TAOBAN: Better Together

Many people never have read it for themselves, they listen to teachers teach it, and preachers preach it…but have never sat down and read the whole thing for themselves. This is your chance to do it together.

Others of us have read the bible and would say we are bible readers. You know then that the best way to know God, His character and his love for us is to know Jesus. The best way to know Jesus is by reading and studying, and praying through the new testament.

If you would like some information about leading a group or using these resources in the group you have now, I invite you to tell me so on yoru connection card today. Just say, I’d like some information about the challenge. I’ll send you the guide so you can be prepared.

Pray

I saw a Ted Talk the other day that was very interesting. Ted talks are these 15-20 minute videos online that address a leadership topic. They are usually very good.

I heard one by Eric Whitacre. I don’t know Classical Music, maybe you do. He is a famous composer.

Got a video audition from a girl to sing in one of his songs. AN idea struck him for an experiment.

What if he got people from all over the world to submit videos of themselves singing parts of the song, then put them all together for a virtual choir.

So he put his music on his blog, he recorded the music to each of the parts with a recording of him conducting the song and asked people to record themselves. He hoped for 100 people.

HE got almost 200 voices from 12 countries. He hired a videographer to weave them all together and he got a flawless rendition of his song that has been viewed some 5.5 million times.

Lets listen for a moment.

When one unknown person sings, the results are often underwhelming. It’s just one voice, one song, one location, one audience. But when many people come together and sing, particularly if all the people are all working toward the same goal, the results can be breathtaking.

Simply, when we are usually better together.

Review:

Responding to the second commandment

Neighbor 101

Being a neighbor…not looking for one to come to you.

Fences and Barriers

Barriers of time, fear, and forgiveness…how Christ’s love for us helps us to overcome these. That as we grow in love of Jesus, we grow in love for others.

People not Projects

Our neighbors are people not projects. How we can love them by being better receivers. Asking them for help, borrowing from them, complementing them.

We said that our ultimate goal should be to see everyone, including our neighbors come to faith in Christ. To enter into a relationship with Jesus. For people to go from not knowing Jesus to being a disciple of Jesus. How did Jesus plan to do this?

We are better together when we neighbor together.

Its about how we were designed. We were created to be in relationships. We accomplish His purpose when we partner with other Christians to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Let’s look at Jesus’s plan for discipleship:

Luke 10 reveals Jesus’s strategy.

Luke 10:1 NIV84

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.

He sent them out in pairs to every community…every neighborhood.

To the places he was going to show up - to prepare the way.

We aren’t saving people, but we are preparing the way.

Luke 10:2 NRSV

2 He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

The harvest is there. Question is, who are the laborers?

We are.

Grocery store when you are hungry.

Picking fruit when you are hungry.

So we need the HS to send us out, because we won’t go on our own…until we get hungry

Those of us who are going to go to love our neighbor…Jesus’s plan was to send disciples out into the neighborhood in to the places where he had prepared a harvest.

but what does this harvesting look like?

Luke 10:5–7 NIV84

5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

Pray for them, their home, ask that God’s peace will welcome you.

Then build a relationship there, with them.

vs 7 tells us to befriend them, eat with them, fellowship with them…

This neighboring doesn’t have to be weird. All we are talking about is to take people over time from being strangers to being acquaintances, to Building a relationship with them…In order to do that, just don’t be the social butterfly.

Invest your life in them…That’s God’s plan for how we develop relationships with our neighbors.

It’s about relationships. We recognize that we can’t change anyone. not even ourselves. God changes people, our best hope is to take Jesus with us as we love our neighbors as ourselves.

This is the way that we live out Jesus’s teaching from Matthew 5.

Matthew 5:13 NIV84

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

This passage explains how we show Jesus to the world.

We are to be salty.

In the biblical world, salt served as seasoning, a medicine, and as a preservative.

Salt is essential to life, but our body doesn’t produce it. We have to get it from somewhere else.

We take it into our bodies and it becomes part of everything that comes out.

We take it in, but it fills our sweat. We take it in, but it fills our tears.

Salt gets incorporated into everything.

It works that way with food too.

A steak with salt…fantastic! because it breaks down the meat before the grill. It changes our food.

In the same way we are to be salt…to incorporate our salty selves into the lives of others change things.

That’s could be one problem with the church today…we aren’t very salty…and if we are, we sit in the shaker. We never come into contact with those who Jesus wants us to be incorporated in.

Jesus says

Matthew 5:14–16 NIV84

14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

We are the light of the world.

What does light do?

Night owl.

Step on things on my way to bed, that I don’t see till morning.

Illuminates things that you couldn’t otherwise see.

When we spend time with our neighbors, they see Jesus - in us…

They see the qualities that the Holy Spirit is developing in us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control.

They see in us what they have never seen before...the holy spirit alive and at work. That’s exactly the way God planned it. That they would see something in us that is so unique that their heart would be open.

What is it that opens their heart?

Jesus prayed it for us in John 17:

John 17:22–23 NIV84

22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

I said earlier and I said last week that my ultimate goal, and I pray it is yours as well, that our neighbors come to Christ, that they experience God’s Holy Spirit transforming their life, and they get connected to a church.

I want everyone to belong to a church. But our church is just like our neighborhood. It is the place we have been planted. We get caught in thinking that this is the place where ministry happens…but it isn’t. It is the place where we serve our family, where we get equipped and encouraged for ministry.

But ministry happens out there in our neighborhood, at work, in our community.

Just like we serve in our home church with one another, so we are called to reach out in our neighborhood with our neighbors.

We are better together when we neighbor together.

We don’t have to do it all along.

Do you have Christian neighbors who go to a different church? that’s fine. Partner with them to reach all your neighbors.

IN this way, you will for sure be BETTER TOGETHER. Because your other neighbors will see that Christ is bigger than our church. Jesus goes beyond our Church.

This is how Jesus’s prayer is answered. When we are in unity with other Christians right in our neighborhood.

Have you met one yet that thinks like this. Have you heard one of your neighbors say…we should do this more often or something similar?

Then join them in praying for your neighbors.

Doing this together is one of the saltiness and brightest things you can do as a Christian because it’s not what non-Christians see us doing. They see us as being all about our church, when they should see us as being all about Jesus and them. When they see us working together for the good of our community, they will get serious and begin asking questions. This is the way Jesus wanted it to be, and those around us are watching.

Just like we were built for relationships, we were built to be neighbors together too. This sounds simple, it is, but it’s also powerful.

So what can you do?

Start praying your neighborhood…walk it and pray for them. We are going to start providing us with some door hangers that you can take and put on a neighbors door, just to let them know you are praying for them.

READ IT

You can invite them to join you for a bible study in our coming series.

I’ll give you all the resources you need.

Have a cookout

Have a cookout and a bible study

There are____ people here today. Imagine if we all did this.

Imagine if all ___ families here today decided they were going to partner with another in their neighborhood…right away we would have ____ x2.

This series is coming to an end, but our call to love our neighbor isn’t.

Jesus said this was the 2nd most important thing we have to do in this life, so we can’t check this off the list, like the lawyer wanted to do. Instead we get to begin living like missionaries right in our own neighborhood.

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