Restoring Relationships: Community Interaction

• Do we know the names of any of our neighbors?
• Have we done anything at all to make them think they matter to us?
• When was the last time you did something totally for someone else who wasn’t in your family?
• How about this – do we say hi and smile at people just because we can?
• Finally, what message do our lives deliver to the people around us?
  
  

The Bible tells us that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. At Oak Hill we believe Jesus came for us and the rest of the world as well. Since that is the case, we are to involve ourselves in seeking and saving the lost just as Jesus did. The primary theme running through all of Scripture is God’s salvation plan coming to fruition. God loves humanity and is willing to come to us so that we are set free from our prisons of sin and death.
 
Now we are sent out into our communities to connect and enter the lives of people that Jesus loves. Our God expects us to interact with the people around us. We are not expected to remove ourselves from our contexts, but to be God’s representative in those contexts. We are empowered by the Spirit of God to show what a life filled with meaning and joy looks like. Since we are united with Jesus, we can bring God’s peace and identity with us to share in a world chasing these elusive elements.
 
The Church tends to make this more complicated than it really is. We are told to be followers of Jesus. We are commanded to love people, share truth and live our lives in thankfulness for God’s gifts.

• It is not so much that we need a program as we need to just know our God and His heart.
• It isn’t so much that we need just the right words in each situation as it is that we love people in the situations God places us.
• It isn’t so much that Christians hold specific positions in our world to deliver God’s power and truth; it is that we bring grace and truth to each position God places us.
  
  

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view… 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.                                                                  II Corinthians 5
 
You matter to God and to the people in your world. Engage them and love them because you can. It also will make your life much more interesting and enjoyable!
 
In Christ,
Pastor Nick