The Amazing Race: Community
Mark 2:1-5
Every day, we find ourselves actively engaged in crowds. There are all kinds of crowds. There’ s the work crowd, the school crowd, the crowd associated with the activities of our children and there is the church crowd. It is easy to confuse our associations within these crowds with the experience of authentic community. Crowds are pseudo-communities, including church crowds, where relationships are experienced at the superficial level. Crowds are drawn together by activities, rather than to seek accountability and deeper meaning in our life. Every crowd is defined by activities that draw us together. Think of the Mardi Gras crowds, Jazz Fest crowds, the Saints or Hornets crowds. You come together on the basis of those activities.
But crowds are limited because you never get beyond superficial levels. People say, “How are you doing?” You say “Fine!” Everything is just fine. Everybody is just fine. No one knows anything about what’s really going on in your heart, mind or life. And before long, that’s the only thing we know and what has been created is a culture of superficiality. That’s one reason Americans are the loneliest they have ever been according to the latest Gallop polls. Paul McCartney once wrote in a song about loneliness in a crowd of others, “All the lonely people, Where do they all come from? All the lonely people, Where do they belong?” They belong in community. And what we find is that this lack of connection with others, this lack of real community and accountability stunts our growth, relationally, emotionally, and spiritually.
There are three inhibitors to spiritual growth and transformation in community. First is consumerism. Materialistic cultures are driven by the goal to get you to spend more. The promise is that if you buy that new item, you will be happier. And so we try to dull the pain of loneliness and emptiness in our lives by buying more. But it’s just a temporary fix and as soon as the luster wears off, we find we’re as empty as we ever were and are moving onto the next purchase. In effect, we have been dealing with the exterior when true transformation deals with the interior. So consumerism and its false promises cause us to avoid the loneliness in our lives.
The second inhibitor to spiritual growth and transformation in community is individualism. There is a rise of radical individualism in our culture which is committed only to the self. We have come to see ourselves as independent. In fact, isn’t that our ideal, the rugged independent American who can do it on their own? We come to believe we are self-sufficient. I don’t really need you other than in a superficial kind of way. I can do this thing called life on my own.
The third inhibitor to transformation in your life is the paralysis of isolation. Everything about me is personal, and private. All addiction occurs in isolation. When I begin to say, it is none of your business, I don’t need anything other than the crowds, I begin to disconnect myself from authentic community. And as soon as I disconnect from communities of accountability, I lose any chance at the real authentic community I so need. And the end result too often is that I begin to disconnect from myself. I experience isolation and isolation is death.
Yet deep within us we all know we were made relationship. That’s why Author Randy Frazee in his book “The Connecting Church” writes, “The experience of authentic community is one of the purposes God intends to be fulfilled by the church.” The church or a local community of believers is essential to our spiritual well-being. Believers in the early church needed each other and God expected them to be there for each other. Likewise, we need each other and God expects us to be there for each other. God has ordained that we play a vital role in each other’s faith. For that reason, we are commanded in Hebrews 10:25 not to, “…give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another….”
We do not exist for self-actualization or self-gratification; we exist for God and relationship to one another. What I want you to see in our Scripture today is the contrast between crowds and the four friends. Crowds are the inhibitors that keep people from coming to the real Jesus and his transforming power. But friends connect us to Jesus at any cost. In our Scripture the paralyzed man’s friends do everything they can to get their friend to Jesus, even tearing off the roof of a house so he might experience the power and healing of Jesus in his life. They knew their friend’s condition. They knew his struggle in life and the daily pain in caused him. They knew his heart’s desire to be made whole.
Let me ask you: how many people here today really know you? Who really knows you on the inside? Who knows where you hurt, where you’re struggling in life, where you’re being tempted and where you need prayer? Larry Crabb, a Christian psychologist wrote: “A central task of community is to create a place that is safe enough for the walls to be torn down, safe enough for each of us to reveal our brokenness.” The fact is no one could be transformed by this (motion to the entire sanctuary indicating the crowd). A lot of us look at the church crowd and mistake the church crowd for community. But as long as I am just hanging out in the crowd, the crowd is going to prohibit me from experiencing authentic relationships in community and the accountability which I need to live for Jesus. Only authentic community will allow spiritual growth and true transformation to happen in my life. Friends are the people who share and get involved in your life. They’re the ones who are involved with you below the superficial level. They are invested in your life.
When I was growing up my Mom and Dad had a group of 6-8 couples who would come over to our house each Sunday night. They would eat dessert and have great conversation but after that, they got down to business. They would talk about the struggles in their life and their temptations. They would share theur frustrations and problems in their marriages and relationships. They would talk about their jobs. And what I saw was the truest sense of church, as Jesus intended, because in that community of accountability, they met Jesus. Jesus said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” Matthew 18. It’s about two or three or even 12, not 2 or 300. It is not about the crowds. This is so important: Jesus lives in the intimacy of authentic community. In the midst of 2 or 3, I can experience the presence and the healing of Jesus that I can’t when I am by myself.
The second question I want to ask you today is, “Who are your stretcher bearers? Who carries you? Who knows the stuff that goes on in your life that almost no one else would know about? Who is so living with you in your stuff that they are praying for you right now? Who is encouraging you, challenging you and maybe even correcting you as you seek to follow Jesus? Who is carrying you?” A lot of times, we get caught up in the notion that Jesus called the 12 disciples for the disciple’s sake, to teach and mentor them in His mission. And while part of that it true, Jesus also knew that he could not fulfill God’s purpose and be obedient all the way to the cross without authentic community, friends who were carrying him. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before his crucifixion, he took his eleven friends with him and said: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Jesus, the Son of God was saying, “I can’t do this by myself, guys! I can’t do this if you don’t stand with me and carry me.” When he said “stand watch with me,” he was asking them to be watch where evil was going to attack. A watch is like a sentry on a guard tower. These are the people who are the first line of warning and defense when evil begins t attack. And so they stand watch over your life to see things you can’t. Can you identify those people in your life, the ones who would come for you, no matter what you need?
Notice verse five. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘My son, your sins are forgiven.’” Whose faith did Jesus see? Did he see the paralyzed man’s faith? No, he saw the faith of his four friends because they were standing and fighting for this man when he couldn’t do so for himself.
The first thing I’ve discovered about hanging out in authentic community is that your fears and vulnerabilities become strengths. That is the synergy of group faith. It was the faith of this man’s friends which brought him to Jesus and enabled him to be transformed. As we face the inevitable trials, troubles and tragedies of life, God intends that we be supported, strengthened, encouraged and empowered through the community of believers. When we are weak, those around us become strong for us. Such is God’s plan. Second, community provides opportunities for ministry. You never really minister to someone until you touch and address their point of greatest need. Authentic community gives us opportunities to minister in unique and personal ways to one another. Third, we challenged into life adventure. The paralyzed man would never have been lowered through the roof to be with Jesus had it not been for his friends. It challenges you, pushes you and encourages you to do more than you would do just on your own. At age 45, I want to do more than sit at a desk or in religious meetings. I want adventure. But I need people to push and encourage me along the way. Fourth, we receive guidance to our lives. The community of faith is crucial to our well-being because it is the source of much needed guidance and direction. As someone has aptly said, “we need the community of believers because none of us is as smart as all of us!” We need guidance to lead us safely through our earthly pilgrimage, sparing us many wrong turns and harmful paths. Ephesians 3:10 declares that “God’s intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known.” God wants to guide us but he has chosen to do it through His people in the community of faith. He gives us wisdom for the journey as we study His Word, pray, discuss and share life together. Fifth, we are challenged to fulfill God’s purpose for your life.
Jesus, the Son of God, knew that he could not do it with the daily crowds. He was always intimately connected to the eleven. So why do we think we can do it on our own?
Here are THREE suggestions about how to practice authentic community. First, get involved in a Sunday School class or Bible study today. One thing I always say is if you find a group of people that you do not connect to, just say it doesn’t work and try other groups. It is okay to say it doesn’t work; you do not connect with all people. Keep going until you connect. Second, form your own group. We have created a starter packet, and it has information on how to start your group, how to lead a group and what the function of a cell group is. I will walk you through that and help you in any way we can to get you started.
How many of you are already in existing groups? It is real easy for an existing group to become shallow and superficial and not get below the surface. The most important thing you can do the next time you meet as a group is to really reaffirm what it means to be authentic community together. You need to be people who are carrying each other, who stand on each other’s behalf, who are willing to get below the surface and begin to talk about the real deal of the things that are going on in their lives. We want pray for all of you and for God’s deeper work of his spirit to take all of us to new places.
So what is the church supposed to look like? It’s small groups of people who are seeking to put the needs of others ahead of their own. They are servants and ministers to one another who watch out for one another, care for one another and encourage one another to live for Jesus and become more like him. In this church you can’t get to know everyone equally, and God does not expect that. But you can get to know some. You can connect with a few people and make it your goal to build them up. God wants us to leave our individualized and isolated lives and join together in uncommon community for our sake, for the sake of “Connecting diverse communites to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus and for the sake of the kingdom of God.
