Being the church in confinement - Bible examples

Yesterday, in our online Sunday morning worship service, I heard an excellent message about what it means to be the church of God, even when you're not able to meet together in a church building; even when you're confined to your home for one reason or another. The message was given by Sergio Carmet (fourth photo from the left in the above screenshot.) He looked at three times in the Bible that people were confined to their homes, and drew out the lessons that we can learn from those times.

The first passage we looked at was Philippians chapter 1. You probably know that Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians when he was under house arrest and confined to his own home in Rome. Yet he tells the Philippians that his confinement has actually served to advance the gospel. (vs 12) Sergio drew our attention to four things Paul did in confinement, that we can also do during these days.

If you understand Spanish, you can click on this photo to enlarge it and read the original slide. The four things Paul did that we are also encouraged to do are:

• vs 3: remember others and thank God for them.
• vs 4: joyfully embrace the task of praying for others.
• vs 12 - 14: learn to see God's hand at work, advancing the work of His kingdom even amidst these difficult circumstances.
• vs 27: encourage each other to remain faithful, living lives that are worthy of the gospel, even in challenging days.

The second example we looked at was in Exodus 12, the story of the first Passover. This time, the people were ordered to stay in their own homes in order to save their lives; that sounds a little bit like being in quarantine! But it was a confinement that was a preparation for the freedom to come. Not only were the people to spread the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, they were also to wear their coats and shoes, ready for when they could go outdoors again. They were to get ready for the freedom that was to come.

Some principles from Exodus 12 are:

• vs 11: use this time to get ready for when confinement is over; don't waste it.
• vs 4: remember those around you who are alone or in need; don't forget to share what you have.
• vs 26 - 27: these days of being confined at home with your family give us an amazing opportunity to talk about who God is and worship Him together; don't miss out on that.

The third example of confinement we looked at was Noah's ark, which is told in Genesis chapters 6 - 8. You'll remember that Noah and his family, and all the animals, were confined in the boat for a whole year and, once it was all over, they came out to a world that had changed forever, and was completely different from what they had known before. 

I don't how long the impact of Covid-19 will be felt on our world, but one thing is sure: when we come out of home confinement, we're not going to find things the same as they were in January of this year. People are going to be changed and all kinds of things around us will be done differently, possibly for a very long time. From Genesis 8, we saw these two principles:

• vs 6 - 12: recognise that our world is changing during these weeks of confinement, and be ready for that.
• vs 20: when all of this is over, don't forget to keep loving and worshipping God.