Tag: The Church

Buildings Matter

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A year ago, we started out on a journey to expand and renovate our facilities here at First Baptist Oakboro. Over this week and next, we are checking back in on where we are, what God is doing, and why the work we are pursuing is still worth the effort. We’ll start today with the prophet Haggai and his call for the people of Israel to rebuild the temple. When we put God’s things first, He blesses the effort. Let’s dive in.

Buildings Matter

Have you ever hit one of those seasons when everything just feels like a rat race? You wake up, get dressed, go to work, come home, go to bed, and start it all over the next day. It feels like nothing ever really changes. You aren’t really going anywhere. You’re just doing the things that need to be done because they need to be done. You never feel like you get to the things you do just because you want to do them. No sooner do you get to what seems like it will be the end of one season than you find yourself back at the start having to run the whole thing over. It can all start to feel pointless. It can be depressing. How do we find purpose again when we get stuck like this? The answer is found in putting first things first. 

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Morning Musing: Romans 12:10

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“Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Hearing that we are to be following Jesus and mimicking His character is one thing. Having an actual set of guidelines to help us know where the lines on that effort are so that we may live comfortably within them is another. We need both if we are going to get it right. Thankfully, in the second half of Romans 12, the apostle Paul gives us just such a list. We started out our walk through this list last week. I had initially planned to tackle the first four verses covering the first eleven of the commands Paul gives, but as I started writing, there was a lot to say about just the first verse, so we stopped with that. My plan as I’m sitting down this morning is to get through verse 12, but as my Wednesday night Bible study group knows, sometimes we don’t get as far as we planned. So, let’s talk specifics on following Jesus, and see how far we get.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 12:14-18

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“Indeed, the body is not one part but many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,’ it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,’ it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Earlier this week we spent a bit of time with Paul’s characterization of the church as the body of Christ in Romans 12. I noted then that in 1 Corinthians 12, he explores this theme in a great deal more depth and detail. I also noted then that we were going to come back to the idea today through the lens of the latest season of Wednesday on Netflix. Well, here we are. I reviewed the first season here. We’re not going to do a full review of the second season today, but there was one scene and a minor theme that jumped out at me as filled to the brim with Gospel implications. Let’s talk about cousin Thing and disembodied parts.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 12:6-8

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“According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The church is a complicated organization. Yes, I know it should be as simple as it can be. Unnecessary complexity tends to diminish the amount of actual Gospel-advancing work it does. But if a church is accomplishing all the things God has designed it to accomplish, even a small church has a whole lot of moving parts and critical pieces. Now, some churches, by sheer virtue of size are able to do a lot more than others, but God equips all of them to do all the things He has called them to do. Paul here is talking about one of the ways He does that. Let’s join him.

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Morning Musing: Romans 12:4-5

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“Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The best preachers have illustrations they go back to again and again. This isn’t because they’re boring and unoriginal (they’re the best preachers, not the worst). It’s because the illustrations are so good they’re worth being used over and over. What we encounter here is one of the illustrations to help understand the body of Christ that Paul comes back to more than once. Let’s talk about the body, the church, and what we mean to one another.

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