SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information in our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Glad you guys are here.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Lance Williams, and I'm the Spiritual Formation Pastor here at Grand Parkway, which, as I've been told by uh some others, means basically no one knows what you do, and we can't hold you accountable because it's lofty words.
SPEAKER_00: But in reality, uh my privilege and joy is to oversee all the small groups, the spiritual formation groups uh here at Grand Parkway, as well as just getting you involved and making sure that if you want this place to be your home, that you actually make it your home.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so that is uh a lot, but certainly something that I love to do and gets me up every every day.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so as the spiritual formation pastor, I would be remiss if I didn't just say, hey, if this is all that you and I experience uh with church, the big groom, I mean, you got, I don't know how many people are in here, a lot here at the 11 o'clock service.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if this is all you experience about church, you may come in and out week after week, month after one month, and even year after year, and never truly experience that which you were created for.
SPEAKER_00: And that is life change, transformational relationships that really can only happen, uh yes, it can start in a room like this, which we'll end on.
SPEAKER_00: It can start in a room like this, but really is going to be cultivated and grown in smaller environments.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just say this.
SPEAKER_00: We've gotten a good start off to the new year, but as a spiritual formation pastor here at Grand Park, I let me just say, if you're not involved in a Bible community, which is Sunday morning Bible study, our community groups which meet in our homes throughout the week, or a midweek study, which are starting in just a few weeks, it is imperative for your spiritual growth to be able to get involved and make it a priority for you to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00: If you've never done that before, please make that priority certainly as we go into the latter half of January.
SPEAKER_00: Our community groups come back next week, and our midweek studies start that following week.
SPEAKER_00: So it's just a great opportunity for you to be coming and getting involved, and especially if you're checking out a new church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I say that for all that, but also because of our current series.
SPEAKER_00: Our current series is on uh the core.
SPEAKER_00: It's what we value as a local expression of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Last week uh we talked about gospel and the gospel, not just any gospel, but the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And hope we hope over these four weeks from in January, we hope you see a bigger story being told.
SPEAKER_00: That the gospel being the core and the root of everything should change and transform a community, which is what we're going to talk about today, this value of community.
SPEAKER_00: It should change and transform us into a community that not just values getting and huddling up together, but getting some maybe some rejuvenation from that, and then going out for people to be on mission, which will be next week.
SPEAKER_00: And then as we are a people that have joined on to the mission of God, we go out with a purpose of blessing others, which is our fourth week.
SPEAKER_00: We hope that that's the kind of the progression that you see as we get into uh days like today where we are going to look at the value of community.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be uh in Psalm 133, Psalm 133 for the remainder of our time together.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's one of the shortest uh Psalms in all of the book of Psalms, only three verses long.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have your Bible with you, uh there is one on the end of your row, and so uh punch your neighbor, and then they'll punch them, and they'll punch the person next to them, and they'll finally get you a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We are on page 519 of that Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So as you guys are turning there, the first thing that you're gonna see when you get to Psalm 133 is that it has a little heading at the top of it, usually in all caps, small caps, it'll say, A song of a sense of David.
SPEAKER_00: David wrote this song, but the part that I want to just set up for us today is the Song of Ascens.
SPEAKER_00: There are 15 songs of Ascents, Psalm 120 all the way to 134, and those songs are basically representative of what would happen in history, in our faith history, really.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Israelites, the Jewish people, from wherever they were all over Israel, about three times a year they would get together and they would leave their homes, they would leave what was comfortable, and they would journey into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem was where the temple was, and so for three times a year, very important dates of the year, they would leave, they would kind of gather together as neighborhoods, as tribes, and they would all get closer and closer and closer to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know anything about the topography, I just said the word topography, but if you don't know anything about the topography of Jerusalem and Israel, Jerusalem is up on a hill.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we say Song of Ascents, this is a nation who is gathering together as one on a journey towards a destination, which is worship in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And that should hit home for us.
SPEAKER_00: Because we are all, no matter where we are, we are on this same journey together.
SPEAKER_00: And as we get closer and closer and closer to our destination, the songs will keep rising and rising and rising until we get to that point when we journey to Jesus and worship together like we never have before in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: That's who we are.
SPEAKER_00: We are in Psalm 133 singing a song of ascent somehow, somehow, but let's sing this one today together.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's read about this great Psalm of Ascent, Psalm 133.
SPEAKER_00: It's just three verses.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read it real quick.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.
SPEAKER_00: It is like the precious oil on the head running down the beard on the beard of Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just admit that I'm freaked out?
SPEAKER_00: Like that's that weirds me out that there's oil all over Aaron Cotton's beard right now.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna keep pressing through.
SPEAKER_00: It is like the precious oil of the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes.
SPEAKER_00: Think about community this way.
SPEAKER_00: It is like the dew of Hermon which falls on the mountains of Zion.
SPEAKER_00: For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to have the time, maybe you wouldn't, but I would love to have the time to preach through all three of these verses.
SPEAKER_00: You'd think I'd get through a whole psalm, it's only three verses, but I won't.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we're just gonna be focused on that first verse.
SPEAKER_00: The first verse, behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.
SPEAKER_00: And so that leads me to our first point that I think jumps off the page, at least it did at me, and that is this.
SPEAKER_00: Point one coming out of Psalm 133, when we're talking about the value of community, is this that community is family.
SPEAKER_00: The community of God, all throughout the scriptures, is all about brothers and sisters coming together, being bonded by something greater than themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Community is family.
SPEAKER_00: And our bond, by the way, is not a hobby, although I enjoy hobbies.
SPEAKER_00: I went to track 21 or whatever it was on Thursday night, and I thought I had nearly killed myself at one point.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I know that none of you would do this, but I'm I'm full throttle, right?
SPEAKER_00: Coming around the turn.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and I, you know, because I'm not vain, I just, you know, I'm not competitive, really.
SPEAKER_00: Uh not at all.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'm coming around the turn, full bore, and I look up at the scoreboard to see where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh yeah, I'm second place.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get Wheeler Bemint.
SPEAKER_00: Never got Wheeler Bemint.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I'm gonna get him.
SPEAKER_00: And I get to, I'm coming around, I'm coming around, and all of a sudden I take my eyes back off the scoreboard, back to where I'm headed, and I slammed right into the side uh of the barrier.
SPEAKER_00: And then somebody hit me, and then somebody hit them.
SPEAKER_00: And we got out of there, and all of our ribs were a little bit sore, and my neck was certainly sore the next day.
SPEAKER_00: I just remember thinking, I just remember breathing like this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for like the next lap.
SPEAKER_00: So it's but it's not a hobby, because some people aren't into that, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's a mint ministry event.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but some people aren't into that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a hobby that bonds us, it's not a common experience, although that's probably something.
SPEAKER_00: Uh people that will root for the Texans today, that's an affinity.
SPEAKER_00: That's something that bonds people.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's not even our life stage.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, our bond is the family of God and our faith in Jesus, which is the most precious and firm bond that we could ever think of.
SPEAKER_00: Because what this does is that basically equalizes all of us.
SPEAKER_00: That we're just brothers and sisters in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We're sons and daughters of God most high, which puts us all within the same filter, which is grace.
SPEAKER_00: God's accomplishment on our behalf through his son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We don't relate to one another anymore based on my accomplishments or your accomplishments or what I can do or what you can do or what I can't do or what you can't do.
SPEAKER_00: That's all probably great, but that's not the bond of brotherhood, of sisterhood, of being in the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it is the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like our families of origin in some instances.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they're all different.
SPEAKER_00: Every local expression of a body of Christ, a church, is different.
SPEAKER_00: Uh every family that we we represent so many different stories in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Uh my family, I mean, all this, they're all different.
SPEAKER_00: You kind of just start to realize how different they are when you start to ask people, so how many Christmases did you have?
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I there was a time in our marriage early on when we didn't have anything to tie us down or anything, it was just whatever.
SPEAKER_00: We had about six Christmases to go to in about a 24 to 40 hour period.
SPEAKER_00: And we would get done, it would wear us out.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so we thought to ourselves, what can we do to get out of this pattern of five or six Christmases?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know, we'll move to Dallas.
SPEAKER_00: And so we moved to Dallas and it was fine, and we still came back for the holidays.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why, but we did and did those five or six Christmases.
SPEAKER_00: But then Reese came along and we kind of used her as an excuse, like, well, we can't travel.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've got the little one here, we're not gonna be going everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: We'll pick and choose, and then finally, uh, as we came back to here, everybody comes to our house and it's great.
SPEAKER_00: We got one, maybe two Christmases.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: But anytime I'm home for the holidays, so to speak, there's some days when I just feel like a stranger.
SPEAKER_00: You ever feel that way amongst your family?
SPEAKER_00: You're just like, I don't get these people at all anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gone on, I don't know how we've all changed, but I don't know you and you don't know me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're my brother, I know you're my sister, I know you're my mother, my dad, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't feel at home here anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I have a feeling that there are many of us in this room that when I say that this is the family of God, this is these are the brothers and the sisters that you're called, and really God has chosen for you to dwell with, that you just kind of go, yeah, all right, that's cool.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've heard that before, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but let me just say that just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it's not true.
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely true because if you believe in Jesus, we are all united underneath the lens of grace, underneath the blood.
SPEAKER_00: And that obligates us to one another in ways that wouldn't obligate me to anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: I'm obligating my sister in ways that I I can't be obligated to anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: I'm obligated to you all, my brothers and sisters, in ways that I would never be obligated to anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, uh I was thinking about family of origin.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they can be a little tricky.
SPEAKER_00: Uh matter of fact, when we talk about the family of God, it doesn't mean there won't be conflict.
SPEAKER_00: There will be conflict.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to happen, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you stay and stick here long enough and someone is going to disagree with you, let's hope, and uh, because that's great.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to have disagreements, but there will certainly be conflict within a family of any sort, much less your family of origin, but also here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when I was growing up, I've told this a similar story to this before, but when I was growing up, uh my sister could beat me up until I was like 26.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh it was just sad.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm my therapist says it's gonna be okay, though.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh I'm just kidding about that part.
SPEAKER_00: Uh no.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but no, she just beat me up, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so like I was not strong.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she was a gymnast and she was ripped, and I played baseball, and you don't have to be in shape for that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just you just don't.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I, you know, it was fine, it was good, but man, there were days when we got on each other's nerves, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so there were things that I would do growing up just because I had to get crafty in my defense.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't beat her uh until I was older, but uh until I finally did, and then that was it.
SPEAKER_00: That was the end of fighting all of a sudden, once I got the upper hand.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but there was a time when I just had to get crafty in my defense.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I would do is uh there would be uh like this was back in the days when like kids played with stuff instead of on iPads and whatever else that they do.
SPEAKER_00: Like I had marbles.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, marbles?
SPEAKER_00: So I would I would shoot marbles, right?
SPEAKER_00: We'd all have fun and hang out, do marbles, my friends, my cousins, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but but one of the day I got the novel idea.
SPEAKER_00: These can be really handy in time of conflict.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so what I did was I got this really big brown dress sock that I never wore, and I filled it up with marbles.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: However, I didn't hit her, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't cut I did not hit her, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what I did was I cut a hole on the end of that bad boy, and and I just started swinging over my head.
SPEAKER_00: And I would retreat, and I was just swinging over my head, and you couldn't tell where the marbles were coming from.
SPEAKER_00: She just had to duck and dive.
SPEAKER_00: I remember her diving behind one of the islands, and I didn't throw it at her.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I was just swinging it, right?
SPEAKER_00: So marbles would be going everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I didn't break anything, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: But I would retreat back to my room, and I'd get to my room, and uh, and I'd get my that lock's only gonna hold so long.
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna bust it down or she's gonna pick it.
SPEAKER_00: I've already ticked her off, she's coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I would do, and I don't know, this is just my era, but we had a Bee Gees record player in my room, and I don't know why it was Bee Gees.
SPEAKER_00: Don't come to me and talk to me about that.
SPEAKER_00: But we had a, we had a but we did.
SPEAKER_00: We had a Bee Gees record player in my room, and uh, and so this was back when we had records.
SPEAKER_00: I I say record player like I know what everybody's talking, like everybody knows what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We had records, and then there was this transition when I was growing up from records to the tape deck, right?
SPEAKER_00: You had cassette tapes, and so all of a sudden, these records that I had, you know, however Bee Gees and Michael Jackson and whomever else at that time, uh, we had all these, and I was like, all of a sudden, it was like these were going obsolete.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I did was I would sit on the top bunk of my room and I'd wait for her to come through, and I'd just go, pew, pew, pew.
SPEAKER_00: And so if she came through the door, man, there was like a Chinese star coming at her.
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't, she wasn't gonna, she was only gonna go so far, but eventually there's just a time came when I ran out of records, and you know, the inevitable would happen, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I began crafting other ideas.
SPEAKER_00: As I got a little older, they became a little more scheming and conniving.
SPEAKER_00: So one day, I uh uh I got a jump rope and I knew my mom was coming home, and my sister had been mean or whatever all day.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure she was.
SPEAKER_00: She has to be.
SPEAKER_00: It was you know, my reality, it has to be reality.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but so she was mean to me one day, and I knew my mom was coming home, and so what I did was uh I took this jump rope and I went to the garage and I just beat myself with it.
SPEAKER_00: Like on my back, just just just just hammered myself, right?
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I know, I know, okay, pray for me, it's still in there.
SPEAKER_00: I just ah so I beat myself with it, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so my mom gets home shortly after that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I think I was crying that day because I hurt myself.
SPEAKER_00: And uh my mom says, What's going on?
SPEAKER_00: Why what's what's the matter?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Melissa's been meeting beating me all day with this jump rope.
SPEAKER_00: Uh just so you know, Melissa's the same, it's the same name, my wife and my sister.
SPEAKER_00: Awkward at first, but once you get past it, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: So Melissa, I said, Melissa's been beating me with this jump rope all day.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, No, she hadn't.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Look, there's whelps all over me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what's worse, I haven't shared this before, I think I just remembered this.
SPEAKER_00: I would get in the shower and make it real hot to where it was real red.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's terrible, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: But I I tell you all that because we're talking about conflict, we're talking about brothers and sisters, and if we were to compare it to our family of origin, we get real crafty and how we hide from being hurt.
SPEAKER_00: We get real crafty in the way that we make our defense and we back up and we kind of retreat back home because we don't want to get hurt.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to tell the truth to each other, and we've gotten to the point, and I'm not a big in this country, but in this country, we've gotten to the point where we can't tell the truth.
SPEAKER_00: We can't have an opinion that differs.
SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: If you have an opinion that's based in the Bible, well then you're you're just you're worn out, you're old, your opinion is archaic and not relevant.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to come to the point we can articulate our beliefs, because by the way, the world is watching.
SPEAKER_00: And they're seeing if we can articulate what we believe without being just pompous about it, without being pharisaical about it.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's about time that we start practicing and articulating what we believe, being truthful to one another, perhaps even wounding one another, so that we can grow up in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Ephesians 4 talks about.
SPEAKER_00: He says, one of the main, primary means of maturity in your life and in my life is if we speak the truth and love to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget the in love part.
SPEAKER_00: I'm real good about the first part.
SPEAKER_00: I've made this joke before in my class.
SPEAKER_00: I I will punch you in the mouth and then I'll offer you a Kleenex like I care.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't mean to.
SPEAKER_00: But to speak the truth in love to one another.
SPEAKER_00: That is the way that we are going to become mature in the faith, and that is right in the context of the church.
SPEAKER_00: If we suspect that our foundations, which I just said, our foundation is the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There is no firmer foundation than that for our relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no firmer foundation than that.
SPEAKER_00: And it made me all think through this great quote that we have on our refrigerator at home.
SPEAKER_00: That just drives us.
SPEAKER_00: It drives us in a lot of what we do and how we relate, uh, my wife and I to each other, to our kids, to our community group, but whatever, whatever we're doing, this is the quote that kind of drives us.
SPEAKER_00: It's not in the Bible, but it's certainly founded on biblical principles, talking about speaking the truth to one another.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh by a guy by the name of Paul Waddell.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Waddell wrote a book called Becoming Friends, and he says this about telling the truth to one another and really what's at stake.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if we suspect that the foundations of a relationship are fragile, we will say anything but the truth because we fear that the truth will only expose how frail the relationship really is.
SPEAKER_00: In such situations, people can be cheerful and friendly to one another, and to outside observers seem full of care for one another.
SPEAKER_00: But they have an unspoken agreement never to be completely truthful with one another because they know the bond of their relationship is so threadbare that the weight of the truth would snap it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but that reminds me of the church.
SPEAKER_00: The part about uh to outsiders we look like everything's cool.
SPEAKER_00: But we've never really spoken the truth to one another about what we believe, about what we see.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying you go around and you call everybody out for the sin you see.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: I think more importantly, would be encouraging one another.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow we hide from that responsibility that it is a command in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the church, and it's calling all of us to just be truthful in love.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't do this, if we don't act like brothers and sisters, we're gonna miss out on some really fruitful things in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna miss out on the fruit of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna know that you need to repent until somebody tells you?
SPEAKER_00: How's somebody else gonna know that they need to repent until you tell them?
SPEAKER_00: That's the harder part.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna miss on repentance, we're gonna miss out on rejoicing or mourning because we won't know what's going on in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: We won't know if they just got a job or if their husband just died.
SPEAKER_00: We'll miss on perhaps the greatest fruit in all of this, but the greatest one that has most discipline associated with it is forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That is a discipline, that is something to be trained up in each of us to forgive as God has forgiven us.
SPEAKER_00: We'll miss out on all of that if we don't start relating with one another through the lens of grace and the lens of family.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this life of repentance and the art of forgiveness is the key to the second point, which is this community not is is it's not just family.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why it's family is because it stays.
SPEAKER_00: Community stays.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's right there again in the first verse.
SPEAKER_00: I can't move out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.
SPEAKER_00: Dwell.
SPEAKER_00: That community, biblical community, Christian community stays with you.
SPEAKER_00: That Hebrew word is yeshav.
SPEAKER_00: Yeshav.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you can impress your friends at work with that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeshav, you can even say that one.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it means to sit down, to remain, or to inhabit.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that one in context of your relationships.
SPEAKER_00: You have no intention of leaving.
SPEAKER_00: You have no intention of getting out when it gets too hard.
SPEAKER_00: You have no intention or plans to leave when it gets awkward.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that word purposefully because uh I didn't share this in the second service, I did share it in the first, but I feel like I need to now, and I I hate that I need to, but I'm going to.
SPEAKER_00: Uh because it means I have to die.
SPEAKER_00: It means I have to die to what I really want to say and try and help, you know, impress, you know, basically manage your impression of me, which is pretty much death.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is this I went on a uh I went to a conference last year, and the guy I went to the conference with uh had a great time with him.
SPEAKER_00: Um and basically what it came out of there was, and all of you can go into my office right now, and if you ever go into my office, you'll see a no exit sign in my office.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you even went with me to this conference.
SPEAKER_00: But in the in my office, there's a no exit sign in my conference.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means for me, and what he gave it to me for, and he said, put it in your office, and whenever anybody asks you, you have to go to the Have to explain it to them.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Let me save you a trip and I'll tell you what it is now.
SPEAKER_00: It's a no exit sign, meaning, hey, when you run out of wit, when you run out of your own competence, you can't leave.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's your tendency, but you're not allowed to leave.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he was telling me was I have a tendency that whenever I get into situations where I run out of wit or run out of competence, I go, all right, well, I gotta go talk to somebody else, see you later.
SPEAKER_00: And I start, I mean, it's just basically the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just whirling a sock full of marbles up in the air, going, All right, I gotta get out of this.
SPEAKER_00: All right, see you later.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's a whole lot of me and not a whole lot of you.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you have probably experienced that, to which I'll just say, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I've repented and I'm repenting of that selfish behavior.
SPEAKER_00: And I tell you all that because this is what community is.
SPEAKER_00: And I told my growth group on Friday morning, I have a feeling I'm gonna get painfully just transparent in front of everybody.
SPEAKER_00: But what other way are we going to understand the value of community if someone doesn't model it?
SPEAKER_00: Because I'll just be real honest, I don't like telling that story.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like when people tell it back to me.
SPEAKER_00: Because that means I have a some sort of deficiency.
SPEAKER_00: But that's reality, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's why I was saved.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you were saved, and it is not comfortable, but it is absolutely necessary for us to just be able to stay.
SPEAKER_00: For us to just be able to see each other's wounds or problems or sins and say, but I see something better in you, and it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To flesh that out a little bit more, uh, I have a friend of mine who is a dwelling relationship, and I haven't even talked about the historical background of this, that David is one who certainly experienced dwelling relationships.
SPEAKER_00: That this guy named Nathan basically came and confronted him, his friend, after David.
SPEAKER_00: What did he do when he wrote this song?
SPEAKER_00: Right before he wrote this song, years before, who knows?
SPEAKER_00: But he just got done committing his sin with Bathsheba, which was adultery, and if that wasn't enough, he pulled Bathsheba's uh husband off the front lines of battle, and he brought him home and he said, Hey man, I just he was trying to cover up his sin, trying to cover up that he had just had uh sex with Bathsheba, and she's pregnant now, and she's another man's wife, and so he brings her home and he says, Hey, I've done a great favor to you, Uriah.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to, I'm giving you a night with your wife.
SPEAKER_00: You've been working so hard, I'm gonna give you a night with your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Go on home and enjoy her.
SPEAKER_00: Uriah, he's has much more character and integrity than David thought of at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: But Uriah doesn't go home.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he sleeps on the porch.
SPEAKER_00: He says, How dare I go in and be with my wife when my men are on the front, the front lines of battle?
SPEAKER_00: So David's conniving plan doesn't work, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, he's a man after God's own heart, so you can't get too down on him.
SPEAKER_00: He does some unbelievably great things in his life, but this wasn't one of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so Nathan comes to him and he says, Hey, let me just tell you about a guy who takes some, the only thing that's precious to a man.
SPEAKER_00: It's the only thing he can afford, it's the only thing he has.
SPEAKER_00: And there's another guy that has everything.
SPEAKER_00: And that guy goes and takes the little precious thing from the one guy that's the only possession he had, and then he takes it for himself and he doesn't care.
SPEAKER_00: What would you think about that?
SPEAKER_00: And David said, Well, let's kill him.
SPEAKER_00: And Nathan said, You're him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I tell you all that because Nathan was courageous enough to, number one, be sent by the Lord and then go just show a mirror up to David.
SPEAKER_00: But the result of that is a changed life.
SPEAKER_00: David repented and moved on from that and became the great guy that we all know and respect and love in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And so he writes that we are to have and how good and pleasing it is for us to have dwelling relationships where there's no exit signs.
SPEAKER_00: As Neil said on the email yesterday, there's no doorknobs.
SPEAKER_00: I just immediately thought, exit sign.
SPEAKER_00: But to flesh that out like I was going to just a minute ago, I have a friend of mine who called me not too long ago and he said, Hey, uh, I don't know what's going on, but I've been praying for you and I need to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay, you're gonna confess some sin, like I'm ready to hear your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and he goes, No, this is about you.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Okay, I got I gotta go.
SPEAKER_00: There's a meeting or something.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know what I don't know what it is, but I gotta go.
SPEAKER_00: And he just said, Ah, whatever, man.
SPEAKER_00: Just, hey, I just want to let you know, I don't know what it is, I don't know what's going on, but I can sense in our relationship that you're becoming cynical, that you're becoming guarded, that you're becoming jaded.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Hey, that's the old lance, and you're supposed to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: And he's coming back.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't like him, but I love you.
SPEAKER_00: And I sat there and I immediately went through, but I have all these reasons why I'm that way.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you understand?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not safe out here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're gonna hurt me.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00: That's my whole point.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said this, and this is the part where I knew the Holy Spirit was on it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, but just so you know, no matter what it is that's gonna hurt you or whatever, you have to stay woundable.
SPEAKER_00: You need to stay woundable.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just pull away, you can't just hide.
SPEAKER_00: You can't, that's not okay.
SPEAKER_00: You're not allowed to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's charging me to, and he's what I'm charging you to, and my own life and my own failures, is basically this.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God dwells within us.
SPEAKER_00: That should change our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He set up shop.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same Greek word as the Hebrew word here.
SPEAKER_00: That he has come and set up shop in us, and although we've tried to basically hide our sin and shove our sin into every crook and nanny of our lives and of our souls, Jesus has come, sent his spirit, washed all that clean, and said, I'm here to stay.
SPEAKER_00: You can't push me out.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what.
SPEAKER_00: And so when my buddy tells me that I'm called to do that, to stay woundable, it's certainly uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like that.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't, that goes against my control.
SPEAKER_00: But it is absolutely necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely necessary.
SPEAKER_00: He said, you can't pull back from leading and living like you're about to be hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, you've got to lean in and give yourself to everything and everyone, just like Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the gospel, right?
SPEAKER_00: This God who at the end of his life, in the midst of basically he's leaning up against all of his buddies at the Last Supper, and he just got done washing their feet, which included Judas, and then he's about to tell Peter, hey, Peter, you're about to deny me three times, and Peter's going, No, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: I would never do that.
SPEAKER_00: Right in the middle of all of that, Jesus says, I got a new command for you, men.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to, as I have loved you, so you love one another.
SPEAKER_00: As I have loved you.
SPEAKER_00: And how did Jesus love us?
SPEAKER_00: How does he love us?
SPEAKER_00: He gave everything.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2 says he was poured out, making himself nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And so he calls us as with all of that.
SPEAKER_00: That's your fuel for life.
SPEAKER_00: That's your fuel for loving one another.
SPEAKER_00: Not your accomplishments, not your comparisons.
SPEAKER_00: My love for you, and then you loving one another.
SPEAKER_00: If that's our fuel, it's never ending.
SPEAKER_00: We can love one another, no matter how awkward it gets or uncomfortable it gets.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, that's the command.
SPEAKER_00: It's disobedient not to do it.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the kind of love that's found in the power of the gospel, which is where we landed last week.
SPEAKER_00: It's the power that sets us free to be freely woundable people, which I've just done painfully.
SPEAKER_00: But a dwelling people, that's what this is called, what we're called to be, a dwelling people with no intention of moving on or saying, you know what, that was too wicked for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm out.
SPEAKER_00: Dwelling people to be able to do that, finding reasons to reject one another, being driven by each other's weaknesses, whatever it may be, is not the call of God.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to get beyond all of that.
SPEAKER_00: It's this kind of dwelling community that has no other option than to become united by these bonds, these bonds of dwelling with one another, which kind of leads me to my final point, and that's this, and we're done.
SPEAKER_00: Community is not just family.
SPEAKER_00: Community doesn't just stay.
SPEAKER_00: Community sticks.
SPEAKER_00: It's sticky.
SPEAKER_00: Which made me, again, maybe uncomfortable, but it sticks.
SPEAKER_00: There's a unity there, exactly what David says.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity or togetherness.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh Adam and Eve knew that unity.
SPEAKER_00: They knew, uh they experienced it firsthand in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 2 ends with husband, man, Adam, created.
SPEAKER_00: God says it's not good for man to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: Then wife, Eve is created, and we get the picture in the model of marriage right out of Genesis 2.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father and be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: They will become one.
SPEAKER_00: Oneness, unity, togetherness.
SPEAKER_00: And then it keeps on going.
SPEAKER_00: He says, and oh, by the way, the man and the woman were naked and not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of my buddies in college favorite verses as he went and goes streak down uh University Drive at Texas AM.
SPEAKER_00: They were naked and not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what I believe they're talking about is not just this physical intimacy that they certainly uh uh uh experienced, but modeled for us that before sin came into the world, we had the ability, and now that Jesus has come into the world and established this togetherness for the family of God, that we can sit and be with one another in such a way that there's no shame.
SPEAKER_00: And we can share ourselves with one another where there's no shame.
SPEAKER_00: Emotionally, spiritually, whatever's going on in our lives, we can just know you're dwelling here with me, you're journeying here with me, you're gonna be here with me.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm freed up to just tell you everything I got.
SPEAKER_00: No wonder there's healing when it comes to confessing our sins, as James 5 talks about.
SPEAKER_00: And all of us can go, okay, that's cool.
SPEAKER_00: We're glad you just talked about that.
SPEAKER_00: I remember that a little bit from the last time you preached.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good, all that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fuzzy ideal, but it gets worked out very practically.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this week I had the opportunity to uh basically experience something at the end or after uh the life of two men.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the first one is very sad, and so I just want to kind of just say there's two ends of this spectrum that I'm gonna paint for you.
SPEAKER_00: When we talk about dwelling relationships that are united, that are together.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this.
SPEAKER_00: I went to the hospital, uh, our hospital down in the med center this week of a man.
SPEAKER_00: Uh there uh their family called me and said, Hey, can you go down there?
SPEAKER_00: I know you mean a lot to him.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Absolutely, I would love to go down there.
SPEAKER_00: Go down there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I sit with him, and he is on full um lung and heart support.
SPEAKER_00: Not doing well.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is about the third or fourth heart attack he's had in a month.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and he's just not good.
SPEAKER_00: And I just sat there and I prayed over him and I talked with him, uh, which is weird and awkward, but necessary.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and so I talked with him and prayed with him and and got out of there, and I called his daughter back and I said, Hey, I just I think you need to come up here.
SPEAKER_00: I think he needs someone that loves him, that just sits next to him, even if for 30 minutes, whatever it takes.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Yeah, uh I would, I I want to, but my transmission's been acting up lately, and I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make it down there.
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought to myself, something went wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Dwelling never entered into their hearts and their minds.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing, something went wrong with that family.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where and I don't know when, it's not my business.
SPEAKER_00: But I do know that I'm there and my heart is breaking for a man who is in the ICU waiting to get better enough to have surgery.
SPEAKER_00: And then that's the really sad downer part, probably the saddest thing that I've experienced in a while.
SPEAKER_00: And then the other part of it, that I went to a funeral yesterday right here in this room.
SPEAKER_00: As full as this room is, it doesn't even compare to the fullness of the room yesterday for a funeral.
SPEAKER_00: There were 400 plus people in this room.
SPEAKER_00: If you think about the Christmas Eve service, if you were here, it was almost felt close to that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were people everywhere, people standing in the lobby, people standing in the doors, all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: Were there people here to celebrate the life of a man who absolutely and literally lived life to its fullest?
SPEAKER_00: He never took an opportunity for granted.
SPEAKER_00: He never took a day for granted.
SPEAKER_00: I sat in the back and I ran slides and I got done with it, and I go, what a refreshing funeral.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, have you ever been to a funeral and just been like, my soul's been lifted up by this?
SPEAKER_00: What great perspective.
SPEAKER_00: What great.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was walked out and I was like, man, I gotta go take advantage of this day.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, I what do you need to do?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so much so that I said something crazy to his wife, the man that died now, his widow.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I just want to tell you, I normally would offer my condolences in a situation like this.
SPEAKER_00: But after being in that service and understanding your husband a little bit more, I want to offer my congratulations to you.
SPEAKER_00: What a life well lived.
SPEAKER_00: And how I don't know what, you know, I know that being his wife, probably you were, I mean, unbelievably encouraged, and you encouraged him to be able to live this way.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, what an awesome life.
SPEAKER_00: She was like, it was awesome, and it still is.
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
SPEAKER_00: Rock on.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the kind of unity that comes when we dwell with one another, when we take advantage of the opportunities that I'm talking about here of just loving, really without regard to self.
SPEAKER_00: He certainly did that, and as a result, room full of people.
SPEAKER_00: Room full of people.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same ideal that really Luke talks about in Acts 2, when he says, all who believed were together and had all things in common.
SPEAKER_00: And they attended temple together, they attended worship together.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing that Paul talks about in Galatians 3, where he says, There's no Jew, there's no Gentile, there's no slave, there's no free, there's no male, there's no female.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we're all one in Christ, united as sons and daughters of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: So I got a question as we leave here today if this all is good and pleasing, and it is.
SPEAKER_00: With whom has God called you to form a dwelling relationship?
SPEAKER_00: Where you maybe haven't experienced it in a while.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you look at your husband or your wife and you're like, man, I'm dwelling, but that's about it.
SPEAKER_00: Like we're just in the dwelling place.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's time to push past that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's someone next to you on the row, down the row, and you know that you need to connect with them, or else they're gonna fall away.
SPEAKER_00: You may never see them again.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a visitor here, and you're like, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I want to go connect with them a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: With whom?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they're not in this room at all.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's your brother, your literal brother or sister.
SPEAKER_00: With whom is God calling you to form a dwelling relationship?
SPEAKER_00: Because let me just say this and I'll end and I'll skip to the end of 133, Psalm 133.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's at stake.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest blessing that David emphasizes at the end of the Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: He says this at the end of verse 3, for there, right there in Jerusalem, where you're going to finally meet your journey of worship, for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: Eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the greatest expression of eternal life is lived out next to other people.
SPEAKER_00: When you and I die, and Revelation paints this picture very clearly, we are going to be surrounded in amongst the multitudes.
SPEAKER_00: That's not you alone, at home in your chair with a cat and a candle.
SPEAKER_00: Cats aren't a part of my worship either.
SPEAKER_00: Dog, maybe?
SPEAKER_00: That's not you doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it's you amongst the multitudes worshiping Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's community.
SPEAKER_00: That's the fullest expression of worship.
SPEAKER_00: And what I think all this is coming down to, we can't just live for then and there.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to live for the here and now and develop the relationship now.
SPEAKER_00: So, how does this go from here on out?
SPEAKER_00: I could probably end and we could pray and we'd be done.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just encourage you to do one thing.
SPEAKER_00: As we leave today, I'm gonna we're gonna pray and we're gonna respond and we're gonna think.
SPEAKER_00: And as we do that, I want you to think about somebody, maybe it's in this room, maybe it's not, that you need to form that dwelling relationship with, and then I want you to practice it.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just find somebody that you maybe you recognize, maybe you don't, maybe they're new, maybe you have no idea who they are, but I want you to recognize one person in this room that you feel maybe perhaps God's calling you to just go and start a relationship with them.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's you've you've kind of rubbed elbows with this person and you've seen them for two, three weeks, two, three years, and you don't know who they are.
SPEAKER_00: Today's the day to go introduce yourself to them, and I'm not even going to give you a talking point.
SPEAKER_00: The talking point is this: what's one thing in the service that captured your imagination and why?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was the Apostles' Creed when we left out the word Catholic and we used universal.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that was the thing that captured your imagination.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's something that Clyde said, or something that Wade said, or maybe it's who are these people on this on this on this prayer card?
SPEAKER_00: Who are these people?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you need to ask somebody who they are.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever captured your imagination, just talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Five minutes.
SPEAKER_00: That's all it takes.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna do that as we get done here.
SPEAKER_00: But before we get done here, let me just pray and ask the Lord to show us the way from here.
SPEAKER_00: Because uh as we get going with this, there's awkwardness and uncomfortability.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll end with this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I recently met a guy up in my uh up in my Bible study, Bible community, and I just said, Hey man, just want to talk to you, get to hang out with you, never get to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, hey, just so you know, this is my first Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: I said, What?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I would never know.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah, I've been a Christian my whole life, but I don't know anything.
SPEAKER_00: And and I and I just said, Yeah, now we're talking.
SPEAKER_00: This is a dwelling relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is now we're moving.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I just, I said, what changed for you?
SPEAKER_00: What brought you up here?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, you know, I just I just thought to myself, I've been a Christian my whole life, and I don't know what I believe.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know where.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you keep saying things like, well, you know, every other place in the Bible, he goes, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where that is.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just be real honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh man, this is like my dream come true.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I love you, and you just come near to me, and we're just gonna hang out.
SPEAKER_00: And then I wanted to impart all my biblical knowledge to him, which was not be good.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but nonetheless, he just said, Hey, I just I said, What changed for you?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, I just there came a point in my life where I had to get past the awkwardness and the uncomfortability of not knowing really what to expect.
SPEAKER_00: And I just pushed through it, and I'm I'm a better man for it, and my wife's a better woman for it.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, man, yes.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what this sermon hopefully produces in all of us.
SPEAKER_00: People that just push past whatever's uncomfortable, push past whatever's awkward for the greater benefit of really living out the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Hold out your hands like this and let me speak a word of blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to relate to one another based on your acceptance of them or your accomplishments or theirs.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, relate to them in the way that God relates to you, based on his accomplishments for you, his love for you, and be poured out and into each other.
SPEAKER_00: Go now and do that.
SPEAKER_00: Meet that person in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.