Christ, Community, Neighbor
During the month of January, BLC is walking through a sermon series entitled “Christ-Community-Neighbor.” We are looking at various passages throughout Scripture that teach us about proclaiming the gospel message, the mission of the church, and the obligation we have to our neighbors. Our hope for this series is three-fold, as the title suggests:
- We want to see lost people reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. This is the point! There is no more important message than the message of the cross, where the Son of God died for sinners. The cross tells us who we are and who Jesus died to make us. Our prayer and our hope must be to see our neighbors meet Jesus and come into a real relationship with the God of the universe.
- We want to see believers connected to a Community of faith – the local church. People are saved individually but are automatically grafted into a body, the body of Christ. We desire to see believers in Jesus actively participating in the life of the church, serving fellow brothers and sisters, worshiping together, sharing burdens, and building up the church in love. In the community, we are bound together by the Spirit and are sent as One to live out the gospel.
- As the sent-out people of God, we have an obligation to pour ourselves out for our Neighbor. The community (church) exists for the glory of God and all believers must take the form of a servant, welcoming all people as Christ has welcomed us, and considering our neighbors as more important than ourselves. We want to live out our faith in word and deed, seeking the welfare of all those around us, in the hopes that our neighbors will be blessed by the good news of redemption in Christ.
May God teach us, change us, rebuke us, and equip us to be a city on a hill, for his glory alone.
- JD Wilson