The Bridge Church: Our Mission Part 2

The Mission

At the Bridge we are Bold for Christ. We do life together and create REAL relationships. We act with INTEGRITY always. We are completely DEVOTED to God. We give in many ways through GENEROUS living. We are ENTHUSIASTIC to connect to you!

This is the body of our Mission statement. It is here that we see we are called to be

Bold

Real

Integrity

Devoted

Generous

Enthusiastic

Real Relationships

Let us be honest this is something that we all desire. We all want a healthy relationship with people around us. Relationships are one of the fundamental structures of our society. The recent months have shown how we are affected by the removal of many of the relationships we have in our lives. While many of us have been stuck at home with our immediate family we lost the connection with extended family and friends and many people have been hurting because of this. Yet, even within those relationships there are challenges. Many of us experience each day some level of an unhealthy relationship. From our friendships to work relationships, and possibly family relationships. This doesn’t mean that these relationships are all on the same level of unhealthiness. Some things are unhealthy but can be considered minor, a basic disagreement my children trying to manipulate me to get what they want. Some problems in relationships are major, abuse, sexual abuse, intimidation, etc.

We need to be honest if we want to see real relationships we have to start working on the relationships we engage in each day. This is not an easy undertaking. This at times will be quite challenging. There are times this will require us to work diligently in changing who we are both as individuals and as a community.

This morning we are going to look at some scripture that will help address some of this. That will challenge us to start seeing our relatinoships and how we work on them in a different way. With that i would like you to turn to Colossians 3:1-17

Colossians 3:1–17 NIV

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Real Relationships Step 1: Start looking up not around

Colossians 3:1-4 shows us that we are to start in our lives that we should be setting our hearts on things above. Now I think it is important to note that this section of the passage is not specifically addressing relationships. However, the connection to v. 12-17 and the results of an individual choosing to begin focusing their life specifically on heavenly things this creates a natural connection to our relationships.

The call to look to heavenly things and to Christ is essential in the daily living of a Christian. We are called to focus on the very person who is sitting at the right hand of God. This call to allow our focus to be on the one whom is perfect allows us to in turn focus our lives. When we concern our selves with heavenly things earthly things will take care of themselves. This doesn’t mean that we are free from working on earthly things but it allows us to change our perspective on earthly things from ideas like “how can this benefit me” to “How does this benefit the Kingdom of God”.

It i shear that we find the energy that we need to make the changes that are necessary to our lives to be able to push past the difficulties that arise when we are trying to better our relationships with those around us. We are experiencing new life with Christ and this new life energizes us to be able to do the things that we should do. This is only found when we focus on Christ the source of this new life.

We must recognize that when we start to plug into what God has for us that we can in turn successfully begin to change who we are and how we live our lives. This leads us to the next Step in developing Healthy relationships.

Real Relationships Step 2: Start looking inward not outward

If we look back at Colossians 3:5-14 we can see the direction to start looking inward on how we are to live our lives.

Colossians 3:5–14 NIV

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

The first few verses offer us some very specific actions that are contrary to our relationship with God. While we could look at each of the items that are listed and how they impact us i think many of them are fairly self explanatory. Instead let us look at the very first two words that frame these verses.

“put to death”

This is a bold statement. This isn’t some passive let us work on this slowly. It is a bold call to remove the sins that so easily keep us from being better as individuals.

N.T. Wright says it this way “To put something to death you must cut off its lines of supply. Every Christian has the responsibility, before God, to investigate the lifelines of whatever sins are defeating him personally, and to cut them off without pity.”

This idea of looking and evaluating who we are in light of our relationship with God is essential into changing who we are. This constant pursuit and push to better ourselves needs to also apply to our relationships. When we start to look to ourselves and our own problems we can begin the process of healing and working on our relationships.

This made me think about something I tell my kids all the time and would even use in my time as a manager in retail. I would ask my kids and my employees this same question.

Who are you in charge of? or Who are you in control of?

The answer of course is yourself. The idea that we need to fix other people who we are in a relationship is a difficult one at best. WE are called to put on our new self and be renewed by the image of the creator. This is so essential because this focus on what we can do or control not puts the responsibility of any relationship on the each of us.

This is where the call in v. 12-14 is so essential. This call that as God’s chosen people we are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience become essential. When we start to approach our lives as an individual in this kind of frame work as God did for us then we start seeing that we all fall short of being perfect in our relationships and we need to work on the last point this morning.

Real Relationships Step 3: Grace and Peace

We need more grace in our lives. We need more grace in our relationships. I want to share with you that there are times that i look at the way we talk to each other and I am so disheartened by the lack of grace given in our everyday relationships. We are quick to lash out in anger , frustration, malice, and even filthy language. These things are all contrary to creating healthy relationships. Colossians 3:13 puts it best.

Colossians 3:13 NIV

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Grace and compassion learning to deal with each other with these mindsets is so essential in a healthy relationship. The reality is that many of us will all fail at some point. Even if we are trying to be better. Even if we are in the early stages of working through our faith. This very idea that we can have grace and forgiveness for others just like Christ Gave us is so important.

We take those five virtues listed in 3:12 and we see that we can start to shift the very relationships we share in a positive way. We allow for peace to enter into our hearts and into our lives because God becomes the focus.

This is where the peace of Christ come is in. It is the deciding factor in all of this. This idea that The Peace of Christ enters our hearts and whatever disagreements, suspicions, or problems might arise in the church we allow Jesus to get a hold of us and work on them at the deepest level and that all parties allow this to happen and this is the unity we share in Christ.

Now i am not so naive to think that there won’t ever be arguments or frustrations in the church or in our own individual lives and relationships. No i think it would be foolish to take that point of view. However, the continue giving and receiving of grace allows for this tension to exist and allows us to move forward because we are focused not on ourselves but on Christ and the furthering of the Kingdom.

Real Relationships at the Bridge

So what doe s this all mean for us. How do we apply this today? How are we going to live this out here at the Bridge? These are the questions. The answers are we will strive to focus,

first on God and who his is and what he has done for us in our lives.

Second, We will look to ourselves and work to be better as individuals. We will also recognize that we are all in this stage at all times in our lives.

Third, We are going to give grace and seek peace always. We want to put on the heart and attitude of love when we deal with each other. Allowing for shortcoming and faults and recognizing that we all have them.

It is when we start working through these things that we can start having real relationships with one another because we don’t have to be consumed with all the petty differences. I pray that this is something that we can achieve and are able to be successful at.