Real Life Relationships

Notes
Transcript
Handout
Intro
Matthew 16:18 NLT
18 Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.
We want to build a good foundation.

Honest Life Changing Relationships

Today I want to talk about small groups. Normal human nature doesn’t like these, but if you want to see life get better, you need to be in a group. Groups help you to grow. You will build great friendships in these and learn how to serve the Lord better.
In church, too many of us have learned to “put on.” couple in kitchen fighting and the phone rings… hello
We need to learn to be real. Why, there is a man who is all alone... I believe depression and anxiety are the main problems we face today. Covid has been bad, but these two problems have been made worse by Covid.
Depression and meds are on the rise 1/4 under 30 considered suicide
Japan Oct 2020 more suicides than Covid deaths for the year.
Soul Sick
Two are better than one. Together, they multiply the efforts of the one.
Sunday services alone are not enough. Consider that relationships help.
Ecclesiastes 4:8–12 NLT
8 This is the case of a man who is all alone, without a child or a brother, yet who works hard to gain as much wealth as he can. But then he asks himself, “Who am I working for? Why am I giving up so much pleasure now?” It is all so meaningless and depressing. 9 Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. 10 If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. 11 Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? 12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
Cheers - group that got together in a bar. The theme song describes what ought to happen here in church.
Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came. You want to be where you can see our troubles are all the same. You want to go where everybody knows your name.
That’s a bar but it should be the church… it should be us. That’s why we do a lot of the things that we do… potlucks, outreaches, teams, and groups. Over the years we have had all sorts of small groups… marriage… strongholds… Freedom group… parenting… follow up of sermons… Fresh Start…
We are fixing to begin 2 new groups… Ladies Group and a mens’s group on 1 & 3 Monday of each month right here at the church.

Real life change happens in the context of Relationships

If I asked you to name the last 10 sermons I’ve preached, you probably can’t but if I asked you to name the last 10 people that have impacted your life… you could.
Romans 12:5 NLT
5 so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
We have to stop this mindset of it’s about me. WE grow in relationships.
Jahari Window… learned this doing youth ministry. Quadrant that your life is in.

1. Arena: I know and you know

When we meet and talk, there are some things like this… there are easy things that we pick up about each other.
Unfortunately, this is the way most of Christianity works.
Matthew 23:5 NLT
5 “Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels.
They had the scripture on the outside… nothing wrong with that, but God wants to write the WOG in your heart.
Matthew 23:27 NLT
27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.
White Washed tomb - look good but you are dead…
We are a church of relationships…

2. Mask: I know but you don’t know

There are things that you know that I don’t know and things I know that you don’t know… and you won’t know. But someone had to know… because…
I’ll always be as sick as my secrets
You wonder why you keep facing depression… anxiety… because no one knows…
2 Corinthians 4:2 The Message
2 We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.
Why don’t we share? One reason is because you tried it and someone went out and told people your secrets and now you don’t want relationships. When you eat at a bad restaurant you don’t stop eating out, you just find another restaurant.
We all need someone.
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one. CS Lewis
Some of you think you are the only one, but you will find out that you are not the only one.
Look at this…
16 is salvation
17 - God came to help… to set you free.
John 3:16–21 NLT
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. 18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
When your deeds are exposed, you are free…
Theme verse for groups
James 5:16 NIV84
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Confess to each other so that you will be healed.
Colossians 4:12 NLT
12 Epaphras, a member of your own fellowship and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident that you are following the whole will of God.
You need… we all need some Epaphras’s in your group.

3. Blind Spots: I don’t know but you know

Spinach in the teeth… this is the hanger.
All of us have an area of their life that we need to do some changing. I don;’t know about you, but I don’t like to have someone correct me… Matter of fact… if a stranger comes along and says, you need to … My response will not be positive. but if someone I know loves me says … I was harsh… I was … whatever… I am going to listen.
Proverbs 27:6 NKJV
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
I don’t know about you, but I want honest people in my inner circle and I think you do too.
Hebrews 3:12–13 NIV84
12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Timely text…

4. Potential: I don’t know and you don’t know.

This is the part that God knows…
You have not experienced the best version of you! The question is, how do I find it? You find it when we come together. The hand can’t reach it’s potential without being connected without being connected. Picture of a child who loses a hand… but grows. and the hand doesn’t. That happens with us in the spiritual realm.
Proverbs 27:17 NLT
17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Colossians 2:19 NIV84
19 He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Get in a group
It’s that simple…
Get on a ministry team
We don’t want to volunteer in a team because we need you to work. I ask you because You need the team. You need to be involved with a team. Greeters, Ushers, Food team, Outreach Team, Prayer Team, Childrens team...
We have become the loneliness culture in the history of time… in the past people were connect through tribes and we have ditched the tribes. Our mantra is “you be you.... and today we have more people on medication than ever before.
People need to be needed and known…
Don’t do you, be us… be part of a group.
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