This is a sermon I preached on the text of Psalm 90:1: “A Prayer of Moses the man of God: Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations”:
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I was wondering if you might provide some further thought as to how the “Church made visible” can offer tangible experiences of our home in Christ. How can we be a conduit of the Holy Spirit’s ministry in this?
I think there is a temptation to simply relegate our home being in Christ to having all meaning found in the “not yet” and none in the “already.” To use something like the Christian-as-pilgrim metaphor does not appear to offer any obvious satisfaction in having a home in Christ other than future Hope. Without desiring to downplay the hopefulness of having a home in Christ, I was wondering if you could speak to how the church ALREADY provides some of the the grace, mercy, and peace from being members of Christ’s household.
I will try to respond to that (and your other comments) later tonight.
Thank you. Also, considering a future book to read, I’ve settled on the following, assuming you are game:
http://www.amazon.com/Living-into-Focus-Choosing-Distractions/dp/1587433141/ref=la_B001JSD3FG_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409175269&sr=1-3
I can start this book on the 8th (2nd week) of September, if that works for you. My wife, and a friend of mine are also interested in reading along and following your comments on the blog.
What are your thoughts?
That will be fine. I’ll order it tonight.
As you could hear, my sermon was already 40 minutes long, I just didn’t have time to keep making applications. But my line of thought was meant to lead toward the idea that the church is called to offer to the world what Christ offers to us (albeit for us it will be imperfect).
That entails offering stability, roots, shelter and love. The problem with that, again, is that we mess up pretty bad. We follow after the spirits of the age, and so there goes our stability. We cut ourselves off from tradition, and this kills our roots. We bicker and gossip, so much for shelter. And we aren’t very good at loving at times. But those are all areas that the church should be concerned with in order to image the presence of Christ to the world.
When you are attached to Christ you necessarily become attached to the church. And the marks of union with Christ should be manifested in the life of his body, the church.
Very succinct. Thank you.
This topic is very close to my heart, especially within the last couple years. I grew up in very large churches, (I live in Dallas,) and now go to a church that has somewhere between 20 and 50 attendees on any given Sunday (…still in Dallas…)
As we reach out to the community around us, I find myself internally asking the question I feel must also be on the mind of visitors: “why go to this church, when there are big churches with ‘load’s to offer’ in any direction I should choose?” The obvious distinctions of doctrine aside, I am trying to work out what place a small church has, if in both wit and monetary wealth it is out-gunned by the more established, more prosperous churches nearby.
Your ideas of Christ as our home, and then the Church as a manifestation of that home are helping me live toward an answer.
I’m glad it helped! The doctrine of union with Christ, which Marshall covered, has to be central to everything we do. All I wanted to do, and want to do in general, is take that doctrine and unleash it on the life of the church.