пастор Назаров Дмитрий Андреевич - 08 НОЯБРЯ 2015. РАЗМЫШЛЕНИЯ О ОБЩИННОЙ ЖИЗНИ - текст песни, слова, перевод, видео

Today I want to talk about church life as the life of a community. We see how people in the world around us are becoming more and more disconnected and we have an understanding that this process in a world lying in evil will only intensify. But we are a church, by the very definition of our name we are a community, but it seems to me that we still don’t really understand what the power of community life is. We gather here in this beautiful building, we also gather in our homes, but I see that there is still enormous untapped potential in the community that we do not see! While our meetings, our gatherings are “visiting,” we do not yet live as one family, and this is both a challenge and an opportunity for us to move to a completely different level of Christian life. Why are people in the world divided and becoming more and more divided? There is an attractiveness in disunity - when everyone is on their own, then no one can dictate to anyone. People love freedom and for the sake of this freedom they are ready to be alone. People who do not know God understand freedom only as independence from the opinions and will of other people; for them, freedom is always something external. But we, as Christians, have a wonderful opportunity to gain freedom even while remaining in very cramped circumstances, as Ap says. Paul: The servant who is called in the Lord is the freeman of the Lord; likewise, he who is called free is a servant of Christ. 1 Cor. 7:22. We don't have to be lonely to be free! Freedom is not an end in itself, it gives the opportunity to “look around”, when a person finds this inner freedom, he always has a choice - how to act, how to use the freedom into which he has entered. And I saw how people who entered freedom often seemed to say to themselves: I have been following someone’s instructions for so long, I have been dependent on some vicissitudes of fate for so long, and now I am finally free, I want to enjoy , revel in my freedom, it is mine and I am my own master! Of course, this is an illusion, of course their freedom was not absolute, they just became a little freer when they overcame something, but if a person does not ask the question: “Why did the Lord give me such freedom?”, he will not be able to properly use what he received. for nothing. We know that the freest of all people who ever lived on earth was undoubtedly our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And what did He do with His freedom? Here is the biblical answer: He, being in the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and becoming in appearance like a man; He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on the cross. Phil. 2:6-8. He did not revel in His freedom, no, He served it for the liberation of those who did not have this freedom! Just as children partake of flesh and blood, He also accepted them, in order by death to deprive him of the power of the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and to deliver those who from the fear of death were subject to slavery throughout their lives. Heb. 2:14-15. So does Ap. Paul did not have any overseer over himself, no boss who would force him to go on a missionary journey, risk his life and health, no, he did this being completely free not to do this, but he did so out of the inner conviction of faith in how God instructed him to manage his freedom, as he himself testifies: Being free from everyone, I enslaved myself to everyone in order to gain more. 1 Cor. 9:19. Why do I draw our attention to the issue of freedom when I speak today about the communal life of the church? Because I believe in a church called by God to be a community of free people who have decided to use their freedom to live as one family! Of course, each of us has our own family according to the flesh, which we are called to take care of, but I see how in every family certain difficulties arise in relationships that are not resolved and burden us. And we are perplexed: we seem to be Christians, we seem to pray for our loved ones and wish for peace and harmony in our families, but there is still something not quite right, and sometimes not at all right! I think that there is a reason for this and it is that if perfect peace had come in our closest family (according to the flesh) environment, then we would have “barricaded ourselves” in this idyll and would not have allowed anyone in. If we were satisfied with less, we would never want to see more. But the Lord allows us a certain tension in family relationships and at the same time shows us that the cause of this tension is ourselves, our “uncircumcised” character, our inability to accommodate and accept those around us. And with these feelings we come to church, where we hear instruction from the Word of God, some kind of internal work happens in us, but often we do not perceive the church as a place where God gives us the practice of building relationships that will help make those changes in our families , for whom we pray and expect! In church relations we can act as free, not owing each other anything “except mutual love”