Living the Good Life With Others

I want to start out today, and talk about math. We all are learning or have learned math. The basic building block is addition and subtraction. Then there is multiplication and division. We could go further and add roots, powers, scientific notation, geometry, algebra, statistics, and so on. Math builds. To get to algebra, you have to get to powers and roots. To get to powers and roots, you need multiplication and division. To get multiplication and division, you start with addition and subtraction. In other words, more advanced math requires simpler math. Advanced math builds on simple math. That seems pretty basic, and unless I’m completely off base, I think everyone agrees. We all seem to understand that math grows from other math.

When we learn to speak any language, we first have to figure out how to operate our bodies to even make the sounds required to communicate. When we are infants, we couldn’t do it. As our brains and bodies matured, we began the journey of communication. We don’t put a 6-year old into advanced philosophy. Their language abilities aren’t there, yet. Again, something else that we understand. Language builds on earlier learning.

We get this at least for some things. If we’re honest with ourselves, however, we often don’t really function that way when it comes to Framily. For those of you new to us, you will hear us use this word. It is a combination of friends and family. Our basic definition is friends who are like family. However, for many people—maybe even you—that is not a particularly good thing. Our family of origin shapes many parts of us, including how we perceive the world. One of the biggest parts that it shapes is our understanding of mom, dad, brother, sister…family.

For some reason, when it comes to the walls of the church, there is often an expectation of some mysterious or magical plug-and-play framily. For those of you with computers, even Macs, the concept of Plug-n-play, doesn’t always work so well. People are paid big amounts of money to make sure all works together, but it just doesn’t always happen. Instead of plug-n-play, we often get plug-n-pray. We get frustrated, sure. We get angry. By and large, though, we deal with it.

Why do we give grace to computers, when we don’t give grace to each other?

Partially, the answer is, the computer just doesn’t care. And while people like me might say, “I love computers,” when the time comes, I’ll just buy a new one. I don’t really have a relationship to one. However, what has been happening with my generation, , Gen Y (the Millennials), and Gen Z is that people are now perceiving that they are relating to their technology, and to such a degree that interacting face-to-face with other humans is not only difficult, but many have no ability to do so. I’m sure someone just said to themselves, “technology made such a mess of things. It’s so sad.” The reality is technology just put a magnifying glass on the problem. The reality is when it comes to relationships in the church, we often treat them just as we treat our technology, we throw them away. Let that sink in. In the very place where the Very Good Life is supposed to be on display, we treated it as a disposable good.

When Pastor Craig opened this sermon series, he noted how once God had created humankind, creation was now very good, how sin wrecked it, and how God redeemed us through Jesus Christ. The next week Craig continued and noted that Jesus always left people better than he found them, and that we are called to leave the world a better place. How are you doing with that? Last week Joni talked about holiness, and our we are to reflect God’s holiness to the world, understanding that we ourselves cannot be holy without God. Joni also touched on the barriers we put between ourselves and others. Why did I talk about building onto things, because I am building onto those great messages, and I want you to do so as well.

Both Craig and Joni used : “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” Craig noted that the Greek is a continuing thing, in other words, be being transformed.

[Slide: Transformers Transformed]

For those of you unfamiliar with the Transformers toys or movies, this is the good guys logo—the Autobots—with a Christian change. The concept of the toys is that they were always transforming between their robot configuration and vehicle transformation.

We are always changing, growing, and transforming.

It is into what are being transformed that should define us.

The goal is to be more like Christ.

Our world is changing very rapidly. Certainly, the change in modes and methods of communication is as, if not more, significant than when the printing press was invented. Humanity has gone through changes like this throughout history, though the rate of change appears to be accelerating.

Imagine a world where the gap between rich and poor was huge, and growing larger. Imagine a world where the infrastructure of getting place to place was in bad shape. You think I’m talking about today? No, I’m talking about the time of John Wesley. As a denomination, we consider ourselves to be of a Wesleyan persuasion. So what, you might say? What does John Wesley have to do with us? The European world was in an uproar. From around 1774, the American Revolution-era, through around 1849, Europe was in revolutionary turmoil. Oddly enough, while losing the United States, the United Kingdom somehow avoided much else, and a number of historians have started looking to John Wesley as the reason. John Wesley along with those in his Christian circle became advocates for the poor, the prisoner, the worker, the slave. Basically, there was a revolution, but it was of a different sort. It was person-to-person. In the church, inside every one of us, there needs to be a revolution, too, and God gave us a tool to make that happen…each other.

God gave us each other to make a revolution happen.

What kind of revolution are we talking about?

Common English Bible Chapter 3

Before faith came, we were guarded under the Law, locked up until faith that was coming would be revealed, 24 so that the Law became our custodian until Christ so that we might be made righteous by faith.

God’s children are heirs in Christ

25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian.

26 You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 Now if you belong to Christ, then indeed you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.

4 I’m saying that as long as the heirs are minors, they are no different from slaves, though they really are the owners of everything. 2 However, they are placed under trustees and guardians until the date set by the parents. 3 In the same way, when we were minors, we were also enslaved by this world’s system. 4 But when the fulfillment of the time came, God sent his Son, born through a woman, and born under the Law. 5 This was so he could redeem those under the Law so that we could be adopted. 6 Because you are sons and daughters, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son or daughter, and if you are his child, then you are also an heir through God.

Many of you are familiar with verse 3:28, which says: “There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In our American context, we look at this as an equality statement. It isn’t one. It’s a statement of family. You see, the Jews were kicked out of synagogue and family. The Greeks were cast out of their social circles. Those who were slaves were not slaves. Those who were free were not free. They were family. The bonds and identities they had before becoming Christians was now superseded by a relationship and an identification with Jesus Christ.

In our current context, and if you have been in the church any length of time, the revolutionary statement of family that Paul makes goes right over our heads, and right over our hearts. Evangelical American Christianity’s focus on the so-called nuclear family causes us to miss the revolutionary impact of the family of Christ Jesus that Paul was seeing.

#Framily is the call on our lives to break the chains that separate us.

Common English Bible. Nashville, TN: Common English Bible, 2011. Print.

These chains can be politics, race, national origin, family of origin, addiction, work, money, power. You get the idea. Paul calls these chains the world’s system of enslavement. The world wants to keep us separated, while still calling for unity.

Unity, however, can only come in willing submission to one another, which is where John Wesley comes in. John Wesley is credited with created what the church calls “Sunday School”. John Wesley called these classes. Truly, when Wesley designed them, they taught things that freed others. Things like reading, writing, and math. Classes also became a place of learning about being a Christian among others. In Generations Community church, we call them Life Groups. Now this is not to say that Worship and Preaching cannot be transformative; they should be. This is to say that Life Groups build onto Worship and Preaching by tying-in deeper learning and more personal fellowship. Worship and Preaching gain from Life Groups as that fellowship and learning bring unity into the Sunday service.

I know there may be people in here that are not part of a small group. They might be apprehensive or unsure what it might mean for them. There is another option. It is what John Wesley calls bands. This is a same gender group of 3-4 who reveal it all to one another. Sounds scary at first. However, the great gift of these bands is that trust builds upon trust. The ability to trust this small group of people is truly transformative. In the band, all become equal, and all become transparent. In , we read, “Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of a friend.”

A small group of fellow believers sharpen us to be more like Christ.

As those people sharpen us, we are better able to become the #Framily we are called to be. The world’s chains are knocked off.

To understand how this works in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we have to start as a child. When we are a child in the faith, we are still bound by the chains of the world. As we work on and sharpen one another, the chains fall off. As the chains fall off, we become transformed into the grown and growing heirs of Christ.