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The New Community
Brian Mashburn
March 6, 2016
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The New Community
Who are your close friends?
For some, just the question makes a smile explode across their face. The connectedness, shared experiences, and companionship of those who instantly and effortlessly come to mind touches on a deep need in the human soul. Because it is satisfied, the question brings forth celebration.
For others, the question makes tears well up in their eyes. The separateness, loneliness, and isolation touches on that same deep need, but because it is unsatisfied, it brings forth pain.
We all need friends.
But as many have learned the hard way, we don't just need any friends, but friends of a certain type. Friends of a certain kind. Put in the scope of the whole world, they are rare. They exist, but they are oftentimes hard to find. Add to this, the only way to know if they are the sort of friends that every soul needs comes by vulnerably trusting them and finding out.
In Ephesians 2, as a part of his description of the church, he claims that the place to find the type of friends that will really give you the sense of belonging, of family, and of true "fittedness" is among those who have built their lives on Jesus Christ (vs 19-20).
With Jesus at the foundation, the truest and deepest sense of need for community can be satisfied so fully that it is as if God Himself was right there within it doing the satisfying (vs 21-22).
So another important question for you to answer is, why are your close friends your close friends. If the answer is anything but Jesus and the gospel, there's more to be had.