Christ is Life Podcast

Today we are finishing up this one another message series that we've been in over the last several weeks. And this is week number five. And there are 59, technically one another's, we talked about this in the very first message that we had together, the goal wasn't necessarily to cover all 59, there are some overlap between them. For example, the command to love one another, is 15, of the 59, one another's. And so we've just kind of highlighted a few of them, so that we can really begin to see from a biblical perspective, how we are called and really rewired by Christ to relate to one another as new creations in Christ. And it's been a really good series. For me, it's been encouraging to me to get to study these a little bit more in depth than to walk through them in my own personal life. And I'm thankful that many of you have reached out to me and shared with me what the Lord was doing in your own life through several of these messages in these truths. These one another commands and passages that we see throughout the New Testament, I mean, I get feedback off and on from just about every message series that we do. But for some reason, this one in particular, you guys have reached out even more than usual, to share with me what the Lord has been doing in your hearts about the way that we relate to one another. As a matter of fact, for example, a few weeks ago, when we looked at the command to forgive one another, as Christ forgave us, I had someone reach out to me, who said, Man, the part of that message, the part of looking at it in Scripture that touched me the most that resonated with me the most was the part about how Jesus forgives us as a step to reconciling with us. And so therefore, when he leads us to forgive others, in the same way that he's forgiven us, he's leading us to do that as a step towards reconciliation, not just forgiving someone, but to forgive so that we can reconcile. And she said that she felt empowered by the Holy Spirit to begin to take those steps that vary after noon, and they had a long conversation. This was someone that had hurt her deeply, it was not easy to do, but she trusted the Lord in it and praise God, they're taking steps towards reconciliation. Because of this one, another command that we looked at in Scripture. A few weeks ago, we looked at the command to encourage one another and how the Lord works in us and through us to be an encouragement to each other. And I had someone email me that week after that message and said that the Lord put a friend on her heart, a friend who was going through a really dark time in their life really, honestly, kind of running from the Lord running from church running from all of her friends had just kind of distanced herself from everyone. And she felt the need to reach out to her and to try to encourage her in some way. But she's been avoiding her. She hasn't been answering phone calls and text. And so I love it. Finally, she said, Listen, I'm the friend who is not going to give up on you. I'm going to keep calling. And I'm going to keep calling. And I'm going to keep calling until you answer the phone. And so why don't you do me a favor and make it easy on all of us and just pick up the next time I call. And guess what she did, she picked up the phone the next time she called and they talked for over an hour together and they cried together and they prayed together. And she just sought to be an encouragement to her as the Lord led her to do so isn't that beautiful? That last week after us looking at the command to accept one another, just as in the same way that Christ has accepted us. There were so many of you who came up to me and just said that the Lord really spoke to you during that time, some of you it was, Hey, I gotta be honest, there were probably some people that if they would have walked in those doors and into our church, I would have had a really hard time accepting them as part of our congregation. But after that message, I feel much more led to bring that before the Lord and for him to work on me in growing within that area because I see the way that Christ accepted me As a senator, and as someone who was lost, and someone who is an enemy of his, and didn't wait on me to get my act cleaned up and accepted me in that way, then Jesus is leading me, of course, to do the same thing. And I praise God that many of you were open to that, and even willing to talk about that and put it out there for the Lord to continue to grow you in that area. Others of you it just resonated with you in a way that said, Yes, that's who our church is. That's the kind of church I want to be a part of, and may it be so in, it was just those kinds of things that I've been hearing over the last five weeks that have encouraged me to hear about what the Lord is doing in your heart and teaching you how to relate to one another. And really, I think that maybe it's been such an impactful series for many of us. Because we're relational beings, God wired us to be in community and in relationship with one another. It's part of who we are. But I mean, in a lot of ways, and I don't know exactly what to attribute it to. But since the pandemic's A few years ago, things just haven't quite been the same relationally with a lot of us, there are a lot of people, a lot of us who may be in this room together, who still feel isolated from people and still feel lonely at times. And there may be some of you who are watching online who still haven't really made it back from that time in, we're wired to be in community with each other. And when we feel that isolation, when we feel lonely, and we're made as relational beings, when we start to talk about loving one another, and forgiving one another and encouraging one another, accepting one another, I think it just begins to stir something up really deep within us, because it's just wired to be a part of us, we're going yes, I'm knit to be in community with other people. And so I just want to encourage you to keep coming, be here as much as you can. That's not meant in any legalistic way to check off a box. But just because we're meant to be in relationship with each other. This is good for us to incarnational ly be seeing each other face to face and forgiving one another and accepting one another and encouraging one another. And, and not just in this big room together, but in smaller groups where we're studying and growing and really relating with one another as well. And so today, as we finish up this series, I just want to encourage you to continue to make worship continued to make biblical community a priority, it really is important for us. It's important for you, we need each other. And today as we finish up and we're talking about this final one another we're going to be looking at what Paul says about serving one another out of the 59 one anothers that we see in Scripture, there's only one of these, only one command to serve out of the 59 commands to serve one another. Now, it's seen all over scripture. It's just this particular Greek phrase that's translated one another and these one another passages that we've been focusing on is only seen in this one verse right here, Paul says to the church at Galatia, you my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh rather serve. Here it is one another, humbly in love. Paul says the way we are to relate to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, who are brought into this unity into this family into this fellowship together is to sacrificially serve. This word that's translated serve here means whole heartedly and sacrificially to be serving one another. Now, what I find really interesting about this, though, is not just that this is the one place that it's used, but the context in which it's used. I mean, Paul gives us this command and his teaching us that this is the way we're to relate to each other in the context of Christian freedom.
He even says that we were called to be free, free from what right? What know if you've read the book of Galatians, you know that Paul is talking a lot about the Old Testament law, how there was a lot of Jesus plus Old Testament laws and regulations and this kind of thing to be okay. And he was writing to say, Listen, it's a Jesus plus nothing equals everything kind of gospel in His grace that we enter into. And so in some ways, there's this idea that Paul was writing and expressing that we're free from that kind of bondage to performance, to having to keep up with a certain standard to prove where we are with the Old Testament law. But it's more than that, because Paul also mentions this word here. Flesh, flesh, when you see this in Scripture, is really just in all simplicity, kind of a reference to self, it's you and I, operating out of our own strength, and our own power, our own wisdom, our own guidance, apart from Jesus, who was meant to be our source, and flesh really means that we are serving not others. If we're living by our flesh, it means that we are serving ourself, we're able to look at our lifestyle and go, Well, it's all about me in how I am serving me to make my life more comfortable in a number of ways. And at one time, we were in bondage to our flesh, we were slaves to sin, we were slaves to selfishness. And we've talked about this a lot. And so we won't spend a lot of time on it. But again, visually, this is what we're talking about here. Scripture teaches us that we have a spirit, and that we have a soul, and that we have a body. And really within our soul, this is kind of like our personality, right our our mind and our emotions and our will. And we were meant, and we were created to be in Union spiritually, with the capital S, Holy Spirit, a spiritual union between our Spirit and the Holy Spirit, operating with God as our source and him influencing our mind and our emotions and our choices and using our body. And all of these ways. And what we'll see here in a little bit, with this spiritual union, the way we were created to operate in union with him was to be a servant was to serve one another in this way. But of course, sin messed that up, when sin came into the world, it affected everything. And sin affects every part of us all the way to the core. And so the spirit, we were separated from God, because of sin in our lives, he's a holy and a perfect God. And so now, we're no longer in union with the God of the universe, whom we were meant to be in union with, allowing him to meet our needs, allowing him to influence our mind and our emotions and our will. And when the Holy Spirit is missing, and he's supposed to be here, then you're going to start to feel that you're going to start to feel that emptiness, you're gonna longing for more within you, and because your needs are no longer being met, all you have left is your hips. Here we go again, flesh. Right? You no longer have access to the very core of your being and God who's dwelling there with your spirit. So what do you got left? Well, I've got my body, I've got my mind. I've got my emotions, I've got the choices that I make. And I've got to try to use those various things to get my needs met, to bring me my satisfaction to bring me fulfillment. And so you can just see, man, I mean, selfishness to the core. Why? Because we have to be. We were meant to have our needs met with God, God's not there. All we have is our flesh, which means we are slaves to selfishness, and we have to be because we've got to continue to get our needs met. Now the good news, the gospel is that Jesus came to free us from our sin to free us from our selfishness, and he did that through his finished work on the cross and his resume. Correction and ascension and the sending of the Spirit. So now the Apostle Paul could write things like this to the church, those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. He says to them here in Romans chapter six, we were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, we too, may live a new life. For we know that our old self watch this, our old self was crucified, did you know that the old Jew is dead, the old Jew, the one with the sin nature, the one that was so selfish at the core has been crucified with Christ so that the body that was ruled by sin past its it was ruled that might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves any longer to sin. Why? Because anyone who has died and you've died has been what set free from sin, praise God. That means you are no longer a slave to sin, that means you are no longer a slave to your flesh, that means you are no longer a slave to selfishness. Why? Because all your needs are now being met. In Christ, you've been set free from having to be so selfish to use other people to use drugs or alcohol, to use entertainment or whatever else it is that we use to feed us before we've been freed from that. So now, when Paul says in Galatians, 513, to not use our freedom to indulge the flesh, why? Because God's just set us free from that, and you are in bondage to it. And let's be honest, it wasn't that great when you were there. We all tend to want to think it is oh, yeah, man, I get to go and drink and smoke and do whatever and party and live it up and all of that and you're like, really was that really that great? Were you really haven't that great of a time during then you were a slave to those things. And the reason you went back to them over and over again, is because you kept feeling the emptiness inside, and just looking for something to medicate with. And something to fill it up with in it never ultimately satisfied. You've been set free from all of that. So why would the world why in the world would you want to go back and indulge it any longer. Instead, live out who you are always created to be in that as a servant, one that serves other people humbly in love. So that's the first thing if we're going to talk about this command to serve one another, the way we relate to each other, we got to see that we're free from the selfishness that we were so in bondage to enslaved to right. The second thing that we need to see then is that it is part of a new heart that we receive, that in Christ, we have this new heart that now wants to serve others. If we go back here, what were we talking about, we have a new life in him, the old self was crucified, we've been raised up to someone, we were buried with him. But now we've been raised up into this new life with him. And so here's the thing, Jesus comes into union with us spiritually, and makes us a servant. Why?
Because Jesus himself was an is a servant. You see it all throughout scripture. But the one place I'm going to take you this morning, is to Paul's letter to the church at Philippi. We may talk about a few other places, too. But Paul says this, teaching the church at Philippi how to relate to one another now that they're new creations in Christ and says, here's what you don't do. Do not do anything out of selfish ambition, or vain conceit. Sometimes that's translated empty. Glory. Love that, right? Don't quit. It's all the glory you chase after yourself and all of that's just it's just an empty newness there. All right, it's in vain. Rather, here's what you do in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you looking to the interest of others. what's Paul saying there? serve one another, right? I mean, he didn't use that phrase in Greek, but that's what he's saying. When you're not looking to your own interest, but you're looking to the interest of others. What are you doing, serving one another? Art? This is who you are in Christ. So don't do these things anymore. This stuff right here. What is this flesh, the yuckiness that comes from, from living in our own power in our own strength, the stuff that we were in bondage to that we've been set free. Now, this is the stuff that comes out of that if we go back to living that way, but we've been set free from that. So now that you have serve one another, now, when he says this, here's what I'm really wanting you to see. He uses Jesus as the example to help them see the point he's trying to make and what it looks like here. So you'll see it in the very next verse. He says, do in your relationships, which that's what he was just talking about, right? with one another, there's a good phrase, have the what same mindset as Christ Jesus, he's our example. So what was the mindset of Jesus? Well, he uses the next few verses to show us who Jesus is a little bit more fully, and what his mindset was, who, who is the who sounds like a Dr. Seuss book or something. They're all right. That's Jesus, right? Jesus being in very nature, god, does it get any more clear than that this is not just a man, this is God in the flesh did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. rather watch this, he made himself nothing. How? By taking the very nature of a what? Servant.
Jesus is a
servant. He even says the Son of Man did not come to be served in Matthew 28, but to what to serve. It's who he is. And if you go back and you look at the gospels that are all about the life of Jesus guests, what you see Jesus doing over and over and over again, serving people. He served people through teaching, he served them through healing them through fin free, friending them through and just investing in them ministering to them in all kinds of ways. One of the ways we see it most clearly, and in all honesty, when we really just visualize it and think about it. Just how the God of the universe in John chapter 13, washes people's feet. I mean, he took the disciples, dirty feet, and he touched them. They're sweaty, feet, they're smelly. Feet, they're cracked feet, their feet with scars, or maybe open wounds that were bloody their funkiest feet, or fun guide feet. How do you say that and plural? Yeah, I mean, picture Jesus, sitting on the throne in heaven, with angelic beings flying around him saying, Glory, glory, glory. Right? I mean, all praise and honor. The one who is was in his right, and he takes off his outer garment. And he gets on his knees. He uses his hands to touch those feet and to wash them. I mean, talk about being a servant. Is there any more clear picture of who Jesus Christ is when you see him? sacrificially serving others? Well, perhaps there is one. And after Jesus said, The Son of Man didn't come to be served, what did he say but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Perhaps he served us in even a more sacrificial way than washing someone's feet, by being willing to go to the cross for us, one of the most painful, humiliating ways that someone could die again, the God of the universe, who set in throne in heaven, with all glory and honor and riches in did not have to leave there, chose to leave and come and allow himself to have nails driven through His hands and His feet and hang there naked in front of people while they mocked him and spit on him. Now he was in so much pain. Why? Because the Son of Man did not come to be served. How is that even possible? Do you realize how much Jesus loves you today. But he would do that he would serve you in that way. So this I mean, we just see, he says it's who he is, he demonstrates that it's who he is. And then again, watch, if this is Jesus, and he is a servant, right in this is you and your spirit, and you enter into a spiritual union with Jesus becoming what the Bible calls a new creation in Christ, one who was dead, but now is alive, and you're in Christ, and Christ is a servant, guess what that makes you a servant, you have a new heart, your new heart is in union with the one who is a capital S servant, who's given you a new heart to want to serve. He's breaking the chains of selfishness and given you a new heart to want to serve other people. It's who you've always been created to be. Right? That's what we said in the very beginning. It's who Jesus says you were meant to be in union with Him. But you weren't able to be that because of sin in your life. But then Jesus comes to redeem you from that sense of that you could enter back into that unit to become who you were always created to be. And you are one who is created to love and serve other people. And I have seen that happen in in through you brothers and sisters in Christ over and over and over again, at Colonial hills. Did you know that your pastor search team three years ago, came over to our house that we had purchased in the day before that we moved in, they brought cleaning supplies with them, still don't know how they got into our house. But they got into our house, and they swept and they mopped, and they dusted and they vacuumed and they cleaned the showers and they cleaned the toilets. And they even put a new microwave and installed it all in there for us so that when we came and moved in the next day, we had a clean house to walk into. And it was one less thing that we had to worry about that is an expression of the servant's heart that they had been given in Christ. And we got to be the ones who were blessed, by the way that they served us that day. Amen. I've heard Steve Albert's tell a story over and over again about the way that some of you as men served him and his family and his son, Wes, he can't hardly tell the story without crying. So I'll tell it, I'm not going to invite him up here. But Wes had been a number of men have been invited to speak into West his life and kind of a rites of passage ceremony turning 13. And these guys are investing in him and speaking life into him and encouraging him. And they found out later on that West as a competitive gymnast, that the family just was in a position where they didn't have the money, the resources to be able to pay for his gymnastics. And at the time, this was something he really loved and wanted to continue to pursue. And these men came together and said, You know what, we may not have much. But if we pull it all together, and we make some sacrifices in this area of our life, and we do with our family, maybe not going out to eat here, and we could use that and put it together here, then maybe we could all come together and pay for a year of his gymnastics for him so that he can continue. And that is exactly what they did. And that is an expression of the capital S servant who was dwelling in them and expressing his life through them to be a benefit and a blessing to them as a family. What a picture. It really is on Christmas Eve. Now, nine months ago, when we found water in the worship center in the Welcome Center, I still don't know how it happened. But about an hour after that, like I'm running around frantic, trying to figure out what it is that we're doing. And I look up and there's like 75 to 80 of you. And you're showing up and you're like, What can we do to help?
How can we serve today? This is Christmas Eve, I know some of you had family things going on. You had multiple plans to do other things on Christmas Eve, and you showed up here and you stayed for hours getting the water out of that area you stayed for hours bringing because none of these things were here to be able to do our Christmas Eve service in here. And you just kept bringing and hooking stuff up and putting chairs up here so that we could have a Christmas Eve What a beautiful picture. It was of the church brothers and sisters in Christ and the expression of the new heart that he had given you to show up and just say I had other things to do today. There are things that I wanted to be doing today on my day off, but I'm here to serve and there's nothing I'd rather do in this moment right now and I I could tell that I could see it on your faces that is an expression of Jesus Christ, who is the capital as servant expressing his life through you. Did you know that every Saturday since then, for the last nine months, there have been a group of men who show up here every single Saturday to set the chairs out and get the gym ready. Every single Saturday for the last nine months, there are people who are serving in that way, the first eight to 10 of them, do you know what they had to do? Because there was upward basketball going on. And because we want to serve our community in the way that we do, we said we can't cancel upward basketball just because it's an inconvenience to us. And so it didn't finish until 730 At night, so they were coming in at eight o'clock at night, staying for a couple of hours, sometimes past 10 o'clock in the evening to get everything set up for worship that day. And then turning around and showing back up the next morning at eight o'clock. Talk about a servant's heart. Speaking of upward Did you know that John and Nancy O'Sullivan, who helped kind of run our Upward had been serving in upward for a number of years before they officially stepped into that position, and their kids had aged out of the upper program a long time ago. They don't have to keep showing up because there's some obligation to coach their kids or be involved in at this point. They kept showing up from seven o'clock in the morning until two or three in the afternoon on Saturdays for soccer. And then from six or seven o'clock in the morning until seven or eight o'clock at night, during basketball season. And here for many of the practices and then in the evenings. Why? Because they have a servant's heart. And they want to be used to bless others in this community and point them to Jesus along the way. Many of you are Sunday school teachers, for our kids and our adults. Many of you serve on Wednesday nights, many of you serve on our first impressions team, or you serve in a number of other ways around this church, and you could be sitting on the couch, you could just come to the service, you could watch it online, you could just do that and then leave or be at home and not worry about it. You could come not come on Wednesday nights and just stay home and watch TV and be entertained in some other way. You could go throughout your week with having out having to plan a lesson and be creative and find yet another way to teach the material to your group over and over again every single week. But you are choosing not to use your freedom to indulge the flesh, but rather you are serving one another humbly in love. I see it over and over again. And so thank you for that what a blessing it is what a testimony we give God all the glory, honor and praise for how he's led us in the way that we're serving each other and to empower us to serve each other. But today, as we come to the end of this and we are being told again to serve one another somewhere, right to serve one another humbly in love. Even if the Lord has been at work in us to do this in other ways. The question is always as we've ended up every other message, okay, what now God, you've shown me the truth of your scripture, you've shown me what it means. But how does that apply to me today? If I am to serve one another Jesus? What does that look like in my life today? Does that look like him leading you to get involved in serving an actual ministry here, whether that's our kids ministry or student ministry, or our first impressions ministry, our audio video ministry or any other ministry that we have here, as the leading you to serve a neighbor or another brother or sister in Christ, someone in your Sunday school or someone who doesn't know Jesus, someone who's lonely, someone who used to be a part of this church would still maybe call themselves a part of this church, but hasn't been in a really long time? Is he leading you to serve someone this week and in some particular way, my encouragement to you is if the Lord is bringing to mind any one or any way to serve any official ministry and you're beginning to think about that, even in this moment, or he does it later on trust, that is from the Holy Spirit. Don't treat that as if it's just Oh, that was a random passing thought. The Holy Spirit is at work in illuminating His truth. And his job as we land is to show you how it applies to your life. And that happens through him putting people on your mind to speaking to your heart about the way he's wired you and gifted you to play a role in bringing you to partner with this church, not to be served. But to serve one another humbly in love. Are you serving someone humbly in love in this church through your role in the body and if not, why not? He's gifted you. He's empowered you to be a But to do so, we're missing out on you, being involved in the body of Christ. So if he's leading you in some way, putting someone on your heart trust, that is from the Holy Spirit. Now, what do you want me to do with that, Lord? What does that really look like and begin to seek those things out and may not just be true today or this week, but Miss may this be the way that we relate to each other each and every day, as brothers and sisters in Christ not looking to our own interests, but looking to others interests and how we can serve them.