None Of My Business with Andy Stanley

Welcome to the Southside Church Podcast.

Weekly content that inspires all of us to follow Jesus.

Join us each week for a message from one of our fantastic communicators that provide practical ways to grow our faith, challenge ourselves, and to love others more.

And now, this week's message.

So I want to welcome all of our partner churches around the country, all of our Atlanta area churches, those of you at Hamilton Mill, so excited that you're with us today, excited about what's going on up there.

And our friends at Lake O'Coney.

I never give you guys a shout-out over at Lake O'Coni.

It's so great that you're there, friends of the Southside, and part of this growing network of churches all over the country and more and more all over the world.

So today, um, kind of um jumping into the deep end kind of quick, I want to um I want to introduce or remind you of, or maybe you'll hear for the first time, uh, an imperative, a command in the New Testament um that we're not inclined to take very seriously.

Now, if you're new to Bible study, the Bible is divided between the Old Testament and New Testament.

The Old Testament is really the backstory of the main story.

The main story is the coming of Jesus.

So if you're just gonna begin reading the Bible, begin with one of the accounts of the life of Jesus, the book of John, the book of Luke are a great place to start.

But in the New Testament, uh, the church or people who are Jesus followers are given specific commands, and this is a command that um, again, you may have never even heard it before, but it's like, whoa, you know, that's that's like for the the advanced class.

But if you grew up in somewhat of a dysfunctional home, maybe a mom with an addiction or a dad with issues, or maybe just the whole thing was just chaos.

My hunch is that you would be better off today as an adult, as you're figuring out adulting or as you're figuring out parenting and marriage, you would be better off if somebody who saw what was going on in your family back then had taken this imperative seriously.

Um also, um, if you if you had taken this imperative seriously, or somebody close to you had taken it seriously, you may have avoided your greatest regret in life.

Again, if somebody close to you had had done what we're gonna talk about.

Um and, and this is part of why we're talking about it, I hope that all of you, even if you're not a person of faith or maybe of a different faith tradition, I hope that I hope that you have someone close enough to you who would take this seriously if you ever find yourself in a tough spot.

Now, if you've ever been on the receiving end of what I'm about to show you, um you you may have been offended initially and then grateful eventually.

And eventually may have taken a while, but eventually you would look back and you would be like, you know what?

That was so offensive and I was so mad and I was so bothered by that, but wow, I'm so grateful that person did that.

But the the challenge is in a world and in a culture like ours that values autonomy, you know, you do you, I'll do me, and you know, you don't bother me with what you do, and I'm not gonna force you to do what I do, you know.

That's kind of the world we live in.

This this really doesn't sit very well.

I think that's part of the reason that we have a tendency to ignore it.

Fortunately for me, I mean I'm a church kid, you know, raised in church my whole life.

Um, I I had people in my life who took this seriously.

I don't know if they ever knew this verse, but this was just kind of the rhythm of the life and the rhythm of the relationships we had.

Um, and I'm so grateful for that.

So, this is an imperative for Jesus followers.

So if you're not a, so here's yeah, real quick, if you're not a Christian or you used to be, but you're not anymore, you're a different faith tradition, please, at no point in this sermon do you hear me saying, This is what you need to do.

I have no authority to tell you what you need to do.

And because you don't recognize Jesus as a king, uh, you don't need to take anything he says seriously until you take him seriously, and then you should take what he says seriously.

And the way we think of it around here, if somebody predicts their own death and resurrection and pulls it off, we just go with what they say, okay?

So we're simple people.

But anyway, so you can sit this one out, but I think you'll find this relevant because I think if you'd had somebody who did what we're about to talk about at some point in your life or at some point in the lives of your parents, maybe your life would be um different.

So even though it's an imperative, I'm gonna I promise I'm gonna get to it in a minute.

Um, it's easy, this is easy for church attenders um to view as a suggestion.

And one of the things that makes it easy to view as a suggestion are rows of people.

Rows make it easily avoidable.

The other thing that makes it easily avoidable is simply reducing Christianity to a list of things that a person believes.

But Christianity isn't a list of beliefs, Christianity is a way of life that Jesus demonstrated for us.

So here it is.

Okay, so no more build-up.

So this is the Apostle Paul who met Jesus after the his resurrection, um, and he's writing to Christians, some of whom he's never met before.

So he's, you know, he knows some of them, but not all of them.

He's been there.

This is the two Christians living in the Roman province of Galatia, which is modern-day Turkey.

And here's what he says to them and to us.

He says, brothers and sisters, if someone is caught doing something wrong, and the someone is another brother or sister, and wrong, the Greek term means a trespass.

This is this is something they're they've been caught doing, something that's hurting them or hurting somebody else.

He says, brothers and sisters, if you can't, if someone is caught, you know, doing wrong or you know, in a trespass, you, he says, you should share your concern with another brother or sister as a prayer request.

That way it's not considered gossip.

Somebody's like, I need to read the Bible.

I had no idea.

Yeah.

Sometimes I just make things up.

But this is kind of what we do.

It's like, did you hear about so-and-so?

Yeah, I heard about that.

Well, if somebody should talk to them, yeah, they should not.

Let's just let's just pray, Lord, bring someone into their life that has the courage and the relationship and the wisdom.

We just pray for wisdom.

Let's all pray, you know.

That's what we do.

I mean, that that's sort of normal.

If you're not a Christian, you have your own version of that, right?

So let's just talk about them, not to them.

So here's here's what he actually says.

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught doing something wrong, you who live by the Spirit, that is, many women who are sensitive to the promptings, the inner promptings of God's Spirit that lives in us, those of you who are paying attention to those inner promptings, you should, he goes on, he says, you should restore that person gently.

Restore, the little term to restore means to put into order, to put back into order, to bring unhealth to health.

And he says you do it gently because gentleness is actually a fruit of the spirit, that a person who's living according to God's Spirit is a person who's gentle.

That doesn't mean they're soft on stuff, it doesn't mean they're not ambitious.

It just means when they're dealing with other people, they take the other person into consideration.

They are gentle.

To which we read this and we're like, um, no, thank you.

Because their sin, if somebody is sinning or wrongdoing, or trespassing or whatever it is, and it has to do with their family or their work or their morality or whatever, I mean, that's just none of my business.

And that's what average church attenders say, because that's just, you know, it's just easy to get by with that if all you do is believe stuff but aren't actually committed to doing what Jesus taught and what his disciples taught us to do.

And I say that, I kind of, and I do that all the time.

I sort of differentiate between, you know, Christians and followers and believers and followers.

And I say that because of what the apostle Paul says next.

Again, it's another imperative.

And again, if you've been on the receiving end of this and benefit from it, you're all about this.

He says this, look, carry each other's burdens.

And he's talking about people who are of the same worldview and the same faith tradition, you know, people who are attempting to follow Jesus.

He's like, look, when you see a brother or sister, another Jesus follower who's dealing with something, he says, I want you to get up, but this is literally, I want you to get up under whatever it is that's weighing them down to whatever degree you can get up under it and help them carry it.

And in this case, in this particular context, he's talking about decisions they've made that they may not even view as wrong, but you know are leading them in the wrong direction or undermining the integrity of their family, or the you it's like, he's like, don't stand back and go, wow, dude, I hope that works out.

He just know I want you to engage and I want you to help them carry their burden.

And again, in this case, it's unchrist-like self-destructive behavior.

Behavior that's an off-ramp to faith, behavior that's an off-ramp to family, uh, behavior that's an off-ramp to their integrity, behavior that's moving them in a direction that's clearly that they're gonna regret it later on.

Now, he says, look, and don't don't push back.

This isn't interfering.

You're not interfering.

He's already given us the word.

You are restoring.

It is your business.

And it's your business, he says, because he or she, and this is like, we're so used to this language, it just goes right past us.

He says, it is your business because they are your brother and they are your sister.

Now, I need to talk about this for just a second.

This is another one of those astounding um things about Christianity that has impacted our culture.

It is, this is part of what has Christianized our culture that we're not aware of because we just swim in it all the time.

The language brother and sister, we use that all the time.

I mean, I all the time, not all the time, but from time to time, a guy, I'll just say the guys, will refer to someone they've never met before as bro, right?

Some a guy's wallet falls, hey bro, bro, bro, you dropped your bro.

Because we're this brother and sister.

I I have a friend I used to coach baseball with years ago.

He was not a Christian, didn't pretend to be a Christian.

Um, just you know, and I'm the pastor, had this thing.

But he he called everybody brother and sister all the time.

All the time it was just this lane, hey sister, hey, brother.

It was just it's just late common language.

Okay.

In the first century, that's not the case.

Because in the first century, that was a very segmented culture, and slave owners never referred to a former slave as brother or sister.

They certainly didn't refer to slaves as brothers.

The rich didn't refer to the poor as brother or sister.

I mean, it was a very segmented society, and yet this language, this family language, was part of Christianity from the very beginning.

And Jesus inserted it into the vocabulary, and Christians picked up on it, and this was the amazing part.

I'm getting off the topic of the sermon.

They would meet together in homes, you know, the first churches met in homes.

And there would be slaves, slave owners, former slaves, servants, um, you know, merchants, all kinds of people that just didn't normally mix.

And they would begin to refer to each other and treat each other like brothers and sisters within the context of the church.

This rocked Greco Greek, you know, Greek and Roman culture.

This was just so unusual and so powerful.

And then Peter, when he's talking about marriage, he tells husbands, remember, husbands, that your wife is your sister in Christ.

It's like, oh, so all that differentiation and all that, you know, I'm more important.

It all just started going away.

Anyway, back to us.

Okay.

So this whole idea of somebody's in sin and I'm gonna go talk to them about their sin.

I mean, this is this is I mean, this is what average Christians think.

That's just that's optional, right?

That's like maybe an option for super Christians.

I mean, isn't that actually the pastor's job?

So if I see somebody kind of messing up, I'm just gonna call the church, right?

Okay, listen to this.

This next line, again, there there's these statements in the New Testament, just don't get enough airplay.

This is one of them.

This next line cannot be overstated or over-emphasized.

Listen to the reason the Apostle Paul gives for this imperative to carry one another's burdens.

And if you see somebody who's fallen into sin or going off in a different direction to restore them, listen to this.

He says, carry, back to the verse, carry each other's burdens, and in this way, in other words, by getting up under their burden, and in this case, getting up under their sin burden, approaching them, confronting them gently.

He says, by doing this, by restore, by attempting to restore, by coming alongside them, by risking your reputation, by risking offense, he says, when you do this, ready for this, you will fulfill.

Fulfill means like there's a ditch and you fill it back up, you restore it, you complete, you make bring something to completion.

He says, when you do this, you are completing or you are applying the law of Christ.

The law of Christ, if you've been around, this is this is another one of those things that I wish was way up in the mix in preaching and teaching in Christianity would change everything.

The law of Christ is the law that Jesus gave.

And the law that Jesus gave, he gave in that final Passover, we talk about it all the time.

He says, A new command I give you.

It's gonna replace all the other ones.

It is the supreme command.

It's the command that eliminates the needs for all the other commands because it fills in the gaps in everyday life and it fills in the gaps in all the relationships.

The law of Christ is you are to love each other the way that I have loved you.

You are to love each other the way that I have loved you.

And Paul says, if you want to fulfill Jesus' one overarching command, one way you do that is by doing for others what God through Christ has done for you.

That is, you get up under their burden and you approach even when it's even when it's uncomfortable.

You approach even when you don't think it's any of your business because you care about that person.

So for Jesus' followers, this isn't optional or peripheral, or I'm gonna call the church.

This is essential and it's central.

It is it is an expression.

I mean, Paul goes right to the point.

He says, this is the law of Christ in action.

This is what it looks like, this is what it acts like to follow Jesus.

It's where he's going to lead you.

He's not gonna lead you to call the church, he's gonna lead you to call the person.

He's not gonna lead you to just pray about it.

He's gonna lead you to do something about it.

Now, backing up real quick, because I might have lost you.

I'm kind of going fast and I'm all over the place.

So, wait, wait, wait, Andy, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Here's where you lost me.

How can I explain this again?

How does sticking my nose in someone else's sin business fulfill the law of Christ?

Like what?

It's doing for others what he did for you.

Jesus doesn't ignore and abandon you to your sin.

Right?

Jesus, God the Father, through Jesus, by sending Jesus into the world, he demonstrated it and illustrated on planet earth that God our Father does not ignore us and ignore our sin or abandon us to our sin.

In fact, we sing, if you're part of one of our churches, um you we sing a song where that emphasizes this all the time, and I love these lyrics too.

This the song that some of our song, our lyricists wrote.

We sing this.

We're not, remember this?

We're not your trophy children that you abandon when we don't act like trophy children anymore.

We're not your trophy children that you abandon when we don't get it right, when we go off the rails, when we get caught up in something, when we say yes to something.

We're not like, oh, I'm only proud of you when you make me proud.

We're not trophy children that you abandon when we roam.

And your Heavenly Father says, I need you to be my hands and my feet, and my eyes and my ears, in the lives of your brothers and sisters, when they fall into temptation, when they start to go off the rails, when they dip into self-destructive behavior, or when they begin to harm others, either intentionally or accidentally, or when they begin to lose faith.

I want you to approach them gently and do everything you can to restore them, and there's no guarantee that it's gonna work.

But do not abandon them because of their sin.

That's what the Pharisees did.

I won't even ask you how many of you want to be a Pharisee, right?

I mean, you remember this scene, John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

You know, we've all heard the story, even if you're not a Christian, you've probably heard the story about these Pharisees finding a woman who was caught in adultery.

I mean, it's the same language that the Apostle Paul uses that she was caught in adultery, and they drag her up the southern stairs to the temple mount.

I mean, this is it's it's there's no way to overplay the drama of this.

There, they drag this woman caught in adultery.

This is one of the top ten, okay?

Drag her up to the temple mount at the top.

I mean, right over there, they're sacrificing animals for sin.

They are at the holiest of holy places.

Jesus is there teaching, they drop her down in front of Jesus.

You remember this story?

And they say, This woman was caught, the same terminology Paul uses.

If someone is caught in sin, in a trespass, this woman was caught in adultery.

And the law of Moses, and if you want to check it out, it is right over there in that building, right there, is a copy of it.

This woman's caught in the act of adultery, this woman was caught in the act of adultery, and the law of Moses says she dies.

And they were not wrong.

Fortunately for her, fortunately for you, even though you may not believe this, fortunately for me, and fortunately for us.

Someone greater than Moses had touched down on planet Earth.

In fact, one of the things that got Jesus in trouble, he claimed to be greater than Moses.

He claimed to be greater than the temple.

They're like, you're just sick.

I mean, you can't, how can you be greater than God's temple where heaven meets earth, right?

Someone greater than Moses had dropped down, and he stepped into the scene, and he was the king.

And you know the story.

He did not stone her, he restored her.

And this is what we have been invited to do for one another, because Christianity is one another.

It's not believe a list so you go to heaven when you die.

It is one another, one another, one another, one another.

And this is one of the one another.

And the apostle Paul says, this is such an important one another, it is right on the nose of fulfilling the law of Christ.

Now, if you've been a Christian for any length of time, like me, or even, I mean, I've been a Christian since I was six.

You know, when I was six, I was went to a Christian kindergarten, and Aunt Pat, who wasn't my aunt, that brother-sister thing, it just kind of goes, you know.

So we call her Aunt Pat.

She was the teacher.

And she had all the kids come up and sit on her knee, and she had, I still remember this.

I mean, you know, you have these snapshots of childhood.

This is one of mine.

Sit on her lap and she said, Would you like to ask Jesus in your heart?

Or would you like to thank God that would you like to thank Jesus for dying for your sin?

Would you like to ask Jesus to come into your heart?

Those we only had two options.

I mean, she was she was not gonna let you get through kindergarten without making this decision, right?

And I remember thinking, Well, I want to ask Jesus in my heart.

Of course I thank him for dying for my sins.

I want to ask Jesus in my heart.

So I so I've been Christian my whole life.

And as I've told you a thousand, not a thousand times, but dozens of times, a dozen times.

You know, I you when you grow up like me and you sin, the problem is you know exactly where the verse is.

It's not like I think I no, no, no.

I can tell you both places, Old and New Testament, this is a sin, right?

So there's there's there's so much accountability, so much guilt.

So my point is this if you grow up in any kind of Christian environment, whether you still consider yourself a Christian or not, you've asked God to forgive you hundreds of times for sin, right?

Worse, you've asked God to forgive you for the same sin dozens and dozens of times.

Even worse, you knew you were probably gonna commit it again, and you still asked God to forgive you of your sin.

And some of you quoted 1 John 1 9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

See there, you gotta do it because you didn't do that, but you know, you had verses to back this up.

The point is this when you asked God to forgive you, you were confident he forgave you based on what Jesus taught.

And you also believe that he restored you rather than stoned you and abandoned you.

And yes, there were consequences for your wrongdoing.

There's always consequences for wrongdoing, right?

But the point was, you at least internally know what it's like to be on the receiving end of being restored to your heavenly father through asking for forgiveness.

And now we are instructed, we are required to be on the giving and the restoring end as well, just like our Father in heaven.

That's why it reflects the law of Christ.

And the less deserving the other person is of our involvement, the more like Jesus you are.

Right?

It's what God through Christ did for you and for me and for us.

He stuck his nose in our sin business.

It cost him his life.

The good news is it won't cost you your life.

Just some time, some embarrassment.

It may cost you the relationship, but we are to do for others.

What God through Christ has done for us.

It is the law of Christ.

To which I know, I know.

Okay.

Andy, good sermon.

But hey, can't can't I just attend church occasionally?

Can't I just believe some stuff?

And maybe give a few dollars whenever the spirit leads?

You know?

Sure, you can do that.

Of course.

If, and this is Jesus' threat, not mine.

If you can do that, if you want to stand outside the kingdom of God, looking in and missing out, and eventually weep and gnash your teeth because you lost the opportunity to participate in something in this life, in the kingdom of God that you were invited to.

But I know I'm pushing hard, but if you or maybe one day a son of yours or a daughter of yours begins to go in a wrong and difficult and dangerous direction, you're gonna want someone to step in front of them and address the direction they're moving in.

It may be your husband, and you've tried and tried and tried, and you're gonna want another man or a group of men to stand in his way, to bring it to his attention, to risk their relationship if it might perhaps save your marriage.

If you see a brother, a physical, a literal brother, or a literal sister moving off in a dangerous direction and they won't listen to you or you're afraid to say anything, and somebody comes along and restores them, aren't you gonna be grateful?

Are you gonna say, hey, that's none of your business?

No, you're gonna be like, thank you, thank you, thank you.

You did for my brother and my sister what well, honestly, I've not been willing to do for others.

If your someone you love ever needs to be restored gently, if they ever need someone to step in front of them in love, interfere in their self-destructive, family-destructive behavior.

If you ever need that and someone does this, you're going to be so grateful.

But if in this season of your Christian life you're unwilling to do that, and yet you know you would appreciate it if somebody else did that for someone you love, do you know what that makes you?

There's a word for that.

Anyway, let's let's let's keep going.

Okay, so anyway, here's here's here's the point of kind of this whole sermon.

This was this was so important to us.

This is so important to us as a network of churches, our network of churches around the country and around the world.

It's so important to us that 30, actually coming up on 31 years ago, next in October, 31 years ago, we decided to actually organize the entire church to this idea.

To do everything we could possibly do to ensure that attenders, beginning with children, middle school students, high school students, college students, singles, and adults, we wanted to do everything we could to ensure that people were that people who were part of our church were so connected relationally in a healthy community that this would be built into their Christian experience.

That we would create a network of groups where everybody had some element of accountability, just built in relationally, not a stranger showing up at their door, but already in relationship with men and women, doing life together.

Accountability, a sense of belonging.

When I don't show up here, I'm missed, and if I quit showing up, they're gonna come get me.

And a sense of care when things go bad or things go wrong or suddenly there's a need I can't meet.

We wanted this to be a way of life, not a program, a way of life.

We wanted this to be part of the rhythm of life because when you read the New Testament, you cannot avoid this.

It is one another, one another, one another, one another, one another.

This is why I say, my, if I had a vision for the church, and again, I don't get to be in charge of the church, just our churches.

If I had a vision, it would be this that people on the outside of our faith would see us, and they may not agree with everything we believe, but they would be, we would, my vision is they would be envious of how well we treat each other and amazed at how well we love them.

Because that is the message of the New Testament.

That is the law of Christ, that is God through Christ in the world, through us and through his people.

So, from the very beginning, if you've been around, you know this, we created weekly season of life, small group opportunities for everybody.

Weekly, not every adult group meets every week, but potentially weekly, um, you know, uh pre-real pre-arranged relational connection for every single group of people, every single segment of life, every season of life in our church.

And we, our desire, again, wasn't to just add this on as an appendage.

Hey, this is one of our ministries.

We wanted it to be the central to the church.

So, in contrast to other church models, we decided that circles are better than classes.

This is why we don't have a bunch of classes.

Now, there's a place, there's a time and a place for classes and a need for classes, and we do all kind of small um uh short-term curriculum and stuff.

But what is central isn't classes.

We wanted people to actually be in community, to be doing life together.

And this is why we say that circles are actually better than rows.

And I'll tell you who understands this better than any group.

And if you have ever been a part of any of these groups, I just want to tell you, I you your courage is inspiring.

The people who figured this out a long time ago is AA, N A, C A, Cocaine Anonymous.

Years ago, I went and gave a chip to a woman who was in a cocaine anonymous group, and there are all kinds of groups.

They figured this out a long time ago.

They figured out that sermons and rows leave too much wiggle room, right?

And you know what else they figured out?

This is so powerful.

They also figured out what the Apostle Paul's next verse points out, because he's not done with this yet.

In this next verse, Paul points out why this level of connection and why this level of accountability is something we have a tendency to resist.

In fact, some of you are listening and watching right now, and you're internally resisting it, you're probably the man, and the woman's like, God, please break through to him.

Because, because, and I get this.

There's something in me as a man, it's like, I don't I don't need this.

That's that's for babies, you know, that's for that, you know, they'll you know, just you just buck up and you know, step up and man up, and I I get that.

All that ego.

Um, I I did an interview with Jeff Foxworthy, uh, I don't know, almost a year ago, and I asked him what he would tell my son, you know, Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian, and my son does comedy.

I said, Hey, what would you tell Andrew as he starts this, you know, this career path, you know, and you know, you get all this invited to all this stuff, meet all these people and all the temptation.

He Jeff immediately said, I would tell him that your ego is not your friend.

Your ego is not your friend.

And I'm like, okay, I my ego, everything my ego tells me is wrong.

Everything you deserve, you need, you da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

So of course what my ego tells me is I don't need a bunch of people in my life, right?

Of course I do.

And listen, 2,000 years ago, the Apostle Paul, because ego's been around since you know the Garden of Eden, right?

The Apostle Paul addresses this and listen to how he addresses it.

Men if anyone, this is in the same passage.

If anyone thinks they are something, if anyone thinks they're special, if anyone thinks they're above this, I don't need that.

That's for that's for other people, less important people, less busy people, I don't need that.

And this is the apostle Paul who wrote half the New Testament, whose name's gonna be around forever.

So whatever you've accomplished, whatever I've accomplished, we fall far short of this guy, okay?

He says, if anybody thinks they are something, because he knows we're gonna resist this.

And this is so offensive.

Okay, he said it, not me.

If anyone thinks they are something when they're nothing, say, what do you mean, nothing?

I'm something.

And Paul would say, Yeah, you're something compared to some other people that you compare yourself to.

Yeah, you're something compared to other people that you compare yourself to, right?

I I'm I'm not nothing, I'm something, says the man or the woman who's embraced the myth of autonomy that all you need is you.

When in fact, he says you are nothing, and I am nothing, apart from the people around me, and apart from the people around us.

Listen to this.

He says, if anyone thinks they are something when they are nothing, they deceive themselves.

The easiest person for you to deceive is always the person in the mirror.

This is why we get in trouble.

This is why we justify.

This is why we're entitled to.

This is why it just makes sense to us, even though it doesn't make sense to anybody else.

And the apostle Paul is talking to Christians, and he's going, come on, come on, come on, come on.

You know better.

You should live better.

And if you will one another, one another, you will in fact stay out of those kinds of ruts and those kinds of habits, and you won't drift.

The bottom line, according to this, and this is the reminder for me, that that kind of arrogance of I'm something, he says, arrogance or the takeaways, arrogance is ignorance.

I mean when I meet, okay, this is just me, so don't take this, don't apply this.

Okay, when I meet super arrogant people, here's the first thing I think.

This is terrible.

I'm probably not gonna tell the other service this.

When I meet like people who are just so in arrogant, I think this is what I think.

Do you not realize you're gonna die?

Do you think you're gonna live forever?

It's like what what what I this doesn't arrogance is ignorance.

Arrogance is ignorance of the fact that I am and we are dependent on the people around us anyway.

Why not leverage that to our benefit?

Arrogance is dangerous, right?

And ultimate, arrogance, ultimately, arrogance isolates.

And you can't, you know, the person that says, Well, I just do my own Christianity, I don't need other people.

No, you're not doing Christianity, you're doing something else.

Just open the New Testament.

But bending to lift and to get up underneath somebody else's burden, that's not arrogance, that's humility.

And making ourselves accountable to other people, that's humility as well.

And to do otherwise is to miss the opportunity to fulfill the law of Christ, to do for others what God through Christ has done for us.

I'll tell you, and and I gotta keep going, but I'll tell you where I see this that's in my tragically in my profession, it's pastors, because I've, you know, around pastors and other churches, network churches, and every once in a while I'll I'm you know, a pastor will say, you know, we have groups, but my wife and I, we're not in a group.

Um, you know, we're busy, and then they talk about it's awkward to be in a group with people who go to your church and all the stuff, and you know, so it's like we want everybody else to do that, but we don't do that.

I love what Pastor Ashley uh Wildred says.

He says, pastors are to are pastors are supposed to be examples, not exceptions.

Pastors are supposed to be examples, not exceptions.

And this is an area where people who do what I do oftentimes make an exception because of how awkward they say it is to be in a small group with people that they're supposedly shepherding.

Sander and I have been in a small group before we started the church and have never ever not participated in a small group.

Not because we're trying to model something, even though I hope that's the case.

It's because we need it.

And it's been a value add.

Now, real quick, the problem with this sermon, you you may think there's a dozen problems with this sermon, but the one of the problems with this sermon is I've kind of made the whole accountability thing and the group thing and getting a small group make it sound so ominous and serious, like let's to get together, let's get together every Monday night, and we're gonna go around and share our sins.

And if you don't share yours, we're gonna share yourself.

That's not what a small group is, you know that, right?

No.

Those of you who've been participating for years in small groups know that it is a relational value add.

It's way less complicated than your family of origin, and it is usually way more fun than your family of origin, right?

And you now have brothers and sisters where you have something in common, the season of life, whatever it might be, and it's just a powerful, powerful thing.

And many of us, foul, literally thousands of us, have made lifelong friends through small group.

Um I just went to Brazil, I told you about that a few weeks ago.

The gentleman that went with me, uh, Jim, I met Jim in my neighbor's house the first night he joined our small group.

That's where I met him.

I met him in small group because another family said, hey, this couple, they've been at North Point, they're great.

Or like, bring them in.

And I feel like I have a lifelong friend.

I met in our group the first night that we, you know, kind of reconvened for small groups.

So, and that and my story's been multiplied thousands and thousands of times, right?

And these are the people who become the friends who would show up, step up, and throw their hands up if they saw me or if they saw the other people in the group begin to drift.

And we want that for you because we all need it.

Because I hate to tell you this: if you think you're something, if you think you're special, if you think you get to be the exception, that's dangerous.

And we want to make it as easy as possible for you to experience that kind of community.

Last thing, parents, look up here.

You don't let your kids miss school.

Please make every effort not to let them miss small group.

And here's why.

Eventually, school comes to an end, but we want the rhythm and the habit of small group to go with them for the rest of their life.

And ultimately, you do too.

So as we begin this new school year and as we're reconvening small groups and some of your kids are gonna have new small group leaders, please do everything in your power to make sure they participate in group, just like we want you to participate in group.

We launch brand new groups every September and January, and at this time, somebody at your local campus is gonna come up and explain some next steps.

I could not agree with him more.

Um for the last 30 years or even over 30 years, whether it's myself, my wife, small groups have been insanely powerful.

They have been really transformational, all the stuff that Andy talked about.

Um, so we want that for you guys.

So, three simple ways to get involved.

Um, first of all, if you are already in a group, you're kind of in between, uh, like Andy shared, you can go ahead and get ramped up in the next few weeks, get that group up and running, that'd be awesome.

If you're not in a group, we've got lots of opportunities too for you.

In about three weeks, we're gonna be opening a registration.

If that feels a little ways away, we need you to stay tuned and we can help you with that.

I know you probably have a lot of apps on your phone, but we happen to believe one of the best ones you can download is the Southside app.

If you download that and just make sure notifications are turned on, we won't send you a bunch of stuff, but we'll let you know when groups are gonna be opening and registration to get started, and you can sign up right through the app super easy.

Now, for some of you in the room, last group here, maybe been in group for months, years even, or something like that.

And uh you really, really want to grow in Jesus.

I can tell you, there is absolutely no better way to grow in Jesus than leading or facilitating a group.

When I say that, you're like, I don't have time for that, or maybe it's just like nerve-wracking.

It's like, I don't think I could really lead another group of people.

I get that.

I remember the first time I ever led a group, I was an absolute nervous wreck, and those were middle schoolers, and they were really smart, and I was scared because I didn't grow up in church, I hadn't read the Bible much, and they seemed really uh really sharp.

But you just need to be a step ahead, not 10 steps ahead, just a step ahead.

So we would love for you to even have a conversation about leading or facilitating a group, and uh very simple for that.

First of all, I'll be down after service.

We've got staff in our connections area that would love to help you with that.

Or there's a QR code right on the back of your chairs.

If you scan that, the very first one that pops up on there is group leadership, so you can um see if you're interested in that or even just having a conversation about it.

Otherwise, thank you so much for joining us today.

You're gonna want to be back next week.

Brand new series kicks off as well as we've got the back to school bash.

Otherwise, you are dismissed.

Have a great day and a great start to the school year.