Vision Glorious

~ by Pastor Rob Krause
TCC = True Christian Community

Through the Roof - Mark 2:1-12 
Tip: You can hold your mouse over any of our Bible references at VG to read the passage

 Tearing a hole in the roof, a crippled son of Abraham must be let down into the living room to encounter the Bread of Presence. Step into this man’s ongoing, paralyzed pain for a moment. "What sin did I do that left me like this? I thought I covered them all? Am I to blame? What did my parents do? I’m so miserable! I’m so tired of my body! Every day I have to bear this pain as a public spectacle on this sweat and urine stained mattress! People have coins but very little care. Pharisees have answers but they have no action…" However, there is One. There’s the kind-hearted carpenter, Yeshua, who this paralytic most likely knew personally and presently seeks. Can you taste the mounting fury in his spirit? Can you sense the fleeting window of opportunity closing before his eyes? Will you imagine the frustration filling his flesh over his complete helplessness? Cry with him! "I just want to see Jesus! I only want to show Him what I am." And now, the very people who walked over him like an obstacle every day have become his obstacle; his singular wall to scale for the Solution to his life.

Jesus seems very familiar with this house. In fact, it was probably His own or Peter’s. The point is that we see neither flinch nor adverse reaction to clay chunks and descending dust upon His teaching lesson. Culturally, a dust shower upon a rabbi and gathered scribes would be a dishonorable thing to do! Quite the opposite is taking place when Jesus actually admires the faith of the wall climbers. He wants this to happen. The only way a homeowner admires the destruction of his home is if a greater cause is going to be served to the homeowner. In Jesus’ case, every action and every miracle was to reveal the Glory of God (to make Him known!). We don’t know why the man in our account was paralyzed. The Israelites of the day thought that almost every sickness was due to some specific, related sin. And, while some other rabbis would deal with the healing of disease, they would not nor could not deal with sin.

What we do know is that regardless of the root cause of the paralysis, there was a disease that was meant to bring God glory through His Son healing it. There was a man who really wanted to be healed and his friends who wanted the same thing — desperately. And, there were two obstacles hindering the miraculous act — the congregating hearers and the roof of the building housing them.

The Faith of Five

The handicapped Hebrew is lowered through the roof on a one-way trip. The act took all five men. They wanted a healing which Jesus gave them and more. Jesus forgave his sins. He delivered our pain-stricken man from his past, present, and future spiritual and physical slavery. And Jesus did all of this "when He saw their faith" Mark 2:5.

Don’t miss this point: There is a special level of co-operation with God that can only be accomplished in true Christian community which unlocks His glory that He rightfully deserves in the lives of many.

God’s Pleasure in Small Groups

God wants to be known in your city. The Lord wants to be glorified in your neighborhood. Jesus wants to be understood, active, and lifted up in your Church (It’s His community anyway). All over your region there are pains and problems coupled with sins and sicknesses that are ripe for the picking of the glory of God. People are waiting to be unlocked from the works of sin and the devil — and many of those won’t happen until groups of earnest, caring Christians pick up their mats and carry these captives out of Signor Strongman’s dungeon. True Christian Community, then, brings credit and praise to God by how they act with His mind and move in His ways.

Yes, there are good works for the individual believer-priest to accomplish but not all and not many of the God-revealing works are available to individuals only. No, there are deeper and grander works for the community to do together. We need each other. We really need each other. This is why we are to confess our sins to one another — the glory of God in deliverance through community. Or, why two or three gathered in the character, the will, and the essence of Jesus (His Name) are promised His very presence in a special way.¹ Commenting on our now joyous, jumping Jew, Edwards writes the following:

The Gospels preserve several instances of Jesus fulfilling the petition of one party on behalf of another. The power of Jesus is actually enhanced in intercessory healings, for the cure cannot be attributed to auto-suggestion or to the victim’s inner preparedness…an intercession even better illustrates the rule of Jesus, which is not to destroy faith.²

When Christians get together in the form of small, strategized teams (Jesus had one of 12) and bring the blind, diseased, demonized, or paralyzed to Jesus in urgent faith there is a heavenly authority that is released. And when the watching world gets a glimpse of the genuine article of Heaven, they will say the very same thing the residents of Capernaum said on the forgiving & healing day of their local invalid, "We never saw anything like this!" ( Mark 2:12). Wouldn’t you want that said about people around you in your Church? Wouldn’t you want that said about your Lord & King?

1. yes, I know that this passage deals with church discipline but I believe a "both-and" principle is in context here. I will be writing another article on this in the near future. [back]
2. Edwards, James R., The Gospel According to Mark, (Eerdmans, 2002); p. 76 [back]

A pastor once used the analogy of a burning fire to represent the Church. He told me that if you place many logs together and strike a match, the mass of logs will ignite and create a roaring fire. As long as the logs are together, the fire continues. But if you take one burning log out of the fire, the flame will soon die out. Nothing changed in the log; it is still the same flammable materials as before. But something changed in the environment; without the heat and flame of the other logs, it simply won’t burn as readily. ‘So it is with Christians,’ he said to me. ‘As long as we are together, we burn for Christ as lights in the darkness. But if you separate one Christian away from the Church, in very little time he will be reduced to a smolder.’¹

1. an excerpt from Finding the Will of God ~ a Pagan Notion? by Bruce K. Waltke, p. 105 [back]

~ by Sister Dana Raye

Our Experience with TCC 

These things (the areas of True Christian Community) have been on our minds a lot since coming back to the United States and getting settled in American culture again.  My most meaningful experience with Christian community was definitely in Italy.  There are so many reasons why I think that occurred.  A passionate Pastor, vision, focus on outreach, and the tight-knit base community were a few of the reasons.  Living out my faith with a small group of believers included so many things: meeting together, worshipping, praying together, serving each other, and finding others to serve. 

Here’s How I See TCC

I believe Christian community is about bearing one another’s burdens and praying for one another, as Scripture teaches.  When you meet the basic goal of loving each other and building one another up, then you automatically want to share that with others and bring those who are hurting into the comfort of other believers.  Since leaving Italy, I have continued to see the fruit that comes from regular small group meetings, honestly sharing, prayer, and outreach with other believers.  In my short years of experience with these concepts, I believe the key is removing the masks we hide behind and being our true selves with others. The building called church didn’t change my life; coming to know God myself and through others did. The relationships are everything!

Community Killers

My experience with “community-killers” probably came early on with one church’s attempt to disciple me through guidelines and books rather than personal interaction and love.  I believe Christians do not mean to use as much lingo, rules, and traditions as we do, but it is comfortable and easy to do in a world where acceptance is so important in all other aspects of life.  In that mindset, many people lose sight of the true mission of the church.  Also, the local church not being so “local” can put a different spin on things.  I have met lots of people who drive 45 minutes to an hour for the large church with great music and a lot of activities to be involved in.  I sometimes wish we still had a neighborhood church, park, market, school.  Then people may really bear one another’s burdens, have a sense of community, and make the community a strong place.  Now we have to let everyone practice their own belief system, stay quiet, don’t offend, mind our own business, and drive our cars to a place we call church.  I believe the body of believers should take church into the community more and meet people where they need it.  I see them everyday in the emergency room where I work…they are sad, hurting, seeking pills to numb spiritual pain that has become physical, and looking for answers. We need to bridge that gap somehow, reach out to people, and bring them into a loving community of believers.  Unfortunately, I do not have a simple, cut and dry answer for how to do that!

Different Congregations; Same Components

I believe that in the same way the body has many parts, each church will have a unique approach.  This is exciting to me because we all have different ideas and abilities, and we cannot all be a part of the same congregation!  The way each body of believers lives out community may look different in practice, but it will always be based in love and living as a servant. I think the struggle is to challenge people in each church to own up to their calling and realize that they and the church have a mission here on earth.  Every believer is called to share how Christ changed them and serve, but not all do (always be ready to give an account!).  I think the proper discipleship of new believers, challenge to old ones, and an appropriate forum in which to live out life together (whatever it may look like) are the crucial components to developing True Christian Community.

~ Mrs. Dana Raye faithfully served as a LifeTeam Servant (small group leader) along with her husband Bryan in the Serenissima Bible Church in Northeast Italy. Dana & Bryan now live in Tennessee where they are faithfully serving in their local Church and raising their daughter Eva.

Intro

Before turning specific attention to the topic of peaceful living, I’d like to first touch on what I envision when a body lives in True Christian Community. What experience has taught me (particularly in Italy) is that when you’re living in True Christian Community (TCC), you and your “family” are living out your faith as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” referred to in Exodus 19:6. Together, your local body of Christ is living as a “complete and healthy body” with Jesus at the head. As such, each member of the body is living in obedience and utilizing the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to serve and meet the needs of others, encourage and pray for one another, win others to Christ—in short, to be Jesus’ hands, feet, eyes, ears (sounds like a body doesn’t it).

Peace Out — and In.

One might guess that living in peace in TCC should be a natural spiritual outflow of the image presented above. In reality, it is and it isn’t. It is because God’s perspective on peace tells us biblically that it should be and, in fact, with obedience and effort peace does flow out of TCC living. However, by outward appearances, peace may not be apparent. Why? There may and likely will be great attack from the enemy when the body comes together this way. Also, our flesh and pride, in particular, have a way of degrading from the ideal images of peace in a body alive. Finally, disobedience to God’s plan also leads us (and the church leaders) away from a state of “peace” as defined by the world.

The world defines peace as a “state of calm” or “freedom from stife and discord.” Probably a better spiritual definition would be “harmony in interpersonal relationships with God, others and enemies.” We need to understand God’s call to peace, His perspective and provision for peace in TCC, and that it takes obedience and work to realize true peace in TCC. Let’s look at some principles next.

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