Community Maturity

Decisions in Vacuums

I’m not talking about house cleaning appliances.

Newsflash: Decisions we make for ourselves affect other ppl.

You know that. Many of our friends have taken advantage of the high housing prices and sold their second home in MP and now are full-time in the valley. Some are renting during the summer.

Others, we may never see again.

They’re happy. We’re happy for them. But, we miss them. Our hearts hurt a little b/c we don’t get to see them anymore.

It helps knowing they made a good financial decision.

It would be different if it was a bad move all the way around.

Sara and I met in a church in Dallas. We’d been there for several years, both of us after college.

We decided to get married there. That decision had an affect on Sara’s mom. Not what she had planned.

Dad was paying. So they were okay w/ it if we would come thru Tucson after our honeymoon and have second reception for their friends.

We honeymooned in Pinetop in their cabin. It was an easy choice for us.

I decide to go to seminary. We have our first child, Alyssa, my last year. Then, we decided to move to Minot, ND.

God led us there. But we had to decide if we bel’d God wanted us there. We did.

Do you know how far Minto is from Tucson? We took their only grandchild, then had 2 more while we were there.

Many of you know that affect as well. Your kids had the audacity to move your grandchildren across the country!

We were thrilled when God led us here. Sara got to be close to her mom in her last years and now she is regularly making trips to spend time w/ her dad.

God led. But our choice to follow.

Our decision, not only affected her family, it affected all of you.

B/C now you have to listen to me every week.

Sara is in TX this weekend, on her annual girls’ trip. These are friends we made in Minot. All Air Force wives, except Sara.

Now, we’re here, one’s in Houston, 1 in San Angelo, 1 in Conway, AR; 1 in Co Spgs, SC, AL, all over.

Decisions made to go into the Air Force, transferred to Minot, join the same church, become friends and stay in touch thru annual weekend vacations.

All of our marriages are good and in tact. We all love Jesus and are committed to following. We all have imperfect kids.

This week, our daughter, a speech path in Glendale is interviewing for an asst. mgr. position at her clinic. Whomever gets that job will have an affect on her longevity at that place.

Whether or not she gets the job will not directly lead to her staying or going, but she has to like her new boss.

And, if she leaves, she’s got friends in CO. That is probably where she’d look first.

Sara and I, first of all, want her t/b happy. But, having her an hour and a half down the road sure is nice. She rents a house w/ her brother, a school teacher. He couldn’t afford that house on his own. He’d have to move. Someplace less expensive.

Decisions we make affect other ppl. Not just physical proximity. But if affects our hearts and minds, how we feel and what we think about where we are now.

We’ve had friends get divorced. That hurt all of us. Not as much as the principals, who gets custody of the friends? People take sides.

Even events in Europe, decisions made by presidents affect us here.

Last week I talked about maturity. Characteristics of emotionally and mentally mature ppl can be categorized spiritually.

IOW, secular psychologists would agree with what the bible describes as mature.

I’m not going to repeat what I said last week. If you missed it, I would encourage you to go to our website and watch it.

B/C, this week builds on what the passage taught last week.

Immature decisions create chaos. We create chaos in our own lives but also the lives of those around us. The closer they are to us, the more chaos they get caught up in.

So, as family, friends, church members, and as a community; we need for each other to make good, wise, mature decisions. We are at each other’s mercy for the the chaos we bring.

While it is important for my own life that I make good choices, it is also important to my family and all of you. And, to the extent I’m involved in MP, it’s important to the entire community I act maturely.

Last week the focus was on the individual impact of maturity, or immaturity. Today, we’re looking at a passage where Paul addresses the corporate impact of our choices.

For the sake of the rest of us, we all need to acquire good information and apply it appropriately b/c these decisions are not made in a vacuum.

Your decisions affect me. And my decisions affect you.

In order to be a united group we have to be mature individuals.

If we make immature decisions, we bring chaos to the group and blow it up.

This is the goal. A united group of people who care about each other enough to grow up and make mature decisions.

The Goal

Colossians 2:1–3 NIV

I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The goal, simply stated, we care about each other and we don’t make decisions, do or say anything, that hurts each other or causes divisions.

Mature ppl know that nobody is perfect.

Mature people own their mistakes, apologize for them, and stop doing them.

Mature ppl forgive each other.

Paul said he contends for this. It’s an athletic competition metaphor.

We just watched the winter olympics. The best in the world competing against one another.

In some cases, head to head like curling or cross country skiing. Other cases against a clock like speed skating and downhill skiing. And some cases against themselves as well as the other competitors like figure skating.

All the competition was fierce.

It req’d disciplined preparation and intense participation in the arena.

Paul would have been familiar with the ancient Greek games.

So he understood what the competition was like w/ opposition. We may assume that the opposition was the enemy who does not want the church to be unified nor grow.

True. But, maybe, the fiercest competition and opposition to unity is us.

We are the ones who make unity so hard to achieve b/c we don’t always act our age.

Interestingly, he noted that he did it for everyone, not just the ones who knew him personally.

The decisions he was making he knew affected ppl he had never met. How he managed his life and his ministry still affects us today.

He continued and expanded on maturity. Individual maturity affects the well-being of the entire community.

United in love. That is, brought together, reconciled.

Imperfect ppl, w/ some regularity, do things and say things that hurt others. If that hurt is not resolved, unity is impossible.

Mature ppl own their mistake and make them right.

Mature ppl forgive those who hurt them.

We don’t expect perfection. We expect everyone to do better, work hard at the right things. But we still have to be prepared to reconcile.

Encouraged in heart. We feel good about each other and where we are as a community. Our hearts are engaged and we feel that bond.

There is a bit of a circular argument here, too. To be united like this requires understanding of who we are and what is necessary to get together.

Being united produces a complete understanding as we apply the truths of repentance and reconciliation.

Complete understanding. Lacking nothing. Knowing what to do or say and when to do it.

Why must we go thru this process? B/C, w/out it, our hearts will be adversely affected. We will not be encouraged. Bond will get broken. And God wired us to need relationships like this.

That’s why Jesus had to do what He did. We understand better what He did, why He had to do it, as we go thru the process of reconciliation w/ ea other.

We didn’t deserve what Jesus did for us. I don’t deserve you forgiving me. Until you do, it will be harder for you to appreciate what Jesus did for you.

We live in a fallen world and need a Savior. We grow as we go thru it.

We do it for ea other and it helps us understand and know Jesus better.

We have to be all in w/ Jesus to get this done.

There is no full knowledge w/out an all out commitment to Christ.

Complete understanding comes from complete surrender to Jesus. We have to give all of ourselves in order to get everything from Him.

We find ourselves in situations all the time where we struggle to know what to do. Sometimes we feel like we’re just guessing.

We want to make the right decision, the best decision. We want all of God’s wisdom to be at our disposal, we just don’t want to have to humbly ask for it.

There’s that part of us that thinks it should just be there.

God’s like, oh it’s there, but to access it you have set yourself aside and follow my lead.

Again, circular. Complete understand allows us to know Christ better. Knowing Christ better allows us to have complete understanding.

We westerners kind of struggle w/ that. We like things in logical order.

But remember, the bible was written by middle easterners who had no issue w/ circular arguments.

So, the better we know Jesus, the better we become acquainted with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The value of knowing what to do and how to do it.

Knowledge is the acquisition of truth. Wisdom is the application of it.

Knowledge is prudent judgment. Wisdom is prudent action.

Isn’t that among the most valuable resources we could have? To know what we’re facing and the wisdom to decide how to respond?

All of that is found in Christ, nowhere else. We have a distinct advantage over everyone who does not know Jesus.

But we don’t take full advantage b/c we still try on our own to figure it out.

1 Corinthians 1:18 NIV

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

To many it seems foolish to surrender your life to Jesus. But to those of us who do, it is a powerful resources that provides wisdom to make mature decisions in the toughest of situations.

Paul started out talking about the discipline required for him to serve the church the way he was.

That same discipline is required for us to stay close to Jesus and not wander off on our own.

Discipline

Colossians 2:4–5 NIV

I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

There are so many different options for us to follow. Many of our friends look like they are having so much fun living their lives the way they want to live them for themselves.

We live for Christ and it can be a burden. But the benefits far outweigh the costs. But we have to stop and consider the truth of this.

Whether those around us will directly and intentionally try to talk us out of living our life for Jesus, or they may just get on w/ doing what they do w/out explanation. Either way, we are constantly tempted to join them.

An undisciplined life will chase whatever looks good at the time w/out consideration of long-term consequences.

This is one of the characteristics of immaturity. Children, by definition are immature, don’t consider the long-term consequences of only eating ice cream.

Some of us could do better considering those consequences.

It takes some discipline to stay focused on what is good for us and good for those around us.

It’s not that our faith goes away, we just fail to act like we have faith.

Believing in who Jesus is, all that he is, is a mature faith that provides resources that help us.

Being all in w/ Jesus is necessary to have access to all that He offers us.

We need to remain disciplined, focused, steady in our walk w/ Jesus so that no one, either intentionally or unintentionally, deceives us and distracts us from Jesus.

So that we can access the knowledge and wisdom that the HS makes available to us. How valuable is it to be able to acquire the truth about a difficult situ and then be able to apply that truth to manage that situ!

To do that, we must remain close to Christ b/c that’s where we get it.

To stay close, we have to have a full understanding of why we are not close to begin with and our tendency to wander away. We need to see our own imperfections and the errors they lead to. We need to appreciate the deficit we create between us and God when make errors. Then we must appreciate the grace w/ which Jesus treats us to make up that deficit for us when we don’t deserve it.

Once we get all that, we can then treat each other w/ the same grace. We can own our mistakes apologize for them. We can forgive each other and reconcile our relationships making them stronger than they were before.

That unites us. That encourages us. Our hearts will be full the bonds that we share will be strong.

The mature decisions we make to be disciplined, to do the right thing even though it’s the hard thing, will affect all of the rest of us in good ways.

That encourages all of us to do the same b/c we all depend on ea other to make this a community that we want to be a part of.

Mature individuals exhibit characteristics by doing and saying things that positively affect the rest of us creating a close community of believers.

We need that. We need ea other to do mature things so we can have this kind of church.

Applications

Need more knowledge or wisdom?

Get closer to Jesus. Spend more time w/ Him, more time in your bible, more time praying, more time with Xian friends.

He has what you need.

Acquire more truth and apply more truth after spending more time w/ Him.

Discipline

Don’t be distracted by shiny objects around you. Stay focused on the things that are good for you.

Self-discipline comes with the HS when He moves in. You’ve got it. Use it. Keep doing the things that are good for you.

Community

Help each other.

Remember, every decision you make affects others around you. When you make mature decisions you encourage everyone else to do the same.

Let’s look out for each other and encourage each other to do what keeps us close as a community.

Immature decisions create chaos. We create chaos in our own lives but also the lives of those around us. The closer they are to us, the more chaos they get caught up in.

So, as family, friends, church members, and as a community; we need for each other to make good, wise, mature decisions. We are at each other’s mercy for the the chaos we bring.

While it is important for my own life that I make good choices, it is also important to my family and all of you. And, to the extent I’m involved in MP, it’s important to the entire community I act maturely.

Last week the focus was on the individual impact of maturity, or immaturity. Today, we’re looking at a passage where Paul addresses the corporate impact of our choices.

For the sake of the rest of us, we all need to acquire good information and apply it appropriately b/c these decisions are not made in a vacuum.

Your decisions affect me. And my decisions affect you.

In order to be a united group we have to be mature individuals.

If we make immature decisions, we bring chaos to the group and blow it up.