Thrive | Unified And Others - Oriented (January 24th, 2021) - Mike Armstrong

All right.

Well, if you have a Bible handy, if you would grab that and get it turned to Acts chapter 2, which is where we have been in our current series called Thrive.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And it's a passage that we have we've looked at a bunch of times actually as a church.

And so we thought that, you know what, in this unique stage and season that we're at right now, let's really kind of dive into this a little bit more and mind down on it and unpack it and figure out how we can be a strong and healthy, God-fearing, people-loving church community.

And so today we're going to be in verses 44 and 45.

Now, as you're getting yourself all kind of located there in Acts 2, this is the point in the calendar for myself, the time of year when my mind starts drifting furiously, if I'm honest, towards summer.

Are you kind of with me on that?

I mean, we are in the coldest days I think that we've had uh over the over this winter, and my mind is going there.

And specifically, one of the things that I love doing, I've said it before, but I love canoe trips.

I love camping.

I love getting out into nature.

And so my mind has just started to turn the corner this past week into planning our next one.

I always do a father-son with some buddies and uh and their kids and they're all friends, and we always have a really great time for that.

Now, uh or with that.

Now, if you have ever paddled a canoe before, I'm sure many of us have, uh, you know the importance of being on the same page with the other person who's paddling your boat.

Right?

I I've watched uh people, two people get into a canoe before.

Oftentimes it's like first timers, and you're trying to figure out how to step in without flipping the thing over, and then you know, you got your seat, you sit down, you've got your paddle, you look up, and both people are facing each other.

Right?

And so it's always someone needs to spin around, someone needs to turn here, or it's it's not gonna go very well.

Okay, but perhaps as you've you know started out paddling, you've realized it's pretty tricky, it's challenging to go where we want to go and get there in a straight line without zigzagging and being super inefficient.

You found that if if if one or both of you are not kind of pulling your weight and paddling you know hard and in rhythm, it's not gonna go super well.

If the person in the back is just kind of lazily ruddering while the person in the front's doing all the work, it's gonna be tough.

If the person in front is is trying to steer, especially in flat water, and the person in the back isn't doing that part, again, it's going to be challenging.

If both people are paddling on the same side of the boat, it creates this bias that makes you want to turn one way as opposed to the other.

Again, it can be very tricky to be on the same page as the other person paddling.

But you've noticed this too.

When you when you are, when you are unified in your approach, then you can be effective in getting your craft to where you want to go.

Now, I say that because I think that that is a is a pretty good picture of how a church ought to look or how it ought to operate as we look to care uh for one another.

When we're on the when we're on the same page or when we are paddling in the same direction, I think the word for that really is unified, right?

When we are unified, then we can be most effective, then we can be, then we can thrive in all kinds of different ways, but specifically, as we're going to see here this morning, when it comes to serving others within our church community.

All right, so our our point here today, again, we've just been kind of having one point or one big idea and focusing on that.

It's this it's a thriving church seizes the opportunity to be unified and others oriented.

All right, so again, I said we're gonna look at verses 45, 44, and 45 today, but let's just start the passage at the beginning so we see it all in context.

Verse 42, it says this.

It says, and they devoted themselves, this is the early church, the very first church in Jerusalem.

Okay, 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.

Okay, now this, our our verse today, verse 44, it says, and all who all who believed were together.

Okay, now now pause right there for a second.

Okay, that word together, it really emphasizes that idea of unity.

Okay, that idea of unity as opposed to physically being together or gathered together.

Which, you know, when you hear that, you're probably like, okay, phew, that's actually somewhat good news and helpful for us to hear in light of the present reality of lockdowns and restrictions and physical distancing and all of that kind of stuff, right?

That we can be a unified church and together, even though we're not all physically gathered or in the same room together, I think is, I mean, that's a good thing, right?

That we can be a unified church.

Okay, because unity, uh I think the idea that they're really getting at here is really pursuing the same mission, the same purpose with a sense of togetherness, right?

We're on the same page, right?

And we know that our mission as a church, right?

It's right on the main page of our website here.

Our mission statement is to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Right?

The Great Commission is going and making disciples.

So we want to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission, and we want to do that in the spirit of the Great Commandment.

The Great Commandment is love God and love neighbor.

That's the heart, that's how we want to go about doing this.

Okay, so a question I think to really ask ourselves here is is are we a unified church?

Right?

Are we rowing in the same direction?

Or are we are we paddling together as redemption church?

I think it's a really important question to ask.

Now, now, when we think about unity, and we might be thinking about that, you know, the answers to that question, I think often when we think of a church that's disunified, we often what comes to mind for us is a picture of a church that's like there's there's infighting and and and people are backbiting each other, and there's slander, and there's gossip, and and there's division in all of this, and it's just kind of this miserable, awful place, and the culture is toxic, and I mean that's that's certainly part of disunity, and I think that is that's a bad part, obviously.

But I think sometimes a disunified church, optically, can look like it's totally fine.

Like that there's no toxicity in the relationships.

People don't hate each other, but they're disunified in the sense that they're they're not all on the same page.

Right?

You've got you've got some people who are like, oh, well, I'm just gonna kind of do my thing over here, and and other people are like, well, I think the the the mission of the church should be about this other thing, or I happen to be really passionate about, you know, fill in the blank.

And so you've got individuals and groups kind of going in all kinds of different directions, and and it feels like it's it's kind of all over the place.

I think sometimes that's how disunity uh can can look.

Or you've got people who who are like all in and they're they're doing a lot of the work, and other people are just you know kind of feed up and they're kind of lounging and they're they're not really involved and they're not taking it up.

Again, there's no there's no fighting, it's not gossipy, it's not it's not this uncomfortable culture to be a part of, but it's again, we're not we're not on the same page exactly.

And so again, I I think it's important for us to ask that question.

Are we unified in all these kinds of ways?

I mean, it's clear in the text here that this church absolutely was.

It says that they were, it says that they were together.

Right?

They were unified.

And here's the evidence that we see of that.

It says right there, follow along, it says that they had all things in common.

Now, I don't know about you, but I love, I love it when I find that that somebody has something in common with me.

Like, oh, that guy loves to golf or he loves the leaves or whatever.

It's like, oh yeah, there's an automatic connection there.

Now, I love that.

I think we all love it when we find people with common interests.

Okay, but that's not exactly what this is talking about here.

It's not so much about common interests, but rather, uh, well, this, verse 45, take a look.

It says, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And so what you see here is that is that these believers had this amazing heart for each other, right?

And and this is what they were together about.

This is what they had in in common.

They were all about caring for one another.

It wasn't like, hey, what do I need?

And and it's about my desires being prominent and foremost.

It was like, no, what are the what are the what are the needs of the people in the church?

See how they were others oriented.

Okay, how can I how can I meet those needs?

How can I be a part of caring for the body of Christ?

Now, I'll be perfectly honest with you, I think this is a strength of our church.

This is something that has so encouraged me over the years and has encouraged me even recently throughout this pandemic, as I've had multiple people reach out to us and just say, hey, like what are what are some needs in the church and how can I be involved and get my family involved or get our small group involved in making sure uh that people are taken care of?

You know, what are these?

Can I bring somebody a meal or or or a bag of groceries?

Or is there some some job around their house that they maybe can't get to that I can come and I can help out and be just a blessing uh to people right now in our church?

And I mean, I don't know about you, but I just love that desire.

I love that heart.

And again, I think that is a real, a real strength of our church.

Now, if I if I think there's an area that that needs some growing, um I think maybe it's that we we don't always, we're not always quick to admit when we need help.

Right?

We love to help other people, but we don't always want to open up and let people help us.

Now, that's not just a new redemption new market thing by any means.

That's like a North American human being thing.

Right?

It's this rugged individualism, and you've gotta take care of yourself, and if if you don't do it, no one will do it.

And and so I think it's kind of built up these walls that we don't really want to let people uh in.

And I think for for some of us, we are in need, but but we don't really want to kind of humble ourselves here and and and ask for something like prayer.

Hey, can you pray for me?

I'm I'm really struggling in this.

Or maybe it's a financial assistance, and you feel shame about that, and you don't want to let people know where your where your finances are really at.

Maybe it's something around the house, and you're like, ah, well, I should be able to fix my garage door, but but you don't really know how, and you sense that you're gonna make a mess of it, and and you don't have the confidence to fix it, so you just kind of leave it and it's kind of broken, where there's somebody who would just love to be able to help you kind of take care of something like that.

And I think when we get into that kind of place, I think it's it's probably nothing more than just pride and sort of this self-sufficient mentality, and maybe it's a sense of shame in not wanting to just ask for help.

But hey, listen, if you have a need in your life, please let us know.

You will be blown away by how many people want to jump all over that and help you and be a blessing to you.

Right?

Learn to think of this as a way that, you know, if you have a need, a way that you can can contribute to the unity of our church by allowing others to be others-oriented in their care for you.

Okay, think about that.

It's not just about what you can do for others.

I love that you have that heart, but sometimes it's about just humbling ourselves and allowing others to care for us.

So, hey, as you think about these things and and and the times that we're living in right now, I want to just share a few ideas that have been percolating in my mind and in our team that we've been kind of talking about, that we would love your help in and your involvement with as we really look to be others-oriented these days and really unified in our approach in all of that.

Hey, one of the things, again, I'm talking very practical here, but one of the things that we've been kind of thinking about and trying and wanting to develop is this basically a community care database where we want to get a good sense of what are your skills and what are your gifts and what are you passionate about, and and and and so that we can deploy you to care for uh needs in our church when they come up.

And so we need your help in this because we literally want to like track this stuff, we want to we want to write it down and create again a database where we know that, for example, if if you have like uh like a basin apartment and you're like, man, I'd love to rent this out to to uh a single person or to like a young married couple, help them get started in life, uh, we would I we would love to know that.

That's something that that you uh might have.

What other kind of gifts and skills and abilities do you do you possess?

Please let us know.

Some friends of of mine years ago, they started a church and they created something very similar to this, and they called it Attic, A-T-I-C.

And it really just stood for all things in common coming right out of this verse.

And they realized that, you know, listen, we've got people with all kinds of belongings.

Let's let's create kind of a system where people can post, kind of like Facebook Marketplace before that existed.

All right, it was a it was a way for people to say, hey, listen, I've got um I've got power tools that anyone, if anyone needs them, they can they can come and rent them for free or or use them.

I just thought that was such a brilliant way for the body of Christ to love and care for and have this all things in common mentality and practically take care of people.

I'll just give you a couple more ideas, but I don't really want to hear your thoughts as well in all of this, but but uh Jeremy kind of came up with the idea right now.

Someone's gonna probably steal this and make a ton of money off of it.

But he but we kind of kind of had this idea of church Uber.

Like every once in a while we hear we hear people, especially when we were able to meet as a community, people who like need a ride to church.

And and people who maybe live a little bit further away or just don't have a vehicle or don't want to take a bus or can't or whatever.

Someone who would just be able to stop by and bring them to church and drive them home afterwards.

Maybe that's something that you would have a passion of.

Sign up, we'll put you on that list.

When someone uh lets us know that they don't have a way to get to church, we'll get them in touch with you and they can uh they can come.

We would love to gather up who are the babysitters in our church, right?

I mean, young families are are chomping at the bit for a date night, but they don't necessarily know who are who are people that we can trust with our kids.

And maybe it's you know you love animals and you're a dog walker, and you could come help a family out.

They're trying to get their kids in school and they're trying to work online, it's crazy, and the pets are all getting neglected, and maybe you can come and take care of them.

Now, listen, I know we have to be really careful these days with the current restrictions and some of the limitations and all of that.

And so, really, I think what I'm what I want to urge us to is to figure out ways to get creative in all of this.

To be careful, but to be bold and to love each other well.

And so I would urge you, get creative in this, get inventive, come up with ways that you can care for people like young moms or or young dads.

I know a few couples in our church who have had uh babies in the last month or two.

I mean, think about how hard that is these days when you can't even, you know, leave your house more or less, and just how how difficult it is trying to figure out how to stop your kid from crying and and how to feed them.

And man, you you need a community around you to do that, but it's really tough.

Some of you might be really, really able to help out, though.

It's it's it's making a meal, it's it's whatever.

Maybe for you, you'd have a heart for the elderly.

And who are those people?

And your mind goes this way.

And how can we care for these people that are that are shut-ins and really can't get out?

Can we can we get them groceries?

Can we come over and and shovel their driveways uh for them?

How can we do this?

How can we care for singles in these days, especially if you're living at home and and mentally that's just so hard is you don't have the same kind of interaction.

Get again, get creative, be inventive in how you might reach out and care for these people.

Now, there are a couple of ideas, just want to throw these at you just to get the ball rolling for you.

But we were thinking about like creating these care packages for people and just at some point dropping them off at people's homes and you know, using maybe some of our benevolence funds for that, or or maybe you would just have a desire to create some care packages, do that as a family, do that as a small group.

Or our youth group, shout out Redemption Youth, right?

They were just doing something very similar to this uh this past Wednesday.

And they had, you know, they all gathered just online through Zoom and they created these packages for the homeless, where they're gonna get that distributed now and care for uh those who are seriously, seriously in need.

And I just want to commend you for doing that and uh just love what God is doing specifically through our youth and the community that he's growing there and how you guys are getting so creative in caring uh for people.

And so, in that getting creative, and as we try and figure out this database and just figure out people's skills and abilities and the things that they have, even if they're random, even if you think it this is kind of dumb, but maybe I should put it out there, do it.

Let us know.

Email myself, email Jeremy or John, and we will gather these things together so that we can make sure that we care uh care for people really well.

Okay, and in this vein, I also just want to encourage each one of us here to just reach out to people.

Just reach out.

Sometimes we're looking for somebody else to take the lead on that or or somebody to create a program or something that we can get involved in, but know that you can just you can reach out at any time.

Right?

Some of you are are really gifted and really good and have a have a heart and a burden for connecting with people and seeing how they're doing.

I know that uh another small group just this past week was talking to us about is there is there are there people in our church that we can just call and just see how they're doing?

And and totally, we want to be able to help you with that.

We're gonna be really careful with you know people's information and making sure that we've got permission for all of those things.

But but if you have a heart for just reaching out to people through phoning or or through Zoom, please do that.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm fairly sick of Zoom.

I'm I'm super burned out on it.

I'm I'm so tired of it.

But one of the things that that was impressed on me just the other day was was, you know what, it might be kind of a kind of annoying and and kind of a pain to be on Zoom all the time and and and connecting with people that way, but uh, but but listen, I I don't want my annoyance for Zoom to usurp my love for people.

And so I think the uh a good question for us to ask is do we love others more than we hate something like Zoom or texting or phone calling people?

Listen, I know we've we can kind of look down on some of this technology, but it's also been a major blessing for us as well to make sure that we can try and just stay as connected as possible.

Listen, we want to love each other well and and not even just in kind of these extreme lockdowns that we're in right now, but we want to do this well all the time.

And so I know that in some ways it's it's harder to do that these days, to care for each other, but it's certainly not impossible, right?

It's really not.

It just requires, I think, more intentionality on our part, more willingness to think outside the box in the ways that maybe churches or Christians have often do done this.

And so as we uh go to prayer right now, I want to say, I want to urge us to really pray for these things.

That the Lord would unify us as we seek to be others-oriented, that our church would thrive in these days, that people would feel the love, that Christ would be exalted.

And so I would encourage you to spend the next few moments as our service ends here to gather your families at home, get the kids if you can, and just like, hey, how can we, how can we love and care for other people in our own neighborhood, on our street, people in our church, in our small group?

Maybe you would do that as you pray together.

We're gonna have uh a Zoom call at 9 50 here.

It's in about eight minutes time.

I'm gonna jump on uh there.

And if you uh want to pray with me and pray with other people, please, I encourage you to join.

Just jump on our website and you can click on the link there.

Of course, our people at the office.

You're going to be praying in your groups for these things.

The prayer requests are going to be on the screen for you.

But I want to pray for you now and for us now, that the Lord will be glorified as we undertake these things.

Lord, we thank you for this time.

Lord, we praise you.

We thank you for your goodness to us.

We thank you that you love to build community, Lord.

I thank you for the joy that comes when we see that thrive and grow.

And so, Lord, as we need help, as we need sometimes pushing, as we need encouragement, Lord, would you do that in the ways that we need?

Lord, would your spirit move powerfully in our church to encourage us?

Lord, I pray that people would be cared for.

Pray that people would feel loved and connected in a time where this is tougher.

Lord, I pray that we would come out the other side of this, of these days, just saying, wow, Lord, like everything could have fallen apart, but Lord, it didn't.

You were good to keep us together and build us even stronger in some ways.

And so, God, as we pray these things, we pray them in faith.

We pray them trusting you, and we pray these things knowing that you will build your church.

Lord, glory to you, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.