The Body

kelseyandclark6
Oct 15, 2018
7 min read

Kelsey at the market in Limuru.

It has been two full weeks since we arrived in Kenya, and we are really settling into a role where God can use us here. Most of our past week has been spent at the Limuru Children's Centre. My time there is spent helping with general grounds work and playing sports with the kids, while Kelsey volunteers in the classroom. We also have been able to do a couple of Bible studies with the students (many of whom live there) and the workers at the Centre.

Limuru Children's Centre

The kids love drawing pictures on Kelsey's phone.

Kelsey in the classroom.

LCC

Lunch time.

Across the street, LCC has a baby home. Kids as young as a couple of weeks old that have been abandoned are brought here. They are taken care of here, and many end up being adopted. There are currently around 20 babies being cared for at the facility.

Kelsey at the Baby Home.

In addition to serving at LCC, Kelsey and I have also met some other couples that live in Kenya and have been a part of their small group the past two weeks. One of the couples has been especially welcoming, inviting us to go with them on their Friday date nights and driving us to church. They also had us over to their home this past Saturday evening! This brings me to what I would like to talk about today: The global church, "the Body of Christ."

Some photos near our current home.

I have mentioned before that Kelsey and I were going through the book, "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby while in the Philippines. Today is actually my final day in the 12 week study. The past few weeks have been especially focused on the importance of being involved in a local church and in fellowship with other believers. If I had to use one sentence to sum up the entire 12 weeks it would be, "God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways."

Here is a picture of the inside of the back cover showing how God works through us. The quote I used above is #4. This is the meat and potatoes of the study.

Today, I will discuss the importance of the church in this graphic. I have mentioned before in one of my blogs from India how awesome it is to be in a completely foreign land where you don't know the language, you don't know the culture, but you have the one thing that matters most in common, you know Jesus. You have brothers and sisters around you who were once dead in their spirits just like you were, but they have also been made alive in Christ. This gives you an immediate and eternal bond and fellowship that nothing in this world is able to duplicate.

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17:20‭-‬23

God desires for believers to be one. Denomination, background, race and ethnicity do not matter to God. His people working together in unity to fulfill His purposes here on Earth is what He is concerned with.

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28

For the global church to to bring the good news of Jesus to a lost and dying world, it must begin in the hearts of individuals in local church bodies all across the globe. If your idea of the local church is a building to go visit for an hour or two on Sunday mornings, you are missing out on so much of what God wants to do in your life, in the lives of those around you; and the church is missing out on how God wants to use you as a member of the Body to make an impact on the Kingdom of God as a whole. Being a member of a local church is imperative to your walk with Christ. No, it does not save you, but when did God ever save someone and leave them where they were at!? God wants us to be transformed! One of my favorite passages in scripture from Romans chapter 12 tells us to offer our bodies as "living sacrifices." It also instructs us not to be conformed to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. What follows these verses is important direction for humble service within the Body of Christ. God gives each person whom has been made alive in their spirits by His grace alone the gift of His Holy Spirit. If we neglect the local church for our own personal time, wants and desires, we are also neglecting this power within us. This is the opposite of what Luke 9:23 teaches us. Paul and Jesus aren't giving us some suggestions of how we should live and function as members of the Body, they are showing us it is a necessity for Christian living!

"so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." Romans 12:5

Laundry

The tea fields in this part of Kenya are pretty great.

Another principle we have been studying in "Experiencing God," in regards to the church Body, is "Koinonia." This is a Greek word that is most frequently translated as "fellowship." Blackaby describes it as "the fullest possible partnership and fellowship with God and others."

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." 1 John 1:7 We can't be in true fellowship with God and be out of fellowship with our fellow Christian brothers and sisters.

I have been on the other side of this: wandering through life, claiming to know Christ all while being in the dark. I was a pew filler on Sundays with a religion and no real relationship. I was out of fellowship with other believers and out of fellowship with Christ. I suffered greatly because of it. Now that I have seen the light there is no possible way I could go back! When I became an active member in the church, my relationship with Jesus and other believers came alive. The word spoke to me more when I read it in quiet time. My desires changed. My prayer life became real.

We can never become the kind of complete believers we ought to be outside of the functioning body of a NT church.

Acts 2:42-47

1 Corinthians 14:26-33

"So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:11‭-‬13

If there are divisions in the church, including broken fellowship and a lack of unity (and their will be as long as the church is made up of sinful men), the answer usually stems back to the individual members and their personal relationships with Christ; in particular, submitting to Him as Lord:

"Every member of the church must submit to the lordship of Christ over his or her own life and Christ's headship over the church."

- Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God

It all comes back to Jesus. He has to be the Lord of our lives, and He has to be the head of the church. The church must have the mind of Christ! (1 Cor 2:16)

Public transportation in Kenya gets really crammed

More from the market in Limuru

The light in the distance is Nairobi.

Finally, and I recognize this more now than ever before, the Christian faith is for all people from every background all over the world. We were able to hear a very interesting message at church yesterday (the church is called "One Tribe") about God's heart for Africa. The pastor talked about how the African continent was instrumental throughout scripture. From the book of Exodus to the Cushite people to the birth of Jesus and escape to Egypt to Philip's conversation and conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch, Africa plays an important role in scripture. The point was not to somehow show that Africa is more important than other places, but to show that the gospel is for Africa too! In fact, the gospel made its way to the continent as early as 36 a.d. Some people we have met that aren't believers seem to think the Christian faith is a western or European idea. They believe that it is okay for them, but "we have our own traditions." That couldn't be further from the truth! Jesus died for all. The grace gift of eternal life is available to all! Every tribe! Every nation!

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

It is written: “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’ ” Romans 14:11

God wants us to have a heart for the nations. He wants all people to come to faith. He is still saving people all over the world and will continue to do so until the day Christ returns. God is using His Global Church to fulfill His purposes and plans. This all begins with Christ as the head of local church bodies working together as the hands and feet of Jesus. These local churches are made up of local believers who individually have intimate relationships with God. God will speak through His Holy Spirit to those whom He has called sons and daughters and the entire church body will benefit as a result. This all comes full circle when those local church bodies made up of local believers have a unified heart to see God's kingdom initiatives accomplished in their communities, in their countries, and throughout the nations. This is God's plan for His Body until the return of Christ. Since Jesus has not returned there is still work to be done. This good work starts in the hearts of individuals and is made complete as the Body of Christ accomplishes everything He has commanded here on earth.

Thank you for reading as always. I have added some more random photos from Kenya below!

Clark

More market photos.