Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Dream a little bit this morning.
[00:00:03] What if your experience when you walked into the auditorium on a Sunday morning here at Journey was as you walked in, and maybe you're looking around for a place to sit, if someone kind of raised their hand was just like, hey. And they yelled your name and they said, come on over here.
[00:00:18] And the reason was because that they knew you.
[00:00:21] They knew you. But it wasn't just that they knew your name.
[00:00:25] They knew things about you when you came and you sat down with them. And maybe another group of people, there was this sense like, I belong.
[00:00:33] This is a place where I belong.
[00:00:37] But they don't just know a little bit about your life.
[00:00:40] They know all the stuff, the good, the bad and the ugly.
[00:00:45] And you know that these are people that are praying for you.
[00:00:50] They're asking about the things that are happening in your life because they care and they're curious.
[00:00:56] And this group of people around your life, they're doing everything that they can to help encourage you in your faith. They want to fan into flame your faith in your life.
[00:01:07] And even though they know the stuff that's going on in your life, your flaws, your sin, your brokenness, there's no condemnation.
[00:01:18] They respond in empathy.
[00:01:21] But you know what? That's just not what you're receiving from them. You're actually giving that back to this same group of people.
[00:01:29] You're loving them the same way that they're loving you. And you know what? They actually love you enough that they're willing to say the hard things to you.
[00:01:41] Because we believe around here that what it means to be all in for Jesus, that we actually imitate his life, we become like him. But sometimes there's things in our life that don't imitate him very well. And we have friends that are close enough to us that when they see that, they get their arm around us and they begin to talk with us about that, they're willing to give us feedback. They love us that much.
[00:02:05] But it isn't just a Sunday thing.
[00:02:07] We're not just doing this. When we show up in these rows, it's a life thing.
[00:02:13] We spend time together, life together.
[00:02:16] We laugh, we have fun, we play together, we eat together.
[00:02:21] And what would it be like if maybe you're brand new here for the first time?
[00:02:26] And these groups of people, they actually see you, they connect with you, they reach out to you, they want to get to know your name. These groups aren't little clicks of us four and no more, but they're actually porous and they invite other people in what if that, friends, was every person's experience that ever walked through the doors of journey?
[00:02:53] I just got to ask, is this, is this just crazy talk?
[00:02:57] Is this just some kind of a pipe dream?
[00:03:00] Or is what I just described a simple picture of what God wants for his people, What God wants, wants for his church.
[00:03:12] And I'll tell you right now, we believe and we pray that there will be a day that that is the actual experience of every person. We believe that the latter is true. This is what God wants for us.
[00:03:26] And as we've been working in this series around our mission statement of what does it even mean to be an all in follower of Jesus?
[00:03:35] Today we're going to look at this one simple word in our mission statement.
[00:03:42] Together.
[00:03:43] Together we lead people in becoming all in followers of Jesus, but we have to do it together.
[00:03:51] What this means is, is that if I want to love Jesus, if I want to be all in with him, it means that I have to love what Jesus loves.
[00:04:02] And Jesus loves his church and that's us, that is each other together.
[00:04:14] When you chose to give your life to Jesus, to identify your life with him and follow him with your life, you also joined your life with the people Jesus.
[00:04:28] It is biblically, spiritually and practically impossible to be an all in follower of Jesus and not love what he loves. And that is people.
[00:04:41] Toward the end of Jesus life, his time here on earth, when he was talking to his closest disciples In John chapter 13, this is what Jesus said.
[00:04:54] He said a new command. I give you love one another as I have loved you, meaning in the same way that I've loved you completely, unconditionally, sacrificially.
[00:05:10] So you must love one another.
[00:05:16] By this, by our love for one another, people will know that you are my disciples.
[00:05:22] Meaning this is the characteristic, the defining characteristic of a follower of Jesus, an all in follower. If you love one another in the mind of Jesus, this command, it's about together we've got to figure out how do we love one another.
[00:05:49] If we want to be an all in follower of Jesus, we need to love what Jesus loved.
[00:05:56] And Jesus loved his church, but what's his church?
[00:06:05] We use that word church all the time. And there's lots of different ways that we use that in our language and conversation. For some people, the church is the building.
[00:06:14] I'm going to go to the church. Today we met inside the church.
[00:06:18] But that's not what Jesus is talking about when he talks about the church. Sometimes when people talk about a church, they're talking about an Organization, this institution that's got leaders and budgets and structures.
[00:06:30] That's not what Jesus is talking about when he talks about the church.
[00:06:34] Sometimes when we talk about church, we're talking about this right here, this gathering, this, this worship gathering. I'll meet you at church this morning.
[00:06:44] But when Jesus talks about the church, he's never talking about an event.
[00:06:50] He's always talking about God's people.
[00:06:54] Biblically, that's the church, it's the community, the community of the redeemed, the men, women and children that have bowed their knee to him who are living in unity with God, relationship with him, but living in unity with each other together.
[00:07:15] We can't be an all in follower of Jesus unless we figure out how to live together.
[00:07:23] There's what's interesting is that you can love this gathering. You can love coming here on Sunday.
[00:07:32] I love the worship, I love the teaching. Right? Everybody thinks the teaching is just fantastic.
[00:07:41] You love the kids ministry, you love the vibe. I hear people say, I love the vibe around Journey. You can love all of that and not love the church.
[00:07:55] Because when you say that I love those things, you're talking about your preferences. It's like, I like the spiritual goods and services that I receive when I'm at Journey on. You love your preferences, but you can love your preferences and not love people.
[00:08:10] There's a phrase we use in our culture and I hear it all the time.
[00:08:13] I'm church shopping.
[00:08:16] And what are you looking for?
[00:08:18] You're looking for the worship, you like the teaching, you like the kids ministry, you like the vibe that you like. But Jesus is saying, when you're church shopping, don't look for your preferences, you gotta look for the people.
[00:08:34] Because if we're gonna be what Jesus has called us to be, we can't just love our preferences, we have to love people.
[00:08:42] Here's what's also true.
[00:08:44] You can not love what's happening around here on a Sunday morning. It cannot be your preference.
[00:08:51] And you can do a beautiful job of loving the church because you love its people.
[00:08:59] Might be interesting to you. I don't love everything that we do around here on a Sunday morning.
[00:09:05] You're thinking, well, can't you just change it? Like I look at the org chart, can't you just change it?
[00:09:12] It's not about my preferences, it's not about getting my preferences. It is always about the people.
[00:09:20] What I care about is that we create a place where people can be known and loved. I don't need my preferences. In fact, I was thinking about a friend of mine that comes here regularly.
[00:09:33] This is not the kind of church that he would go to. Almost nothing fits his preferences. The music is not his style, the music is not at the volume that he likes. And honestly, if he looks around, it's probably not always his demographic people.
[00:09:51] And he and I both know that there's way better preaching out there.
[00:09:57] He could easily go somewhere else, but he comes here to worship God and to love people.
[00:10:04] And I love his, his wife. Almost every Sunday that they're here, she will just look for someone that's sitting around them and ask if she can pray for them.
[00:10:12] Because it's not about loving the gathering, loving the things that happen. It is about loving the people.
[00:10:21] If we're going to learn how to do together, it means that people, people trump our preferences all the way across the board. People are more important than our preferences.
[00:10:34] Here's the deal, here's my point is that I think it's actually possible for you to give a lot of your time, your talent and your treasures to a gathering or an organization that you call the church and give very little of the mutual love, joy, hope and support that comes from living your life connected to other followers of Jesus.
[00:11:01] We need to be together.
[00:11:05] Is that your mindset?
[00:11:08] Is that your mindset when you show up on a Sunday morning?
[00:11:12] Is your mindset that I want to look for someone to love, I want to look for someone that I can know and I actually want to be loved and I want to be known. That's what an all in follower of Jesus that would be their mindset as they walk in on a Sunday.
[00:11:32] But here's what I often hear people say.
[00:11:36] I love Jesus, but I can't stand the church.
[00:11:44] I love Jesus, give my life to him, give everything to him.
[00:11:49] But I don't love the church.
[00:11:52] And I just think it's interesting. Just think with me just for a minute. Think about all the different metaphors that Jesus tries to use to describe his love for the church.
[00:12:04] He calls the church his bride.
[00:12:07] This is like his wife, his spouse, this close loving relationship.
[00:12:12] He calls the church his children.
[00:12:14] These are like my kids that mean so much to me. He says, this is my family, this is my flesh. And he says this is my body.
[00:12:27] This is like my physical body, this representation of the world, all these parts pulled together to represent me.
[00:12:35] Those are beautiful metaphors to let us know how much Jesus loves the church.
[00:12:42] And so what would it be like?
[00:12:45] Imagine talking to Jesus, maybe even think about talking to a person and you went to them and you just Said, I love you, but your wife drives me crazy.
[00:13:00] What's that relationship gonna be like?
[00:13:04] I think you're amazing. I love you, I worship you.
[00:13:08] But your kids, keep them away from me. They drive me crazy. I can't deal with them.
[00:13:16] Jesus, I love you, but your family, your family's dysfunctional. They are jacked up.
[00:13:27] Jesus, I love you, but your body turns me off.
[00:13:33] Your expression of who you are to the world turns me off.
[00:13:42] How would that relationship go?
[00:13:44] Can you love someone without loving the things that they love? Jesus says no.
[00:13:50] That's why we've got to figure out what does it look like?
[00:13:54] What does it actually look like for us to live together in relationship. And now let me say this, let me make this really clear with those analogies and those metaphors. What I am not saying is that the church can't drive you crazy at times.
[00:14:15] I am not saying that. There aren't times in your life where you're just like, I just don't know if I can deal with this. This is dysfunctional. This is a turnoff. To me. All those things are true.
[00:14:27] But here's what Jesus is saying. You don't have the option to opt out if you're gonna be an all in follower of me. You've got to love the things that I love.
[00:14:40] And the only way you can do that is if you live together.
[00:14:46] And I'll underscore it again. There are problems in the church. There are problems with people in the church. And you know what? It's always been that way.
[00:14:57] If you just take a casual reading of the New Testament, read Paul's letters to the church.
[00:15:03] What are those letters about? They are jacked up and dysfunctional. There are things that are driving Paul crazy.
[00:15:12] But he knows Jesus loves that church.
[00:15:17] And Paul loves that church.
[00:15:21] Jesus loves the church and he won't see stop loving the church. And if we want to be a follower of him, we've got to love the things that Jesus loved.
[00:15:32] Here's how Paul said it in First Corinthians, chapter three.
[00:15:37] We've got to understand this.
[00:15:41] Paul says this. Don't you know that you yourselves, you yourselves, you need to understand the translators of this in the niv. What they're trying to help us understand is that that is a you plural. He's saying all of you. You know, sometimes when reread the scriptures because we can be so individualistic, individualistically focused that we think every time we hear the word you, it's just talking about us. No, Paul is talking about us together the love one another group, you, you yourselves are God's temple.
[00:16:17] And that God's spirit dwells in your midst.
[00:16:22] The presence of God. The presence of God is contained inside the collective of his church. That's us, you yourselves. And now listen to this.
[00:16:36] If anyone, if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person.
[00:16:45] For God's temple is sacred, meaning it is holy. It is set apart in his mind.
[00:16:53] And you together are that temple.
[00:16:59] How do we house the power and the presence of God Together?
[00:17:06] We together a accomplish that.
[00:17:10] And just. Can I just focus again back for a second?
[00:17:14] Can you hear how passionate God is about that?
[00:17:18] Like if you're not about trying to build up the church. When I say build up, I'm talking about the people of the church, investing in the lives of people in the church. And instead you are critical and you are undermining. Do you hear what Paul is saying? God wants to destroy that person.
[00:17:36] You are standing against God, pitting yourself against Him.
[00:17:41] It matters to God. That's how much together matters to him.
[00:17:49] But we don't think like that so many times in the American church, do we?
[00:17:55] We emphasize my personal relationship with Jesus.
[00:18:03] And now I'm not saying that you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus. And by that I mean that each of us personally are responsible to surrender our life to Him. Nobody can do that for us. Nobody can do that in our place. Each of us needs to bow our knee to him, surrender to him, accept his gift of forgiveness. What he accomplished for us on the cross. We have to do that individually.
[00:18:30] But after that it is not just me and God, it is us and God.
[00:18:38] It's always us and God. Not just a personal relationship with God, a collective relationship with Him.
[00:18:47] If you want to belong to Jesus, if you want to be an all in follower of him, you need to understand that you belong to one another, that we belong to his people.
[00:19:01] I'm going to say it again. And us collectively, we are the vessels of God's presence.
[00:19:09] Not organizations, not buildings, not even necessarily worship gathering. It is us together.
[00:19:18] We house God's power and his presence.
[00:19:23] So whose responsibility is it to make that happen?
[00:19:27] Now if in your mind this whole time you're thinking, yeah, I get that Journey needs to do a better job at doing that. Come on, you're seeing the church as an organization.
[00:19:38] You need to understand it is our responsibility to create together.
[00:19:47] It's not an organization's responsibility.
[00:19:51] It's our responsibility to do everything we can to paint the picture, to create the opportunities for us, to be together to us to foster those kind of one another relationships. But we can't do it unless every one of us together grabs ahold of that vision for their life and for the church.
[00:20:13] And that's when the church becomes beautiful.
[00:20:17] It becomes beautiful because there is this incredible unity that we start to see in the midst of an incredible diversity.
[00:20:26] Because the things that tie us together in that oneness, that love one another kind of togetherness. It's not that we all have the same common interests. It's. It's not that we all think alike. It's not that we all have the same political ideology or even that we have the same mission in this life.
[00:20:46] The thing, the one thing that ties our hearts together is that every one of us is seeking to abide with one Lord.
[00:20:59] And as we connect with him, he gives us the power and the strength to connect with one another and to love what he loves.
[00:21:09] You can't be fully connected to him apart from being connected to the things that he loves and the people that he loves.
[00:21:19] I want to read to you a scripture about this idea of unity and diversity that happened in the first century because friends, this blew the minds of people that watched what the church accomplished after Jesus left. Here's Paul talking in Ephesians chapter three as he's talking about this mystery of Christ, this mystery of this pulling together of people into Christ's body, into Christ's family. Listen to Paul, verse 4.
[00:21:49] It says in reading this, then you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.
[00:21:57] He calls it a mystery like how do we even understand how this is even working, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has been revealed by the spirit of God's holy apostles and prophets.
[00:22:12] And here he explains it. This mystery, this mystery is that through the Gospel, through the Gospel, the Gentiles, our heirs. Say it with me together, we need to do that way better. Say it with me together with Israel, members together of one body and shares in the promises in Jesus Christ.
[00:22:42] In the promise of Jesus Christ.
[00:22:46] The mystery was that Jews and Gentiles came together and learned how to love one another.
[00:22:56] And now there's 2000 years of history between us and them. You've got to understand just how wide the divide was.
[00:23:05] The Jews, they would actually define themselves in light of what they were, not as it relates to the Gentiles. We are not like those filthy idol worshiping, sexually immoral pork eating, unrighteous, scripturally ignorant Gentiles.
[00:23:28] You can't even understand the level of contempt that was in their heart for the Gentiles.
[00:23:35] So much so that they would refer to them as dogs.
[00:23:40] And you know what?
[00:23:42] The hatred.
[00:23:44] Mutual.
[00:23:46] The hatred was mutual.
[00:23:50] But what God did through the Gospel is that he brought Jews and Gentiles together and they learned how to love one another.
[00:24:04] They started to worship together, they started to eat together, they shared a table together, which, and that culture was the ultimate expression of friendship and intimacy.
[00:24:18] They called one another brothers and sisters.
[00:24:23] What at one point was completely defined by hate now became defined by love for one another. As they figured out, what does it mean to be together.
[00:24:36] It wasn't because they were the same.
[00:24:39] It was because they were loving what they knew Jesus loved.
[00:24:45] And that was each other, one another.
[00:24:48] And that was the beauty of the early church.
[00:24:53] And that's what changed the world, because people saw what was happening. This kind of community, this kind of togetherness that was pulled together. People couldn't fathom that that could even be possible.
[00:25:07] But here's my question.
[00:25:10] What might that look like in our context?
[00:25:14] What might it look like if we actually tried to embrace some of the metaphors that Jesus has given us to describe who were to be together?
[00:25:24] And there's lots of different metaphors, but the primary metaphor, the one that is used most by biblical authors, is this idea of, of family.
[00:25:34] Family.
[00:25:35] In our culture, even families are the most basic, informative of all human communities.
[00:25:42] Our need for family, a healthy family in our culture, is massive.
[00:25:52] We need people.
[00:25:56] And you could look at so many. There are so many different surveys out there, but recent surveys talk about people are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness.
[00:26:08] Nobody knows them. Nobody knows who they really are.
[00:26:12] If that's you feeling loneliness, you need to know this.
[00:26:18] You're not alone.
[00:26:19] At least in your loneliness, you're not alone. 54% of Americans say this.
[00:26:27] No one knows them. Well, that means 50%, on average, half of the people in this room would say that nobody really knows me.
[00:26:38] 36% of people say that they feel lonely frequently or almost all of the time.
[00:26:44] So just think about that. You got a couple people on each side.
[00:26:47] Statistically, one out of one person on each side of you, if it's not you, feels lonely almost all of the time.
[00:26:56] Vivek Murthy, he's a former US Surgeon General, he called loneliness the number one health risk in America because it's not just this feeling of isolation.
[00:27:12] They've made incredible links to how that affects us psychologically.
[00:27:17] It leads us to places of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, all of those Kinds of things come from loneliness, but it's also linked to physical things like heart disease, cancer, dementia.
[00:27:33] God made us to need family. God made us to live our life and our faith together.
[00:27:44] And here's what I'm reading.
[00:27:45] I mean, we think that we've got this endless supply of entertainment.
[00:27:50] Our phone can just keep us continuously engaged.
[00:27:54] But we know not only do I read it, I hear people say it to me.
[00:27:59] It's leaving us behind.
[00:28:02] It hasn't delivered what it's promised to us.
[00:28:06] Here's why this is important to me.
[00:28:09] I believe our church believes if we can understand this idea of together, if there is a church that is positioned to embrace the value of being a spiritual family, we're gonna be positioned to meet the deepest needs of our culture, which is for their relational and spiritual thirst.
[00:28:32] We need each other.
[00:28:34] We need together. We need spiritual family.
[00:28:39] We just do.
[00:28:42] So how are we going to do that?
[00:28:45] I want to get personal and I want to get practical.
[00:28:50] It's challenging.
[00:28:53] It's so challenging.
[00:28:56] If it was easy, every church would be doing it.
[00:29:00] Churches have such a hard time.
[00:29:02] Maybe you see it in pockets here and there, but to see a church that this kind of love for one another, this kind of togetherness pervades, it is so challenging.
[00:29:12] Why? Because relationships are challenging. I don't care what marriage relationships are challenging. Parenting relationships are challenging. Relationships are definitely challenging all across the board.
[00:29:28] And you know this, you've experienced this. Some of your greatest wounds in your entire life have come from relationships.
[00:29:37] But Jesus knows that your greatest healing is going to come from relationships.
[00:29:44] It's going to be a massive challenge for us to be able to build this kind of togetherness, to move from rows to circles, smaller groups of people where we can actually be known and be loved. And now I know already that there's lots of resistances that you've already got in your mind. You've already got your reasons why you're not going to do this.
[00:30:05] I made the mistake this week of I put that question in chat GPT.
[00:30:10] What are the reasons that Christians don't want to be in community? It was so discouraging. I thought I had a good list. I mean, the list was just huge. And I sat there thinking, am I. Am I going to try to unpack every one of these things, to try to push back?
[00:30:25] I thought, I don't have time for that.
[00:30:30] But what I want to do is I want us to think about some of the major things that are going to keep us out of this kind of together relationship.
[00:30:39] One of the things that together is difficult, makes together difficult is that together is slow.
[00:30:47] It takes time.
[00:30:48] You're not going to just do this overnight.
[00:30:52] Some of you are already right now saying, I'm too busy. My life is too full. I don't have time for any other people. Good luck for all the people that are at Journey, but I don't have time for that.
[00:31:02] Some of you, you say, I, I've tried that, but I hit a speed bump and I opted out. Yes, I understand it. It takes time and. And we can't take an off ramp.
[00:31:13] We've got to stay on the road. Jesus called the road narrow and hard, and we've got to stay on it over and over and over again.
[00:31:22] It takes time to build the kind of relationships that we're talking about.
[00:31:29] And these kind of relationships, trying to build those.
[00:31:33] It's un.
[00:31:35] Comfortable.
[00:31:38] It's awkward to try to build relationships with people. Why?
[00:31:43] Because we're awkward.
[00:31:45] We are awkward people. I'm an awkward person. People are so different from us. They're not like us. They don't think like I do. But Jesus isn't asking us to just find a group of people that are just like me. The mystery of the gospel is that people that are very different come together.
[00:32:05] And you know this. If you're in a group, you know that there are people in your group that it's even especially awkward with.
[00:32:15] Sometimes we call those the extra grace required.
[00:32:20] People think about a group that you're in right now. You know who that person is, and if you don't know who that person is, it's you.
[00:32:34] But that's what God uses.
[00:32:36] We're different, but he uses even the difficult things to shape and to grow our life and to become more like Him. We've got to push past the fact that it's uncomfortable.
[00:32:51] And it's also risky to try to build those kind of relationships. It's risky because the cost to together is vulnerability.
[00:33:05] Together is built at the speed of vulnerability.
[00:33:10] You can meet together with people all the time, regularly. You can open your bibles and talk about scriptures and share your insights and never, never once share about the hurt and the pain and the fear, the difficult things that are happening in your life. Because we fear vulnerability.
[00:33:32] And that's why, even in church environments, if we're honest, we can say, I don't know that I'm fully known and I don't know that I'm fully loved.
[00:33:43] If, if we're gonna move toward together, it's going to mean that we're gonna learn to get vulnerable, and that's hard.
[00:33:56] And let me tell you this. I don't think it gets any easier ever to be vulnerable with your life.
[00:34:05] I was having lunch with a friend this week, and I would put him in the category of probably just a handful of people that really know the good, the bad, and the ugly of who I am as a person.
[00:34:18] And he was trying to process some things with me. And he asked me just an honest, penetrating question.
[00:34:25] And I sat there and I just kind of stared off.
[00:34:30] And in my mind, I'm thinking, I hope that he thinks that I'm just really taking this question seriously.
[00:34:36] But the reason that I wasn't answering the question is because I knew what the answer was. And I didn't want to say it because I thought if I tell him what the real answer is, I'm going to look so bad in front of him. And so the reason I was staring off is I was thinking, is there a more palatable way to say this? Is there a way to say this that would make me look better than I really am?
[00:35:01] And finally I just came to the place where it was like, okay, here's the deal, and I just said it. And then I told him. And by the way, the reason I paused is because I spent the last minute trying to figure out how to make this sound better.
[00:35:16] You get to that place where you're willing to just put it out there, and then you receive empathy in return.
[00:35:24] And it's just another deposit, another deposit that builds a life of together, one place of vulnerability at a time.
[00:35:34] But to do that is risky, especially with people that you don't. I knew.
[00:35:40] I knew that he wouldn't judge me. I knew that he would get his arm around me. But it still was hard. And it will always be hard. But we've got to go there. If we ever, ever want to be in a place where of vulnerability, we've got to be courageous. It's going to take incredible courage to talk about our wickedness, to talk about our sin, but also to talk about our woundedness.
[00:36:05] When I say wickedness, I'm talking about the sin in our life. When I'm talking about our woundedness, I'm talking about the sin that's been done to us. We have to be able to talk about those things in our life.
[00:36:18] But those things are scary.
[00:36:21] It's scary to do, and here's why.
[00:36:27] One word.
[00:36:30] Shame.
[00:36:33] It's shame.
[00:36:35] Shame isn't just feeling bad about yourself.
[00:36:41] Shame is a deep fear that I'm somehow Unlovable.
[00:36:47] And that if people actually knew, if people actually knew, if I was genuinely known, we wonder, would I actually be loved?
[00:37:01] Or would people see what's happening in my life and want to push me to the side, push me away?
[00:37:09] We see shame from the opening pages of the Bible. We see that original together, that original family, that spiritual family, just God and one other couple. And he makes it clear they were naked and unashamed. There was no shame.
[00:37:25] But when sin entered the world, they wondered, am I still lovable?
[00:37:32] They tried to hide from God. They tried to move away from him, and they tried to hide from each other. They made fig leaves to cover themselves because of shame.
[00:37:45] Shame is the greatest disconnector.
[00:37:48] It's the greatest disconnecter of people that will cause us to want to hide from each other.
[00:37:54] Makes us want to hide from God, makes us want to hide from other people, friends. And sometimes it makes us even want to hide from ourselves.
[00:38:06] Be away, medicate. Sometimes we just want to deal with the shame.
[00:38:13] Okay, here's your assignment.
[00:38:18] That vision of together, you might be looking at that and you're thinking, that just feels too far away.
[00:38:26] I feel so disconnected right now. I don't even know what the first step is.
[00:38:31] Let me just say this, that the reason oftentimes we fail is that we try to make that first step too big. Maybe your next step is not like, I'm gonna join a group or lead a group and pull people together. I'm gonna share everything that I've ever done in my life tonight.
[00:38:46] It's probably not gonna go well, but what is the next step for you? Would you just take a nudge from Jesus?
[00:38:55] This would be my ask for all of us.
[00:38:59] I think one of the greatest things that could move us collectively toward together is that we would change our mindset of what we think about when we show up here on a Sunday.
[00:39:10] Do I show up here thinking, how am I going to get something for me?
[00:39:16] Or do I show up here thinking, how do I invest relationally? How can I figure out how to know and love other people and make myself known and loved to them?
[00:39:31] I have some friends of mine, and I've shared this before, and I wanted to share it again. I didn't ask their permission to share this, so I won't say their name, but it rhymes with Jim and Kim Kina when they show up here. I said this before because I feel like it's so beautiful when they show up here.
[00:39:52] The thing that they say to themselves is, I'm looking for someone to Love.
[00:39:58] What would it be like?
[00:40:00] What would it be like if everybody. I mean, I actually had these thoughts, like, what if we just put that on the front of our church that everyone would walk in? Are you looking for someone to love?
[00:40:10] It would change the environment if it wasn't about meeting my spiritual needs. I want something for me. Am I gonna be fed? But am I going to think about what does it mean to feed other people?
[00:40:23] And maybe that means just the most simple thing that you can do when you walk in here on a Sunday is that you just say hi to someone.
[00:40:32] And for. For some of you, I know I'm not diminishing this, that would be a huge step of faith. Your level of introversion is at a place where it's like just to look someone in the eye and say hello, maybe ask their name or ask them a question. I mean, just the thought of it is just giving you pits right now because it's scary. But maybe that's for you. Maybe that's what it means to love someone.
[00:41:00] Maybe you would go so far as to reach out and try to connect personally with someone. Maybe invite someone to go do something with you, do an activity together.
[00:41:14] Begin to build that sense of together.
[00:41:17] And you know, you know at the end of this gathering that one of our worship leaders is going to say, don't hurry out of here. Take some time to meet someone.
[00:41:26] This is why we say that. Let's just do that. Let's just make that part of the vibe of Journey Church.
[00:41:35] This is who we are. We're looking for someone to love.
[00:41:39] Maybe for some of you, it's joining a group.
[00:41:43] You've thought about it forever. You've been putting it off forever.
[00:41:47] Maybe your next step of together is to get out of the row and get into a circle, actually create some space to get to know other people.
[00:41:57] For some of you, you've been in a group forever.
[00:42:00] But you would also say, nobody really knows me, and I'm not sure that they really love me.
[00:42:09] I think your next step, start to pull the curtains open in your life and be vulnerable.
[00:42:16] Share some of those things, the good, the bad and the ugly.
[00:42:21] Do that in a group that you're in.
[00:42:24] And for some of you, maybe your next step is to lead a group.
[00:42:28] Or maybe you're leading a group right now. Maybe your next step is to be a vulnerable leader. Leaders can change the environment.
[00:42:35] When people see leaders being vulnerable, it gives them permission also to be vulnerable. It says, this is a safe place.
[00:42:45] I ask of you is just what's Your next step.
[00:42:49] Maybe it's little, maybe it's big, but what is your next step?
[00:42:56] And now I know that the things that I've shared today for some of you, like it's just not your desire right now. It's like, you know, I don't want this. In fact, I'm brand new and this is really intimidating to me right now.
[00:43:10] I just want to say that's okay if that's not the step for you to take right now.
[00:43:18] The thing that I want to be true is that the reason that you don't take it is because you're choosing not to.
[00:43:25] Not because we as a church aren't in some way making that available for you. That has to be who we are.
[00:43:34] We've got to live out our mission of together.
[00:43:38] Together, collectively, we lead people in becoming all in followers.
[00:43:46] Jesus, let's pray.
[00:43:57] Jesus, we do want to come before you and acknowledge that we love you.
[00:44:04] We love you and we want our life to be about loving you and abiding in you and walking with you.
[00:44:16] And Jesus, we also understand that you've made it so clear that to love you means that we need to love what you love.
[00:44:26] And that's people.
[00:44:28] We need to learn how to love one another. We need to learn how to be together.
[00:44:36] Jesus, would you walk us into that?
[00:44:39] Jesus, you can show us you loved sacrificially and you said in the same way that you loved us. We're to love one another, Jesus, and you've given us your spirit individually and corporately. We can live this out in your power, Jesus. We trust you to do that.
[00:44:58] And it's in your powerful and resurrected name that we pray. And all God's people said amen.
