The One Anothers

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Today we're closing out our series, uh, Ecclesia.

And I had what at least I thought was a pretty funny intro involving the Phillies Karen.

Um, however, just in light of the tragic events of this past week in America, I just didn't feel like it fit the moment.

And what I want to have as we begin is just a pastoral moment together.

We had earlier in the week the stabbing of Irina Zarutska, the school shooting in Denver.

School shootings happening earlier in the month at Minneapolis.

We had the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

I think we all know this, but Charlie Kirk was a conservative political activist, a Christian, a husband, a father, a son, whose life was taken violently publicly for his opinions he held, beliefs he held that others disagreed with.

To be clear, his murder was evil.

And it really doesn't matter whether you agree with him or not.

To celebrate death is simply wrong.

One of my boys had the gruesome footage of his assassination just put in front of his face.

As teenage kids jeered and just celebrated his death.

My daughter, who's in France, had a very similar experience.

And as my wife and I had time to connect and process with them, they both were heartbroken.

They're heartbroke because Charlie's little kids are gonna grow up without a dad, and they're gonna see footage of their dad being murdered.

That family is forever torn apart, forever ruptured.

My heart, honestly, and it's been as part of the ethos for ecclesia, but it's been broken for the state of the church, and yes, even the state of our church.

This moment, I think, is an inflection point that we must resist the pull to move deeper into our divisions, but by the power of the Holy Spirit move toward the kingdom way of Jesus.

A friend texted me on Wednesday asking for some pastoral wisdom and guidance.

I sent him Apostle Paul's pastoral response to the church in Rome on how Jesus followers are to respond to evil and evildoers.

If you have your Bible, you can open up with me at Romans chapter 12, verse 9.

Romans 12:9

Love must be sincere.

Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.

Be devoted to one another in love, honor one another above yourselves.

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Share with the Lord's people who are in need, practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.

Live in harmony with one another.

Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.

Do not be conceited.

Do not repay anyone for evil.

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath.

For it is written, It is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord.

On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil.

Let's pray.

Jesus, would you help us not to rally or react, but to grieve?

Heavenly Father, we grieve with a young family after the assassination of a husband and father.

We grieve with the ongoing shootings in our schools, the murder of refugees seeking safety all over the world.

The violence of wars raging in Europe and the Middle East.

Dear God, in the face of so much brokenness, we turn to you.

Lord Jesus, would you bring comfort to the greedy?

Peace where there's conflict.

Justice where there's evil.

Forgiveness where there's sin.

We pray that evil would be overcome by our good through the power of your Holy Spirit.

And would you turn so many people to experience your reality and the hope that is in Jesus alone?

And would you heal hearts?

Heal our nation.

Heal our God.

Let your kingdom on earth as it is.

As we close our series, I see it's a series on the church.

Not that you go to it, but that you are it.

Jesus envisioned a people following in his ways, living out a new way to be human.

Last week we talked about this new command Jesus gave.

To love one another in the same way that he loved us.

Today, honestly, what I have is more of a devotional than a sermon.

But what we really want to ask is simply this what does loving like Jesus actually require of me?

What does it actually require and cost me?

What does that mean to love one another the way Jesus loved me?

And what does a Jesus church look like?

Especially here in Silicon Valley.

In the Bible, that word, it's literally one word, one another, in the Greek, it's it occurs 100 times in the New Testament.

One another.

Fifty-nine of those times, it's a command.

A third of those one another commands is love one another.

15 times.

A third, uh, you know, love one another, love one another, love one another.

Another third uh addresses and deals with all about the unity of the church.

What I want to do with our time is just simply talk about the one another's, what it really looks like for us to practically love one another.

The sermon title today is The One Another's.

Would you say that with me?

And I'm gonna have us kind of be involved in some ways today.

We like we're not just gonna hear it, we're going to uh do it, okay?

If you if you're up for that, well, I mean you kind of have to be, I hope, you know.

If not, this is gonna really fall flat.

But what I wanna do is I gave you, I want that that notes that you have to take to be a resource.

I didn't give you all the one another's, like I said, there's 59 of them, but what I want to give you a list is what does it look like for us to love one another practically uh together?

Okay, you ready?

All right, first one, here we go.

First one another that we're called to do.

This is this is deep, this is big.

Greet one another.

Yeah, it's that simple.

Greet one another.

And you're thinking, like, really, greet one another?

Is that all that big of a deal?

Absolutely, but especially in Silicon Valley, we are terrible at greeting one another.

In fact, we keep our headphones on so we don't have to greet one another.

We may not have anything plain, it's just a sign, don't talk to me.

You know, I'm gonna be walking down the street, but I ain't gonna make eye contact with you.

We don't greet one another well, do we?

We don't do it here as well as we could, but especially out in the wild.

Now, here's what's interesting: Romans 16.6 says, greet one another with a holy kiss.

We're bringing the holy kiss back.

All right, you ready?

Just kidding.

Some of you are like, really?

Okay, I don't know about that.

Now, here's what's fascinating.

Did you know four times in the New Testament were commanded?

It's not a suggestion, commanded to greet one another with a holy kiss.

Another time it says, greet one another with the kiss of love.

Now, uh, we're so much more familiar with a handshake than a kiss.

Cultures all around the world today, many, many, many do that, whether it's in uh, you know, the Middle East or South America or Europe, greet one another with a kiss.

We're just so much more comfortable in America with a handshake, aren't we?

We don't do a kiss, so it feels a little awkward, but this was powerful in their day.

Uh in ancient Rome and that culture, it was built on hierarchy.

You only greeted people of the same status as you.

If they were below your status, you did not greet them with a kiss.

Everett Ferguson, early church historian, says the holy kiss functioned as a visible sign of new kinship created in Christ, symbolizing the radical inclusion of a diverse people as brothers and sisters in the family of God.

By greeting with a holy kiss, social boundaries of slave, free, Jew, gentile, male, female were transcended.

No wonder four or five times greet one another.

It's breaking down these barriers of hierarchy.

Augustine, um North African church father, called this a sign of peace, where the Holy Kiss embodied a theology of reconciliation.

Before receiving communion, believers embodied forgiveness and reconciliation through the kiss.

It wasn't just an affection, it was enacting the gospel.

We are reconciled to God and one another.

Now, in our day, we're like, okay, I don't think we're gonna bring back the kiss, right?

But the handshake, where did the handshake come from?

Well, it's been around for thousands of years.

It was always a sign of peace, by the way, because you would extend your right hand, the right hand of power, the right hand of uh that you would hold your weapon with and you would extend it so you'd be vulnerable and grasp it.

So it was always a sign of peace.

But for us in America, it took on new meanings with the Quakers.

The handshake became more common as a greeting among the Quakers in the 17th century, where they rejected bowing or tipping hats, which emphasized social rank, and used the handshake as a sign of equality before God.

Greet one another.

Imagine if we just started to greet one another, what would happen here if we just showed up and said, Oh man, I I want to greet every single person that I see as I show up on Sunday.

No, I want to try this out, by the way.

I said this was um interactive.

I have a thing where I actually want us, and I'm gonna ask us to do this, and you're gonna go, like, it might be weird, it might suck, it might fall totally flat.

I get that.

And if it does, you can go, oh, tell somebody else, oh, my pastor made me do this is weird and it's lame, and yeah, and write me an email, whatever it is.

So here's what I'm gonna ask us to do.

I'm gonna ask you to stand up, meet someone you don't know, shake hands, and then we'll do what we're gonna what I call speed friending.

Speed friending, you got three minutes to meet someone new, share your name.

What do you do?

What do you do for fun?

What brought you to awakening?

And then what I call the second date question.

Where are you at spiritually?

There's no wrong answer to that.

This is just where I'm at spiritually.

So, what I want us to do is stand on up.

Come on.

You got three minutes.

Find somebody you do not know and meet them.

Go for it.

All right, three minutes is up.

You can go ahead and find your seat.

Thank you so much.

Well done, church, and I just want to give a shout out.

Our high schoolers rock to you guys went all throughout the room.

Wait to go.

59 one another commands at the heart of it, greet one another.

1 Peter 4 8 says, uh, or Romans 15 7 rather says, accept one another.

How are you supposed to accept them?

Just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God.

It doesn't say agree with one another, accept them, receive them.

1 Peter 4 8, above all, love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins.

Offer, now notice this.

Offer hospitality how?

Without grumbling.

Sometimes we offer hospitality like, oh yeah, we gotta have them over.

Oh, why do I gotta do this?

Offer hospitality without grumbling.

Think about this.

Practicing hospitality, this is what it looks like.

It's on a Sunday meeting someone and going, Oh, would you like to go to lunch with me?

Oh, hey, we should hang out this week.

What's your number?

We'd love to follow up, grab coffee or whatever you guys are interested in.

Oh, you're not in a small group?

I'd love for you to join our small group.

We'd love to have you.

The church is the antidote for the loneliness epidemic that we're experiencing, but it begins if we when we start greeting one another.

It's simply that simple.

Greet one another, then another one another.

Ooh, okay.

It is encourage one another.

Greet one another, encourage one another.

Therefore, encourage one another, build each other up, just as in fact you're doing.

Wouldn't it be amazing if when you showed up to church on Sunday, you showed up to your small group, you began to ask this question how can I encourage someone?

God, would you show me one person today that I could just breathe life in, that I could just build up in?

And what happens when everybody does that?

Hebrews 3 says this uh see to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you have a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but correct them.

Oh, it didn't say that.

There's a place for correction, by the way.

But what does it say?

Encourage one another daily, as long as it's called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Encouragement is like the sun to a plant.

People grow towards it.

Parents, this is actually one of those powerful principles in parenting.

Encouragement.

If you put it into your toolbox of parenting, we're so good, I well I'll speak for myself.

I we're so good at seeing where they need to be corrected and catching those, and oh, we need to change that.

What if you began to catch your kids doing something right and celebrate it?

Encouragement.

It's like the sun.

People grow towards it.

Want to challenge us?

Would you ask?

Who can I encourage today?

Who can I just blow wind in their cells?

Who can I build up?

You know, there's a Sayye in our church.

He's one of those deep encouragers to me.

We had an event on Wednesday night at our house, and he came up to me and he's like, Ryan, I just want to tell you.

And he just began to encourage me in that moment and tell me what God was doing in his life.

He'll leave me voice text, and they're like two, three-minute-long voice text.

I love them.

I save them.

It was just like just encouragement.

Greet one another.

Encourage one another.

Honor one another.

Love must be sincere.

Hate what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another.

So there's there's a commitment here we have to have to the one another's.

Honor one another above yourselves.

I'm gonna honor you.

I'm gonna prefer you.

I'm gonna speak highly of you in your presence or not.

Honor, a culture of honor, is a community where God's image in every person is recognized, respected, and celebrated.

It's flipping the script from self-promotion to sacrificial love.

See, respect, by the way, though, is earned.

Honor is given.

I can give you honor because of who I am and what I know about who God is and what he's working here.

I may have some things where we disagree, but I can honor you.

Honor doesn't mean being in agreement, doesn't mean making them happy, doesn't mean tolerating abuse.

But it's this speaking honor.

In fact, I had, I actually sent a text, and like if we don't do the one another's, you know what we need to do?

We just James tells us, confess your sins to one another.

That's what we need to do.

We need to confess to one another.

I had this where I was talking with someone yesterday that was um a mentor, like person that I highly respect, and uh someone, a mutual person that we know came up, and we're talking about it, and about four hours later I realized I don't think I spoke honoring of that person.

There's something like I was joking, but it wasn't honoring.

And so I reached out, I don't have his contact info.

I reached out to a friend who does because I need to apologize, I need to confess it.

Because this is at the heart of God that we honor one another, greet one another, encourage one another, honor one another.

Kind of funny that I use the word fight on this next one.

Fight for peace with one another.

If you're gonna fight for something, fight for peace.

Remember, I said a third of the one another's have to do with this unity in the church.

Uh Romans 12, 18 says this if it's possible, and it's not always possible, as far as it depends on you, who does it depend on?

You.

You're not responsible for someone else's response, but you are responsible for yours.

If it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with most people.

Live at peace with who?

Everyone.

That's that same word, one another.

Ooh.

Second Corinthians 13, 11 says, Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, strive for full restoration.

Strive for this, encourage one another.

There we have it again.

Be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Fight for peace with one another.

Uh, early in awakening's history, there was just a friend and partner that I just felt deeply hurt by, betrayed by.

And when we're betrayed, we feel so justified.

I didn't really want to talk with him, have anything to do with him.

I was angry.

Hurt really I was hurt.

I remember talking to a mentor and processing this, and he he he said to me, He said, Ryan, the Christian life and especially leadership, but just the Christian life is filled with cross-shaped decisions.

And that stuck with me ever since.

What is the cross-shaped?

Not what I want, not what I feel like, but what is the dying to self, laying down my pride, and choosing the way of Jesus regardless of how I feel about it.

The one another's are commands.

This is what we're called to do, not on good days, but every day.

So I reached out to him and said, Hey man, can we have coffee?

We had coffee, you shared, I shared some of my hurt, he shared some of his and where we're at.

We it wasn't like kumbaya in that moment.

In fact, our relationship kind of staggered and stopped and you know grew and went backwards and forwards and these sort of things.

And the beautiful part is we got to team up with him on Thursday at an event, and like we we have a partnership and a friendship, and it's been restored.

Fight for peace.

And culture doesn't fight for this, friends.

And tribalism and polarization, all the rest.

It says, fight for peace with who?

Not the people just that you like, and the people you agree with, the people who vote the way you vote, and the people who whatever.

Everyone.

What does it look like to actually love the way Jesus calls us to love?

Well, we gotta greet one another, we gotta encourage one another, we gotta honor one another, we gotta fight for peace with one another.

And this is one of the primary ways we do it.

Speak life, not death, to and about one another.

I just encourage you to do a study through the New Testament on your words.

Jesus would talk about out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So when things are coming out of my mouth, and I realize some of that dishonoring words, what I realized, I was confessing it on my walk last night as I was walking my dog, and I was kind of looking weird because I'm talking out loud and I didn't have an earpiece in to pretend like I was talking to somebody.

I'm just talking to God.

And I'm confessing it because what I realized is there's a heart thing.

Jesus says that's a heart issue.

The Bible is so clear about our words.

James 4, 11 says, brothers and sisters, do not slander.

That's to cut down, to speak ill one another.

Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister judges them and speaks against the law and judges it.

And when you do that, you're not keeping it.

James 5, 9, don't grumble against one another.

Isn't that like we we we we can turn small groups into a grumble fest, can't we?

Your coworker, your boss.

Turn prayer request into a grumble fest.

Speak life, not death.

What if we just began to go?

When I interact on social media, is it bringing life?

Is it building others up, or is it bringing death?

Where we'd stop, we'd think, rather than reacting, how would Jesus interact?

And how would Jesus respond?

And where is this coming from?

Because when I respond, it's coming from something in me, and often it's fear or insecurity.

Speak life, not death to one another.

And finally, bear with and forgive one another.

Bear with and forgive one another.

Therefore, as God's holy people, dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Like as you step outside the door, none of us are gonna step out unclothed.

He says, the clothing of a follower of Jesus is compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness.

And then it says, bear with one another.

Why?

And it says this multiple times through scripture, by the way, bear with one another.

Why does the scripture tell us to bear with one another?

Because sometimes people are simply a bear to be with.

Right?

Bear with them, because it's all man, this is hard.

Forgive one another if you have a grievance against one another.

Now, how are we to forgive them?

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And the way that Jesus has forgiven me is the way I'm to extend forgiveness to you.

Love others the way Jesus loves you, accept others the way Jesus accepts you, forgive others the way Jesus forgave you.

Ephesians 4 29 says it this way: don't let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is uh helpful for building others up according to their needs.

We've been talking about all this, so no unwholesome talk.

That it may benefit those who listen.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whom you're sealed for the day of redemption.

Now get rid of.

Root these out.

Don't allow them to fester or build because it's destructive to you and everyone around you, and it will kill the work of God in a church.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, anger, brawling, slander, along with every form of malice.

Be kind and compassionate to one another.

Forgiving each other.

Just as God and Christ were giving.

Forgive.

Forgiveness is hard, isn't it?

Especially depending on the offense.

At the heart of forgiveness for us as followers of Jesus has it actually has not so much to do with the offender as it has to do with our understanding of being forgiven by Jesus.

Jesus was so clear on this.

My inability or difficulty to forgive you actually stems from my lack of understanding of how much I've been forgiven by Jesus.

And when I understand that I'm forgiven much, I extend much forgiveness.

When I understand, but by the grace of God, I am destined to be broken, sinful, lost.

And yet he saved me and he forgave me.

And he's given me new life.

And how can I not extend it like that?

Now, I hope what you're saying or thinking is Ryan, these one another's that sounds hard.

And you said there are 59 of them?

And we just went through a few of them.

Maybe that's not even hard.

That's impossible.

And you're right.

Loving one another is impossible without the empowering work of the Holy Spirit.

This is not somehow do you suck it up, try to work yourself up and do better.

That's not the Christian life.

The Christian life is yielded to the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, lives and dwells in you.

And when you yield your life to his activity, he will empower you to do what you cannot do on your own.

He will empower you to respond in a way that you cannot respond on your own.

He will empower you to forgive and bear with one another in a way that you cannot forgive and bear with one another on your own.

He will empower you to greet that person, encourage that person in a way that you will not be able to greet or encourage that person on your own.

So here's how I want to end, okay?

I want us to end the way Jesus called his disciples before what Dave talked about, which was Pentecost, when the church began and the Holy Spirit came.

You know what Jesus said?

He said, wait for the Holy Spirit.

What I want to invite us to do, and I want to invite you to do that actually this week, but I want to invite us in this moment to wait, to just be still and invite, come, Holy Spirit, come.

Invite him into the places.

As I was preaching, there are people and things that popped up where it's like, I it's hard to bear with.

I I can't forgive that person.

Um, I feel like I'm in an encouragement deficit.

I need encouragement.

How can I encourage?

There's been so many things that have run through your mind, and you begin to invite the Holy Spirit in all that.

And you ask him to do in you what you cannot do on your own.

So I'm going to invite Glenn to simply play a little bit.

Would you take a deep breath?

Sit back.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

He did not leave you to figure this out on your own.

He gave his spirit to empower you to live the life you cannot on your own.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

Move afresh in us.

Meet us in our weakness and our need and our uncertainty and our doubt and our longings and our hopes and our hurting.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

We wait for you.

Move afresh among us.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded.

And hey, we'd love to connect with you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.com slash card.