Uncomfortable Fellowship
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Handout
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Intro
Intro
There are some weird people at church isn't there?
The overaggressive huggers who always bypass side-hugging for the full-on hug
The under-aggressive people who shake your hand like a limp noodle
The Baby Boomer who isn’t confident enough to dole out wisdom to Millennials like me
The know-it-all in life group who “christ-splains” everything in a condescending manner
The external processor who takes up precious social energy by working out meandering thoughts aloud
The person who manages to ask horribly offensive and personal questions under the guise of kind-hearted concern
The sweaty-handed people who lay their entire damp palms on your shoulder when they pray for you
The overly expressive worshiper who makes you feel embarrassed, distracted, and maybe if your honest a little self-consciously stiff
The person who frequently weeps during service, making you feel like an emotionless faux Christian
The (“fear of missing out”) members who say they’ll be at every event but often flake out at the last minute because something better comes up
The far-too-happy person whose perpetual smile makes you think it must mask something sinister
The person who has shaken hands with you twelve times but still can’t remember your name
The guy who thinks every discussion among men must involve meat, beer, cigars, sports, or guns
The “I’m not your typical Christian!” who goes out of their way to nonconformity while showing you their tattoos
The super bible scholar who shoots bible verses out faster then Wyatt Earp’s quick draw
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community (8 Uncomfortable People)
Scott Sauls = “joining your imperfect self to many other imperfect selves to form an imperfect community that, through Jesus, embarks on a journey toward a better future . . . together.”
This is the uncomfortable but beautiful struggle of being the church…
Spurgeon = “The church may be faulty, but that is no excuse for your not joining it, if you are the Lord’s. Nor should you feel disqualified by your own faults, for the Church is not an institution for perfect people, but a sanctuary for sinners saved by Grace, who, though they are saved, are still sinners and need all the help they can derive from the sympathy and guidance of their fellow Believers.”
This is what makes up our uncomfortable Fellowship
PRAYER
Our God in heaven we thank you for people. You have created us in your image and then use each of us as living stones to build your church. We thank you for allowing us the gift of being a part of this body of believers.
Message
Message
His church is His people.
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
It is impossible to be in Christ and not belong to others. A Christian, by definition, has a connection with and a responsibility to other Christians. You cannot claim Christ and avoid his people. = Sam Allberry
There is no I in Church
football team / basketball team / hockey team / soccer team / curling…
Me and Jesus
salvation is personal not corporate… However
to say you love Jesus but not church is to say you love a decapitated head !!
Eph 5.23 “23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.”
When the going gets tough… the tough get going …
YOLO | FOMO
Story of Narcissus in Greek mythology
became so self focused that it caused him to waste away and die…
We are stones
Have you ever seen a stone built cottage?
how do they fit?… does this church fit you?… backward!!
“We shouldn’t look for a church that will change to fit us. We should look for one where we will be changed to better represent Christ.”
Eph 2.19-22 “19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
HE is cornerstone - We are being put together for Him
Family life is messy but beautiful
share our stuff
share our hearts
share our hurts
more than a nuclear family
Young married women, welcome in the single women who struggle with same-sex-attracted for genuine plutonic friendship!
Scandal of the Samaritan Woman | Woman caught in Adultery
Who is my mother, my sister, my brother?
1 Corinthians 6:11 “11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
His church is His people… His people are difficult… Being a part of the body is uncomfortable !!
His command is Love.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Christ loved you before you loved him. He loved you when there was nothing good in you. He loved you though you insulted him, though you despised him and rebelled against him. He has loved you right on, and never ceased to love you. He has loved you in your backslidings and loved you out of them. He has loved you in your sins, in your wickedness and folly. His loving heart was still eternally the same, and he shed his heart’s blood to prove his love for you. He has given you what you want on earth, and provided for you an habitation in heaven.
Now Christian, your religion claims from you that you should love as your Master loved. How can you imitate him, unless you love too? = CHARLES SPURGEON
Love isn’t a feeling its a commitment.
Does that have any romance in it?
Elisa is not my soul mate… She does not complete me!… Jesus is… Jesus Does!!
fireworks, butterflies
fireworks burn out and butterflies die
“If marriage is just about us feeling happy, then the minute a marriage stops delivering happiness, it is easy to justify ending it.”
Does it have any commitment in it?
1 Jhn 3.16 “16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”
“Cruciform love doesn’t always feel rewarding and it doesn’t always look like progress. But it does look like sacrifice and servanthood. Which is to say, it looks like Jesus”
Love doesn't serve self it serves others.
Love is not about you!! … So counter cultural I will repeat…
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 “4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community 5 Uncomfortable Love
This sort of self-giving love works because it is how God-in-three-persons functions. The other-serving love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one in which each “magnifies the other, wants the other to have the glory, and wherever possible gives to the other.”
Relational / Reciprocal
Love isn't always nice it pushes us toward holiness.
Men… what is the right answer when she asks if this dress makes her look fat?...
Love =/= Tolerance… Love = Truth
Nazareth (1976) - “Love Hurts, love scars, love wounds, and marks!”
Reduced to:
culturally and politically correct, endlessly tolerant
religious duty and the accountants moral ledger book
“Compassion does not mean we give up our convictions, and holding firm to truth does not mean we live without love.”
2 Corinthians 2:4 “4 For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.”
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community 5 Uncomfortable Love
To love someone as Christ loves is to meet them in their sin but to not let them stay there. It is to walk with them in their battles and struggles, urging them onward (and they you) in the renovation of the heart. This will be messy and painful at times, requiring grace and sacrifice on all sides. But the more love takes on a cruciform shape, the more powerful it becomes.
Love isn't only for the lovable its for our enemies too.
1 Jhn 4.19 “19 We love because he first loved us.”
Rom 5.8 “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community 5 Uncomfortable Love
God’s love doesn’t wait for us to be deserving of it. It descends to us, writes Wells. “We could not make our way up to him, so he made his way down to us.”
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community 5 Uncomfortable Love
He loves us even while we rebelliously undermine his rule and flee his righteousness.
This means we are commanded to love not to get anything but because we have been given…
LOVE / ACTS
Cruciform Love =
welcoming the immigrant = image of God
praying for those who persecute us
serving and protecting the dignity of our neighbors regardless of
race / gender / orientation / religion / political party / social class
clothing the naked / feeding the hungry / ministering to the sick & imprisoned
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community 5 Uncomfortable Love
Early Christians were characterized by this sort of love. They were known both for their love for one another and for their pagan neighbors
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community 5 Uncomfortable Love
May that be true in our generation as well. May our radical, sacrificial, stranger-focused love fan the flames of mission. May they “know we are Christians by our love,”18 as the song goes, not because we are great but because the Holy Spirit is at work within us. May it be as undeniable to the world as it is uncomfortable for us.
His command is Love… this love is foreign and messy… Loving people this way is uncomfortable !!
Close
Close
This is what you’re empowered for.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
All other ways of mortification are vain; all helps leave us helpless. It must be done by the Spirit. = JOHN OWEN
Who is the Holy Spirit?
What does the Holy Spirit Do?
His church is his people… His people are difficult… Being a part of the body is uncomfortable !!
His command is Love… this love is foreign and messy… Loving people this way is uncomfortable !!
This is what you’re empowered for… Christian Fellowship is Uncomfortable!… Therefore let us together embrace the uncomfortable !!
PRAYER
Dearest Lord Jesus bring us past the point of accepting each other and the mess of christian community. Bring us rather to the point of rejoicing in the differences of one another, loving each other as Christ loves us. Give us your Holy Spirit power to be the church you deserve!
Group Questions
Group Questions
Out of the list of “weird” people in the church, did you find yourself? Which one/ones characterize you?
What if anything stood out to you most from this weeks sermon?
Look at 1 Cor 12 and list some reason Paul gives for us to practice uncomfortable fellowship.
What are the blessings of this?
What are the dangers?
Look back at the LOVE statements which is the hardest for you and why?
Which have you observed as to be most laking in todays churches? Explain.
Is there another love statement you would add? if so what?
The ABC tagline is “Love Acts”, given todays sermon how are we doing at this?
How can/should we tangibly improve?
How can you personally help the church body as a whole in this vision?
How can your group as individuals and a whole work toward this with one another?
How does it make you feel to know that this is what you are empowered to do by the Holy Spirit?
Spend some time this week thinking how you might encourage one another in these areas, and then do it!