Foundations of Faith – Fellowship is a simple topic, really. What do you want your witness to be? Our God defines what his church is, who is included, even how we look after being washed by the blood of the lamb. But why are there so many different churches and how are we supposed to interact with them?
Washed
Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. God can see what’s on the inside. All we can do is look at a person’s confession, in their words and actions. This is why the one true church is an invisible church. What has God done for this invisible church? He has forgiven every member for Jesus’ sake. That means by definition every member of this church will be in heaven.
Wolves
Life isn’t so simple. The church that God sees so clearly is hidden from our view. It can be said that every Christian church on earth has some members in the invisible church. Trusting in Jesus is your ticket to heaven, after all. All that we can see is a slew of different churches that sound or look more or less the same. A non-denominational church will look very different from a Roman Catholic parish, but both most likely will have Christians in them. The reason there are so many different churches is because there have been so many false prophets. God calls them wolves in sheep’s clothing. What do we do about all the differences? Wouldn’t we be better off looking past those differences?
Winning
Sitting by the bed side of Clafferteen Farrow was an older woman. Clafferteen was 102 years old. The woman employed Clafferteen as a nanny for more than two decades. She saw Clafferteen as family. So when I showed up to pray with Clafferteen and be on my way, I didn’t really want to answer her question. I said, “Those differences don’t really matter, what’s…” At that point with a terse phrase I was cut off. The woman stopped me and insisted. “Those difference mattered to Clafferteen so they matter to me.” I had just been rightly rebuked by an elderly Methodist woman. She was right. So was Clafferteen. The differences matter because God’s Word matters. Which part of God’s Word should we ignore? As you head off to Christmas mass at your grandmother’s Catholic parish, ask yourself – What witness do I want to give?
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s study from our series, Foundations of Faith – Fellowship.
Please click HERE to find the Bible study slides.