2 Reset: Relational Reset

Scripture: Mark 2:1-4

Mark 2:1-4

And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. 2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. 3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

This story is crazy! Mark has really understated this story. Can we pause and back this up and think about what is happening? There is a paralyzed man who has four friends, they’ve heard that Jesus has come back to town and they want to go hear Him preach so they go pick up their friend, literally, and they are carrying this man through the streets of Capernaum. Imagine how awkward that must have been to navigate him to that house. And then they get to the house and it is standing room only. They can’t get in, they can’t get their friend in. If I was one of those four friends, I would have just said, the dude is going to stop preaching at some point so let’s just grab a spot at the backstage door and we will be the first ones to see Him when He comes out. But that wasn’t enough for these guys! And we don’t know how the conversation went but when they got there, one of them said the front door doesn’t work, let’s try something different, obviously the roof! So they take this paralyzed friend, and they are not only scaling the walls of this house, they are carrying this friend with them. So you get to the roof, now what? It says so nonchalantly that they dig a hole. Guys, this wasn’t just a little hole that is just annoying on a rainy day. This hole is big enough to fit an entire man through! Imagine the scene for a moment. Jesus is inside the house preaching and all of a sudden stuff is falling on is head. They are excavating the roof! I want to know where the owner of the house is? And then it says they lowered him through this hole, how did this happen? Did they tie their robes together or build some kind of ancient pulley system? Imagine this scene with me. There is a hole being excavated in a roof and then a man is lower through that hole on a mat. And Jesus is looking at the man and the man is looking at Jesus and everybody in the room is looking for see what Jesus is going to do and the four friends are still on the roof peering through the roof to see what’s going to happen. And it says that when Jesus saw their faith, He said son your sins are forgiven. Then there is this grumbling with all the religious people about whether or not Jesus had the authority to do that, and Jesus senses that and He was kind of like, watch this, not only are your sins forgiven but take up your mat and walk. The guy walked out of that house that day with new legs and a new identity because of the faith of his friends. Something changed in his life because his friends had the tenacity to get him to Jesus at all costs including destroying somebody’s house.

The title of my message today is: who is willing to go to jail for you? Not really.

We are in a series called ‘Reset.’ Beginning of a new year, we are resetting financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and this weekend we are going to talk about how to reset relationally. I don’t know what situation you might be in. Maybe you are brand new to DC and you are in a season when you need to make new friends. Or maybe a bunch of college buddies came with you and you are trying to figure out the balance of maintaining those relationships and also making new relationships. Some of you maybe you have been in DC for a long time and the transient turnover nature of this city is starting to take its toll. You made friends and then two years later they all left. Then you invested again and made new friends and then they left and you have grown weary of making that investment. Or maybe there has been a significant life change. A new job, a new marriage, something that has caused the relational stickiness of your life to shift. But wherever you are at this weekend, I’m praying that you will hear something that will help you reset relationally this year.

If you are brand new to NCC this weekend, maybe you are stepping into church for the first time ever or the first time in a long time, we are so excited that you are here and we really believe that the basic reset begins with Jesus and that is what we are about. So we are glad you are here and we hope you see a little bit of who He is this weekend.

I want to pull out a few things from this story.

I. The first thing I see in this story is that friends carry the mat. Friends embrace the awkward.

You think about this mat the man laid on, that was his life. That was his security. It was his identity. It was where he rested. But it was also the symbol of everything that was wrong. It screams to the world what the liability was. It reminded him moment by moment by moment why he was different from everyone else. It could have been the thing that he used to keep people at an arms distance. It the thing he could have been ashamed of. He could have been fearful that people would get too close to it. It is a liability. It is a point of weakness. And that mat could have also been the barrier to keep his friends from having relationships with him. Man, if we get too close to that, we will have to carry it. Doing anything with that guy is going to take longer and be a lot harder. It could have been the thing that kept them from entering into relationship with him. But both the paralyzed man and his four friends didn’t see it as a barrier, they saw it as the connection point to relationship. What they did is they realized that the very point of pain could become the place where community could bring the possibility of miracles.

We’ve all got mats in our lives. It is that thing we keeps us from letting people get too close because if they saw that or they knew that, they would not like us anymore. It is that shame we walk around with. The insecurity, the weakness, the secret. And we think this is a liability and we have to keep people far enough away that they don’t see this thing. But what if instead we realized that very thing could be the incubator for a miracle in our life? It could be the starting place for transformation.

One of the things I want to know this weekend is who is carrying your mat? Your miracle may be on the other side of your vulnerability.

And the other question I want to ask is whose mat are you carrying? Someone else’s miracle is on the other side of your willingness to embrace the inconvenient and the awkward.

II. Secondly, the other thing I see in this story is that friends do the hard work.

This was hard work. These guys sweated to get this guy to the house and not only that but to get him up to the roof and not only that but to excavate the roof and then lower him down. I think a lot of times we think the best friendships are the ones that are the easiest. We’ve said that before. I don’t have to try hard, it just works so well. But the more I think about it, the more I think that is not entirely true. The best friendship are the ones that require some intentionality that causes us to sacrifice our time and our energy. The ones that require a little bit of emotional capacity and physical energy because those are the ones that are propelling us somewhere. They are moving us forward. These guys believed that sweat was the stuff that watered the seeds of a miracle. Maybe there is a dimension of spiritual maturity that is measured in the calories we expend in serving other people.

Relationships are hard work and someone else’s miracle may be on the other side of your sweat.

III. Another thing I see in this story is that friends change us.

We are just different as a result.

Andy Stanley, one of my favorite authors, communicators, pastors, says that your friends will determine the quality and direction of your life.

Friends change us. Show me who is surrounding you and the people whose voices are loudest in your life, the people whose opinions matter the most and I will show you where you are heading. Friends change us. This guy was changed because of the faith of his friends. And I believe that the relationships that change us in the best ways are the ones that are determined to help us look a little bit more like Jesus. That when we relate to one another, we are experiencing the presence of Jesus in the midst of it. And their faith is changing us and our faith is changing them. Somebody else’s miracle is on the other side of our faith, of our encouragement, of our sweat, of our willingness to embrace the inconvenience, of our checkbooks.

So some of the things I want to challenge us in this weekend is when are we going to move past convenience to commitment.

When are we going to start measuring the value of our friendships not by what we get out of them but what we bring to them?

And whose life is being changed because of our faith?

Friendship invites the awkward but sometimes it is the awkward that initiates miracle. Friendship is hard work but it is the hard work that brings the transformation. I believe that friendship reflects our faith and it refines our faith. Our faith is what resets our lives.

So we reset relationships, we reset faith, we reset life.

Jesus promised a lot regarding relationships. He talked about it a lot.

He said I no longer call you servants but friends.

Greater love has no man than this that he lays down his life for his friends.

He said you will be known as my followers because of your love for one another.

In fact when Jesus was pressed to identify the most important commandment, He said it is the love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.

When I read that, what I tend to do is I tend to hear Jesus say, ok the first one, the most important one, is you love God. And then if you’ve got anything left over, love other people. I kind of hear Jesus saying this is the most important and then this is the second most important. But if we understand the history and the culture here, what Jesus is doing here, Jewish rabbis would answer questions with maybe a verse and then they would use another verse to interpret that verse. They would let Scripture interpret Scripture. So what Jesus is doing here is answering the question, the greatest commandment is that you love God, and here’s how you do that, by loving others. He is saying the way you love God and the way you express that is by loving others. The way your love for God becomes real and tangible is by how you love other people.

Your love for God is a reflection of how you love other people, and how you love other people is a reflection of how you love God.

Community, this idea of relationship and community, how we relate to one another, is so central to my theology. What I really want to do this weekend is start at the very beginning where God says let us make man in our image, and then go through verse by verse and book by book and person by person and story by story and theme by theme and show how community is not only central to the character of God but pivotal in historian human history. I geek out over this stuff! But the reality is what we need to do is we need to find a way to make this work in our everyday walking around lives. And one of the things I’ve experienced myself in the church and I’ve been guilty of doing myself is over-promising and under-delivering what is possible.

I think what we need to do is make this as practical as possible. How do we relate to one another? How do we reset relationally?

I want to talk about a couple of categories.

I. The first one is how do we reset existing relationships? What are some ways we can reset relationships we already have in our lives. When we talk about this, I want you to think family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc. because I think with these relationships, we have a tendency to go on autopilot. What I want to encourage us to do is to bring a little intentionality to it.

So the first thing that I encourage us to do when we are resetting existing relationships is to establish rhythms. This is what brings intentionality into the relationship and the friendship. And I’m going to talk about this descriptively of my own life as opposed to prescriptively because I think this can look as differently as there are people gathered here this weekend. But hopefully there will be some ideas you pick up that are translatable and transferrable.

One way that I establish rhythms relationally in my life, my husband Ryan and I have a goals and calendar breakfast, except now it has turned into goals and calendar lunch or goals and calendar afternoon snacks depending on when nine month old Sawyer lets us do it. We have to follow her nap schedule! But it is a time for us to reestablish, to reset our relationship. It is a time for us to have difficult conversations if we need them, to make sure we are in sync on our calendars, to encourage one another as we pursue our goals. That is one way, a rhythm we follow. Another one is date night. And we put those on the calendar at the beginning of the year. I mean, they are on there for September. We have no idea what’s going on in September and that date might not work when September gets here, but what we know is that there is a date on the calendar for date night. It can be moved but it cannot be removed. So we’ve already set that rhythm. We do two retreats a year. One is a goals retreat. We usually try to do that at the beginning of the year and set goals for the year, goals for ourselves, goals for one another, goals for our family. And then we do a prayer retreat where we just get off site for 24 or 48 hours and we pray with one another and we pray for one another and we pray for the people that God has brought into our lives. These are rhythms we’ve established.

I set rhythms with my friendships. For some of them it is a regular coffee date or a regular breakfast or lunch that we do to make sure we have a regular rhythm in our lives. We set joint goals. I set not only personal goals and goals for my family but goals with some of my friends. And some of them are mundane and silly like movies we are going to watch together. Some of them are adventures or experiences we are going to have together or books we are going to read or things we are going to learn together. It is about intentionality and establishing those rhythms.

Sometimes it is just a daily rhythm. When you leave in the morning, how are you saying bye to your spouse? How are you saying goodbye to your roommates? Then when you come back home at the end of the day, how do you greet your spouse? That is going to set the tone for the rest of the evening together. How do you greet your coworkers each morning? How do you say bye to them at the end of the day? It is daily rhythms. And I think part of establishing rhythms is also determining who you are going to cheat. You are going to cheat somebody. We’ve got 24 hours in the day and I promise you, your family, your friends, your coworkers, your boss, the ministry you are a part of, the small group you are a part of, you are not going to be able to give all of them everything that they want. And probably not even everything they need. So who is going to get cheated? You have to be intentional about that. It has to be a pre-decision you have because otherwise we fall into the trap of cheating the people that are closest to us because they are the ones that understand and they are the ones that have the most grace for us. But we need to cheat well. And here’s what happens a lot of times. I tend to think that I love them so much in my heart that I feel like that good feeling and my good intentions should count. But they don’t count because people can’t see my heart. I have to love them with my schedule. It is not enough to just love people with our hearts, we have to also love them with our schedules for it to count. So chose who we are going to cheat.

II. The second thing I want us to do as we reset existing relationships is practice forgiveness.

There are over three dozen commands in the New Testament that cannot be obeyed outside the context of relationship. They are the ones that include this phrase ‘one another.’ Love one another. Serve one another. Encourage one another. Except one another. Forgive one another. Bear one another’s burdens. And this forgive one another command is one that I think is critical to resetting relationships. I don’t know that we practice it enough and I think that is because it requires practice. It requires practice to ask for forgiveness. There is an art to asking for forgiveness. And it takes practice to give it. It is hard work. But those two little words ‘I’m sorry’ and those three little words ‘I forgive you’ that is like the ultimate reset button on relationships. And some relationships will only be able to reset through forgiveness. And that practice will fling open the door of reconciliation. Practice forgiveness.

III. The third thing I believe we need to do in existing relationships is I think we need to give the eulogy now.

Have you ever noticed, funerals are where the best things are said about people? The best things that will ever be said about you will happen when you are laying in a casket. So many times when I’m at funerals I wonder, did that person have an opportunity to hear that when they were alive. Did they know how that person felt about them? Why don’t we start giving the eulogy now? Why don’t we make sure we say what we need to say while we still have time to say it? It is a way to reset our relationships, to just say, look, I need you to know this. Give the eulogy now because unexpressed gratitude communicates ingratitude.

It doesn’t matter what we feel, we’ve got to do something about it.

IV. The fourth thing I want to encourage us to do with existing relationships is redraw some boundaries.

There are people that you need to relate to differently. It might be because of circumstances or because of a shift in the relationship. Maybe someone has moved and the way you experience that friendship is going to have to look different. Maybe it is one of those major life changes, one of you has gotten married or one of you have new responsibilities or one of you is navigating some personal issues or a sickness and all of sudden the way you relate to one another has to shift a little bit. Parents, when that first kid comes along, you have to relate to one another a little bit differently. And then we also have to change the way we relate to our kids over time. If I interact with Sawyer at 14 the same way I interact with her now, there is something seriously wrong with both of us! We are constantly having to shift the way we relate to one another. We have to constantly redraw the boundaries and rethink intentionality in our relationships.

It is hard because change means movement and movement always requires friction, so it is hard. When those things change and we realize our friendship, our relationship just has to move with the season, but the key again is intentionality. And not only that but celebrating the season you are in. There are new things to experience and new things to learn and new blessings that come with every new season. So even if it seems like it is a mourning period because something has to change, I believe there is something to be celebrated in that season. Sometimes redrawing the boundaries means becoming less intentional with a relationship. It is ok to do that. Letting go of a friendship or becoming a little bit less intentional because it has become inconvenient or not easy is not ok. However, if you are finding that the value is changing, you are not adding value to them, they are not adding value to you, and it has gone from a friendship that requires energy to a friendship that has become exhaustion, this may require an examination. What is going on? Are we just in a season where relating to one another means maybe relating to one another less and that’s alright. If you are married, this does not apply! It is never about being disobedient to Jesus so if your marriage has become exhausting then that is time to get help. Get counseling.

And speaking of counseling, there are some relationship that are damaging and need to be dealt with. We were talking earlier about how everybody has a mat, and in most cases what I’m referring to there is the mat life has handed you. But sometimes the mat that some of us carry isn’t a mat that life handed to us, but a mat that someone threw on us. Abuse, abandonment, infidelity or disappointment or harsh words that are still causing damage. Some relationships need to be cut off. Some of them have done damage and need to be dealt with. I know on a weekend like this with people across all of our locations and people listening by podcast that there are hundreds that have relationships that need to be dealt with. I want to encourage you wherever you are, if you are at one of our locations, our prayer team would love to pray with you after the service. You may need pastoral care. You may need to get a referral for a counselor. Email [e-mail] and we will get you connected with someone. For some of you, attending Celebrate Recovery on Wednesday night is a great way to reset a lot of things in your life. Sometimes we have to redraw the boundaries because Jesus wants to make sure that mat doesn’t smother you. He wants to make sure you are able to roll it up and walk out with it.

So reset existing relationships.

Then there is another category that I want to encourage us in and that is discovering new relationships.

I believe that love is always seeking to expand its communion. Love wants more. It’s one of the reasons parents have kids. It is the reason the church family grows. Healthy community is always open to new community.

I. So I want to encourage you that one thing you might need to do this year is become friends with someone who is not like you. Because when we are friends with people who have stories that are different than us and perspectives different than us and preferences that are different than ours, it expands our understanding of who God is. It also expands our world view. It makes us less selfish and it makes life less boring. If God had wanted to create a boring world, He would have made everyone just like you! Become friends with someone who is different than you and be friends with people who are neither impressed by you nor intimidated by you.

II. Secondly, invest in something new. I think a lot of us suffer from a crowded loneliness. We are surrounded by people but not really known. People, people everywhere but no one that knows us. You might need to invest in something new. One of the ways we do that here at NCC is through small groups, through ministries and through missions. This is the perfect time to reset relationally because we are kicking off new small groups in a couple weeks. Next week we are going to be recruiting for some of our ministry teams. You can get a head start on that. Be part of a missions team. Lock arms like those four guys who were carrying somebody else’s mat. Be on mission together. It is fertile ground for seeing miracles happen. Invest in something new.

III. Finally, give it time. If you are going to discover new relationships and reset some of those relational sticking points in your life like being friends with someone new, you have to give it time for it to work. One thing I can almost certainly promise you is that when you start becoming friends with someone who is not like you and you start investing in something new, it is going to be a lot more awkward than awesome at first. But you have to give it time. What happens is that words over time and stories over time and fun over time and experiences over time builds trust and it builds commitment and it builds memories and it builds strength into a relationship. So give it time.

Going back to the story, this is one of my favorite stories of all time. I want to meet these guys one day. Isn’t it interesting that we don’t know any of their names? But isn’t it also worth noting that I guarantee you this paralyzed man knew every one of their names and would never forget their names and in fact, would not ever be able to tell his story without mentioning their names. All of us have people in our lives that we can’t really tell our story without mentioning their names. What I want to encourage us in this weekend is who can’t tell their story without mentioning your name. Whose stories of faith mean that our names show up in them? The stories of faith are the ones that are the most fun and the most fascinating. I want to remind us this weekend that the whole reason Jesus came in the first place was to hit a reset button on relationships. He came in order to reset relationship between us and God and to reset relationship between us and other people. That was his entire mission. It is interesting to realize that Jesus wasn’t just willing to carry a mat, He was willing to carry a cross. And He wasn’t just willing to sweat on our behalf but to bleed on our behalf. And an entire reset will be found on the other side of putting our faith in Him.

We are going to celebrate communion this weekend. Isn’t it interesting that this thing that Jesus gave his followers to do and He said when you do it, remember Me, He said it within the context of relationship. We celebrate that moment. We remember the cross. We reset our faith within the context of community.

God, I thank You so much. Thank You Jesus for what You have done. Thank You for coming to our place to his the ultimate reset button so that we can have relationship with God and we can be restored in our relationships with one another. We want to makes sure we express to You our gratitude for who You are and for what You have done. God I pray that as we step into this place of celebrating communion that your love will be very tangible and your presence will be very real. God, that You would bring to mind the people You want us to relate to a little bit differently, to love a little bit more. In Jesus’ name, Amen.