Building Communities of Love

Well, I want to talk a little bit today about the relationship we have to each other, because I know for many of you, this is a special place.

It's a shelter from the rest of your week, the world that's out there that you experience on a daily basis, and you come together on Sunday, and finally, you're with people who share your love for the

Lord, and you don't always have that. Some of you are blessed to have that, but most of us probably don't in our places of employment or the places that we frequent and spend our time, and I've noticed some trends, and I don't know whether it fits this particular church exactly.

If it doesn't, though, I think it's still worth talking about, because I think it's a challenge that could be coming, but I've seen it where I've traveled,

I've seen it at my own church to some extent that I attend, and it is this problem of being involved in each other's life.

Some would call it being a friend. It seems to me like there's less of that.

People are less involved in each other's lives than they used to be, and I'm not that old, so Don can remember when people were really involved,

I'm sure, in each other's lives back when it was an agrarian community and you needed to depend on each other for survival

Well now, that's just not the case. People don't feel as compelled to engage in hospitality, and this of course also affects the church, and if we're not in each other's lives on a regular basis, we don't know each other.

If we don't know each other, we don't love each other. If we don't love each other, we don't really have a church, and then what are we doing? Why do we even come together?

And so I'm not accusing this church of anything in particular. If anything convicts you, then praise

God, and I'll just take that as the work of His Spirit in your life. I know I'm somewhat convicted of this myself, and my wife and I, we've talked not long ago,

I think last week, about the possibility of doing more hospitality ourselves because we want to let the people in our lives that we know, we want them to know that we love them, and we want to know them better so we can love them better, and that will tighten the bond that the church has, but this has application beyond just the church.

We need communities of love everywhere, in our families, in our communities, in our country, in our places of employment if possible.

We need to come together around things we share in common, and we need to show each other that we love each other by sacrificing for each other, and really something as basic as spending time with each other.

So with that in mind, I have a few Scripture passages. The first one, if you guys want to turn there, just put your finger there,

I will be coming to it. You can go to John chapter 14,

I think is where I'm going to start. I'm going to go through what's called the Upper Room Discourse, at least some selected passages from it,

Jesus' instructions before He left this earth to His disciples, and we're going to talk a little bit about that because Jesus calls

His disciples friends, and what does that mean? I want to unpack that a little, and then of course we're going to go to Psalm 133, which we just read, and we're also going to go to Colossians 3.

So those are the three major passages we'll be talking about this morning. So this isn't a typical exegetical sermon where we go through one passage.

This is more topical. We're going to be going through a number of different passages and bringing them together and applying them to what

I think is a problem that many of us may even be familiar with in our own lives, if not in the church, in our families, and other places.

So let me just spell out the problem, give it a little bit more of, put some more meat on the bone so we understand what

I'm talking about. I think detachment from others is built into the course of life now more than perhaps it ever has been.

According to the U .S. Bureau of Labor, employees stay in the same job for less time than they did a decade ago.

In other words, people are leaving jobs and gaining new ones faster. The average

American now moves almost 12 times during the course of their life, and these stats actually are a little old, so I think it's probably a lot more now.

This was from, I think, 2014 or so. Voluntary and civic organizations have also decreased dramatically.

I don't know if you've noticed that, but organizations like veterans' organizations and things, they don't, they're suffering.

They don't have membership. Voluntary organizations for helping the poor, those kinds of things, charitable endeavors, also hurting for volunteers.

And why is that? You know, that's the question that I've been asking. Why is this happening? And it's happening at an alarming pace.

And really, in short, people are just not around each other or working in close proximity as they used to.

And add to this the trend that we see with growing family dysfunction, political polarization, and increased time spent connected to media sources, and it should come as no surprise today that many of us, maybe even in this building, feel isolated and lonely, detached from our communities, from our churches, from our families, from our friends, or maybe we don't even feel that we have real friends.

Now though these trends started, I think, before COVID, COVID certainly did not help, at least the lockdowns.

A 2021 American Perspective survey found that Americans report having fewer close relationships than they once did, talking to their friends less often, and relying less on their friends for personal support.

Now this revelation, which came out in 2021, it made some of the major media freak out a little bit.

So the New York Times tallied up the implications of this increase from serious loneliness to heart disease and stroke.

So in other words, this isolation can lead to negative health benefits. This isn't good. Fortune Magazine, and I'm going to refer to this term because I liked it,

Fortune Magazine called it a friendship epidemic. Friendship epidemic. In other words, we have a problem.

You have, I mean, and they're playing off of the COVID stuff. We have a problem in that we have this epidemic that's out there.

Health wise, they're saying, no, there's actually something, it's not health related as far as it's not a disease or something that negatively affects our health directly.

It's something that indirectly affects our health. It's something emotional. It's something relational. That's the epidemic.

It's a friendship epidemic. Now, some Christians see this as an opportunity to attract new members and why wouldn't they?

In 2010, the Southern Baptist leading thinkers published a blueprint for maintaining and expanding their denomination.

This is the biggest evangelical denomination in the United States, and it focused in part on the need to model community, and I quote, model community in ways are increasingly urbanized and technologically isolated population craze, unquote.

In other words, churches can solve the friendship epidemic by providing a place to belong.

Unfortunately, though, the epidemic affects more than our emotional and our physical health. Churches are also subject to these same forces and Christian leaders know it.

So it's in here, and I'm not saying here as in EFC, but it's in the church and churches, just like it is in places of employment and other areas.

Organizations like the Gospel Coalition, Nine Marks, and G3 Ministries offer solutions to the crisis in things like being more intentionally social at church.

Now, one of the great things I'll say about this church is you have food sitting here. So after the service, and maybe you would stay and talk to each other without the food,

I don't know, but the food definitely helps. People stay together and talk to each other. Not all churches have.

In fact, I don't know that any of the churches when we were traveling had that. Maybe on occasion here and there, but it was rare.

So that's a very positive thing that kind of fosters interaction, but that's a rare thing.

Just know that what you're doing is a good thing, but it's also a rare thing. And so being more intentionally social at church, participating in Bible studies, that's another thing.

Yeah, we need more programs, more Bible studies, more activities. That'll get people involved.

That'll help us get to know people. And treating church membership as a command despite feeling disconnected.

This is one of the articles I wrote that basically the impression I got at the end of the article was like, well,

God commands you to do it, so you should do it. And I thought, oh, I agree with that, but isn't there more to it? And is it just something that we grit our teeth and say,

I'm going to go talk to that person? You know, that just doesn't seem natural. It doesn't seem like a real friendship or a relationship.

It seems like it should be easier. It should come more naturally than that, right? And so these are the solutions that are being put out there.

This one I got a crack, I cracked up about. Christianity Today ran a piece suggesting forming what the author called a

Q place, a Q place, to deal with disconnected young people. Now, this entailed, listen to this.

This entailed a few Christians creating a group to explore spiritual truths by asking questions and reading scripture without the constraints imposed by authority figures.

People used to call that having friends over. Now, it is a new strategy to prevent young people from leaving the church.

If someone discovered this new innovation that we can use, having people over and talking. All of these things can be helpful, but they are rather formulaic and I think fail to address the root issues.

Until recently, most people did not choose the kinds of friends they had based on superficial things like hobbies or entertainment choices.

They simply grew up, worked and married in the same general area as their neighbors. And some of you, you don't even maybe in this area have to be that old to remember that.

They did not consider 29 dimensions of compatibility when dating their significant other from half the way across the country.

Instead, they met people as life unfolded and through shared experience forged bonds of connection.

In general, people were less distracted, more dependent on each other and understood their natural obligations to their family, their community and their church.

Now, in some ways, our grandparents' lives, I'm speaking of my grandparents' life because they grew up,

I would say mostly in that, especially my grandfather in rural Mississippi. Their lives resembled the world during Christ's time more than our current situation,

I think. So Jesus, think about it, spent his time in ministry in an area smaller than the size of Rhode Island among a fairly homogenous group of people who shared the same culture and attended the same places of worship.

They relied on each other for survival and as a result, frequently interacted in professions they held their entire lives.

They weren't moving around for jobs. Jesus himself worked beside the same 12 men almost every day.

Some days you think it might have driven him a little crazy, but he was with them all the time. Hospitality was common.

People frequently invited Jesus into their homes to share meals. There's many accounts of this. Sometimes they left their door open, as Simon did in Luke chapter 7, so others who were not invited could also participate.

Can you imagine that? It's pretty hospitable. Now, because I have a grandfather from Mississippi and I grew up seeing the contrast of New York and Mississippi, and believe me, especially when

I was younger, that was certainly a contrast, still is, I got to know Southern hospitality.

I got to understand that people didn't just close their shades.

When someone came over and then pretend they weren't home or, you know, people invited each other into their homes, they opened the door.

They said, come on in. Yeah, it's a mess, but come on in. And so I remember that. The environment

Jesus was in was more so that way. I mean, leaving your door open so when you have company, other people can just walk in that you didn't invite.

I mean, we would consider that a big invasion of privacy, especially for New Yorkers who really like their privacy and like their big fences and everything, right?

So this is the world Jesus lived in. There were no earphones or tinted windows to maintain privacy.

Instead, people sang and traveled together with their voices and faces exposed to everyone around them. Perhaps this sounds like an introvert's nightmare, but it did ensure friendships and a sense of belonging for most people.

And it was also one of the instruments God used to launch the early church. John stated, and this is in John chapter 13, verse 1.

So I told you to turn to John 14. I guess I'm starting the survey at John 13. John 13, verse 1,

Jesus stated, or John stated rather, that Jesus loved his own who were in the world.

He loved his own who were in the world. Though Christ shared a spiritual connection with his disciples, this sense of ownership that he has of them came in the context of physically living together for three years.

God certainly could have imparted church membership without social interaction. He could have zapped you, so you're a member of the church.

And in a way, when we become Christians, we're members of a church. But he didn't need to include, now you have to practice the one another's.

Now you have to be involved in each other's life. Now you have to get to know each other. Now you have to practice spiritual gifts that complement one another for the building up of the body.

He didn't have to do that, right? But he did that. As is generally the case,

God chose to use natural means to accomplish a spiritual purpose. He chose to use natural means to accomplish a spiritual purpose.

And you see many examples of this throughout scripture, right? Even the coming of Christ as a man, right?

And working as a carpenter and traveling by foot. I mean, he didn't have to do that. He could have had an angel take him or something, right?

But God used his natural means, providence is what we used to call that, to accomplish spiritual things.

You can probably look back in your own life and see examples of this. Friends that showed up at the right time.

People who called you at the moment that you needed it. Maybe you showed up at the right time to prevent something evil from happening.

So we see this kind of providence in our daily lives, hopefully. And if we walk with the

Lord, I think we see it even more. Now, this close connection that Jesus forged with his disciples through both celebration and trial, through all the things that happened during the course of life, is obvious throughout the gospels.

So think about this. It is what made Judas's betrayal an actual betrayal, right?

It stung. Because he had spent so long living and working with Jesus, and the other disciples couldn't believe it, right?

Because there was a relationship there, a real one with a real person. It explains why

Jesus was disappointed when James, John, and Peter fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane before his death, that's in Matthew 26, 40.

And he says, can't you suffer a little longer to be with me? It was a feeling of rejection a little bit.

These are my friends, these are my close companions, and they can't even stay awake during my time of need. It wouldn't have been that way if it wasn't a real relationship, a real friendship.

In Acts 4, 13, Luke recorded that the Jewish religious leaders who opposed the gospel observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were educated and untrained men.

They were amazed and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. So they saw something in them that said, oh, these guys have been with Jesus.

They had a relationship with Jesus, and it's rubbing off, we can see it. So this time spent with Jesus made an impact and became the dividing line between true and false.

The shared intimate experience is also why sorrow filled the disciples' hearts at the prospect of Jesus leaving in John 16.

John 16, verse 16. During the upper room discourse, Jesus used the word abide to describe their relationship.

And I wanna talk about this a little bit. We're gonna go to John chapter 15 and look at a few passages there mostly. He instructed his disciples to abide in him.

This is John chapter 15, verse four, and said, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

Chapter 15, four, chapter 15, 10. He says, these things I have spoken to you while abiding with you.

He told them that after his ascension, they would know the Holy Spirit. And this is 1525, because he abides with you and will be in you.

Now, the word, actually, I think that's 1417. I think I got my reference wrong there for the Holy Spirit.

I think that's chapter 14, verse 17. But he uses this term abide throughout the upper room discourse.

I abide with you, you abide in me, the Spirit will abide with you. What does that mean?

Well, the word abide, meno in the Greek, means to remain in a place. It is the opposite of to go away.

Believers are by nature loyally devoted to their Savior. He does not abandon them, and they do not abandon him.

I remember when Jesus said, and I believe it was Matthew 10, that if you confess me before men,

I will confess you before my father in heaven. But if you don't, I won't, basically. That's the John Harris translation or paraphrase there.

So this is an expected thing as believers, that we are loyal to our master, Jesus. Now, Jesus said, essentially, this is just summarizing all of these passages, that he remained close to his followers, and they were to remain close to him.

The way they did this was by keeping his command. To do what? To love one another. So how do you get close to Jesus?

You know, that's one of the things we all want, right? We wanna be close to Jesus. Well, one of the ways that you become close to Jesus is by loving each other, your spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ.

That's what Jesus said. Now, love should be the goal. I think in all our relationships, not just that one. But within the community of faith, it bears a special significance.

Christ portrayed his command to love one another as a new commandment. Remember he said a new commandment,

I give to you. How is that new? I mean, love, is that new? I mean, we've always had that commandment, right?

Leviticus 19, 18. In that passage, God commanded the people of Israel to quote, love their neighbor as themselves.

I mean, that's repeated and picked up by Jesus, but that was there in Leviticus. So how is what Jesus is saying new?

How is it a new commandment to love? The text indicates that this command to love, and this is in John chapter 13, 34.

You can go back to John 13 if you're trying to follow along here. I know I'm jumping all around the Upper Room Discourse here.

The text indicates that the command applied to, it says, quote, the sons of your...

I'm sorry, this is, I'm back to Leviticus now. I'm jumping around in my own mind. The command to love your neighbor as yourselves in Leviticus applied to the sons of your people, okay?

So this was ethnic ties, shared ethnic ties. However, Jesus in John instituted a new community of love rooted not in the temporal realm, but in an eternal bond produced through the

Holy Spirit. Okay, so what's going on here? Basically, yes, the command of love had always been there.

The Jewish people were to love each other, those who are in their nation. But now there's an entire community, the church predicated on nothing more really than the love that God has, the love we have for each other.

It's built on love itself as the foundation. So in other words, you do not have to be, you don't have to share my family or my culture for me to love you in the universal church.

There's a love there because we love each other because we're related spiritually because of what Jesus has done, okay?

That's new, that's a new commandment to love one another. It's different than the previous command, which was based more on ethnic ties.

John Calvin said of this, he said, "'Because the image of God shines more brightly "'in those who have been regenerated, "'it is proper that the bond of love "'among the disciples of Christ should be far more close.

"'In God, brotherly love seeks its cause. "'From him, it has its root, and to him it is directed.

"'Thus in proportion, as it perceives any man "'to be a child of God, it embraces him "'with the greater warmth and affection.'"

This is the love of God, the love that he has for us. And the outgrowth of this deep abiding love for each other is what

Jesus called friendship. After commanding them to love each other, Jesus told his disciples, and this is in, let's see,

John 16, I believe, like I'm gonna turn there myself just so I don't steer you wrong.

John chapter 16, verse, actually

John 15, I think, verse 15, John 15, 15, he says this, "'No longer do

I call you slaves, "'for the slave does not know what his master is doing. "'But I have called you friends for all things "'that

I have heard from my father I have made known to you.'" Jesus calls his disciples, and I would say in this passage, he's calling us who are in Christ friends.

In other words, Jesus had every right, divinely speaking, to maintain a hierarchical relationship with his followers.

So we would keep his commandments, because he's our master, we're his slaves, and we would bear fruit and do good works and the things that he wants us to do.

He could have done that without calling us friend, but he didn't do it that way. He decided instead to call us friends.

He decided to reveal things to us. He didn't have to reveal to us. Now, if we were just slaves of Christ, that would be a merciful arrangement in and of itself, but we're more than that.

Jesus condescended further than this by befriending sinful humans and treating them with a familiarity shared between friends who simply enjoy disclosing the important matters on their own minds with each other.

So when you have a friend and you go over to their house or you call them on the phone, what are you doing? You're talking about life.

You're letting them know what you think. You want to know what they think. Jesus has that kind of a relationship with us, a friendship relationship.

There's no pressure on that. That's just talking to someone that cares about you and you care about them.

And that's what Jesus says he has with us. Jesus did this in person to the original disciples, and he does so now through the

Holy Spirit. This incredible bond is only made possible through the gospel wherein God reconciled himself to repentant sinners through the application of the merits of Christ's life, death, and resurrection.

This is the greater love that compelled Jesus to lay down his life for his friends. Now we see in Christ's example,

I think a solution. We've gone over the upper room discourse to the friendship epidemic that we have.

This is the solution. Jesus linked his friendship with his disciples to a mutual love grown through shared experience.

So scripture states that he loved them to the end. That's John 13 one.

He loved them to the end. He shared joy, sorrow, service, and sacrifice with them. Now, in one respect, this set of relationships called the church is a new spiritual fellowship, but in another sense, it resembles natural relationships that form organically.

So 1 Peter 2 .9 says this, Peter talking about the church says, he uses designations like a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people for God's own possession.

And these are all earthly things that they would have understood without a church ever being around. They would have known what it was to be part of a race, a nation, they would have, especially

Jews would have understood a royal priesthood. The secret to Christ's friendship with his disciples is really no secret at all.

It simply requires time, effort, and something in common. So Jesus did what friends do outside of even a spiritual community, friends in the world, friends out there in the culture.

Jesus did what they did, only there was a spiritual reality to what he was doing as well.

Christians share the love of Christ. Family members share common ancestry. Workers share common business goals.

Neighbors share frequent interactions. Citizens generally share a common culture. And in each of these cases, there are opportunities for love to grow and friendship to blossom.

Yet people are increasingly reluctant to start the initial stages of getting to know someone when given the choice to do so.

Now in times past, the interaction necessary for life required that friendships form. You didn't have a choice in the matter.

Today, we do not even need to check our groceries out with an actual person at the grocery store.

Think about that. You have some stores, you don't even have the choice. It's gonna be automated. You're not gonna interact with anyone.

And any muscle I think left unused will atrophy. And many people today have simply forgotten how to be a friend.

Some fear rejection. Others are distracted by addictions. Whatever the reason though, without the social trust that comes from mutual affections, our institutions will eventually deteriorate and nothing but brute force will hold them together.

And if we are concerned about the way the government seems to be increasing in power and totalitarianism, this is one of the reasons.

When people don't trust each other, someone has to enforce a type of public trust. You have to have confidence.

A good example of this is in contract law. When my grandfather, because I've heard stories about it, was working in the 1960s and 70s, it was a handshake.

You just shake someone's hand and that was good as a contract. Now we need a team of lawyers to make sure that that person pays.

That's a switch. That's a change. And that change is happening in all kinds of arenas.

As friendships go, as they diminish, the totalitarianism,

I would say, increases. So there are consequences to this.

And of course, if we exclude brothers and sisters from our Christian lives, we will also face spiritual ruin. So add that to this equation.

So we need others. And we read this passage. I want to read it again. Psalm 133, it says this. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.

It is like the precious oil upon the head coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edges of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forever.

And this short psalm, I'm just making a quick argument for why the friendship's important. King David celebrates the scene of worshipers ascending the hill in their journey to Jerusalem for an annual feast.

And throughout history, people applied the first sentence, which says how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity, that line.

They've applied that to all kinds of things, from university mottos to Masonic lodges, to rich estates.

But in context, it refers to the fellowship national citizens enjoyed when they worshiped God together. And hopefully this is what we're experiencing this morning.

The psalmist compared their unity to two things. First, he compared it to the way costly oil was used.

As a symbol of God's blessing for spiritual service. Next, he compared it to the dew on Israel's highest peak, which

Mount Hermon is over 9 ,000 feet. It's the highest peak in Israel. And from this high peak, when the dew and the rain and everything settles, it's known to have weather patterns, it forms rivers.

All the water that comes on Mount Hermon forms rivers. And those rivers produce what? Life, crops can grow, people can live.

So this is what he compares it to. Life would be devoid of the important sustaining grace that God brings without the fellowship people enjoy with each other in worship.

But both of these symbols, they point to rich and valuable social harmony that God brings about through his kindness.

That's what we enjoy in the church. That's why a church that's properly functioning, it contrasts so much with every other institution.

That's one of the ways it does. Because you do have unity. You have a common love. Of course,

God also commends the bond people form in marriage, family, and friendships. King Solomon frequently examined the idea of friendship.

A true friend, Solomon says, loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.

That is Proverbs 17, 17. A true friend is willing to say hard and honest things because they care about the other person.

Solomon observed faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. Proverbs 27, six.

A true friend gives advice in an understanding way. Solomon said, oil and perfume make the heart glad.

So a man's counsel is sweet to his friend. Proverbs 27, nine. He also talked about a friend who sticks closer than a brother,

Proverbs 18, 24. He may have been thinking about his father's friendship with Jonathan, if you'll remember, because the scripture describes that as more wonderful than the love of women, because the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David as Jonathan loved him as himself.

I mean, Solomon would have probably at least heard the stories and known that his father had this close relationship.

So he had a template for what a true friendship would look like. Now, without close friendships, it is unlikely that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or Rachach and Beny, if you watched the cartoon, would be as strong as they were to challenge the

Babylonian empire. They wouldn't have been able to do it, I don't think, without each other. They backed each other up, right?

Moses needed Aaron, Elisha needed Elijah, Ruth needed Naomi, and Timothy needed Paul. Solomon observed, two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.

For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion, but woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.

Furthermore, if two lie down together, they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him, cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

It says that that's an Ecclesiastes. Now, if we think our homes, churches, and country are weakening, perhaps it's related to a lack of human connection.

One thing we cannot do is try to solve this friendship epidemic by burying our already strained lives in more activity or forcing ourselves into friendships we must grit our teeth to endure.

Solomon warned about people who did not make suitable friends. He noted that a perverse man spreads strife and a slanderer separates intimate friends.

He also warned not to associate with a man given to anger or go with a hot -tempered man. There are some relationships we find with experience are detrimental because they set us up for betrayal, they influence us in negative ways, or take away from relationships that are more important.

But we cannot content ourselves to forego friendships because we fear the risks involved. For those who struggle in this area, it is profitable to examine the personal barriers that prevent us from meaningful relationships and ask

God to help us overcome them. For example, you can see this in scripture in Luke chapter 10, verse 41.

There's the story of Mary and Martha. And Mary invites Jesus to her home, their friends, and for a meal.

And as she's preparing it, she complains about her sister, Mary. As Martha, sorry,

Martha's preparing it, she complains about her sister, Mary. Because Mary is anointing Jesus' feet with oil and she's also sitting there and listening to what

Jesus is saying. In other words, they're having human interaction. And Martha just says, I need help, there's something more important here.

And what does Jesus say to her? Jesus has, Jesus corrects her in a gentle way. He corrects her.

And he says that Mary enjoyed the better part, is how some translations put it.

In other words, Mary had the right priorities, which was having a relationship with them.

He's there, he's not gonna be there forever. He's there. A friendship may take time away from other tasks, that's true, but there are not always tasks worth completing in comparison.

It takes work to be part of someone's life, but the rewards are worth it. So that's just one barrier, right? You gotta look at yourself, if any of this convicts you, and examine, what are the barriers in my life?

Is it because there's so many tasks that I've put there that aren't necessary? What is it? Three things seem to drive, in my opinion, this is

John Harris chapter three, verse two, right? Three things seem to drive the current situation more than anything else, in my opinion.

First, people are afraid of rejection. Younger generations whose parents coddled them and sports teams gave trophies to.

I wasn't coddled, but I do remember getting trophies every, I had the worst soccer team when

I was like 14. We lost, I think, more than any other team in our league.

We all got a trophy. You know what I did with it? When I was moving out of the house, I had all these trophies in a box.

Threw them all out, except one. There was one trophy I had that I knew I earned. Got second place in a fishing competition.

So I don't know where it is now, but all my soccer trophies, gone. You know, I didn't earn these. These were participation awards.

Anyway, enough about that rant. Yeah, so my generation is included in this.

I think we came to expect that life would be easy, that things would turn out well, that there was this happy ending, and really whether we deserved it or not.

And because of that, many of my generation and younger never developed the emotional maturity in their cushioned existence to handle rejection.

That's just a fact. When it inevitably happens, because it's life, right? Some of them question their very existence.

Have you ever ran into this? I know breakups can be hard, but sometimes I'm like, you'll live, man.

You will live. It'll be okay. Rejection is a part of life, and some people are not prepared for that.

And if Jesus could not escape rejection, right, he had Judas, what makes you think that you can escape rejection?

We do not know someone until we spend time with them, and in that time, bonds will likely form, sometimes before we even know the character of the person we are forming a connection with.

You run the risk. Is the risk worth it? Jesus thought it was. Second, modern people have a tendency,

I think, towards passivity. Political philosopher Robert Putnam examined this question of why civic organizations were declining as far back as 1996.

He concluded, the culprit is television. That's what he said. This was at a time when Americans watched roughly four hours a day.

Can you believe four hours a day of television? Well, now, today, Americans spend one third of their waking hours on a mobile device and almost seven hours of their day online.

I mean, four hours sounds nice. Only four hours a day? Technology, even entertainment media, can serve a positive function,

I believe. Obviously, I make a living in part based on this, but when it turns our attention to higher things, that's when it's good.

Too much of it, though, and certain forms of it can pacify our minds. Pornography promises pleasure without intimacy.

Video game adventures allow people to enjoy dangerous activities without risk. And social media offers friendships without vulnerability.

In each case, people are in danger of buying into a delusion that takes them out of the world of meaningful connection.

They think they're connecting, and they're not. Third, and I'm wrapping up here, some people do not know what being a friend is because they have never observed it in practice.

This is one of the saddest things to me. Family dysfunction and social breakdown place them in a position where they had no examples to follow.

They may not know how to invite someone over for a meal because they never saw it done, or let someone know they care through a sympathy card or a birthday present.

Fortunately, ignorance is easily cured, and the Bible is filled with positive examples of friendship. In Paul's letter to the church at Colossae, he describes the way

Christians should live together. It's in Colossians 3, verses 12 through 16, if you wanna turn there.

This is a final passage I wanna leave in your minds as we depart. There are four things that he described that help us in accomplishing living together.

And this is, of course, in the context of church. We can divide them, I think, into two categories. First, Paul commands us to actively cultivate kindness and love, okay?

Second, he commands us to passively allow the peace of Christ and the word of Christ to have their way with us.

And so I'll read it. This is Colossians 3, verses 12 through 16. So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the

Lord forgave you, so also should you. Behold, all things put on love, beyond all things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.

And be thankful that the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And the crown jewel of this passage is verse 14, where Paul says, beyond all these things put on love.

This sometimes takes work. It may mean helping a friend instead of watching a television show, right?

Or something else. This, however, is the perfect bond of unity. There is no true unity without it.

Without love, you don't have it. It just doesn't exist. You won't have a church. You don't have a community. Not a real one, at least.

Love is the glue that binds us to each other, and it's what binds us to Christ. Now, the good news is that God will give you the patience, sometimes we need that, and the love that we need through his peace and word.

Okay, so the resources are there. It's not, you don't have to do an extra thing. It's not a formula. You don't have to form a Q group. You just have people over if you want.

But it's not about doing this extra thing. His peace drives out the fear of rejection because we know someone who always receives us into his presence.

So if someone rejects me, that's okay. I know someone who accepts me and receives me,

Jesus Christ, and he always will. We also know nothing we do for others is wasted when we do it for God first.

Let me repeat that. We also know nothing we do for others is wasted when we do it for God first. Okay, so if you're helping someone else, if you're getting to know someone else, it's not always about you and what you're going to get in return.

I hope you do get something in return. You get some mutual affection forms. But even if you don't, if you're doing it for the

Lord, it's still worth it, all right? There's a higher purpose in that as well. His word provides examples of friendships.

It lessened our appetite for vain things that prevent them. And it gives us the resources we need to cultivate them.

So being in his word, letting it dwell in your hearts, letting his peace dwell in you, those are the keys to unlocking that door of friendship, fellowship, and unity, not just in the church, but beyond that, into the other institutions and organizations and family units that we're part of.

So I hope that this was, maybe this was a challenge to some of you, but I hope that this was helpful.

Even if it doesn't, maybe you got this together. Maybe you're engaging in fellowship and hospitality, and this is something that you're good at.

I'm sure there's many here who are. But even if you are, it's good to be aware that this problem exists out there.

It's a real problem. And you can be the example for others. You can show them, the people who don't know how to do that, if someone doesn't know how to do hospitality, invite them over first, they can watch you.

And that's how they learn. So with that, let's close with a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for these precious passages that you've given us about friendship, about unity.

Lord, Lord, we know that your church is important. It is your institution for saving the world.

It is the love that we have that others look to in the world and see that you are real, that your love is true.

Father, I pray this morning that the love here and the love throughout the churches of this country and this world would exemplify your love.

Truly, Lord, that there would be forgiveness where there are wrongs, where people have hurt each other, that there would be humility, that there would be sympathy for others who are bearing burdens, or that there would be joy as we go through the exciting things of life, the blessings, that we would share those together as well.

Lord, and that we would not live as hermits dying alone without anyone who knows who we are,

Lord, that that is not the existence that you want for us. And so, Lord, I pray that if there are those here struggling today with not having friends or wanting more of a connection and not seeing it,

Lord, that you would give them grace, that you would provide friends for them, that they will be able to make their way through this life with the support that comes from that.