Sounds Like A Plan I, For Friendships

Kind of feel like we could just close in prayer and go home. Really? And I didn't need to study. It always happens. You know, I study and then don't really need this, do we, really? I mean, in one sense, the presence of Christ has met us in this place. And that's why we come. It's for His presence to encounter us. And surely the presence of the Lord is in this place. If you have a note, why don't you go ahead and take out your outline? We are going to look in God's Word this morning. And while you're doing that, I just want to draw your attention to one other thing that's in your notes. One of the desires of my heart is for people to learn to encounter the living Christ through the written word that we call the Bible, Scripture. And we've been talking often as a staff, what we can do, not just simply to teach Scripture, although that's very important, but to teach people how to feed themselves and how to learn and how to encounter Christ through Scripture. Because teaching is great, but sometimes I think there's so much teaching it sort of backfires and we develop sort of an attitude of, well, hey, you know, feed me. And really what we need to have in our relationship with Christ is the ability to go to the Scriptures and be nourished by His presence. And this summer on June 9th and 10th, I'm going to lead a retreat for anyone here at North Way that would want to come. It's just on Friday night and Saturday. And the specific focus of it will be how to pick up the fork and eat the Word of God. And through the reading of Scripture, how we encounter the living Word, who is Jesus Christ. And so you may be a Christian one who's journeyed with Christ a long time, but, you know, Scripture is maybe just dry or it's not really speaking to you. I believe this will be something for you. You may be a new believer and when you open up the Bible, it looks Greek, even though it's in English, you know. And you may need to just learn some of the ways that people throughout history have encouraged us and helped us see how we can pick up the fork and eat ourselves and encounter Christ through the reading of Scripture. So if you're interested in something like that, you can mark your communicator or there will be somebody out in the back afterwards at the Welcome Center to give you more information about that. All right, let's pray together. Lord, as we look into your Word, that is exactly what we want to do. We want to encounter you. We don't want to just encounter words, but by the power of your Holy Spirit, breathe on this time as you have been and may we see Jesus, the living Christ. And we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, last week in our AM services, Pastor Jay helped each of us consider this question. What is the center of my life? What is the center of my life? In other words, what is most fundamental or essential to me as a person? It's a question really that we have to ask ourselves again and again in our lives. And as Christ followers, our desire is for Christ to be the center of our lives. Amen. No, come on, more. Amen. There we go. I'll make sure you're there. And there are so many dimensions of life to attend to, you know, all kinds of things that come at us in life. And really, what we want to do for the next several weeks is take each of those dimensions and talk about how they can be plugged into Christ as the centerpiece of our life. And this morning, we want to look at probably one of the most important dimensions of life. In fact, without this dimension, my contention is you can't really know God. And that's the dimension of other people in our lives. It's so important to be related in friendship and community to other people. This morning is a tremendous example of that. We've already heard as much as we need to, to see the example of people linked in community and how God shows up in that community. Henry Nowen, in his book, The Genesee Diary, says this, the way to God alone is seldom traveled alone. The way to God alone is seldom traveled alone. In other words, God at the center of my life in no way diminishes the need or importance of human relationship. In fact, only enhances it. This is why Jesus, when asked what is the greatest commandment, responded this way, love God and love your neighbor. Those two go together. They are inextricably linked together. In fact, if you were to think of the commandment, the greatest commandment, as a stick, this was the stick that represented the greatest commandment. And on this side of the stick was loving God. And on this side of the stick was loving people. The way in which Jesus linked these two concepts together was basically to say, if you pick up the end of the stick that is loving God, you automatically have to pick up the end of the stick that's loving people. And if you pick up the end of the stick of loving people, you have to pick up the end of the stick that's loving God. You cannot pick up one end without picking up the other. They are forever linked. Loving God and loving people are linked together. And if we really want Christ at the center of our lives, then we're going to have to understand that people play a role in not only what we offer them, but how God meets us through them. If you really want to know Christ, you must discover him in community. In community, in relationships that are centered on him. Now, this was a radical idea in the day that Jesus walked the earth. In fact, for most religious people, they would think of their devotion to God totally separated from how they treated or loved other people. They could be fully devoted to God and not really care about other people. So this was revolutionary for Jesus to say, really what Jesus suggests is this, the lack of love for people suggests a lack of love for God. If you don't love people, John says, the love of God is not in you. How can you... I love it when you say amen. Keep saying that. Say that for me, will ya? That was a little weak. Second service, need a little bit more from you. All right? When I point, you say amen. Ready? All right. Amen. All right. You can say that anytime. Except right now. Okay. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. This really hit me this week as I was reflecting on this and studying. Don't say, Dave, that you love God if you don't love people. Now, you can just imagine that separating those two relationships has all kinds of enormous problems attached to it, even beyond the one that we've already mentioned. However, the flip side is also true. Relationships that are centered in Christ have enormous potential and we all long for that. We all long to be part of meaningful relationships. And we all long for relationships where we can be a part of something we're building together that we could never accomplish on our own. Let's do something, all right? Fight it out. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. New Testament. Philippians chapter 2 gives us a look at the ingredients necessary if we're going to be together in community and be part of something that God is doing, have Christ-centered community. Paul writes in verse 1, if you have any encouragement from being united in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, and this is what we sang earlier, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now, Paul teaches us here something about Christ-centered relationships. In fact, he teaches us, or shows really, embedded in this passage what I believe are two great human needs that we all have. We all share the desire for these needs to be met in our lives, and you could probably put these two needs under one heading, and he uses this phrase in the passage, be one. Be one. We desire to be one. We don't like it when we're at odds with other people. We want to be in unity, and there are two needs that all of us have, that all of us possess in our lives, that either help us move towards being one or away from being one. It depends on if we embrace what it takes to meet these needs in Christ. The first need is this. We all have the need to belong. All of us have the need to belong. Paul says, be one in spirit. Be one in spirit, and number two, we all have the need to participate. We want to be in something that's larger than ourselves, and as Christ followers, we want to be something that Christ is at the heart of, that Christ is at the center of, and we are working, building the house that he is the cornerstone of. That's our desire as Christ followers. These are deep human needs to belong and to participate. Each of us experience them, and we want to be part of something. We want to build a house, if you will. Now, it doesn't take long, maybe five minutes or less, of being in community to realize this sounds nice, it's harder than it looks. It really is. To have a collaborative kind of community that we're talking about requires both grace and work. It requires God's grace being infused into the relationships of people, and it requires work, it requires discipline, it requires cultivation, it requires hanging in there when it's hard, and we all have to do this if we want to be part of friendships and community that's centered in Christ, learning to work and live together. Several months ago, my wife Kelly started to push me. She wanted to take dancing lessons together, and she kept saying, Dave, I want to take dancing lessons together, I want to take dancing. No, no, I'm not, I'm not doing that, you know, but it'll be fun, and you know, so we danced around this issue for some time. She would kind of press, and I would resist, she would say something, and I'd say no, no, I'm not gonna, but you know, it'd be fun. She tried several approaches, you know, it'd be fun, and she bought a couple videos, you know, and we tried it at home, but no, really, we need to do this. You know, I'm tired of going to weddings, and we sit there while everybody's dancing. No, I've checked our vows, it's not in there, I do not have to do this, and then, you know, if this was a conversation, it would get a little bit more heated, and she'd sort of up the ante a little bit. Oh, so Mr. Challenge everybody else to get out of their box, you can do that, but you can't get out of your own box, can you? No, I will not do this, amen, amen, you just keep right on saying it. Thank you, Grant. No, so five weeks ago, we started dancing lessons. She said a few other things that were more motivating, and I'd really like to share right now. So, you know, I yielded, and so we go to this place, and I knew I was in trouble right out of the gate. We walk into this place, and we're there to learn the Lindy Hop. Now, I don't know if you know about dancing, this is not the dance to start with, you know, especially if you're like me, you have sort of a boundary, you know, I don't like to do this, I don't want to do this. So I get there, and I notice immediately I'm in trouble, because people are walking, you know, and they have extra shoes, you know, like another pair. I can't figure out why, why would you need another pair of shoes? And then I realized, these people are serious, these are dancing shoes, and, you know, then they put them on, and they're over by the wall, I'm not kidding, you know, getting ready, you know, I'm just sitting in a chair, you know, come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus, come. Take me, take me. So we, you know, meet some people, hi, hi, hi, we get in a big circle, and the two dance instructors get in the middle of the circle, and one of the dance instructors is a guy, you know, tall, lean, built to dance, you know, he looks a lot like me, and he gets in the middle of the circle, and he says, hi, I'm Ben. Hi, Ben. He puts some music on, and just says, all right, everybody, just, just do your own thing, you know, just freestyle for a couple minutes. Just really, everybody, just do it, and I'm looking for the chair, again, at this point, just do whatever you want to do, you know, so I just, you know, I'll start tapping, smiling at Kelly, I'm gonna kill you later, I'm gonna kill you. So we proceeded to start learning this dance, and as the night drug on, and as the weeks have drug on, I think I'm getting the hang of it. Don't expect me to do it in front of you, okay, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. In fact, you know what, I think it really was the right thing to do, this time. I really do, because it has taught me something about life. It's taught me something about entering into a relationship with another person, and what that takes if you really want to be in unity with another person. I had several men come up to me after the first service and say, thanks a lot, Dave. Thanks a lot, Dave. You are in hot water with all of us, and I said, but I'm not in hot water with my wife. Let me tell you, that's much better. I don't care about being in hot water with you. It's really taught me something, and in fact, if we could push this metaphor for just a minute, if you go back to the book of Philippians, we might be able to say this, Christ is the dance instructor. He is the dance instructor who, by his life, teaches the steps of the dance. What dance? The dance of community, the dance of divine friendships, the dance of entering into a relationship with other people, experiencing unity and meaning and purpose. Christ teaches us the dance, and just for a couple of moments, I want to show you what I call the two-step dance of Christ-centered community. Two steps. One, two. Did you see that? Yeah, I feel better already, just being able to do that in front of you. Usually, if I was teaching, I would have just gone, one, two, but now look at me. One, two. I'm hopping. I really need to get out more. I really... Here's the first step. I'm gonna give you two words. They're words embedded in Philippians chapter 2. The first step is a Greek word. Maybe you've heard it. It's the word kenosis. It's a Greek word, and what it means is to empty, to empty. In fact, if you have a translation other than the NIV, you may even have that word in there when it says, Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality something to be grasped by God, but he emptied himself and became a man. This is the first step in Christ-like friendships, is learning to empty yourself. Now, Christ, when he emptied himself, did a couple of things. One thing is, he let go of a particular status that he enjoyed. He let go of a status that he enjoyed, but he also let go of an inner state. So, when it says he emptied himself, it means that he let go of certain external things, but he also was willing to let go of certain internal rights. They were his to have, and he emptied himself of those things. Now, we have to empty ourselves of something a little different than Christ emptied himself of. Let me further explain, and I think you'll see. Often, if someone is being proud or arrogant or full of opinions and agendas and all kinds of things, and they're sharing those in a rather manipulative or controlling way, we might say of that person in that moment, wow, is he full of himself. Now, do you see what you have to be emptied? Out yourself. That's what's got to go. The first step of this two-step dance is an emptiness. An emptiness of that controlling, dominating, the Bible calls it the flesh or the sinful nature. We in 21st century, I guess we'd say now, therapeutic culture, we call it the ego, whatever you want to call it. It's the part of me that wants it my way now. Get out of my way. And that just cannot blend with dancing. It just can't. Not with divine friendship dancing. Often, we are overwhelmed with our own agendas and our own way of looking at things. That's why Paul links emptiness, this idea of emptiness, with humility. They're linked in the passage. They're linked. In fact, you might even say that humility precedes your ability to empty yourself of yourself. Look at what he says in verse 3, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Ah, boy, that's easy to read and really hard to live. We so much think about ourselves. You know, as I was doing these dance steps the other night or for these last four weeks, you know the thing that really runs through my head more than anything else? I wonder if anybody's watching me. I wonder if anybody's looking at me. How much of our lives do we live that way? With sort of this ongoing, incessant chatter. I wonder why they're looking at me that way. I can't believe. And on and on we go with this sort of ego chatter. Gotta go. It's gotta go. Because you see, if you're full, you're full. That's it. You're gonna be full of something. You and I are going to be full of something. What is it that we will be full of? The first step is an emptying. It's letting go of those agendas. And you know what? This isn't just a one-time step. This is a lifetime step, right? We do this once, twice, again and again and again. Now, I can only just point these steps out to you today. You know, just like I go to class, they show a couple steps. You know, we all go, wow. But you know, it's really up to each of us to take these steps and practice them. Cultivate them in our daily life by God's grace. The second step is a word I'm sure that you've heard. If the first step is emptying, the second step is incarnation. Incarnation. Now, this is also embedded in this passage. Christ emptied himself, and that some translations say, took on flesh. He took on flesh. Incarnation, in the ultimate sense, is when Christ became man. But in a smaller sense, incarnation is what you and I, as Christ followers, are called to do. We are called to literally flesh out the love of Jesus to people around us. That's really what it means to be in community, is to flesh out that love. And that's why the Bible, and in this particular passage, incarnation, this idea of fleshing it out, is always linked to compassion. Always. It's always linked to compassion. Look at what Paul says in verse 4. Each of you should look not only to your own interest, but the interest of others. Now, that doesn't mean that you can meet every need, and that doesn't mean that when someone's demanding and not wanting to take responsibility for their own life, that you have to fix their life. But it does mean that a Christ follower is others directed. They are learning to empty themselves of their own look at themselves. They're empty of that. So that they can be filled with the love of Christ, and then compassion means giving that away. It means giving that away. We could really, again, the visual picture of baptism is incredibly important to this idea. When someone goes down into the water, in the first service, as I watched the two people who were baptized go down into the water, when they were under, and we're all glad they come back up, but when they were under, I felt God impress me, and I felt him say this, when you're under, and before you come back up, under the water, that's the empty place. That's the empty place. That's the place where you empty yourself of yourself. That's what's happening. That's the metaphor. And then when you come up, what are you coming up into? You're coming up into new life, and listen, new life can only survive if it is given away. You cannot hold on to new life. It has to be given away, and that's why in Scripture, compassion is never fully complete. I'm gonna be looking for an amen here in just a minute. Compassion is never fully complete until it has turned into action. It is not compassion until it is action. It can start as a feeling inside, and we'll talk about that in a minute, and be compassion, but it will die a death. It will not be compassion unless it circles to action, to doing something. That's why incarnation and compassion are linked together in Scripture. That's why justice is such an important concept in Scripture. God gets mad when there is injustice. He doesn't like it. Just read the Prophets. He does not like that. And by the way, justice doesn't mean, you know, justice in our society just simply means, yeah, give it to them, or well, we didn't really technically break the law. That's not justice. Justice is looking out for the interests of others. What is it that a person really needs? And we draw hard and fast lines in our society, and we will not cross them, and compassion crosses all boundaries, all lines, and is offered to all people. All people. There are no boundaries when it comes to compassion. It is a gift of God that we are called to incarnate in our lives. We don't have time to turn there, but Luke chapter 10 totally obliterates any boundaries that the first century reader might want to put up when it comes to compassion. It's the story of the Good Samaritan. It is the paragon of compassion in Jesus teaching. You should look at it sometime this week. It teaches us three things. We can't unpack these. I'm just gonna give them to you. Number one, compassion teaches us a new way of seeing people. Compassion sees what other people miss. Now listen, compassion doesn't always mean being nice. We've confused that. Compassion means giving gentle but firm love to people. That's what Jesus did. They knew he loved them, and yet he spoke sometimes very difficult truth. Compassion number two is a new way of feeling. It's a new way of feeling. People who really are compassionate are really present in the moment with a person, and so they can deeply feel things. And you and I both know, we've been on both sides of it, where we're maybe pouring out our heart to someone, and they're, I really gotta go. Gotta go. Be warm and filled. And we've also done that to people. But compassion, even if it's just for a moment, actually enters that moment with that person, and that creates an ability to feel with that person. The Good Samaritan felt the wounds of the one who was beaten. And then, the last one is, it's a new way of responding to people. And we've already talked about this. Compassion is not until it is action. Now, all of these things, wrapped up in these two steps, emptiness, incarnation, emptying ourselves so that we can incarnate the love of Jesus. We might even say it this way, to sort of put a bow on it. Your ability to incarnate the love of Jesus will probably be in direct proportion to the emptiness in your life. If you are full, if I am full of myself, I won't have much ability to give. But as I empty myself, and God fills me, I can give that away. And look at what happens when I give that life away. I'm empty again, and I can be filled again. And there is this circular pattern of being emptied, to be filled, to give it away. And these dance steps enable us at least to begin to experience those two human needs, the need to belong and the need to participate. And that's what Jesus calls us to, as Christ-centered community, to belong together with Him as the foundation, and to participate in His purposes. I want to encourage you to take these steps and work on them this week. And, you know, I'm trying to learn these steps, and I go, one, two, three, oh no, that's not right, oh yeah, no, it doesn't, oh yeah, no, that's on seven. And it's the same thing here. We learn these by failing, and we learn these, you know how we learn these the best? In community. That's where you will really learn this dance, is in relationships that have Christ at the center. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your love for us. Thank you for the grace that you pour into our lives. Thank you that you are the model of emptying of what was rightfully yours, and laying down what was yours, so that you could be filled by your Father and literally flesh out the love of God. Make us that kind of vessel. Let's stand together and sing this.