God has only one institution: The Church. It’s not a nice brick building but a body of believers, brought into covenant with the Lord Jesus. We’re a community, bearing one another’s burdens and seeking another’s good above our own. We meet together to worship, loving one another and serving our city to the glory and praise of Jesus Christ. We are one, and we are His Bride.
“For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body”
1 Corinthians 12:12
“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God”
Ephesians 2:19
“And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together”
Hebrews 10:24-25a
God is love, and He has loved us with an infinite, supernatural love, sending His Son to die on our behalf and not dealing with us as He ought to. Our response ought to be an overwhelming, overriding, near uncontrollable response of love towards Him - clearly displayed in our love towards our neighbours, especially those in the family of faith - because of who God is, and what He has done.
“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law”
Romans 13:8
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’”
Mark 12:29b-30a
“By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
1 John 3:16
“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
1 John 4:8
“We love Him because He first loved us.”
1 John 4:19
It’s all about Jesus. He is altogether glorious, majestic and beautiful. He is always infinitely valuable. Christ came, to glorify His Father, by living a sinless, innocent life, being condemned by those whom He came to save, being abandoned by His companions, suffering at the hands of God’s people, dying a shameful death on a cross, rising again on the third day, ascending into heaven, and sitting down at the right hand of God. In this, He took the penalty - the wrath that was due for every child of God – and absorbed it, and satisfied it, so that God the Father may look on us as sons and not enemies stained with sin. It’s all about Jesus.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence”
Colossians 1:15-18
“and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”
Ephesians 1:19-21
“let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”
Hebrews 12:2b-3a
“Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
Philippians 2:6-8
“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”
2 Corinthians 5:19a
The church is a community designed by God to affect the community, and a church that is not active in their community is a reproach to God’s name. While we know and pray for those living in constant danger because of their faith, and those fighting to preach the Gospel where Christ has not yet been named, we know God has planted us here to affect our city. We will love and serve and preach to our community and labour in prayer for it and have faith that God will turn it upside down, for a revival is not a true revival until the moral atmosphere is transformed.
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
“And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved”
Matthew 21:10
“These who have turned the world upside down have come here too”
Acts 17:6b
“For I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.”
Acts 18:10
“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.’”
Isaiah 6:8