Radio Devotion: Christian Unity

For the week of February 6-10, I was asked to record radio devotions for KCMR, a Christian radio station out of Mason City, Iowa. You can find all their radio devotions here on Soundcloud.

This devotion aired on February 6, 2017, and is based on my sermon from January 22, 2017, on church unity.

Enjoy all five of this week’s devotions:
Monday, February 6, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Friday, February 10, 2017

 

This is Pastor Daniel Flucke from St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene, with today’s KCMR Inspiration 97.9 daily devotion.

When I was a college student, I worked at a church summer camp in Wisconsin, and I absolutely loved it. Working at camp is the best summer job I can imagine.

There’s great community, living in nature, getting to talk about Jesus, and it even includes free food!
What more could you want in a summer job?

I remember one weekend, though, after the campers went home, the staff were relaxing in the lounge, and someone said, “Camp is so much easier when the campers aren’t here.”

And you know what? They were right! Camp is such a beautiful, peaceful place without all the kids running around. Working as a camp counselor is a lot easier when you don’t have to keep track of campers! But, of course, camp without campers is missing the point. The reason summer camps exist is to serve the campers.

Sometimes, I’ve had similar thoughts about the church. I hear people say how disillusioned they are with church, I see how some people have been hurt by others, and as a pastor, I think, “Church would be a lot easier without all the people in it.”

Think about it. No one would make a mess, no one would disagree, no one would fight. If we just got rid of all the sinners, church would be great, right? Except…we’re all sinners. There’s no such thing as a church of perfect people.

The problem with a church full of sinners, is that sin divides people. That’s what sin does. Sin breaks relationships.

If you have ever been part of a church with problems, you should be encouraged to know that this isn’t a new problem. 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul wrote to the church in the city of Corinth, because they were having problems with being divided.

First Corinthians 1 tells us the story. The people in the church had been fighting among themselves, and they’d divided the church into various factions, based on who it was who had baptized them, who had first told them the good news of Jesus.

Some of them called themselves followers of Paul, some followers of Apollos, and some followers of Cephas. The church was starting to divide. Sound familiar?

When he hears about their divisions, Paul writes to them to say, if you’re focusing on who baptized you, you’re missing the point. You belong to Christ, not to any particular pastor or preacher. No matter what kind of church you were in when you first heard the good news that God loves you, the point is that you belong to Christ. Jesus Christ has claimed you. That’s the good news of the gospel!

We are united, Paul writes, by God’s love for us. The ways we worship might look a little different; we might be baptized by different people, but we are united by the gospel, the good news about the cross of Jesus Christ. God takes a broken group of sinful people, and unites us into one body, the Church.

May you be blessed today as you remember the good news that you are part of the church, because you belong to the Savior, Jesus Christ.

This has been Pastor Daniel Flucke from St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene.

Enjoy all five of this week’s devotions:
Monday, February 6, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Friday, February 10, 2017