What is the Church? False Converts in the Church. Living out a Gospel Community. - Highlight Episode 348

The church is designed to be a gospel-centered community where believers live in authentic, loving relationships rooted in humility, accountability, and discipleship. Rather than simply attending services, Christians are called to live out their faith daily in fellowship, service, and mutual support. The guys point out that even within the church, many still experience deep loneliness, often because church has become more about performance than connection. True accountability means being both known and loved—helping one another grow into Christlikeness with grace rather than judgment. The guys emphasize that discipleship is not just about sharing information but about sharing life, inviting others into your everyday rhythms and walking together in faith. A healthy biblical community practices redemptive discipline, offers forgiveness, and fosters unity among people who might otherwise be divided but are now bound together by Christ. When believers open their hearts and homes, speak into each other’s lives, and share a common vision for reaching the lost, the church becomes the vibrant, transformative community it was always meant to be.

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Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
Today we are talking aboutexploring healthy biblical
community.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Can you better explain what we're talking about
?
Yeah, because when I first sawthis, I thought what are we
talking about here?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah Well, the body of Christ, the church, is a
community.
It's made up of individualsthat are called to be
accountable to one another,called to love one another,
called to pray for one another,called to serve one another,
called to proclaim the gospeltogether.
And we live in an era wherethis has seriously become just a

(00:39):
lost virtue, if I could call itthat.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Can I say something here?
Yeah, the church is hidden fromthe world, it would seem.
You ask most secular peoplewhat's the church?
They really don't know that.
It's the community of believersaround the world.
The foundation of God stands,sure, having this seal.
The Lord knows them that areHis, and so the true believers
are those who are trusting inJesus, despite their so-called

(01:04):
denomination.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Right.
For most people, they hear theword church or think about
church and they're immediatelygoing to the building.
Right, they're going to just.
You know, I go to a church.
You know, rather than seeing,that the church is the community
of God's people, that it's notjust a place.
Of course, you can use the wordchurch to describe the place
where the saints gather, butultimately it is the people of

(01:30):
God.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
We are the church, the genuine church, is a
fellowship of true believers andthere are some who are lonely
because they're disillusioned bythe church.
But if you go to a genuinechurch and you approach someone
and show an interest in them,the love of God will radiate
from them to you and you'llbecome part of that fellowship.
You'll get to know good friends, true friends.
But what we don't realize is alot of churches have got false

(01:52):
converts in them.
That's what Charles Spurgeonsaid Nobody can do as much
damage to the church of God asthe man who is within its walls
but not within its life.
That's an ooh.
That's an ooh, that's a goodone Do it again, ooh and an ah.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
That's a good one.
No, no.
If it's worth saying once, it'sworth saying twice.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, ray, yes, you want it again.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Nobody can do as much damage to the church of God as
the man who is within its wallsbut not within its life, man
that is, there is a lonelinessepidemic in the world.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Today, 50% of US adults report living a lonely
life.
Loneliness increases your riskof premature death by 29%.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
You have a higher risk of heart disease, you mean
suicide or falling down stairs.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, that, and heart disease, stroke, dementia,
depression all of them linked toloneliness.
And here's the reality is thatwe know, like it's written on
our hearts, we are literallydying for a community, but we
are trying, as a culture, tofill the void with substitute
communities, with gyms that havea community, with gaming,

(02:59):
online communities and politicsand online tribes, but the
reality is, none of thesecommunities will satisfy,
because none of thesecommunities are the ones you
were made for.
Here's what's crazy, too, isthat we are more digitally
connected than we ever have beenin history.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's the irony, isn't it?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
That's exactly right.
These alternative communitieswill never satisfy us because we
were made for something else.
We were made for God's family.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
You know, oscar, as you were saying that, I was
thinking back to the whole COVIDshutdown and I think it was
really demonstrated that socialmedia is not going to cure the
loneliness issue.
Because everyone had it at homestill, everyone was locked up
and you had access to internet.
I mean, that didn't get shutdown, but, man, that became like

(03:47):
one of the big things thatthose who were opposed to the
shutdowns were talking about,like the mental health crisis
because of isolation.

Speaker 4 (03:56):
That's usually what happens with solitary, isn't it?
They just go crazy becausewe've been designed to be in
community and then you put themin solitary confinement and
there's no windows and you can'tsee birds, you can't hear
people, you just go insane.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, we weren't designed for that.
It goes back to Genesis 2.18,where God said "'It is not good
that man should be alone'".

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I don't think our churches, our modern churches,
our cultural modern churches,are designed for community.
And seriously, you go to alocal church and someone says I
go to your church, say, can youturn around and see the back of
your head?
So I say if I'd recognize you,Because that's all you see, the
back of a couple hundredpeople's heads and then they
have like a three-minute breakwhere everyone has to kiss each
other and welcome to the churchand have little hugs and it's

(04:39):
not any depth and that's why Ireally like house churches and
that's why I've mentioned beforethat when I was a brand new
Christian, I was in a church andI realized this that we weren't
having community in our churchmeetings and I tried to move
these pews to face each other bymyself, these long, big pews,
so we'd all be facing each other, so the person ministering
would have people here andpeople behind them in front of

(05:00):
them.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
You know that's how the synagogues were designed
back in ancient times Likeremember Mark, when we went to
Israel, they would show us likeancient synagogues and they were
designed that way yeah theywere like you know, where
everyone could see each other.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah.
We have to be brutally honest,which is that we have a
consumeristic mindset.
We go to church and it's likeentertain me, justify my
prejudices, show me somethingworth remembering for this rest
of the week.
And so we show up late, halfwaythrough worship.
We leave as quickly as we canso we don't have to deal with
the traffic getting out of theparking lot and we go about our

(05:36):
own way.
And when you look at the earlychurch, specifically in Acts,
when you look at church history,thinking of Joseph Tellerman's
book, the Church Was a Family.
Church community was not thisthing that was done for 45
minutes to two hours on a Sunday.
Church community was somethingthat you lived out in the
totality of your life.
It's something that happenedthroughout the week at the

(05:59):
dinner table as you were raisingchildren.
It was this all-encompassingexperience.
The onus is on the Christiantoday to find a way to live out
a communal life in the contextof gospel community.
Our hearts need it and thechurch needs it.

(06:21):
The church needs us to be incommunity.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
Right, it's not just going through a book together,
it's not just getting coffeewith someone, it's living life
with someone.
Right, I'm going to thismemorial service.
You got time to go with me.
Hey, I'm heading over to Costcoto pick up some things.
Why don't you cruise on overthere with me?
And there's these little weirdtime limits that are attached to

(06:46):
it, so it doesn't become sooverwhelming.
Remember, jesus didn't say togo into all the world and make
converts.
He said to go into all theworld to make disciples.
And if we put that to use tothe best of our ability, without
pulling our hair out, I'mwaiting for ability without
pulling our hair out.
I'm waiting for Ray Ray's,scared to death of losing his

(07:08):
hair.
We would see that it's livinglife.
It's the good, it's the bad.
It's how the guy cuts you offand how you handle that.
It's maybe giving somebody elsea park job while you park way
over in the parking spot and youpark in a completely different
place, right.
Isolation is a lot like thedevil's lunchable, if you would

(07:29):
right that you're preparing forhim a meal because you're
completely left.
Remember those lunchables.
You have these little crackersand cheese and ham and turkey,
right, and you kind of eat it onthe go.
Idle time is the devil'sworkshop, when you're kind of
isolated by yourself, you haveno plan and you think that I'm

(07:51):
an island onto myself.
You're just being teed up forthe enemy.
It's easy to grab the one who'swandering by themselves.
The enemy doesn't come alongnecessarily and say, all right,
here's 30 sheep that are overhere, let's just go for one of
them.
When there's one over here byhimself, he's going to look for
the weakest one.
Are you hitting for a Spurgeonquote?
Well, some Christians try to goto heaven alone, in solitude.

(08:14):
But believers are not comparedto bears or lions or other
animals that wander alone.
Spurgeon went on to say thosewho belong to Christ are sheep,
in this respect that they loveto get together.
Sheep go in flocks, and so doGod's people.
I just stole that from Ray,isn't?

Speaker 2 (08:30):
that cool.
You stole that from Spurgeon.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Okay, proverbs 18.1,.
Whoever isolates himself, seekshis own desire.
He breaks out against all soundjudgment.
So your spiritual strength istied in your spiritual circle.
Your spiritual strength is tiedin your spiritual circle.
Who are you hanging out with?
Discipleship?
It's so important you should bediscipling and get discipled at

(08:57):
all times.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
If you're not in good , healthy, biblical community,
get into it.
And we have people ask us attimes should I stay in my church
?
I don't know.
There's this, there's that.
First, try to be a part of thesolution, and if you can't be,
if there's unhealthy thingsgoing on, then you need to find
a place where there is goodhealth in terms of biblical
community.
And so do that.
And again, don't let this justslip away.

(09:20):
Decide right now.
I'm going to do A, B and C inorder to make sure that I
contribute to good, healthycommunity and that I have it in
my life.
Thank you for tuning in to thisweek's highlights from the
Living Waters podcast.
Friends, we value your time, sowe've created a bite-sized
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(09:42):
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