“Nobody is a whole chain… each one is a link. Take one link away, and the chain is broken. Nobody is a whole team… each one is a player. But take away one of the players, and the game can be forfeited. Nobody is a whole orchestra, each one is a musician. But take away one musician and the symphony is incomplete. Nobody is a whole hospital, each one is a part of the staff. But take away 1 person and it isn’t long before the patients can tell. Cars are composed of numerous parts, each one is connected and dependant upon the other. Even a tiny screw, if it comes loose and falls off of the carburetor can bring the whole vehicle to a stop. You guessed it—we need each other! You need someone, and someone needs you. “To make this thing called the Christian life work, we’ve got to lean and support and relate and respond, and give and take, and confess and forgive, and reach out and embrace, and release and rely—especially in God’s family, where working together is Plan A for survival. Since none of us is a whole, independent, self-sufficient, super-capable, all-powerful hotshot, let’s quit acting like we are. Life’s lonely enough without playing that silly role, the game is over—let’s link up!”

Chuck Swindoll
“Come Before Winter”

PROBLEMS?

1. Isolation
2. Complacency

Two Things…

1. We Together are the People of God
2. We Together Can Experience God’s Purposes

LIVE LIKE YOU BELIEVE IT’S TRUE!

1. Make it Worthy
2. Make it Unified

3. Make it Courageous

We Have a Privilege of Fully Representing Christ

#1 By Believing in Him
#2 By Suffering for Him

Applications…

1. The Importance of a Personal Decision to be Fully Committed
2. The Importance of Believers Standing Together in Christ
3. The Importance of Understanding that Suffering is a Normal Part of the Christian’s Experience in this World

“At the height of the energy crisis years ago the governor of Virginia ordered energy use restricted in non-essential buildings. No one seemed particularly surprised that churches headed the list. In the eyes of the world as well as many church-goers, the church is only a building. An expensive, under-used one at that—except for a few hours on Sunday and an occasional mid-week service or function the building is empty. So why use scarce resources to heat or cool it. These same people consider the church just another institution with it’s own bureaucracy, run by ministers or priests, who like lawyers and doctors are members of a profession. And while this parochial institution fulfills a worthwhile social and inspirational function, most people could frankly get along fine without it. In many ways the church has allowed itself to become what the world says it is. But that sad fact has not diluted or changed God’s definition of it. Biblically, His church is an organism, not an organization. It is a movement, not a monument. It is not part of the community, it is a whole new community. It is not an orderly gathering, it is a new order, with new values and often ones often in sharp contrast with the surrounding society. The church does not draw people in per-se, it sends them out. It does not settle into a comfortable niche, taking it’s place alongside the Rotary, the Elks or the Country Club. Rather, the church is to make society uncomfortable. Like yeast, it unsettles the mass around it, it changes it from within. Like salt it flavors and preserves that into which it vanishes. But, as yeast is made up of many particles and salt composed of multiplied grains, so the church is made up of many individual believers together. For God has given us each other—we do not live the Christian life alone. We do not love God alone. Together we are God’s people. Together we experience God’s purposes.”

- Chuck Colson “Loving God”