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Change Requires Community

By Rick Warren

“Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other” (Romans 12:4-5 NLT, second edition).

You will not make all the changes you need to make, want to make, would love to make, plan to make, or hope to make by yourself. If you could, you would. But you can’t, so you won’t!

The Bible says in Romans 12:4-5, “Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other” (NLT, second edition).

God wired the universe in such a way that we need each other. I need you, and you need me. The phrase “one another” is used 58 times in the New Testament: Love one another, care for one another, encourage one another, support one another, pray for one another, greet one another, share with one another. God never meant for you to go through life alone. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto! You weren’t created to go through life by yourself. Whether you ever marry or not is irrelevant. You need a spiritual family, and you need to be in a small group.

You need the people around you, and they need you. We belong to each other.

There are a lot of good self-help books that will tell you the right thing to do, but they don’t provide the two things the Bible says you must have: God’s power and community. That’s what you need to really change. Change requires community.

At Saddleback, we’ve got people from every kind of background. We speak 65 languages at our church and have members from many different religious and ethnic backgrounds and nationalities.

But what we have in common is our love for God. That unites us and allows us to help each other out.

Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (NIV).