October 29th follow-up
Philippians 2:1-11
“Striving together”
Yesterday I spoke of striving together as the church. To strive together means to make great efforts to achieve or obtain something together. The heart of God for His church is that we strive together for the furtherance of His kingdom through the sharing of the good news of Jesus and the building up of the body of Christ.
Striving together starts with being like-minded. Meaning that we have to get on the same page about what is of utmost importance. What the purpose of the church is. Though striving together should be our aim as followers of Christ, it is something that can be difficult to achieve at times.
One thing that makes striving together difficult is when we focus on our differences. Though we might be like-minded, that doesn’t mean we won’t have different ideas about how to get where we want to go, or how to approach doing a particular ministry. After years of getting together with different pastors in the community, I have come to realize how different our churches are. And yet we have the same desire to see people come to Christ and to grow as followers of Jesus. One church may put a greater emphasis on evangelism while another emphasizes helping young believers grow in Christ through a strong mentorship program. It’s like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3 – “some plant, some water, but God gives the increase”.
Something we do in our community among the evangelical churches is we get together on a Sunday night in the months when there is a fifth Sunday to worship Jesus. We set aside our differences in our styles of worship, styles of teaching, and our ways of doing ministry to do so. It allows the community of believers in our town to become stronger together. What has allowed this to happen is that we focus on what we share in common rather than what makes us different.
As church families and individual believers, we can accomplish far more together than we can apart. Go forth this week seeking to strive together with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
“Striving together”
Yesterday I spoke of striving together as the church. To strive together means to make great efforts to achieve or obtain something together. The heart of God for His church is that we strive together for the furtherance of His kingdom through the sharing of the good news of Jesus and the building up of the body of Christ.
Striving together starts with being like-minded. Meaning that we have to get on the same page about what is of utmost importance. What the purpose of the church is. Though striving together should be our aim as followers of Christ, it is something that can be difficult to achieve at times.
One thing that makes striving together difficult is when we focus on our differences. Though we might be like-minded, that doesn’t mean we won’t have different ideas about how to get where we want to go, or how to approach doing a particular ministry. After years of getting together with different pastors in the community, I have come to realize how different our churches are. And yet we have the same desire to see people come to Christ and to grow as followers of Jesus. One church may put a greater emphasis on evangelism while another emphasizes helping young believers grow in Christ through a strong mentorship program. It’s like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3 – “some plant, some water, but God gives the increase”.
Something we do in our community among the evangelical churches is we get together on a Sunday night in the months when there is a fifth Sunday to worship Jesus. We set aside our differences in our styles of worship, styles of teaching, and our ways of doing ministry to do so. It allows the community of believers in our town to become stronger together. What has allowed this to happen is that we focus on what we share in common rather than what makes us different.
As church families and individual believers, we can accomplish far more together than we can apart. Go forth this week seeking to strive together with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
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