Created for Connection
Genesis 1:26; John 17:20-26
I want to start our message this morning with an informal survey:
How many of you have participated in a small group before?
How many of you had a positive experience in your small group?
How many of you are currently in a small group?
How many of you would be in a small group if it were not for one or two obstacles in your life currently? I belong to this group. For those with obstacles, will you write them down on the small group sign up insert in your worship bulletin? This way we can know what they are and try to help.
Over three Sundays, including this one, we will learn some biblical foundation for small group. We'll hear reasons for small group participation from small group participants. We will also provide an opportunity for you to ask questions and sign up at the table in the lobby if you want.
While I am not currently in a small group, I have had very positive experiences in small groups since my high school days. My first small group experience was a H.S. Bible study group in my first church. Then I went to college and participated in Asian American Christian Fellowship large group as well as small group. The church I attended in college had small groups called Cell Groups.
When I graduated, I went back to my first church and participated in their inter-generational neighborhood group. Then I pastored in Marin where Susan and I led a young family small group. I also led a men’s group.
Since being at BACBC, I have been a part of H2O small group the first few years and then a young families group. Then I led two other mentoring groups via google hangout. One was more effective than the other, but virtual small groups have their limits.
I see small groups as more than a church program. It is a venue and opportunity to experience and express what God created us for. But there are legitimate reasons for not being a part of a small group for a season.
You may be in a season of incredible busyness, raising children, caregiving for a family member, dealing with personal illness. For some in these situations, small group will be a true blessing. For others in the same situations, small group can be a burden. The Bible reminds us that there is a season for everything under heaven.
Here is a possibility. You may be in a small group and don’t even know it. The Bible tells us that when two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, we have his promised presence.
Again I believe small groups are a venue and opportunity to experience and express what God created us for. And what is it that God created us for? for connection. relationship. Connection with God and connection with one another.
Our main text is John 17:20-26 with various supporting text that I’ll read later. Allow me to read our main text now.
20 “I do not ask for these only (Jesus' 1st century disciples), but also for those who will believe in me through their word (Jesus' future disciples - including us), 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
From John 16 and 17, Jesus reveals that God exists in three Persons: Father and Son (Jesus Christ) in John 17, and in John 16 (You can read on your own.) Holy Spirit and the Son of God. In this John 17 prayer, we see the Son of God having a conversation with the Father about us, believers in Jesus Christ.
First, we see we are created for connection because we are created in God’s image.
Genesis 1:26 reads, Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
A mother asked her 5-year-old, "Johnny, what are you drawing?"
To which little Johnny replied, "God."
And his mom said, "But no one knows what God looks like."
Johnny looked up and said, "They will when I get done."
What is God‘s image? John chapter 16 and 17 reveal God exists in three persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
The image of God is not a physical image but is referring to the nature of God. His nature is relational.
We read in John 17 verse 21, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." Jesus is saying that the intimate union of believers is intended to be like the intimate union between the Father and the Son of God. We are created for connection because we are created in the image of God, like he is relational.
That’s why we call time-out and solitary confinement punishment. We are created to connect. Not to be isolated.
We just passed the 911 Anniversary. A study was done of those who survived the 9/11 terrorist attack. The study found that 18 months later, those who had one person stay connected with them were doing well versus those who were alone did not do well. We are created to connect because we are created in God’s image.
Second, we see we are created for connection that is characterized by God’s love.
I had shared this love letter before but it is so touching that I need to share it again.
Dearest Jimmy,
No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you. I love you. I love you!
Yours forever, Marie.
P.S. And congratulations on winning the state lottery.
God’s love is not like Marie’s love. God’s love is described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[a] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
It is this kind of love that God wants us to love one another with. John 17:26 reads, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
And Jesus said in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
Steve Jeong provided a relevant training to the small group leaders in our quarterly meeting on September 1. The topic was “how to care for our small group members”. Without naming names, he recounted stories of support for small group members going through cancer, surgery, loss of child and marital problems.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to experience or express God’s love, others than in words in a worship service. It is in a small group setting where we can experience and express God’s love in action to one another. We are created for connection that is characterized by God’s love.
Third, we see we are created for connection in order to communicate God’s Gospel.
John 17:21 says that our connection or intimate union between God and between believers - the loving relationship - is intended to communicate to the world that God the Father sent Jesus Christ the Son. This is reminiscent of John 3:16 which reads, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
And John 13:35 reads, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Someone has said, “Preach the good news and use words if you have to.” In the worship service we are often limited to using words. Words in songs or sermon. But in the small group we can use action. We can love one another.
When I was in high school, a friend invited me to his Church high school fellowship. I gave him a year’s worth of excuses as to why I can’t attend. But when I found out the girl I liked went to the fellowship, I couldn’t wait to be asked again.
I finally went to the fellowship, but she wasn’t there. I continued to go because I saw something very unusual. High schoolers who were not self-centered but other-centered. High schoolers who served and loved one another.
Eventually I learned that they loved each other because they experienced God’s love first. And from their Bible studies, I learned that God demonstrated his love for mankind on the cross. That he came in the form of a man to die on the cross as payment for the penalty of mankind's sin.
The small group environment allowed me to experience what the Bible taught.We are created for connection in order to communicate God’s gospel. And small group is a good venue and opportunity to experience and express what God created us for.
There are a variety of reasons and benefits for being a part of a small group. You've heard some in this first message. We are created for connection because we are created in the image of God. That connection is characterized by God’s love, and makes possible the communication of God’s Gospel.
I want to invite all of us to take out the small group sign up insert inside your worship bulletin. If you are ready to try out a small group for the next 3 to 6 months - connection takes time to build - write down your name and email address and return the insert to the information/sign-up table in the lobby.
