The Church is a Band of Natural Enemies

We’re constantly tempted to hang out with people just like us, who like the same things and who don’t really push us out of our comfort zone. This is true even – or especially – in the church. No matter who you are, you can find a church where the people are just like you, and the music is exactly what you’d play if you had the remote control. Donald Carson, one of the preeminent pastor-theologians of our time, describes the church below as not made up of our "natural friends, but as natural enemies.

"I suspect that one of the reasons why there are so many exhortations in the New Testament for Christians to love other Christians is because this is not an easy thing to do. Many fellow Christians will appear to be, at least initially or to the immature, “little enemies.” To put the matter differently, if Christians love Christians, it is not exactly the same thing as what Jesus has in mind when he speaks rather dismissively of tax collectors loving tax collectors and pagans loving pagans. What he means in these latter cases is that most people have their own little circle of “in” people, their own list of compatible people, their friends. Christian love…must go beyond that to include people outside the group. The objects of our love must include those who are not “in”: it must include enemies.

"Ideally, however, the church itself is not made up of natural “friends.” It is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything of the sort. Christians come together, not because they form a natural collocation, but because they have been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance. In the light of this common allegiance, in light of the fact that they have all been loved by Jesus himself, they commit themselves to doing what he says – and he commands them to love one another. In this light, they are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake." (Love in Hard Places)

Tim Keller: The Gospel in a Nutshell

A TWO-MINUTE VIDEO OF TIM'S GOSPEL PRESENTATION IS HERE FOLLOWED BELOW BY THE TRANSCRIPT:

"We're not saved by what we do but by what God has done completely, wholly, and fully. We do not
contribute to salvation at all. How could that be? 

"The answer is when Jesus Christ came, he came to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should die. He lived a perfect life, the only human being who ever lived a perfect life. Therefore, he earned God's blessing. But then at the end of his life he went to the cross and took the curse that we deserved. He earned the blessing of a fully obedient human being but then he took the curse and punishment of imperfect disobedient human beings. That means that when you become a Christian, when you put your faith in him, all of your sins and what you deserve fall on him. But then all of his blessing, what he deserves, comes to you. God treats you as if you've done everything that Jesus Christ has done. That's radical! Now because we have this complete salvation, a complete gift, all accomplished by him; we contribute nothing to it and now we have received it. 

"There's a freedom first of all that we're free from any sense of condemnation, Romans 8;1 – “Now there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Do not fear ever coming into condemnation from God. We're also free not just from condemnation but from what you might say compulsion. We now want to obey God. We want to please him. We no longer are obeying the law of God out of a sense of duty or a sense of being forced or compelled. Instead, we want to please the one who did this for us. We want to resemble the one who did this for us."