Living for One Another

Join us each week as we learn more about Jesus and how to Follow Jesus Together at Alderwood Community Church. Our hope is that these messages can help guide and teach you in your walk with Jesus. To learn more, visit alderwood.cc or join us on a Sunday morning!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Great to be with you, Alderwood. We are wrapping up a series this morning called Never Alone. And uh yeah, excited for what God has for us this morning. I was hanging out with a friend uh just a couple days ago with our kids. Uh both of our sons are about the same age and both doing youth sports, and we were just kind of catching up on how the baseball season was going. That's where that's where we're at right now with our son Thatcher. And he was telling me about his son and their team. And I have to be honest, I got so jealous because he found this team that he put his kid on that's just amazing. I've actually seen them play not baseball but soccer. And they were that team where as soon as warmups start, you just realize like this is gonna be a bad day. Like it's just these kids are just unbelievable. And these coaches, they had these kids doing things I just thought were like way beyond what was possible for kindergarten uh kids. They had they were running plays, they had positions. I mean, you know, our team was just like a massive humanity that tried to follow the ball around, and and these people were operating at another level. And I asked my friend, I was like, what's the secret? Like, how do these people get these kids to behave this way and to create this kind of team? How does it work? And basically he said, Look, I there's three coaches on this team, they all played college athletics, and the secret basically is high expectations. They treat these kindergartners as if they also are college athletes, and they just expect something of them, and the kids live up to it. Like, I'm not kidding. They're their like coach pitch first grade baseball team was running pickle drills. Like, you know what that means. Like, that's way beyond anything that first graders are supposed to be doing, but the kids do it. And the reason I bring that up this morning is because I'm gonna be asking kind of a similar question about our church family, about the family of God, about uh what the secret is, how what makes it work? And it's a really important question because the family of God is kind of the answer to the question we've been asking in this whole series. In this series, we've been looking at this reality that uh we are created for relationship, that we're created for community, to be in relationship with one another. It's it's wired into how God made us, there's no way of getting around it. And what that means is that loneliness, that isolation, that being cut off from other people that when our relationships get messed up, that all of that cause these really big problems for us as human beings because we were made for something more. And what we've been coming to discover is that Jesus knows this about us, he knows what we need, that we need each other, and that his answer, his solution is this new family of God that he invites us into. Because of his death and resurrection, we get to be adopted into the family of God. That's the answer. And what I want to ask this morning is okay, what makes it work? What is the secret to when the family of God actually is filling all of those needs that we have deep inside of us? Because if you've been a Christian for very long, if you've been around the church, you know that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Right? Like, I hope if you've been around church for very long, you have gotten the taste of how being around brothers and sisters in Christ and having people who know you and pray for you and encourage you, who understand that you're not perfect just like they're not perfect, that that what will love you in your best moments and your worst. Like, I hope you've gotten a taste of how that can be the thing that God uses to fill some of our deepest needs. But if you've been around church for very long, I also know that you've probably experienced the opposite, that you've had some disappointments, that you've had some heartbreaks, that you've had the ways that the church has let you down. And maybe that's where you're coming in this morning from. And so if we want to build a community here at Alderwood where we get to experience the family of God in the way that Jesus wants us to experience it, what is it that makes it actually be what it's supposed to be? That's what we're gonna ask this morning. And we're gonna look for the answer in some of Jesus' teaching, actually, in one of his most famous parables ever. It's one that you're gonna recognize this morning for sure. And it has a simple point, and it's simple point is easy to overlook because it's not anything that you haven't heard before, but it is revolutionary, it is transformative, and even though it's simple, if we can live it out, I think we'll experience the power and the goodness of God in ways that go way beyond anything we ever imagined when we think about what a church can be. So let's let's get into it together. Jesus is teaching, and uh he's becoming quite famous for one particular teaching in uh in particular, this teaching that that really shocked everyone who heard it. There was a really uh common question in the day, which was like, what's the most important thing in the Bible? If you had to boil it down to just one command, one thing God said, what would it be? And everybody knew what the answer was. There was a Sunday school answer that you were supposed to memorize. Everyone knew it. It was called the Shema. It's from Deuteronomy chapter six. And the most important thing in the Bible was to love God with your entire being, with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so every Jewish person in Jesus' audience, they had that answer memorized, they were ready to go. What's the most important commandment? Love God with your heart, soul, mind. And what Jesus does is he adds to it. And it's not something you were supposed to really mess with, but Jesus has his own take. And so when Jesus is asked, what's the most important commandment? He says, I can't just give you one, I'm gonna give you two. It is love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Uh yes. But it is also love your neighbor as yourself. How you love people to Jesus, it has to be included in your love of God. It can't be left out. And people had heard Jesus saying this, and people knew what his answer was. And so one day Jesus is teaching and he's getting to this part, and somebody decides to kind of test Jesus, to push back a little bit on this idea today. And so uh Jesus actually, you know, asked this guy, this lawyer in the crowd, uh, the question what's the most important commandment? And the lawyer answers it right. He gets the answer right. He gives Jesus his answer. He says, Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus says, Gold star, you got it right. Good job. But the lawyer, he says, I'm not done yet. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Here's what I really want to know. Who is my neighbor? Okay, I get it. Right? I have to love my neighbor as myself. But like, how far does that really go? I mean, we've all heard a version of this question, right? How good do I have to be? I mean, if you're a parent, you know this question well. Like, how far do I have to go in obeying this that you've asked me to do? How how much of my dinner do I have to eat before I can be excused? You know, uh, that kind of thing. Like, how much neighbor loving do I actually have to do, Jesus? Who's in this group? And that's where we get this famous parable of the good Samaritan. Jesus answers that question, not with a simple answer, but with a story. And it goes like this. This is Luke chapter 10, verse 30. It says a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. Now, everybody who heard this in that day, uh, this was actually a common thing that would happen. People knew about this road. It was a treacherous place, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. You know, this might be akin to you hearing that somebody was walking alone in the middle of the night in South Seattle down a dark alley or something like that. This was the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and you can see why it was treacherous. It was it was remote. Uh, and so, you know, once you got out here, if you were by yourself, there was no help coming quickly. And there were all of these, you know, rocks and caves and all kinds of things that people could hide behind. And so it was a very common place for robbers to hang out and wait until somebody was by themselves and to jump them and to take their stuff. That's what's happened here in this story. They've taken his clothes because those are very valuable, everything he owns, and they've beaten him to the point that he's almost dead. And so, as you can picture, there's a guy who is just, I mean, he's not gonna make it. He can't take care of himself, he can't get himself out of this remote valley that he's in. His only hope is if someone will come along and take care of him and do for him what he can't do for himself. And Jesus goes on and says, somebody does come along. A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. If you've ever wondered why Jesus wasn't super popular with priests and Levites, uh stories like this go a little bit uh in explaining it, because what is he saying here? He's like, look, you know, how lucky for this guy that a priest comes by. I mean, if anybody's gonna help you, it's gotta be a priest, right? This guy's job is to take care of people, to shepherd God's people. And the priest comes by and sees the dude in need, but he specifically goes out of his way to not get close to that guy. He can't be bothered, he he's too busy, we don't know, he doesn't care, but he just he's not helping. But then again, like how lucky another guy comes by, and this guy's a Levite, and the Levite surely, I mean, he knows God's law, he knows that God said to love your neighbor, and and the Levite again, like just goes out of his way to not help this guy. And then Jesus says something next that just blew everyone's minds, it that turned their world and the way they thought about things upside down. This is what he said. But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denari, two days' wages, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, Take care of him. When I come back, I will reimburse you for whatever extra you spend. This guy goes above and beyond. He gives his own money. He puts the guy in his own animal, which means he's walking. He he writes a blank check. He says, Whatever it takes to take care of this guy, I will come and pay for it. I mean, an amazing story. That's not what blew people's mind, though. What blew people's mind was that this was a Samaritan. And in this day, uh, there was no group of people that the Jewish people thought less of than the Samaritans. Like if there was any group that people were sure that God did not actually call them to love, it was the Samaritans, right? If there's any exception to Jesus' rule at all, it's the Samaritans. The Samaritans in the Jewish mind uh had turned their back on their people. They were, they they shared an ancestry with the Jewish people, and so um, you know, they had turned their back on their brothers and sisters, they turned their back on God, they'd intermarried with with other uh empires, and like they just they could not stand the Samaritans. They wouldn't hang out with them, they wouldn't talk to them. And what Jesus does by making the hero of his story a Samaritan is he makes sure that it's clear to everyone who heard it, there are no exceptions to the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself. That Jesus is called to love one another. It goes beyond all the things that we could get in our mind that would give us an excuse not to apply it to someone. And that's actually where Jesus leaves us. He says, This is the whole point. I want you to live this out. This is how he ends. He turns to the lawyer. He says, All right, you heard the story, pop quiz. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The one who showed mercy to him, he said. And then Jesus told him, Go and do likewise. I mean, do you see the response in 37? Like the lawyer, he can't even bring himself to say the word Samaritan, right? The one who showed mercy is what he says. And Jesus says, go and do likewise. So my question for us this morning is what does it look like for us to go and do likewise? What does it look like for us to be like the good Samaritan in this story? And it it might be a little bit more complicated than it seems at first because uh it's not as simple as to just take it literally, right? I mean, you probably are never going to find yourself in a similar situation. I would be surprised if any of you on your way to the car you know after church comes across somebody beaten and bloodied and in desperate need of medical care. And if you were to find yourself in that situation, this might sound controversial. You should not do what the Good Samaritan did. Don't. Like, don't put them on a donkey and like break out the olive oil and the wine. Like, no, call 911 for goodness' sakes. I mean, like that's the world we live in, right? Call 911, wait for the ambulance to come, maybe the police will show up, give them a report. Uh, but like they're gonna be taken to a hospital, not an inn, and uh their needs are gonna be taken care of. Like, that's the society we live in. That's not Jesus' point. What does he mean when he says go and do likewise? It's incredibly simple, and it's one of the most profound, complex things to live out you'll ever encounter. Jesus is telling us this that we follow Jesus together by loving one another. That's what he means by do likewise. Love the people that God has brought into your life. And whoever it is that you think, yes, but not that person, he means that person too. That's the point of the Good Samaritan. Love one another. Like I said, like I said, you've heard this story before. This is a point that I'm sure you've heard before as well, that we should love one another. And yet, Jesus wants to make sure that we don't just move past this. It's actually incredibly central to what Jesus teaches us about who we're supposed to be. He comes back to it over and over and over again at a command to love one another. It shows up 15 different times in the New Testament alone. And in fact, Jesus says, when he's trying to tell us about what the family of God's gonna look like, he says, like, this is the thing. It's not just one of the things, it's the thing. Look at what Jesus says in John 13, verse 35. He says, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Like, end of list. Okay. How are people gonna know who the followers of Jesus is? How are people gonna know what the family of God looks like? They're gonna be the people who love one another. He could have said anything there, right? I mean, he could have said, How are people gonna know my followers? Well, uh, here's my doctrinal statement, and the people who can sign off every single line, they're the ones that are it. I'm not against doctrinal statements, by the way. We just updated ours, big fan. Uh, but that's not what Jesus says. You know, how are people gonna know Jesus? Who are your followers? He could have said, Well, here are all the Jesus bumper stickers, and everybody's gonna put them on the back of their car, and that's how you know who the followers of Jesus are. It doesn't say that. No, he says, here's how you're gonna know who my disciples are. They're the people who will love one another. And look, as simple as that is, it is also incredibly complex, which is why so much of the New Testament is really just trying to teach us what it looks like to live that out. Like tangibly in your everyday life. What does it look like to live as a community of people who are loving one another? And it's there's all kinds of different angles on it. There's these things called the one another statements in the New Testament, all these different commands of how we live out the command to live or to love one another. And I just want to run through them with you really quick. I mean, this is how complicated it can be. What does it look like to love one another? That's where we start in John 13, 15. Well, we build one another up. We bear with one another, we welcome one another, we be kind to one another, we forgive one another, we honor one another, we serve one another, we submit to one another, we live in harmony with one another. We teach and admonish one another, we urge one another on to love and good deeds. We confess our sins to one another, we show hospitality to one another. There's a fair number of things we don't do as well. We don't judge one another, we don't cause one another to stumble, we don't bite and devour one another, we don't provoke one another, we don't envy one another, we don't lie to one another, we don't criticize one another, we don't complain about one another. I mean, just every different way possible trying to help us see this is the most important thing about what it means to be the family of God. This is how I want you to live it out. And I want you to think for a second about why this is so important. Okay, the the family of God, the church, it is the way that Jesus is present in the world today through his Holy Spirit. We are the we are the body of Christ, we are the message to the world about who Jesus is. And who Jesus is, is he is the one who loved us first. And the way that we show the world who Jesus is is by living that way as well. I love how that gets spelled out in the book of Philippians. This is another way of kind of saying the same thing we've been talking about. This is Philippians chapter 2, verse 4. It says, everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. It's a way of loving people, is I don't just care about what I need, I care about what the people around me need. But what I love is what comes next is that Paul explains how this works. He says, the way that you can be someone who looks to the interests of others first is by adopting the attitude of Jesus. Paul goes on to say, he says, have the same attitude as Christ, who was equal with God. Jesus, before he came to earth, lived in heaven, equal with the Father, equal with the Holy Spirit, untainted by sin, unaffected by suffering or anything of the bad things that happened in this world. And yet, rather than just hang on to the equality that he had, rather than hang on to being separate from our broken world, he entered into our broken worlds for us. He took on the form of a man, even a servant. He was obedient to the Father, even to the point of death. Like that's how Jesus loved us, and that is the only way that we can possibly love others is by pouring out what Jesus has poured into us. That story that Jesus told 2,000 years ago when he was surrounded by people, hanging on his every word, listening to the parable of the Good Samaritan. People were astounded by what Jesus said. But none of them understood the fullness of what Jesus was talking about. Because no one that day realized that Jesus was actually telling a story about himself. That in reality, Jesus is the ultimate good Samaritan. He is the one who saw us bloodied on the side of the road, beaten up by our sin, completely incapable of caring for our own needs, in desperate need of someone to come along and save us. And though Jesus owed us nothing, he gave of himself to bring us home, to heal us, to restore us, to bring us into the family of God. And what Jesus says is you're adopted, you're forgiven, you're given a hope and a future, but now your call is to live that way towards others as well. And so I want to think with you for a moment this morning. What does it look like for us to be that kind of community here at Alderwood Community Church? How can we live in a way where our relationships, our community, it is a picture of the love that Jesus has shown towards us? Put another way, what will make Alderwood thrive? What will make this church community a place that we all want to be a part of? A place that actually can meet our deepest needs, where we're growing, where we're we're worshiping, where we have relationships with one another and we love one another and we experience the goodness of God through each other. Like, what will make that happen? And there's all kinds of things that make Alderwood great, you know? Uh we have this amazing facility that God has provided us, and we can host all kinds of events and groups. And, you know, I love what we're doing at midweek, and I love the services where we get to come and worship. We have a great worship team, we have a commitment to teaching God's word. Like there's so many things that make Alderwood a great place to be. And it's possible, I think, actually, that you might walk into a church like this, which is a very big church, and there's a lot of people here, and think that the things that make this a great place to be don't really have much to do with you, you know? Like you're never gonna put on an event here, you're never gonna teach on a Sunday morning, likely, you're probably not gonna ever play in the worship band. Some of you may, and that's awesome, but most of us don't have that skill set. I certainly don't. But what Jesus is saying is that actually, what really makes the family of God thrive, what actually will make Alderwood thrive, it isn't what happens on a stage. It isn't the events and the stuff that we can do. It is the reality of how we treat one another. And that absolutely does have everything to do with how you show up here. And so, what does it look like for you to follow Jesus right now in being a part of making this the community where we can experience the life of God together? I I wonder if any of you uh this morning are not really up for a sermon where you get told. Like be better and do more. Um, I know I know that I've been there, you know, and it could be that you're like, you're hearing this and you're like, yeah, like I I want to be a part of a great church and I want to do my thing, but man, I'm just I'm just burned out right now. I've got so many things going on. My my calendar is full, like the relationship stuff in my life right now is complex and it's too much. And like I can't do much more than just drive my car to the parking lot and make it into the service a couple times a month. Like, stop telling me to do more than that. I I can't do it. And I I want you to know, like, I've been there. You know, the answer to how we have Alder Thrive and what it looks like to live out what it means to be the people of Jesus, it isn't that we become people with no boundaries who always say yes, and all of us just give, give, give, and that's just our entire life until we die. That's not it. Uh, I I mean, I remember I had to kind of wrestle with this a few years ago. My wife and I, we led a life group here for over a decade and loved it. And God used it in huge ways in our life. We loved the people we were with. Many of them are still close friends of ours today. Um, but a few years we did get to that point of just kind of burnout with all that was going on. I had just become the lead pastor here. We had young kids at home, and we were starting a new thing here at Alderwood midweek, and I was gonna be a part of that. So there was another evening of being out, and I just had this kind of uh martyr mentality. Like I just felt like this is just what I have to do. We have to keep, we have to do it all. And my wife, very lovingly and very wisely, was like, well, you can if you want, but I'm not, you know. Uh, and and we gotta talk about this. And so uh we prayed and we, you know, talked, and and we ended up actually making the decision to stop the life group, to shut it down. And it was really hard. Um, but it actually was the right thing to do. We're not called to do it all, but we are called to do something. You know, it is true that we follow Jesus' example when we self-sacrificially pour ourselves out for one another. That is absolutely true. Jesus went to the cross for us. That's the example that we're called to follow him. But let's not forget that's not the only story of Jesus in the Bible. Not only did Jesus go to the cross, he also took some naps. That was recorded in the Bible too. You know, there were times when he said enough, I can't do this anymore, and he would like distract everyone and then jump in a boat and sail away. You know, like the he said no sometimes. And so I'm not asking all of us this morning to just only give and only pour out and say yes all the time. This is the reality. You cannot give everything to everyone all of the time. But you do have something to give. See, Jesus does call you to play a part in his family here. And that's true of each of us. We all bring who God made us, our own stories, our own skills. We all bring something to contribute to the family. And this community, this church is going to thrive when each of us come asking, okay, what is my thing to give here? I think that really is the difference of attitude between the church that thrives and the church that doesn't. It's a simple attitude. When we show up, and we show up on a Sunday, when we show up to a life group, when we show up on midweek, there's kind of two ways that you can show up. You can show up with the attitude of, what am I getting out of this? What am I getting here? Or you can show up with the attitude of, what do I have to give? Now, uh no shame here. Okay, we have all been people who show up with the what am I getting attitude? We're human, that's a part of it. We've all been there. You know what it looks like, right? The what am I getting attitude? It comes with thoughts like this. It comes with thoughts like, do I feel like going to church today? Did I like the message this morning? Is this decision that the church made what I wanted? Is this program what I want it to be? Is this worship style what I like? Is there a parking spot for me? Like, uh do I want to hang out with these people? Uh am I in the mood to go to life group tonight? I'm not sure. Uh why is the line to pick up my kid so long? Uh what is going on with that? You know, is there a life groove open for me that meets within five minutes of my house and is full of cool people who are like me and meets during the one specific hour of free time I have during my schedule this week? Because if so, I would love to go, you know? Uh what am I getting here? Like I said, no shame. We've all been there. But what Jesus is calling us to is to show up with a different attitude. To say, this is this is the family not where I get what I need. It it is, and you'll see that happen. That's that's a piece of it, but this is the family where I come to love others. And so my question isn't what am I getting? My question is, what do I have to give? And that comes with a whole different way of thinking. It comes with questions like who is the person this morning that Jesus is calling me to engage with? Where can I serve in a way that's gonna bless people as a part of my family? How can I be generous with the resources that God has given me?

unknown 27:12

Right?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Who can I reach out to this week and encourage? What needs does this church have that I have the ability to fill? Where can I park so that actually people who show up for the first time won't have a hard time finding a spot to park? How can I help my life group leader this week so they don't feel like they have the burden of leading all by themselves? What can I set up, tear down, clean up to make life better for my family here at Alderwood? What do I have to give? Jesus says, This is how you recognize my people. This is what it looks like to be the family of God. We come with the attitude of how can I love one another? When we think about how we can thrive as a church, I really think this is the answer. Because when we come this way, there's always gonna be more than enough to go around. The family that comes asking, what can I give is also the family where everyone gets what they need. The family where everybody shows up saying, What do I need and what can I get is the family where it doesn't work. Put it a different way, a community built on what I can get will always run empty. We will always end up disappointed. We will always be disappointed in each other when we come with that attitude. But a community built on what I can give will always overflow. That is the beauty of the power of who Jesus is, of who our God is. He never runs out of blessing. The only way to be someone who loves others instead of yourself is to worship and believe the truth that God is never gonna be done loving you, that he will meet your needs, that he will take care of you, that he will empower you to be able to give away to others. And that community is the family that Jesus calls us to create and the family that God created us to thrive in. And so I would love to build that with you here. Just one expression, one instance of the family of God loving one another and making the beauty of the gospel visible to the world around us. I want you to think this morning as we get ready to worship together about what your role and that might be, what Jesus might be calling you specifically to right here, right now, as a way of loving others. Uh if you look in the chair ahead of you, you'll see just uh some white note cards in that little pocket, just blank note cards, nothing fancy, just you know what Staples had to offer. And uh and what I want you to do this morning is to grab that and to ask Jesus, okay, what's my part? What can I give? What's my one step? And I want you to write it down. And it doesn't have to be anything fancy or anything huge, it could be simple. Your your one step of being someone who comes with the attitude of what can I give? It could just be forgiving someone who's wronged you here. You know, it could be sending a text this week to the person that you haven't seen in a while and asking them how they're doing. It could be just saying, I'm gonna be the person who actually shows up to my group and isn't flaky. You know, it could be saying, I'm gonna open up my home and I'm gonna start a life group, I'm gonna find a spot to serve here that and I've never found a spot to serve, I'm gonna be generous in my finances and I'm gonna set up auto giving online. I like I it could be big, it could be little, but all of us have something to give to the family. And when we bring what we have, Jesus uses it in incredible ways for us to thrive, for us to experience his life, and for us to love one another, that the world in a way that the world can see that Jesus is real. And so let's worship together, let's sing, and let's let's ask God to show us what's my part to play, trusting that he uses what we bring. Would you pray with me? Jesus, thank you for your faithfulness to us that never ends. Thank you for the way that you loved us first. That when we were desperate, when we were incapable of helping ourselves, when we were beaten up on the side of the road because of our sin, you didn't walk around, you didn't turn away, you came and you met us and you loved us even though you didn't have to. And so, Lord, help us to believe that, to love that, help us to overflow with gratitude because of what you've done for us, and then help us to live that out in the way we treat one another and the way that we love one another here. Help us to be a picture to the world of who you are. And we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.