“People want to belong before they will believe.”
A few weeks ago, the people of Dwelling Place Church in Seattle said “goodbye, for now” to David as he moved his life to Arizona. David is an intelligent skeptic, a cautious truster, a great asker of questions, and a devoted friend. I (Wes) will miss our weekly in-person discussions about faith in Jesus. Thankfully, our phones work well over the distance.
On the last Sunday evening that we were able to gather with David, I got to see the gospel lived out in community like I had never noticed before. We ate dinner together. We prayed together. We laughed together. We opened up God’s word together. Each of these things was a beautiful expression of how God shows his power among us.
Except for some unforced laughter, these things were planned, but something I didn’t expect happened. This was not on my agenda for the evening. While walking around cleaning up the mess we made of our host’s home, I heard people sharing the gospel with David in the natural course of conversation. Four different people, in fact. Four different, unplanned, conversations that were authentic expressions of love for our friend…and love for our King.
To see very imperfect (but transformed!) people lingering with each other over a meal, to share the same limited space week after week, and to show vulnerability without (much) fear communicates a message: something is profoundly different about these people.
Its not that there aren’t disagreements. Its not that we don’t sin against each other and hurt each other. Its that the gospel of God’s grace so saturates his people that when all of those things happen we still draw near to each other in love.
In this was one more expression of the gospel that I almost missed: the community of Jesus gathered together in love. The message that was so loud and pervasive that I almost missed it is this: the community that the Spirit of God creates through the proclamation of the gospel!
To say that a person must belong before they believe does not mean we do not actively share our faith. We absolutely should communicate with our words about how God demonstrates his love in the crucifixion and resurrection of His Son. No, what I mean is that people need to see and experience just how that message transforms all of our lives. When a bunch of messy, selfish, and yet beloved people come together to worship and love each other in Jesus’ name and when they welcome people into their lives who were once considered “outsiders,” then what people experience is a visible expression of the authenticity of the gospel. The authenticity of individual lives changed. The King of grace gives us a deeper experience of his grace while we are together.
I have seen a sign of the Kingdom of God in how a group of people growing in faith in their King welcome one another with a love that is otherworldly…which can only happen if our Welcoming King welcomes us to himself.
May it be that more and more people are so affected by the gospel heard and the gospel seen that our lives overflow to those near us with the joy of that message. The people who know that they belong with us will better be able to understand why we believe in King of grace.
May that be true of my good friend David.
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