SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Graham Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit GrahamProquay.org.
SPEAKER_00: Well, my name is Lance Williams, and I'm one of the pastors on staff here at Graham Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Neil is out today, but he will be back next week, and uh all will resume as normal.
SPEAKER_00: But it's my privilege to be here before you.
SPEAKER_00: I always enjoy uh preaching, so uh I appreciate it, and it's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've got your Bible with you, uh we're gonna be in uh on page one of your Bible, Genesis 1, 1, 26 and 27.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you've been with us for the last week or so, uh we are in the middle, smack dab in the middle of a uh a short series on our core values.
SPEAKER_00: You may have just come back from uh our introduction class, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You'll get a little bit of uh uh of a repeat, but we're in the middle of a short series on our core values.
SPEAKER_00: Last week was spiritual intimacy from John 15.
SPEAKER_00: This week is biblical community, our second core value.
SPEAKER_00: And then next week we'll wrap up the series with our last core value, which is consequential ministry, or uh, as some people like to say, ministry that matters.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: And so today in our second week, right in the middle of it, we're gonna be talking about biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: And if I have a subtitle for this, it's You Were Made for This.
SPEAKER_00: You were made for biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you realize it or not, this is something that is ingrained in your DNA as a human, is to connect with other humans.
SPEAKER_00: But I'll get to that in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Community.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fuzzy word, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's a fuzzy word that we kind of get our arms around and we just don't quite know what it means.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we think we experience it, but we're not really sure.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a fuzzy word.
SPEAKER_00: It can be used for all sorts of excuses, like laziness, like, oh, I couldn't prepare for that.
SPEAKER_00: I was uh enjoying community uh would be one that I've I've heard.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I I couldn't be there because I was enjoying community.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a fuzzy word that's used for selfishness, it's uh misused for laziness.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but the reality is we in this country are a group, surely, but a group of individuals.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and individual rights rule the day, and individual freedoms rule the day.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we are a group of individuals that like ourselves a whole lot, and so community, uh we think we know what it is, but we all of a sudden start pursuing it for our own good.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a good example of that would be Facebook.
SPEAKER_00: I like Facebook, unlike the other guy that stands here and delivers the word.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm on Facebook.
SPEAKER_00: I might need to repent of how much I'm on it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but the reality is I'm a fan of it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so when I stand up here and talk about it, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Facebook is good for a purpose, but it can't be your community.
SPEAKER_00: Twitter is good.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to have a bunch of people follow you, go to the bathroom, whatever you're doing, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is there's got to be something more with more gravity in your life than status updates.
SPEAKER_00: There's got to be something in your life, someone that's face-to-face, lunches, community groups, whatever, to where your life can actually be changed literally into the image of God, in the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are individuals and yet we're connected in more ways than ever before through social media.
SPEAKER_00: But we can't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: We've we are called, we are created for intimate relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Um Barna, George Barna, if you don't know who George Barna is, uh, he's kind of like the gallop of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he put out a study not too long ago that said only 17% of Christians believe that being a part of a local community of faith is vital to their spiritual formation or their growth in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: 17%.
SPEAKER_00: That's less than one in five.
SPEAKER_00: So if you look down the row and you see four people down there, you need to condemn them or whatever, because it's you, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're the one that's in community, it's not the other four people.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's surely how it must be.
SPEAKER_00: But it's about one in five that Christians believe it's vital to develop their walk with Christ in the context of a local community of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a lot.
SPEAKER_00: That is not, that's 80% of us in this room say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to be a part of a small group, men's group, Bible community, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Uh big church is good enough for me, and we'll roll on from there.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just say this: if you do not have a small community, and I'm not talking about this, if you go to church for 10 years and just come to big church or worship service and never get involved into the veins and the life, the lifeblood of a church, you will come every Sunday and hear a lot of sermons and shake a lot of hands and give a lot of money and never change.
SPEAKER_00: And the room went silent.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm talking to the big group.
SPEAKER_00: If I told this in my Bible study class, they'd be like, totally agree with you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all are in here and not so much.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality-that's the reality.
SPEAKER_00: This is good for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: This is community in a sense.
SPEAKER_00: This is corporate worship.
SPEAKER_00: But God calls us and created us for something a little bit more intimate.
SPEAKER_00: Not for you to stare at somebody's at the back of their head, but for you to turn your chair and to be able to relate on a connectedness that you never thought imaginable.
SPEAKER_00: That's what our small groups are for.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Bible communities are for.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we call it Bible community, because our core values, biblical communities.
SPEAKER_00: That's what our midweek studies are for, that's what our community groups are for.
SPEAKER_00: All that is to help you get connected with other people.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm the spiritual formation pastor, and so I'm supposed to come up here and push you towards all that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Inflates my numbers, it gets me job security, I like all that good stuff, but that's not what I'm going to do today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to push you to all those things because here's what I've come to realize identity precedes behavior.
SPEAKER_00: Identity precedes behavior.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a baby, you cry.
SPEAKER_00: Identity precedes behavior.
SPEAKER_00: So the reason why many of us may not experience biblical community is because we don't quite understand who we are.
SPEAKER_00: How we've been created, what God has put in us.
SPEAKER_00: And then that will push us to act a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why we may not get involved is because we don't understand who we are.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want you to understand of who you are today.
SPEAKER_00: You are a person that was created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that God is community at his very core.
SPEAKER_00: He is Father, Son, and Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And he created you for community.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why you and I hide from community is because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: This great thing called sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so we hide, we blame, we cover, we do all kinds of different things.
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you a big preview of the sermon right now.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the reality is that when Jesus came to earth, he prayed that we would have the kind of community that's found in the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: Now I've said the word, I've said Trinity in church, and so we all have just lost ourselves and now we're just enveloped in this big cloud of I have no idea, of mystery.
SPEAKER_00: But let's look at the scriptures and let's understand really who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because when I mentioned what I was gonna talk about last night to a friend of mine, I said, Yeah, it's gonna be all based on the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a little concerned about it, but we're gonna run with it.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Are you gonna use the word Trinity?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna use the word trinity.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's not found in the Bible, uh, but it's all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you that today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh turn with me to page one in your Bible, Genesis 1, 26 and 27.
SPEAKER_00: We'll read here first, and then we will jump off uh into other places in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1, 26 and 27.
SPEAKER_00: This is really where we find our first point of our sermon today and of our time together, and that is this.
SPEAKER_00: We were created for community.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty simple.
SPEAKER_00: 1 26 and 27.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said, He's right in the middle of creation, he's created everything except man, and now he's gonna write out what he's gonna create in man and how.
SPEAKER_00: Let us make man.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: So God created man in his own image.
SPEAKER_00: And in the image of God he created him.
SPEAKER_00: Male and female, he created them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's really important in all this are two words.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're anything like me, uh I did for years, just ran past these verses with no real good comprehension of what God was trying to tell me and what he was really trying to communicate about himself.
SPEAKER_00: And it's two words in that first, uh, that first verse, verse 26, let us make man in our image.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's not talking about three gods because that's not the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he's talking about this one God who eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Let us, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, make man in our Father, Son, Holy Spirit image.
SPEAKER_00: And God is yet one.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I put on the front of your bulletin today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I said in the first service, and I'll say it again, that's not like a 1996 tribal art tattoo idea.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so that's your history lesson for today.
SPEAKER_00: The big circle is God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it represents.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the smaller, kind of intertwining uh circles, that's Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So we have one God eternally existing as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: You've just heard a sermon on the Trinity, and that's pretty much all you're going to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Because God is so mysterious and so much bigger than we could ever imagine, we can never understand the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: And so instead of kind of running from it, which most of us have done, or abandon it altogether, let's not talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, God's calling us to understand what Augustine understood, right behind me.
SPEAKER_00: The Trinity reveals that the very life of God is a life of intimate relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll never understand that.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never understand the arithmetic that goes with the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like an egg, it's not like water, it's not like anything else you have imagined in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so instead of trying to figure it out, which we're not capable of, let's just embrace the mystery together.
SPEAKER_00: That God is one and yet three.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not going to make sense to anybody but Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Because we accept it on faith and believe it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't try and figure it out like arithmetic.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I heard somebody describe the Trinity like this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's a riddle that describes a puzzle inside of an enigma.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we're in deep.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I like to think of it like this.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a piece of jalapeno or like a pineapple inside of a dove, inside of bacon.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't like that, then perhaps it'd be like a piece of peanut butter smothered in caramel or caramel as anybody likes to say, except for me, caramel uh wrapped outside of chocolate.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I say that, that's not like the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying it's so good that once you have a little taste of it, you don't want to go back to anything else.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go to ignoring it.
SPEAKER_00: You just want to embrace it and just keep eating.
SPEAKER_00: That's the doctrine of the Trinity, and I hope that we'll see that today, especially in our scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the reality: God is one, and that he eternally exists as three people Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And he created us, humans, in his image.
SPEAKER_00: The God who is at his very core, community, created you and I in his image.
SPEAKER_00: So if we are created in his image, right here in the context, I'm not reading anything into it, then it must mean that we've got something in us, innate, in who we are, that's communal.
SPEAKER_00: That's built for community.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason why you want to connect.
SPEAKER_00: There's also a reason why you don't know how.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason deep inside of you that you want to connect with other people.
SPEAKER_00: It's because God made you in his image.
SPEAKER_00: And his image is a God of community where he's always relating with himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's relating with the Son, He's relating with the Spirit, He's relating with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this grand circle, this grand dance of just loving on each other and giving to one another and pointing to each other and saying, You get the credit.
SPEAKER_00: No, you get the credit.
SPEAKER_00: That's so not like us.
SPEAKER_00: I want the credit.
SPEAKER_00: But God created in us this innate need, this desire for community.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Larry Crab says this: As surely as the birds were created to fly and fish created to swim, we were created for community.
SPEAKER_00: As surely as the birds were created to fly, which of course is natural, and fish created to swim, well, yeah, that's their native environment.
SPEAKER_00: We were created for community.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just continue to read on in Genesis, because if we flip the page to page two, things get really interesting.
SPEAKER_00: If we find in Genesis 2, 18, this statement from God, God has gotten done creating everything, and he's looked down, and Adam has named all the animals, and he's looked down, he's looked at man, and God says to him, It is not good that the man should be alone.
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain to you why this is so profound.
SPEAKER_00: Because Adam finds himself in the middle of the garden, and sin has not yet come into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God looks down at man and said, You and me are not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: You need something more.
SPEAKER_00: I've created you for something more than just you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we have this the stance where we just say, Well, it's just me and my Bible and Jesus, and that's all I need, God is saying to us, that's not good.
SPEAKER_00: We need more than that.
SPEAKER_00: This is a good start, spiritual intimacy, yes.
SPEAKER_00: But in order for you to grow, in order for you to change, in order for you to mature into Christ, we need something else.
SPEAKER_00: We need something more.
SPEAKER_00: It is not good for man to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so God does the only thing that God does, and he fixes it.
SPEAKER_00: And he creates Eve, right?
SPEAKER_00: So not only is it absolutely necessary in our core for us to connect with other people, not just with God, not just worship, but also service.
SPEAKER_00: There must be something else that we can learn from this because I see all that and I go, okay, it's not good, but what is good?
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like to have the kind of community that you created us for before the fall of man, before Genesis 3?
SPEAKER_00: It's in fact found right there at the end of Genesis 2.
SPEAKER_00: This is what it looks like to be inside biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: 225, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: That's biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: That is standing in front of someone else, completely exposed to all of your insecurities, all of your moles, all of whatever else you got, and you're just saying, I'm not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God created us for.
SPEAKER_00: And we read this and we go, okay, they were naked, not ashamed, and we just think of it as a physical thing, like Adam and Eve really love naked time, like they're your kids after bathtime and they're just running around crazy.
SPEAKER_00: But there's more to it than that.
SPEAKER_00: It's the spiritual side of us that says, you know what, I have this innate desire to just be known.
SPEAKER_00: And to just open myself up freely and be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: That's in you and that's in me.
SPEAKER_00: The challenge is we've lost that ability.
SPEAKER_00: We've lost that freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we keep reading, which we're going to, chapter three starts.
SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of leads us into our second uh our second point.
SPEAKER_00: Because of sin, we hide from community.
SPEAKER_00: Although at our core we are communal beings created by a God of community, we don't experience biblical community, we hide from it because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the last verse of chapter two, before the world goes sideways, is they were naked and they were not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine a marriage or a small group where you're just able to just say, you know what, this is me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm totally just ah.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: God's completely filled me up and satisfied everything that I am, and I may stand before you broken, but I'm not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why we don't experience that on a normal basis, and we have to ask the question, can you only imagine?
SPEAKER_00: is because of chapter three.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me there, and it's in verse six, excuse me, verse six, that we begin to understand what went wrong, why we hide from this thing called biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, this is right after 225.
SPEAKER_00: My Bible is probably the same as yours, right above chapter 3, the fall.
SPEAKER_00: And chapter 3, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Now the serpent was more crafty, and all of a sudden, just when everything was great, Satan starts to come in and ruin everything.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
SPEAKER_00: She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
SPEAKER_00: And the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew that they were naked.
SPEAKER_00: And they sowed foot fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.
SPEAKER_00: And they heard the sounds of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Who told you that you were naked?
SPEAKER_00: Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
SPEAKER_00: And the man said, The woman whom you gave to me be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done?
SPEAKER_00: And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.
SPEAKER_00: Just reading out of that those seven verses right there, we can understand fully why we hide from community, why biblical community is just this nebulous idea and not something that we experience on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this, and that is they covered themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They made themselves loincloth.
SPEAKER_00: And just like the little words were important in Genesis 1, when we wanted to understand God's nature as community, the little words here are really important in Genesis 3, because what God told them to do in Genesis 1 was to rule over the creation, rule over the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Trust God, but rule.
SPEAKER_00: And here in Genesis 3, they quit worrying about all that stuff, their main responsibilities, and they start going, they start protecting and providing for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: What was God's sole responsibility?
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, man takes and says, I'm making a loincloth for myself, what you've given me is no longer sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: And so they cover themselves.
SPEAKER_00: You ever been around a person that can't be wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Just cover themselves all the time?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, that wasn't me.
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: I think you're wrong because of this, this, and this.
SPEAKER_00: And you're just kind of, the more you talk about it, you're like, yeah, you're definitely wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Like I can definitely tell this is you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that I'm right, I don't care about being right, but you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden they just give it up.
SPEAKER_00: They say, All right, you got me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, they give it up.
SPEAKER_00: What's more attractive in that relationship?
SPEAKER_00: The covering, the clothes that somebody puts on that says, oh no, no, I'm okay, I'm okay, nothing's happened here, we're good.
SPEAKER_00: Or just the confession.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Totally just messed up right there.
SPEAKER_00: Can you forgive me?
SPEAKER_00: Or, yeah, I got all these insecurities.
SPEAKER_00: Been dealing with them for years.
SPEAKER_00: Hate it, but there they are.
SPEAKER_00: That's more attractive to all of us than the, no, I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: We're good.
SPEAKER_00: You don't see any problem here, do you?
SPEAKER_00: That's what covering does.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the second thing that you do, that you and I do, is that we hide ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we take themselves or myself and we hide.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you and I go to a community group or a Bible community or small group or men's group or whatever you want to talk about, even a lunch for that matter, and they offend you, and then you withdraw and you hide.
SPEAKER_00: Not only do you cover, but then you and I hide.
SPEAKER_00: And when we were in India, uh, I keep thinking to myself, man, it was like a week or so ago that I was in India.
SPEAKER_00: We keep looking at pictures and whatnot.
SPEAKER_00: We were in India.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we uh drove, we flew to where we were in India, and then you have a six-hour drive into the heart of India.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's just an interesting drive, and we're gonna show a video in a couple weeks that kind of gives you a little perspective on all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But we get there, and I think I slept for most of the way, and we get to where we're gonna be in our hotel, and we get it's in the back alleys of this little bitty town, and there's people everywhere, and I don't know what time it is because I'm just waking up from a nap, and I'm just like, okay, where are we?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is nowhere I want to be.
SPEAKER_00: This is not good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm every I got eyes on you, and there is people everywhere, and it's a tight little confined space, and the hotel has bars, and you're just kind of like, okay, what are we doing?
SPEAKER_00: Where are we?
SPEAKER_00: And what's going on?
SPEAKER_00: I get out of the car, and Aaron looks at me and he goes, Hey man, uh this is this is like the hotel.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Okay, well, I'd heard like a little little story about it kind of being a little bit, you know, shady one night.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, that's fine, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But inside I was kind of going, Oh my goodness, okay, this is.
SPEAKER_00: It.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the back alleys of nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: And there's nobody.
SPEAKER_00: I got no service.
SPEAKER_00: We ain't calling anybody.
SPEAKER_00: And so I go over to uh our trip leader, who's David, he kind of leads things on the India side of things, and then I lead things over on our side.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of meet up and then he takes over for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And I go over to David and I say, Hey man, uh, is there any place else we could go?
SPEAKER_00: Can we keep going?
SPEAKER_00: And he just said, Where else are you gonna go, man?
SPEAKER_00: We're we're in the heart of India.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you this is it.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, all right.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna be okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: And we unpack and I go inside and I'm just kind of thinking, okay, what can we do?
SPEAKER_00: How can we fix this?
SPEAKER_00: I gotta, we gotta do something about this.
SPEAKER_00: And I go over to him again.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey, do I need to stay like with the girls?
SPEAKER_00: Like, do I need to stay in their room?
SPEAKER_00: Is that something that should be good?
SPEAKER_00: And he just looked at me like befuddled that I'm this fearful, and he just goes, Hey man, you're gonna spread a lot of fear like that.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, Oh, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: And in typical humanities fashion, I just hid.
SPEAKER_00: And then I did what was great, the third part of we we blame other people in this whole idea of sin, as I just go, but the girls are scared.
SPEAKER_00: And and and we we we should uh maybe we should do something different.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and I just hid behind that that thin veil of spirituality and leadership.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I have their best interest in mine.
SPEAKER_00: Please, this shit is a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but the reality is I was scared, totally full of fear, and then the verses started to hit me that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of boldness.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, because of his words, I changed immediately.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, I wasn't really all that, I was still like, okay, this is uneasy, but I'm not full of fear.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not driven by this anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And I woke- it took me a day, it took me a day to figure it out and finally to go to him and say, Hey man, I really appreciate you saying that to me last night.
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't want to hear it, I wanted to punch you, as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_00: But I appreciate you having the boldness and just the spirit to be able to tell me, give me words of life of truth that I might be able to change and go, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: We're good.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've got to get home and lock our doors at night, but we'll be fine.
SPEAKER_00: Everything's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna trust God.
SPEAKER_00: It was difficult, but it was certainly I don't think the team knows that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of them do.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't disclosed that to them, but that's kind of what happened that first night for me.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, instead of hiding behind this thin veil of spirituality, I was exposed.
SPEAKER_00: And that night I was like, ooh, telling me that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next day I was like, man, thank God he told me that.
SPEAKER_00: But it took me a day to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: Uh again, I mentioned this part, and that is uh the third thing that happens because of the fall.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing that kind of gets messed up in our community is that we blame one another.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's what you see in at the latter part of what I read in 11 all the way to 13, where God just kind of visits Adam and He says, Hey man, um, like, why are you hiding and what have you done?
SPEAKER_00: And Adam goes, first of all, you remember this God, you put this woman here, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Well, forget, don't forget that first, and the woman made me do it.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second thing that happens that God goes to woman and says, Okay, what have you done, Eve?
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because he doesn't know, it's because he wants confession.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks at her, she looks at him and goes, But it was it was the serpent.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't hear anything out of the serpent.
SPEAKER_00: Just God judging what happened and throwing down the gauntlet for all of humanity because Adam and Eve had sinned.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I have that sinful nature where we want to cover, we want to take care of ourselves, we want to blame somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: We get inside of a community and we say, but you said that to me two years ago, and I'm not going back.
SPEAKER_00: How dare no, that's never gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, this happened in a Sunday school of mine, and I'm not going back to that.
SPEAKER_00: That was a terrible experience.
SPEAKER_00: That's hiding, that's blaming, that's covering.
SPEAKER_00: And God is gonna call us to this type of a relationship that he models with himself when he gives himself to the earth.
SPEAKER_00: The Father sends the Son to die for the sins of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Father and the Son send the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to live inside you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And he's just saying, I want you to be relating in such a way that your love is poured out for other people.
SPEAKER_00: Your love is poured out in such a way that you have no regard for yourself, that you give in such a way that you have no expectation of return.
SPEAKER_00: That's biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: And it's something that leads us to our third point.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came to earth on his last night, it was priority for him to fix this.
SPEAKER_00: Fixing our problem of sin of hiding, fixing our problem of sin of covering and of blaming one another.
SPEAKER_00: It was a priority for God.
SPEAKER_00: An absolute priority for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me to John 17, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have your Bible, look it up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: But the God of the universe came to earth, and he came to earth in flesh, and uh, we just got out of a season of celebrating his birth, but he grew up, and uh, and when he did, he uh he chose disciples and and and he lived with his disciples, and on the last night of his earthly existence, when he was here, the last night he pulled his disciples into a room, an upper room, uh that he had prepared in advance.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he he washed their feet in John 13 to model and exemplify leadership, servant leadership.
SPEAKER_00: In 14, he talks about hey, I'm gonna go, but don't worry, I'm gonna come back and get you.
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, it's gonna be better for you because I'm gonna give you the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty awesome and amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And for 14 and 16, it kind of unfolds for us this great doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And then in 15, we talked about it last week.
SPEAKER_00: That's right there in spiritual intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: Abide, the abide chapter, the remain chapter.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all about just what does it look like to be in a priority relationship with God?
SPEAKER_00: And we keep moving all the way to 17, and it's all read in my Bible, but we get to 17 and all of a sudden Jesus flips the script and starts praying.
SPEAKER_00: No longer does he preach to his disciples, he finishes and he prays, and he prays a lot.
SPEAKER_00: He prays for his disciples to remain faithful, and then he does something that you wouldn't expect.
SPEAKER_00: He prays for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: God prays for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Two thousand years ago, he's got us in his mind, and even before that, he's got us in his mind, and he's praying, and this is what he prays over you and I.
SPEAKER_00: John 17, 20 through 23.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says this, I do not ask for these only, the disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may be all alone, 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, and the glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved loved them even as you have loved me.
SPEAKER_00: Catch a theme.
SPEAKER_00: Oneness, unity, community, that God of the universe would come and pray for us, that we'd be so united that the only thing that he can even compare it to is his own relationship with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: It will be that intimate, and that's God's desire for us, that we would be in such close proximity and community and connection with one another, that the only way he would be able to explain it is it'll be like the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be like, hey, father to son.
SPEAKER_00: Now that blows our minds, does it not?
SPEAKER_00: It kind of gets us to this point where we go, okay, what in the world does that even look like?
SPEAKER_00: Again, an India story because it's fresh in me, and I knew that I'd be preaching today and what I'd be preaching about in community.
SPEAKER_00: And as we went into this trip, I thought to myself, won't it be interesting to live community with basically four other people that I kind of know but not really know?
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be trekking and living.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we thought we were gonna be camping for ten days.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, all right, we're gonna get to know each other pretty well.
SPEAKER_00: But I thought, what what will it be like to come back and be able to explain community after experiencing that type of a trip?
SPEAKER_00: It was nothing like I thought it would be.
SPEAKER_00: Because about on the third day, uh it started raining uh in India, and it's not the rainy season, and Beek just kept saying, I don't know why it's raining, I don't know why it's raining.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because it was kind of, you know, he knew that it would, you know, basically mean that about half the people were gonna be where we were gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: But he just kept wondering why it was raining, and I kind of know why it was raining now on the on the back end of it, but it was raining.
SPEAKER_00: We got in these little Toyotas and we turned up this dirt road, and immediately we turned, I said, Nicole, we're never getting off this road.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and we didn't.
SPEAKER_00: We got stuck, and I got out and was like, all right, we're pushing this thing out, whatever, we're never going where we're supposed to go.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Beek, how about we walk from here?
SPEAKER_00: We walk from here.
SPEAKER_00: If I'd have known what was ahead of us, I'd have never said that.
SPEAKER_00: But so we walk from here, and I'm I'm like, all right, sweet, this is the hiking part of the trip.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: And we go, and we go, and the dirt road ends, and then we cross a creek bed, and we cross another creek bed, and we look up, and it's mountain.
SPEAKER_00: And it's switchback after switchback after switchback after switchback, and we're just going and going.
SPEAKER_00: And you would not believe the type of community that was built on this mountain, going up all one together, and one is carrying somebody else's pack, and the other one has got three or four and covering them in raincoats, and the other one, that person's not really making it up the mountain very well.
SPEAKER_00: So it's just all right, I'm just gonna wait here and be with you, one foot in front of the other.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you look up at that mountain, you look up at that mountain, we'll never make it.
SPEAKER_00: One foot in front of the other.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: It may be, and then I'll finish the mountain story.
SPEAKER_00: It may be that the greatest, most spiritual thing you can do in community is to wait, not go at your own pace.
SPEAKER_00: And just sit next to somebody and go, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna make this.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents, your parents may not ever turn around and accept you as a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids may never turn around and actually know who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: This cancer, it may eat you up, but I'm gonna be right here next to you.
SPEAKER_00: We may never know what's coming up ahead.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be right here.
SPEAKER_00: So we get up there, and somebody's got blisters, and you know, we got more moleskin and more band-aids than we can know what to do with, and we're cutting all that up, and we're just caring for one another and loving for one another, and stopping and saying, you take your time, don't you worry about a thing.
SPEAKER_00: We'll make it up this mountain together, but don't get exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: You get exhausted out here, and we're in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: We'll go slow.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: We get about, I don't know, two or three hours into this thing.
SPEAKER_00: All the motivational talk is dying down, and never gonna make it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of look over at Beek and I was like, hey, uh, hey Beak, man, how much longer we got?
SPEAKER_00: And he looks at me with this charismatic smile, and he says, We're getting closer.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, oh man, I'm gonna get you, buddy.
SPEAKER_00: But I pulled him aside.
SPEAKER_00: We got, I was like, all right, the team's gotta go up and I gotta know how long we got.
SPEAKER_00: And I pull him aside and said, okay, seriously, how much longer we got?
SPEAKER_00: He says, maybe two or three kilometers.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, uh, don't know what kilometers mean.
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me pull up my iPhone and I got this little unit converter, and I was like, all right, one or two more miles, we're good to go.
SPEAKER_00: But I knew that, and we got to that point, I was the only one that knew that uh because I knew that there would be some of us that thought, one or two more miles, we're never gonna make it.
SPEAKER_00: But if we knew what was at the top of that hill, and if we knew exactly how long it was gonna take us, we'd have never done it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was at the top of that hill, it may have been motivating.
SPEAKER_00: Because we got to the top of the hill, and that was the tribe.
SPEAKER_00: That was the village that had never seen white people before.
SPEAKER_00: And you get up there and you're exhausted, and your feet weigh 20 pounds because they're full of mud.
SPEAKER_00: You get up there and you just oh, oh, okay, I don't know what this is all about, but here we are, we walk into this village, and everybody's staring at you like white people.
SPEAKER_00: And they've been so excited for my life to see what I mean, it's just awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And you get there, and the first thing they do is wash your feet.
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, this community that had never seen the West, where Christianity is supposed to be exploding, they get it more than we do.
SPEAKER_00: They washed your feet when you got to the top of that mountain.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't care that you're wearing boots.
SPEAKER_00: They washed them.
SPEAKER_00: And they kept washing them, and they kept washing them until they were clean.
SPEAKER_00: You sit down, you take your breath, and you look up, and everybody's staring at you, and it's this is an awkward, it's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: If we wouldn't have gone up here together and done all this together and heard Beek say, We're getting closer, we'd have never experienced this, and our lives would have never changed because it was seven and a half miles up.
SPEAKER_00: And then we had to turn around and do it again.
SPEAKER_00: A little easier the second time.
SPEAKER_00: Going all the way down to our cars, and we get down there and we're just all going, That was awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
SPEAKER_00: The reality is we did a service, we prayed for people to be healed for over an hour, and those people's lives were changed.
SPEAKER_00: I think our lives may have been changed even more.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't really even our time at the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: It was the pouring into each other, it was the loving into each other, it was the motivating into each other.
SPEAKER_00: That's community.
SPEAKER_00: We are all gonna have these mountains in life.
SPEAKER_00: We have no idea what's ahead.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: When we ask God how long it's gonna be, he may just say, We're getting closer.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never know.
SPEAKER_00: But it is a whole lot easier and a whole lot more palatable if we've got somebody next to us.
SPEAKER_00: We've got somebody saying, Don't look up, just don't look up, keep going, keep going, keep going.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't have that type of a relationship now, when the mountain comes, we're gonna get there and go, Where's the church?
SPEAKER_00: What in the world?
SPEAKER_00: Been going to church for 10 years, but you've never connected.
SPEAKER_00: You've never gotten into the lifeblood of any local church, not just here, but any local church, and we want to come alongside you.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to come alongside me.
SPEAKER_00: We can't get to that point where the mountain's ahead of us, and we look around and go, I got nobody and nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Because the mountain becomes insurmountable at that point.
SPEAKER_00: Community just may mean all the difference in the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of community that Jesus was praying for.
SPEAKER_00: That oneness, that as I am in you, and you in me.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, he says it a couple different times of why it's so important.
SPEAKER_00: Right there at the end of verse 21, Jesus says this, so that the world may believe that you sent me.
SPEAKER_00: Our communities are never meant to be just huddled circles of agreement or disagreement, but always supposed to be with your neighbors in mind, your name, the nations in mind, what they call these days missional communities, where you look out and say, I'm gonna love my people so well, and then we're gonna be so connected and intertwined that my neighbors are gonna look over and go, whoa, whatever they got I want.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that looks like, I want to be there.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't I don't know what it looks like, I don't know what it's called, but let me go ask.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, we love each other and are so interconnected that the world literally changes.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens when you go and spend a week with each other.
SPEAKER_00: It's even more of what happens when you start to understand more of the context that's behind there.
SPEAKER_00: Because this guy, Beek, that we partner with in India, he has an understanding of what this community looks like.
SPEAKER_00: He lives in a very small house with all of his relatives.
SPEAKER_00: There's actually 12 of them that live in this house.
SPEAKER_00: And because he understands community is all about giving, loving selflessly, and just committing to stay, he doesn't sleep inside the house with his wife and nine-month-old baby.
SPEAKER_00: He sleeps on the porch.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room for him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the man that we're partnered with.
SPEAKER_00: This is the man that has modeled for us biblical community, that has helped us up the mountain and then said, Hey, you guys just experienced biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what Jesus prayed for.
SPEAKER_00: And the world, literally, the world is at stake on how well we get connected to each other.
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray now and ask God to figure out what this looks like in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Because I can tell you that it could mean just, hey, just to stay, even when you're hurt, to stay.
SPEAKER_00: To love endlessly.
SPEAKER_00: And those are good commands that we can find in the kind of relationship that God models for us.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is this is gonna have to get fleshed out in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So that our neighbors and the people that are moving in next to us all of a sudden look at us and go, man, whatever that looks like, I'm gonna go ask about it.
SPEAKER_00: I want it.
SPEAKER_00: The world will change.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: God help us.
SPEAKER_00: Help us get past ourselves, help us get past our hurts, and drive us into the kind of community that you've modeled with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You call us to these things, you've made us for these things, and we trust you for these things.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: With that, would you guys stand and hold your hands out like this?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna speak a word over you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, much like we did uh to the orphans when we were in India.
SPEAKER_00: The God of community has called you to connect with Him and with others.
SPEAKER_00: That's a risky business.
SPEAKER_00: It's the scariest thing you'll ever do in your life is to open yourself to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: But it's worth it.
SPEAKER_00: Go now and risk your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Risk everything inside to stand in front of someone else naked and unashamed.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.