The Forest

This last Sunday, Elder Dr. Willie Nolte preach on the connection of the Christian church and began with the illustration of the Pando Aspen Grove in Utah, which is a clonal organism representing an individual male quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) that spans 106 acres and is the largest known aspen clone. Pando was identified as a single living organism because each of its estimated 47,000 stems (ramets) possesses identical genetic markers And each of the stems also is generally connected by a massive interconnected root system. Incidentally, the idiom “can’t see the forest for the trees” means that the parts are distracting you from comprehending the whole. You can’t see the entirety as you are preoccupied with the details and overlook the bigger picture or the end goal. In this context, it signifies the trees are obscuring the fact that they collectively form a forest. This is also an illustration for the church.

 

1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27 “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.” Born-again disciples make up the many part of the body of Believers with Christ as the head. The redeemed children of God, citizens of the kingdom of Heaven who choose to believe that God has a plan and purpose for their life, and that God wants His Will done in their life on earth. 

 

Dr. Nolte spoke of a methodical three-part grid that can be used to live a godly life by, (1) Use things, which speaks to stewardship and managing of everything that comes from God. (2) Love people, which speaks to obedience and the evidence thereof. In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” To love and obey God; the Supreme Being, His Laws and His Creation is also evidenced in our love and care of our fellow man in healthy relationships, for we all are created in God’s image. 

 

(3) Worship God, which is about life and peace. There is a saying: Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace. But, to know Jesus as Savior and Lord, is to be connected as the church body and know the gospel of salvation, experience the abundant life in Christ and truly have peace in your soul. The individual Christian is not only a member of a local church body in rejoicing worship and praise of God, learning and growing, fellowship and service, but is interconnected like a forest with all Believers worldwide in Spirit and in Truth, the whole body of Christ in the presence of God Almighty in Heaven. 

 

Ephesians 4:14-16 “We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

 

Dr. Nolte suggested three ways to by faith maximize connectivity in the church. (1) Show up – There is so much to do, but God equips the saints with gifts, ability, power, nourishment and encouragement. Do it and accomplish them. (2) Sign up – proactively connect and get involved in the church and the work of Christ, your continued knowledge and growth, family outreach, gospel outreach, community outreach, and/or world outreach. (3) Speak up – God determines what is right and wrong. His Word is Truth. Know and communicate God’s truth and spread the Gospel. It is His Will for our lives. Be the forest of God and the body of Christ that the world needs.

 

In Christ, Brian