Refreshed by Community

Intro:

In many ways, life in college campus is one of the best and most interesting places on earth. On any given day on the college campus you can encounter the most liberal and most conservative people in the world. You encounter people from the backwoods of middle America and turn the corner and find a group of international students from all over the world. You can find the most raging atheist and the most fundamentalist religious person having a conversation about the meaning of life.

Jonathan challenged us to take a next step of either (1) starting a new group or (2) joining a group tonight…if you are interested in doing either one of those things, there is a sign up sheet on the Serve Table where you can learn more about how you can take that next step. Our college ministry is going to Rochester, NY in May to serve alongside our church plant in the city of Rochester. If you are interested in being apart of that mission trip, we are going to be having short info meetings following our worship gatherings beginning tonight and for 3 more weeks. Please stay in your seat for a short 5 minute meeting where we discuss the details of the trip tonight!

I love the way that Stephen Lutz puts it in his book College Ministry in a Post Christian Culture, [the college campus is made up of people who are] a crusading, ‘Save the world’ idealists by day…and a debachurus ‘party as if the world is ending’ nihilists by night.” And I love it….

At the same time the college campus is a brutal place. There is this cry for equality…but in the most hypocritical of ways. “For all the talk of diversity, the norm on many of our campuses is startingly uniform: relavistic personal morality, shape-shifting sexuality…most students has any roots…no foundation to base their life on. Because people in college have lacked the roots they need to give them direction and security in life sociologists have coined a new term for folks in your age group: Emerging Adults…

Don’t forget we have Bible Fellowship this week at 9:15am in the Café. And also, there is a baseball game this weekend…take advantage of that opportunity to build relationships with people that need to know Jesus!

The reason your called emerging adults is because most of you don’t feel like children anymore…like you don’t rely on your parents to do everything for you. But at the same time you don’t feel like totally responsible adults quite yet either. Many of you couldn’t survive finacially on your own yet. (although some of you do already…) Many students are staying in school longer, delaying marriage, and unsure what you want to do with your life…

1. Start a New Group

There is this massive paradox in the way that we think…we feel free, confident, tolerant, open-minded, and self asserting but at the same time students today are more cynical, more depressed, more lonely, and more anxious than they have ever been in US history.

2. Join a Life Group

Billy Graham, a former evangelist, once asked the president of Harvard this question:

3. Bible Fellowship (invite someone)

“What is the greatest problem among college students today?”

And his response was,

Emptiness

“emptiness.”

And I would agree…in my experience when you sort of look past all the energy, passion, idealism, and partying…what you find are people who feel lost, hopeless, helpless…like Sheep without a shepherd…

4. Baseball Games at USM (build relationships)

College is a beautiful amazing…wasteland.

But this isnt just true of the college campus…it’s true of life anywhere you look in a fallen world. Life outside of the garden of eden is a cursed wasteland.

Thus says the Lord:

and makes flesh his strength,1

whose heart turns away from the Lord.

Jeremiah 17:

dand shall not see any good come.

Jeremiah 17:6–7 ESV

6 He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

Jeremiah 17:6 ESV

6 He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

in ean uninhabited salt land. [1]

Jeremiah 17:6

This is why we need to be refreshed in the Lord…because life outside of relationship with God makes us like shrubs in the driest desert where there is no life…it makes us tumbleweeds. But life doesn’t have to be lived this way…we can experience life as God intended it to be lived, even though we don’t live in Eden anymore.

I love the way that the second half of this passage paints this picture:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

gwhose trust is the Lord.

Jeremiah 17:7–8 ESV

7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

8 hHe is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.” [2]

This is what Jeremiah tells us: We don’t have to live as tumbleweeds in the desert—we can live like big life-giving Oak Trees that arent shaken by storms, don’t wither when the heat of life sweeps in, and is never anxious even in times of drought.

But here is the catch…the catch is that the tree is planted in the right place…it is “planted by the water.” Another way, it doesn’t get it’s source of life from the cirmcustances of life…but from the source of life…a never ending stream. And this is the source we need if we want to be refreshed…we need to receive our life from the source of life itself...God

And this is the source we need if we want to be refreshed…we need to receive our life from the source of life itself...God

So here is the deal…how do we plant ourselves by the source of life? That’s the million-dollar question…There are multiple ways…and throughout this series we said some good ones:

So here is the deal…how do we plant ourselves by the source of life? That’s the million-dollar question…

There are multiple ways…and throughout this series we said some good ones:

Repentance from Sin and Renewal toward God

Reflexing to God’s Love

3. Releasing our past to press forward into the future God has for us…

Releasing our past to press forward into the future God has for us…

This week: Recognizing our Need for Community

This week: Recongnizing our Need for Community

ReFresh Community Questions:

How has God used community to Refresh your faith?

2. What did it take—on your part—to develop the community that you have experienced?

What did it take—on your part—to develop the community that you have experienced?

What has been the greatest challenge?

What has been the best surprise?

What would you say to someone who isnt being ReFreshed in community?

Life Groups are meant to be friendship…

“You can trust us to stick to you, through thick and thin—to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours—closer than you keep it yourself. Buy you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo…”

Next Steps:

1. Start a new Bible Fellowship or Life Group.

2. Join a college Bible Fellowship or Life Group. (The serve table has sign ups…)

3. Begin attending one church every week.

4. Read ; ; and ask God to make you this type of friend and to give you these types of community.

Announcements:

Jonathan challenged us to take a next step of either (1) starting a new group or (2) joining a group tonight…if you are interested in doing either one of those things, there is a sign up sheet on the Serve Table where you can learn more about how you can take that next step. Our college ministry is going to Rochester, NY in May to serve alongside our church plant in the city of Rochester. If you are interested in being apart of that mission trip, we are going to be having short info meetings following our worship gatherings beginning tonight and for 3 more weeks. Please stay in your seat for a short 5 minute meeting where we discuss the details of the trip tonight!

Don’t forget we have Bible Fellowship this week at 9:15am in the Café. And also, there is a baseball game this weekend…take advantage of that opportunity to build relationships with people that need to know Jesus!

1. Start a New Group

2. Join a Life Group

3. Bible Fellowship (invite someone)

4. Baseball Games at USM (build relationships)

b ;

1 Hebrew arm

c ch. 48:6

d ch. 29:32; ;

e ;

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

g

h ; []

[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .