Side by Side

Over the past 6 Wednesday evenings I have been leading a stream at Plunge looking at the book by Ed Welch. is a practical look at what it means to be a church family. It considers how we can walk with each other in wisdom and love. The book is built around two central thoughts - we are both needy and needed. That is to say we give and receive love in the church family. As we considered our needs, we acknowledged the difficult circumstances we walk through at various times. Periods of hardship and suffering. However, we noted that our greatest need is not to ease our pain and suffering, but to deal with our sin. To that end, we are the greatest help to each other when we encourage each other to be more holy. To become more like Jesus. When we do this, we are walking in step with the Spirit. The book has plenty of helpful hints about how to open up conversations which go below the surface of the various things going on in our lives and reveal what is going on in our hearts. It is when we do so, we become aware of the depth of sin that is festering in our hearts. We realise that we are needy, and we need to help each other in the daily battle we have with sin. As we seek to put this into practice in the life of our church, a couple of things struck me.

• Don't get stuck in the mud

When it comes to sin, we admit defeat all to easily. We excuse it - saying that is just the way we are. We ignore it - saying, it doesn't harm anyone. And when we try to stop it, we find ourselves back to the same sins again... we seem to be stuck in the mud. But the truth is - you have been rescued. God himself has brought you from darkness into the kingdom of the Son he loves. He has done so at great cost. Sin is defeated. So we have no right to claim we are stuck in the mud. Jesus defeated sin at great cost. So we must not give up the fight easily. It is a long and hard fight. We won't win every battle. But when we give up, when we say it is not worth it - we are really saying he is not worthy. May that never be.

• Don't glory in the mud

If we are honest, we love a good scandal. A juicy bit of gossip. We glory in the mud. In the gospel, Jesus Christ takes all our guilt, he covers over our shame. As Welch puts it

The Lord does not wave all our sins in front of us, and they will not be waved in front of us for eternity.

He doesn't, so we must not either. We must be a community of grace, which never counts a persons past against them. We practice love and forgiveness. We cover over sin. Of course this is a world away from a cover up. We don't pretend a sin did not happen and naturally if a crime happened the guilty needs to face justice in a court of law. No, we face up to sin, and having repented and confessed, we cover over the sin because Jesus covers over it. Our sin is paid for, our guilt is taken away. We are not stuck in the mud. And we do not keep raking the mud of someones past into their face again. He removes our guilt and our shame. Dealing with sin is hard. It is a life long committment. In all this, the question to ask is - who is at the centre? Are we looking to Jesus, seeking to build our life together around him? Practicing his love and forgiveness? Or have we put someone or something else at the centre? May Jesus be at the centre of our life together, as we seek to walk with each other in wisdom and love, keeping in step with the Spirit at all times.