Today, we are beginning the third week of our 40 Days of Community, that’s day 15 for those who are doing the daily devotions. We are continuing to explore what God’s purpose is for us here on earth, which we have said is to love Him, and love others the way he does. That’s what we are here for. It isn’t happiness, pleasure, success, or power, it isn’t possessions, it is our relationships, and how we love. When we talk about love, we are not talking about an emotion or a feeling, warm fuzzies, but about a choice. Those in our small groups heard Rick Warren share that "love produces feelings, but it isn’t a feeling." To love means we make the choice to care about someone else, we choose to unselfishly look out for the needs of others ahead of our own (Phil. 2:2-4). God sets the standard for love because the Bible says "God is love" (1 Jo. 4:8, 16). He loves every person on the planet and he demonstrated his love by sending his Son to die for our sake (Rom 5:8). Love is a verb, it is what we do, not a feeling.
1) I Need Close Christian Relationships in Order to Learn Love
You don’t grow in love for others just by reading a book, you learn through practice, doing it. We learn how to love, by being in relationship with each other. We need to connect with other Christians. If a Christian decides to live like a hermit out in the middle of nowhere and then says, I love others, I’m sorry he’s deceived himself. He doesn’t love because his love has never been tested. It’s like saying I’m a great race car driver without ever having been behind the wheel of a car. It might be true in your mind, but it ain’t true until you act upon it. In order to learn love, we need to practice, get behind the wheel so to speak, we need other people to love; irritating, imperfect, frustrating people. It’s like learning patience, you can’t learn patience without having something to test your patience, right? It’s how we grow. I’ve heard some of you say, "I quit praying for patience because I didn’t want God to give me something to be patient about." It’s similar with learning love, we need to be around other people to love. We need community, we need relationships in order to practice. So God has given us a spiritual family, a church, so we can learn how to love each other. Why a church family? Because whether you like it or not we are going to be loving these people for a very...long...time so God wants us to begin practicing right now.
When someone says to me, "I don’t need a church, I don’t need other Christians, I have my own beliefs," I know I am in the presence of a person who, first of all, is not being obedient to God, and therefore not loving God because God said those who love him will obey him (John 14:15, 23-24). Second, they aren’t learning God’s basic purpose for their life by loving their brother and sister in Christ. They are not doing what God has placed them on this earth to do. The Bible says you can have all the right beliefs and doctrine, you can have faith which moves mountains, you can be generous and give all your money to the poor or charitable causes, but if you haven’t learned how to love others your life is a waste (1 Cor. 13:1-3). God expects us to love others, beginning with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
In order to learn how to love we must be in close relationship with one another. The word the Bible uses for this is fellowship. Fellowship isn’t just a potluck dinner, or the time after church on Sunday morning where we eat snacks and chit chat and say, "hi, how’s it going," and we respond "ok," even though we really aren’t. True fellowship, the kind God wants us to live, is loving, authentic, honest, open, sharing, unselfish, serving, and grace filled. But this kind of fellowship can’t happen in large group settings like Sunday morning. Rick Warren says, "You can worship in a crowd, but you can’t fellowship in a crowd." In order to cultivate true loving community we need to be together in smaller settings, either one-on-one as friends, as a few people, or small group (8-12 people). Jesus understood this, as did the first Christians.
Jesus picked how many disciples? Twelve. He had perhaps a hundred or more to choose from, but he only chose twelve, a small group to invest his life and teachings with. Of those twelve he picked three which he spent even more time with. This wasn’t just about an effective teaching method. God’s kingdom is about relationships and these twelve disciples were learning how to love one another. Remember Jesus had in his group a tax collector, Matthew, who worked for the Roman government, as well as a zealot, Simon. Zealots hated the influence of the Roman government in Israel and tried to undermine it, even assassinating people like tax collectors. These weren’t men who had a natural affinity for being together. They were together because they were following Jesus, and Jesus was teaching them how to live in God’s kingdom together, but they needed to be in smaller community, or a smaller group to learn this.
The first Christians also understood this, and as a result they experienced God’s blessings. It says in Acts 2:46, "Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts." These Christians were meeting both as a large crowd for worship, but they also met in smaller settings, they opened their homes to each other and shared meals and their lives. Some people at the church have shared their concern over not feeling connected together since we’ve grown. Newcomers to the church have come and gone feeling as though they have not connected into the church. Why, because the larger we become, the more intentional we must become about cultivating community, developing relationships beyond Sunday morning worship.
During our 40 days, our hope is that we will learn how to love each other more by cultivating community within our church, building closer relationships (this is what the small groups are all about). It is my hope that many of these groups will choose to continue after the 40 Days so we can learn how to be in community together.
2) I Must Be Intentional About Cultivating Community (Developing Relationships)
Community doesn’t just happen. We don’t stumble into community. It’s a choice we make. I choose to be intentional about cultivating community and developing closer relationships with other Christians. Ask yourself, how many close Christian friends do I have that I share openly with on a regular basis? Am I a part of a small group, Bible study, or Emmaus 4th day group?
What I find fascinating about the beginnings of the Methodist movement is that they didn’t have a choice in this matter. If you were a Methodist you were in a weekly small group called a class meeting. They would share questions like: How goes it with your soul? We’ve lost that sense of connecting with our Christian community, that environment for sharing our spiritual journeys with one another. Instead we leave our wall up and never let anyone inside and we don’t learn how to love each other, and we fail to grow spiritually.
I realize that for some of us our natural instinct is not to develop close relationships. I think this is particularly true of men. We tend to create only superficial relationships which revolve around sports and leisure activities. As a result I see men tending to be more prideful and self-centered, because they don’t think they need to be a part of church, have any close male Christian friends, as a result they don’t learn love.
3) How to Cultivate Community
I want to spend the rest of the message looking at how we cultivate community. It takes more than just close proximity, just because we get together at someone’s house for dinner, or hang out with a Christian friend, or join a Bible study doesn’t mean we are cultivating this kind of community. You heard me say a couple weeks ago you can get a bunch of people together in an elevator, they are in close proximity, have the same purpose, but it doesn’t mean you’ve created community. Let’s go through four ways in which we intentionally cultivate community.
a) Cultivating Community Requires Time.
God has given us all the same amount of time, 24 hours a day seven days a week. What we choose to do with it is up to us. In this day and age we have more options than ever before of where to (waste) spend our time, and too often our excuse in spending time developing relationships is; I don’t have the time...I’m too busy, work, kids activities, sports, even (dare I say it) church activities. But what we are really saying is, it’s not a priority for me. Even though it is God’s number one priority for me to love others and develop relationships with them, it tends not to be our first priority. We need to look at our priorities and ask how we are dividing our time based on God’s priorities. The truth is we control our schedules, our kid’s schedules, our commitments. We may let others tell us what they want us to do, but that’s your decision. You can say "no" to people, your boss, your kids, and quit taking on more responsibilities that don’t really make any difference in God’s eternal plan, that’s your choice. If we don’t set our schedule based on our priorities, God’s priorities, something will fill the time, guaranteed.
When you get to heaven and stand before God he’s not going to ask you about your career accomplishments, all the toys you managed to collect and use. All the sporting events you thought were of utmost importance here on earth, they won’t mean a thing to God. His concern will be how you learned to love God, obey him, and how you learned to love others. There are two things which you bring to heaven with you; your relationships; family, friends, particularly with other Christians (because they will be with you in heaven) and your character, particularly the lessons you learned on how to love others. You body’s not going with you (at least not in present form), your possessions aren’t going with you, all the hours you worked overtime are not going with you. Make the time.
NIV Hebrews 10:25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
We have asked you during these 40 Days to set aside time to be with your group, because we are making God’s #1 priority our #1 priority.
b) Cultivating Community Requires Authenticity.
When we are in true community or fellowship we must be authentic with one another. This means we don’t just do the surface level chit chat, "how’s the weather, or did you see the Tigers or Red Wings game, how bout that vice-presidential debate, or whatever was on last night." Authenticity is about sharing what’s really going on in our lives. We are honest with each other, genuine. We are intentional about revealing our struggles, sharing our hurts, confessing our failures, acknowledging our weaknesses, and asking for help and prayer. I believe this is one of the #1 reasons community isn’t formed among Christians, in small groups or friendships within a congregation because we aren’t willing to be honest and genuine. We hold our cards close to us. I’ve been in several groups over the years, and the ones that kept going were authentic and the ones which petered out were the ones who never got beyond a surface level. The more we leave the mask on and pretend that everything is fine in our lives even if it isn’t. Lack of authenticity doesn’t build Christian community it builds social clubs, and the church isn’t called to be a social club.
Obviously authenticity requires trust and courage. The problem is we are driven more by pride and fear, we don’t want anyone to know we don’t have everything together, and we are afraid of what others will think of us if we share this. You have to be willing to share what’s really on your heart. You have to find a person or a group you can trust. Trust might take some time. Trust also requires confidentiality. What’s said in the group or among friends stays in the group. Gossip is a relationship buster which kills community because it kills trust. This is why God speaks so strongly against it in the Bible. If we need share something talk with God about it.
NIV James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
We have asked every small group to agree to a number of guidelines, included in these is to "create a safe environment" and to "be confidential."
A perfect example of authenticity among a group of people is an AA meeting. They share openly because they know it is confidential, and they know they need help. Think of our small groups as support groups for sinners trying to grow together to become more loving like God, "Hi, I’m Matt and I’m a sinner."
c) Cultivating Community Requires Humility
1 Peter 5:5b All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
Pride destroys community, while humility builds it. Pride looks down on other people, is critical of others and judgmental, thinking ’why can’t you be more like me.’ Prideful people think they are never wrong. Humility on the other hand is realizing we are a sinner saved by grace. It’s is God’s work in us, therefore there is no room for pride or judgment of others. Humility is thinking about yourself less, and thinking of others more. We also call it selflessness. Humble people are focused on serving others. When we are humble we admit our weaknesses, we are patient with others weaknesses, we are open to correction, and we put the spotlight on others rather than take credit for everything ourselves.
A way for us to demonstrate humility is by serving others in the church. Think of Jesus, the Son of God, getting down, wrapping a towel around his waist and proceeding to wash the disciple’s feet. That is humility. We are humble when we really listening to other people and what is going on in their life, your family, friends, people in your group. Prideful people don’t listen to others because life revolves around them. Do you know that listening is one of the greatest gifts you can give others? Humble people ask things like, "Well what do you think?" and they don’t dominate the conversation and do all the talking. They draw it out of others.
d) Cultivating Community Requires Grace
There’s always that person in the church or in our small group, which rubs you the wrong way, their like heavenly sandpaper. I call them EGR people (Extra Grace Required). I’ve even heard some people outside the church say, I won’t go to that church because I don’t like being around that person. They frustrate me, they annoy me, whatever. Yet what does Scripture say:
NLT Colossians 3:13 You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
In order to cultivate community, we must show others the same grace God has given us. We make allowance for their faults because God makes an allowance of our faults. We forgive them because God forgives us. We need to respect the differences we have, be considerate of each other’s feelings, be patient with one another, in short, be gracious.
If we choose not to be a part of a Christian community for this reason, not only have we failed to extend grace, we have failed to learn God’s basic lesson of love. Just like in your family, there will always be people in the body of Christ who rub you the wrong way, God wants you to learn how to love them too. Think of it as God’s opportunity to learn how to love someone unconditionally like he does. It’s easy to love those who are nice and friendly and treat you well, but love isn’t about returning in kind. Love is unselfishly looking out for others whether they deserve it or not. God is going to teach you how to extend grace just like he extends grace to us because we don’t deserve it either.
If we don’t learn to extend grace and love what happens is you start getting annoyed by the person, resentment grows, and pretty soon we will either 1) turn on that person, unloading on them, saying some unkind things, or 2) we will gossip about them behind their back, or 3) we will just walk away from our friendship, from our group, from our church, and community will definitely be avoided.
So what can we do about it? We can pray and ask God to fill us with his love, we can ask that he helps us realize the grace we have seen. Then we can make the choice to forgive, the choice to extend grace to others.
Conclusion:
Love is like a muscle it only gets stronger when it is used, when we put it into practice. What happens when we don’t use our muscles? They atrophy, we lose them. The same goes with our love. Without practice, without relationships, as the years go by we become more isolated, more hardened, less caring about others, more cynical, more self-centered. Why? Because we distanced ourselves from God and other Christian believers, and lived in isolation. What steps will you make to cultivate community?
