Other Believer’s Role In Changing Us

Good morning, Good News Church. All right, I want to start off this morning

with a story that I read in a magazine. This was years and years ago.

It said that there were squirrels that overran three churches in town.

And the leaders of those churches all met to try to figure out what to do about

the squirrel infestation.

So the leaders at the first church got together and they did not want to harm any of God's creatures.

So they wouldn't poison them or anything like that. they

just tried to use these like humane traps and then take the squirrels and release

them outside of town but the squirrels just came back and the second church

they said that you know since they believed that god was sovereign like god

had predestined them to be there and so who would thwart the will of god and

so they just did nothing about the squirrels and the squirrels multiplied

and then it was only the third church that was able to keep the pesky critters

away and the way they did it is they they baptized the squirrels and they they

registered them as members of the church and now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.

So I always thought that that was funny like years ago, but now that I've pastored

a church for a long time, like I think that's really funny because that happens sometimes.

I have seen like the good version of baptism and sort of the not so good version

of like understanding, wow, it's connected to the rest of the church.

I've seen both of those in my life.

I've seen the good version of it a lot of times. There've been many times where

people have shown up like here at this church.

And when they first showed up, they were not a believer in Jesus Christ.

They did not understand the gospel.

In many cases, they didn't even understand that they didn't understand the gospel.

Like they didn't even know that they didn't know Jesus.

And then they came to understand the good news of Jesus Christ and they came

to know him and follow him and believe in him as their savior.

And then we baptized them right over there.

And it was this cool moment. And then they continued to be a part of our church

and they were involved with a small group or they got involved in serving or

whatever. And then we've just known them for years and years.

And then after many years, we can look back and talk about it and we can say

things like, oh, remember when you first showed up, you didn't even know Jesus?

Or remember when that first time we talked, remember when I baptized you?

Or do you remember when you baptized me?

And it's just, it's very cool. It's a very cool win when that happens.

And it's happened many, many times here.

However, I have to admit, like sometimes it doesn't go that way.

It's ever been a once in a while, we will baptize someone and that'll literally

be the last time I ever see them.

And it's like, whoa, what is that? And I think, I mean, first of all,

I don't know. I don't know everybody's story.

It could be that in some cases, it's totally understandable.

Like the person was baptized and then maybe four days later,

there was some crisis with their family and they needed to move to Jacksonville

right away to help out and they got involved in a church up there.

And so that's why we never saw them again.

But I don't think that's what happens every time. I think that sometimes people

do not realize what it means to join the people of God.

I think sometimes we don't understand, or if we did understand,

sometimes we forget like how communal church is supposed to be.

I know for me growing up, I did not understand it. I became a Christian as a

teenager, but I didn't really understand like the communal nature of church until my twenties.

So there was a long time on my teens where I just, I went to church,

I understood it, but I really didn't

understand, like the aspect I didn't understand was the togetherness.

Like I thought when it comes to spiritual growth, I thought spiritual growth

was a little bit like working out.

And that is working out is something like you could do with other people,

but you don't have to, like you could do it all by yourself.

In fact, probably like most of the time, you are just gonna do it by yourself,

right? You don't need other people in order to work out. And I think that's

how I thought of spiritual growth.

As I was growing up, I understood, I think, most of the things that we have

preached in this series so far.

I understood God's Word's role in changing us. I understood the Holy Spirit's

role in changing us. I understood my role in changing me.

Like, as I grew up, I understood as a teenager, like, the Bible and how,

if I, like, people read it and then change their life to match what it says.

I understood that aspect of spiritual growth as a kid.

I understood, like, the Holy Spirit and His role in my life.

And I grew up Presbyterian and I still understood the Holy Spirit's role in my life.

And I understood my own responsibility of like that I was responsible to obey God.

It's not just like, oh, God will make me obey. Like I knew that I was responsible to obey.

I understood all those things, all those things that we've talked about in this series so far.

But I think the thing that I did not understand is the topic that I'm going to teach you today.

I thought of Christianity as a

very individualistic thing where just as an individual, I read God's word.

And as an individual, the Holy Spirit comes into us. And so as an individual,

I'm responsible to obey.

And so spiritual growth is these things that we just kind of,

we all do in our life, separate from one another.

And I never put the pieces together that Christianity is this communal thing.

Like back in the 80s and 90s, people used to say this phrase a lot.

They would say, you've got to have a personal relationship with God,

or I have a personal relationship with Jesus, or do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?

And it's interesting, I think people still talk like that now,

but I mean, a lot in the 80s and 90s, super popular to talk that way.

What does that mean to have a personal relationship with Jesus?

Because it kind of depends on what you mean by the word personal.

Like if the word personal in personal relationship with God is...

Means of or related to persons, then it is completely correct, right?

To have a relationship with Jesus, like you're a person and Jesus is a person.

And so you relate to him as a person.

And so to have a relationship with God, like we understand God is not some,

you know, whatever force, like, right?

He is God, he is a person and you're a person. So when you pray to God,

you are praying to God, like personally, a person to person relationship.

So if that's what people mean by personal relationship with God, that is correct.

But sometimes we use the word personal to mean like individual or private.

You know, like when I say like, this is my personal toothbrush.

Okay. What do I mean? It means I don't share it with anybody else,

right? This toothbrush is nobody else's business.

Okay. It's just for me. It's my personal toothbrush.

And if that's the way we think of personal relationship with Jesus,

meaning like it's this thing I have unrelated to everybody else.

I think that's going to help us think of church life as a gathering of individuals

who don't have a whole lot to do with each other.

And so that's what I thought about church growing up. Like I grew up thinking,

okay, I got to read the Bible. I know that. And the Holy Spirit works in my

life and I'm supposed to obey.

But when it comes to like church gatherings, I sort of just imagined them as

like, I knew Christians are all doing their own individual thing before God,

having our personal relationships with him.

And then for some reason, once a week, we would come together at church and

I understood church was together, but it just seemed to me that it was a bunch

of individuals that are together.

That remain as these individuals who don't have much to do with each other.

Like there's just, they show up for church, not for the sake of everyone else.

They show up to get their individual need met, which typically was like a pastor

doing some sort of spiritual thing, like preaching a sermon.

There was like some sort of, I guess we believe there was like this information

download that we all needed about once every seven days where he would say the stuff to us.

And so we all show up as individuals and get the stuff that we need and then

go out into the world as individuals doing all the stuff.

And so I didn't ever thought about us like coming together for the purpose of

us doing things like together with each other.

And so today we're continuing our series called Changed.

It's a sermon series on spiritual growth. And so far we've covered God's Word's

role in changing us, the Holy Spirit's role in changing us, our role in changing us.

And today I wanna talk about other believers' role in changing us.

That's the thing I don't think I got growing up.

My main theme this morning is just very simple. Christianity is a team sport.

Or maybe let me put it this way.

Spiritual growth is a group project.

That's what I didn't get. That is so important. That's something that's all

over the pages of the New Testament.

Spiritual growth is actually a group project. And it's a little countercultural

to say that because it's very common for people nowadays to say things like,

well, I don't need organized religion.

I'm just fine with pursuing God on my own. You've heard this,

right? I don't need anybody telling me what to do.

So what I'm going to do this morning is I'm going to read you several Bible passages, okay?

And by the time I'm done reading these Bible passages and teaching them to you,

I think you're going to be convinced that the God of the Bible never intended

for you to pursue your spiritual life on your own.

So I'm going to give you four points this morning and you can go ahead and I'm

just going to give them all to you like right at the front of the sermon.

So if you're like a note taker and you're like, what are the points?

I'm just going to give them to you all right now. No surprises coming.

Just get it all at once. All right. Here are the four points.

What I want to talk to you about today is that we are to learn from one another.

We are to push each other toward what is good.

We need each other to help us not stray from God. And we need to restore each other.

So those are the four points. We'll take them one at a time.

We're going to start with the first one. We are to learn from one another.

So for this one, I wanna read to you Colossians 3, verse 16.

Colossians 3:16

It says, and this is the Apostle Paul to telling the people in Colossae like

how they are to relate to one another. And so he says to them,

and they're all Christians.

He says, let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you,

teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom and singing psalms,

hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

So it's interesting. He says, let the message about the Messiah, right?

This gospel message is supposed to do what? It's supposed to dwell richly among you.

I looked it up in the Greek. The you there is plural, okay?

In English, you can't tell whether you is plural or not, because it's you whether

you're talking about a whole group of people or you if you're talking about

one person, okay? But in the Greek, apparently you can, okay?

So he's saying the message about the Messiah, he's not saying the message about

the Messiah is supposed to dwell in you as an individual person.

He's saying the gospel message is supposed to dwell richly among y'all,

right? That's what he's saying.

I mean, if Paul were from the southern part of the Mediterranean,

that's what he would have said, okay?

The message of the Messiah dwells among y'all, the collective.

And even if you didn't look it up in Greek, you could figure it out because

the next clause makes it very clear.

It's supposed to dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing,

what are the next two words?

One another in all wisdom. That's something you can't do by yourself, right?

You could think, well, maybe I could let the message of the Messiah dwell richly

among me if I just thought this was a singular word, but you can't teach and

admonish one another alone.

And then he goes on to say, and in all wisdom, and singing psalms,

hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

And based on what he says in the two clauses that come just before that,

I'm assuming he's talking about the people singing the psalms and the songs

with the gratitude together, right?

That it's not just you in your car listening to on the radio singing all by

yourself, not that that's bad, but this is a gospel is among us as a group.

We're teaching and admonishing each other in all wisdom and we're singing and

see songs and having this gratitude together.

So if there was a verse in the Bible that taught that Christianity is a group

project, wouldn't it be this one?

I mean, I want you to notice the words one another when it comes to teaching

and admonishing. There's some assumptions that are made there, okay?

This verse right here does not assume that 100% of your spiritual learning takes

place when you are at home alone reading your Bible.

Do you see that? Like a lot of people are like, well, I don't need anybody.

I'll just sit at home and read my Bible. That's how I learn.

This verse does not assume that

100% of your Bible learning comes from you sitting alone with your Bible.

It assumes that there are people together in the same room, teaching and admonishing one another.

This verse also assumes, by the way, I'm not saying it's bad to read your Bible

all alone, okay? Just in case you're new here.

Three weeks ago, I did a sermon where one of the whole points was it's really

good to read your Bible at home all alone, okay? So no problem with that.

I'm just saying that's not 100% of your learning because there's also a time

when you're together teaching and admonishing one another.

This verse also assumes a community life where not just one guy does all the teaching.

Do you see that? Because it says one another. It doesn't say the message of

the Messiah needs to dwell richly among you.

So show up and make sure that you all listen to what the pastor says.

No, it says teaching and admonishing one another, right? Now,

again, I'm not saying services like this are bad. I think services like this are good.

But in this verse, it's saying Christians are to teach and admonish one another.

Christians are therefore supposed to learn from each other, not just one source,

not just themselves and their Bible, not just their pastor preaching sermons.

We're supposed to learn from one another.

Learning Christian doctrine and learning Christian living is a group project. Amen?

All right. So let me keep going. Same point. We're to learn from one another.

I want to show you a couple more passages. Titus chapter two.

Titus is a book of the Bible that is sort of a pastor to pastor letter.

The apostle Paul wrote it. So he's a church leader and he wrote it to this other

church leader named Titus.

Titus was the one that was in charge of the church in Crete,

which was an island. I think it still is an island.

Okay. So, but this was a long time ago. So he's the one that's kind of like

the pastor of the church or the churches in Crete.

And so Paul writes him this letter telling him, this is how you be a pastor in your town there.

So this is what it says in chapter two, verse one.

It says, but you must say things that are consistent with sound teaching.

No surprise there. You would imagine if a pastor is telling another pastor how

they are to handle stuff, of course they're gonna say, make sure you teach the right things.

But then he goes on and he says, older men are to be level-headed,

worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance.

And in the same way, older women, so you can see he's talking to different,

he's talking to Titus, but he's telling Titus how to handle the different groups

in the church. Here's what the older men need to focus on. Now he says the older women.

In the same way, the older women are to be reverent in behavior,

not slanderers, and not addicted to much wine.

I guess that's good to know, right? That's a specific commandment to older women.

So if you're here today, all right, and I'm not going to tell you whether you're

older or not. You can decide whether you're an older woman.

But I'm just saying, if you ever get to the point where you're going like,

hey, my kids are out of the house, and I'm allowed to drink whatever I want. Like, apparently not.

Like, even if they're out of the house, you have responsibilities.

So they're supposed to be reverent in their behavior, you're not slanderers,

not addicted to much wine. Now, here's what's interesting. Look at the next

verse, or the next sentence.

They are to teach what is good. Now, they is a plural word. It's not referring to Titus.

Paul isn't saying Titus. Now, here's what you teach next. He says to Titus,

you got to talk to the older women, you got to talk to the older men.

And then when he's talking about the older women, he says, they are to teach what is good.

So they is a plural pronoun, right, that is referring back to the plural noun

in the sentence before, which is what?

Older women. The older women are to teach what is good so that they may encourage

the young women to love their husbands and children, to be sensible, pure,

good, or good homemakers, and

submissive to their husbands so that God's message will not be slandered.

So it's interesting here. Notice Paul tells Titus to teach, right,

at the beginning of the passage.

But he doesn't just tell Titus to teach. Notice that he teaches,

he says to Titus, you need to teach some people to teach. Do you see that?

And in this case, it's the older women teaching the younger women.

And it's interesting what he tells them to teach, right?

That there's these older women, and they need to teach in such a way that they're

encouraging the young women. And there's a lot of stuff that it says,

be submissive to their husbands, be sensible, be good homemakers, be pure.

But what stuck out to me, what I thought was interesting is the very first two

things on the list. The older women are supposed to make sure the younger women

are encouraged to do what? They're trying to teach them to do what?

To love their husbands and their children.

Isn't that interesting? Like, I would think that in our culture,

there are probably quite a few people that go, does that even need to be taught?

Like, isn't it just natural to love your husband and love your children?

I mean, goodness, your husband, you chose to marry him and your children,

you gave birth to them. I'm like, how could you not love your own children?

Like, do you really need to go to a church and have some old lady train you

on how to love your husband and your children?

Isn't that just natural that a woman would love her husband and her children?

Isn't that just like what would happen, right? And if that's your attitude,

I'm just gonna say, apparently not.

Like he's saying that you need to make sure that they encourage them to do that

as if they're not gonna just figure that out on their own.

If you think, well, yeah, women just figure that out on their own,

I think you've watched way too many like romantic comedies and Hallmark Channel

and a lot of the sentimental stuff where it ends where there's a little fire

and she's there with her children.

And I just, honestly, this idea that you'll just naturally love your husband

as you ought to and you'll love your children the way you ought to.

This just assumption that that's what you do provided you're a good person.

Newsflash, you're not a good person.

And so you need help. We all do. We all do.

All right, let me give you another passage. This one's from 2 Timothy,

and this is especially for those of you that go, well, I don't like that you

picked a passage that's specifically about women.

Okay, this next passage is not specifically about women.

Seems to be about men. This is what it says. 2 Timothy, this is chapter 2.

Isaiah 2 · chapter mention

This is verses 1 and 2. And again, this is another pastor-to-pastor letter.

This is the Apostle Paul. This time, he's talking to Timothy,

who I believe is a pastor in Ephesus at this time, and he's telling him how

to handle his church. And this is what he says.

He says, you, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

So the you here is Timothy, and the my in my son is Paul.

He's saying, so my apprentice, okay, I am telling you to be strong in the grace

that is in Christ Jesus. And then look at the next thing he says.

He says, And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,

commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

This is another one of those teach to teach, right?

I want you to notice there are four groups of Christians in this verse,

okay? Or four generations, four different entities, okay?

The first one is Paul, right? He's the me here, okay?

Paul is group number one.

Paul taught Christian doctrine and Christian living to group number two,

which would be Timothy, right?

So Paul's group number one, and he taught Timothy group number two.

And when he taught Timothy, he taught Timothy to commit what he heard from Paul,

to faithful men. That would be group number three.

Are you following it? So Paul is saying, I taught you stuff, Timothy.

Now, Timothy, you need to teach that to some other people. But then it doesn't stop there, does it?

He says, you need to teach it to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

That's the fourth group. That's the fourth generation. Paul is saying,

I taught you stuff, Timothy, so

that you would teach it to some people who would teach it to some people.

The idea here that Paul is saying, you can tell what he's getting at.

He's saying, Timothy, one day, there needs to be some people out there that

know about Jesus and know how to live for him that I've never met.

There need to be people out there that I've never met that believe in Jesus

because they heard it from someone who heard it from you, who heard it from me.

In fact, I think he's saying, Timothy, if I do my job right,

like there need to be people I've never heard who know about Jesus.

And Timothy, if you do your job right, there one day needs to be some people

that you've never heard. You never met them and they know about Jesus from people that you taught.

Isn't that clear? And yet here we are in America, okay, 2025,

and I feel like there are a lot of people, a lot of modern day Christians who

will say things like, well, I don't think I need to know how to teach anything, right?

I'm just like a regular Christian, right?

Pastors need to know how to teach stuff, but I'm just like a normal Christian

just sits in a chair and listens.

That's my job. I listen and other people teach. And I don't actually have to

like understand anything well enough to be able to explain it to someone else.

Like that's what the pastor's for. Like when one of my friends comes up to me

and says, hey, what is this thing about the Bible?

I'm going to say, well, I don't know. I don't know what I believe about that.

But my pastor, he knows what I believe about that. Okay, so what I'll do is

I'll just get him to tell you.

Have you seen this? I feel like there's this attitude out there.

I don't have to know anything good enough to explain it. I just need to know

the address of Good News Church.

And then when there's an issue, I bring them and I'm like, all right,

pastor, you tell them. But here's the thing.

If I do my job right and you do your job right, one day there should be some

people out there that I've never met that know about Jesus and know how to live for him.

And if I do my job right and you do your job right, there should one day be

some people that you've never met that know about Jesus and how to live for him.

And I'm not saying that everyone's a pastor. I don't believe everybody's called

to be a pastor, but goodness, it seems to me everybody can know something well

enough to tell someone else who can tell someone else.

If Jesus is the most important thing to us we can do that but.

All right, point number two. So here's our list of our points.

We are to learn from one another. We just learned. Now we are to push each other toward what is good.

For this one, I'm going to take you to Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Hebrews 10, verse 24 and 25, they're pretty famous verses. They say this,

Hebrews 10:24

and let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good

works, not staying away from our worship meetings as some habitually do,

but encouraging each other and all the more or as you see the day drawing near.

Notice how many of the verses I'm gonna read today talk about how we're supposed

to do things with one another. There are so many verses you just literally cannot obey alone.

So in this particular verse, there's a concern that we're supposed to have for

one another. And what is that concern supposed to lead us to?

It's supposed to lead us to promote love and good works. Love and good works where?

Amongst each other, right? Not individually, we are concerned about one another

so that we are promoting love and good works amongst each other,

okay? not staying away from our worship meetings as some habitually do.

So he's saying like, so there's these meetings that they were having back then.

We need to make sure that we're showing up in the room where all the other people

are and not skip them. And apparently some people were skipping them,

right? That's why it says as some habitually do.

But rather we are to do what? Like instead of skipping the meeting,

since we're concerned about promoting love and good works, what are we supposed to be doing?

It says encouraging each other.

So I would say right here, this verse right here is the most clear verse in

the entire Bible about how Christians are supposed to meet together regularly.

I don't think there's any other verse in the Bible that's more clear than this

one about the obligation for Christians to meet together regularly.

But it's important to ask ourselves the question, for what purpose?

For what purpose are we meeting together? We could just look at this word and go worship meetings.

I think I know what that means, but wait a minute, what is the purpose of the worship meeting?

Because that will help us figure out what kind of meeting is being referred

to here that you're not supposed to skip.

I want you to notice that the meeting is a meeting that happens because we're

concerned about one another, right?

So we don't skip the meeting as some people do, because we are encouraging each

other. Encouraging each other where?

At the meeting that we're not skipping, right? That's the flow of thought.

We're concerned about each other, so we go to these meetings where all the each

others are in the same room so that we encourage each other while we're there.

I guess what I'm trying to point out is the worship meeting that's being described

here is not a worship meeting when one person stands up and leads everyone else in worship.

The meeting that's being described here is not a meeting where one person gets

up and delivers a sermon to all the rest of the people, okay?

I'm not saying that's bad. Are you saying what we're doing here is wrong?

No, I wouldn't do this if I thought it was wrong. I think it's good.

I'm just saying, when you look at this verse and wonder what is being talked about right here,

it seems to me it's about people who are showing up to a meeting that have a

responsibility to each other,

which means this meeting that's described in this verse is something a lot more

like a community group than it is describing what we're doing here this morning.

Right? I'm not saying what we're doing here is bad. I'm just saying when you

think about this verse and it gets brought up a lot, pastors love to use this

verse as they're like, you better go to church verse. Okay.

Oh, I've heard lots of pastors use this, you better go to church verse.

Okay. And that's true. If your church is like under 40 people,

that's fine. You can use it for a better go to church verse.

But if your church has gotten to the point where one of the meetings is so big

that it's good for corporate worship and it's good for teaching,

but it's not good for each other,

then we've got to the point where we've got to realize that Hebrews chapter

Hebrews 10:24–25

10 verses 24 through 25, when you think about this verse, I really think you

should be thinking about a small group.

You should be thinking about a community group because that's what it's saying to do.

Go show up at that meeting and encourage each other there.

Okay, point number three. We need each other to help us not stray from God.

So we learn from one another, we push each other toward what is good,

and we need each other to help us not stray from God.

For this one, we're going to go to Hebrews chapter three, verses 12 through 13.

It says, watch out brothers, so that there won't be in any of you an evil,

unbelieving heart that departs from the living God. This is Hebrews three.

I love hearing Bible pages turning.

This is beautiful. Okay, Hebrews 3, verses 12 through 13 is where we are.

Hebrews 3:12–13

Watch out, brothers, so that there won't be in any of you an evil,

unbelieving heart that departs from the living God, but encourage each other

daily while it is still called today so that none of you is hardened by sin's deception.

So when you look at this passage, okay, notice how many verses say each other

and one another and brothers, like we're all in the same family or something.

It's so crazy the way the Bible's written.

Okay, so we're all in this family and there's things we got to do to each other.

So in this verse, what is the strategy for making sure that our hearts do not

depart from the living God?

Okay, because that's what the verse says. So you got to make sure your heart

does not depart from the living God. Okay, what do we do to make sure our heart

does not depart from the living God? What does it say?

Encourage each other. It doesn't say, hey, here's what you do.

You go home, get in your closet, read your Bible for 12 hours.

It does not say to make sure that your heart doesn't depart from God,

you do something as an individual.

No, the strategy in the verse is, you all as individuals wanna make sure your

hearts don't depart from God, right? Right, all right.

Well then help each other to make sure that doesn't happen.

Encourage each other so that you are not hardened by sin's deception.

How do you make sure you're not hardened by sin's deception? By doing it alone?

No, you make sure she's not hardened by sin's deception and she makes sure you're

not hardened by sin's deception.

Not being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin is clearly a group project in this verse.

It's something we all do together. Point four, we need to restore each other.

We need to help each other so we do not stray from God and we need to restore

each other. So for this one, I want you to look at James chapter five, verses 19 through 20.

James 5, 19 through 20 says, my brothers, my brothers, goodness gracious,

there's so much family language in here. It's like, it's almost like it's some purpose, I guess.

Okay, my brothers, if any among you strays from the truth and someone turns

him back, let him know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way

will save his life from death and cover a multitude of sins.

So notice that this verse assumes that sometimes people stray from the truth.

Do you see that that's the assumption?

All right, so this idea that they go, oh brothers, if any of you strays from

the truth, oh, like that never happens. Who would stray from the truth?

After all, it's the truth.

That's not the attitude here. He says, my brother, if any of you strays from

the truth, he says that like that's a thing, like that happens.

And then someone turns him back, let him know what he's done.

He's done a good thing. He's turned a sinner from the error of his way and saved

his life from death and a multitude of sins.

So the idea that Christians never stray is not assumed by this verse.

It assumes that they stray and that they need to be turned back.

And I've seen this kind of thing happen lots of times in my life.

It is beautiful when the body of Christ works this way, that someone starts

to stray and someone else comes along.

And sometimes it's a big formal thing we need to meet. And sometimes it's a less than formal thing.

It's just like, and the person's like, okay, but whatever it is,

the idea that someone strays and then someone calls them back to the path.

I've seen this happen a lot. But I would also say, I think there are two reasons

that this doesn't happen more often than it does.

The idea that someone could stray and someone could turn him back and save his

life. I think this is the kind of thing that could happen a lot more often.

But I think there's two reasons it doesn't happen more often. One of them is this.

Some of us don't try to turn people back. Like some of us see someone straying

off course and our reaction to it is like, oh, stinks to be him.

And then someone else is like, are you gonna say anything? Say anything?

That would be judgmental. I can't say anything.

Maybe he wouldn't like me anymore if I said something.

And so we just watch him walk off a cliff. And then the second reason that I

think this doesn't happen more often is some of us have become absolutely unrebukable.

That someone sits you down and says, whoa, what you're doing is not, it's not good.

And when I say not good, I mean like you said this kind of thing was not good

two years ago at community group. Like you used to believe this.

Like this is not, you're straying, this is not good. And the reaction you have

is, who are you to judge me?

I thought you were a Christian, right? Some of us, that's our attitude.

We are unrebukable and we do not have a community of people who we have allowed

to speak into our lives this way.

More on that later. Next verse, Galatians chapter six, verse one.

Brothers, brothers, brothers, if someone is caught in any wrongdoing,

you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit,

watching out for yourselves, so you won't also be tempted.

Some wrongdoings involve other people coming along, addressing the wrongdoing,

and helping the person get back on track.

Do you see what I mean when I say Christianity

is not some kind of individual thing like growing in obedience is not a private

personal journey we need to obliterate the idea that my spiritual growth is

my thing like my toothbrush and it doesn't have anything to do with anybody else.

So here's a list that I compiled, okay? I'm going to read this list to you.

We're going to play a little game.

I want you to see if you can figure out what all of these things have in common. Are you ready?

Okay, here's the list. Arm wrestling, being in a choir, throwing a birthday

party, playing soccer, spiritual growth, and forming a conga line.

What do they all have in common? Yeah, they're all stuff you can't do alone.

If you have not done this yet, you have to add growing in obedience to that

list of stuff in your head that you're not supposed to do alone.

So let me end today with a list of possible applications, okay?

Different people here are gonna be in different stages of their life.

So let me just give you some ideas of possible applications in order to follow

like the spirit of these verses.

I have several here and they're gonna go, I guess, kind of from easiest to hardest.

We're gonna start with baby steps and then go along. So let me start off with the first one.

One possible application for what we learned today is take advantage of intermission

at this church, okay? Let me explain what I mean by this.

We have a moment in this church between the singing and the sermon where we

all hang out with each other for five minutes.

And so the person I'm talking to, when I say take advantage of this,

I'm talking to the person who's here, who you started coming to church here

and you're like, I like this church, okay?

And I don't know if I'm like, I don't know if these are my people,

but, but I mean, I like attending this service.

And so, um, so I, I purposely show up about one minute late and,

and as soon as I, as soon as Mario says, and that's good news,

I bolt out the door. Okay.

Because I'm not trying, I'm not here for like the relationships,

right? I'm not here to make friends. Like I already, I got, I already got three

friends and that's too, too many.

Okay. So those of you that are in that, you're not antisocial,

like serial killer antisocial, but you're just like, I don't need,

I don't need more. I don't need more people.

Okay. So I show up late. I mean, I understand. I'm not making fun of you.

That's a people type. I get that.

Okay. So you show up and you go, I don't want to talk to people.

So I show up a minute late. I leave as soon as it's done.

And then I just want to take in the church. And this particular church foils

your plans because right in the middle of it, we have this five minutes where

everyone's supposed to talk.

And it's like, wait, but that's what I showed up late and I leave early for.

That's like, so I don't have to do that.

And so we're ruining your plans. And so there you are.

You could maximize or minimize that five minutes. You realize that,

right? Like, even if you're here and we do it, like you don't have to cooperate.

Maybe you haven't thought about it. I'll give you some ideas if you ever wanna.

One thing you could do to make sure that you don't have other Christian relationships

and they don't get formed in those five minutes, you could go to the bathroom,

just fake like you're going the whole time, okay?

You could just sort of sit there. Some people do this. You sit there with this

like, just kind of putting off this real standoffish vibe.

Okay, that will keep away all, but like the most outgoing people.

You could definitely squelch the purpose of intermission if you wanted to,

or you could try to maximize it.

So I'm suggesting this to you, for those of you who are like,

I'm kind of antisocial, I just started coming to church and I don't know these

people and I don't know if I wanna know these people.

I'm saying a baby step for you could be to spend five minutes a week getting

to know other Christians who go to the same church that you do.

Now you might say, well, is that gonna protect me from sin's deception? No.

But it's a start toward Christian relationships. I guess what I'm saying is

if you're doing zero minutes a week right now, going from zero minutes a week

to five minutes a week is moving in the right direction.

All right, here's the next one. Once you've conquered that, here's the next one.

Possible application. Show up for church 10 minutes early and stay 10 minutes

late on purpose, okay? This is for those of you that you've conquered the five-minute milestone, okay?

And so I'm saying now what you can do is start showing the church purposely

10 minutes early so that you could talk with people and get to know other Christians

here. And then the five minutes of intermission.

And then purposely, when I say, and that's good news, stay another 10 minutes

talking with people and then head on out, okay?

This is possible. Now, some of you go, there's no way I could do it, Mario.

I mean, I already go to the 11 o'clock service like aiming for the 9.15.

And I'm just always late. I couldn't possibly show up early.

So here's the thing. Here's what you do. So this service starts at 11,

right? Okay, so just pretend, pretend the service starts at 10.50,

okay, and try to show up on time for the 10.50 service.

That's all you gotta do. And then plan to stay 10 minutes late.

And so you would go from five minutes a week to 25 minutes a week talking to

other Christians. You see that, okay? Now I realize this is difficult.

This is gonna be difficult for some of you because I know a lot of you are married.

And in the case of a marriage, it is almost always the case that one spouse

wants to do this and one spouse does not want to do this.

Yes, there's one that's like, let's keep talking. There's one that's like grabbing

the elbow and like, we must go.

We've got to go beat the Methodist to Sonny's. Come on. Come on.

So it's difficult. It's a battle. I get that. So I guess I'm talking to the

spouse that doesn't want to cooperate with this. That's what I'm talking to

right now. Here's what I'm telling you.

Come on. It's 10 minutes early and 10 minutes late. Do not sabotage your relationship

with other Christians and your spouse's relationship with other Christians over

those 20 minutes. Don't do that.

All right. Here's the third one. Once you got that one down,

once you go, whoa, 25 minutes.

All right. Then what? Here's my third list of possible. So we got take advantage

of intermission, show up 10 minutes early, leave 10 minutes late.

Third one is join a community group.

Now, this one's more intense than the two suggestions that came before it.

Join a community group is, first of all, time-wise, it's not just 25 minutes

a week. Most of our community groups at this church meet for like an hour or

an hour and a half or two hours.

And the relationship is more like you get to know the person better,

like, because it's not just more surface-y level conversations,

like, in a public place like this.

Like, a lot of times, you're going to their house, and you're getting to know

them. Like, you're going to meet their children.

There's like a portrait of their grandma up on the mantle. Like you're starting

to get to know them. You realize like, well, I would never buy this furniture.

Okay. Well, now you know that about them.

Okay. So now you're getting to know these people and in a community group,

you're going to spend more time together, be more involved in each other's lives.

And the conversation is typically much deeper than anything that would take

place here in the 10 minutes and five minutes and 10 minutes.

In fact, I have a friend who attends church here. In fact, he's here right now

in this room. He's kind of a newer friend of mine. He just started coming to church here this year.

And he told me that he joined one of our church's community groups.

And like several weeks in, there was a day where they all showed up and they're

all sitting in the living room.

And the question for the night was, what is the worst thing that has ever happened to you?

And everybody in the circle went around and shared this. And he said,

it got like real deep, real fast.

And I'm not saying that that happens at every community group.

I'm just saying the depth of the relationships that community group are going

to be more so than the 25 minutes that happens on Sunday morning.

Here's another suggestion. Join an accountability group or a friend,

accountability friendship.

Accountability group or accountability really friendship would be a purposeful

time where you're meeting with someone because they are holding you accountable

in some way, like that you want to start some particular habit or you want to

stop some particular habit.

And so you're purposely meeting in order to get a hold of that thing.

And so you would say to this person or the two people or three people you're

meeting with, like, I want to meet with you once a week.

And I'm like, I'm going to share a verse with you. You're going to share a verse

with me. And then I'm going to ask you about your marriage and you're going to ask me about mine.

Or I'm going to ask you if you drank alcohol this week and you're going to ask

me if I did, because that's got out of hand for us. So we're both trying to stop.

Or I'm going to ask you if you looked at porn this week and you're going to

ask me and I'm doing it on purpose.

I want you to ask me so that, and so throughout the week, I'm going to try not

to so that I can say no when you ask me on Thursday.

So like an accountability group or an accountability friendship works like that.

And you can make that happen on your own, like just by having a Christian friend

and asking them to help you and hold you accountable on something.

If you cannot make that happen on your own, I will tell you there is a man on staff at this church.

His name is Doug Davison. And Doug Davison would be happy to try to facilitate that sort of thing.

It has happened to hear before that there will be a sermon like this one and

there will end up being like four ladies or three guys or something that all

approach Doug on the same week or in the same little two-week period and say,

yeah, I need to be a part of accountability group.

And because like two or three or four different guys all say in the same week,

he's able to introduce them to each other and form the group.

So I wanna encourage you to consider that for those of you that need that.

The last two applications on my list are be teachable and be rebukable.

So we got intermission, we got show up 10 minutes early, we got join a group,

join a community group, join an accountability group, and then now be teachable and be rebukable.

These are applications, but I admit, they're attitudes more than they are actions.

Be teachable is not something you just go and do on Tuesday.

Like it's just, it's attitude, it's overall attitude of your life,

be teachable and be rebukable. So by teachable, I mean this.

Some of us...

Tend to be like arrogant know-it-alls. And so when someone says,

you know, we should teach each other, hey, join our community group, we'll teach each other.

Like sometimes I think there are some of us that are like, well,

I mean, I guess I could go and I could teach them a thing or two.

But I don't think there's anything they have for me.

You know what I'm talking about? Like that attitude, it's going to ruin your

chances of spiritual growth from this method. It's just it's not gonna help you.

And sometimes God even uses like crises in your life to show you that you don't

have it all together and you do need other people and you don't know everything.

Like lots of times there are people who say like, yeah, yeah,

I remember when I knew it all. Okay, and then like the crash happened.

And all of a sudden I realized I didn't know it all and I couldn't handle it on my own.

And I'm not saying that all crises that happen to people happen because they're arrogant.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, sometimes God uses suffering in our life

to show us that we don't know it all and we don't have it all together and we

can't just do it all on our own.

And then the last thing I have written here is be rebukable, be rebukable.

Some of you in this room, and I'm not talking about anybody specifically,

I just know in a room this size, like statistically, this is gonna be true.

Some of you in this room have not been rebuked by a family member or by somebody at work in years, okay?

Nobody in your family has ever said, like you did this wrong or this hurt my

feelings, nobody at work says you're doing anything wrong, especially if you're

the boss. If you're the boss and no one has corrected you or rebuked you for

anything you've done at work in years.

And if you were honest with yourself, you would be able to admit it's probably

not because you have been perfectly behaved for three years straight,

but it's because you've trained the people around you not to say anything.

You have reacted so poorly in the past that even the people who love you the

most aren't saying anything anymore.

And if you wanna grow spiritually, you will need to repent of that.

Let me end with this. Jesus Christ died on the cross to redeem a group of people to himself.

And he meant for that group to be a group.

And so we need him and we need each other. Let's pray.

God, I thank you that it's not all up to us. So I thank you,

Holy Spirit, for working in our lives.

And I hope and pray that that is even happening right now. We'll continue on

for the rest of this afternoon and this week.

I pray for the person here who's like, oh, I want five extra minutes of talking to people.

I don't know if I wanna do that. I pray that there would be some people who

would be willing to do things that are uncomfortable if they thought it was

what was best for their relationship with you.

I pray that today might be the day that somebody says, like,

I really, I wanna stop looking at porn and I'm going to stop trying to do that battle alone.

I pray that if somebody's going like, I don't wanna be in a community group, I'm already busy.

That they would not miss out on worship meetings as some habitually do,

but that they would encourage each other.

And I pray for the people that need to take baby steps and for the people that

need to take the next steps.

And I pray for the people who need to redefine their relationships so the people

would feel free to be able to tell them like, that's not okay.

So I just, I know that lots of that kind of stuff needs to happen.

And so I ask that it would happen in our lives, God. I ask that you would bring it to bear in our lives.

And so we love you and we thank you. We thank you for your word.

We thank you for the Holy Spirit.

We thank you even that you have given us personal responsibility to do things,

but we thank you for the body of Christ and our role in it and everybody else's role in it.

And we love you and we thank you, Jesus. And we thank you for your grace and

we thank you for your gospel and we worship you.

And we thank you that you are worthy of all of the time and effort we would put into any of this.

We love you, Jesus. Amen. Let me end with these good words from God's word.

This is from 1 Corinthians chapter 12, starting in verse 26.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

It says, so if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individual members of it. That is good news.

Thank you.