is the community of God's people , that it's not just a place . Of course , you can use the word church to describe the place where the saints gather , but ultimately it is the people of God .
Speaker 2We are the church , the genuine church , is a fellowship of true believers and there are some who are lonely because they're disillusioned by the church . But if you go to a genuine church and you approach someone and show an interest in them ,
the love of God will radiate from them to you and you'll become part of that fellowship . You'll get to know good friends , true friends . But what we don't realize is a lot of churches have got false converts in them . That's what Charles Spurgeon said Nobody can do as much damage to the church of God as the man who is within its walls but not within its life . That's an ooh . That's an ooh , that's a good one Do it again , ooh and an ah .
Speaker 4That's a good one . No , no . If it's worth saying once , it's worth saying twice .
Speaker 1Yeah , ray , yes , you want it again .
Speaker 2Nobody can do as much damage to the church of God as the man who is within its walls but not within its life , man that is , there is a loneliness epidemic in the world .
Speaker 3Today , 50% of US adults report living a lonely life . Loneliness increases your risk of premature death by 29% .
Speaker 2You have a higher risk of heart disease , you mean suicide or falling down stairs .
Speaker 3Well , that , and heart disease , stroke , dementia , depression all of them linked to loneliness . And here's the reality is that we know , like it's written on our hearts , we are literally dying for a community , but we are trying , as a culture , to fill the void with substitute communities , with gyms that have a community , with gaming , online communities and politics and online tribes , but the reality is , none of these communities will satisfy , because none of these communities are the ones you were made for . Here's what's crazy , too , is that we are more digitally connected than we ever have been in history .
Speaker 2That's the irony , isn't it ?
Speaker 3That's exactly right . These alternative communities will never satisfy us because we were made for something else . We were made for God's family .
Speaker 1You know , oscar , as you were saying that , I was thinking back to the whole COVID shutdown and I think it was really demonstrated that social media is not going to cure the loneliness issue . Because everyone had it at home still , everyone was locked up and you had access to internet . I mean , that didn't get shut down , but , man , that became like one of the big things that those who were opposed to the shutdowns were talking about , like the mental health crisis because of isolation .
Speaker 4That's usually what happens with solitary , isn't it ? They just go crazy because we've been designed to be in community and then you put them in solitary confinement and there's no windows and you can't see birds , you can't hear people , you just go
insane .
Speaker 1Yeah , we weren't designed for that . It goes back to Genesis 2.18 , where God said "'It is not good that man should be alone'" .
Speaker 2I don't think our churches , our modern churches , our cultural modern churches , are designed for community . And seriously , you go to a local church and someone says I go to your church , say , can you turn around and see the back of your head ?
Speaker 2So I say if I'd recognize you , Because that's all you see , the back of a couple hundred people's heads and then they have like a three-minute break where everyone has to kiss each other and welcome to the church and have little hugs and it's not any depth and that's why I really like house churches and that's why I've mentioned before that when I was a brand new Christian , I was in a church and I realized this that we weren't having community in our church meetings and I tried to move these pews to face each other by myself , these long , big pews , so we'd all be facing each other , so the person ministering would have people here and people behind them in front of them .
Speaker 1You know that's how the synagogues were designed back in ancient times Like remember Mark , when we went to Israel , they would show us like ancient synagogues and they were designed that way yeah they were like you know , where everyone could see each other .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 3We have to be brutally honest , which is that we have a consumeristic mindset . We go to church and it's like entertain me , justify my prejudices , show me something worth remembering for this rest of the week . And so we show up late , halfway through worship . We leave as quickly as we can so we don't have to deal with the traffic getting out of the parking lot and we go about our own way . And when you look at the early church , specifically in Acts , when you look at church history , thinking of Joseph Tellerman's book , the Church Was a Family . Church community was not this thing that was done for 45 minutes to two hours on a Sunday . Church community was something that you lived out in the totality of your life . It's something that happened throughout the week at the dinner table as you were raising children . It was this all-encompassing experience . The onus is on the Christian today to find a way to live out a communal life in the context of gospel community
. Our hearts need it and the church needs it . The church needs us to be in community .
Speaker 4Right , it's not just going through a book together , it's not just getting coffee with someone , it's living life with someone . Right , I'm going to this memorial service . You got time to go with me . Hey , I'm heading over to Costco to pick up some things . Why don't you cruise on over there with me ? And there's these little weird time limits that are attached to it , so it doesn't become so overwhelming . Remember , jesus didn't say to go into all the world and make converts . He said to go into all the world to make disciples . And if we put that to use to the best of our ability , without pulling our hair out , I'm waiting for ability without pulling our hair out .
Speaker 4I'm waiting for Ray Ray's , scared to death of losing his hair . We would see that it's living life . It's the good , it's the bad . It's how the guy cuts you off and how you handle that . It's maybe giving somebody else a park job while you park way over in the parking spot and you park in a completely different place , right .
Speaker 4Isolation is a lot like the devil's lunchable , if you would right that you're preparing for him a meal because you're completely left . Remember those lunchables . You have these little crackers and cheese and ham and turkey , right , and you kind of eat it on the go . Idle time is the devil's workshop , when you're kind of isolated by yourself , you have no plan and you think that I'm an island onto myself . You're just being teed up for the enemy .
Speaker 4It's easy to grab the one who's wandering by themselves . The enemy doesn't come along necessarily and say , all right , here's 30 sheep that are over here , let's just go for one of them . When there's one over here by himself , he's going to look for the weakest one . Are you hitting for a Spurgeon quote ? Well , some Christians try to go to heaven alone , in solitude . But believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone . Spurgeon went on to say those who belong to Christ are sheep , in this respect that they love to get together . Sheep go in flocks , and so do God's people . I just stole that from Ray , isn't ?
Speaker 2that cool . You stole that from Spurgeon .
Speaker 4Okay , proverbs 18.1, . Whoever isolates himself , seeks his own desire . He breaks out against all sound
judgment . So your spiritual strength is tied in your spiritual circle . Your spiritual strength is tied in your spiritual circle . Who are you hanging out with ? Discipleship ? It's so important you should be discipling and get discipled at all times .
Speaker 1If you're not in good , healthy , biblical community , get into it . And we have people ask us at times should I stay in my church ? I don't know . There's this , there's that . First , try to be a part of the solution , and if you can't be , if there's unhealthy things going on , then you need to find a place where there is good health in terms of biblical community . And so do that . And again , don't let this just slip away . Decide right now . I'm going to do A , B and C in order to make sure that I contribute to good , healthy community and that I have it in my life .
Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast . Friends , we value your time , so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped , without the jokes and fellowship . Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday , where we dive deeper into the topic . Until then , you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv .