A Church Community

I was listening to a sermon today by Matt Chandler of The Village Church in Dallas, TX and he was discussing the result of the Gospel and he said something that I think a lot of our churches in America miss, but by God's grace some are starting to speak of. He said this:

"(The gospel creates) a community where no one gets to brag, but where everyone is broken but being healed"

I often times find myself not feeling super broken, I mean I am a seminary student, work at a church and have a great family. I fear often I in my heart brag over people, think I am better and whole and complete, think I have found my best life now. Then I hear a sermon like this that rocks my foundation and makes me uneasy and shows the broken jar I am. Thank God for moments like these that help humiliate me and help break me again of all pretensions and haughtiness I have. I am broken, we all are, we will not be fully healed this side of heaven, but we are in process, something that we have to cling to. The cross is not this place where immediate restoration to all things take place, instead for us it is the foundation we always walk on as we our on our journey. Our journey often times will not look like it is going forward, but by walking firmly on the gospel and with the cross in front of us we press on to make it ours (Phil 3: 12-14). Tomorrow night we start up the spring semester at "The Well" a college gathering of Desert Springs Church, I hope to by God's grace to come with humility and brokenness and that others will begin to do the same. I hope that we see ourselves as messy, jacked up, broken punks that deserve hell, that do not deserve grace and salvation, but by the grace and the grace of God alone we come to Jesus as beggars, drunkards, horrors and wretches and cling to the foot of the cross as our one and only hope for healing. That our foundation is not longer in the law of right and wrong, but is the cross of Christ. And our cleanliness is not if we do not cuss or look at pornography but is in the washing of ourselves in the blood of Christ.

What a blessed way to start the week, not by saying I am good and everyone likes me, but by saying I am a piece of crap and the Lord loves me anyway!!!!