The following sermon was delivered on 4th August 2024 as part of our ongoing Being Human Series. In it, Linda Bailey explores what it means to be created to live in community with one another. From the very beginning, God saw that it was not good for us to be alone but rather to be in relationships.

If you prefer to listen or read, you can find audio and a summary article of the sermon below.

The movie Unsung Hero recently caught the attention of many, telling the story of the Smallbone family—an Australian family who moved to the United States. For those unfamiliar, the family is connected to well-known Christian artists such as For King & Country and Rebecca St. James. The movie highlights their humble beginnings, filled with sacrifice, humility, and the unwavering power of faith and answered prayers.

The father, once a Christian music promoter in Australia, faced failure in his business, leading him to move his family to the U.S. in hopes of a fresh start. They arrived with very little—no furniture, scarce food, and only their faith to sustain them. The mother homeschooled their children because they couldn’t afford traditional schooling. Despite their struggles, the family never lost hope, trusting that God would provide for them.

The Power of Community

What stood out most in the story was how the Smallbone family found support within their new community. They joined a church, and as the congregation learned about their situation, they stepped in to help. The family was invited to Thanksgiving dinners, and their children received Christmas presents from people who barely knew them. This community didn’t just attend church together; they lived out their faith by being the hands and feet of Christ to those in need.

This scenario invites reflection on how local faith communities can similarly embrace and support those in need. If a family like the Smallbones joined a local church, would the members recognize their needs and offer the same level of care and support?

Being Human: Created for Community

Currently, many churches are engaging in a series called “Being Human,” which explores what it means to be created in the image of God. Over recent weeks, congregations have discussed the significance of being made in God’s image and how to honor Him with their physical bodies. The focus is now shifting to what it means to live in community, as humans designed for connection.

From the very beginning, God recognized that it wasn’t good for man to be alone. While Adam had a perfect relationship with God, he still needed another human to share life with. Matthew Henry’s commentary beautifully encapsulates this: “She was not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”

This imagery reinforces the idea that community is not just about proximity; it’s about equality, protection, and love. It’s about living in a way that reflects the relational nature of the God who created us.

God’s Promise to Journey with His People

Community can be challenging—relationships aren’t always easy. But the good news is that God doesn’t leave His people to figure it out on their own. He promises to be with them every step of the way. In Genesis 17:7, God tells Abraham, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” This promise wasn’t just for Abraham—it extends to all who follow in faith.

When people connect with God, it naturally leads them to connect with others. Jesus modeled this perfectly, not just preaching about community but living it. He shared His life with His disciples, eating with them, praying with them, and teaching them to love and serve one another.

Unity Through Jesus Christ

In John 17, Jesus prays for all believers to be united, just as He is united with the Father. “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

This prayer reveals the depth of connection Jesus desires for His followers—not just with God, but with each other. The unity of believers is a testimony to the world of God’s love and power. When the church lives in true community, it reflects the image of God in a way that draws others to Him.

The Challenge and Beauty of Community

Living in community isn’t always easy. The early church faced similar struggles, as evidenced by the many letters in the New Testament addressing the challenges of living out faith together. But the vision of community that God gives in Revelation 21 is beautiful: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”

This vision isn’t just for the future. A glimpse of this heavenly community can be experienced on earth when people commit to living in unity with God and each other.

Reflecting on Church Community Today

So, what does this look like for churches today, like One Church? Congregations are diverse, filled with people of different gifts, backgrounds, and stories. This diversity is intentional, as 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 explains: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.”

Each person is unique and necessary. Churches cannot thrive without the contributions of each member. As churches grow larger, it becomes essential to grow smaller—by connecting in small groups, serving together, and building relationships with those around them.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. How is the importance of community evident in your own life?

2. In what ways can your church be more intentional about recognizing and meeting the needs of those around you?

3. What gifts or resources can you offer to help build up the body of Christ?

4. How can you balance receiving and giving within your faith community?

5. What steps can you take this week to deepen your connection with God and others in your church?

Living Out the Image of God in Community

These questions invite reflection on living in community as both a gift and a responsibility. It is a sacrifice at times—giving up time, resources, and comfort. But it is a sacrifice that mirrors the love of Christ, who gave everything for humanity.

When congregations gather around the communion table, they remember the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made. His body was broken, His blood was shed, so that all people could have a relationship with God and each other. As the church partakes in communion, it’s also a time to consider what can be offered to help others experience the same relationship.

Closing Thoughts and Prayer

As churches reflect on these ideas, they are encouraged to pray together, asking God to fill them with His Spirit, open their eyes to the needs around them, and give them the courage to live out the community they are called to be.

Transcript

I recently watched the movie Unsung Hero. Now, I don't know if you've seen this before; it's a relatively new movie. It's about the Smallbone family, an Australian family who moved to the United States. You might have heard of the Christian artists For King & Country or Rebecca St. James—these artists come from this one family. But their story is one of very humble beginnings.

Their father was a Christian music promoter, and when he failed in business here in Australia, he moved the family to the States to try his luck over there, taking his whole family with him. There were many tears shed, there was humility, and there was sacrifice. They moved over there and had almost nothing. They were able to find a house, but they had no furniture. They often had no food in the cupboard. The wife had to homeschool her children. They just had so little—except for themselves and their faith in God.

This is a movie of humility, of humble beginnings, but also of incredible answered prayers.

The Power of Community

When I watched this movie recently, I noticed that this Christian family went to a church while they were in the States. As they engaged with this faith community, the community realized how little this family had. They were invited to someone's home for Thanksgiving. This family made sure that the Smallbone children had presents for Christmas, and they journeyed with them through their humble beginnings.

It really made me think. As someone who is part of a faith community locally, it made me wonder: if a family like that came into our faith community, would we know them well enough to be able to help them and provide for them as this faith community had provided for the Smallbone family?

The Series: Being Human

We are currently in a series called Being Human, where we are looking at how we have been created in the image of God. This is the third week. In the first week, we looked at what it means to be made in the image of God and the gift that this is to every single person. Last week, we looked at our physical bodies—what it means that God made us with physical bodies, and how we worship and respond to Him with that.

We're going to continue in this series to look at how we are made rationally—how we cognitively think about the image we are made in and live out that life. We will explore how we live emotionally, sexually, and how we, as humans, work and rest. Today, I'm going to look at the idea that we are made as humans to live in community.

The Need for Community from the Beginning

It happened right from the beginning. Thank you, Glenda, for reading for me. Right at the beginning, God saw that we needed to be made in community. Adam was made, but it was not right for him to be alone, so another was made, equal to commune with, to share with.

I love how Matthew Henry explains it: "She was not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved." What a beautiful sense of community—people together, connected, needing each other in that sense of community. When we connect into a faith community, this is what God has created us to do and to be.

God's Promise to Be with Us

The great thing is that God doesn't just leave us on our own with the expectation to figure it out. We know how challenging relationships and community can really be. But God has promised for generations and generations to always be with us. In Genesis 17:7, He says to Abraham, "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you." God promises to journey with us.

Community with God and Each Other

Community isn't just about people side by side. When we are in community with our Heavenly Father, when we live out who God has created us to be, it naturally brings us into community with the people beside us as well.

Jesus reinforced this idea as He lived, spoke, and preached. He was speaking to His disciples, such a tight-knit community that He dwelt among. He wanted people not just to commune with each other, not just to commune with God, but for that to be so interconnected that we can't help but commune with each other without seeing who God is and who He has created us to be. We can't be in community with God without the desire and need to be in community with each other.

Jesus' Prayer for Unity

Jesus said it this way in John 17 when He was speaking to the disciples: "My prayer is not for the disciples alone. My prayer is also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

What an incredible sense of unity—as God loved Jesus and Jesus loved us. This complete connection between all three is how God made us. That is the image of God that He desires for us to be in: complete union with God through Jesus Christ and in union with one another.

Paul's Teaching on Community

Paul goes on in his letter to the Corinthians to help them understand this constant community that is ongoing between us and God and us and each other. There's a wonderful theologian, Paula Gooder, who explores and unpacks a lot of Paul's writing. As she unpacks this idea of us being in community with God and in community with one another, she says this: "Paul talks about the church as the body of Christ. Paul is trying to get us to see that my body, Christ's actual physical body, Christ's body in the Last Supper, in the communion where we remember His death and His resurrection, and in the community of the body of Christ, are deeply, profoundly, and thoroughly interlinked—so much so, in fact, that it can be very difficult to work out where one ends and the other begins."

As you weigh up the balance and try to determine which way to go, there is no one better to look at than Jesus Himself. He had the ability to come to Earth in any way that He wanted. You know, He didn’t even have to come to Earth—He could have just shouted from the heavens, "Love one another as you want to be loved." But He chose to come to Earth.

Jesus’ Humble Choice

And He didn’t come as a king or royalty to have power and dominion during His time on Earth. He came as an everyday, ordinary person. He was born into the community of a family, into the Jewish community. He had a job, He had friends, He went to parties, He was invited over for dinner, He went to the marketplace and out to the fields. Jesus was in community in everything that we see and hear that He did.

Jesus Left a Community, Not Just a Message

Tim Keller says, "Jesus Christ did not leave a book; He left a community." He lived in such a way that the community He left behind was so convinced and passionate about who God had created them to be that they spread that community all over the world, even risking their lives for it. That is who God has created us to be.

Living in Communion with Christ and Each Other

With all the different things and complexities that it is to be human, He doesn’t ask us to do it on our own. He asks us to do it in communion with Him through Jesus Christ and in communion within the body of Christ. If we are not committed to living in community, then we are missing a significant part of how God has created us to be human.

Embracing Our Unique Gifts

So, what does that look like? How do you and I, here today, truly live in community? The great thing is there’s no cookie-cutter way of doing it. We’re not all made the same; we’re not all in the same shape, have the same giftings, or sing the same. We don’t all know the same stuff. We don’t have to be all the same. In fact, God celebrates how different we are. God created us all differently and wonderfully, and it’s in our individual gifts and abilities that we can create a body of Christ that is more beautiful than if we all just looked and sounded the same.

One Body, Many Parts

1 Corinthians 12:12-14 says it this way: "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so, the body is not made up of one part but of many."

You don’t have to look very far to see that you are different from the people sitting around you. But that’s what makes up the whole body. We don’t want to do life without you; we can’t do life without you. You bring something different than anyone else brings.

The Importance of Small Groups

So, let’s talk about us as One Church for just a moment. If you are visiting here today, or if you’re from another faith community, maybe you can apply this to your faith community. If you’re visiting for the first time, you’re getting a little "round-the-dinner-table" conversation. What does this mean for us as One Church?

To begin with, great name, right? And I know that a big part of the history of coming together and creating this name, One Church, was understanding one faith, one Lord, one baptism, and one body of Christ coming together. It was key for people not just to have a connection with God but also with each other.

Getting Smaller as We Grow Bigger

So how do we do that? How do we go as One Church, as the 10:00 Service, as a community, as a community of faith aiming to be the body of Christ here together?

Well, I can say that I know the majority of people in this room—it’s part of my job to know everyone. Don’t test me on your names! No, you can, with Kylie, our church manager, our office manager. We go back and forth to make sure that we know as many people as we can, and I know how amazing you are. I know so many of you give; so many of you are generous. So many of you give of your time and your resources. So many of you are incredibly gifted and talented. So many of you share your faith openly and honestly with each other as well as with people in your communities.

The Reality of Community: We’re Not Perfect

But we’re not perfect, right? We still have a way to go. And as we get bigger, the idea is that we actually need to get smaller. Long gone is the idea that one person will know everyone in this room. I work really hard at it, but there is no expectation that as you walk in the door, you are expected to know everyone. When you are a church of 100 or 150, that is a beautiful thing, and you’re able to do that. There is so much connection and community in churches that size. But when you get to a church this size, it is nearly impossible. We don’t expect you to know everyone. But as we get bigger, we need to get smaller.

Creating Smaller Communities Within the Church

No longer can it be an expectation that the small group of ministry staff can cater to the pastoral needs of our whole community. So many people would get missed and slip through the gaps if that were the case. So, how do we get smaller as we get bigger in number? How do we get smaller in community?

There are so many different ways you can do that. Small groups are one of the best ways that you can actually create smaller communities to know each other, to get to know each other, to be able to care for each other. So, just like in the "Unsung Hero" movie, if someone were to move into our church and join a small group, it would be that small group who gets to know their needs, who can reach out to others to help and support, but who truly gets to know each other.

Finding Your Place in Community

You could be a part of a welcome team, meeting together every month. You could be part of the women’s ministry, part of the Encore Ministry. There are so many different ways—the men’s ministry that gathers for people to come and connect in a smaller way. Because if you are walking into the building here and stay for an hour and a half and then leave again, that’s not really the body of Christ connecting, supporting, and building each other up as we were created to be.

Maybe your small group is actually just the group that you are sitting with today. If you are like me, I’m a creature of habit—I sit in the same seat every week. And I know the people around me. You get to know them as we do that awkward thing of turning around and saying hi to someone around you. You probably find that you see similar people all the time. We sit in the same area. You can turn around and connect with people.

Committing to Engage with Your Church Family

Do you know what? If we spend an hour and a half together here every single week, that’s more time than I spend with my best friend. Right? We are spending, we are committing that time to engage not just with God—although we do that through the word, through worship, and through hearing people’s testimonies—but our aim is to connect as a community as well. Otherwise, you may as well just sit at home and put on a YouTube clip. There is power in being together. We are designed to be in community, and we try our best to support that as much as we can. But we all play a part in that.

The Role of Small Groups in Our Church

I mentioned small groups as a really big part of that. Earlier in the year, we conducted a church survey because we are so committed to people feeling connected to the community. We asked in the survey, "How connected are you feeling? How supported are you feeling?" And this is the result that we got.

The green section represents those who strongly agree that they feel like a family, that they are supported at One Church. The dark purple represents those who agree. As you can see, so many people strongly agree and agree at feeling connected at One Church. The people on your left that filled out this survey are those who are part of a small group. The majority of them strongly agree and agree that they feel One Church is a supportive community.

However, there is a small percentage who still feel that they strongly disagree that they’re supported. Now, look at the group who aren’t part of small groups. Yes, quite a lot still feel they strongly agree and agree, but there’s a significant group of people who kind of don’t feel one way or the other. Some disagree, and some strongly disagree.

This is why we push small groups in our church—not just so that it looks good on our numbers chart, or to pass the buck so that you guys need to care for each other so that the ministry team doesn’t have to. No, we want people to live in the body of Christ, connected and supported, offering hospitality and generosity to each other in order for them to live out how God has created us to live. So that all will know the difference it makes to be in a relationship with God and be an alternative to what our world is offering—only building up ourselves and looking out for number one.

Asking the Right Questions: What Can I Receive? What Can I Offer?

So, if we truly want to live in being the image of God and how God has created us to be human, the two questions we can ask ourselves are: within the body of Christ, what can I receive, and what can I offer? Because it goes both ways.

The Balance of Giving and Receiving

What can I receive? But what can I offer? If we only receive and take, and are filled with all the wonderful things the body of Christ can give to us, then we just become consumers. We're no different from what our culture tells us—to only receive and build up ourselves. Likewise, if we are only offering, if we are only giving and giving and giving everything of ourselves and not taking time to receive from the body of Christ, then we become burnt out, bitter, and resentful.

It's got to be a two-way thing. We've got to see how we can receive, but also, what do we have to offer? As we connect to God through Jesus Christ, and we connect to each other as the body of Christ, we start stepping into and living out the way that God has created us in His image.

The Sacrifice of Being the Body of Christ

Don’t get me wrong—I know it is a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice to truly be the body of Christ. We have to give up our time, sometimes give up our sleep-in on a Sunday morning, give up our finances, and look out for other people rather than just looking out for number one. It is genuinely a sacrifice. We have to take our time, our finances, our resources—whatever it is—our gifts, our abilities, things that are important to us. But as we give into the body of Christ, we acknowledge that it is a sacrifice.

Why Do We Sacrifice?

So why would we do it? Why would we sacrifice our own things—things that we love and that are important to us—for the sake of other people? We do it because Jesus did it for us first. When we look at the ultimate sacrifice, we can’t look past Jesus Christ, who gave His very life by dying on the cross and rising from the dead in order that we could have a personal relationship with God through Him. With no barriers, no sin, no wrongdoing in the way, but for us to have a close, intimate relationship with God—to find out, learn, and grow into who God has created us to be, so that we can grow together and build the body of Christ together.

Remembering Christ's Sacrifice Through Communion

It is a sacrifice, but it’s nothing that Jesus hasn’t already done for every single one of us. When we come to communion, we are reminded of this sacrifice. When we take the elements of the biscuit and the juice, we are reminded of Jesus’s body broken for us and His blood shed for us on the cross—the sacrifice that He made in order that all people would have a relationship with God and know what it truly is to be a part of the body of Christ.

Communion: A Time of Reflection and Commitment

As we share in communion this morning, as we come to the front, we don’t do it on our own. There will be someone offering you the biscuit. You’re in a room full of people who are all coming forward—all welcome. Everyone is welcome to this table. As you come and remember the incredible sacrifice that Jesus gave for us in order for us to have that intimate relationship with our Father in Heaven, may we also be challenged to consider: what is it that we have that we can offer to help others come into this relationship with God as well?

Closing Prayer

Will you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, we thank You so much that You love us so much, that You were committed to being with us and dwelling among us right from the beginning, as we read in Genesis. We thank You for that relationship that You desire with us, and we thank You for creating us in such a way that, made in Your image, we too desire to be in community with others.

Jesus, we thank You for the sacrifice that You made on the cross. We thank You for the ultimate example that You gave us on how to live, how to love, how to show generosity and hospitality, how to offer grace, mercy, and acceptance, and how You were willing to give it all in order for us to have an understanding of a relationship with our Father in Heaven.

As we acknowledge that sacrifice, Jesus, we pray that the Holy Spirit will fill us, open our eyes to know how we can offer ourselves as a sacrifice back to You in order to build the body of Christ in the way that You have created us to be. We pray this in Your mighty name.

Amen.