Heart & Soul – Who Has Your Back?

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today we are starting a new series of messages called Heart and Soul.

This whole series is about our relationships.

And here's what we know.

We really believe that the quality of our life is dependent upon our relationships.

So for the next four weeks, we're going to talk about our friendships and waiting and dating and mating and marriage and everything in between.

It's going to be a lot of fun today to get us started.

We've got a message for us on the power of and the importance of godly friendships.

Let's pray and let's get to work, everybody.

Let's pray.

God, speak to us.

Amen.

Let's get to work, everybody.

Let's go.

Let's go.

I have this weird habit.

As a preacher, I'm always looking for stories.

I'm always looking for good information.

So several years ago, I started doing this weird thing.

It embarrasses my wife.

But when I meet people who do a job different than my job, I like to ask them about their job.

And I'll often ask, what is the weirdest thing you've had happen in your job?

So some months ago I was doing a funeral.

And I asked the funeral director, I said, Bro, what's the weirdest thing you've had happen at your job before?

And he goes, Bro, there are some weird things up in here.

He said it did a funeral uh a few months ago over in Tarpon Springs, and there was a sweet little old lady in the front who was so moved by the funeral.

And when it was over, when it was time to close the casket, she literally came, put the chair in front, took two steps back, did a running leap off of the chair into the casket with the person who had died.

That's weird, y'all.

He said, I did another funeral where a person came up to me and he brought me a CD.

He goes, We didn't have this in the plans, we didn't know this was gonna happen.

He said, play track number four.

So he goes, it was a really sweet, somber moment in the funeral.

He goes, I played trap uh song number four.

It was the worst song I've ever heard in my whole life.

He goes, if you took all of the curse words out of the song, there wouldn't be enough words to form one sentence.

It was so bad.

Okay, people are funny.

Uh when my wife and I go to Disney World, I always like to ask the bag checkers, like, what's the weirdest thing you've seen?

Very often I get a mmm, you don't want to know.

Uh one time a guy told me, he goes, This is true.

He goes, a few weeks ago I was checking a bag.

I unzipped a backpack and a live monkey popped its head out of the bag.

Awesome.

Another person at Disney told me a family came through and opened their bag.

He said there was a live octopus in the bag.

I can't figure out what for.

I don't know if it's food or to set it free at Disney.

I have no idea what it was for.

But people have some weird things.

You understand this, right?

Um, some years ago, my my friends and I, we went to dinner out in Brandon.

It was me and my wife, and then Pastor Ryan and Julie Jordan.

We went to dinner out in Brandon, and then after we were gonna go walk around the Brandon Mall to try to burn some of those calories.

And so we split up and the girls went off and they went shopping.

And me and Ryan, we just we had some time to kill, so we went to two places.

The first place is a place that is a national treasure.

I don't care what we have to do.

I don't care if there has to be government subsidies to keep this thing open.

We must protect at all costs.

Cinnabon, everybody.

And we went to Cinnabon and crushed a Cinnabon after Cheesecake Factory and Cheesecake is what it is.

We went there, it was awesome.

And then after that was over, we walked over to the Apple store.

I go into the Apple store, and I'm kind of looking around, and there's a security officer standing against the wall, and he keeps talking into his sleep.

It was interesting.

So I went up to him and I said, Hey, what's the weirdest thing you've seen?

And he starts telling me some stories.

I said, Do people actually try to steal from Apple Computer?

He goes, All the time.

He goes, and we're Apple.

We have the best technology.

He goes, when people come in, we can use technology to measure their pockets, to measure what's like on them.

We catch people on video all the time trying to sneak a phone into their pocket.

We see it all the time.

And as this is happening, I look over my shoulder and Ryan is pretending to put an iPad in his shirt.

So dumb.

So I asked it to him, what do you do?

And then he asked me, What do you do?

And you gotta be, you gotta know this.

As a pastor, it's always weird when people ask me what I do.

Because I have two choices.

Do I tell the truth or do I lie a little bit?

Let me tell you why.

When I tell people I'm a pastor, they get weird.

People get all shifty and awkward.

They like hide their cigarette, you know, like women like button their top button on their shirt.

It's just very strange to me.

So I never know.

Do you be honest and tell them you're a pastor or do you twist it a little bit?

I'm a motivational speaker, I'm an author.

Like, what do you say?

I said, I'm a pastor.

And he got weird and he got shifty.

He goes, Well, you gotta see this.

And he pulls out of his pocket his phone, which was not an Apple phone, by the way, and he goes, hang on, hang on.

And he swipes through his pictures really quickly.

And he goes, Look at this.

And he shows me a picture, puts it right up in my face, of a nighttime sky where there was like a lightning storm happening.

And there's lightning in the sky, and he goes, Do you see it?

Yeah, yeah, I see it.

He goes, Yeah, no, no, no.

Do you see it?

Do you see the crown?

And I didn't see a crown.

I saw lightning.

He goes, The crown, do you see the crown?

I said, Explain it to me.

Pretend I'm dumb.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

He goes, there's a crown in this picture.

And I was like, okay.

And I said, what does it mean?

So he goes, well, look, um, I believe that everything happens for a reason.

And when I saw it and when I got this picture, I felt like God was saying, I'm protecting you.

I'm taking care of you.

And this crown was to signify his strength.

Everybody, I didn't see a crown.

I don't know what to do with this moment.

And so I played along and I said, Well, it's interesting.

I said, Would you consider yourself like a church person?

Like, where do you go to church?

He goes, Oh, no, no.

I'm not a church person, I'm a spiritual person.

I said, What?

He goes, Yeah, I don't do the church thing, I'm a spiritual person.

Some years ago, I was counseling a couple, it was pre-marriage counseling in my office, and I knew the guy came to our church.

I didn't recognize the lady, but we're going through all the premarital counseling stuff, and then we got to the section where we talk about after you're married, how will you decide to grow in your relationship with God?

There's lots of ways we can do this.

And so then I said, Okay, now are you both a part of our church?

And the guy said, Yeah, I come every week.

And the girl pipes in with, No, I'm not a church person.

I did the church thing before, but I got hurt somewhere along the way.

The church thing just isn't for me.

I'm kind of a spiritual nomad, she said.

But it was interesting.

Like I want you to understand something.

There's a lot of people who have their own ideas of what spirituality is or what a relationship with God should look like.

But I want to show you specifically what your relationship with God should look like in the context of what Scripture says.

The book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews chapter 10 says, let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

What they're saying is there is power when we gather together in the name of Jesus.

So we shouldn't neglect this.

He says, but, and I want you to see these next three words, encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Pause here for just a moment.

If you want an interesting study in the Bible, read through the New Testament and pay attention to any time you see the words one another.

Pay attention to them because all throughout Scripture, there is this command that we are to love one another, serve one another, bless one another, give to one another, honor one another.

We are to one another one another.

And the thing is, you can't do this if your relationship with God is all about you.

You can't do this if you got yourself on your own little spiritual island and you're disconnected from all of God's people.

And I love the language they use here in the book of Hebrews.

He says to encourage one another.

Could anyone use some encouragement?

Like be honest for just a moment.

If you watch the news, the news is discouraging.

If you think about your life, there might be parts of your life.

It might be your bank account, your job situation, your relationship status.

It might be some dreams in your heart that haven't come to fruition yet.

All of us have stuff in our lives that if we could just be honest, we would say they're discouraging.

Discourage means to lack courage, but to encourage means to give courage.

How incredible would it be if you were surrounded by people who loved you, who knew you, who saw past your issues and they saw your potential, and they encourage you to become the kind of person God has uniquely crafted you to be.

There's so many people in the world who would say, I believe in God, but they're so disconnected from the church.

Here's what I want you to understand.

Mother Teresa said, isolation is the modern day leprosy.

So many people.

They live their lives so disconnected, so isolated that they have no one in their life who loves them, who's with them, who encourages them, who blesses them, who speaks to them, who speaks to their blind spots.

And you and I were created for connection.

I want you to get this.

We were created for connection.

Think about the story in the book of Genesis of the creation of the world.

As the story unfolds, it says God creates and then he says it's good.

He creates and he says it's good.

There's a rhythm and a cadence to his creation.

He creates and it's good.

He creates and it's good.

And then there's this moment where it feels like the story comes to a screeching halt, and God says it's not good.

It breaks the cycle of all the good, good, good, good, good with it's not good.

And what does he say it's not good?

He says it's not good for a man to be alone.

This is talking about marriage, but this is also talking about life.

You were never intended to do this life on your own.

So here's all I want to do today.

Today I want to focus this whole message on two questions.

And I need you to be honest with yourself.

And I need you to tell yourself the truth.

Question number one is this Who has your back?

Like I want you to think about this for a moment.

Maybe today's the day when you reassess some of your relationships.

Who has your back?

Who knows you?

Who loves you?

To get us started today, I want to go to the book of 1 Samuel.

There's this fascinating story, but to set up the story, let me give you some history.

The people of Israel, they were a nation that was called a theocracy.

This is important because we understand what democracy is.

Theocracy is instead of having a king, God is your king.

Theo means God.

Theocracy is a God-led nation.

So the people of Israel, God was their king, God was their leader, and he would lead by speaking to his prophets, and they would give the words of God out to the people.

But the people of Israel started looking around at all the neighboring countries and realizing they had kings.

We don't.

We need one.

So they prayed and said, Can we have a king?

And God finally said yes.

And they appointed a man named Saul.

Saul starts off as a good king, but somewhere along the way he loses his way.

And God removes the kingship from his lineage and he gives it to a young man named David.

Now, even if you're not a church person, odds are you've heard of David in the context of David and Goliath or some of the big stories of David's life.

King Saul had a son.

His name was Jonathan.

If King Saul hadn't messed up his life, Jonathan would have been the next king.

He would have been a more prominent story in the Bible, but he's not.

Jonathan and David were very good friends, and there's an interesting story in the life of Jonathan that I want to highlight three words today.

There's a story in the life of Jonathan that the truth is, if you just read your Bible quickly, you might be tempted to breeze right over it and miss it, but I don't want you to miss it.

Today, as we read the story, I'll give you some context and I'm going to ask some questions about your relationship.

1 Samuel chapter 14 says, one day, Jonathan, son of Saul, said to his young armor bearer, the armor bearer was a person who was assigned to him.

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

It was a friend, but it was more than a friend.

It was a person who was with him everywhere he went.

This was a person who literally carried his armor, he carried his weapons, he carried whatever he needed for his day.

He was at his side.

So Saul, the son of Saul, said to his young armor bearer, Come, let's go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.

Here's what you need to know.

In the time of the Bible, especially here in the Old Testament, it was a very barbaric war time.

And the people of Israel were often pitted against this other army called the Philistines.

The Philistines were known as these guerrilla warfare warriors.

They were known for having been some of the first people to take different metals to form iron.

And iron was such a strong metal compared to everything else that they had the upper hand in all of their weapons.

He says, but he did not tell his father.

On each side of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine outpost was a cliff.

Jonathan said to his young armor bearer, Come, let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men.

Timeout.

I don't know how we know that.

That's some like TMI for us, right?

Let me kind of explain what's happening.

So there's Jonathan and his armor bearer, and they're pitted in a battle against the Philistines.

Now here's what we know, and you'll read this in just a few verses later.

There's two of them, and there's roughly 20 Philistine warriors.

And you have to understand the topography, what scripture teaches us, that there is kind of a valley between them, and on one side is Jonathan and his armor bearer, and up higher on the other side of the incline is this Philistine army of 20 people.

So here's what happens.

For Jonathan and the armor bearer to fight these Philistines, they'd have to come down the valley, exposing themselves to the attack.

They'd have to get to the bottom and they have to start climbing up.

Now, this is just basic warfare.

If you have the higher point of view, you have the advantage over the people climbing against you.

So you've got Jonathan and his armor bearer, two, against 20 who have the ability to have the higher point of view and the higher advantage in the war.

And Jonathan says, we got to go do this thing.

And then the whole story turns on one word.

Perhaps.

Maybe.

Like I don't know for sure, but possibly, perhaps, he says, the Lord will act in our behalf.

Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.

And I want you to hear the resolve and the moxie in the response of his friend, the armor bearer.

He says, Do all that you have in mind, his armor bearer said.

Go ahead, I am with you, heart and soul.

Like this could cost us everything.

We could be going into a suicide mission, we could be laying our lives down any moment now, but go ahead, you do what you do, and I'll have your back because I'm with you, heart and soul.

So then Jonathan comes up with a game plan.

He says, This, he said, Come over, come on then, and we'll cross over towards them and we'll let them see us.

And if they say to us, wait here until we come to you, we will stay where we are, we will not go up to them.

Because, but if they say, Come up to us, we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.

So both of them they showed themselves to the Philistine outpost.

Look, said the Philistines, the Hebrews are crawling out of the holes that they were hiding in.

The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor bearer, come up to us and we'll teach you a lesson.

So Jonathan said to his armor bearer, Climb up after me.

The Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.

Jonathan climbed up using his hands and feet, so this shows you the steep incline they would have to climb, with his armor bearer right behind him.

The Philistines fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer, followed, and killed behind him.

In the first attack, Jonathan and his armor bearer killed some twenty men in an area about half an anchor.

And then here's the God part of it.

It says then panic struck the whole army.

Those in the camp in the field and those in the outposts and the raiding parties and the ground shook.

It was a panic sent by God.

I want you to think about the insurmountable odds of this moment.

I want you to think about what it would take for you to go into battle, two people versus 20 people, where you have the disadvantage of having to climb up a hill where there are already people at the top of the hill with weapons better than you have.

I want you to think about this in the context of this.

Likely, King Saul and his son Jonathan would have had the same kind of weapons made of iron that the Philistines had.

Guess who wouldn't have it?

The armor bearer.

But what did he have?

Such a commitment to Jonathan that if it cost him everything, he was willing to follow heart and soul.

Our relationships matter.

Best way I can describe it is this godly inspiration requires collaboration, which cannot happen in isolation.

It's a fun way to say it.

It's godly inspiration, which means to do the stuff God has for you, it requires collaboration.

You need friends, which cannot happen in isolation.

You cannot do it alone.

If that's like too much for you, let me simplify it.

I'll say it like this.

Show me your friends and I'll show you your future.

You show me your relationships and I'll show you the destiny God has for you.

Statistically, we become the sum of the people around us.

We become like the people closest to us.

Best way I can describe it is if you've got four friends who smoke and you hang out with them all the time, guess what you'll do?

You'll smoke.

If you have four friends with a drinking problem and you hang out with them, eventually you'll develop a drinking problem.

But conversely, the positive is true as well.

If you have four friends whose life is characterized by radical, audacious faith, you will be the fifth one.

You need to pay attention to your friendships and pay attention to those in your circle of trust.

So here's what I want to do.

For the next few minutes, I ask the question, who has your back?

Let me tell you what a good friend who has your back looks like.

And as I go through this list, I want you to do a self-audit.

And I want you to ask the question, is this true of my circle of friends?

Number one, good friends, they challenge your mentality.

Jonathan and his armor bearer together, and the armor bearer says, You do what you're supposed to do.

God will give them to us.

I'm with you, heart and soul.

Some years ago, when my son Gavin was five years old, I made the mistake of signing him up for a soccer league called the Encouraging Sports Soccer League.

It was really fun, but the mistake I made was that I decided to sign myself up to be an assistant coach.

I was very busy at the time.

I didn't have all the time to give to, you know, the intense schedule of being a head coach for an elite five-year-old soccer league.

So I signed up for an assistant coach.

First day of practice, I get there, I get my son Gavin checked in, and I said, Hey, my name's Jason.

I signed up to be an assistant coach.

And he goes, Okay, cool.

That's your team.

You're the head coach.

So whoa, whoa.

I said, I signed up to be an assistant coach.

He goes, Yeah, yeah, you can assist me by being a head coach.

That was the moment I was thrust into the spotlight.

I didn't know what this moment would entail for me, but but I gathered up my courage.

He handed me a whistle and a clipboard.

I went over and met my team.

And here's the funny thing.

I don't even know if I was that good of a coach, but we had one kid on our team.

I want you to listen to me.

His name was Sergio.

Sergio was unstoppable.

At five years old, I'll never forget there was one game where in the first half alone, Sergio scored four goals all by himself.

At halftime, the other coach came over to me.

He goes, Hey, look, uh, number five on your team, Sergio, he's killing us.

Do you mind like moving him back to defense or maybe taking him out for the second half?

It's like, why?

He goes, It's the encouraging sports league.

And I was like, encourage your team to play some defense.

I don't know, like, whatever.

So, anyways, I was a good person.

I moved Sergio from playing offense all the way back to being goalie.

In the second half, Sergio scored a goal from a goalie kick.

It's good coaching, everybody.

Good coaching.

The end of the season, they did an award show.

But you know what was funny?

It wasn't an award show for who won because in the encouraging sports league, they didn't keep score.

You know who kept score?

All the kids on my team, right?

But they didn't keep score in the encouraging sports league.

So at the end, the award ceremony was kind of a joke to me because everybody got a trophy.

So I thought to myself, like, I gotta make this better.

I gotta figure out how to make this a win for my kids.

And all the coaches got up and they read their clipboard with all the kids' names, you know, Kevin Smith, trophy.

James McDonnell, trophy.

They come to me and I thought, I gotta make this better.

Happened to be that my younger brother Aaron was there, and Aaron is an incredible piano player, and there was a piano up by the stage, and I said, Aaron, can you play Eye of the Tiger on the piano while I read the awards?

He said, I got you.

He walked up.

I said to the kids that everybody look at me, gather around, gather around.

I need you to come up with the best nickname, something that would elicit fear in the hearts of everyone listening.

And I would read their names with the nickname that they chose for themselves.

At 4'1, Gavin, the destroyer burns.

And he walked across the stage.

The whole room fell silent.

It was the best moment of my life.

Wonderful.

Well, this whole thing happens, and I got back into my car and I thought to myself, that was so dumb.

Liz goes, what was so dumb?

I said, everybody got a trophy.

Like, I don't want to be a part of a generation of people who raises a generation of losers.

Like, I don't want to settle for mediocrity.

Can anybody understand this?

Am I alone in this?

Like, you need friends who are not okay with participation trophies.

You need friends who challenge your mentality, who push you to the things of God.

Number two, number two for our audit is this good friends stretch you spiritually.

You need people who push you deeper into your relationship with God.

You need people who ask you questions like how is your time with God going?

Have you given God time in prayer or in God's word this week?

I tell our staff listen, there's some budget money set aside.

Take people in our church out for coffee.

Grab a meal with them.

But here's the deal: don't you dare sit down with them and just hang out with your friend.

But ask them questions like how is your relationship with God?

What can we do as a church to support you?

Because we need friends who push us spiritually.

The book of Hebrews, I love this.

This is one of the best definitions of faith.

It said faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

You need friends who understand that faith is about what you do not see, but because they understand that you can't see it, maybe they can see it for you.

You need friends who see God's potential and plan in you and they call it out of you.

You need people who pray for you and they believe that God has great things in store for you.

They stretch you spiritually.

Number three, good friends support you wholeheartedly.

Now, this is an important deal because there's so many people in this world who will push you until the moment of where you're celebrated, but the moment you're celebrated, they get like freaked out and they worry.

Good friends understand the same thing I said earlier.

If I shine the spotlight on you, it doesn't shine it on me any less brightly.

Friends, good friends, celebrate your best moments and they're there for you.

Here's the deal for some of us.

The deal for some of us is somewhere along the way, we got hurt.

And what we tend to do is we don't really know the difference in these two key words.

The words are insulation and isolation.

Let me explain it to you like this.

Not every person in your life needs to have a voice that shapes your heart and shapes your soul.

It is okay to insulate your heart from the voices of some people.

Let me say it to you bluntly like this.

You should never take criticism from a person you would never take advice from.

The world's full of people, they're happy to give you their opinion.

They're happy to criticize you, but you would never trust them for advice.

So why do you let them have a piece of your heart?

You should insulate your heart and protect it for some people, but you should never isolate your heart.

Remember 2020?

You remember how weird 2020 was?

And it was weird for a thousand reasons.

It was weird politically and socially, and there was the whole racial issue.

There was the vaccine, there was masks, there was there was everything you can imagine happen.

But I actually think maybe the greatest problem in 2020 wasn't any of those things, is that we had to deal with the perfect storm of all of those things in isolation.

Remember the words we use as a country?

Social distancing.

That was the dumbest phrase we've ever come up with ever.

We should physically distance, but social distance implies that we should break friendships, break relationships, and you were never intended to do this life alone.

Are you with me?

So protect your heart, but don't isolate yourself from the world.

Jonathan and his armor bearer have this moment.

It's a crisis moment.

They're literally going up a valley, up the wall of a valley to face a fight that seems insurmountable to them.

And Jonathan says to his armor bearer, What do you think?

And he goes, You do what's in your heart, I'm with you, heart and soul.

Heart and soul asks the question, who has your back?

Do you know the answer to this question?

Number four, good friends, they help you think strategically.

This is the key thing here.

There are so many people in this world that have dreams for their life, but they never take a first step.

There's many people in this world who dream, they have these beautiful plans for their life, but they never take a step at all.

Let me say this to you.

A dream without an action plan is a waste of energy.

A dream without having a next step is nothing more than a daydream.

You need friends in your life who say, I love that idea.

How can we work together?

What is your next step?

What does it look like?

What are the goals?

How can I help you?

Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, said, Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.

You need people in your life who help you take the next step.

And number five might be the most important one.

Good friends propel you supernaturally.

What does this mean?

It means you need people in your life who pray for you, but they pray as if their prayers literally mean something.

Last week we ended a series on prayer, and I talked about the difference between praying kind of bland, basic, anemic prayers versus praying dangerous prayers.

Can I tell you what this looks like in relationships?

You need people in your life who pray for you and they pray things like, God, would you use them to change the world?

Would you give them dreams that are so big that it keeps them awake at night and it scares them?

God, would you give them the courage to step into the moments of divine destiny that you have prepared for them?

You need some friends who pray for you that way.

Let me ask you a question.

When you think about those five questions, do you have people in your life who love you and who have your back?

If not, today's the day we change it.

Question one, who has your back?

Question two, this one's a little tougher.

Whose back do you have?

Like we all need people who love us.

We all need people who look out for us, who pray for us.

We need those things.

But listen to me.

Sometimes the prayer that you are praying, you're the answer to.

Sometimes the prayer that is in your heart, you get to be the solution to the problem you're praying about.

Here's what it looks like.

There's a huge difference between consumers and contributors.

Consumers believe that the whole world exists for them.

They are nothing but a black hole that sucks in everything for themselves.

Contributors are people who spread light to the world around them.

Best way I can explain it is this.

You treat things differently when you're an owner versus when you're renting.

You treat a house differently when you own it versus when you're renting it.

You treat a house differently than you would treat a hotel.

Best way I can explain it is this.

My oldest son Joey turned 16 last year and he got himself a car.

I was so proud of him.

But when he got himself a car, instantly he shifted from being a consumer to a contributor.

What I mean by that is he freaked out when people tried to bring food in his car.

I'm like Joey.

There are multiple generations of French fries, goldfish, crumbs, drinks spilled all up in my car, all up in Liz's car.

What shifted?

Was he moved from being a consumer, it's about himself, to now this is mine and now I've got to take care of it.

In the same way some of us need to make the shift today from treating church and from treating relationships like a consumer.

What does a consumer look like?

A consumer comes to church and they leave church after the service and they say, ah, didn't really like the worship today, didn't like those songs.

Hey, Newsflash, we weren't singing to you or about you.

Consumers get in their car after church and say, Ah, the sermon wasn't my favorite.

He was distractingly handsome, but it wasn't as funny as normal.

Hurts a little bit.

It's fine.

Contributors don't come to church asking what's in it for me.

Contributors come to church asking, what can I bring?

What can I give?

How can I serve?

Okay.

So I'm going to step all up on your toes by reading you a story.

And I want to show you a different point of view.

To understand the story, you need to understand that Jesus has come to a place called Capernaum.

Capernaum was a city on the north side of the Sea of Galilee.

It was this beautiful little kind of a beach town, if you will.

I got to visit several years ago.

It's beautiful.

It says that Jesus was in Capernaum and he'd come home, and this was fascinating to me.

I've heard this story taught as long as I can remember.

Some years ago, when I was in school, one of the professors said that here's a unique detail.

The story, we believe, actually happened in Jesus' actual house.

Like it was Jesus' home.

Here's the story.

Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.

They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door.

And he preached the word to them.

Pause here for just a moment.

Jesus has come home to Capernaum.

He's in what is possibly his own house.

People have heard, word has spread like wildfire that Jesus was back in town, and everybody wanted to see him.

Everyone wanted to hear his teaching or see his next miracle.

So he's in his house, and people are crowding in.

The verse goes on to say this.

Carried by four of them.

There's a man paralyzed.

We don't know a lot of details.

All we know is that it doesn't even give us his name, it gives us his condition.

Unable to walk, unable to work, reliant upon the generosity and kindness of others just to even have enough money to get some food for himself.

Scripture teaches that he lived on a mat.

If it was a four-foot by eight-foot mat, it was a 32-square foot reminder of his limitations, of his inability, of his condition.

There's these friends that hear that Jesus is in town.

And they want to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus.

He's carried by four of them.

The story goes on.

Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was living on.

They rip a hole through Jesus' roof.

When Jesus saw what?

Their faith.

He said to the paralyzed man, son, for the sake of time, let me finish the story.

Jesus sees this man coming through the roof, his roof.

And he's lowered down in front of Jesus, and Jesus says, Son, and everybody's on pins and needles expecting Jesus to say, You're healed, rise up and walk.

And Jesus says, Son, your sins are forgiven.

As if the story came to a screeching halt.

Everyone's like, What?

What do you mean your sins are forgiven?

Think about this.

I could say to all of you, your sins are forgiven, and we would have no way to know.

There's these religious leaders off to the side and they're thinking what I just said to you.

How does anyone know?

He claims to be the Son of God.

There's no way to prove that.

And then Jesus is Jesus.

He knows what they're thinking.

So he says to those people, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise and walk?

It was a rhetorical question.

Of course, the answer is rise and walk.

And Jesus said, to show you that I'm the Son of God, he said to the man, Son, your sins are forgiven.

Rise, take up your mat and walk.

And the man walks out of the room.

It's a miracle.

Every time the story's told, we tend to focus on two different people.

First, there's Jesus.

The whole story is about Jesus.

He heals the man, proves that he's the son of God.

It's a powerful moment.

And then sometimes we focus on the man who was healed.

We put ourselves in his position and we think, Jesus, if you did it for him, you can do it for me.

And that's a wonderful way to see that story too.

But there is another hero in the story.

There is another group of people who get no credit whatsoever, but they're really the heroes.

They're the real MVPs in the story.

It says that four men were so desperate to get their friend to Jesus that they did whatever it took.

I want you to try to imagine this.

This man is paralyzed.

His body weight is dead weight.

He's like not able to help lift himself.

So they squat down, and four of them pick up this 150 to 200 pound man and they throw the mat over their shoulders and they go to the house where Jesus is, and it's so crowded that they can't even get in.

One of them says, I'm not going to be deterred.

Like, we're going to do this thing.

He must have been from Polk County.

He said, Hey boys, watch this.

Let's go.

Let's get her done, right?

And they climbed up the stairwell on the side of the house, ripped a hole in the roof, and lowered their friend to Jesus.

It says, When Jesus saw their faith, he was moved with compassion and he heals the man.

It's the faith of the friends that elicits the miracle.

Some of you have prayed for a miracle for so many years.

Some of you have said, God, I am so lonely, I will do anything for friends and relationships.

But you still see yourself as a consumer.

Came to tell someone today it's time to turn the dial.

It's time to be the answer to the prayer that you have been praying.

What would it look like if all of us made this decision to say, I'm not content to be a spiritual consumer where it's all about me?

But I'm here to be a contributor.

How do we do this?

Next Sunday, we launch groups all over the city.

The truth is we will have dozens and dozens and dozens of groups, but it will not be complete unless you lead a group.

So let me tell you what we're doing.

This week is the last week.

If you have your phone, you can scan this QR code.

If you don't have your phone right now, at the bottom of your message notes, there is the same QR code.

If you're old school and you want to type it in, go to access.tv slash groups.

Let me tell you why this matters.

This week we have three virtual trainings.

You don't have to come to the building.

There's one in the morning, there's gonna be one in the afternoon and one in the evening.

Let me see, let me say this to you.

We're very quick to be like, that's cool, but that's not for me.

We're very quick to be like, well, Jason, that's good for you because you have a doctorate and you know all this stuff about the Bible, but I don't know all that.

Can I tell you something?

You have everything you need to lead.

There are so many different types of groups.

There's groups that center around activities, there's groups that center around Bible studies.

Can I tell you one of my favorites?

And we heard so many amazing stories this last year from this type of group.

There are lots of groups that literally take the message notes from Sunday and they meet up in the city.

They can meet at a Chick-fil-A or a Starbucks or a Panera or in a house, in a living room.

They meet everywhere people meet and they sit down and they say, What did this mean to you?

If you can ask the question, what did this mean to you?

You are prepared to lead a group.

We want to give you everything you need, but I want to be very clear with you.

Our church has exploded in growth.

There are thousands of people in Lakeland that come to our church now.

Statistically, it's something like over 2% of our city comes to church here.

To God be the glory.

Let me say it to you like this, though.

We don't have enough groups for everybody.

We don't.

So I want to ask you, who has your back?

Maybe more importantly, whose back do you have?

And what would it look like if all of us just made this decision that we're not going to be content to leave here as a spiritual consumer?

But we're going to leave here as someone who contributes to what God is doing.

I'm going to ask you to bow your head and close your eyes all across this place.

In a moment, I'm going to pray for you.

As I pray, I'm going to ask you to do an audit of your own heart.

Who has your back?

Do you have those people in your life?

Number two, whose back do you have?

Let's be the answer to the prayer we're praying.

So, God, in this place, we want to open our hearts to you.

God, I know statistically, so many people float through this life so lonely.

So many people float through this life dealing with issues like anxiety or depression on their own.

Some of us have no one in our lives who celebrates our best moments, and we have no one in our life who's there to mourn our worst moments.

God, my prayer today is that our church will continue to take steps towards being the kind of church that is profoundly connected to each other.

The kind of church where I'm with you, heart and soul, becomes the common language of our church.

God, for some of us today is the day we make this decision.

I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and I'm stepping into a group.

But God, I pray today that you will arrest some hearts in this place.

God, my prayer is that as a result of today, some people will have the courage to take a step.

We've been consumers for so long, but today we're stepping into the role of contributor.

We're gonna lead.

God, my prayer is that as a result of this, our church will not just continue to grow in numbers, but we'll grow in connection to each other.

And ultimately, it's about connection to you.

So, God, we love you.

We invite you to use us.

We thank you for it, God.