SPEAKER_00: We're starting a different uh series on Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of preaching through a book of the Bible, we're gonna take just different questions that I think people ask often that get at the heart of, you know, what like I said, what does it um what does it mean for us to grow?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for us to build uh our lives on uh on a foundation of uh of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, uh, as these questions uh come together throughout the summer, it'll uh it'll give us a uh just a clearer picture of what it means to follow Jesus and how we can uh and how we can do that more faithfully and how we can do that uh together.
SPEAKER_00: Which kind of gets at our question for this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The question that we're uh looking at this morning is why is Christian community important?
SPEAKER_00: Why is Christian community important?
SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe another way to ask it is to say, uh, why does the church matter?
SPEAKER_00: Why is the church important for us?
SPEAKER_00: And um and why should we see it as not just something that like we we have to get up uh to do, but that we actually get to do, uh, as a because it's a gift from uh from God, because he loves us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's uh he's given us the church uh because he cares about us and because uh it's ultimately what he uses to uh make us more like Jesus, uh to shape us into uh into people who are more uh like uh like him.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna read this morning from the book of Ecclesiastes, which is in the Old Testament, and uh and and then from there uh look at what this has to say to us about uh uh about the church and about Christian community.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're willing and able, I think you'll stand for the reading of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter four, verses nine through twelve.
SPEAKER_00: Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.
SPEAKER_00: For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.
SPEAKER_00: But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if two lie together they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?
SPEAKER_00: And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him.
SPEAKER_00: A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, this is your word.
SPEAKER_00: You've given it to us because you love us and because you uh want us to know you uh better.
SPEAKER_00: And so we pray that you would use this time this morning uh to draw us closer to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to see Jesus more clearly, help us uh to love um uh your church a little bit more because we know uh that you uh that you love it.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would use uh this time together uh to shape us into people who are a little bit more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Speak through uh me and through your word uh Father, I have uh nothing to offer except uh your words of life.
SPEAKER_00: And so we pray that you would use them uh to uh to sink deep into all of our souls this morning, uh that we might find uh rest and joy and peace uh in you, our God and our savior.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna look at kind of three things from uh uh from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the problem, the solution, and then the main ingredient for uh for the solution.
SPEAKER_00: All right, the uh the problem, the solution, and the main ingredient.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so our uh the first thing we're gonna look at is the problem.
SPEAKER_00: And what's the problem that we see here in Ecclesiastes?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's loneliness and self-dependence.
SPEAKER_00: He says, two are better than one.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to him who is alone.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not familiar with the book of Ecclesiastes, it's a reflection by someone who has sort of, he's seen it all, he's done it all, uh, he's uh he's achieved it all.
SPEAKER_00: Um he he's uh you know he's he's he's got wealth, he's got women, he's got you know stuff, he's got everything uh he could uh he could possibly want.
SPEAKER_00: And he's sort of looking back at that uh near closer to the end of his life and saying, uh, I feel like I I should feel different, right?
SPEAKER_00: I uh this is not what I expected.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not quite as joyful or content or as satisfied as I thought I might be from all the things that I've gotten and all the things that I've uh I've I've achieved.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's kind of like uh you know Tom Brady a little while back after he'd won like his third or fourth Super Bowl, you know, he did an interview and he said, uh, you know, is is this all there is?
SPEAKER_00: I really thought there'd be something different.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the best athlete in uh in in his sport kind of you know achieved the most success of any uh uh of any athlete in his uh in his sport uh and and has this sense of, gosh, maybe there's something more.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this um this isn't uh everything.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the this is the perspective uh the author of Ecclesiastes is uh is is coming from.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he kind of has this same uh same realization that getting more and achieving more doesn't lead to more uh joy.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but instead he he he comes to the conclusion that things like gratitude and enjoying what you have with the people that are around you is a is a greater source of contentment and peace and even uh and even happiness.
SPEAKER_00: And so it makes sense that he'd come to the conclusion it's not good for us to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: Two are better than one.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to him who is alone.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is this is something that God has been saying since the very beginning of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Genesis, he creates uh Adam, and then he says, it's not good for man to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so he creates, uh he creates Eve and he puts them in uh in relationship uh with it with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Even though Adam walked with God and talked with God, God knew that he needed uh something else.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he needed uh to not be um not be alone.
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't a new issue.
SPEAKER_00: Our need for relationships has existed uh forever.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but maybe, I don't know, in our day and age, maybe we just um have a uh have greater statistics of how bad we are at uh of uh of how bad we are at a community and uh and how prone we are to uh to loneliness.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was reading about this heat wave that came through Chicago, I think it was uh 1995, and uh you know it was like 100 degrees for like a week or so straight, which I'm thinking 100 degrees, it's it's that here all the time.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, but they were s uh but they were saying you know a lot of people don't have air conditioning and uh and the city just wasn't uh you know wasn't built for that kind of uh for that kind of heat.
SPEAKER_00: And so over the cour uh over the course of this week, uh about 450, 460 people uh had uh died from uh from the heat.
SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple weeks later, the the death toll began to rise up to uh more than 700 people.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh what happened was uh there were uh there were people who had died in their apartments and uh and nobody noticed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh and it took weeks for people uh to realize that people had had passed away in uh in their places because they were they were all alone uh and nobody uh was there uh to look uh to look out for them.
SPEAKER_00: And they did some research afterwards, they tried to figure out why um why would this kind of thing happen?
SPEAKER_00: And they and they they could actually plot the statistics to show that in the neighborhoods that had more connectedness, in the neighborhoods where people knew their neighbors, where they where they checked on their neighbors as a regular thing, um not just because the weather was bad, but where they did it all the time, uh those people uh survived and those people were uh were okay.
SPEAKER_00: And it was in the neighborhoods where uh where people were um uh uh were disjointed, right, for all sorts of reasons uh that um uh uh that they were uh that they were also uh alone.
SPEAKER_00: And I think you know, we hear about we hear about this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh people talk about a loneliness epidemic that we're uh that we're going through.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we're we're told people are more isolated uh than ever before.
SPEAKER_00: Our technology is working to uh replace the need for human interaction.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not, you know, and it's not all technology's fault, but um, but you know, there are things about uh the way we use technology that don't necessarily uh help us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a uh uh saw this the average American has gone from saying they have over three real intimate friendships to the average American saying they have less than one intimate friendship.
SPEAKER_00: And by the middle of the last decade, one out of every four Americans said that they have no one with which they can talk about things that matter.
SPEAKER_00: And those statistics continue to trend uh in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: And so we we see people in some ways building community over certain things, right?
SPEAKER_00: Over like CrossFit or the gym, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or um uh or even over uh politics and uh and political parties.
SPEAKER_00: But this the statistics would tell us that these things aren't good enough uh for um uh for what we need.
SPEAKER_00: There's still something uh missing.
SPEAKER_00: And if we look more closely at this passage in Ecclesiastes, he tells us what happens when we don't have community.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple things he gets at.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first one, you know, if you look in verse 9, he says, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil.
SPEAKER_00: And so, for one, the lack of community makes it harder for us to accomplish the things that we're we've been called to do.
SPEAKER_00: One of our problems is that we're too self-sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: Especially, you know, for us in the West, we're convinced we don't need anyone, and then we can do it all on our own.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy for us to miss the part in Scripture where over and over again, the most important things God tells us to do as his people, he tells us to do them in community.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us to do them uh with uh with each other.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we drift away from others and towards isolation, it makes it harder for us to see what our purpose is, and it makes it harder for us to actually accomplish the purposes that God has set uh out for us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Ecclesiastes also tells us that we need community to meet our basic needs.
SPEAKER_00: The way God often provides uh what we need most is through other people.
SPEAKER_00: He says here, whether you fall and you need someone to help you, uh, whether you um just need the basics, so something like warmth, or uh, then uh then you need somebody else uh to help uh provide that for you.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God uh cares for us, is through the community of other people.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: Woe to the person who doesn't have someone in their life that can be there for them.
SPEAKER_00: Why is community so important?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's through community that God answers some of the most fundamental uh needs that we have and some of the most fundamental questions that we are asking.
SPEAKER_00: All right, we ask things like, do I have a purpose?
SPEAKER_00: Why am I why am I here?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is yes, we do have a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Which we'll talk about more in a minute, but but we understand our purpose and we live it out in community.
SPEAKER_00: Which is really a gift.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there I think today there is there's so much uh anxiety and angst and worry over um uh over who I'm gonna be and what I'm gonna do with uh with my life.
SPEAKER_00: And uh um and I don't think it's because there's not enough choices, I think it's because there's so many choices, right?
SPEAKER_00: You can you can be anything, right?
SPEAKER_00: You can do anything, and we're sort of paralyzed by the amount of options that we have uh that we have in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But this is where community is such a gift, because it gives us uh the the wisdom of other uh of other people uh to guide us along the way.
SPEAKER_00: It gives us direction to say, these are the things that are most important in life, and these are the things uh to base uh your um your purpose on.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden it begins uh to uh to narrow our focus and uh and to take away some of that anxiety by giving us a guide for the decisions that we have to make in a direction uh for us to go.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe think about the question uh do I belong?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody care that I'm here?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to God, you belong to his people, and you belong to the specific community that he's placed you in.
SPEAKER_00: Like this passage says, we really understand that we belong when we fall, when we're in trouble, when tragedy strikes, and there's someone there to walk with us through it.
SPEAKER_00: I was at a funeral yesterday, and it was so encouraging to see the amount of family and friends that were there to walk with uh with this family through uh through just terrible, uh terrible tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: I think about friends in my life who have uh gone through addiction and um and they've said, you know, in recovery, the the most important thing about their recovery was the community of people that they were doing it uh with.
SPEAKER_00: Uh people that were also fighting for uh uh for for the same thing, but they were doing it together and they depended on each other in such a way that um that they really felt like they couldn't do it without uh with without each other.
SPEAKER_00: Community helps people accomplish their purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Community helps people meet their needs.
SPEAKER_00: Like he says, two are definitely better than one.
SPEAKER_00: But there's one last thing I want us to see in the passage before we uh move on to the solution.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that the writer doesn't say whether he's talking to the person who needs help or the person who's helping.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Community isn't just about the needs we have and finding other people to help meet our needs.
SPEAKER_00: God also wants to form us into the kind of people who are ready and willing to be there for the people around us, to love and serve the people around us sacrificially.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to make us more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we just understand Christian community as being important to meet our needs, then the moment we don't feel like a church is sufficiently meeting our needs, then it's easy to walk away, right?
SPEAKER_00: The minute we feel like a small group disappoints us, we move on and decide community isn't really our thing.
SPEAKER_00: But if Christian community, if the church, is important because it forms us into different people than we are naturally, it means sometimes community won't meet our needs the way we want it to be met.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it'll even disappoint us.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with it.
SPEAKER_00: Often that's part of the point.
SPEAKER_00: God is giving us the ability to grow through an inefficient community that's full of friction and tension and all sorts of things that challenge us and shape us along the way.
SPEAKER_00: Rick Warren says, the local church is the classroom for learning how to get along in God's family.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lab for practicing unselfish, sympathetic love.
SPEAKER_00: As a participating member, you learn to care about others and share the experiences of others.
SPEAKER_00: Only in regular contact with ordinary, imperfect believers can we learn real fellowship and experience the New Testament truth of being connected and dependent on each other.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's right.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why the solution that God gives us to our loneliness and our self-dependence is the church.
SPEAKER_00: God's solution is the church.
SPEAKER_00: It may seem like a jump to go from this passage in the Old Testament to the New Testament church, but that's kind of the way scripture works.
SPEAKER_00: If the Bible really is one whole story that's uh from beginning to end about Jesus and his salvation and his keeping of his promises, then um when we read about needs that we have in the Old Testament, we can see how they're fulfilled through Jesus in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Like we said before, you know, from the very beginning, God talks about the importance of relationships with Adam and Eve in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He calls the Israelites as his people and puts them together as his people.
SPEAKER_00: He talks all through Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, this wisdom literature about what it means to uh to be a friend, what it means to be in deep relationships with uh with other people.
SPEAKER_00: But they're all pointing to something better.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes to give us something better.
SPEAKER_00: It's through his life and death and resurrection that um that we can belong to him, but that also the kind of community we desperately need can be realized in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He expands even who can be a part of that community.
SPEAKER_00: He says, whoever believes in him will have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's uh you know, um Paul says it's there's neither a Jew nor a Greek, a slave or free man or woman.
SPEAKER_00: What's he saying?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, as when Jesus comes, he he takes away all of the barriers that could get in the way of us and an authentic, deep uh community with God and with other people.
SPEAKER_00: And he breaks down those walls, he tears down those barriers so that we can experience what we were made to experience in relationship with him and in relationship with each other.
SPEAKER_00: He says there's no second-class citizens in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And there's not second-class citizens in his church either.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the images the Bible uses to describe the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the family of God, it's called the bride of Christ, the body of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: These all important all point to a closeness and an importance that each member has uh for the other.
SPEAKER_00: That we need each other.
SPEAKER_00: Even when he talks about it being uh the body, he says, you know, no matter how um uh uh significant or insignificant a body part, right, they're all important and we all and we all need them.
SPEAKER_00: And the one body part can't say to the other one, oh, I can do uh without you.
SPEAKER_00: This is what uh the church is.
SPEAKER_00: It's a community where we come together and we say, I can't do uh without you.
SPEAKER_00: The church is God's plan A for gathering his people, providing for his people, and shaping his people.
SPEAKER_00: So let's think even about, even in the things that he describes here in Ecclesiastes, we can see the way that the church is God's solution to these things.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we said uh that uh community helps us understand our uh our purpose, right?
SPEAKER_00: He says, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There's there's there's something uh that we can accomplish uh better uh through doing it uh to uh together.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we see all throughout the New Testament as it describes the church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, just for one example, in Acts chapter two, we get a picture of the early church and what it looked like for uh for the early Christians to be together as they were first forming the church and figuring out, you know, what does it look like for us to gather together and be God's people together?
SPEAKER_00: And this is what it says.
SPEAKER_00: It says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.
SPEAKER_00: And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved.
SPEAKER_00: So, what's our purpose?
SPEAKER_00: What are we called to do?
SPEAKER_00: To glorify God and to enjoy Him.
SPEAKER_00: And we see His church doing it together throughout this passage: worshiping, studying God's word, praying, taking communion together, being generous towards each other, spending time together, sharing their faith with others.
SPEAKER_00: They were praising God and they were celebrating the things that God had been doing in each other's lives, celebrating the ways he had been at work in their community.
SPEAKER_00: And they did all these things together.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that doesn't mean that we can't do these things on our own, right?
SPEAKER_00: But there's something that we miss out on.
SPEAKER_00: There's something that is so important for us about doing them together that we can't experience, that we miss out if we're on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is a personal thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Faith is a personal relationship between us and God, but it's not an individual thing.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith as we grow is a community project.
SPEAKER_00: There's a way we grow that only happens when we're together.
SPEAKER_00: We learn from each other's perspectives.
SPEAKER_00: We find encouragement in the way we see God at work in each other's lives.
SPEAKER_00: We point each other to the truth even when it's difficult sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: We confess our sins to each other, we we sacrifice our preferences for each other.
SPEAKER_00: Like the quote said before, the church is the classroom for learning these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: See, the truth is you can you can listen to great music uh uh on uh on YouTube, right?
SPEAKER_00: Great worship music.
SPEAKER_00: I guarantee you you can find better sermons than this one online.
SPEAKER_00: You can uh you can find all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: You can find Bible studies, you can find uh uh everything that you think you need uh online, and you can find them better quality, maybe easier to access, and without all of the of the trouble of having to deal with difficult people, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or um uh or talk about your uh talk about your day with people.
SPEAKER_00: Um And yet when we do that, we we miss out, right?
SPEAKER_00: We there's something that there's something that happens when we do these things together that God uses uh to shape us as we're in community, uh living flesh and blood uh community with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Now we can do all of these things more efficiently, probably on our own.
SPEAKER_00: We can do them uh in a way that maybe we feel like we're accomplishing even more than what it takes to drive here to church on a Sunday morning or uh or to uh or to be a part of a Bible study in someone's home together.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, efficiency isn't the point.
SPEAKER_00: God isn't longing to make us more efficient.
SPEAKER_00: He's longing to make us more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was maybe the most inefficient person I have ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus would be walking to go do something really important, and he'd say, Oh, we've got time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stop and talk to this person here.
SPEAKER_00: They'd say, Jesus, this person is dying.
SPEAKER_00: They need you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Yes, but this person right here needs me too.
SPEAKER_00: And he'd stop.
SPEAKER_00: He'd say, Well, I'll get to that person.
SPEAKER_00: He he was more concerned with the people in front of him than he was with being uh with being efficient.
SPEAKER_00: And and it's that's true for us as we grow to be more like him as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's doing these things alongside people from different backgrounds, with different education levels, different political opinions, and different parenting styles and different careers.
SPEAKER_00: Doing it with all of these people together teaches us the wideness of God's love and the power of his spirit to use such different people to accomplish his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: It forces us to center our lives on something other than ourselves because we center it on Jesus instead.
SPEAKER_00: We center our lives on his kingdom and the people he's brought into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: You are not, you and I are not here in this church by accident.
SPEAKER_00: God knows that there's something about the people sitting around you this morning that you need to grow.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something that they need from you to grow as well.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he's brought us together as his people.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he calls us to be a community of grace on his mission.
SPEAKER_00: Michael Horton said, a church is not a group of friends you've picked, it's a group of brothers and sisters God has picked for you.
SPEAKER_00: Which means there will be people he picks that you probably would not have picked, or would have at least picked last, right, uh, for uh for your team.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and yet uh we trust that he knows better than us uh what we need to grow and who we need uh in uh uh in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's keeping our eyes on Jesus and his purpose uh that um that allows us uh to come uh to come together and to be uh a community of his people together.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about this this week and it reminded me of, I don't know uh if you've ever seen this before, uh, it's a letter that George H.W.
SPEAKER_00: Bush, the first George Bush president, uh, left for Bill Clinton on the desk in the Oval Office uh when um uh on on his last day.
SPEAKER_00: So Bush had run for re-election and he lost to Clinton, sort of in a uh in a pretty big uh landslide, and um and so he was having to leave uh leave the White House.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and this is the the note that he left on uh on the desk for uh uh for uh President Clinton.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Dear Bill, when I walked into this office just now, I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I know you will feel it that too.
SPEAKER_00: I wish you great happiness here.
SPEAKER_00: I never felt the loneliness some presidents have described.
SPEAKER_00: There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a very good one to give advice.
SPEAKER_00: But just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course.
SPEAKER_00: You will be our president when you read this note.
SPEAKER_00: I wish you well.
SPEAKER_00: I wish your family well.
SPEAKER_00: Your success now is our country's success.
SPEAKER_00: I'm rooting for you.
SPEAKER_00: Good luck, George.
SPEAKER_00: Um feels like a different era, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Um he understood that the presidency wasn't about him.
SPEAKER_00: He merely got to play a part in serving our country and serving its people.
SPEAKER_00: And in the church, we're reminded that it's not about us either.
SPEAKER_00: God gives us the privilege of serving him and loving his people for his glory and not our own.
SPEAKER_00: Which means we can do it alongside people very different from us because our focus isn't on us and our differences, it's on him and his kingdom and his glory.
SPEAKER_00: And because of his love for us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, another way God shapes us into a beautiful community in the midst of our differences is by giving us the chance to know each other and to um and to live life together in deep relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to uh 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul, and he's talking about this church that he's planted and how he feels about the people in that church after he's been there a while.
SPEAKER_00: He says, so being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
SPEAKER_00: This is part of the beauty of the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's the goal of uh of Christian community, is to uh is to get to know people in such a way, is to live life together with people in such a way, it's to walk with people through their highest points and their lowest points in such a way that we uh that we form deep relationships rooted uh in Jesus and his love for us.
SPEAKER_00: That we become very dear to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and the people of his church had experienced that.
SPEAKER_00: And he lays this out for us uh as a goal of what we should long for in our church as well.
SPEAKER_00: God uses the church to break us of our self-dependence so we can learn to be dependent on him.
SPEAKER_00: And learn to be dependent on each other.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Ecclesiastes was getting at.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, you're going to want to try and do life on your own.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to want to ask anyone for help.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to want to get slowed down by other people's problems.
SPEAKER_00: You are not going to want to open yourself up to other people and to really let people in.
SPEAKER_00: But, he says, what happens when you fall and you have no one to pick you up?
SPEAKER_00: What happens when you can't get warm or have other needs and there's no one there to help you?
SPEAKER_00: What happens when life overwhelms you and you're left to face it alone?
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, maybe a lot of us, these can be some of our greatest fears.
SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus calls us to himself, he not only gives us new hearts, he gives us a new name, he gives us a new family, he gives us the church.
SPEAKER_00: I could spend longer than you uh want to be here uh telling you about ways that um uh that the church has had an impact in my life, that the people um in uh in the churches I've been a part of have uh uh have rescued me and my family and made and made a difference.
SPEAKER_00: Um Kelly and I were talking uh this week.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember all the details because it was um uh it was kind of a crazy time in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh I think we had I think we had two foster kids in our home, new foster kids besides the three our three biological kids.
SPEAKER_00: Um I think I was out of town for uh for work for something.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we we had just found out that Kelly's dad uh was uh diagnosed with something and he didn't have a lot uh longer to live.
SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of like all of this chaos and all of these different things, our daughter had a pet rabbit that just died out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, right, you know, and it's like um and it's like I can't believe just one more uh one more thing in the midst of all of this.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, Kelly was sort of overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00: I was in another state, I couldn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: And so we called some friends from church and said, help.
SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't even know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so um, I don't remember all the deal.
SPEAKER_00: They came and they got the they got the rap the dead rabbit, they they wrapped it up, and they buried it in our backyard for us, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Um and then a couple days later, I think it was, it rained a bunch, and our dog dug the rabbit out of the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And then somebody else came and took the rabbit and put it in their refrigerator or their freezer, like where they where they kept stuff they'd hunted until we can figure out what to do next.
SPEAKER_00: And it was like, I mean, it was like this this just comedy of things all the way through.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, um, I mean, at the end of it, we could not have felt more loved uh and more uh and more cared for uh by them.
SPEAKER_00: Because there was one thing in the midst of all of these things that just felt like uh, you know, just like this avalanche of uh of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Um and there was somebody there to pick us up.
SPEAKER_00: There was somebody there uh to uh to help us.
SPEAKER_00: Um as we, you know, as we we did foster care for like um 10 or 11 years, and we had a group in our church that was our our care team, and uh and every week they would pray for us, every week they would bring us a meal on Tuesdays for dinner, they would do child care for us, they would provide things that we needed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they just um whatever whatever it was, they um uh they were there to uh to kind of look out for the needs that we had and uh and to provide them.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a it was a it was an incredible thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we could have done it, we definitely couldn't have done uh it as long as we did um being foster parents without without that kind of um love and care and support around us.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what this is what the church is for us.
SPEAKER_00: Um it is uh it's there because we're not made to do life alone, and I don't know that we can.
SPEAKER_00: Um the loneliness that um that we see people experiencing uh is evidence that we're not doing well on our own.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God loves us enough to give us the gift of the church to provide all that we need uh and more.
SPEAKER_00: He's changed me, maybe he's changed you uh in so many ways through community and being dependent on each other, and honestly, even having the opportunity uh for others to be dependent on us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one more thing that I'll mention before um before we finish up uh for many of us we know that um the Bible says these things about church, and yet uh it's really hard for us to enter into uh to community or to feel like it's uh uh important or or a priority.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we even distance ourselves from uh from church for a time, maybe a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And wh why do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the simple answer is because even in the church, opening ourselves up to other people uh comes with a lot of risk.
SPEAKER_00: There's a real chance uh of getting uh of getting hurt, just like in any relationship.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting, it's been in some of those places where I've experienced some of the best things about Christian community, where I've also experienced some of the biggest hurts and disappointments uh from uh from Christian community.
SPEAKER_00: Friends who've maybe turned their backs on me, or people who've left the church because of me, or um uh, you know, all sorts of things that uh uh you know that I look back on and think, was it was it worth it?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, the the pain and the things I went through, was it ultimately worth it for what I experienced in um in that community?
SPEAKER_00: And I think I think what God is telling us is that it is.
SPEAKER_00: That we are not guaranteed to come out of the church and Christian community without scars.
SPEAKER_00: But those scars are are worth it because uh because the church is God's gift to us uh to make us more like Jesus and to help us grow.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is we can't we can't do those things apart from the church.
SPEAKER_00: There may be a time, there may be times where we get to the point where we need to leave a church community or um uh or we feel like it's time for something uh new, but don't we don't take those decisions lightly.
SPEAKER_00: God is telling us that the church is vital and that um and that the answer isn't just ultimately to leave the church for good, but to ask God to help us heal and to find a new place to invest in community so that we can risk it all over again.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Alan Noble says uh in his book to live well, he says, it's hard, it's a hard saying, but true, that all the best things in this life involve pain, suffering, sacrifice, and great risk.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, fortitude.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage, children, friendship, art, and health all require you to sacrifice part of your life for some greater good.
SPEAKER_00: They each involve the risk of heartbreak.
SPEAKER_00: So the church involves the risk, and yet the risk is worth it.
SPEAKER_00: Real quickly, the last point.
SPEAKER_00: What's the main ingredient?
SPEAKER_00: You look at verse 12 in Ecclesiastes 4, what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, uh the last part there says, a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting, all the way through the passage, he's talked about two people, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's he said, this person's in trouble, this person helps them, this person's in trouble, this person helps them.
SPEAKER_00: And yet at the end, his his answer is a three-chord, a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.
SPEAKER_00: And I think even in this, he's pointing us uh to the main ingredient of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To say that he is the thing ultimately that's the glue that holds us together in our relationships, in our community, uh, and in our in our church.
SPEAKER_00: Which is good because these things aren't easy, right?
SPEAKER_00: To enter into this kind of community uh can be uh can be really hard.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what gives us the ability to learn to love each other more and more sacrificially?
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's his church.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we don't just need any community, but we need Christian community.
SPEAKER_00: We need community centered on Jesus and rooted in him.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never serve each other fully.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never forgive each other fully the way we should.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus said from the cross, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never humble ourselves enough in our relationships, but Jesus humbled himself even to death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never sacrifice enough for each other, but Jesus gave his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: Our ultimate hope is not in the kind of church that we make for God, but it's in all that he's done for us in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's something amazing that happens when we begin to understand all that Jesus has done for us, to serve us, to forgive us, to sacrifice for us, it begins to transform us into people who want to give ourselves away for him and for his people as the church.
SPEAKER_00: As people who've been saved by grace and who know we don't deserve it, we get the chance to create a community of grace that loves each other and serves him together.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon has one of the best descriptions of the church, uh, and so we'll kind of end with uh with this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You that are members of the church have not found it perfect, and I hope that you feel almost glad that you have not.
SPEAKER_00: If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never have joined one at all.
SPEAKER_00: And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it, for it would not have been a perfect church after.
SPEAKER_00: I had become a member of it.
SPEAKER_00: Still imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earth to us.
SPEAKER_00: The church is faulty, but that's no excuse for you not joining it if you are the Lord's, nor need your own faults keep you back.
SPEAKER_00: For the church is not an institution for perfect people, but a sanctuary for sinners saved by grace, who, though they are saved, are still sinners and need all the help they can derive from the sympathy and guidance of their fellow believers.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.