Purpose #2: You Were Formed for God’s Family
Colossians 3:12-17
Becoming the “Place for You”
Introduction
A. Have you seen our church brochure, stationary, business cards?
B. They are pretty nice if I do say so myself.
C. However one them they all say “A Place for You…”
D. Pretty catchy phrase huh?
E. What does that mean?
F. And how do we become a place for you?
G. Glad you ask, today we are going to talk about
a. What it means to be the “Place for You”
b. How to become the “Place for You”
I. What it means to be the “Place for You”
A. Authentic
1. Explanation
a) An Authentic person is one you are instantly drawn to
b) Someone who is willing to admit he is wrong, you admire
c) People who are honest, genuine, and sincere those are the people you want to be with
d) After a while you do not want to be around the person that has it “all together”
e) People who wear masks end up looking shallow liars
2. Application
a) I want to encourage you to be honest
b) I want to encourage you to be yourself
c) I want to encourage you to be open
d) To have real fellowship, real connection if you will, you have to be authentic
3. Illustration
a) Last week at Edinboro, this one girl had a shirt that said, “I have Issues.” I liked that shirt. Let me encourage you, I have never seen a church with as many people willing to wear the “I have Issues” shirt as Bakerstown. Why? Is it because we do have more issues that most churches? NO! It is because we have authenticity
b) Everyone has issues, to become “the place for you” we need people willing to admit they have issues
B. Mutuality
1. Explanation
a) The art of giving and receiving
b) Mutuality is going beyond the “What’s in for me”
c) Mutuality is saying “you helped me, how can I help you”
d) Mutuality is saying “I know you need help, let me help you, I someday will need help”
2. Illustration
a) I love our secret sister program. Concept is simple; you pick a name out of a hat and you shower the person with gifts the whole year. You do not know who has you and the person does not know whom you have. You do not give to look good. You give out of love.
b) You are not responsible for everyone in the Body of Christ, for they are brothers and sisters
c) Just like in a family however, you are responsible to them.
3. Application
a) Lets face we all like to receive
b) But we need to have mutuality, we all need to be giving and receiving
c) How many of you have had a give give give relationship with someone, one were you did all the giving and none of the receiving?
d) Question? Do you still have a healthy relationship with that person
e) To have real fellowship we must maintain mutuality
C. Sympathy
1. Explanation
a) Sympathy is something we often lack.
b) However, we try and mask sympathy with quick cosmetic help
c) I point fingers at myself
d) Someone will come to me with a problem, and I will instantly come up with this “cheep” answers like
(1) Trust God
(2) Turn it over to God
(3) God will take care of it
(4) Don’t worry It will all work out in the end
e) That is not sympathy, that is not wanting to deal with someone else’s problem
2. Illustration
a) One of my counselors who just graduated from High School came up to me last week completely burdened and heavyhearted. She had been counseling for 3 weeks, in those three weeks, she loved her campers so much that their burdens became hers. On Thursday she was overloaded. She came and talked to me about it. I did not tell her this too will pass I did not give her a quick way to get over it
b) You know what I told her – I’m glad you are upset. That means you love your campers. That means you are getting involved to the point it hurts. Ministry is draining, you are drained. Nothing wrong with you, keeping on loving your campers.
c) She went away feeling better knowing that what she going through an ok feeling, I told her I know exactly what she is going through, I sympathized with her
3. Application
a) Real fellowship is not giving quick answers
b) Real fellowship is to go through pain with the person
c) To be willing to but yourself in a vulnerable place
d) To come along someone and say “It hurts”
e) It hurts bad. I will be there with you to help you through
f) But I know it hurts.
g) That is sympathy. That is real fellowship
D. Mercy
1. Explanation
a) To be a “place for you” there needs to be a place for mercy
b) Now mercy by mere definition is refraining from punishment that is rightly deserved
c) I.E. Someone did something wrong and is caught doing it, rather then punish the person you forgive them
d) See ultimately, even in this church, someone will do something that will upset you that you feel deserves punishment
e) You are probably right, they probably do deserve
f) But that is where mercy comes in
g) Mercy is offering forgiveness to that person
h) Besides if you stop and think about it, look how much God forgave you, then compare what you did to God to what the person did to you
i) That should lead you to be merciful
2. Application
a) You can not have a true place for you with out mercy
b) If people were unwilling to forgive in this church we would not exist.
c) Let me give you two examples, one is how mercy should not work, the other is how mercy should work
3. Illustration
a) Grouchy Pastor Story. Sitting at a table, joking around, pastor calls me over, I made a joke, and he went off on me. A couple of days later I apologized went off on me again.
b) Sarah. Edinboro last week. Totally not cooperative the whole week. Questioned everything. Fought me on everything. Fri apologized. I forgave her
c) Now understand forgiveness does not equal trust, you have to rebuilt truth. Sarah, I am happy that she came to me apologize I have a deep amount of respect for her. However, when it came to evaluations I had to be honest, she was not cooperative. However, I forgive her.
II. How to become the place for you
A. Honesty
1. Explanation
a) To become the place for you we need honesty
b) We need people willing to say that is wrong
c) We need people willing to say that is not right
d) Honesty has to be done out of love
e) Honesty not done out of love can lead to rudeness
f) You need to plan on what you are going to say before you just open your mouth and let it fly
2. Application
a) How does this work in our lives?
b) We have to be willing to be honest
c) We have to be willing to speak the truth
d) I know it scares us sometimes
e) But in order to become the place for you, we need to speak the truth
f) No matter the cost
g) Words of caution make sure the truth is handle with much love! Pray before speaking, think before saying
B. Humility
1. Explanation
a) Humility is such a fun topic to talk about
b) I am going to right a book called “The three most humble people in the world and How I helped the other two” Just kidding
c) What actually is humility
d) Humility is not thinking less of yourself
e) Humility is thinking of yourself less
f) Humility is putting others a head of yourself
2. Application
a) How do we develop humility?
b) Admit weaknesses
c) Willing to admit your wrong
d) Putting others needs above yourself
e) Be willing to be a servant
3. Illustration
a) If you want to know what a humble person looks like look at my Dad. He in my eyes is the most humble person. That does not mean he has a bad self-image. He understands who he is in Christ. It is the fact that he puts others needs above his. Follow him around for one week. You will learn what humility is all about.
C. Courtesy
1. Explanation
a) To become the place for you we need courtesy
b) Courtesy is respecting our differences, being considerate of each other feelings, and being patients with the people who irritate us.
c) Can I be honest? There are people in every situation you will be in that will irritate you to no end.
(1) These people we will call the EGR – Extra Grace Required
(2) How many of you know one of these EGR’s? How many are sitting next to one right now?
d) How we treat these EGR people will determine if we can ever become the place for you.
2. Application
a) Here is where we go wrong, we get this crazy idea that we can change people, and that they should all fit a single mold
b) God changes people and everyone is different
c) Rather then thinking about how far they have to go,
d) Stop and think about where they came from
e) Soundly you start thanking God for the changes in their lives rather then asking complaining about how far they have to come
3. Illustration
a) Again last week, we had a camper named Kyle. Kyle has some form of mild autism. He could quickly get on any ones nerves. However, I watched my staff be super courteous with him. Treat him with courtesy, and I saw changes in him that I liked.
b) Becoming the place for you, takes courtesy, not a judgmental attitude
D. Confidentiality
1. Explanation
a) To become the place for you we need confidentiality
b) There is nothing that can destroy pure fellowship faster then Gossip
c) Gossip will always such the connection out of people faster then anything else
2. Illustration
a) Imagine if you will that someone just shared something with you in confidentiality and you brought it up as a prayer request. Next thing you know the whole church is “Praying” for it. Now the person who told you finds out, what is he going to do. Leave!
b) Boom, fellowship destroyed that easy
3. Application
a) To become that place for you we must practice confidentiality
b) We must not tell people what people tell us in secret
c) The person you need to tell is God
d) If the one who told you the information and asked you to share it with others, go right ahead
e) If not, keep it to yourself.
f) Gossip will prevent us from becoming the place for you
g) Confidentiality is needed to become the place for you.
E. Frequency
1. Explanation
a) You want to know what I learned about relationships in the 4 counseling classes, the premarital seminars, the pastoral training and every other form of education.
b) Here is it: Relationships take time
c) I will never be your best friend overnight
d) That is impossible
e) It takes time
f) It takes the intentional spending of time with each other to form a strong relationship.
2. Application
a) To become the place for you, we need to be committed
b) We need to be in the habit of spending time
c) No way can we have true intense fellowship only talking once a year at the Church picnic.
d) In order to make this happen, use the phone call someone up
e) Invite them to your house
f) Go shopping together
g) Does not matter how you do, just be willing to invest the time to build the relationship to become the place for you.
Conclusion
A. Fellowship is essential
B. You might like the word connecting better
C. But either case it is essential
D. It has to be there, God requires it
E. Therefore, we want to make sure we are doing the best that we can to fulfill God’s purpose in our lives
F. Therefore I am going to leave you with a couple of questions:
a. Question #1: What area(s) of fellowship/connecting do I need to work on?
b. Question #2: How am I going to work on them?
G. Take a minute and think about those questions
H. It might take some longer then a minute, let me encourage you to think about those two questions the rest of the day and through out the week
I. Once you figured out what the areas are
a. If you need to use the “I’m sorry Lord” Rail there it is
b. If you need the relationship restorer rail there it is
c. If it is another person, grab them talk to them in the pew outside upstairs downstairs, upfront whatever it takes
J. Once you have dealt with that answer the second question with a purpose statement and live out that purpose statement
a. Example: I will work on my gossip problem by as soon as someone starts telling me gossip; I will through up my hand and say you talk to that person I am not going to listen to your gossip.
K. Take a minute or two right now to talk to God
L. Change my Heart O God.
