Family Matters

Welcome/Intro/Riff

Stage Selfie!

Here in NXT, we have a vision that helps us know where we can to go. And it has four parts.

Our vision is to BRING, STIR, EQUIP, and SEND students to impact a generation for Jesus Christ.

So over the next few weeks, I want to break down this vision piece by piece so that we start the year off on the same page.

I want to start our year together with a series of messages that I’m calling 2020 Vision.

Anybody in here know they have 20/20 Vision?

Having 20/20 vision doesn’t mean you have perfect vision. It means that you can see things clearly at 20 feet away that you should be able to see at 20 feet away. And if things get a little blurry, then we use glasses or contacts to help us see clearly. When we can’t see clearly, it’s hard to know where to go. When things are blurry, it can be impossible to do anything!

I want to bring clarity and focus into NXT. I don’t want to waste time with the blurry. I want to follow God where he is leading us.

When i think of bad vision, i think of a character on an old TV and his name is Steve Urkel. Anybody know who i’m talking about?

Urkel is this hilarious, nerdy, character on a show called Family Matters.

He always wears these hilarious outfits with suspenders and pants that are way too short, and the thickest glasses ever.

The show Family Matters first aired in 1989 and the show was all about the Winslow family who lived in Chicago. Steve Urkel was this annoying neighbor who always seemed to be around. He was supposed to be a one time character, he was going to show up in one episode and that would be it, but the ratings on that episode were so high that the creators of the show decided to make him a regular character on the show, and he eventually became the main character in Family Matters.

Why am I telling you about a TV sitcom that you’ve never seen and most of you have never heard of?

Because family matters. Family mattered in 1989 and family matters right now in 2020. My prayer for us in NXT is that we would be like a family.

The first part of our vision is the word BRING

When we say bring, here’s what I mean: We are building a community based upon teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer.

This first part of our vision is all about building a community.

Community is like family. And family matters.

If we’re gonna be serious about building a community that feels like a family, I want to look at what the first church did and what happened when they did it.

[Read Acts 2:42-47]

What did they do?

They went all in on four things.

Devoted.

In greek this word devoted means to keep going, keep going, like you’re running a marathon. Anybody in here like to run? I HATE running. I was a football player in high school and college so running was always a punishment. But there are some insane people who think running is actually fun! And they run marathons! 26.2 miles of non-stop running. Runners know this, but there is always a wall. You get to a certain point in your run where your brain is telling you that it’s time to stop. You cannot go any further. But, when you push through that wall, you find that your body can actually run for way longer than you thought.

So the early church, they decided that 4 things were worth going all in on.

You might call these 4 things “Spiritual Practices”

They are designed to develop your love for God and form you into the image of Jesus.

Practice #1: God’s Word.

Every week in NXT, we’re going to open up this book and see what God has to say to use through it. We’re going to devote ourselves to its teachings.

So if you have a bible, bring it with you every Wednesday night when we gather here and every Sunday morning when we meet for small groups.

When you have your bible in front of you, you can see for yourself that what i’m saying is really in there. I could put anything i wanted to on the screen and I could read any words i wanted to. I want you to see for yourself that what i’m saying is really in there!

Practice #2: fellowship

Being with people you like is really important. And being with people you don’t like is also really important. Not everything person in NXT is going to be your best friend. But the bible says that as followers of Jesus, are adopted into God’s family. That means that we are brothers and sisters.

community is like family. and family matters.

Practice #3: eating together

we don’t just have free dinner on Wednesday nights to get you to come.

it might seem like eating food isn’t spiritual…but it is. When you eat a meal with someone powerful things happen. New friendships can be made, old friendships can be strengthened, barriers can be broken down, and relational healing can happen.

Eating meals together is a vital component of what the first church did. you can expect food every Wednesday night and while you eat, remember that God is trying to do something through it.

Practice #4: prayer

This one. Man this is so important so don’t miss this.

We have to be about prayer. Prayer is so incredibly powerful because through prayer we talk with the God of the Universe. You don’t have to go through me to talk to God. You don’t have to be sitting in church to talk to God. Wherever you are, whenever you can - you can talk to God.

Pastor Dave Gibson here at Grace has a saying, “no prayer, no power. little prayer, little power. Much prayer, much power.”

Prayer is our way to worship God, to love God, to ask God for things, to thank God for what he has done, to confess sin to God, to see God move in power.

It is a vital aspect to building a community, and in NXT we’re going to be people of prayer just like the early church.

And notice what they don’t devote themselves to:

They don’t devote themselves to crazy games

They don’t devote themselves to lights and cameras

They don’t devote themselves to comfy seats and big buildings.

None of those things are bad! We play tons of games! We have lights and cameras. We have the coolest church building ever! But they aren’t the things that made community feel like family. And family matters.

There is another thing this early church did here in this text.

Look with me at verses 44-45

The first church sold all their stuff and they used the money to make sure everyone was taken care of.

I’m not going to ask you to sell everything you have. But look at how beautiful this is. the end of verse 45 says as any had need.

In the early church, in order to build a community that feels like family, (And family matters)

Needs were met.

Church is hard! It’s a bunch of sinful people getting together, trying to figure out what it looks like to follow Jesus. And everyone has preferences about how they want church to look. Some people like old school hymns for worship. Some people love Hillsong. Some of you wish all we did was play basketball and nine-square and crazy games on the stage. Some of you wish we never played a single game! What the application is for us is this: are you willing to lay down your personal preference for the sake of building a community that feels like family?

An equally important part of these two verses is not only how they laid down their preferences but also how they actually met the real needs. And it’s not just talking about meeting the needs of people outside the church. Sometimes I think we act like that the only people that need to be taken care of are homeless people in Minneapolis. And yes, obviously we want to be the hands and feet of Jesus and go to those people, and we will be the hands and feet of Jesus to go to those people. but we also have a responsibility to take care of each other in this community!

This starts when we are open and vulnerable about the hard things going on in our lives, and authentic in the way we relate to one another.

I like to say that we don’t run from the hard things, and we don’t hide from the real things. We meet them with the powerful reality of the Gospel.

Because here’s the truth: God can’t bless who you pretend to be. I’m gonna say that again - God cannot bless who you pretend to be. If you aren’t willing to be vulnerable and authentic in this place in this community, where on planet earth can you be real?

If our community here at NXT is going to be like a family (and family matters) then this has to be a safe place where you can be real, where you can wrestle with hard questions about following Jesus, where you can bring your struggles and the dark things into the light, where you can be prayed for, where you can be loved and accepted, where you can be pointed back to the truth of God’s Word.

So to close out this message:

Let’s look at the end of this passage to see what God did in the early church.

God grew it.

We can be devoted to the teaching from God’s Word, to our fellowship as brothers and sisters, to eating together every week, and to praying.

We can be real and authentic. We can choose to bring dark things into the light.

All of that is our job.

But none of that makes this grow.

God himself will do the work to make NXT grow.

We’re not super special. Jesus is special.

We have nothing in and of ourselves to offer. Jesus gave us everything.

We are building a community based around teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. A community that feels like family. and family matters. And we want to bring people who don’t know this type of community into our family. But God is the one who is gonna do the work. Not us.