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Written by Sparky Pritchard Friday, 29 January 2010 15:22

In the providence of God, this was one of my devotional readings on Monday morning following our Annual Meeting.  It comes from the pen of Philip Yancey in his book, Grace Notes (p. 45).  The piece is called, appropriately, “God’s Gamble.”

“‘There are two things we cannot do alone,’ said Paul Tournier: ‘one is to be married and the other is to be a Christian.’  In my pilgrimage with the church, I have learned that the church plays a vital, even necessary role.  We are God’s ‘new community’ on earth.

“I am aware, painfully aware, that the ideal church is a mirage.  Many churches offer more entertainment than worship, more uniformity than diversity, more exclusivity than outreach, more law than grace.  Nothing troubles my faith more than my disappointment with the visible church.

“Still, I must remind myself of Jesus’ words to his disciples: ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you.’  The church was God’s risk, God’s ‘gamble,’ so to speak.  I have even come to see in the church’s flawed humanity a paradoxical sign of hope.  God has paid the human race the ultimate compliment by choosing to live within us vessels of clay.

“Several times I have read the Bible straight through, from Genesis to Revelation, and each time it strikes me that the church is a culmination, the realization of what God had in mind from the beginning.  The body of Christ becomes an overarching new identity that breaks down barriers of race and nationality and gender and makes possible a community that exists nowhere else in the world.  Simply read the first paragraph from each of Paul’s letters to diverse congregations scattered throughout the Roman Empire.  They are all ‘in Christ,’ and that matters even more than their race or economic status or any of the other categories humanity may devise.

“My identity in Christ is more important than my identity as an American or as a Coloradan or as a white male or as a Protestant.  Church is the place where I celebrate that new identity and work it out in the midst of people who have many differences but share this one thing in common.  We are charged to live out a kind of alternative society before the eyes of the watching world, a world that is increasingly moving toward tribalism and division.”

At Immanuel … there are many differences … but there is but ONE LORD whom we serve!  And we have various opinions … but there is ONE TRUTH upon which we stand.  Our common bond must be remembered: we are ALL “in Christ.”  God has taken the risk to entrust us with His name, His Truth, His agenda.  May we maintain our focus and our first love for Him.

-- Sparky