* Disclaimer: While I must admit that I got choked up a number of times during this message (I couldn't talk and my eyes were really watery), no tears actually fell. Therefore, I maintain that I did not actually cry...
This D-Now weekend we have been going through the acronym of FOCUS. Friday night Pastor Jeff talked about the “F” and the “O,” Fixing our eyes on Jesus and Offering our lives up to Him. This morning, Jeff talked about the “C,” Communicating with Him; praying and reading our Bibles. Well, Jeff had to go home to be with his family and lead Sunday School at our church tomorrow morning so tonight I will be talking about the “U,” Uniting with other believers.
First off, let’s talk about fellowship. So… What is it? What is Fellowship?
(Possible answers: Spending time with other believers, etc.)
Yeah, most of the time when we say fellowship, we are talking about simply spending time with other believers. If we are at church hanging out, it’s fellowship. If we’re chilling with our friends and we all or most of us just happen to be believers, it’s fellowship. Right? Wrong. The modern church has somewhat warped our definition of the word fellowship. We think of it as simply spending time with other believers, and while that is not a bad thing, in ancient times, fellowship referred to “self-sacrificing conformity to a shared vision.”
Here’s an example: Let’s say Logan really loves to fish. He has no greater passion in life than fishing. He loves going out on the water, lowering his net down, singing “I’m on a Boat,” and catching as many fish as he can. He loves fish fillet, and fried fish, and baked fish, and fish-sticks, and even sushi. The boy likes to fish. So, he decides to follow his passion and start his very own fishing business. So he takes his wallet out of his pocket… or wherever they put them in their robes, and counts up his money to realize he doesn’t have enough money to buy a boat and supplies. So Logan meets up with Clay, who likes to fish too, and they decide to each contribute some money in order to achieve their goal of starting a fishing business. When they made that deal, they entered into a bond of fellowship; they were both sacrificing for a shared vision.
Where are my sports people? When you show up on game day, or race day, what is your ultimate vision? And if you say to have fun, you’re lying! We all know that you show up to win! But you don’t come unprepared on game day. You have to sacrifice beforehand. What do you sacrifice in sports? (practice, time, energy, it can be painful) But in the end, the team sacrifices in order to achieve your vision of winning the game. It’s fellowship.
What is the ultimate vision we share Christians? Our Shared Vision is Christ! To bring His name glory. Hebrews 12:1-3, our main passage for this DNow weekend says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Why does it matter that we think so much about God? Why does God want us to focus on Him so much? If God loves us so much, why doesn’t he want us to think about ourselves more? The answer is that God is the greatest thing that has ever exists, that exists, and will ever exist. He deserves all our praise and more. And God looks down at us and loves us. He looks down and says, “Ethan, I love you so much, and because I love you, I want you to have the greatest thing I can give you, to most valuable thing in the universe – Me! Egotistical? Sure, but He deserves to be! Because he really is the best!
So even in our relationships, we should be pursuing the praise of God and the expansion of his glory. But what do relationships that put Christ first look like? That’s the Self-Sacrificing Conformity part. I’ve been thinking in preparation for this sermon about how I could simply describe Christ-centered relationships and I’ve realized that it really comes down to one little word. Relationships that put Christ first are all about love. In the same way that God offering us a relationship with Him is God giving us the best gift possible, we should desire to serve our friends by giving them the greatest gift we can ever give them, by showing them the greatest thing we have ever seen – Christ!
So when we’re with our friends, the people we hang out with, we should want to point them to Christ. In our dating relationships, the most perfect way we can show love to a potential spouse is to point them to Christ. I’m going to repeat something that Jeff said earlier, and says often, and that is that you should be able to look at your boyfriend or girlfriend and directly ask them, “How does your relationship with Jesus Christ impact the way you date me?” And if they stutter, or stumble, or have no answer, drop them as soon as you can. Because if they have no answer, they haven’t thought about you enough and they haven’t thought about God enough. And if God is love and they don’t have God, you will get hurt, so save yourself the trouble, because our dating relationships should be constructed as a mutual act of pointing each other to Christ.
Of course, it’s not easy, relationships are give-and-take, especially Christian friendships which exist for the purpose of believers serving others. In John 13 we read about Jesus washing the disciples feet. He called them up, told them to come over and chill, but when they got there Jesus had more in mind to do than simply hang out with His friends. He wanted to serve them. So he went around and started washing their feet, which, you have to admit, would have been pretty gross since they wore sandals and walked around the desert all day! But Jesus wanted to show the disciples that they were to serve others.
In Philippians 3:10, Paul talks about how relationships, fellowships, can to difficult. He says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Paul says he wants to know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. Paul realizes that fellowship requires sacrifice. Christian relationships are hard. But we are not alone.
So let’s talk briefly about Accountability. What is accountability? …
Accountability is when friends keep each other responsible for something. For example, if you and a friend are doing a project for school, are you going to hold him/her responsible for doing their part? Of course you are! And that’s what accountability is about. Another example is last night. Me, Scott, and Jeff were staying with the 7th and 8th grade boys. After some epic sword fights, we were talking and agreed that we would need to get up and shower around 5:00, 5:15, 5:30 am so that the 7th and 8th graders could shower from 6:00 – 6:30 and then we could eat breakfast.
Well, I am not a morning person at all. My earliest class is 1:00 in the afternoon! Every other day. On Mondays and Wednesdays my earliest class is at 4:00! So when my alarm went off at 5:15, there was no way I was getting up! I turned it off as quickly as I could, hoping that no one else heard it. Then Scott’s alarm went off, and being the responsible adult he is, Scott went and took his shower. But when he came back down and saw that I was still in bed, he literally picked me up out of bed and put me on the floor! And I crawled right back into bed. So he picked me up again! And I crawled back into bed. Finally, he completely picked me up and started carrying me to the bathroom, saying, “Alright Ethan, I’m just gonna drop you in with your clothes on and turn on the cold water!”
I woke up.
And the point is that I had agreed to something, and Scott was holding me accountable. Even if he is a jerk! Just kidding… kinda. But Christian friends hold each other responsible for doing what God has told us to do. In Galatians 2:11-21, Paul opposes Peter, or Cephas. Actually, if you read the beginning of chapter 2, we see that Paul has just been recognized by Jesus’s original followers as an apostle. It’s been years since he persecuted and killed Christians, and now Paul has finally proven himself to the other apostles. And the very next thing we read about Paul doing, is him calling out Peter for making some mistakes.
See, Peter had been hanging out with these fundamentalist Christians, Christians who believed in Christ, but thought they needed to keep all their old Jewish traditions and rituals too. But Paul called Peter out in front of everyone. He said, it’s not Jesus plus an eating style, it’s not Jesus plus circumcision, it’s Jesus plus nothing that brings us everything! And if the disciples needed to stand up to each other for support, how much more do we need each other?
I first read that passage in Galatians a few years ago when I was a student leader at my church’s summer middle school camp. We had been talking about accountability and I was pleading with them to find other students that could talk to and share their life with. Anything to avoid the mistakes I had made when I was their age, which you’ll hear more about later. And during the camp, 2 students came up to me and asked if I would meet with them in an accountability group. Of course I would!
But it’s something that you have to want. No one can make you be honest with someone. When we got back home from camp, lots of students started coming up to me asking if I could find them an accountability group. I was hesitant, but enough of them asked so I scheduled a meeting, put an announcement in the bulletin, came up with a name (SAFE, Student Accountability For Everyone), and even made an outline how they might want to make their groups happen.
Around 20 students came to the interest meeting. I told them that I would put them into groups, but after that it was up to them. Guess how many accountability groups met after that, including mine? One. Only 3 people including myself were willing to make it actually happen. So you have to really want it; and I desperately want you to want it, because I don’t want you to share my story.
Like most of you, I grew up in the church. I listened to the stories, and accepted Christ, but not much happened for me beyond that. I was still a good kid, not a rebel or anything, I didn’t smoke or drink or have sex. But I wasn’t truly pursuing God either.
Growing up I had 2 best friends. They were just like me; they came to church and said they believed, but that was it. But we put our masks on and played our parts well; we were even leaders of the youth group. But our actions behind the scenes told a different story. I don’t want that for you; I don’t want my story to be yours. I don’t want you and your friends to go through the motions at church, but live completely differently elsewhere.
About 11th grade, things started to get worse. It was more than a general attitude of not caring about God, because that attitude had built up and built up over so many years and now it was starting to seriously affect the actions of my friends. It started slow at first. A little cursing here and there, nothing big. Then making some new, non-Christian, influential friends. Then smoking try a cigarette, then a few, then packs at a time. A sip of alcohol Then a little drinking. Then a lot of drinking and beer pong and flip cup and passing out. And having premarital sex with multiple girls. And smoking pot. And the problems built and built and built and built.
And I don’t want my story to be yours. Because it hurts. I don’t want you to share my story of watching friends grow further and further away from you and from God and make worse and worse decisions because none of you had ever decided that you were going to take your friendship seriously enough to talk about the big issues.
I don’t want my story to be yours. Because what happened in the end, was that it started to affect my life. I started to be more like them. And as much as it pained me to see them making mistakes, I started to make the exact same ones! I started to become the same people they were becoming, to do some of the same things they were doing. And while I didn’t make every mistake they made, I still have a past filled with memories that I would rather forget and pretend never happened. Memories of making such bad decisions, and going around my parents back, betraying their trust, lying to them and other friends and my youth pastor, one of my best friends, simply so I could make mistakes. Hurting people I love.
I don’t want my story to be yours. Because we finally graduated and went off to college and my focus was so off God, I may as well have had my back turned. And the bad decisions continued in college. To a point. But, proof that He never gives up on us, God loved me enough to put me on a hall and around people that were sold out for Him. I looked at them and saw what I once had been, what I could have been, what I could be again. But it still took me half a semester to really get involved with the group, because when I looked at them I also felt such shame, because I once had what they had and I consciously gave it up. I don’t want my story to be yours, because it was embarrassing.
Especially when I would hang out with other people on the hall, and we had this nickname for them, PC’s, Perfect Children, and I was so embarrassed because here I was making fun of people, when in my heart I knew I should be one of them. But finally, about halfway through freshman year I finally couldn’t handle it anymore, and I joined the little group, and made some of the best friends of my life. Who kept encouraging me to come to IV, week after week. Who challenged me to think more intricately about God, the most complex being ever. Who inspired me to be the kind of friend to them that they were to me. I needed them to turn my life around; they were the tools of Christ to change my life. And it was Christ who changed my life, my friends can’t really take the credit for it. But they were the tools that God had ordained to use to change my life forever.
And I want each of you to find friendships like I’ve found, but I still don’t want you to share my story.
In Luke, Jesus tells of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus who begs for money outside of the rich man’s house. Eventually they both die and we see the rich man in Hell and Lazarus in Heaven by Abraham’s side. And the rich man in Hell is in such torment, he’s withering in agony and cries out for Lazarus to help him, even if he only could dip his finger in some water and let a drop fall onto the rich man’s tongue. But Lazarus can’t cross the divide to even give the rich man a drop of water.
And the point of the story is that you can have everything, you can have all the money and go to all the parties and have all the friends, but in the end, if you don’t have Christ, you go to Hell either way. And I don’t want my story to be yours because I don’t want you to have a moment like I had, when you’re at an IV worship night concert, outside on the Great Lawn of your campus. And in all the songs and prayers, you break down and fall to your knees weeping, because you’ve realized that you don’t know which side some of your best friends are going to end up on. You don’t know if they are going to be with you in heaven, or if they’ll be on the other side in Hell, screaming out to you for a drop of water, and there will be nothing you can do but stand there and watch and all you can say is “I’m sorry; I’m sorry.”
I don’t want my story to be yours. I want you write your own story where you have friends that point you to Christ. And I want you to point your friends to Christ. And point your boyfriend or girlfriend to Christ. To surround yourself with people who will be with you in your darkest hour, and whom you can pick up when they fall.
Unite with other believers and point them to Christ.
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