I will stay
I will stay in relationship with others who are passionate about Jesus.
Anyone who has tended a fire knows
that sometimes a piece of wood or a coal will fall out of the fire
and it will begin to grow dim
and it will become cold.
The only way to keep this from happening
is to poke up a fire
and keep it all together.
Push it back in
and the coal begins to burn again.
Of course,
the problem is
fires are hot.
And burning hurts.
When you gather a lot of highly sensitive
and creative people together,
and you begin to see sparks fly
and heat created,
those highly sensitive and creative people
want to flee.
And when you flee
you begin to cool.
Of all the Twelve I wills,
this is the one that is the most difficult.
Staying in relationship
and staying close to other people.
I make the joke that "I herd cats."
And there is truth in it.
And I should know
because I am the chief cat.
Like Greta Garbo,
I just want to be alone.
There are many days that I say to Peter,
it's not good that I am in ministry,
because I hate people.
I am very happy sitting in my room
reading a book,
working on a project,
or writing.
Writing especially is a solitary exercise.
You cannot write in a group,
and you cannot write with disruptions or destractions.
Most artists and creative people
just want to be alone.
But being a disciple
cannot be done alone.
You have to come into relationship.
In our readings today
we have three examples of this.
Ezekiel is told that if he flees from his call to be a prophet
the blood of those who need his warning will be on his head.
Paul tells us in Romans
that our chief debt is to love one another.
And Jesus in Matthew
give us this familiar passage about confronting others about their sin.
I want to briefly unpack this,
because it says a lot about the Kingdom.
Many people think that Jesus is giving us a
series of rules we must follow
in order to bring order in the church.
I have lived in several Christian communities
where people tried to do this as a system.
Every time it failed.
The Kingdom of God
is not a religious club where
we follow the rules.
Before Jesus tells us about going to someone
who has sinned against you,
he first tells them about the one sheep who has gone astray.
The context is God's unbounded mercy.
And then Jesus follows this with the story of the unmerciful servant
who refused to forgive another servant
after he had an extreme debt forgiven.
We can't take these things out of context.
The emphasis here,
and everywhere
is that we are all wandering sheep
we are all in need of forgiveness.
Blessed are the merciful
for you shall obtain mercy.
The more love you give
the more you will receive.
I mentioned last week
that most folks in the independent
charismatic community
believe that church is a fun
religious club
that you attend in your
leiesure time.
This is a leisure activity
and you do this for fun.
And the minute it stops being fun
people head toward the door.
There is better music and more fun
at the one word verb church down the street.
I quick "Zest" and now I go to "Verve."
Have you been to "Vroom" church?
How about "Vibrate."
When you run from one ministry to another
you will never grow.
Growth only comes
when you stay in relationship.
There are no solitary Christians.
Listening to podcasts or reading books
will not replace interacting with other people.
This is why
getting into a fire team is so important.
The basic framework is very simple.
It is simple on purpose.
You meet with one or two other people
and you say,
what has been your source of consolation
and your source of desolation this week?
What is your source of gratitude
and what is your source of pain this week?
And you listen to one another.
This isn't group session,
this is learning to share life with someone else.
And then you go to the Bible together.
And you learn to listen to the voice of Jesus.
And then you listen for one another,
and you talk about what God is saying and you pray.
Just like Matthew 18,
this isn't a set of rules,
this is about developing a relationship
with one or two other people.
And two things are going to happen.
You are going to get annoyed and irritated.
Any time you get close to another person
they are going to get on your nerves.
They are going to have little blind spots that make you crazy.
They are going to have habits and beliefs
that are obviously wrong to you.
And you will discover
that if you want to stay in relationship
you have to give up the idea
that your job is to fix them.
And you will also
discover things
that you really love.
And you will discover something really important.
Love covers a multitude of sins.
You can only find this out
if you stay in relationship.
You can only find this out
if you keep walking with other people.
I have been shepherding my herd of cats
for a long time.
One of the things I have learned is that the ones
who have made the biggest changes
and the ones who have seen biggest transformation
are the ones who
stayed in relationship.
They stayed.
Even when things were hard,
or when things were uncomfortable.
The point of Matthew 18
is that that if we are humble
and in relationship
and we come into agreement
with one another,
there is no power on earth
or in heaven
that is greater.
There is power in finding the lost sheep.
There is power in forgiving.
There is power in making relationships
right,
and staying in relationship.
We are all in this together,
and staying together is the most powerful
thing in the Kingdom.
I will stay in relationship with others
who are passionate about Jesus.
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