Over the next four weeks, we are going to be spending our time going through our mission statement: Living to grow, serve, worship and share. Each week we are going to look at a different piece of it and the have a small lesson about worship as we sing and participate in the experiential stations around the room.
Before we jump into the first part of our mission statement this evening, I want to quickly talk about what it actually is. Every week, you guys come into this building and see this statement on the shirts that the leaders are wearing and on the wall as you come up to the sanctuary. Even outside of Breakaway you see this phrase if you get an e-mail from me or if you or your peers wear one of the Breakaway shirts.
We do this on purpose because this is the heart behind everything that we do here for Breakaway, or at least it should be anyways. This statement goes a lot deep though than just guiding us as we make decisions about programs and other stuff. This statement is based in the way we believe the Bible calls all Christians to live their lives. These are the basics and the foundation of what it means to have a relationship with Jesus Christ and to be living that out as a disciple. Anyone who claims to have a relationship with God should be working to have these five purposes evident in their lives on a daily basis. I challenge you guys to keep that in mind over the next few weeks as we explore each part of this statement.
For tonight, we are going to start with the word Living and explore the importance of living together for Jesus. To start off I would like to play a movie clip about a Father and his Son named Dick and Rick Hoyt who are actually from the Boston area. Together, they have influenced millions of people and accomplished some pretty amazing things.
***Movie clip “Together (Team Hoyt)”***
For background to this amazing Father and Son team check out http://www.teamhoyt.com/history.shtml.
I love that line at the end of the video clip, “together has power.” I think in general, this is a statement that the majority of people would all agree about. We hear people express this all the time with statements like “power in numbers” and “there is no I in team.” For some reason though, when it comes to a relationship with Jesus and living that out, we all too often try to go it alone.
We exclaim all sorts of reasons for this, everywhere from our location and environment to excuses that there are issues too deep and sensitive that we can’t tell anyone else about. As those things hold a glimpse of truth at different times and as it definitely can be difficult to trust others with deeps things in your life, unfortunately this is the way God has made us. Let’s open our Bibles to Genesis 2:1-22 to explore this issue deeper.
***Read Genesis 2:1-22***
In Genesis 2 after God has created Adam, He expresses, that “It is not good for the man to be alone.” So God creates the animals and brings them all to the man to name and find one suitable to be a helper and companion. After all of them go by Adam and a helper is not found, God causes him to fall asleep and creates a woman who is called Eve.
This passage is most often used when talking about dating or marriage but I want to make the argument that marriage was not what God had in mind when he stated that it was not good for man to be alone. If God were talking about marriage, Paul would have been wrong to encourage men and women in 1 Corinthians that if they could handle the single life, to stay single so they could minister to God more.
Instead, I think God was talking about basic human relationships between men and men, women and women, and men and women for a few reasons.
First off, Genesis tells us we were created in the image of God. God, in his core, is a relational being. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God but yet they are all individuals as well, part of a family who do things to love and honor each other. That same core and desire was created in us when God breathed life into us. We too are relational beings and work best when together with others.
Second, I think part of the reason God created Eve, a woman, after expressing that it was not good for man to be alone, was so they could create more people. In fact this was the first command God gave Adam and Eve, telling them to “be fruitful and multiply.” God, in his amazing wisdom created a way for man to never, ever have to be alone again and, in fact, made it possible for us to create more and more opportunities for relationship with others.
Third, and this just absolutely blew my mind this morning, was the fact that when God created Adam, He was with him on the earth. Just God and Adam. It wasn’t unlike what so many people want to exclaim about their relationship with God. Just me and Jesus. Even though God was with Adam, God still exclaimed that it wasn’t good for man to be alone. God is definitely more than enough for us and we wouldn’t need to have anything else except for the fact that this is the way that God has chosen to do it. He has chosen to work through people to accomplish His work on earth and therefore we need to be in relationship with people in order for God’s work to be completed in us.
This idea that living with other Christian is important is not only found here at creation but also in a number of other areas in scripture. David’s son Solomon exclaims this in his book Ecclesiastes where he writes this in 4:9-12 about living together with others:
“Two people can accomplish more than twice as much as one; they get a better return for their labor. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble. And on a cold night, two under the same blanket can gain warmth from each other. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”
Again in the book of Proverbs, Solomon exclaims that, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Paul writes to the church in Corinth and compares being a Christian to being part of a body. Each part is important in the body and all have different purposes. If the body were made up of just one part or if the body it wouldn’t work right and the body would be missing out. If parts were missing off the body, again, there would be things that we couldn’t do or would miss out on. It is only when each part does its job and works together with the others that we get the full affect and potential out of our bodies.
When it comes to living out our spiritual lives it is almost an understatement to say that relationships with other Christians are important. It is absolutely necessary and a must if we want to grow in our relationship with Christ.
That being said, I want to talk to you guys specifically about two ways that to have deep, meaningful relationships with other people that are fairly easy to find.
The first opportunity would be what we will be heading to in about half an hour, small groups. There is such a major benefit to meeting with a small group of people, preferably around the same age to talk about life, God, and whatever else might come up. That is the whole reason we have small groups. Our desire is not that they would be only fun, goofy times but that they could also be times to go deeper in conversation and trust with one another.
For that to happen though, it will take the entire small group working together to listen to each other and care for each other. Just like Paul’s comparison to the body, when one part of your small group is completely focused on themselves or if there are others not participating, everyone in the group is missing out. I challenge you guys tonight, as you go to small groups, to view them in a different light that maybe you have been. Instead of a goofy time to just hang out, view it as an opportunity to go deeper and to love and serve one another.
The second opportunity is honestly probably not one that some of you want to hear and others of you will have no problem with it at all. That opportunity is the importance of being in a multigenerational worship setting. That might sound a little funny at first but let me break it down a little bit.
On Monday nights, we have done our best to create an atmosphere where you guys can come and meet with your peers and grow closer to God. I have heard a few of you refer to Monday nights as your “church” for the week. One the one hand I am very glad you consider this your church and I want you guys here, learning about God. On the other hand, I feel slightly sad for you guys because honestly you are missing out just doing one and not the other. Not only are you missing out, but I also feel bad for some of the adult because they are missing out on a relationship with you!
When I did a survey a while ago and asked you all why you didn’t attend church on Sunday morning, there were a few reasons that I would partially agree with you about but one that I don’t was that a few of you claimed you didn’t want to go because of the old people. As I can understand the hesitation, I want to challenge you that surrounding yourself with older people and building relationships with them is going to offer you so much more experience, ideas, love and support than only surrounding yourself with peers at Breakaway. Those older than us are so important in our Christian walks because we can learn so much from them having been there, done that and we can also teach them a lot out of our youthful enthusiasm and energy!
It is not good for man to be alone! We need one another in order to grow and become more like Jesus. Whether it is friendships, small groups, Breakaway, mentors, or our service on Sunday mornings, it is so important to take advantage of as many of these as possible; not only for your benefit, but for each others benefit. The more we work together and live together, the closer we will become to being like God and the more we will be able to do for Him. Together has power indeed!
