Humanity of Community

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

So this week we're gonna talk about the humanity of community.

We all need to be in community.

Community helped me so much this week.

And so uh we're really talking about the humanity of just the humans around us.

What should we do with people?

What should we do with people?

Oh, people.

People.

I told my wife whenever we got married, uh, it was when we were dating.

I was like, you need to know two things about me.

And uh I was dead serious.

Uh both of these things turned out to be completely wrong, um, but I was adamant about both of them.

I said, number one, I will never work at a church again.

That was almost 18 years ago.

And I have always worked for a church since then.

I said, number two, I hate people.

I can't stand them.

You just need to know that.

If I could do whatever I wanted to do, I would go to the mountains and I would never see people again.

I can't stand them.

I don't like people at all.

And so that turned out to be very wrong, too.

Maybe I wasn't even saved.

I don't know.

Jesus had not done any work in my heart, apparently.

I don't know.

I was like, people, I'm done with people, I don't like them.

It to me, it felt like whenever people are involved, that's when messiness is involved.

That's what that's if you're if people are around, then drama and messiness is around.

And I couldn't stand that.

And so I was like, I can't stand people.

And so uh this is the this is what who we have to deal with, you know?

This is the the reality that we live in, is that we are communal people.

We want to be around people, we desire to be around people, we need it.

I don't know if you've ever seen the people that do what I wanted to do, that go off in the mountains and live by themselves, watch them interact with people when they come back into town for a little while.

It's a little bit weird, all right?

You know, so we need these people, we need everyone around us, we need to be in community, and so that's that's what we need.

And this uh I was I was working with the graphics team, the communications team on staff here.

They do such an amazing job with all of the artwork and videos and everything like that.

And I explained to them that how I feel about humanity is that it can be very messy at times, but there's this artful beauty to it.

And this is the series graphic that they came up with, and it perfectly spoke to that.

It's uh artful, it's a little bit messy, it's people, but not in the exact way that we would see them.

It's colorful because all of us come together to create community.

We all are joining together in that way.

And they created this amazing graphic that really captures all of that.

So we need community, we need that in our lives, and yet today the world seems to be more and more polarized.

We can't even uh imagine the effects that COVID has had as we sheltered away in our houses and lost the feeling of community, and so the world gets more and more polarized, and we aren't sure how to deal with those who disagree with us or speak against us, and so we become more and more fractured as a society.

We just last week talked about the humanity of Jesus, and my friend Tyler pointed out to me something that is so beautiful, and it is to remember that even when Jesus in his human form was carrying the cross up the hill, there became a point where he could not carry it anymore, and it was uh it was someone else in the community uh who had to step in, Simon of Cyrene, who had to step in and help him.

And if you remember, Simon of Cyrene was not of the same uh race as him, not as the same ethnicity as him, and yet he stepped in and he helped Jesus.

And so it Jesus used this as a metaphor.

I don't think this is too much of a stretch.

Jesus said, uh, you also need to pick up your cross and carry it.

So, metaphorically speaking, there will come a time as a human that you will not be able to carry the cross and you will need people around you to support you.

You will need community.

And they might not look like you, they might not act like you, they might not believe the same things as you, but you need them.

So, how do we then build community?

That's the first thing we want to talk about is how we build community.

We all need community around us.

So, what's the fastest way to build community?

I'm not talking about the best way.

What's the fastest way to build community around you?

The answer, I believe, this is completely my opinion.

I believe the answer might be pretty surprising to you.

The fastest way to build community around you is through negativity.

Don't believe me?

I'll give you a little thing that you can do this week.

Here's some homework.

When you go to the grocery store and the line is really long, uh, maybe right before an ice storm.

I don't know why we did that, but you know, it's just what we did.

So go to the grocery store and there's a really long line.

You know, um, just try to be like, oh hey, you like you like frozen pizzas too?

I do too, that's cool, man.

Just like try to start up a conversation.

They'll just look at you and be like, uh, whatever.

Yeah, I like frozen pizzas.

And and there's nothing developed there at all.

But watch, and you've seen this happen before.

Be standing in that really long line that's taking forever, and just go, what is the deal?

And everybody will turn around, right?

Right?

What is the deal?

Sir, what's the deal?

What's going on here?

You don't have more people to work here?

Everybody will join in with you in your negativity immediately.

They will immediately join in with you.

The fastest way you can build community is negativity.

Do I recommend it?

No, it's not the best way.

It's not very good.

Evaluate it every once in a while.

You've all had that time where you're at work, you're with a friend, and you connect over something.

Can you believe they made this decision?

Can you believe they did this?

And you've developed this bond where all of a sudden you go, yeah, I can't believe that.

And all of a sudden you feel close to this person, you feel like you're friends with this person and you connect over those things.

Oftentimes we develop entire friend groups or people around us, and if you stop and pause for a minute, you'll realize that your whole relationship with them is based on negativity.

And then you'll wonder why that friendship turns toxic when the entire basis of the beginning of it was based on negativity.

It's easy.

It's easy to build community around you.

It's easy to get that way where you can just say one negative thing and people start to connect with you.

And so don't lose your community over temporal matters, but instead have a bond of the heart in the community that you're in.

Instead, choose to connect with people over positivity.

Choose to connect with people who support you, who believe in you.

If you can't, if you feel like you can't go to your friend group and tell them about the promotion you got at work or the good thing that happened to you because you know that they won't celebrate with you fully, then they're not the right people that you should be around.

Community is meant to build us up, it is meant to help us, and we all need community.

We need this.

Jesus preached this gospel of love and harmony, and many people chose to follow him.

But then we also remember that there were so many people that hated him.

There were so many people that spoke out against him, and the people who followed Jesus had to actually change the way that they lived, but the people who were against him only had to speak out in hate.

That's all that was required of them.

We often think about Judas.

Oh, Judas is the one that betrayed Jesus.

Remember that he sold away for 30 pieces of silver and he betrayed Jesus.

But we forget a lot of times, if you were, if you were following Jesus, if you were a Jesus follower and he just got betrayed and taken into custody, uh, that wasn't the end yet.

He actually had to go before Pontius Pilate.

He had to go before the council, he had to be there, and that wasn't the end yet.

And if you were a Jesus follower, you might be thinking, look, he's about to get off.

He's about to get free from this, he's about to be released from this.

It happens right here in Luke chapter 23, starting in verse 14, it says, And set, and he said to them, You brought me this man as one who was misleading to the people.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

This is Pontius Pilate talking.

And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him.

Neither did Herod.

He had already been sent to King Herod, neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us.

Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him.

I will therefore punish and release him.

Skipping down just a little bit to verse 20, it says, Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, Crucify Him, crucify him.

A third time he said to them, Why?

What evil has he done?

I have found him in no guilt deserving death.

I will therefore punish and release him.

But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified, and their voices prevailed.

So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted.

He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder for whom they had asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

The mobs of angry people convinced Pilate to make the decision to sentence Jesus to death.

And who he let go was a murderer.

How backwards are our standards if all of a sudden we can join in in all of the hate that we see around us and we'll say, we're fine with a murderer going free, but this man must die.

Think about how many people would have had to gather and for hours and hours and hours yell, crucify him, to get Pilate to change his mind.

To get him to knowingly convict an innocent person to death.

Think about how persistent they must have been and what did Jesus ever do to them?

It's easy for us in humanity, in our humanity, to just join into the mob mentality, to just jump on all of the hatred, to just hear something that happened, and maybe not even check out all of the facts to see what it is, but just pile on all of the hate.

Did Jesus go around and punch every one of those people in the face?

Is that why they were mad?

What in the world?

Did they have did all these people have individual encounters with him?

How in the world did that many people gather together in a mob to cry out for ours, crucify him?

It is within our broken nature of humanity to pile on when hate is caused, to come around and be so forceful in that that we can actually get people to change from doing the right thing because our hatred flows so much.

And this is why the early Christians were so effective in winning people to the gospel.

Because they acted outside of the ways of the rest of humanity.

They acted far outside of that.

They clothed the people who they had no relation to or no connection to.

They recognized the image of God in people, they fed the people who didn't deserve to be fed.

They loved humanity instead of hating it, and they offered grace to all of those within their reach.

In Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42, it says, And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need, and day by day attending the temple together.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

This means in community and breaking bread in their homes as a community, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved.

They modeled a community.

They gathered together and chose to be in unity.

Are you in a small group?

Are you in a community?

I'm in a small group, and I can't tell you, even while I'm preaching this series, how valuable it has been for them to be there for encouragement, to walk through these things with us.

I can't tell you how many times we've heard about something that's going on in someone's life, and we've been there to be able to support them.

People from my small group are here just that don't even go to this campus, here just to support the amount of support that you feel when you're in community.

Even Leah made it, and she hardly ever comes to church, you know.

Um I'm just kidding, I told her I would I would say that.

It's not true.

Okay, be in community, get in a small group, gather together, and make it be the kind of community that differs from the rest of the world because that is what people will notice.

Here's the second way to build community in our lives is to tell better stories, to tell better stories.

All right, I want to show you a video.

This video was from an experiment that was done in the 50s or 60s or something like that.

And you guys can go ahead and start the video.

I want you to just watch this video.

And um, maybe you've seen this.

I'm not the only person that's ever shown this.

It's from a study, maybe a fairly popular study.

So maybe you've seen it before, but this this video here, um, I don't know, maybe you think something's something's going on.

I don't know.

Um what's happening now?

Anybody figuring it out?

I think he's mad, I guess.

I don't know.

I don't know what's going on.

There you go.

That's the video.

Incredible, right?

How many of you were glad that the small triangle and the circle got away from the big triangle?

Were you kind of happy to see that?

That felt that would that felt pretty good.

Um how many of you like you felt like the big triangle, that that that was a bad guy, right?

Is he a bad guy or a good guy?

You know, like it is there anybody that just didn't see anything?

You just didn't nothing?

You just nothing at all?

Because if that's you, you're right.

The only thing that was was geometric shapes moving around in a two-dimensional plane.

It doesn't mean anything, it doesn't say anything, it has nothing, it doesn't, it doesn't have a deeper story to it.

That's it.

Someone made this little thing, and then they put people in rooms over and over and had them watch it, and the elaborate stories that people came up with about what was happening is unbelievable.

You should go and check out the study, it's amazing.

That was geometrical shapes moving around in a two-dimensional plane.

But the ability of our minds to create a story is unbelievably powerful.

The ability of our minds to read intentions into geometrical shapes moving around on a two-dimensional plane.

They can't, these don't have feelings, they can't attack others.

Triangles don't do that.

They're not like out to kill other triangles.

It doesn't happen.

But our ability to read these things into the story, we always can tell stories to ourselves about different things.

I heard a pastor tell a story about someone who, uh someone who went to his church and he bumped into the communion table and he looked over, and the pastor was staring right at him, and he was like, Oh, he's so mad at me.

I can't believe I did this, you know.

And he told himself a story for two or three weeks before finally going to the pastor and saying, I saw that you saw that I bumped into the table, and I'm really sorry.

I could tell that you were mad about it or whatever.

And the pastor said, I literally have no idea what you're talking about.

If I happen to be looking in your direction, I'm sorry to say this.

I wasn't looking at you, I was staring in the space.

I have no clue what you're talking about.

But for weeks, this guy had agonized over what he felt the pastor was saying to himself about that person.

We have unbelievable abilities to ruin the community that we're in because we have this tendency to tell ourselves stories.

This past Monday, I went out to the land with my dad, and we were working on the land, and we turned this corner, and uh, and he said to me, What I was exactly thinking in my mind, which is like, watch out, snake.

Right here, watch out, snake.

Why did he say that?

Because seven, eight years ago, we saw one snake there.

That's why.

And every single time we ever get back to that spot, we go, watch out, snake.

It's not, it's never there.

It's never there.

We saw it one time eight years ago, and it's never there.

That's like a protection mechanism that we have built into ourselves, where it's like once you see this, your body reminds you every time, look out, there's danger right here.

Watch out.

And that protected us whenever we were walking in the wilderness or having to contend with snakes and wild beasts all the time.

It helped protect us to remind us danger is nearby.

But when we use it in social situations, it causes us to be standoffish from people when nothing has actually happened.

To pull ourselves back because maybe one time someone said something about us, and so all of a sudden we associate it with danger all the time.

The primary reason why people resist connecting with other people is because of trauma and past hurts that they've been inflicted on by other people.

We have this protection mechanism where we want to back off from that, and so we instead of uh actually talking to people and asking them what is actually happening, we talk to ourselves and we tell ourselves all these things.

And if we would just go talk to them, it would resolve so many issues.

Want to build better community, tell better stories.

Tell better stories about the people that you're in community with.

Tell better stories about them.

If you're disagreeing with someone, instead of talking over them, listen to what they have to say.

Curiosity is the cure for disagreement.

Take interest in them.

I want to understand you better.

I want to hear what you have to say because me being in communion with you is more important than me convincing you that my way is right.

We got to tell better stories in our minds and to each other.

Proverbs chapter 18, verse 2 says, A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his own opinion.

Proverbs 18:2

Oh man.

Like every time I read that it hurts.

Like every single time I read that.

How many times do I just I don't need whatever you're about to tell me?

I'll just tell you my own opinion first.

Skipping down a little bit in Proverbs 18, verse 13, it says, if one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.

Proverbs 18:13

A man's spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?

An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

You should listen to everyone because you might actually learn something.

But our temptation is to tell them what they ought to believe or what they should believe.

Tell better stories and listen to other people tell stories.

You will grow.

You will grow in knowledge and wisdom.

Tell better stories about the people that you're in community with.

The ninth commandment says, do not give false testimony about your neighbor.

Why?

Because this commandment is about the public portrayal of reality, lest we convict an innocent person.

Be careful what you say about other people.

We were hanging out with our friends Brett and Lindsay, and for some reason we were talking about the doctor that that uh we we all had been to before, and we brought up, do you remember how unbelievably rude that nurse was at that doctor's office?

And Lindsay brought up that she had been talking to someone else about uh the experience at going to this doctor's office, and the person that she was talking to said, Do you know, do you have any idea what that woman has been through?

She said, No, I have no idea.

And when she told her, it broke her heart.

And so what she realized in that moment is she said, I hold that person's reputation in my hands, and whatever I say about them, it's how others will see them.

We gotta tell better stories about each other, and when someone's a little prickly with you and you decide that's it, I'm done with you, and I'm gonna tell everybody else how bad of a person you are, maybe you ought to stop and wonder and think for a moment what kind of things they've been through.

We gotta tell better stories about the people in our lives because we hold the power of their reputation, and in every relational breakdown, these types of things are the Heart of the issue.

In James 4, verse 12, it says, There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.

James 4:12

But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Who are you to judge your neighbor?

We're not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We're not to be the judge over others.

There is only one that gives the law.

There is only one that decides what is right and wrong.

And he also is the only one that should judge.

We often look at our own mistakes and we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt because we know our intentions.

But as soon as someone else makes a mistake, we ascribe malevolent intentions to them immediately.

A simple way of thinking about it is when I'm late to a meeting, I have plenty of excuses for myself.

The dog threw up in the house and there was traffic and there was all this stuff I had to do.

And you you understand it's okay, but I'm I'm here now.

As soon as someone else is late for a meeting, though, my temptation is to be like, they don't care about this meeting.

They don't care about me.

They're late because they're always late.

They're late because they're lazy.

I can immediately think of a million reasons why they would be late, and none of them are good.

Not one of them.

In my brokenness and in my humanity, it is easy for me to always give a pass to myself and never give a pass to others.

To never bridge the gap.

Jesus bridges the gap for us.

He became our mediator, as we talked about last week.

He became the mediator for us.

So he bridges the gap for us.

He's the one that stands in the gap and says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

And shouldn't we also bridge the gap for other people every once in a while if we're to be like Christ?

So tell better stories about the people you're in community with.

The third is choose reconciliation.

Choose reconciliation.

Reconciliation means to restore or recover a relationship, to neutralize the distance causing separation, and to become well disposed toward or benevolently inclined towards that person.

And then in Greek, the word that is for reconciliation that is used here in this instance is katalasso, and it is a verb.

So it is said in this way it means to actively go and reconcile the things that are pressing against us.

You know when you've got something wrong between you and someone else, because it's actively pressing against you.

It never leaves your mind.

You can try to go to sleep that night, but it's always on your mind.

You can try to go hang out with your family, but it's always on your mind.

If it's pressing against you, you, because you've been given the ministry of reconciliation, are to actively go and solve that issue.

That's the ministry of reconciliation that God has called us to.

You ever ask yourself, why can't we just all get along?

Huh?

Come on, that would be great.

Why can't we just all get along?

The reason is we hold so dear to our ideologies and our beliefs that we begin to hate the ones who disagree with us or don't look like us.

And there is only one way that we can actually all get along.

I figured it out.

I solved the problem.

I'm gonna tell you what I do, and I literally do this all the time.

I wake up in the morning and I say, Today I'm gonna dispense with all my enemies.

I'm gonna destroy all of them.

And at the end of the day, I look back and I go, Did I destroy all of my enemies?

And the answer is yes.

And I say, Well, how did I destroy them then?

How did I actually do that?

The reason is because I destroyed the power that they had over me by dispensing with my hate and deciding to love them.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17, it says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, a new humanity.

2 Corinthians 5:17

The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come.

All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ God, was reconciling the world to himself.

Listen to how he did his ministry of reconciliation right here.

Not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Look at it again.

Not counting their trespasses against them.

You want to end your day with a pure heart and sleep well at night?

Don't count their trespasses against them.

At the end of the day, choose to love instead of hate.

Choose to forgive instead of to be bitter.

The ministry of reconciliation means to not count their trespasses against them.

I read the account of Martin Niemuler.

He was telling of his incarceration, and his cell was in the plain view of the gallows.

The gallows is where they would hang people.

He said every single day he would watch as men and women would be carried to the gallows and hung.

And it happened over and over and over every single day, right in front of him.

And he said he watched, and every person's uh reaction to the moment of their death was different.

Some would yell in hatred, you criminals, you scum, I can't believe you're doing this, I can't believe you're doing this, and others would stand there quietly and not say a word, others would tremble in fear, and a few would actually express forgiveness even in that moment.

Just a few would actually express the love of Christ of their faith in that moment, and it impacted him so much as he thought through how I will be whenever I get to that place, whenever I have to stand there and be hung.

What will I say and how will I act or respond?

And so he said this if Jesus had cried out in vengeance, there would have been no New Testament, no church, and no Christian history.

Only because Jesus stood hanging on that cross and cried out, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

That's how we know he was real.

That's how we know how real his love is.

One of the greatest tests of the degree of a person's transformation into the likeness of Christ is his reaction to the one who does evil to him.

It's not hard to be nice to the person who's nice back to you.

The greatest ultimate measure of your faith is not how you treat people that are nice to you and agree with you, it's how you treat those that aren't.

That's our testimony.

I know it feels painful.

I know it keeps you up at night.

I know sometimes you feel like no one understands.

We say that to other people all the time about the pain that we've been through.

You just don't understand.

But as we saw last week, Jesus is the only human that actually does understand.

He knows what you've been through.

He understands.

By following the model and the example of Christ Jesus.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me if you will?

Lord, we want the ministry of reconciliation so bad.

Everything in our broken humanity causes us to want vengeance on those that hurt us.

Causes us to want to respond in hate and outrage.

And Lord, we could be like everyone else whenever we hear someone say something that we don't agree with.

We could be part of the mob, we could pile on the hatred.

Or instead, Lord, we could choose to act like you and dispense with our enemies through love and not hatred.

And so, Lord, we give you our lives, our hearts, our souls.

Lord, we ask that you would work through us that when we're weak, too weak to show love when we know we need to, God, we ask for your strength and your power and your grace and your mercy to be on every single one of us.

And Lord, in just a moment as we pray, Lord, I pray that every person who needs to forgive, who needs to let go of something, who needs a new way of showing love to those around them, I pray that nothing would stop them from coming forward to receive prayer.

Lord, let nothing stand in the way of us agreeing with someone else in prayer because healing comes in that moment and you are in our midst in that moment.

So Lord, I pray that you would draw every person who needs prayer when we have a prayer time in just a moment.

Lord, bless us and cause us to be beacons of your light, your faith, your hope, your trust, and your love.

We pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.