Form Believers

We have been looking at our mission and vision over the last couple of weeks. We have seen how loving God and loving neighbor helps us become the people that God desires for us to be. Today we begin focusing on the three pillars of our mission statement: forming believers, developing followers, and releasing disciples.

We begin by looking at what it means for us as a church to form believers. Our scripture comes from Mark 1:21-28. The words will be on the screen.

21 And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. 22 And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. 23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

Please pray with me…

Words and actions are what will often lead to a good or bad opinion of a person or group. This would be true for any group and for any circumstances that we find ourselves in. Research has shown that for every negative experience that someone has, it will take three positive experiences in order for a person to possibly change their opinion.

This is why the way we treat and interact with those around us can have a major impact on their feelings about us individually, as a church, and as believers in Jesus. It is important that our actions match our words.

Confusion enters into the minds of those watching and listening when it seems that what is being said does not match the life being lived. There are many Christian voices with large platforms that can cause people to wonder if they would want to learn more about people like that.

We can yell and scream about how unfair this is and how we should be viewed based off of our own individual actions and the actions of our own church, but this is often, at least at the beginning, not what takes place.

It is why if we as individuals and as the church want to help those around us either form a new understanding or a greater understanding of what Jesus did for them and how much that we care about them. We will have to be like Jesus and not only tell, but also show them that God loves them as they are.

Our vision includes three ways that we can let those around us know that we want to be a part of their lives and that God also desires to be a part of their lives. We do this through showing that we care, being patient, and being loving.

We discover all throughout scripture how caring Jesus was to those around him. Compassion is another word that we can use concerning caring about others. Caring will often begin with conversation.

We can find ourselves in conversations with others. It is through a willingness to listen and respond with vulnerability that can cause those around us to believe that we care about them for who they are and we desire to get to know them better. And that God desires for them to be a part of his kingdom.

Jesus’ words in today’s text matched his actions. He would speak of caring for all people and he would show he cared for many of the most vulnerable people. His amazing healings and actions led to people desiring to hear his message about his Father.

We may not be able to heal but we have actions that we can take to show those around us that we care and then we can also let those around us know that we desire to serve them and desire to help them in their lives. This is how we build trust with those around us which can lead them to deciding they want to get to know us and about us.

It is often through sharing our own struggles in life that can lead someone to open up about the struggles that they are currently facing or have faced. These conversations can than lead to questions about our faith journey and how we found God in our lives and how he has helped us through our struggles.

This can eventually lead us to ask about their faith journey. Their feelings on God. Their interest in hearing more about Jesus and what he has done for me and desires to do for them. We need to be willing to meet people where they are and allow them to tell us their story and be willing to share with them our story.

Conversations can allow those around us to discover that we are just like them. We don’t consider ourselves better than others and we have messed up in life just like them. We are people that are trying to do better just like most people here on earth.

Reaching a point to where others around us become vulnerable about their life journey will often take patience. It will often take building a relationship that will eventually lead people to be willing to talk to us about their faith and allow us to talk about our faith.

Jesus was Patient. He took his time attempting to pour his heart and soul into those that were willing to listen and follow him. He had to be patient because the message that had been received by his disciples was a very different message than he was giving to them.

They went from hearing about the importance of keeping the law and not messing up in order to be able to keep God happy to the message given to them by Jesus that the law does still exist, but it is impossible to keep the law and therefore we need to rely on grace.

We don’t know the message that those around us have received or lived out concerning Christians. We don’t know if they have heard others who did not show love to those close to them which may lead to struggles to believe that we as individuals and as a church are different.

We need to be willing to understand that our explanations on why being in a close relationship with Jesus may not lead them right away to wanting to become a follower of Jesus. We have to believe that God is at work. We need to wait for God’s timing instead of focusing on our timing.

We live in a country that has been focused on individualism. An expectation that we don’t need anyone else, and we can make it on our own. When we speak about Jesus, we are saying that we believe humanity is better off when we are relying on someone else.

We are saying that there is someone that you can’t see that is at work in our lives and desires to have a relationship with them. A relationship in which the more that you rely and trust God the closer the relationship is going to be and the happier you are going to be.

It is possible that someone might walk away. They might not be ready for that message in that moment. There is a battle going on between Heaven and Hell, between God and Satan. We need to be patient, we need to stay in contact, and we need to trust that God is at work in their lives.

I also want to make this very clear. We make these choices to be in relationship with others not because we want to “save them.” We are in relationship with those around us because we desire to get to know them and to show them the love that God first showed us.

We build relationships through not judging those around us on their past or current mistakes. We should choose to love people as they are. We should not expect someone to act or react in a certain way just because we believe the Bible told us that is what we are supposed to do.

They might not know Jesus. We don’t know how their life experiences have affected their decisions. There is only one judge and that is not us. God is the judge. Jesus showed us during his time on earth that our job is to love.

Our first reading makes this point. Paul the writer of Colossians gives a list of who should not be excluded from the love of God. The list includes people groups that don’t usually gets along. It lists those that don’t get along with the Jewish people and those that disagree with the Gentiles.

He also lists slave and free. This would have been a challenging one for those that are listening. The slaves would have been considered lesser than compared to those that were free. This is why what God is saying should be important to all of us.

We are to not look at each other as people groups, or amount of education, or political parties, or through how long we have been a Christian. We are supposed to not focus on what separates us, we are supposed to remember what we believe unites us, being created and loved by God.

We are able to become unified and show others the love of God by showing them the traits that Paul mentions in our first reading. These are traits that society would be better if each person tried to live them out even if they are not a follower of Jesus.

When we choose these traits, we are showing compassion to those around us. Paul begins this list telling us we need to have compassionate hearts. Hearts of compassion means that we will focus on the needs of others before our own needs.

We will not look at a person through what they can give us but through what we can offer them. Jesus offers us great examples of this. He sees people and he responds to their needs with compassion. They can offer him nothing but he is able to offer them and us everything.

We show our hearts of compassion currently at Kirkersville through our produce distribution, free community meals, and our holiday parties. We are showing those that are a part of the communities around us that we care more about them as fellow human beings than we do about if you come to our church.

It is also important that we show kindness to each other and those outside of the church. We should choose to treat others as we would want to be treated. One question that we could ask ourselves before we do or say something “Is this something I would want someone to do or say to me?” This could end up going a long way to us choosing to be kinder to those around us.

We also should show humility to those around us. Humility is us not trying to play God. It is us recognizing who we are and the role that we play with God. We are to focus on our own relationship with God and not how others may be not doing so well in their own relationship.

Another trait that Paul mentions is meekness, some translations use the word gentleness. This goes somewhat along with the idea of being humble. We are to choose what we say and how we say it with love in mind. We are to choose to speak in a way that expresses love instead of hate.

The opposite of gentleness in this scenario would be harshness. It would be us speaking in such a manner that would cause a negative instead of a positive reaction. When we choose to speak with harshness, we can end up leading people away from God instead of towards a relationship with God.

We have recently had a circumstance where someone overheard someone talking about them. It led them to no longer feel welcome here. Fortunately, they sought out another church. But we are not being welcoming when we are talking about others.

The last of these traits we already have spent some time on, patience. It can be hard sometimes for us to be patient, It is why we need to be being formed ourselves. We need to be being formed while helping other discover their relationship with God.

The better we understand and are able to live into our own understanding and relationship with God the better we become at leading others into their understanding of God. We do this by spending time with God.

It is through developing spiritual disciplines that we are able to stay connected with God. This connection than allows us to be able to follow God’s lead and serve God the way he desires for us to serve him.

One way that we hope to combine our own formation with the formation of others is through small groups. These groups will focus on relationships and scripture. It would be the expectation that we would have these groups be a way to connect with people who do not have a relationship with a church with us.

We will have more information concerning this possibility of growing in faith while helping others also discover a closer relationship with God. It is our hope that these groups will continue to give us ways to connect with God and those in our communities.

We are loved by God and should be willing to show the love of God to those around us. We should seek out ways to develop relationships with our friends and neighbors. We should be willing to show the love of God to those around us by serving them the way that they need served.