6-28-26 Thrive

Join new pastor, Tyler Tavares, as he looks at what it means to thrive.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Father, we thank you that we can be gathered here together. We thank you for this moment. We thank you that you are altogether good. And we thank you that uh, Lord, you love us deeply. We love you. And so, in these moments, as we open up your word and as we look into scripture, would you speak to us? Each of us may need something different this morning. And so, for each of us, would you help us to understand what it means to thrive more in life? Christ, that is why you came to help us thrive, to give abundant life. And so, uh, would you make that happen for us in a deeper way today? We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, you can have your seats, and uh listen, I am new, so if I do something and it's a little off, uh just raise your hand and tell me. Like, we don't do it like that. Just, you know, just tell me. Okay, it's fine. All right, Dave's been telling me that for a week, so it's all good. Well, good morning. Um, we are here, and we are very, very happy to be here. Our family uh is here. We had quite an adventure over the last handful of weeks. Those are stories for another time that we'll share with you. Border stories, you know, hanging out there for a handful of hours, waiting to get fined. No joke. It's just how it is. Sometimes those things happen. Uh, but we're here and we're really glad uh to actually be here. Um, I had a friend who drove down with me to be uh to be with me basically over the course of the past week. And uh he drove, helped to drive the U-Haul, helped to drive the car and stayed with us for this whole week. His name is Calvin. Can you say thank you to Calvin? He's with us here this morning. Calvin, would you raise your hand real quick? Calvin is one of those guys who can kind of do everything. You know, I hope you have that person in your life. He can do everything. And so he was like fixing uh the something under the sink and installing some things and putting stuff up all over the place. So, Calvin, thank you. So good to have you with us over this week. And thanks to everybody who helped us move in last week. Uh, I know some of you were there to just kind of do all the things, and uh we now have every box unpacked. Said nobody ever. Okay. No, we do not have every box unpacked. We're gonna have boxes in the basement for 20 years. That's just how I know you do too. Okay, you do too. That's just how that is. Well, we have started this process of getting settled. And yes, we're happy to be here. We've taken one more step toward completing what is gonna be a long transitionary process. It started months ago, right? It started months ago. For us, sort of internally, it started months ago, and then with you as a church, it started a couple of months later, and it's gonna continue. It's gonna continue for my family, and it's gonna continue for you as well. Because it's not just about me and it's not just about our family sort of transitioning, it is also for you. You're in transition, aren't you? You're in transition. You gotta get sort of used to that. You're gonna be experiencing some things that are characteristic of a transition over the next six to twelve months here at Shiloh Church. You actually just have to even get used to my voice. It's that stuff, right? Those are the things that you have to get used to. We're all gonna be experiencing this together. You, me, my family, Pastor Ken. We're all gonna experience this whole transition together. And just like my family's shift from Coburg, Ontario, to Shiloh, Illinois, there'll probably be a lot of different thoughts and feelings that come with it. You know, we experienced excitement and confusion and clarity and sadness and joy and uncertainty and loss and gain and goodbyes. We've said a lot of hellos. I'm sorry if I don't get your name the first time. Uh, thank you for those of you who are wearing name tags. I think you're officially supposed to, but I'm really glad for those of you who are wearing name tags. It's very helpful. And if worst comes to worse, I'll just guess Carol, Jerry, or Dave. And I'll probably get somebody, you know. I'll be right like 50% of the time. We're gonna be going through a lot of this together, and it's normal, right? It's natural. This is just how this is, and it can be really good, especially when we communicate with clarity along the way. So today I want to offer one thing that I hope brings clarity, and that's my approach to the next kind of six to 12 months. It's not like a step-by-step plan, that's not what today is. It's just a brief introduction to sort of how I view ministry, how I view leadership in the church, and how I view this season of transition. Because I want us to thrive together over the next six to twelve months and beyond. I want us to thrive. And I hope that you do too. I hope you want to thrive as a person and as a church. And to do that, I think we have to start by becoming sort of aligned together. We have to become aligned. We're not gonna become fully aligned today or tomorrow or next week or next month. But it's important that I think we start the process and that we do so in a way that honors everybody that's involved. So for the next six months, I'm gonna spend a lot of time listening and learning. And um I'm gonna do this because I think leading well in the church is built first on listening and learning. I think those are actually just the first two things that matter a lot for leading well in a church. It's listening to the voice of Jesus, to the guidance and direction of the Spirit in prayer and through scripture. It's it's listening to the history of this church, because that really matters. It's listening to your stories and your hopes and your dreams. It's listening to your hurts and your hangups and your hardships. And through all of that, it's learning what it means to help Shiloh Church thrive. And once there's some clarity on what it means for us to thrive, my role is to help lead us toward that vision of a thriving church along with you, along with other members of the leadership team. We do this together. I want us to thrive. I hope you do too, because Christ came so that you and I, and those who don't yet know Jesus Christ, could thrive in life. Not just survive in life. Christ came to help us thrive. And you're gonna see that here in a second when we unpack a bit of John chapter 10. But for now, I want you to know there's this consistent question that shapes my approach to ministry. And I think I'm supposed to do this. I'm gonna get used to it in due time. Uh there's this consistent question, and it shapes my approach to ministry, and it's a question that I'm gonna ask many of you, I think, over the next six months. And it's a question you see on screen, I think. Yes. What does it mean for us to thrive together? What does it mean for us to actually thrive together and not just survive, right? That's not the goal. The goal is to thrive. It might help to think of this sliding scale. On one side, we have surviving, and on the other, we have thriving. And I think it's safe to assume that we want to be on one side and not the other, right? When you think about your life, you want to be thriving, not just surviving, even though there are times when you have to. You want to be thriving. One is the clear winner. We want to thrive individually and I think as a church together. We don't want to just make it through life. We don't want to be a church, I think, that just does enough spiritual, enough church stuff to keep going, but we want to thrive. And whether any church is currently surviving or thriving has really no bearing on whether or not this question needs to be asked. Because thriving churches can very quickly become surviving churches, and all it takes is one significant leadership issue. All of a sudden you're no longer thriving. You're surviving. But churches can also go from thriving to surviving slowly, can't they? Sometimes it's imperceptible. And that can happen because of maybe entrenched attitudes that we have, and we all have them, that don't allow healthy change, a lack of vision, maybe a lack of awareness in how the rising generations listen and learn. That's really important. If we want to thrive, we have to be really attentive to the rising generations. There's maybe a steady shift to looking internally and not looking externally, not looking to help those who are outside the church to connect with God. If you've been around church life for a while, I'm guessing you've got examples of your own, right? Whether Shiloh Church in any given moment is surviving or thriving, and the church seems to be thriving in a lot of ways. It's a neat thing, it's a neat environment to walk into. And you can walk in and you can look around, you can say, seems like things are pretty good. Seem to be thriving. It's a good environment to walk into. But whether we're surviving or thriving, I think we benefit from asking this question. What does it mean for us to thrive together? The answer to that question, maybe there are many answers to that question. They're gonna help us understand how we move forward together. So when you think about thriving in general, what comes to mind? I've used the word a lot already. And I think you're probably gonna be tired of it by the time I'm done. Stop saying the word thriving. I am done with that. I'm just surviving this sermon because you keep saying that word. I'm gonna give you a proper definition. Maybe that's gonna help. Here's a proper definition. Here's Cambridge's definition. To thrive means to grow, develop, or prosper vigorously. It describes moving past mere survival to actively flourish, succeed, or achieve robust health and wellness. If you're the gardening type, you might imagine a lush garden where everything that you've planted is growing to its full potential. You've got veggies that last the entire year. There isn't a dying plant in sight. If you own a business, to thrive means your customer base is growing, revenues are increasing, employees are happy. If you're a parent or you're a grandparent, you might think of the kids thriving at school. They've got good relationships, they've got good grades, they're doing well in baseball or soccer or whatever. I think most often about the last one. I think about my kids and whether or not they're thriving. I want my kids to be in an environment that helps them thrive. It's part of the reason why I want my kids integrated in a local church and connected deeply to Jesus Christ. Because it's not possible to truly thrive in life. We're gonna see this in a second, without Jesus Christ. It's not possible. Not in every aspect, not truly thriving. And you find this theme emerge over and over and over again in the Gospel of John. From the very beginning to the very end of the Gospel of John, John connects Jesus to life, to thriving. And to thrive is to be full of life. Here's what it says in John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. So life itself came through the word. Life itself came through the word, which is Jesus. In him was life. And that life was the light of all mankind. And throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is identified with life all over the place. I am the bread of life, Jesus says. I'm the light of life. I came that they might have life. I'm the resurrection and the life. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. The whole purpose of John's written gospel, which we find toward the end, is that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. And it's not just eternal life in the future after you die. It's not just that. It is that, but it's not just that. It's also about receiving abundant life right now. Jesus has come so that people can thrive in life both now and forever. And this is a lens for me that has come to shape how I view all of Scripture. Especially the life and death and resurrection and then the ascension of Jesus. Jesus came so that people may have life and have it to the full. And if that's true, then I can view even the hardest teachings of Jesus as ultimately life-giving. That's their purpose. Not meant to tear down, but to build up, to give life. I can view Jesus teaching about denying myself and picking up my cross and following him as actually this path to life. Which means even when Jesus calls me to die, the result is life. The Apostle Paul put it this way. Maybe you're familiar with this. To live is Christ, to die is gain. For Paul, it's this win-win. If he keeps living, he lives for Christ on earth. If he dies, he lives with Christ eternally. There's life either way. And the point is this that if Jesus is life, if he even says he's the way, the truth, and the life, then following him always ultimately leads to life. It leads to thriving, which doesn't mean everything is peachy all the time. Doesn't mean everything's awesome. But it does mean that we can meet the demands of life with a sense of vitality. Even the hardest moments in life can be met with a sense of vitality. Meaning they can be met with an inner strength that only comes from the Holy Spirit living in us. But even though Jesus brings this incredible vision of life in the Gospel of John, even though that vision becomes a reality through the power of the Holy Spirit, not everybody wants or accepts that vision. People will and people do reject the thriving life that Jesus offers for probably a hundred different reasons. Maybe you've done that throughout your life. People will and they do reject the thriving life that Jesus offers. It could be the love of sin. It could be an honest misunderstanding. It could be a desire to hold on to the life that they're living. It could be a rough experience with the church at some point in life that is really colored how they view Jesus. Everybody has different reasons. And Jesus teases some of this out in one of his encounters with this group of Pharisees. There are these members of a Jewish religious sect, and this shows up in John 10, but we actually have to start in John chapter 9. Because that sets up the scene in John 10. I'm going to read most of John 9. It's this fascinating story, and we're not going to touch on every detail because I just want you to see the main thread that runs throughout this whole story. It's a story about physical and spiritual blindness. It's this story about Jesus helping someone thrive in life, and these people whose spiritual blindness prevents them from seeing that Jesus came to bring life to the full. Even generational sin. That's why they ask about the parents. Jesus clarifies all of this for them. He says, Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But this happens so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it's day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. Go, he told him, wash in the pool of Siloam. This word means sent. So the man went and washed and came home seeing. This is kind of a wild scene. The mud thing probably seems kind of weird. Why does Jesus do the mud thing? But Jesus does it intentionally. And you're going to see that here in a second. His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg? Some claimed that he was. Others said, No, he only looks like him. But he himself insisted, I am the man. How then were your eyes opened? They asked. He replied, The man they called Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see. Where is this man? They asked him. I don't know, he said. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was the Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He put mud on my eyes, the man replied, and I washed, and now I see. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath. The Pharisees had developed this interpretation of God's law over time, which said making mud was a no-no on the Sabbath. It qualified as work. You can't do that. They considered it work. Though God's law didn't actually forbid making mud, and so they have an issue with Jesus. Neither this man nor his parents. Hold on a second. Am I in the right place? Yes, I am. Others asked, Can how can a sinner perform such signs? So they were divided. Then they turned again to the blind man. What have you what have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened. The man replied, He is a prophet. They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. Is this your son? They asked. Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see? We know he is our son, the parents answered. And we know he was born blind. But how he can see now or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He's of age, he'll speak for himself. His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders who'd already decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, He's of age. Ask him. A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. Give glory to God by telling the truth. They said, We know this man is a sinner. He replied, Whether he's a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see. Then they asked him, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered, I've told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too? They really liked that. Then they hurled insults at him and said, You are this fellow's disciple. We are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from. The man answered, Now that is remarkable. You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, he listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. To this they replied, You are steeped in sin at birth. How dare you lecture us? And they threw him out. Can you see how spiritually blind the Pharisees are? Can you see that? Can you see how spiritually blind they are in the midst of all this? They're so set in their ways, on their interpretation of the law. They're so focused on Jesus breaking the Sabbath that they totally miss this beautiful and incredible and life-changing reality that just took place in front of them. They couldn't see it. A man born blind can now see because of God's power at work in Jesus. The Pharisees in this moment, they're incapable of seeing God at work, and Jesus helps this man thrive. They can't see it. And in the next few verses, Jesus has another exchange with both the man born blind and the Pharisees about spiritual blindness. And then in John 10, Jesus gives the Pharisees this analogy. And this analogy, it's going to reveal who Jesus is. It's going to reveal why he came. And it's going to reveal the ongoing spiritual blindness of the Pharisees. So here's Jesus from John chapter 10. Let me find it. I just gave you the end at the beginning. You're not supposed to pretend you didn't see that last slide. Very truly, I tell you, Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice, but they will never follow a stranger. In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice. Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them. So Jesus tries to help them understand who he is by talking about shepherds and sheep, something they would have been so familiar with. At night, multiple shepherds would take their sheep to a sheep pen so that the shepherds could sleep, and the gatekeeper would watch over the flocks at night. So there are multiple flocks of sheep in the same pen. Now, when the shepherd returned in the morning, the gatekeeper would let the shepherds in, and the shepherds would call out to his sheep. Now you could imagine that with multiple flocks, the sheep would sort of mix and mingle. So the shepherd would call out to his sheep, and his sheep would follow him out of the gate. There was such a close relationship between the shepherd and the sheep that they would respond when they heard the shepherd's voice. Now you can imagine, like sheep, I mean, some of them look different, but they probably all sort of look the same. So this is quite incredible that the relationship is so close that the voice of the shepherd would draw out the sheep. They would follow him out of the sheep pen. But others tried to climb into the pen some other way. Sheep are quite valuable. So they might try to sneak in. That's what Jesus is talking about. Thieves and robbers might try to jump into the pen and take sheep. Jesus' point in all this is to reveal the truth that there are these true and false spiritual leaders. On the one hand, there's Jesus, he's a good shepherd. And he wants people to thrive. And on the other hand, there are the Pharisees who've been misleading the sheep. And though Jesus is addressing the Pharisees, there are all these other people around who are listening in to this interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees. There are other people listening in. So Jesus is telling people who are listening, Pharisees included, but he's telling the people who are listening, listen to my voice. Don't listen to the Pharisees. They can physically see, but they're spiritually blind. And following them is not going to lead to a thriving life. The Pharisees, they still don't understand all this, so Jesus is going to use just one more analogy. It's a similar analogy, but it's different. Here's Jesus. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to me. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Jesus is the shepherd. Now he's the gate. And he's providing them with this image of a flock that comes in and goes out. They're let out to find pasture. In a word, they're thriving because of the safety of this gate. They're let in, they're let out. They're protected. They're able to graze whenever they need to. They're living the kind of life that sheep long for. The sheep are living their best life because of Jesus as the gate, offering them the protection that they need. They're living their best life because of Jesus. He's both the good shepherd and he is the gate where thieves who come to steal and kill and destroy are prevented from doing so. And all that is why Jesus says that the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Jesus came so sheep could thrive. They'll be saved because they enter through the gate. And when Jesus says the sheep will be saved, he's talking about their lives actually in that moment. These sheep are saved from the thief who comes right now to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus is talking about thriving in life now. Jesus came to provide abundant life, both now and forever. And up to this point, up to this point in history, if you're in Jesus' day, God had seen people suffer in life from the impact of sin, the impact of death. It's a theme that shows up all over the Old Testament. And so Jesus comes to replace death with a life. And Jesus is going to go on to say more in John chapter 10 about all this, but that's for another day. I want to tie a few things together here because if we take in all that Jesus is saying in John 9 and 10, there's this consistent thread. Jesus is consistently revealing the same thing that has shown up at the very beginning of the Gospel of John. And that that is that Jesus was life. And that life was the light of all mankind. So we get a sense from these chapters of what it means for people to thrive from God's perspective. And if you're here and you're thinking, I want to thrive in life and I want the church to thrive. I want to thrive and I want the church to thrive too, then here's what that means. Here's part of the path to a life that thrives. First is believing that Jesus wants you to thrive. And that seems so simple. But sometimes we sort of absorb this idea that Jesus doesn't want me to thrive. He just wants life to be really hard all the time. Even in difficulty, Jesus wants us thriving. Second is listening to the voice of Jesus. We get that from this idea of the Good Shepherd, that there is a voice, and that voice leads to life for the sheep. So that path to life happens. It comes through listening to the voice of Jesus. Third is by rejecting false voices. There are thieves and robbers. They want to break in and steal. And so as we become very familiar with the voice of Jesus, we'll become more and more familiar with false voices. We'll become more aware of how to then reject false voices. The fourth is discerning our own blind spots. We all have these. The Pharisees had them. That's what you saw in the story, right? They had these blind spots, unable to see that Jesus was there to help this man who was born blind to thrive, healed him. It was incredible. They had blind spots. They couldn't see that Jesus was actually the Messiah. They're too focused on this one small thing that he'd made mud on the Sabbath. And the last is then trusting in the Good Shepherd. Because in the end, trusting in the Good Shepherd will help us through the difficulties in life that will emerge consistently. How do we thrive? By trusting the Good Shepherd. And each one of these can become a prayer this week. Just say, Holy Spirit, help me believe that Jesus wants me to thrive. Help me to listen to the voice of Jesus. Help me to reject false voices. Help me to discern my blind spots and help me to trust the Good Shepherd. And if we do this over time, I think we're going to discover this increasing ability to meet the demands of life with a sense of vitality. It's a vitality that's given by the Spirit. Now I'm meant for today to be kind of broad. It's meant to give us this framework. And I wanted you to get a sense of how I think about Scripture, how I view Jesus and why He came. I think that's, I mean, you can find it in many other places, but that's sort of what I draw from often when I think about why is Jesus here? He came that we might thrive in life. And it was meant to give us a framework and some maybe some shared language so we can prepare for a series six months from now. January's series is called Thrive. And in that series, you're going to be so, so tired of that word. That's why I'm just dripping it out for you right now, right? Dripping it out, planting a couple seeds. You can let that sort of grow, and maybe you'll like it by the time we get there six months from now. We're going to go through a series called Thrive. We're going to discern, we're going to explore together in greater depth what it means for Shiloh Church to thrive. I'm sure you have ideas already. But I want you to think more about that over the next six months and dream big. What does it mean? So I want to ask you to start doing a few things. If you haven't done this already, I want to ask you to start doing a few things. You might be doing this now. If so, keep doing it. If not, I want to ask you to start. Praying that the Spirit would help you start or continue to walk on this path towards thriving that we explored today. These five things. And as you do, would you ask this question? What does it mean for us to thrive together over the next five years? What's that mean? It's a question that I'm going to be asking over and over again because the answer is going to shape how I lead. I want to understand the answer to this question as much as I can. And so as I explore this, I'm going to be answering, asking for your answer to this question. What does it mean for us to thrive together in the next five years? And it's probably going to look different. You're going to have different answers. We can't do all the things. But we can get some picture. Oftentimes, a picture will emerge of some of the key things that we want to do together that will help us thrive. We're already moving in that direction. Building the, what is it called? The foundry. Thank you. I was going to say the forge. The foundry. We're building the foundry. It's close enough. It's what you do at a foundry. Building the foundry together. That is a thing that is going to help the church thrive. We're already on that path, but I'm curious to hear more, especially as you listen to the voice of Jesus over the next six months, as maybe you talk together about what it means for the church to thrive, to let some of those things emerge. I'm curious to hear your answer to this question. And you might have not have an answer right away. Something might not pop into your mind this afternoon. But as you pray, would you trust that because Jesus wants you and wants us as a church to thrive more and more, that he's going to reveal what he wants you to see and what he wants you to hear. God, we are thankful that because of Jesus, we're able to thrive in life. Prior to Jesus, life was filled with difficulty and sin that actually we couldn't overcome. It's something we can't do of our own will. We can't do it by ourselves. We need the Spirit. We need you. We need the life and death and resurrection of Jesus to make all of this happen. And now, because of Jesus, we have access to the Spirit who gives us life. And so would you help us to thrive? Some of us, maybe right now, just feel like we're surviving. That's sometimes where we are in life. I've been there. And I'm guessing that many of this in this room have been there. We feel like we're just surviving, we're making it through. For any of us who are experiencing that right now, would you give us a vision for thriving and help us take one step in that direction? And as we explore this question over the next six months, through conversation together, and through prayer, would you reveal to us what it means to thrive? God, we thank you that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. That he's the resurrection and the life, that he is the bread of life. Would you help us to remember that this week? We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.