A Place to Belong
A Place to Call Home
Sunday Sermon / May 15th 2005
Intro:
Ways to know your church is unfriendly.
1) The sign out front says – For members only
2) The parking lot has a sign that says – unauthorized vehicles will be towed at owners expense.
3) The church lobby has a sign that says – no loitering
4) When you say “Praise the Lord” and the guy behind you says – we don’t do that here.
5) When the pastor’s message is entitled “The Theological Significance of the eschatological dimensions of the sanctified life in the pre-millennial view of predestination.”
6) When they pass the plate – twice
7) When, at fellowship, coffee is $1.50 and donuts are $1.00 – limit one.
8) When the church’s motto is – We’re getting smaller but purer.
I don’t want our church to be just another church on the block.
o More than friendly; we move closer and actually become friends.
o Truly accepting and truly loving.
o A place that when you are here, you are more comfortable, more loved, more refreshed than in any other setting you find yourself in.
o This environment is available to anyone who walks through those doors, not just to “Members”
Barna, “If the unchurched want a great event, there are thousands of organizations that can put on a better show than the typical church. If the unchurched simply want to be in the presence of other people, there are ample opportunities to have such experiences, usually in much less threatening environments. But the Church is unique in that it is intended to be a community – not just an aggregation of unrelated people simultaneously seeking their own benefit, but a group of individuals…where true relationships are meant to flourish.
No ordinary friendships, we have something that the world doesn’t have. We have the Spirit of the Lord. When we sit together and listen to one another, we personally maybe helpless in the situation, but we can call on the Lord. We can enter the Throne room of our Lord on the behalf of the ones we love.
"The best moments any of us have as human beings are those moments when for a little while it is possible to escape the squirrel-cage of being me into the landscape of being us." - Frederick Buechner
Text: Psalm 68:6 God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.
Sets = to cause to sit; to cause to abide; to cause to dwell; to cause (cities) to be inhabited
Lonely = AV - only, only child, desolate, solitary; only one,
This is not a pre-birth condition; this loneliness comes with life experience.
It Starts with God: This verse starts with God’s action, it’s His leading
I. God’s plan for His Kids “God sets the lonely in families”
a. His family around us
i. Because God does the “setting,” There are no strangers here, we’ve been expecting you and praying for you even before knowing your name.
Romans 15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God
ii. The word acceptance means, “Taking to oneself” It is an invitation.
iii. Briefly defined, acceptance is the state of receiving someone into relationship.
iv. It is closely related to grace, undeserved merit.
v. Therefore, acceptance includes all of who we are, the good, the bad and the ugly inside us.
“If you’re only willing to put your best foot forward, prepare to do a lot of hopping.”
“We can’t grow unless we are sure that we are both known and loved. Some people like us because they don’t know us; some know us, and therefore don’t like us. Relationship can’t occur unless both knowledge and love are present.” Doctors Cloud and Townsend
We are born legalist. IN other words, we want to earn love and acceptance. It is less risky than receiving it by grace. It helps us think we are in control and can keep us disconnected from relationship.
Give up the Law as a means to Acceptance
b. His spirit inside us
i. This need for complete acceptance doesn’t start with human relationships; it starts in our relationship with God.
ii. Acceptance is the result of the working of grace. Because of God’s grace, we are accepted into relationship.
“People do not grow until they shift from a natural human view of God to a real, biblical view of God. The first aspect of that shift has to be the shift from a God of Law to the God of Grace. People must discover that God is for them and not against them. This is what it means to have a God of grace.”
iii. We receive the Spirit of Adoption the Word says, “His Spirit convinces our spirit that we are children of God.
iv. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter our Helper, the Lover of our Soul (The only part of us that we can’t change on our own.)
Video: “Never been unloved”
Acceptance does away with the need to prove ourselves worthy and replaces it with an appeal to living on the basis of relationship rather than by performance and good works.
Story about Matthew’s stinking shoes at camp: We had to put his shoes outside in the hall way. We didn’t make him sleep in the hall, but his shoes were another story.
II. God’s Plan Works “He leads forth the prisoners with singing”
a. He supplies what we lack
The problem with self-help, and self-esteem, and self-acceptance is these are things that we need but can’t give to ourselves. If we could, they wouldn’t be needs.
Love and Trust
i. Your life’s experiences may have cause you to be untrusting towards others and even God, you have become Guarded.
ii. A guarded person never feels at home with people; never quit loved.
iii. Self-protection is exhausting!
iv. True Acceptance has nothing to do with performance, appearance, ability, wit, profit or even personality.
The severely handicapped is as acceptable as the business tycoon with 2.5 children, a dog, and the summer house at the beach.
v. It makes no difference who you are, God bases his acceptance of you on Grace. His grace! Will you accept His acceptance; His Love?
vi. What area of your spiritual or emotional life is lacking?
b. He Strengthens our weakness
i. Weak or overly Guilty Conscience
ii. We try to hide our weaknesses. We hid what you are ashamed of.
iii. These include sins and short-comings.
iv. If it is hidden it won’t heal. Bring it into the light so you may be healed.
v. What weakness do you have that needs strengthening?
c. He Heals our brokenness
i. Some people live as though they have no needs, no emotions other than positive.
1. It is easy to believe that your happiness, humor or good parts are acceptable
2. However, it is much harder to believe that people will accept your sad times, addictions and neediness.
3. So you live as though these parts didn’t exist.
ii. Some never get past sadness, others won’t permit the emotion.
iii. Neither is healthy; both are healed through openness.
iv. Not everyone is emotional, but everyone has emotions.
v. What brokenness is inside you?
III. Use acceptance for Healing
a. His Acceptance is a start
i. The goal isn’t acceptance; the goal is Health and Healing
ii. “but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.”
iii. Those who resist God’s truth and help are rebellious
iv. Truth is like antiseptic, sometimes it stings but it always brings healing.
v. Do you have a relationship were that person can administer truth without your feeling rejected?
vi. If not, then you don’t really have a home. You don’t really have a friend.
vii. We must foster these kinds of relationships, healing the wounds of rejection and isolation.
Expand your shell of protection to include God and others. Nothing in Nothing out; good or bad.
b. We must pass it on
i. The Body is being perfected / that tells us that the people God uses in the process are not perfect. They will need grace and acceptance from you too
H.B.London’s joke on joy-suckers and our conclusion on how to handle them, “Slobber Love” beat them to the punch. When you encounter a harsh and judgmental person in your life, (they may be totally hateful and worldly or they may be proper and Bible-toting, never the less) slobber on them. Go ahead and do it.
Conclusion: Acceptance is meaningless if there is nothing that needs to be accepted. Take the humble step of confessing your lacks and needs to God and others. Enter into your spiritual poverty.
Great testimony about Men’s group: Open, we don’t stop being men. We talk about ripping cars apart with our bare hands and killing large animals for food, crafting work-benches out of oak trees that we have chopped down ourselves. Yet I have seen more spiritual conversation, true concern for one another, sincere prayer and honest dialog in this men’s group than any other male gathering I’ve been apart of.
