Serving Together 3.13.2011

Good morning! Here we are in our third week of our series on One Another commands. In the first week, we looked at an overview of the series, and then, last week we looked at our need to spend time Hanging Together by greeting one another, being hospitable to one another, and by having fellowship with one another.

This week, we’ll start looking at the second of the five groups:

Hanging together
Serving together
Playing nice together
Challenging together
Restraining together

Last week, I asked you to think of some times that you remember serving together here at Goodfield Baptist Church or when you’ve had another opportunity to serve with other believers.

Here’s your opportunity to participate in the service and to remind the rest of us about a memory you have. (I have a list of things to ask questions about if you don’t volunteer =) )

(building the addition, running VBS and other summer programs, choir programs, feeding over 100 people dinner on Wednesday nights, a corn boil, taking care of people who have had medical issues, cleaning the church, going on trips with the ABC Men’s groups, Panama, working up in the ceiling in the sanctuary, taking the pews out to refinish the floor, delivering bread in the trailer park, preparing the music and other aspects of the service)

What is it about serving together that helps us build a healthier church family?

(Having fun together, getting to know each other better, getting past one another’s differences, learning new skills, seeing each other in a different setting)

Those are all examples of how this all works together in the big picture of Serving Together. This morning, I want us to look at three of the specific commands that are under this larger category.

The first one is found in Galatians 5:13:

Gal. 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

I love the aspect of these verses that on the one hand remind us that we’re free in Christ and He has called us to freedom, but at the same time that we must submit ourselves to becoming a slave to our Christian family.

Paul uses a couple of key words in this command. He purposefully utilizes the Greek word agape…the unconditional, supernatural, forever, covenant kind of love. It’s that “All for One and One for All” kind of relationship or the Army’s “Leave no man behind” commitment. He is stressing that in our relationships with fellow believers that we have to be totally committed to each other.

The next word in this command is the verb form of doulos…the Greek root word for being a slave or servant. Think through the images you have in your mind of slaves in early America. They generally had the worst kinds of jobs, worked in the extreme heat, received no respect, got beaten, and so on! Slaves were usually not treated much better in the Roman Empire.

Think about it…we are to love one another incredibly and be willing to be a slave towards each other! I should desire the kind of relationship with you that I want to serve you in every way possible!

Paul continues to explain that if we gripe and complain about what others in the church are doing or if I actually go so far as to figuratively bite or chew you up that the end result is that instead of having a loving family, we’ll have a family that is totally destroyed by others in the family…leaving us all injured…or dead!

One of my students at school is a perfect example of this section of Scripture. He is messing around with some gang activity and he took his hybrid gang into the mall and beat a rival gang member up…in front of the service desk of an anchor store…on video tape. In the process, the store security tried to break things up and my kid turned on him and assaulted the guard!

He ended up in jail for a couple of months and then was released to house arrest for three more months. He was in captivity…he could be at home or at school, and NOWHERE else! He actually did a good job under this kind of setting.

However, four weeks ago, he was moved from house arrest to intensive probation. Finally…Freedom! While he had a curfew and a long list of people and places he had to avoid, he could do a lot of things. Three and a half weeks ago, he used his freedom as an opportunity for his flesh and he went back to the same mall he was banned from…with others from his gang that he was banned from…and assaulted a rival gang member…in front of the security cameras.

As I talked with his Probation Officer this week, he said that in addition to the second major infraction at the mall, the other members of the gang each started turning on each other and snitching on other things that they had been involved with. As a result, my kid is now in trouble for several other previously unsolved crimes in the area. As they took turns telling on each other, most of their gang is now on the way to jail or prison!

They used their freedom to justify their crimes and then devoured each other!

The second command in this Serve Together section is found in the second half of 1 Peter 5:5b Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

In this verse, the Apostle Peter uses an interesting metaphor of clothing yourself with the apron that a slave uses as we interact with each other.

As I was growing up, I can clearly remember my grandmother wearing her apron on Sunday afternoons for lunch. After church…whether we went to her apartment or if she came over to our house, she would tie her apron on over her dress and help prepare and serve lunch to us.

Now, my grandma could have said, “hey, I’m in my 70’s, all of you kids should get up and serve me.” But, that’s NOT what she did! As a result, thirty years after she went to Jesus, I still remember her as a humble servant who got great joy from serving others! She did the same thing at church too. You would never see her out front for anything, but if anything was going on, Grandma was busy serving behind the scenes! My other grandma over by Galesburg was a humble servant too. Her church started a “contemporary” service back in the 80’s…with guitars, no hymnals, and even drums! Grandma did not approve of the music, she was convinced it would quickly fail, but she was determined to follow the leadership of the church. In fact, she volunteered to take all of the Sunday School material home and she cut it all out for the teachers and got everything ready for those who were supporting this new service. I never remember her complaining either when things took off and her church moved to two contemporary, one blended, and one traditional service instead of three traditional ones.

The word for humility here is the same one that Paul uses over in Philippians 2:3–4: 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Then Paul goes on in the next verses to remind us that Jesus was our example of despite being God, came to earth as a man and went so far as a slave that He gave His life for us on the cross.

I find these verses hard to live out. My sinful nature thrives on selfishness and wanting things my way! But Christ, my example, tells me to move beyond myself…it’s NOT ALL ABOUT ME! I need to look out for your interests too. Likewise, it’s NOT ALL ABOUT YOU either! I know, that can be a harsh reality that it isn’t all about me! I think I give that speech a dozen times a week to the students I work with! However, here in America, we tend to have that perspective that it is about me instead of all of us as a team working together to accomplish something.

If you think back to 1984-1986, a young basketball player from North Carolina moved to Chicago to play for the Bulls. In his first two years, although he did a decent job, he really struggled because the rest of the team didn’t like him and all of the attention he was getting and refused to pass the ball to him and thus kept him from playing up to his potential. It was only in subsequent years when the Bulls worked through things and started playing together as a team that they were able to become a championship team.

I think that churches can sometimes struggle with this Michael Jordan syndrome, we can have people who love Jesus and who want to do great things for the Lord and for His church, but then others get jealous and do all they can to block these people out of being part of the team. We use some of the same excuses…Michael is just a hot shot; Michael is too young; Michael is getting too much attention; Michael hasn’t been part of our team long enough to have a say in things; if I keep from passing the ball to Michael, I can look better; and on and on it goes!

Just so we’re all on the same page, over the past nearly six months that I’ve been here, I’ve had my ear “chewed on” by people thinking the music we do is stuck in 1965 and those who think all the music we do is written in 2065. I’ve had people excited that the tape from last week was taken down, and people who were distraught that others took the tape down. I’ve had groups of people saying the church is going to collapse because we moved the pulpit chairs and those who believe the church will collapse if we keep the furniture there. I’ve heard about how so and so did something to somebody else and how somebody else did something to so and so. I’ve had former attenders apologize to me that I came here to become the Interim Pastor, because the people at Goodfield Baptist never get along. We have members who want to leave the church because we’re stuck in the past and those who want to leave because we’re moving beyond the past and towards the future.

I know…I’ve really crossed the line, and I’ve jumped into the meddling side of the message. However, I am confident that this is one area that if we want to see the doors stay open that we need to keep addressing. My heart is broken over the conversations that I’ve had with people just this month. I do wonder if we genuinely desire to move forward and make a difference in our communities or if we are really more interested in our own perspectives or if we will become humble and put others and their thoughts and needs ahead of our own?

Deep Breath


The third command that we’re going to look at today is found in 1 Corinthians 11:33.

1Cor. 11:33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—

1Cor. 11:33 So, my dear brothers and sisters, when you gather for the Lord’s Supper, wait for each other.

While this verse has its main view as being part of the communion celebration, it has important directions for us in many different areas of our lives.

If you remember, the Corinthian church did not celebrate communion like we do. Instead of a little piece of cracker or bread and a tiny bit of grape juice, they celebrated communion as Christ did…in a full meal format.

However, instead of having a church potluck, it was more like a church picnic where everyone brought their own food and ate their own things. I kind of imagine it this way: We have our church service and then the idea is that to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we all go downstairs to eat that meal together. However, Caleb and Shelby are sitting in the back, and they run down the stairs as fast as they can to get to their picnic basket which they throw open and start eating their favorite cold pizza. It’s been a rough morning for the Maynards, and all that Craig was able to get together for lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but they head downstairs and start eating their lunch too. Karen had our lunch ready, but because we had kids up throwing up in the night, things were hectic at our house today, and we ran out of the house and left our food on the kitchen counter. Although Kenny is not moving as fast as he once was, thankfully, Madeline left during the sermon and she has been down in the kitchen broiling AMAZING Angus steaks…for her, Kenny, Jim and Coleen.

The Lord is telling us that this is NOT the way for HIS Church to function. Historically that’s why most Baptist churches have used the communion format of passing the elements and then everyone partakes together. Also, that’s why churches today tend to do church potlucks or even catered meals instead of everyone just doing what they want to.

Think though about how this works for all of us as we seek to build a better, healthier church family. If we eat together and we wait for one another and we honor each other as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper and church dinners, we have the opportunity to serve each other!

Someone mentioned to me this week that as a church, we used to have potlucks on a more frequent basis. I like that idea…maybe we need to spend some more time together waiting on each other, serving each other, fellowshipping with one another, and showing hospitality with each other.

That may be one way that we are able to build a healthy family where people really desire to come and love one another deeply!

In two weeks, we’ll pick the Serving Together theme up again and look at three more elements:

Serving Together
• Submitting to one another Ephesians 5:21
• Wash one another’s feet John 13:14
• Confess your sins & Pray for one another James 5:16

Hang with One Another 3.6.2011

I’m excited as we move forward with our series on the One Another Commands in the New Testament! As I’ve been reflecting on these throughout the week, I’ve been both encouraged and challenged as I evaluate how I can implement them better in my own life, but also how I can encourage all of us to build up a healthy church family.

Under the large umbrella of loving one another in whatever situation we’re in, there are some 20 or so different commands that are listed over 50 times throughout the Scriptures. As I worked on things last week, here are the topics that we’re covering in the coming weeks:

Hanging together
Serving together
Playing nice together
Challenging together
Restraining together

Today, we’re jumping into our study by looking at three specific commands relating to how we interact with one another as we get together.

I believe these three commands form the core part of the foundation of how we interact with each other as a healthy family. While in some ways these are pretty basic elements of Healthy Church Relationships 101, these are also some of the parts that are also “deal breakers” when determining how a body of believers works together. In addition, I think these basic commands are some of the most visible to people outside the church as they evaluate the church.

Here are this week’s commandments:

Hanging Together
• Greeting one another 1 Peter 5:14
• Being hospitable to one another 1 Peter 4:9
• Having fellowship with one another 1 John 1:7


1 Peter 5:14 is one of five places where we’re told to “Greet one another with the kiss of love.” As I reminded all of us last week, when the Lord gives us the same command multiple times, we should probably pay attention! So, this is one of those “biggie commands” that we’re expected to follow through on.

Now in American culture, we don’t generally go around kissing others like they did in Biblical times or in other cultures today. For sure, macho men in Central Illinois don’t go up to one another in the IGA and greet another guy from church with a kiss!

As I was checking out some other translations, I came across these two versions of this verse:

Give holy embraces all around!

Greet each other with Christian love.

I think these two interpretations really get to the core of what God desires us to do. It’s not so much the physical act of kissing one another as we greet, but rather, it is that when we get together that we do show Christ’s love as we greet others.

Now, I think that can, does, and should look different in how we give that Christian greeting to one another. Some of us are huggers and when we see others, our first move is to step into our friend and give them a bear hug. Others of us are a little more reserved and a handshake or fist bump is a real sign of love.

I do think that there is something important in this process of giving and receiving physical contact with others. So, it’s probably more than just yelling “hi” across the sanctuary. We are made to be in contact with others and that is part of how families should relate to each other.

You’ll also notice in this brief, but clear command that it does not say “Only greet the usher at Goodfield Baptist Church when you get the bulletin on Sunday mornings.” Rather, the command is flat out to greet one another.

There have been times when our family has been in Wal-Mart that I’ve had to tell them that we were going to a different part of the store due to me seeing one of the kids or family members from our school that was in a particularly bad mood so it was best for us to hide from them. God does NOT want us to be hiding from our brothers and sisters in Christ!

In the last few months, Karen and I have discovered that her brother who lives in Singapore and her brother in Indiana had been back to Pontiac a couple of times…but nobody let us know. It was very discouraging to hear that the one brother had come here from the other side of the world, flew into the Bloomington airport, and we didn’t know he was on this side of the globe!

Likewise, we should not avoid our Christian siblings whether we see them inside or outside of the physical walls of the church building.

This past week, Karen and I made a late night run to Menards to get a few more things for our kitchen. As we left, I noticed my friend Mark’s car parked next to us. I felt disappointed that I had not seen him in the store. The next day at work, I asked him about being at Menards, and he said that he had parked next to my car and then looked for me in the store, but we missed each other. That made me feel much better…Mark hadn’t been in the store knowing I was there and he was hiding behind the kitchen sinks just so he could avoid me ☺.

How are we as a church doing at this?

When you come to church on Sunday mornings, do you feel like you’re being greeted in love by others?
Are you making appropriate physical contact with others as you greet your spiritual siblings?
When you see another Christian at work, at the IGA, at an event at school or somewhere else, do you take the time to greet them in Christian love?
With there being somewhere between twenty and thirty of us here on any given Sunday and another ten to twenty “regulars” who aren’t here on any given Sunday, how do we make sure everyone feels like we’re genuinely greeting everyone?

Our second command in this “Hanging Together” section is

9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

This too is one of those commands that has multiple citations throughout the New Testament. While this is the only one that specifically states that all believers must show hospitality towards others, there are places where a certain person is thanked for their hospitality, and spiritual leaders and widows are expected to be people who especially practice hospitality towards others.

While here in smaller communities in the Midwest, we still have some of our manners, this is one of those dying aspects of hanging out with others. Think about it, when was the last time you invited someone over for a meal at your house or were invited to a friend’s house?

Why don’t we do this often? (busy, expensive, house isn’t spotless, don’t know how to do it well, don’t have space, don’t know one another well enough…might be awkward, etc…)

Sometimes, I think that we think that in order to be hospitable that we have to have the house spotless, the fine china out, a perfect five course meal…complete with three or four forks, and that it all must come off like an evening fit for a king. However, none of those expectations are included in this command! While it’s certainly not wrong to clean your house or to have a fancy meal, you can also be hospitable to others by inviting them over for dessert, popcorn and a movie, cooking hot dogs over a bonfire, or a bucket of fried chicken.

Of course, being hospitable isn’t relegated to only food items. When I was in college, I toured with the men’s choir all over the country. For each day, we went home after the concert with a family, spent time over a snack, slept in their home, had breakfast and the family then provided us with a snack lunch for the next day. That was hospitality! It varied a great deal…I stayed in a basement dungeon (oops, I mean apartment) with some other college guys up in Minot, North Dakota, in a drafty house with almost no hot water in Michigan, in a huge and fancy home in Utah, and on and on the variety went. Even so, each place provided hospitality in their own way.

In the vast majority of the places I stayed, people loved having us over. I had a few places where I didn’t feel like they had read the second part of this verse…that we’re to be hospitable…without complaining or grumbling. Of course, that a great reminder to us too…if I have someone come over…I should be happy and not spend my time complaining about how much work I had to do to invite you over or grumbling that you spilled grape juice on my nicest linen napkin…that kind of defeats the purpose!

The third command we’re going to look at today comes from 1 John 1:7. Here, the Apostle John tells us that we need to have fellowship with one another as we walk in the light that Christ gives us.

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another…

John is explaining in this passage that God is Light, and we need to walk in His Light as followers of God. Then…as I walk in that Light, and you walk in that light and we both follow God’s Light, we will be able to have fellowship with each other.

I think there are some overlapping areas between greeting one another, showing hospitality towards each other and having fellowship with one another. For instance, I hope that as we greet each other there is a desire to have real fellowship with each other. Likewise, when we get together to share food, housing, and other parts of our lives with others that we’re fellowshipping at the same time.

Yet, on the other hand I think that this area opens our interaction to several additional areas of life.

In this particular passage, with the emphasis on our relationship with fellow believers being tied directly to our relationship to God Himself, I believe that opens the door for us to think about how we fellowship with each other when we spend time together with other Christians learning more about God. For instance…fellowshipping together in a Bible study, praying together, going to a Christian concert together (THANKS for helping us go to the Chris Tomlin concert), etc…. As we are together with others and as we purposefully focus on improving our relationship with the Lord, we are growing together in our fellowship and we keep building that healthy church family that we’re all looking for.

I am also a firm believer that we can benefit from just getting together as family members to do something fun or even mundane together. It’s that fun of inviting someone over to play a game or going out to play a round of golf or going together to a hockey or baseball game, or working on a quilt together. It’s calling someone up and asking them if they want to go out together for dinner or dessert. It’s offering to help a friend on a project just so you can have a great time hanging out with your friends.

I’m afraid that as “busy Americans”, this is another area of our life that we’ve crowded out. So, how do we correct it? One way to work on it is to look at your calendar and see what you’re already planning on doing. Are you going to watch Max play football this fall for Eureka College? Then, call a friend up from church and invite them to join you on the bleachers! Are you going to see a play at Conklin’s…invite a friend! Are you grabbing a quick lunch during your lunch break or taking a coffee break…see if you could invite someone else to meet you somewhere so you can spend that time together. Are you coming to Normal…call me and we can grab something! Are you going to the mall (or Menards) invite someone to ride along.

I was also thinking that while many of us find it hard to fit spontaneity into our busy schedules, maybe you could look at your calendar now and pick a night or an afternoon that you’re going to plan to be spontaneous. If you set aside a date a couple or three weeks out and mark that you have an appointment. Then, as you get closer to that date, call someone up and go do something together!

Take just a moment right now…is there someone you’ve “been meaning to” get together with to do something? Write their name down on your bulletin or somewhere so that you have that reminder for yourself.

As we work to build stronger relationships with each other, this is one of those areas where I think that we could see some great “returns on our investments”. If we start spending more time together with each other building relationships based on Jesus and the Light that He gives us, I believe we’ll enjoy each other more and we’ll be more ready to greet each other when we see each other and we’ll want to be hospitable and have people over too.

Next week, we’re going to start the section on Serving Together. Please think about a brief story about a time you can celebrate about serving together with others here at Goodfield Baptist Church. I’ll give you a few minutes to share next week so that we can celebrate together!

I continue to look forward to what the Lord desires to accomplish in and through us as we passionately work at loving one another better and in ways that bring glory and honor to the Lord! As we continue to improve on Hanging Together, I’m confident that we will continue to become more and more healthy!

One Another Commands, Introduction 2.27.2011

Over the past several months, we’ve talked on Sundays about a variety of issues. We’ve covered several issues in the Advent Conspiracy, we looked at ways to set some goals that are achievable…by the way…how are you doing on accomplishing those goals/resolutions? Then recently, we’ve been looking at ways to be encouraged ourselves and to encourage others.

In the coming weeks, we’re going to be investigating ways that we as a congregation can continue to improve our relationships with each other. As we look throughout the New Testament, the Lord continuously places a very high value on the internal relationships that demonstrate that a church body is healthy.

This week, one of my students at school came into my office once again to go into the crazy drama of his on again, off again relationship with his girlfriend. The relationship between this 17 year old and his 15 year old girlfriend is usually spinning out of control. He turns 18 in a couple of weeks and was trying to evaluate whether he should stay with this young immature girlfriend or dump her after two years of getting what he wanted and going out with a much more mature 19 year old.

As we talked, I took some time to go on the internet to find some good questions about how to tell if a dating relationship was healthy or unhealthy. He didn’t really like the questions since they pointed out how unhealthy things were, but in talking with his mother, I did find out that he had at least read them that night!

In kind of the same way, God sets out clearly defined commands that become markers about the healthiness or sickness of a local family of believers. These commands also set forth a kind of blue-print for us to look at as we make decisions for ourselves and our congregation.

Think about how your biological family functions…what goes well, what could be improved on? We’ve had the opportunity to really reflect on how families function over the past couple weeks…the things that Karen’s family did well and those that were a struggle. We evaluated things that we’d like to change with our kids and the things that we think we’re doing well.

The Scriptures give around 20 different “one-another” commands that give us specific instructions on how God expects his family to operate. These commands tell us critical thoughts and actions that each one of us is responsible to live out. Each one of us needs to take that personal responsibility to keep the family of God healthy and living well together.

Several of these commands are listed in multiple places. (The twenty or so “one-another and each-other” commands are listed over 50 times in the New Testament) Of course, if God tells us something once, we should listen to Him, but when He tells us something over and over again, we really should listen carefully!

Think about how you as a child would respond when your parents told you to clean your room. If they told you that you should clean it up…what should you do? Clean it! If they told you three days in a row that you needed to clean your room…what should you do? If they changed and said, Andrew John Beaty, you need to clean your room right now before you are able to…go play with your friends, go to the movie, play on your X-Box 360…or something else…then what should you do?

Some of these commands are mentioned many times, and others are just mentioned once or twice. Just like our parents expected and those of us who are parents expect obedience on the first time, the Lord is passionate about us obeying each of these commands.

Back in January, the last session of our Advent Conspiracy was about Loving All. In it we looked at the importance of showing love within the church so that we could export love to others. We briefly looked at John 13:34-35 which tells us that Christians need to love one another and that everyone who is watching will know that we are true followers of Jesus by the way we love each other! Just like people know that Conklin’s does dinner theater and The Busy Corner does pies, people should know that Goodfield Baptist does love really well!

That same “love one another” command is listed in two other places in the book of John, and about a dozen other places in the rest of the New Testament. That shows us that God thinks that Loving One Another is very important!

Since we’ve already covered the loving one another and the encouraging one another, I’ve been researching the other commands and trying to figure out how to cover them in order to build up our relationships with each other here at Goodfield Baptist Church.

The working list that I have right now includes the following five groups:

Hanging together
Serving together
Playing nice together
Challenging together
Restraining together

I’m just now doing the research on each of these groups, so I’m not sure yet how they will all break down into messages. I don’t know if I’ll be able to cover most groups of commands in one week or if some topics will take more than one week. However, I believe that they will be really good for us to study and to evaluate how we can keep improving on implementing them in our personal and our church lives.

In broad-brush strokes, let’s think through how each of these areas will make a difference as we practice them:

Hanging Together
• Greeting one another 1 Peter 5:14
• Being hospitable to one another 1 Peter 4:9
• Having fellowship with one another 1 John 1:7

These three key “one another commands” really flow from the concept of loving one another as we treat each other in the church like we really want to be with them. We not only act like we want to reach out to greet someone or get together with them, we genuinely desire to be with one another.

Last Saturday, Karen and I taught a couple of seminars at the orphan/adoption conference over in Carlock at East White Oak. It was a long day. It was an incredibly emotionally draining week after Karen’s father had passed away! However, last Sunday afternoon, one of the young couples from the Sunday school class we led in Normal called and said, “we miss seeing you guys so much, if we buy some pizza, could we come over and just hang out for a while?” I didn’t feel like having company over…but I really missed seeing them too, so we were hospitable and let them invite themselves over so we could fellowship together. ☺. Now, I’m NOT telling each of you to invite yourselves over tonight…but this will be a good area for us to look at in more depth next week!

Serving Together
• Humble towards one another 1 Peter 5:5
• Wait for one another 1 Cor. 11:33
• Serving one another Galatians 5:13
• Submitting to one another Ephesians 5:21
• Wash one another’s feet John 13:14
• Confess your sins & Pray for one another James 5:16

In thinking about this set of commands, I kept coming back to my own version of an old proverb…the church family that serves together stays together. In my time here at Goodfield, I’ve heard great stories of the fun and hard work that people have had as they served the Lord together…building the addition, running VBS and other summer programs, feeding over 100 people dinner on Wednesday nights, a corn boil, taking care of people who have had medical issues, sending prayer requests out over the phone, preparing the music and other aspects of the service, and on and on those stories have been shared! We’ve experienced that as we were able to “brag on you” at Karen’s dad’s visitation and funeral as we humbly showed off the plant you gave us.

Maybe you could be thinking of a favorite story of serving others or serving with others in the church and we could have a brief sharing time during one of the weeks as we celebrate what God has done as we’ve followed these particular commands.

Playing Nice Together
• Being kind and compassionate to one another Ephesians 4:32
• Living in harmony with one another Romans 12:16
• Be at peace with one another Mark 9:50

This group of commands is a little harder to talk about! How many of you have experienced your biological family or people that you work with struggling to get along? How many of you have ever had that talk with your children about their need to play nice with someone else? The truth is that even as adults, we can struggle playing nice with others!

I don’t understand it, but for some reason, even inside the church we can have real problems following these guidelines. I shared a few weeks ago about my friend Bob Thomas that I got to know and love up in Michigan. One of the really sad things about the church Bob served in is that it had a reputation for chewing up and spitting out pastors. I forget the exact number, but there were somewhere around a dozen churches within a fifteen mile radius of our town that were started by former pastors and youth pastors of that church…all birthed out of some kind of church split or falling out with others in the congregation!

Challenging Together
• Accepting one another Romans 15:7
• Devoted to one another Romans 12:10
• Building up one another Romans 14:19
• Spurring one another on towards love and good works Hebrews 10:24

I pulled these commands out from the others because I felt like they took a little more work to live out. It’s one thing to be willing to go to the Busy Corner for a piece of pie so you can hang together. It’s a little harder to serve with someone. But, it’s a lot harder to be devoted to someone you struggle with or to accept someone who has different views than you do. It takes even more courage to poke someone with your spurs because you believe they need to step it up in the way they’re following Jesus.

I have friends at work who have very different beliefs than I do about almost everything…politics, religion, family, work ethic, etc…. However, when we have an emergency with a kid and they’re calling for backup or they need help restraining a 6’3” 250 pound kid…am I devoted to them and help them out, or do I let something happen to them? At the same time, do I take the time when we’re not in an emergency to gently and graciously try to persuade them to my perspectives? It’s the same way in the church! We need to both have one another’s backs and be ready to help each other grow in their passion for following Jesus.


Restraining Together
• Bearing with one another Ephesians 4:2
• Forgiving one another Colossians 3:13
• Not passing judgment on one another Romans 14:13
• Don’t complain against one another James 5:9
• Don’t lie to one another Colossians 3:9
• Not slandering one another James 4:11

This last set of commands is tough! This set really challenges our faith! Some scientists think that it takes about five positive words of affirmation to offset every negative comment. I realize that things often happen in church that cause our feelings to be hurt. Things even happen that make us REALLY MAD! However, these commands give us clear instructions on what God expects His children to do…both the positive of bearing with and forgiving and the negative…don’t lie, complain, judge or slander your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now, I’ll step out on a limb here and throw out a couple of examples…after church today, God doesn’t want anybody to go home and sit at the lunch table and start the conversation off with, “I can’t believe the deacons allowed the trustees to move the pulpit furniture and that Pastor Andrew didn’t set them all straight and move things back to how they were!” At the same time, nobody should go home and say, “I’m so glad they moved the pulpit furniture…I just can’t understand why those spineless deacons, trustees, and the pastor took so long to change something!” Those are examples of complaining…and these commands go further than just that. The good news is that it will be quite a while before we get to this section that will likely get pretty close to meddling.

As I have been talking with and listening to people here in the church, I often hear people talking about their desire to come to and be part of a healthy church. You want to look forward to coming to worship and fellowship on Sundays. Sometimes, I must confess…even as the pastor, I fall into thinking that our church would be so much better if so and so would just be more friendly when I come in on Sunday mornings. Or, our church would be healthy if all those people who left the church would stop spreading lies about what is going on here. Or, I would invite them over for supper if they would just ask my forgiveness for falling asleep during the sermon.

OK…maybe those aren’t exactly my thoughts, but the thrust of these verses is that each one of us must take responsibility for our own attitudes and actions as we seek to have a healthy church.

I am so excited to see where the Lord leads us in the coming weeks and months as we dive into these Biblical commands from our Lord! I expect that there may be some pain in our lives as we do some self-evaluation and as we come face to face with some changes that we need to make. However, I am ABSOLUTELUY CONVINCED that just like the pain of surgery can bring health, the emotional pain of self reflection will help us change in order to bring spiritual health to ourselves, our church, and our community!