The Christian life is a community life. Ultimately, we cannot love Jesus and not love his church. When I say “church” I am not, of course, talking about a building or an organizational structure. I am talking about your spiritual family. I’m talking about a local fellowship of believers—your local fellowship of believers—who serve together, worship together, and grow together by investing in each other’s present, and eternal, well-being. Where there’s no love for that church, there’s no real love for Christ.
The Bible never defines the Christian life in terms of “me and Jesus”! It’s always “us and Jesus!” When the New Testament addresses believers as “you”, the word is always—with only a couple of exceptions—plural. Think “y’all”. The idea of an isolated Christian soldiering alone with Jesus is foreign to Scripture. When the first Christian sermon in Acts 2 bore the fruit of 3000 converts, those converts were immediately defined in corporate terms. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship… (Acts 2:41-42). When the first disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, the model Jesus offers is a corporate, Our Father…give us this day our daily bread…forgive us our debt…lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…(Mt. 6:9-13). In short, the Bible presents life with Christ as life in fellowship with His people—that is, life in fellowship with His church.
Bottom line? If you’re attempting to walk with Jesus alone—stop it! If you think active participation in a Bible-believing church is optional for a follower of Christ—repent. There’s too much at stake! Here’s the truth. Our attitude towards “church” is an indicator of the genuineness of our faith. Refusal to commit to a local church (spotty attendance, little involvement in ministry, refusal to submit to spiritual authority, lack of financial support, no desire for relational connection, etc.) is, at best, a mark of spiritual immaturity. At worst, it’s an expression of unbelief!
You might be thinking I’m overstating my case. I’m not. First, Jesus defined the purpose of his earthly ministry by declaring, I will build my church… In other words, Jesus didn’t come to redeem millions of disconnected individuals. Jesus came to build a community for himself. The Bible says Jesus is the head of his Church which is his body. The head and the body are inseparable! You cannot love Christ, the head, and not love his body, the church.
In the same way, Titus 2:13-14 reveals that Christ died and rose again in order to “purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Again, the goal of Jesus’ death on the cross extends beyond your individual salvation or mine. Jesus died to create a transformed community. Jesus suffered to purify his church!
In light of this, we must remember that spiritual growth takes place in community. As irritating as we each can be, we need each other! Paul insists on this in Ephesians 4:11-16 when he writes, “And he (God) gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, make the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” In other words, if we don’t grow up together, we won’t grow up at all. At least not according to God’s design.
There’s no getting around it. If you claim Christ as Savior and have no love for his church, something’s wrong! Those who love the Head will love the body. Therefore, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25).