From Me to Us

Romans 15:1-7

ONE MORE FOR JESUS

Church is a movement not a monument. It’s a verb not a noun.

In preparation for this series as I thought about what it means for us to continue to rollout vision and mission the Lord impressed upon me the thought, “always be a Movement and never create a Monument.” A monument is something the men build in order to honor a dead work. It may have started as a movement in a church, a ministry, or even a movement in a nation but did not sustain and eventually became just a monument. A monument commemorates something that was once alive but is now dead and gone. Some of the most beautiful churches in the world are now tourist attractions that make more off of admission for entry than they every did receiving tithes and offerings. Buildings, land, and even some ministries are simply methods to help accomplish the mission, and we must do our best to never confuse the two.

If you always love your life as a movement, then you will never become a monument.” Whenever your time is over, your life and the movement you were a part of, will continue on. There are so many denominations that sadly have based their theology and doctrines on great Charismatic and Pentecostal movements from the past but their services today are dry and dead. This took place because they camped out on something the Lord did in the past instead of staying current with what the Lord was doing. 

For the next four or five weeks we are going to talk about moves that we can make, to be sure that we never become stagnant pools of putrid water, but instead we serve as life giving rivers flowing, shifting, carving through the terrain of life to be a source of Spiritual refreshment to those around us.

The order of these sermons is intentional and directional making sure that we examine each movement being foundational to the next.

Intro: There are going to be things that you don’t like at every church so you might as well stay with the people that love you. (DORIS)

Romans 15:1–3 “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written: “The taunts of those who taunt You have fallen on me.”” Romans 15:4–7 “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that with one purpose and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us, for the glory of God.”

(vs1-3) Us is not a private matter. ESV  Romans 15:1 We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not please himself,  Over half of evangelicals believe that religion should be a personal concern. Me is a private matter. Us is not. There will be things I don’t know about you, there will be things you don’t know about me. But US is not a private matter…  Jesus was all about US.. Jesus did not call the disciples to walk with him alone, but he invited them into a journey with 11 other people, in some cases from very different walks of life.

Verses 1 and 2 not only inform us that Christianity is not a private matter, but instead makes it very clear that Christianity is a movement defined by relationships. I’m afraid that many of our relationships, especially in the church have become far too shallow. We don’t talk much past weather, sports, or our neighbor down the street… About a year ago when of my best friends went through a horrible time in his marriage, I was struggling with how to talk to him. When I was talking with a spiritual mentor of mine about it, he asked me if I saw it coming, and sadly I had to reply no. You see me and my friend were 2 peas in a pod, we knew what the other one was thinking before the other one spoke, but unfortunately, he and I had avoided deeper and more meaningful conversations, so we had not created space for one to confide in the other with things really got hard, probably because we never realized we would have to do so. My friend is mending his marriage, but boy do I wish I would have been more intentional about elements of our relationship that weren’t present... This message is ALL about relationships. Us is not a private matter… now this next point might take a little explaining but catch this.

 (vs5-6) Us is not Ours  5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

During election time, why is it that we aren’t wearing shirts and hats that say Make the church great again, or putting up Jesus lawn signs?

We tend to come together more about things which we oppose than the things about which we agree. We love our common enemies. This type of unity does not move us from me to us, instead it moves us from me to ours. Now you say what is the difference between us and ours? Ours could very easily be described as me plural. I don’t like something so I will attach myself to others who will join me in disagreeing with something. This can be very shaky ground. One of our large Nazarene church pastors said we have unhealthy life groups and Sunday school classes that have become evangelist of dissatisfaction. The passage talks about harmony so let’s consider that for a second.

Us is like a perfectly blended group of notes on a music sheet that become more beautiful as the notes are sung together. While “Ours” is simply a place where we create synthetic sense of unity by joining ourselves to people who are exactly like us. This is not harmony, this just creates a noise that has greater volume. These are the people that go to task of producing noise whenever someone isn’t playing their note. In my experience, most churches have went the way, not of what brought harmony for the greater number, but by appeasing the loudest or most consistent noisemakers, because we don’t like their noise. As some of you might be thinking about someone else that this message is for instead of you, I’ve got a nice challenge for all of us. I just picked on one part of us, but let me pick on all of us a little by considering how we can move from ours to us…

 (vs7) This is Us 7 Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

This point could lend a little towards next week’s message where we talk about moving from me to us, but I want to talk about welcoming one another this morning simply within the context of the church. Remember when we use to hang out with each other? We’ve become disconnected, busy, and earned the right to just hang out with the people we can relax around. Pastor Kevin Jack of Beavercreek Naz talks about how his wife loves to have people over to the house. I’ve never met his wife, but anyone that I’ve ever heard talk about her talks about… never meeting someone that evangelizes people as well as she does. Pastor Kevin talked about how there are people in his life that energize him, and some that might not necessarily energize him. And we all have people that fall into both categories for us as well.

            Some of us are pretty good about welcoming people into our homes that we enjoy, that energize us, that are just pleasant to be around. But when I read verse 7, welcoming one another doesn’t seem to be qualified by just people that we enjoy or can tolerate. When was the last time you had someone from the church over to your home for dinner. Better yet, when was the last time you had someone from the church over for dinner that has went here for less than a year?

When was the last time you came to the altar to pray with a fellow Christian?

When you have a disagreement with someone in the body, do you go to them, or talk about them to others or online or via text?

What are people’s impression of our church, based on what you say, post, or gossip about us?

This next one might sting a little more...

Attendance plug somewhere - What if instead of asking people if they are free to do something on Sunday, we said do you want to skip church with me on Sunday? I’m not beating you up for some R&R but remember when we used to miss church less? 1.6x a month average church attendance for churchgoers who attend at least monthly. Just 3 decades ago this number was 3x a month. Possible if you are average and someone else is average you may never even meet inside of a year. We can’t be us if we aren’t together. Most of our marriages would fail if we spent as little time with our spouse’s as we do Jesus.

Story about Megan Speakman someone 6 months new, but megan was a 1.6er

Story: I put my stuff down in an aisle last week, this morning… someone was sitting there

RESPONSE – NO ALTAR CALL…

Next week talking about moving from us to them, but this is us (circling arms) if we can’t go across the row, we aren’t going to go across the street.

Dennis McCallum - The New Testament picture of the church is incompatible with this consumer perspective. God declares in his word that the community of God is a gathering where I go intending to give out, not to receive. To the extent I do receive blessing, that’s only so I’ll be better equipped to serve. Instead of existing to “meet my needs,” the body of Christ exists to equip me to meet others’ needs. Ironically, according to Jesus, I will probably feel better in an out-giving, ministry-oriented church, but that’s incidental. My focus needs to be on self-sacrifice, as Jesus explains: If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it (Luke 9:23-24).

Commitment to Jesus is commitment to his body! These are not two separate things, but one and the same. We are not just members of Christ. We are also members of one another. We cannot commit our lives to Jesus without also committing to the people of God. If we think we are totally committed to Jesus, we had better plan on all-out commitment to his body as well.

PRAY FOR MISSION TEAM, MIKE DIMMERLING?

PRAYER

GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES THIS WEEK