I Am When You Are: Part 2

On Sunday we continued the idea that I stated last week, namely, "I am when you are."

I believe that this idea comes out of the nature of God himself. Each member of the Trinity loves to exist for the other. The Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies the Father, the Spirit glorifies the Father and the Son. Within God himself we can see how this saying would be true for the members of the Trinity, "I am when you are."

God also loves to exist for our sake. Jesus was God working for our best. God loves to bless us and be there for us, so we can see how this saying would be true for God directing it at us, "I Am when you are."

Because we were created in the image of God, this should work itself out in our lives towards other people, where we say to others, "I am when you are."

We also need to understand who God is in relationship to everything else that is, so we say to God, "I am when You are."

Practically this works itself out in Micah 6:8, where we do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with God as an extension and expression of what we believe. I believe that we don't do things just to do things or because they sound good. Rather, I believe that what we do in our lives and as a church should be an expression of what we believe. Faith is an action word that expresses itself in works that are consistent with what we believe about the very nature of God. Not "works" in the sense that we work for our justification (our salvation and right standing before God), but "works" in the sense that we train our bodies and actions to look like what has already taken place inside by the grace of God when we put our faith in Christ.

Therefore, because we have a God who is concerned about others, we too ought to concern ourselves with the well-being of others. Justice is a huge theme in the Bible, but we often don't feel like we can do much for the huge needs in the world. The thing about this is, however, that true justice will never happen in the world unless it begins with the church. True justice can only be found by loving kindness and walking humbly with God. Loving kindness can only be found where there is justice and a humble walk with God. And a humble walk with God requires doing justice and loving kindness. The three aspects work together as one.

For this reason, we now have the barrel in our lobby. One side is for people to post skill, abilities or possessions that they can give to others. The other side is for people to post things that they need. This barrel is to help us begin to practice justice and kindness in our community as we walk humbly with God.

God bless you guys. You have wonderful hearts and you all bless our community wonderfully. It was great worshipping with you this weekend.
See you next week at the Gathering!

Blessings,
-Tim