Gospel Community: Exhortation, part 1

Sunday we’re going to take two weeks and discuss an important function of our gospel community: exhortation. The church has three primary reasons for her existence: maintaining faithful worship of the true God, expressing the grace of Christ to the world, and building up the people of God. Often churches focus exclusively on one aspect its calling. The evangelical church has become “missional” to the point of minimizing faithful worship and ministering to the body. The reformed church sometimes focuses so much on getting worship right, it can minimize community life and mission. Most common is to focus so heavily on church life that a church becomes ingrown and feels more like a social club.

We believe the Scripture presents a progression: faithful worship should create and stimulate a vibrant community characterized by loving edification (building one another up) which moves out, as love expands to our neighbors. Our text will be Hebrews 10:24-25, where the author says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

The apostle’s emphasis is on our consideration of each other so that we can wisely exhort one another, stirring one another up to greater expressions of love and service. The “consideration” requires knowing each other, which depends on our participation in gathering. Consideration also requires thoughtful interaction so that we stimulate love and service not anger or division. Because exhortation can create defensiveness, it proves to be a “Crucial Conversation.” (Crucial Conversations, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzler) Crucial conversations are marked by opinions, emotions, and values. Whenever we engage in spiritual conversations surrounding our growth in grace, we handle the fine china of people’s lives and need to be thoughtful.

Join us Sunday as we invest time considering the importance of our interactions in gospel community.