Habit of Community

And this series that we're kicking off today is about spiritual disciplines and how do we become healthy, mature, strong disciples of Jesus.

And we're looking at these holy habits that we should have in our life to help inform and influence that in.

And here's what I want us to see.

We're going to be starting this morning with the very, I would say, often overlooked spiritual discipline or habit of community.

You see, too often when we think about this subject of spiritual disciplines, we're probably going to look at it through this individualistic lens, right?

When we think of reading scripture and prayer, fasting and solitude, we're probably thinking how can this strengthen and benefit and mature us personally?

But what if we actually change the way that we perceive these rhythms of grace, these holy habits, where we actually see them not just as a means of spiritual personal growth, but as a way that God actually prepares us to strengthen others.

You see, we are in the body of Christ.

This isn't about just you in a personal relationship to Jesus.

Jesus did not die for you as much as he died for his church, the body and bride of Christ.

We don't get to live this in isolation and autonomy.

We're connected to something more glorious and beautiful as his finished work redeemed a people for himself from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

And 1 Corinthians 12 helps us see this so clearly and beautifully that the strength of the individual is only known and understood in the health of the entire body.

And so in this life of faith, every single one of us, we're going to face trials and suffering, temptations that threaten to derail our perseverance.

And the reality is we need each other's strength to be able to endure.

You've got to show up for others.

Your presence in their life, the way that the Spirit has gifted you, the place in the body that He has positioned you is essential for my perseverance in the faith.

This is why community isn't just some nice addition we get to opt into.

No, you were redeemed into community.

We're designed for community.

As we are image bearers of God who He Himself exists in perfect Trinitarian community, we are to reflect that even in our everyday life.

You see, this holy habit is a discipline as essential as prayer, Bible study, fasting, and just as every physical discipline requires this consistent practice to build strength, the habit of community must be cultivated intentionally to provide the very spiritual resilience that we need for the long journey of faith ahead of us.

You see, in this letter of Hebrews, where our text comes from, we engage with a pastor.

A pastor who has a deep love and concern for the people of God, as a good shepherd ought to have for his flock.

And here's something that you can discern as you navigate the text.

You can see that this pastor has a fear, a healthy fear, of people drifting from the truth and falling away from Jesus altogether.

And I would submit, I'd put before us, it's because he himself has tasted of the sorrow that comes when people turn away from God.

When his people turn away from the life of which he promises to go back to the fleeting pleasures of Egypt, of which he's delivered them from.

You see, this pastor, he's already had to accept that reality.

And so what does he strive to do?

He strives to shepherd them well.

And he does that by rooting their hope in the very gospel of grace and instructing them how to combat against the deceitfulness of sin and the enticement of the world around them.

And it's from this context that we receive our passage today, that we receive our shepherding care, to be persistent in the rhythm and habit of community.

Verse 12 of chapter 3 in Hebrews.

If you have your Bibles or app, open them up.

We're going to be working through these together.

Verse 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

So this pastor charges his audience with the admonition to take care.

What he's telling them is that they need to have an honest discernment.

They need to have a sober awareness about the state and condition of their very heart.

This call is made to us because there's a danger in going through life without any genuine deep reflection on our heart's condition.

Because many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, we simply drift along day by day in the currents of what I would assume is this self-distortion of who we really are.

Instead of taking time to pause and reflect, to contemplate, to seek the Spirit, to be aware of who we truly are in the state of our heart.

And he gives us two things to be careful of observing within us the presence of sin and the presence of unbelief.

The presence of sin and the presence of unbelief.

Let's start with sin.

I think a lot of us we need to grow in our understanding of how sin works in the life of a believer.

There's a world of difference between the sin that we war against as Christians and the sin we make peace with.

There's a difference between the sin we war against and the sin that we make peace with.

You see, as God's people, we're called to this active war against the sin that seeks to dethrone Christ in our heart.

We're meant to cultivate this deep hatred of sin.

It's not because we're harsh and judgmental.

No, it's because we love what God loves and we treasure what God treasures.

Right?

I believe that we as Christians have become very passive and soft, and it's caused us to not be deep lovers in the way that we ought to.

You see, we have to love what God loves, we have to treasure and value what he treasures and values, and on the other side of that should be a hatred for the things that jeopardize those realities.

We should hate sin for what it does to the glory of God, to our affections for him, to our affections for his people.

We are weak lovers because we don't hate enough.

And we should love deeply and ruthlessly the beautiful things of God.

And sin wants to eat away at that.

Sin wants to steal that from within us.

Sin is not a neutral house guess that we can safely ignore.

It's a destroyer.

It's a destroyer that wants nothing more than to steal us away from the living God, who loves us and has given his son for us.

Yet how often do we find ourselves just not fighting?

Not fighting against sin, not making war against that which causes our affections to be weak.

Too often we actually welcome sin's presence in our life.

You see how easily we move from warring against it to making room for it, allowing it to settle in, to make itself comfortable in our hearts.

This is what our passage is calling us to examine.

What is the true condition of our heart?

Do we have hearts that genuinely hate sin because of what it does to our relationship with God and others?

Or have we, perhaps, even without even realizing it, become comfortable with its presence within us?

You see, this is dangerous.

This is what he's cautioning against.

When we live unaware of sin's lingering influence in our life, often thinking we're spiritually healthy and mature.

When actually we've just stopped fighting ten years ago.

Like, how many of us have experienced this plateau of maturity in our Christian faith?

How many of us have gotten comfortable in this life?

And it's a reality that we've stopped fighting for the holiness of which Christ has called us to.

You see, this isn't about condemnation, it's about honest self-examination.

I'm not here pointing fingers, I'm not here casting judgment or blame.

I'm here to call us to reflect and consider our own self.

But it's not just the presence of sin that we ought to be aware of.

He talks about the presence of unbelief as well.

Here's something that we need to grasp.

There are many people who love the things of God, they love the blessing of his presence, they love the fellowship of his people, they love the purpose that's found in his mission, but they never love God himself.

You see, I've experienced this throughout my Christian life where people loved the thought and idea of what God could do for them, but they really failed to love God for who he is.

And too often we're like the younger brother in the parable of the prodigal son before he returned home.

The son who wanted all of his father's stuff, even though it meant not having the father.

We love being numbered among God's people in community.

We love the way that it sedates our conscience as we work hard to do the right things and serve and give and show up and be a part.

We're deep down, it's not fueled by a belief and affection for God.

It's fueled by a fear that if we don't do enough, we're not gonna make it into glory.

And so all of our striving and effort is rooted in self-righteous pursuits rather than a rested faith in the one who has accomplished it for us.

You see, unbelief, it keeps us from being brought in as a son and a daughter.

It allows us to be truly connected in this familial reality to him.

You see, we can be numbered among God's people in community, but never truly belong to him.

This pastor's call to watch, it actually flows out of this reciding of Psalm 95.

And he's comparing the church that he's writing to to that of Israel after the Exodus.

What he wants us to see is that our own unbelief is compared to the unbelieving sin of Israel in the wilderness.

And the warning is this: that some of us, because of our unbelief, though we are numbered among his people, might be kept from the eternal and promised homeland.

That our eternal city might be kept from us like the stubborn, unbelieving Israelites in the wilderness, because we ultimately rebel against the God who loves us through our own unbelief.

Think about that parallel for a moment.

God delivers Israel out of Egypt under the hard-hearted oppression of Pharaoh.

He parts the Red Sea, He feeds them with manna from heaven, He is leading them through the wilderness, and yet still Israel does not believe.

And God shows his righteous wrath against them.

And for their own good, his steadfast love comes in and continues to pursue and continues to pursue.

But there is this that we have to see.

Many of those Israelites did not make it into the promised land because God judged them for their unbelief.

You see, these heart conditions present a threat to us.

And we see then why such a heart is called evil or sinful in verse 12.

Because what is its final outcome?

It turns away from the living God.

That heart fails to persevere.

Because it was ultimately never held in the Redeemer's hands.

It was never entrusted to him through belief.

Verse 13.

But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Now, here we're given a way to combat against sin and its effect on the heart.

He calls us to exhort one another.

The word exhort in this passage, it literally means to call someone to your side.

Man, I love that language.

I love that image of community.

When someone is struggling with sin, when they're struggling with unbelief, we're called to exhort them, we're called to call them to our side that they may be with us.

What a beautiful picture of community.

Because when we exhort one another, we're not standing at a distance shouting advice.

We're calling our brothers and sisters to come close to us, to draw near so that they can receive the care, the encouragement, the counsel, the wisdom that they desperately need.

We're ultimately saying, don't fight this battle alone.

Come to my side and we're going to fight it together.

This transforms how we even think about community.

Because our primary participation in community is not about what we can get out of those around us.

But it's about what we can give.

How our loving presence is there to strengthen them.

That's why we show up.

That's why we engage in this habit of community.

We become people who call others to our side as we all together navigate the rocky terrain of this life's wilderness journey that we're on.

This word exhorted also carries the power of a confident captain's voice before battle.

It literally means to invest courage into another.

Think about this.

When we are experiencing suffering and trials, when we're going through hardships, when when doubt is plaguing us or sin is making us riddled with guilt, we become fearful.

We want to hide, we want to retreat, we want to give up.

And when we exhort one another, what we're doing is we're walking with others and we're investing courage into their chest where they don't have it.

Man, I love that picture.

We all need this.

We all need this.

There's going to be moments when each of us feels the pull to turn back, to retreat for what seems easier, to go back to the fleeting pleasures that once enslaved us.

And it's in those critical moments that we need the voice of a brother or sister beside us, investing courage into our hearts when our own source is running dangerously low.

This is the gift that God has given to us in community.

A grace gift.

Not just fellowship, not just hanging out, not just potlucks, but a privilege.

A privilege of being instruments of courage in one another's life.

Now the closing of this passage shows us that community puts us in relationship with one another so that others are actually able to see the places in our lives that we may be drawing away toward the deceitfulness of sin.

I think one of community's most vital purposes in our life is that it places us in relationships where others can see the areas of our lives where sin might be quietly drawing us away.

Like you need that.

You need to be in a relationship with others where they can point out your blind spots, where they can put their finger in your chest when you're being stiff-necked and hard-hearted.

You need people who can remind you that this promise is empty if you chase after it.

But the promises of God are yes and amen.

You see, sin is cunning.

One of the things that makes sin so effective is that it never actually presents itself as wicked and evil.

No, sin is very good at dressing itself up as something beautiful.

Enticing us with promises that it has no intention of following through with, offering pleasures that will ultimately leave us empty and broken.

And hear me now.

Before sin ever lures you away from God Himself, it will work to lure you away from community with his people.

Before sin ever lures you away from God Himself, it will work to lure you away from community from His people.

We've seen this time and time again.

Any pastor, any shepherd leader who has been a part of the church for even just a short period of time, they've seen this plot line be walked out.

Somebody removes themselves from community, and too often, sadly, they remove themselves from the faith altogether.

You see, sin knows we're a far lesser threat, that we're an easier prey when we're isolated.

And like the lion that it is, it separates us from the fold so that it can devour us.

That's its only intention.

This is why we desperately need community in our life.

We need people in our lives who love us enough to see our blind spots, those areas where we've grown numb.

To sin's presence in our life.

We need brothers and sisters who will speak truth into our lives, even when it's uncomfortable.

And we need people who care more about our spiritual health than our temporary comfort, who will lovingly step into our path when they see us walking toward a snare that we cannot see ourselves.

Now, further in his letter, the pastor revisits the necessity of community in chapter 10.

So chapter 10, verse 24.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Now, we have to first pause and reflect on the very first four words of this verse.

And let us consider.

This Christian life is not ultimately about you.

We have to stop being so self-absorbed.

This call, this command is that we lift our gaze from our own situation and circumstance and consider the life of others around us.

To consider literally means to study carefully, to observe with purpose.

How are you aware of what your brother and sister is going through, is struggling with, so that you can stir them up to love and good works.

You see, we have to genuinely be aware of others in our community.

We have to be aware of their struggles and burdens, their joys and victories.

We have to be aware of their spiritual growth and their seasons of wandering.

And this requires us to get our face out of the mirror of our own circumstances and self-absorption, to get our face out of the mirror of our own problems, our own ambitions, our own worries, our own busyness, and to simply consider others.

You see, if we fail to consider others, then the reality is we're nothing more than takers.

If we fail to consider others, we're nothing more than takers.

Consumers who are always taking but rarely giving, who engage with this Christian faith through the soul lens of how it can personally benefit them rather than how their presence can benefit others, how they can be the supplemented strength in a brother or sister's life when they are struggling to continue walking out this life of faith.

And what are we to consider?

We're to consider how to stir them up to love and good works.

The question is, how do we excite people for godly living?

How do we excite people for godly living?

Not just speaking words to them.

I think the primary way we do this is by sharing our very lives with them.

Here's how I know I've been stirred up to loving good works.

When someone has considered me and they have spent on me their very lives.

To love me, to care for me, to let me know that how much I mean to them.

Think about how much of your life is spent on yourself.

And how little of our life is spent on others.

You see, we cannot stir up one another's faith from this comfortable distance.

Superficial, inconsistent connections will never provide the deep encouragement that our soul desperately needs.

And what we need to see in the passage is that this call to stir up one another, it's actually inseparable from the very charge that follows it, to not neglect.

Look at verse 25.

Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you've seen the day drawing near.

If you've been in the church for any period of time, maybe you've heard this passage preached, or maybe you've studied to yourself and you kind of simplistically distilled it down to just showing up on Sunday morning.

That is the very least amount of energy and effort you could put into fulfilling this passage.

Just showing up on Sunday.

On Sunday, where we're too busy and preoccupied to truly be ourself and known.

And instead, we put a lot of effort in expressing forward our false self so that other people will like us and still will kind of want to talk to us and hang out with us, right?

We don't have the opportunity and time to dig into our fears and struggles.

We don't have time to work through sin that's in our heart or to truly be known by each other.

Now, this passage far exceeds showing up on Sunday.

Should you be here?

Yeah.

I spend a lot of time preparing for these sermons for you to not show up.

But at the same time, showing up in one another's lives in the 167 other hours of the week.

You see, this kind of spiritual investment, it it demands a persistent presence in one another's lives.

And we see why this pastor has this healthy fear.

He connects it to this sense of urgency that we can read throughout all of the New Testament passages.

That time is short and fleeting.

Why do we have to be concerned with this now?

Because of the passing time that we find ourselves in.

We need each other to help us persevere in this life.

We need each other to keep us striving toward glory.

Because we will not cross that finish line in this isolated state.

Remember, this ain't about you and a personal relationship with Jesus.

No, when we cross that finish line of glory, we will cross it side by side with brothers and sisters near us and with us and strengthening us and encouraging us.

We will reach it and cross it by the grace of God who carries us and we will be welcomed by a great host of witnesses who have gone before us.

Because we are part of the church.

This is why the warning is so sobering.

Because to neglect this gift of grace, this habit of community, is fundamentally to put your soul at risk.

Why would we not take advantage of the gifts that God has given us?

I mean, this is like a golfer going out without his driver.

This is like a baseball player going to the home plate without a bat.

This is us dismissing and forsaking some of the most critical and vital instruments in our possession.

Because of what?

Because we think we're that strong, because we think we're that mature, because we think we're that healthy, because we think we've got this all figured out.

Each and every single one of us will face sufferings and trials in this life that will make us want to abandon the race that we're on entirely.

And it's in those crushing moments when we feel that we cannot take another step.

We need the community of faith to come alongside us, to carry us when our strength fails, to invest courage within our hearts, to remind us that the prize ahead is worth every difficult step.

And so, church, we need the habit of community because it's that habit that helps us persevere.

The habit of community helps us persevere.

This is the plea and the wise counsel that we're receiving from a loving pastor who has watched people he dearly loves walk away from community, walk away from faith, walk away from the living God.

The call to preserve is one of the most frequent and urgent themes throughout all of Scripture.

This concept of perseverance and endurance, it shows itself hundreds of times across both testaments.

And we can even see that the entire book of Hebrews is structured around this one theme: a call for us to persevere in the faith.

But let us consider that this call to perseverance, this charge given to us, is not some letter that was written to some isolated individual.

No, it was written to a community of people that they might do this together.

Even when we study the commands of one anothering in the gospels, what we actually see is that they are often directly connected to the call to endure and persevere.

It's about our presence in the life of others that helps them keep going in this journey of faith.

It shows us how essential community is to the gospel life that we've been brought into.

And why might the call to persevere be so prominent throughout the scripture?

Because the Christian life is inherently difficult.

Genuine faith proves itself over time.

Spiritual enemies actively war against us.

We're still awaiting the fullness of our redemption.

And so the call to persevere persists.

And while the gospel is our ultimate hope and perseverance, we have to live in the tension that we see throughout the scriptures that Christ Himself both causes us to persevere and he calls us to persevere.

Jesus causes us to persevere, yet we are called to persevere.

This tension, it's not a theological problem to solve this morning.

It's a beautiful mystery to embrace that should drive us both to a confidence in Christ and a diligence in community.

Because community is this ordinary means of grace given to us that Jesus uses in his divine sovereignty to secure us to the end.

I love this mystery of how he works.

He uses these ordinary means of grace, these gifts given to us as the means by which he accomplishes what only he can do.

You see, God ordains both.

The end, our perseverance, and the means, our persevering.

And the habit of community is that great grace gift given to us to see that we complete the race.

Yet some of us, even in this room, we won't make it to the end.

Some of us, we will fail to persevere.

This is just a reality that we have to deal with.

As a pastor of this church, we've planted this church about six years ago, and we were working to establish it for generations to come.

And we have seen already some who have walked away from community and who have also walked away from the faith.

We've had to accept that sorrow.

We've had to face that together.

And certainly I know there will be others who will follow the same path.

The difficulties of this life of faith and the enticing deceptions of this world, church, they're too much for us to contend alone with.

We cannot forsake the grace of community that God has reconciled us into.

But a reality that we must accept is that some of us we will continue to neglect it.

We'll fail to be truly known by others here in this church.

We'll forsake the presence of strength that is within others, and we will turn away from the very promise of life that is only found in Jesus.

There will be some, even in this room, who go back to Egypt.

I think the text helps us see two reasons why that might be.

The first one is this some of us we're gonna fail to be honest about our heart's condition.

We're gonna fail to be honest about our heart's condition.

We talked about this earlier, but we have to try to understand the difference between a Christian who struggles and falls in sin and a Christian who abides in sin.

Here's a uh hopefully a clear image of the difference in that.

There's a difference between the Christian who in their race trips over the hole but gets back up and keeps running toward Jesus.

And the Christian who in their race trips in the hole, falls in it, and makes their home there.

You see, when we abide in sin, not sin we war against, but sin we've made peace with.

When we've allowed it to take up residence in our heart, it should terrify us.

But there's a lot of us who just won't even be honest about it.

And we're not going to put ourselves in situations where it's going to be pointed out and called out in our life.

The best outside of the word of God, the best mirror that we can have of who we truly are as people is relationships with others.

Because when they frustrate you, when they anger you, when they disappoint you, when they sin against you, that's when you come out.

We see the ugliness.

We see the sin.

We need community to help us be honest about our heart's condition.

But some of us were even going to have not just the presence of sin, but the presence of unbelief.

And look, I'm not talking about contending against doubt.

Healthy Christians' doubt.

If you're not doubting God, who he is, what he has promised, you're not seeking to know him well enough.

It's in our pursuit of God that questions and doubts arise.

That's a healthy and good thing.

I love what the late Timothy Keller said.

If your God never disagrees with you, you probably are just worshiping yourself.

And so it's as we press into knowing God that doubt is gonna come.

But here's a biblical response to that.

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

I want to know you in your glory and majesty.

I want to know you, Lord.

But it's gonna create in me this sense of healthy questioning.

That's okay.

I'm talking about the people who deep down you have an awareness that you love the things of God, but you don't truly love him.

You love what he can give you, but if he forsook his good gifts and just gave you himself, you would find it unsatisfying.

You see, we have to develop in our spiritual disciplines.

We have to be engaged in the habit of community so that we can be honestly aware of our own heart's condition.

But others of us, we're gonna fail to be honest even about our need for community.

Our need for community.

Man, a lot of us think we're stronger than we are, or we're way more mature than we really are.

This Christian life, we're always going to be on this journey of being conformed to the image of Jesus.

You are not that strong, you are not that mature.

In fact, the scriptures say he used the weak and foolish things of this world to confound the strong and wise.

You know where I want to be?

I want to be on that weak and foolish thing because that's what God's using.

Instead of the one who thinks that they are strong and wise and doesn't need God or his gifts.

You see, a lot of us we we don't lean into the inherent weakness that is within us.

We fail to realize that we're never called to walk this Christian faith alone.

And there's a lot of us here that are at the end of the day, man, we're just afraid to truly be known by others.

And I get it, you there's a sense of there's one of two things.

Here's why we we're so afraid of being known by others, one of two things.

And maybe there's more.

I'm kind of doing this off the top of my head.

But um either there's a sin that we love that we're afraid of finding having others find out about.

And community, it threatens that.

It threatens to pull that out into the light and be exposed.

And so we'd rather just keep a distance from everybody because if we're able to be honest with ourselves, we actually really love that sin.

And we love what it does for us, and we don't want to jeopardize it.

Or two, you've been hurt so many times by other people's sin that you've built this fortress of solitude and protection because you're too afraid to let anybody in for fear of what they'll do to you.

And look, here's the reality.

If you're in this church, not only will these people hurt you and sin against you and fail you, but me, I tell this people if your hope is in me, I'm sorry.

I'm gonna really let you down.

I'm gonna sin against you, I'm gonna hurt you, I'm gonna disappoint you, I'm not gonna be there when you need me.

It's just the reality.

Like one of the hardest things about pastoring is trying to walk with people in their maturity toward Jesus while you yourself are maturing toward Jesus.

One of the only things that I can guarantee you about community is that you will be hurt.

Man, it's worth it.

Because we see the gospel come to life in it.

We see grace be ministered to one another through it.

We see that our hope is ultimately not in what each other can do for the other, but what Christ has done for us.

You see, it's only in being known by others that I would argue we can only truly know ourselves in Christ.

Because as I said, yes, the word of God is a mirror that reflects ourselves to us, but also there is relationships with others that is that mirror also.

And I hate what that mirror shows me when somebody makes me really upset.

I hate what that mirror shows me when something I really want is threatened to be taken from me.

Just this week, I I had to call a brother of mine and confess sin and ask him to forgive me and repent of that because there was something that my relationship with him exposed.

It exposed that it was going to be taken from me, something I loved but shouldn't have been holding on to.

And what a beautiful blessing that was to stand up here this morning with that weight of guilt removed from me.

To be more hopefully like Jesus through it.

Many of us were going to fail to be honest with ourselves.

And unfortunately, that's going to cause us to be fail to be honest with others.

And because of that hard truth, some of us were going to fail to persevere in this faith.

But our hope is in this that Jesus persevered in our place.

Jesus persevered in our place.

Here's what's wild.

Jesus lived in perfect community and persevered to the end.

In this Trinitarian community that Jesus himself lived in.

He had a high dependence on the Father.

He didn't say anything unless he heard the Father say.

He didn't do anything unless he heard the Father do it.

He relied on the Spirit to lead him and to guide him and to strengthen him.

He often retreated into prayer to be alone with this divine community of which he was in perfect relationship with.

And that's how he persevered.

Look, the only time that that community was broken was at the cross, when Christ Himself became our sin.

When our sin caused him to be isolated from the Father as he turned his back from him.

That's the picture of what community does, or the absence or rejection of it.

But all through Christ's life, he lived in this perfect communion with the Father and dependence of the Spirit.

And so Jesus' community sustained perseverance wasn't just his own personal experience.

No, it was his work on our behalf.

He persevered through this Trinitarian community so that we could persevere through a Spirit-created one.

Though Jesus was fully divine in his incarnation, he chose to limit himself.

Philippians 2.7 shows us this.

And demonstrate that perseverance happens through community, not isolation.

Even if it's a divine community.

Philippians 1.6.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Christ himself is the author and the finisher of our faith.

He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

Jesus causes us to persevere.

I am so thankful that Jesus didn't give up.

That Jesus didn't quit running the race.

I'm so thankful as John 13 says that he loved us to the end.

And as he persevered, so his church will persevere also.

But let us embrace the mystery of Christ causing us to persevere and him calling us to persevere.

And my prayer for us is that we would persevere together in community.

If the triune God exists in perfect community, we who are made in his image are designed for community-dependent perseverance also.

You see, community isn't just helpful for perseverance, it's the way perseverance works.

Modeled by Jesus Himself, rooted in the very nature of the triune God of whose image we bear.

We were designed for community.

We were reconciled into community, and we will persevere through community.