Shaped by a Community of Love

I did want to let everybody know that Miss Elizabeth Blevins Bruce's wife Miss picky. You may know her as she passed away Friday night and they are planning the services this coming Friday at Craven shires in Bluewell at to some things are depending on whether it looks like there's another storm coming in this coming weekend. Welcome to Bluefield where the only snow is on the weekends. I don't know what is up with this weather every Sunday, but it is so good to see all of you out and I was joking with some people. I mean, you know, the roads are pretty slick the parking lots covered the heels pretty bad and I drove up and thought wow, this is really good compared to last week. This is much much better, but we are so glad that you're here. We're going to jump into our message if you have your Bible, we're going to be in two places today. We're going to be in Genesis chapter 2 and we're going to be in Acts chapter 2. Oh, I'm sorry. This is kids for kids shirt. Mr. Tony's back there waiting and then you've got a crew this morning. That's awesome. the kids showed up in force

Then we're going to be a Genesis to an Acts chapter 2 and I just want to begin by thanking each of you for everything that you did this past weekend. There. We put on the prayer vigil and Bluefield and it was something that God laid on carries heart Thursday and it will probably mid-day Thursday and she goes and talks to the principal and he says you can use Mitchell stadium and she calls me and she said I've got the stadium and I don't really even know what prayer vigil is coming up with ideas and people started coming to the post on Facebook Thursday evening that says we're going to need a bunch of stuff and we just started listing things that we needed. And by Friday at 4 everything that had been provided in abundance. It was unbelievable the way that it came together. And to be honest with you probably the majority of that was through the guys you sitting here through Crossroads Church. It was amazing the way that y'all turned up. It was amazing the way that y'all volunteered to help put everything together and I want you to know how much that means to me from all the people that came and helped set up to the people who were tearing down even though he was in charge of the field that night and as we were cleaning up he just said y'all go on home. I've got it and took care of everything else from there. It was just an amazing night. And I saw Bishop Fred Brown and put on Facebook as he was observing the service and looking at the pictures and listening to the videos of the Brave young people who stood up and shared scripture and shared stories and even Chandler his share just a powerful message that night and Bishop Fred said I look out on the infield in the middle of a world where it feels like, you know, everything is turned upside down and it feels like there's so much Division and it feels like there's so much just vitriol if you watch the news and he said I look out on that field in Bluefield West Virginia and I see old and young rich and poor black and white Democrat Republican educated uneducated and he said all I see is love. All I see is arms around each other's neck. All I see is p Holding each other and he said I thank God for Bluefield and you know what that just stirred up something in me because the truth is we don't have that privilege very often to see that type of Love on display. And I thank God that it was in their Community. I think God that it was here. I think God for people like you that God is using to build unity and to bring Connection in our community in a community that like every other community has had its struggles that had its up and downs and had its hard times and it's good time. It's so good to see people pushing Beyond any breaks and loving and we're going to talk some about that today. I wanted to start with a quote. There's a couple books that are read in this morning's going to be a little bit different. It's not going to be real preachy I really want you to get what I'm saying. I'm quoting some folks this morning that are social scientist people that are even Biologists that are talking about the need for connection and we're going to really look at that. But this first one is from a book that's incredible book. It's called when church was a family. And it talks about what church is supposed to be in the way that we're supposed to be shaped by God and it says spiritual formation the shaping of God occurs primarily in the context of community. I want you to get that. I think we've done a disservice and Christianity over the last several years of making such an emphasis on individuality. It's not all about you making just a personal decision to follow Christ and we're going to walk that thought through it's not that you don't have to do that. I believe that you have to do that. But I believe it even when you accept Christ, it's not just you but you're accepting Christ in a community and you're being accepted into a community and he says most of the shaping that Jesus. Happens in the context of community says people who remain connected with their brothers and sisters in a local church almost invariably grow in self-understanding and they mature in their ability to relate and healthy ways to God and their fellow human beings. This is especially the case for those courageous Christians who stick it out through the often messy process of interpersonal Discord and conflict resolution. I think it's good that they put that in there because y'all know that Community ain't always easy. It isn't always easy being around people as you really get to know not I had a friend and I asked him. What was what was your favorite part about the holiday season this year? He said it was it was getting to see family. I said what was the worst part about the holiday season this year. He said it was getting to see family.

If your family is anything like mine family is a bunch of people that disagree on almost everything. Then figure out a way to get along and to be around each other into love each other. Does real growth in Christianity takes place best in the messy process?

Long-term interpersonal relationships are The Crucible of genuine progress in the Christian Life people who stay grow people who leave do not grow.

If we leave a relationship every time it begins to get hard, we never developed what God's wanting to develop in us one of my favorite quotes from John Wesley. He said he's around somebody that just really gets on his nerves. Y'all have any people like that? Everything they do just grates on your nerves. They've got weird habits. They've got things that they do. He's at every time I'm around that kind of person. I just step back and remind myself how annoying I probably am to other people. And he said it once I do that it helps me in that moment to give Grace to somebody else. The truth is we are hard to get along with not just other people. Often times we don't see our blind spots, but we notice to everyone else's and I can tell you why every one of you in here. Have something wrong with you that makes it hard for me to be friends with you. But if you were to ask me what's wrong with me, I would be like man if everybody was like me man, we would have it made it would be perfect. But the truth is we have to dig into the messiness of relationships. And that's where we're going to start and Acts chapter 2 if you turn there with me. Acts Chapter 2 Verse 18 it says then the Lord God said I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry Genesis, 2:18. And the Lord God said at least the computer knows what it's doing this morning. Then the Lord God said it is not good. Don't you realize this was before anything bad ever happened? This was before seeing that entered the world. This was the Garden in the perfect State. This was Adam in perfect communion with God. Everything was beautiful. There were no sin. There was no hardship. There was nothing going on. Everything got it made it looked at it. He said that's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. But he looks down on Adam who's by himself and he says that's not good.

Sometimes we are Christianity could be just me. and Jesus me and my Bible and him. And the scripture tells us very clearly that it is important for us to put herself in a community of Believers because Us by herself isn't good.

By ourselves are not good. I look around and there's some of you in here that have told me testimonies of a maybe your spouse your wife or your husband and I've heard some of the stories of how just that relationship has just brought a new life into you and how it's just brought so many things and you look back, There's a couple people in here I think of and they say this person it was I just don't know where I would be without this connection without this relationship. And if we were all honest, there are people in our lives. That have shaped us that have made us who we are that have been there for us when nobody else was the people that would pick us up by I was hanging out on the field Friday night. I know you young man comes over to us. When I was talking to a guy who was telling me about Tony's dad and just what an influence he had been in the community. And he said he is such a man of character and he said I tell you he coaches to win but winning isn't what it's all about. It's more about the character that he wants to instill and he said everything you see in the life of Tony and he's telling me this young man, maybe 16 17 years old. He walks up to us. He says coach Webster is such a rock and the guy said I was just telling Pastor Travis what a blessing that he's been to this community and that guy said, you know, he's the reason that I play basketball. And the guy said really said, I've not heard the story. He said yeah, he said when I was a kid, I was just out walking on the street near the community center probably getting into trouble. The coach Webster pulls up beside of me and rolls down his window and he says, what are you doing? And he said I don't know. I'm just hanging out. He said he goes getting the truck. But he said getting the truck and he said I got in the truck and he said he drove me to the community center and it was the first day of basketball and he signed me up and he put me on his team. And from then on I was on his team and I play basketball. A kid who probably there was nobody else in his life that was investing in him. Look at what it did in his life for somebody to take an interest in him. I want to tell you this more by yourself. It's not good.

It's not good for you. And it's not good for the other people that need you. God has made us in a way that we need each other. You can actually see it. If you're looking Genesis chapter chapter 1 verse 26 says God said let us make man in our image after our likeness. What does says from the very beginning is God isn't even individual. From the beginning of time was living in community with a Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and he made us to need community.

if God in his perfection said let us make man in our image after our likeness. Why do we get it in her head that we can do it all alone.

It was an awesome book and this was a social scientist who wrote this book called Alone Together It says we are lonely.

Every generation that you track is getting more and more lonely less and less time with people we are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We would rather text than talk because I can control this conversation if we're texting I can decide what I want to respond to and how I want to respond and they don't get to see my facial expressions and I can I can control a lot since our networked life allows us to hide from each other even as were Tethered to each other we would rather text than talk, but when technology engineers intimacy relationships can be reduced to Mere connections and then an easy connection becomes redefined as intimacy put otherwise cyber intimacy intimacy slide in the Cyber solitudes and with constant connection comes Newegg anxieties of disconnection a kind of payment. Have you seen this?

Let me tell you what I loved about Friday night. I love seeing people together with their arms around each other. They actually say in the physiology of everybody that our cells have what they called Mirror cells in them that respond to what's going on in the person in front of us that we can literally receive from somebody else. Hope and peace and joy, by being in the presence of somebody who has hope and peace and joy, that's why when people ask me during situations like this, what do you say to people And I've spent time this week with some of the the young people that are here another young people and we've spend time at the high school being there if people wanted to talk and people say what do you say to somebody? I really believe that it's not so much about what we say. They just need somebody to be there and you just need to be in front of them. And if you've got Jesus on the inside of you and you have peace and you have hope and you have comfort it can't help but be passed to the person who's standing in front of you and it goes to another level if you can just reach over and put your arm around them and it's not just in tragedies. This morning you need somebody. This morning you need people because it's not good for you to be alone. This morning you need community.

I want you to look with me yet Acts chapter 2

this is where we're going to. Really kind of jumping and see this idea of what was happening in the early church. It says then those who gladly received his word were baptized. And that day about 3000 Souls were added to them. I want you to notice something in this verse. What it doesn't say here it is in that day. Let's celebrate the fact that 3,000 people got saved. Is it saying that yes that's in there. What should I say? It's not saying on that day 3000 people made an individual choice to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and savior. Is that included in there? Yes. But that's not what it says. What does verse says when they saw people get saved and you can follow it through the New Testament every time it doesn't just focus on the fact that people got saved and we're connected to Jesus. But look wanted ads. 3000 Souls were added to them.

These people that got saved they were no longer alone. These people that gave their heart to Jesus. They were no longer lonely. They were no longer separated. They were no longer a part and let me tell you what this looks like in the book of Acts. It look like people from different nations different tribes different tongues. It look like people from different socioeconomic background that looks like people from different races in different countries. It look like people of every Spectrum there's actually names that are mentioned in the verses that were the names of slaves beside of the names of Free People. If you want to see them in the Book of Romans, it mentions third shifts and then name simply means third.

Slaves in those days were not even given the name. They were just numbered as they were born. And Paul says greet my brother my brother there has and he includes him in the family of God with a seat at the table when Society said he needed no place the gospel changed everything because there's just didn't just accept Jesus, but they became a part of the family versus was added to Paul. I want you to think about it like this. I don't know. I don't know how many babies are born in the local hospitals or even what hospitals they use, but let's say last night at Princeton. That five babies were born.

That's pretty cool, right? Pretty exciting that there's new life happening that there's baby babies being born. But what is last night at Princeton? You had a baby.

How much more excited would you be about the fact that you have a new member of your family being born in the Princeton hospital last night all the sudden Everything Changes because now it's not just a number no longer is it just five people that happened to be born? But the last night in Princeton hospital. There was a member of my family that was born and I held her in my arms and wrapped her up because she's part of me. They didn't say 3,000 Souls it been since they said three thousand Souls were added to us three thousand people were brought to us and embraced. And let me tell you something from the beginning in the garden when God made Adam and Eve and everything was perfect. Look what the devil attacked. He wasn't necessarily worried with attacking their theology, but he attacked their Unity. He separated them. You will notice in that verse when the serpent comes to Eve. Adam doesn't even seem to be in the picture. The one that was supposed to be with her. Later, we learned that maybe he was beside of her, but he didn't say anything.

He didn't speak up. He was separated from her if you read in the book of Acts right after those 3000 we're at at their begin to be conflicts there begin to be people who have been brought together starting to separate their self on their own and the Jews begin to sit on one side in the Greeks begin to sit on the other side and they begin to attack what God was doing. And you'll notice the early church fought back hard because they recognize that Unity was the most important thing that they could fight for because God had brought them into a family and we need each other.

That's why the law of segregation was such a sin.

That's why that's why I was so destructive because they said you know what we can be in close proximity to each other. But as long as we can keep you separate. Then everything's going to be fine. That's why separate but equal was a lie, because we're never going to be equal if our Unity has been destroyed. We're never going to have life. Until the Brokenness of this world begins to be put back together.

You see unity means to be the thing that we scream from the mountain tops.

the awful thing is this weekend. We celebrate the life of Martin Luther King jr. And one of the things that have been taken got class on his life right now. He wrote in his letter from the Birmingham Jail. That was a ladder to White pastors.

And his struggle with white pastors were the ones that would come up to him and say look, I agree with what you're doing. I agree that we got to get rid of this. I agree that some of this is bad. I agree that there's Brokenness. But you know what? I just don't believe it's my place to say anything.

And I think I ought to just keep my mouth shut up. I don't know that I should mention it. I don't know if I should go there.

And I can't help but look back on the garden. And see item who decided that it wasn't his place to say something. But decided it would be better for him to be quiet and in his quietness. It brought this Unity with ultimate ultimately brought death.

You say you may say why are you why are you talkin about these kind of things?

Why do you feel that you need to bring this up? And some people say, you know, this this isn't really this isn't this isn't the gospel. You didn't forget about all the stuff that's going on in the world and you just need to focus on the fact that Jesus died on the cross and I want you to hear this Jesus absolutely died on the cross. But I believe he died on the cross so that all the divisions could be restored and all the broken. This could be put back together and all the hurt could be healed in all the things that try to separate us could be destroyed and wiped away.

Pastor Preston always taught me. He he said when you're deciding what the preacher said. When things are going really bad. Just preach happy message love love love.

But you're not wanting to do that. He said when things are bad preach something good when things are going good. That's when you can really preach that hard thing.

And I just saw that are Community I saw such strength and such hope and such love and I said, you know what this is the moment that we can say that. This is the moment that we can go there. Do you know what there have been? There's been hard times in her community.

We've grown up with different ways that we've been taught to see things different ways that we've been taught to treat people.

Different ways that we respond to certain situations.

Some of us maybe we were raised in families. Head just terrible ideas. racism of classism sexism and we grew up being surrounded by a lot of this stuff.

It takes brave people. Good look at the situations and the things that maybe even their parents had taught them or had said and to look into those situations and say I recognize the wrong in that and we're not going to be like that anymore.

I think God for a community where I see these things being destroyed.

I pray to God that Crossroads Church can be a leader in that I pray to God that we would begin even more and more to look like our community.

Martin Luther King said that Sunday morning at 11 is the most segregated time in America. And there's still some truth in that. I want us to decide that all walls come down.

But all divisions are going that we reach out with love and put her arms around each other. Like I saw Friday night. That we hold each other that we Embrace each other and that we lay down all the junk that we've held that separated us.

I want us to strive to reach out to people that are different from us.

There is a lady that comes to Eric Church.

She's been coming for a while and she looked at me several months ago and she said this. She said Travis I enjoy your church. Enjoy coming. I like the people.

She said but all of our conversations all of my conversations inside of the church have been surface-level.

How are you? I'm good. I'm blessed things are great. How are the kids so good? She said and it hasn't going to be on Surface.

And she's a part of it's my fault. Because I don't want to take the conversations be on Surface because I'm scared to death. That if they really get to know me, they won't like me anymore.

What if they find out I disagree with them on something?

What is the find out that I see something different? She said pastor. Can you promise me that if they see me? And they know me that they're still going to love me.

A man, I was I was struggling in the truth was I couldn't answer that question. Because I can't answer it for each of you.

I pray with everything in me.

That when we have a brother or sister in Christ, that is very different that thinks different that sees different that we don't forget the fact that they're a brother or sister. Let me tell you something about my brother. We see everything different. We disagree on everything. We fight about everything. We can we can find any reason to get in an argument about something. But he's never once doubted that I loved him or that he was my brother.

There's some of you in here that I've known for years and years and we've had High Times and we've had low times and there's been times when we've seen there's been times when we disagreed terribly, but I thank God that we persevered in a relationship and we're at the place where it doesn't matter how much we see things different because I know that you're a brother or your sister.

The devil sometimes says, you know what I may not even attack their theology if I can just get them all.

Just separate. I can just start the vision back in just stirred disunity. Then I'll be happy because I understand that there's no real Freedom that comes apart from Unity.

It's not good for you to be alone.

It's not good for the body of Christ to divide ourselves over any lines. Paul uses a great line in Galatians where they were beginning to separate the Greeks from the Jews. He says all foolish Galatians

Why would you return to the junk that Jesus brought you out of?

Oh foolish Galatians. You know what some of us were in junk when Jesus saved us. I think we could be brave enough to see all of us were in junk when Jesus saved us and I believe that he would cry out to the world to us. He would take off polish Travis. Why would you return to the junk that I brought you out of?

I made you a family. This morning when we celebrated Adrian getting into the baptismal. It wasn't just one more person who had gotten saved. We had a new daughter a new sister. She's ours. She was added to us.

Real Community. We need proximity. We need to be close to each other. We need share conversations. We need shared struggles. We need shared times that we can be ourselves and open up.

We need Tom's that were around people we lay our phones down. We need times that we look into each other's eyes.

I want to challenge you that if you if you've been in here and you've been a surface-level kind of person and maybe you your conversations have been serviced like a lot challenge you to just look at somebody. Play I want to really be your brother be your sister and I want you to know that if we disagree I'm going to love you anyways. But if we see things different, I'm going to love you. Anyways, I would love for y'all to answer that question that the lady asked me because I couldn't answer it for you. I pray that Crossroads Church raised is open answers that question every single one of you and you look into the eyes of somebody who is different from you. And you say I am choosing to love you. I'm choosing to stand with you if I'm choosing to stand for you. I will no longer be silent. I will no longer be quiet. I will no longer be pushed to the back, but you are my family and everything that we had before that separated us. It is gone in the name of Jesus. You're my sister. You're my brother.

It's not good for you to be alone. And you may say what I have this person or I have this community or I have this group. Jesus says I have a body.

When we get to Heaven There ain't going to be no divisions. There's no Gates. There's no walls that are separating people from this group from that group when we get there. We're there. I just say as it is in heaven. Let it be in Bluefield. Let me tell you on Friday night. I saw a glimpse of that. I saw a glimpse of that that gave me hope I saw a glimpse of that that's stirred something in my soul. The last speech that MLK ever gave I was reading that just the other night on the night before he was assassinated and it seemed it seemed like he knew it was going to happen.

He actually says in that last speech and said that there was a There was a crazed woman that tried to kill me a few years ago. And she came and she stabbed me in the chest. And they rushed me to the hospital and when I got there they did an x-ray and they said that the the edge of the blade was laying a order.

Said the doctor told me if I had sneezed I would have died.

I need to dilate in the hospital recovering and I got a lot of letters and I got a lot of visits. He said the president and the vice-president they came to see me, but I don't really remember what they said. The governor wrote me a letter and I don't remember what it said. He said but a little girl wrote me a letter and she said, dr. King. I saw that somebody had stabbed you and they said on the news that if you would sneezed you would have died. She said and I want you to know that I'm I'm just a 10 year old white girl. But I'm glad you didn't sneeze.

He's at a time never forgot that letter and he said in today, I'm glad I didn't sneeze because if I had sneezed I wouldn't have solved the moments of Hope we've had in the last few days. I wouldn't have seen people beginning to embrace that I never seen in my whole life. I wouldn't have seen people standing together and putting their arms around each other and loving each other. Let me tell you I was glad to be alive because of what I saw Friday night and he said and now I have stood on the mountain and I've seen a glimpse into the promised land then he said if I die tomorrow, I will have been glad that I live to this point. Because I've seen the promised land and I know it's coming.

Let me tell you there is hope for Bluefield.

There is hope for our community to be a shining City set upon a hill. And I pray that we leave the way by embracing. And holding and loving the way that I saw some teenagers do Friday night.

Can we pray together?

It's not good for you to be alone.

It's not good for us to stir division. It's not good for us to leave every time it gets uncomfortable. It's not good for us to duck out and chew silence in the face of pain.

Jesus came to make us family.

And you know what? It's all right if I'm families like mine. a struggle sometimes That fight sometimes. Illinois's sometimes but at the end of the day going to let nobody mess with my family.

And they're never going to doubt that I love them.

You see an axe. It is celebrated the fact that 3,000 people gave their life to Jesus, but it went on and said they didn't do that personally.

Big now become a part of us. I wonder if you were here today. And you say I need to accept Jesus as my savior. Let me tell you the good news. You're not just accepting him, but you're gaining a whole family who's going to stand around you embrace you and maybe you've been hurt by Community. Let me tell you a community hurts. It does and there are people that have blown in there were times that I know if you've been hurt, I'm sorry been hurt but still the best way forward is together. Hear hearing you say I don't know Jesus, but I want to get my life to him this morning. I want to be accepted into the family of that. She would you just slip your hand up. Let me see it. I won't embarrass you. I won't call you out. I promise that you won't accept Jesus just slip your hand up and I'll pray for you. No embarrassment here. I promise.

But I wonder if we could have just a minute where we just are real with each other. Did we have a minute together where we just are honest?

Nobody's looking around. This is you and God but

how many of us would just say that there's been there's one of those times that I've struggled with unity. I've struggled because I run when there's a problem. I struggle to fix relationships that I feel it been hurt. I struggle to embrace people that are different than maybe I struggle to be around people that I disagree with.

If that you would do the same.

There's been separation Brokenness in relationships that I knows because of me that you just slip your hand up. There's been times that I've struggled with putting people in categories and seeing people as others that you would do this put your hand up. There's been times that I've struggled. With racism could we just be honest and say God I want you to do a work in my life. There's been times that I've struggled.

With people that disagree or are different or have different backgrounds. Could you just say I want to repent this morning?

Richmond hands going up all around the room and we're just going to pray for Unity this morning. I don't believe anything makes the devil more nervous than a cry for Unity.

If you say I want to be a part. I've seen that Promised Land come forward if out if you say I want to be a part of leaving that community in Bluefield that is going to him Race Across the lines. If you say I want to be a part of the reconciliation and restoration I want to be one of those people who Pastor you can say beyond a shadow of a doubt even if I disagree with on I'm going to love them because they're part of the family. If you say I want to be a part of that we can stand on your feet as we

I want to be a part of what God's doing in this community. I want to be a part of speaking healing.

Lord I Thank you for those that have stood I think you're that you are beginning or cure I pray that there are tears I pray that there are hugs and Embraces I pray that we are being shaped by a community of Love. Let us each other as family, even if we never met even if we never spoke God let us Embrace each other as family this morning, let us love and hold. Are you?