As Dr. Evans continued the “Knowing God” series, he directed our attention to the importance of coming to know God through our participation in the community of the Church. A football team, though comprised of individual players, can only experience victory as it moves the ball together toward one shared goal. Likewise, we experience a deeper knowledge of God as each individual part of the body of Christ works together toward “the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). To experience this increased benefit of “knowing God together,” we must understand three crucial points regarding how God has designed His community to function.
1. God has always existed as a community of three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we speak of God being triune, we are confessing the truth that there is one God who eternally exists as three persons. This means that God has always existed in community. It is no wonder that God’s design for providing the means to know Him would involve a community of people. Although our individual relationship with God is important, we experience Him at a deeper level when we are connected to a community who is seeking to know Him together.
2. As the individual believer participates in the community of the Church, there is a greater experience of the knowledge of God (Ephesians 4:11-13). Paul addressed the church at Ephesus as the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12), and each of the individual “body parts” had been given gifts that served the growth of that body. We know that when an arm or a leg is separated from the body, it begins to wither and die; the same is true for the “body parts” or members of the Church. It is only when the body of Christ functions together, supporting and praying for one another, that we “all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of God…” (Ephesians 4:13). As the Church grows together in maturity, using individual gifts to minister to one another, we will no longer be “tossed here and there by waves, carrying us about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14). In other words, the Church and its individual members will discover a stability that can only come from standing together in the pursuit of the knowledge of God.
3. The Church grows together in its knowledge of God by “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) to one another. A community of believers can only stay unified in its quest to know God by confronting the lies that bring division into the body of Christ, preventing it from growing toward maturity. Dr. Evans noted that many of us come to church loaded with lies from our various backgrounds and experiences. We must confront these lies with the truth that in Christ “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Paul had already instructed the church at Ephesus that any “dividing wall” that threatened the unity of believers had been brought down in Christ (Ephesians 2:14). The goal of speaking truth to these lies is to point toward a greater experience of God through the “building up” of the body of Christ “in love” (Ephesians 4:16).
Dr. Evans closed by reminding us of the HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes that we encounter while driving on the interstate highway system. These lanes are designed to bypass the lanes of heavier traffic, but the HOV lane can only be accessed if there is more than one person in a vehicle. Similarly, “Lone Ranger” Christians will find that there are certain benefits of knowing God that are inaccessible apart from involvement in community: “the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causing the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16). An individual relationship with God is certainly important, but our experience and knowledge of God are maximized when we are in fellowship with the community of believers known as the Church.
