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!
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