Where's Your Heart? - Engaging Your Neighbor

Pat Ribbey

Baptisms

Grace Zihlman

Colossians 4:5–6 ESV

5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

1. Be Wise with your time

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. - Thomas Merton

The training of the educational system

Belly Button exercise

1 Thessalonians 4:9–11 ESV

9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,

Learn to embrace and be grateful for your limits

Slow down and prioritize people

Pick activities that help you stand around and talk to people = Soccer

2. Be salty with your speech

Matthew 5:13–16 ESV

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Once, I heard a wise elder say that conversations should be like a good recipe; they need the right ingredients. A dash of humor, a sprinkle of encouragement, and a pinch of sincerity! Just like salt enhances food, our words can enhance relationships. As we share our lives, let’s remember to season our conversations well, as urged in Ephesians 4:29—only what’s helpful for building others up!

Not online conversations

God conversations - what’s going on - Pray

Gospel conversations - what are you trusting in - Are you dependent? Are you holy?

Ask questions - Notice what they care about

Be grateful for your own limits - notice complaints, consider how to be salty

Be bold not apologetic

John 3:16–20 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Ask the team up

Psalm 90:12 ESV

12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Community Group Questions

How do you use your time to not be a burden on your neighbors?

How do you use your time to build a relationship with your neighbors?

What are some ways you can be salty in your speech? What would it look like for you to do that this week?

How can you regularly set aside time to consider how to be salt and light where you are at?