Sharing

Sharing Seminar

On Sundays we’ve been talking about following Jesus. And so, kind of in step with that theme, one of the biggest things that Jesus did and one of the biggest things his disciples did or his followers did was share their lives with each other. Jesus’ invitation to follow was an invitation to be a part of a community, and as we talked about last week, the last thing Jesus told his followers, so right before he was taken and killed, the last thing he told them and the main thing that he wanted his followers to be known for was for how they loved each other and how they loved the people around them. He said I have a new commandment for you, to love one another, and they’re like Jesus that’s not new, we know this already, and then he adds to it, I want you to love one another as I have loved you. And so, as Jesus followers, we’re to love each other and others as Jesus loved us. In a way that is CHK FLK PG.

On Sundays we’ve been talking about following Jesus. And so, kind of in step with that theme, one of the biggest things that Jesus did and one of the biggest things his disciples did or his followers did was share their lives with each other. Jesus’ invitation to follow was an invitation to be a part of a community, and as we talked about last week, the last thing Jesus told his followers, so right before he was taken and killed, the last thing he told them and the main thing that he wanted his followers to be known for was for how they loved each other and how they loved the people around them. He said I have a new commandment for you, to love one another, and they’re like Jesus that’s not new, we know this already, and then he adds to it, I want you to love one another as I have loved you. And so, as Jesus followers, we’re to love each other and others as Jesus loved us. In a way that is CHK FLK PG.

And so, you get to the book of Acts, it’s the fifth book in the New Testament, and in the very beginning of this book, Jesus has risen from the dead, and he’s getting ready to ascend into heaven, and he says to his followers that soon they will receive power that comes from the Holy Spirit. His disciples receive the Holy Spirit, they begin preaching and teaching, and a ton of people start becoming Jesus followers. And Luke writes about these Jesus followers saying:

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching

The apostles were teaching about Jesus that he was the Messiah and that he was the one who came to redeem the world, and that he was literally just murdered and rose from the dead and they saw him ascend in to heaven. They’ve just witnessed this wild occurrence and in the power of the Holy Spirit, they’re telling everyone about it and they’re telling them that they can follow Jesus and what it meant to be his followers,

they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, and to fellowship,

the greek word for fellowship is Koinonia, and it means community, and what it means in this context is unity brought about by the Spirit. So, because of the Holy Spirit that has empowered Jesus Followers, they are able to have community that crosses all barriers - social, racial, class, gender, age, etc. The spirit allows them to have fellowship with people they normally would fellowship with, or, it allows them to share life with people they would never share life with. tThey shared life, and they broke bread together, which is a fancy way of saying they ate food together, and they prayed together.

43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. Here’s our Koinonia word again. And what did they have in common? 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. There was this equality among these early Jesus Followers. No one was above anyone else, no one was greater than anyone else, everyone was seen as equal in the eyes of everyone else because of the gospel, because of what Jesus had done. The rich weren’t greater than the poor, the Jews weren’t greater than the greeks, men weren’t greater than women, Jesus leveled all of the dynamics and power structures of the first century and brought equality between humanity. And this was 2,000 years ago. The church has kinda messed this up sense then and we’ve seen society really screw this up, but what Jesus taught and the way he lived brought equality between all people.

And so what this means for us is that none of us is better than anyone else. We might have different gifts or different strengths, or we might be further along in faith or further behind, but we’re all in this together. We’re all following Jesus together, as one people, as one family, or as one Koinonia.

46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

And so what we see in this passage is this kind of intense, or a little crazy, or strange way of living as followers of Jesus. It’s very life-on-life. They had everything in common, they worshiped with each other daily, and they enjoyed being in community with each other. To sum up this whole passage is the idea of community, but more specifically sharing. Now, given the structure of our lives, this kind of thing seems really impossible. I mean, we can’t go to church every day, we can’t share meals with each other everyday, we can’t be in community like that every day. But, we can still share, and we must share with each other. Because, sharing life is the direct result of living out the love of Jesus Christ. In order to really walk together and live out the gospel in our community we need to share with one another. Jesus Followers share or, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Jesus followers do life with each other

So, what do we share? What kind of things do we share?

First, here’s what we don’t share:

We don’t share things for the purpose of flattery or praise from others.

We all know people who brag, right? or maybe we are people who brag…

Remember a few weeks ago, we looked at the story of ananias and sapphire in acts 5. tell story really quick

they wanted to be known for their large and generous gift, and they wanted the same praise the Joseph got.

We don’t share fro the purpose of flattery or praise because as Jesus Followers we need to understand that our identity come from God. Our identity is our status as God’s children who have been paid for by the blood of Jesus, and have been redeemed and are now being restored. So, when we share, like, you can and should share good and positive things in your life, but not in a manner of bragging, but in a manner of humility because your value and worth comes from God, not from how others see you.

We also don’t share Gossip.

And come on we know this, but we never really define what gossip is, so it’s like this mysterious thing that we half understand, so I want to try and define it for us so that we know what to avoid.

Gossip is the spreading of information, true or false, about someone else in a way that is negative, hurtful, or spiteful.

Or, it’s talking about someone else with the intention of bringing them down or causing them harm.

Now. You’ve had a hard week, someone did something to you at school that was hurtful to you, and you just need to let it out. That’s okay to share. In this situation, you’re sharing about something that has affected you personally. In fact, Paul does something similar in the book of Acts.

36 Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” 37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. 41 He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Idk if Paul knew his drama was going to be read 2,000 years later, but here we are. Paul felt a type of way about taking John Mark with them, and was like, nah, he ditched us last time, I’m not doing it, I don’t think it’s wise. This wasn’t gossip, but and expression by Paul of how what had happened previously affected him now. And things like that are good to share.

But, 9 times out of 10 gossiping is talking about someone when they’ve done nothing that concerns you.

And finally, when it comes to gossiping, You’re gossiping if you share it and you’re gossiping if you listen to it. Gossip is a two way street. it takes at least two people. So, if you’re on the receiving end of gossiping in small group, just kindly say CHK FLK PG.

So, what do we share?

For one, we share the gospel. We share about what God has done in our lives. That Jesus has brought from death and into life, and we’re no longer stuck in hopelessness.

And then, filtered through the truth of the Gospel, we share our lives. We share our lives, which hinge on upon the power of the gospel, with God at the center. What this looks like in the context of small groups is:

Highs and lows.We do this a lot, but idk if we really think about what we’re doing here. What this means is we’re pausing and thinking maybe for the first time in a while “how am I doing?” We share the good things in our lives with each other, and we celebrate those thing with each other, but we also share the hard stuff. We share how low or sad we’re feeling, we share about our frustrations with school or friends or family (not gossip, but how these things have affected us). We share the good things and the hard things, and what we do when we do this is we allow others to walk with us. We put ourselves in a place where we get to be encouraged and where we get to encourage each other. We share how we’re doing spiritually. How is our relationship with God? This is something huge we need to talk about weekly because for a lot of us, we don’t think about God except for Saturday and Sunday. We don’t view him as a loving father who we can go to at all times, we don’t see him as present at all times and in all spaces. We forget about him. We forget to pray, we forget or just don’t spend time with him. And so, we need the accountability of one another, and we need one another to ask the question: How are you doing spiritually? For example: How have you seen God move this week? Did you pray this week? Where did you feel like God was absent? Asking these kinds of questions, and sharing with each other and discussing these things are what help us to grow into mature followers of Jesus. We also share love and affection AWW This goes back to walking with each other, but we are, or I think we’re becoming a community that is seeking to follow Jesus, and Jesus followers love each other.

Everything, community, fellowship, koinonia, goes back to that one command - LOVE. So as we share, we put on love, we put on CHK FLK PG as we talk with each other and do life with each other.

So, tonight let’s get into small groups, and let’s work on sharing our lives with each other.

Small group questions:

How are you really doing?

How’s your relationship with God/How are you doing spiritually?

Where have you seen God this week?

Where has it seemed like God was absent this week?

How can we love one another better?