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Rooted in Community | Colossians 4:7-18 · Saint City Chapel

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Well, good morning, same city. It's good to see you guys today.
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I before we get into the message, I just want to say
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quickly. I'm so excited for this
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Christmas season here. This is our inaugural Christmas
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as a church plants. We've been living around for,
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you know, a few months now, and to have our first Christmas
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together feels like, you know, a chance to set a tradition.
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I don't know if you've had that opportunity to like know what's
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going to be our tradition, but at same city, I just can't wait
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to share with you all that God's been doing and what he did at
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Christmas by sending his son for us to be born.
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But to have tradition start as a church family, it's such a
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great, great and incredible opportunity.
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Our service is going to be at 4:30 on Christmas Eve.
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We'll have services on the Sundays before and after as
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well. But hey, we just want to
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celebrate the birth of Jesus with you and your friends and
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your loved ones. So be sure to invite people.
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We'll have invite cards after the service available for you
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next week. I just want to highlight for
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that for you, as well as two other quick things after
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service, say at 1:30 PMA group of us are going to be heading
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out. I hope you saw my e-mail where
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you're heading out into the neighborhood here to just pray
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and to scatter and to go about this neighborhood and to invite
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God to do something special here in this neighborhood in
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Gilliland. That there are almost 1500
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people here, 600 homes that are right here for us to be a light
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for Jesus too. And so we just want to steward
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that well. So if you want to come be a part
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of, go grab some lunch after the service, then come on back.
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We'll be meeting that parking lot up at the front.
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And so please come join us for Christmas outreach after church
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today and be cheering on the Bears while you do so.
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Please, Chicago Bears says, go ahead and turn your Bibles to
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Colossians chapter 4. Colossians chapter 4.
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I'll meet you there in just a moment.
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This is our last week of the series rooted in Rising.
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We have been in this since early September.
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We've been marching line by line, paragraph by paragraph,
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verse by verse through this letter written to a group of
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people in a town called Colossi. So this is our final section of
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the letter. And so I'll be unpacking for you
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in just a moment. But before we do, I just want to
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bring you back to a time in my life that was in the 6th grade,
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OK, We little boy. I was and I was in Frisco, TX.
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I had moved from Illinois to Frisco, TX, where I knew nobody.
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I know a single person in Frisco except for my brothers and my
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parents. And I had to do the dreaded
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thing that every middle school has to do.
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I had to go to the first day of 6th grade, Not only have to do
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the first day of 6th grade, I had to do it in a new state, not
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only a new state, right? I got all these new people and
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I'm like, oh man, 6th grade, I'm a little today.
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I'm a pretty confident person by nature, but this, this pushed on
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that for me. And I remember the experience.
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I go to the lunch hall. It's it's early in the day.
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We had lunch, like had a horrible hour for lunch.
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These middle school schedules 6/10/30 in the morning.
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OK. And I remember getting to the
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lunch room and having that like panic moment in my brain, like,
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why am I going to sit? Who do I want to sit with?
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Oh, that, that table does not look like it's for me.
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That table looks like I want to be at that table.
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They don't look like they like me.
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Oh, this seems like a good spot. There's enough people nearby
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that don't look like the the loner.
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But I kind of want to meet some people.
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So I just remember sitting down by myself and having this
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profound sense of loneliness. And I remember going man there's
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so many people around me right now but I feel all alone.
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I feel like there's nobody looking out for me here.
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And I remember just like what is this feelings?
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I got 3 little brothers. I'm not used to be feeling
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lonely but they're at a cafeteria in Frisco, TX.
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Was one of my first memories and experiences of being lonely.
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When was the last time you felt the sting of loneliness?
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It's a very human experience. It's deeply human.
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All of us experience at some extent or more, you see.
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But the thing about the experience is it has deeply
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damaging side effects. Let me read a few of them for
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you. That over One in three adults
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say they feel slowly, frequently, or almost all the
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time. One in three adults.
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One in four adults report to having zero close friends.
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That nearly 50% of Gen. C reports feeling lonely most of
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the time. And those are all emotional
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problems. But the thing about loneliness,
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it doesn't just affect us emotionally, but physically.
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That the current data actually says it's the equivalence, that
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the experience of loneliness is the equivalence of smoking 15
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cigarettes a day. It's a real problem.
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But how does God's Word reveal to us a better way?
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How does God help us move past loneliness and into
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relationship, into community? See, I think He gives us right
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here in Colossians chapter 4, an example to follow in the apostle
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Paul, a person who could have experienced loneliness in the
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midst of great ministry, but instead found family in the
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midst of ministry and advancement.
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He experienced the joy of being in true community.
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Would you listen to God's words? It says this.
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There's a bunch of names here, and you're saying confident.
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When you read the Bible, by the way, you don't know how they're
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pronounced. No, neither is anybody else.
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He's reading confidently. They believe you.
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OK, Certificates, verse 7. He'll tell you all about all my
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activities. He is a beloved brother and a
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faithful minister and fellow servants in the Lord.
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I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know
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how we are and that he may encourage your hearts.
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And with him, Onissimus, our faithful and beloved brother,
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who is one of you, they will tell you of everything that's
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taken place here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner,
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he greets you. And Mark, the cousin of
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Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions.
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If he comes to you, welcome him and Jesus, who is called
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justice. These are the only men of the
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circumcision among my fellow workers for the Kingdom of God,
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and they have been a comfort to me.
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And Patrice is one of you, a servant of crises.
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He greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers,
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that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of
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God. For I bear in witness that he
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has worked hard for you. And for those in the neighboring
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towns, Laodicea and in Hierapolis, give my greetings to
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the brothers of Laodicea, Antonympha and the church that
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meets in her house. And when this letter has been
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read among you haven't also read in the Church of the Laodiceans
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and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.
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I said archivist, see that you fulfill the ministry that you've
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received in the Lord. I, Paul, write the screen with
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my own hand. Remember my chains grace be with
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you. Those are God's words for us
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today. I want to help you grab them for
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your life. I want to help you apply them to
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your life because not just knowing God's truths is
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important, but also applying them to your life is where the
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real life change, the real transformation for your
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loneliness is going to happen. And here's a big idea.
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This is what Paul's example teaches us is that my life needs
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a community as much as it needs a cause.
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My life needs a community. It needs people around me.
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It needs committed relationships.
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It needs this around me just as much as I need a cause, a
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mission, a purpose for my life. I need people in my life.
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Let me give you a definition of loneliness that comes from
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author Susan Mattis. She says this loneliness is the
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distress someone feels when their social relationships don't
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meet their need for connection. Loneliness is the experience.
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It's the distress someone feels when what they're looking for
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socially amongst relationships, they're not getting those needs
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met through people and that God's antidote for that is
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people community committed life changing relationships that will
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result in transformation for your life.
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That's what God's antidote for us.
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So how is that we participate in Gospel community?
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How is it that we see that life change through these
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relationships? I want to give you three ways to
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fight loneliness, three ways to participate in Gospel community.
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The 1st is this that I participate in community when I
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first rely on God's charity through I participate in gospel
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community. I participated in the community
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when I rely on God to carry me through.
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Go to the end of the letter. We're going to reverse over here
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a little bit. We're going to start with this
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portion that it says in verse 18.
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I, Paul write this greeting with my own hand.
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Remember my chains and grace be with you.
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That phrase grace be with you is it should be ringing in your
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eardrums about how most letters from Paul starts and this one's
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no exception. Chapter one verse one says this.
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Let me read it back to you. It says that sorry, it's an
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extra page in my Bible here. Apollo an apostle Christ used by
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the will of God and Timothy, our brother to the Saints and
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faithful brothers in Christ, the philosophy grace to you and
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peace from our God and father. So the letter starts with grace
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to you and now Paul's ending the letter with grace be with you.
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Why does he say it that way? Wait, why does why does Paul say
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grace to you now grace be with you?
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Because God's words are quite literally God's voice.
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That the grace that you need is God's voice in your life.
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The thing you need to be carried through, the thing you need to
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be carried through loneliness and through trial and through
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this life is unique people around you.
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And one of the people's voices you need in your life is God's
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voice being the grace in your life, the gift over your life.
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It's his voice is what you need because loneliness actually
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pulls you and points you back to God.
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Listen, what AW Tozer says. He said it is this very
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loneliness that throws man back upon God.
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His inability to find human companionship drives him to
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seeking God what he can find nowhere else that Paul starts
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the letter and ends the letter with the grace of God's voice in
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your life. Because guess what, community
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will fall short in your life at some point in time, people will
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hurt you. People will let you down.
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People will abandoned, quite literally in this moment.
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We'll look what he says next. Remember my chains.
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Paul is in prison. He can't be with these people,
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but he wants to be with these people.
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He's limited. And so we need to recognize that
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loneliness is a grace that pulls us back in a relationship with
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God and with people. It's a gift intended to pull
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worship and connection and fellowship with God and with
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people. It's what God's heart is for us.
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It's a lowliness we turned into a grace, the grace of hearing
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God's voice instead of others. And when Paul writes, remember
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my change, you see that there in your Bible, remember my change.
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He is literally suffering. He is writing this letter from a
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prison cell, and his circumstance could have forced
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him to say God left him, that God is mistreating him by this,
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that he disobeyed God. But he's taking this moment to
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encourage the Colossian people that God is carrying him
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through. In the middle of his suffering.
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God's voice is shaping and directing and guiding his life
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all the more that he is relying on God to carry him through.
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And we need to learn to rely upon God because you can be
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lonely and be all around people. Loneliness isn't just where
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you're sitting alone at the lunch table.
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Loneliness more often is a people are all around you and
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you feel all alone. So the loneliest people I know
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are married. Some of the loneliest people I
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know are in a small group. So the loneliest people I know
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have people all around them. I think Justin Bieber has said
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this really well, Ash, he writes a song just kind of unpacking
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what it was like to be famous at a young age.
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He he writes like this, like what if you had everything?
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What if you had it all? Money, fame, power, beauty, you
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had it all, but you didn't feel like you had a single person you
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could call. Then you would know.
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It's likely to me because he's he writes.
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I've had everything, but there's nobody listening to me.
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And that's just really lonely. Could you imagine having
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millions of Instagram followers, A posse following you all around
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and the misery of a lonely existence like that?
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You see, it is possible to feel lonely in the midst of people.
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And I think there's some of us here today that would actually
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say that you don't experience loneliness.
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You're you're one of the people's like, hey, I'm not
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lonely or hey, worse, you're like, hey, I don't even need
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God. I got me, I got my people.
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I don't need God for this. I'm I'm fine actually, I don't
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want God for this. I don't need God for community.
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I don't need him to help me to get through.
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Well, in the Garden of Eden when God created Adam and Eve, he
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said when it was just Adam before he created me.
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It is not good for man to be alone.
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You know what that means? It means that loneliness was
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even a problem in paradise. That it's not just the result of
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sin, but actually that God actually designed us to be in a
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relationship with people. That that God and he's carrying
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you through is actually pointing you to other people in addition
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to Him. That you need God and you need
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people. That's how you were made to
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function as a human being. That's how you intended to bear
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His image. And the number one obstacle to
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not relying upon God is this. It's unbelief.
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You know what stops you from relying upon God in the midst of
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community struggles? It's unbelief because we trade
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belief for cynicism. That He won't bring us the
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people that we need in our life. We'll trade belief for doubt
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that his plans and the people he has in our life are good ones.
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Or we'll trade belief in God for belief in lies, that if nobody
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loves us, then certainly God would reject us too.
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At the bottom of our reliance on our own selves instead of
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relying upon God is unbelief. We don't turn to God in our
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loneliness because at the bottom of the bottle of our pain is
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unbelief. And that just whispers to us
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that we don't believe the good news.
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You know, we're missing the gospel that we were made to
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experience community, but we struggled to have it and to
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experience it and to do it. Why So?
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All kinds of reasons. We struggle to have it because
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we trade the convenience of digital like connection and the
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shallowness of that for the sacrifice of creating real
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relationship. We selfishly protect ourselves
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from others because we don't want to get hurt again.
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We fear others will reject or misunderstand us.
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So we pull away from community. We pull away from a lying upon
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God because deep down that unbelief is still gripping our
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hearts. But Jesus freed us from the fear
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and shame of being fully known and fully loved.
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So the insecurity you experience socially is because you are
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afraid of being fully known and fully loved.
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And Jesus knows what it's like to be lonely.
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Think about it. He was abandoned by his friends,
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left to die alone. Only John and his mom were
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there. He was hated by the world so
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much that they killed him. He was misunderstood by the
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masses, saying things like, hey, isn't he just like a Carpenter
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son? Like isn't his dad the one who
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made my door? Jesus experienced loneliness.
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He experienced it so he can sympathize with you.
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He knows what it's like to be lonely.
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We have a Savior who knows what it's like to be lonely.
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And you know He did. He went and died.
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So you and I could have the relationship that we need with
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Him and the relationship that we need with others.
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That He could invite us into community, that He could invite
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us into friendship with God. Because He's the friend who will
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never leave you, who will never abandoned you, who will never
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forsake you when others do, when others will.
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You have a friend in Jesus, the friend of sinners who will not
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leave you alone, but who will be in your life and a part of your
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life wherever you go. He's a friend who sticks closer
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than a brother who in others would cancel you or leave you.
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He won't, and now we don't have to experience Halloween.
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It's not because of our earning or deserving of it, but because
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of Jesus, because of the cross. We have good news.
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The good news that Jesus is the one we can rely upon.
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Even our community fails us. That's why we started in verse
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18, because we need God's grace to give us a paradigm, give us a
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perspective about the other things we need to do.
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That's the vertical layer of community, but now we need to
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get into the horizontal because we need community in our lives.
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So the second thing that we need to do to participate, we don't
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just need to rely upon God, we need to raise up people around
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us. How do you participate in
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community? Do you rely upon God to carry
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you through when community fails you?
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Yes. But that is not an excuse to not
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get after it and seek community in your life.
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So how do you seek it? How do you fight loneliness?
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You raise up people around you. Look back at the letter verses 7
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through 17 and you will see 10 names there. 10 names.
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Now across Paul's letters and all the New Testament he has
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over 90 people he lists as his ministry like network people he
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does work with for the ministry. And here we find 10 of those
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names. I broke them up into categories
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where you just understand who these people are.
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First you have the messengers. You have Typicus and Anissimus.
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These were the people who literally left wherever Paul was
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in prison and brought it to the people of Colossae.
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Then you have the Jews. Do you see that in your Bible,
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how it says there in verse 11 that these are the only men of
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the circumcision? That's code for Bible speak for,
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hey, these men are Jewish and you have three of them.
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You have Aristarchus, Justice and Mark.
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We'll get back to Mark in just a moment.
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Then you have the Gentiles. You have Luke and Demas and
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Epaphras. This is where we learn Luke is a
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doctor. We hear about Epaphras again,
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the pastor of the Church of Philosophy, and we have Demas.
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More on him in just a moment as well.
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And then you have two local leaders.
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You have Nimfa, a rich lady who the church met at her house, and
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you have archivist who is likely a pastor to one of those
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neighboring towns. These are the people that Paul
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is highlighting for them and saying hey.
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These people, I know them, I love them, I've invested in
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them. I'm an apostle Christ Jesus.
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I have personally been at work in ministry with these people
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and they're all greeting you. They all care about you.
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They all want to see you flourish.
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Church. And these are all people that
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Paul by example for us has shown us what it's like to still have
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people you're investing in even from prison cell.
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Paul's investing in people. That's crazy, by the way, how
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many excuses we like to get in the way of investing in other
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people. And Paul's like prison.
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I'll just keep going, you know, I'll just keep investing in
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others, keep having a person that I'm disciple.
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Keep going about it. He had 10 names here who he
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built up, 10 names of people he had relationships with that
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resulted in life change. And those there's three names I
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want to highlight for you that you might not know some of the
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surrounding story around them. First you have John Mark.
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Now Mark is just his Roman name. That's why Justice has two names
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as well. It's just they're Roman names.
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They have Roman name. Names make it easier in a
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foreign language context. But Mark, you might have know
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this about him. He's Barnabas's cousin, but also
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him and Paul got in such a beef one time about ministry.
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They literally went separate ways.
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We don't know what the argument was about.
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We don't know why they're upset with each other.
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We just know Mark's like Paul. Yeah, I'm done doing a ministry
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with you. Yeah, We're not going to do this
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anymore. Mark's going to go with his
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cousin Barnabas. And Paul.
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Paul was actually the one who was more like, yeah, Mark, I
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really don't want to do a ministry with you anymore.
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We're good with that. We don't know what the nature of
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the beef was. We just know that there was real
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conflict and let them go separate ways.
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And here we find after the fact that they're reconciled.
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This is after that happened in the book of Acts.
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I wonder if you have some in your life you've already written
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off that you guys have gone your separate ways in ministry or in
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relationship, but God's not actually done writing this
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story. That Mark is actually an example
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of what it's like to keep chasing community and
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relationship in the midst of having that common cause.
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So you have John Mark, but you also have Luke.
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He's the only Gentile author of the entire Bible, the only one.
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He wrote the book of Luke, wrote the book of Acts, possibly, we
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don't know for sure, Wrote the book of heroes.
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My personal opinion is that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, but
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Luke was going to transcribe it. That's my personal opinion.
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But Luke is the only Gentile author in the Bible.
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And when he heard Paul was going away from Mark and Barnett, he's
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like, I'll go with Paul because Paul's definitely going to need
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a doctor, OK? Like, this guy gets into trouble
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everywhere he goes. He gets stoned, beaten to death.
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I need to go with I need to go with Paul.
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That's not actually the text. That's just me thinking Luke's
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or an actual person who thought about Paul, like or a person,
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right. OK, so you have Luke, the
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Gentile author who stayed by Paul's side all the way.
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A broken relationship, a consistent relationship.
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And then you have the heartbreaking relationship,
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Demas. Demas at this point in the New
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Testament in the life of the church, he's in on making the
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silence. But Second Timothy 4 tells us
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this, that later on, Demas, in love with this present world,
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leaves Paul, completely jumps out of whatever they're doing
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together. You can expect all three types
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of relationships in your community.
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People who break your heart with going at the face of the world,
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people who are confidants and absolute allies like Luke, and
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people like Mark who are going to maybe see things differently
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than you but are still about like you are.
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Relational suffering is what loneliness is.
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That's the biblical category for loneliness.
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It's relational suffering. And we can let these types of
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people drive us toward community, or it can pull us
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away from community. And just because loneliness is
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growing, because relational suffering is immense, it need
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not steal our joy, but it is growing.
24:35
And there's an epidemic of loneliness.
24:37
One off the rights. Here's 4 categories for why
24:40
loneliness is growing in our world today.
24:42
First, that there's a lack of stability.
24:44
People are moving more in our country than they ever have
24:46
before. They're moving jobs.
24:47
They're moving zip codes. They are moving.
24:49
And that mobility has created loneliness everywhere.
24:53
Not only lack of stability, but a lack of embodied presence.
24:57
The rise of social media, this digital substitution.
25:00
It's a quantity of contact but not a quality of connection.
25:05
So people are getting increasingly lonely because
25:07
they're dealing with the gap of they're not omnipresent.
25:11
They can't be everywhere with people all the time.
25:13
And they feel like, Oh my gosh, I'm being left out.
25:18
It's also because our lack of structures.
25:20
Neighborhoods aren't what they used to be.
25:22
Schools aren't what they used to be.
25:23
Family connections. They're not like you're not as
25:26
connected to those structures as people used to be.
25:30
But also you have those three things.
25:33
Then you have this, the presence of pain.
25:37
One of the deceptive things about loneliness is the when
25:40
you're feeling lonely, the lonelier you feel, the harder it
25:43
is to begin to initiate relationships, making the issue
25:47
worse. It compounds your loneliness.
25:51
Those are all driving us towards more and more and more
25:55
loneliness. And what happens is we settle
26:01
for shallow, shallow community rather than deep community.
26:07
Think of it like this, that we're like snorkeling along the
26:11
surface of community. We're an inch deep, a mile wide,
26:17
experiencing some of the joy, some of the benefits of it, but
26:20
not experiencing the joy of the depth of a scuba diving with
26:24
brain where if you go deep, you can behold different wonders,
26:27
different treasures, different glories of the ocean that we're
26:34
settling for, shallow and deepest available to every
26:39
single one of us. So how are we going to do?
26:44
How are we going to raise people up?
26:47
How are we going to actually invest in people like Paul did?
26:49
I mean, he was in a prison cell. How are we going to do it?
26:51
How are we going to put others before our own selves?
26:54
Well, here's three ships that I want to talk to you about, OK.
26:57
It's friendship, discipleship and mentorship. 3 ships that I
27:01
think will help you go deeper in your life and the people you are
27:05
investing in. The first is friendship.
27:06
CS Lewis says it this way. The friendship begins when one
27:09
person says to another, Wait, what?
27:11
You 2? I thought I was going.
27:13
It was that way that one of the ways to find all this is just to
27:15
find common ground and connection.
27:17
Voice. Oh, you start with that too.
27:18
Oh, you've liked that too. Oh, you're about that too.
27:21
Awesome. Let's have a friendship, but
27:25
don't let fear of being life stop you from initiating.
27:30
Don't let that. Don't let that hold you back.
27:32
Safe city. Let's be a church that's not
27:33
afraid of other people. Let's be a church that initiates
27:37
relationships and friendships and look for common ground and
27:39
connection with people. And to have friends, you got to
27:41
be a friend. If you're lonely, chances are
27:46
the place to start is you go be a good friend to somebody and
27:49
watch as that returns, returns back in your life, making
27:53
commitment to being a friend. Friendship, second discipleship.
27:56
Discipleship is the other ship. You're probably lonely because
27:59
you're like the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is over the
28:02
Mediterranean, and guess what? It has a lot of salt water
28:04
coming in, none going out, a lot of the intake, no outflow.
28:12
So guess what? It's got salt water and it's
28:13
just a Dead Sea. You might be like that where you
28:17
have a bunch of people pouring into you, a bunch of consuming
28:22
from the church and not contributing.
28:25
Madison invites you to what God is in a better design for you,
28:28
that you are a disciple who makes disciples.
28:31
That's the that is the Great Commission to go and make
28:35
disciples of all nations. So find somebody that you're
28:37
like, Hey, I don't know everything it is to follow
28:39
Jesus, but I can help you learn how to read your Bible.
28:41
Hey, I don't know everything it is to follow Jesus, but you know
28:43
what I can I can memorize about verse with you this week.
28:45
Hey, I want to talk to you about that, about your life, some
28:47
wisdom. I want to get a smaller with
28:48
you. I want to serve on a team with
28:50
you that you jump in on discipleship with people.
28:54
It's the mission that we're about and we have to find
28:57
people. Every single one of us.
28:59
Making disciples is for the church.
29:01
It's not for the paid staff. It's for everybody that calls
29:04
themselves a Christian, that you are intended to find people to
29:07
pour your life into. Not just giving them content,
29:10
but give them your life, your very self and say, hey, I don't
29:15
have it figured out how to be a husband or a wife, but you can
29:18
come over and have dinner with us and you can watch how we
29:19
interact. Hey, we can meet up for coffee
29:22
and we can talk about your life. This is discipleship.
29:25
It's teaching people how to take their next step with Jesus, and
29:28
every single one of you is more than capable of that, that you
29:31
can go make disciples of all nations.
29:33
You can help us as we gather ordinary regular people to take
29:37
their next step with an extraordinary God.
29:40
Come join the mission of Saint City.
29:42
Come be about the mission of Saint City, the mission of the
29:44
Bible, that we are called to make disciples of all nations.
29:48
Paul was about it, even from a prison cell.
29:53
And 3rd in final shift that I just want to highlight for you
29:55
is mentorship and a church context like ours where we got a
29:58
bunch of college students in the room.
29:59
We got a bunch of 20 somethings in the room.
30:00
We have a bunch of people who are in their 30s and 40s and 50s
30:03
too. But guess what?
30:04
If you're looking for mentorship, if you're in that
30:06
boat, listen to me. Don't look for a mentor.
30:10
Look for mentors, plural. Anybody want a mentor by toys at
30:14
the time to decide for you in every category of their life.
30:17
But if you grab them for lunch and say, hey, how do you budget?
30:19
Hey, how did you land that job? Hey, how did what you do with
30:21
your summers? Hey, how did you meet your wife?
30:23
Hey, what'd you do when you met your wife?
30:25
How did you know? You can ask them questions like
30:27
that. Find a mentor of young people.
30:31
Find mentors, plural, and find categories that you want to
30:34
emulate their life and take them up to lunch, take them out to
30:36
coffee, call them up on the phone.
30:38
We would love to do that. Initiate 20 somethings.
30:43
Older people listen up, go find the young person and say, hey,
30:47
you looking for somebody to disciple you?
30:48
I'd love to jump in on that. Go for it.
30:50
Consider yourself Commission, OK, friendship, discipleship,
30:54
mentorship, Ken 3rd and finally raising people up.
30:58
We're relying on God and finally we're letting people build us
31:02
up. That's why we ended with
31:03
mentorship. It's because you need to be
31:05
built up. Paul needed strengthening and
31:09
encouragement. Look at just some of the ways he
31:12
describes these people that take a kiss is a beloved brother,
31:15
faithful minister and fellow servants in the Lord that he may
31:19
encourage the Colossian hearts Onissimus, our faithful beloved
31:23
brother. He's one of you.
31:24
Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner more than likely by the way,
31:28
Aristarchus volunteered to go to prison with Paul.
31:32
That's how about the mission. He was he's like, you know what
31:34
Paul, I'm not going to leave you by yourself.
31:35
That's the kind of community members darkest was he's like
31:38
you're going to prison me too. I guess I have so many jokes
31:43
that I want to say but I can't say.
31:45
Then you have Mark who's encouraging Jesus, which is a
31:49
common name back then, but he was called justice.
31:51
These are the only men of the circumcision by fellow workers.
31:54
They're a great comfort me. Do you see that phrase right
31:56
there and they have been a comfort to me.
31:58
These are people that were meaningful to Paul and hear me
32:01
out. If the apostle Paul needed
32:04
encouragement. If the apostle Paul needed
32:07
strengthening. If the apostle Paul needed
32:11
community, you need one too. You need it.
32:18
You need people in your life. We're going to uphold you.
32:22
We're going to strengthen you. We're going to challenge you.
32:25
We're going to be there for you and with you.
32:28
You need it. Latest data says this.
32:32
And in the church, the most lonely people are not visitors,
32:35
but regular attenders who haven't found relational
32:38
footholds. That, according to Varna, people
32:41
who attend church less than once a month are also nearly twice as
32:45
likely to report serious loneliness as weekly attenders.
32:49
That is true for both of us. What is that saying that
32:51
everybody slowly becomes church just about?
32:55
God has something better in mind that just because you're
32:58
attending doesn't mean your belonging.
33:01
You got to get into the mix. You got to go deeper with people
33:06
and home, family. It's less about where you come
33:09
from and more about where you feel truly known and truly seen.
33:14
And sitting in a row like this doesn't cut that.
33:17
It doesn't get you there. You need more than this.
33:21
You need more than this to fight the loneliness in your life
33:24
because families fight together. Families survive together.
33:27
Families stay together in the midst of hard things.
33:31
And if it gets hard in your life, and it will, you will want
33:35
a community around you. You will need a community around
33:39
you. You will need a family, a
33:45
spiritual family to be there for you.
33:51
A found family. The theme of found family is not
33:56
just a biblical theme. It's a theme our world is
33:58
obsessed with. Here's how I can tell you
34:00
Hollywood is obsessed with found families.
34:02
Let me give you some examples. Guardians of the Galaxy, a bunch
34:07
of weirdos, misfits, ragtag crew, that's their family.
34:11
They they literally fight and survive, die.
34:12
Again, if you're not like a superhero person, that's a
34:15
superhero movie. But maybe you'll like this one.
34:17
OK. Band of brothers found family or
34:21
military found family. Keep going with Hollywood.
34:26
Harry Potter found family. Star Wars found family.
34:32
My personal favorite Sandlot found family.
34:35
Damn the TV show Friends Popular.
34:41
Why? Because people have a craving
34:46
and desire for family, where they're known and seen and loved
34:53
despite all their flaws, all their idiosyncrasies, all their
34:57
gaps. People were wired to matter and
35:02
people were wired to belong. How God made us.
35:08
It's to be on the team and to play for the team.
35:10
So here's my invitation to you. It's to join the team at St.
35:14
Sydney. That's like an application point
35:17
for you. Obviously, that's not what the
35:19
text says. What the text is getting at is
35:22
the idea of unique people around you to build you up.
35:26
How do we do that at St. Sydney?
35:28
Worshiping and services is certainly a part of that, but it
35:31
is just like the shallow end of the pool.
35:34
Come deeper and experience the joy and the gift of real
35:38
community, the community that you need.
35:40
Don't let her hold you back anymore.
35:43
Don't let your story stop you anymore.
35:46
Jump in and join a team. We're going to have groups
35:49
launching in January. My invitation to you is to join
35:52
that. In fact, how could you actually
35:53
throw up the Christmas graphic real quick?
35:56
Christmas is coming and I want to use that QR code.
35:58
That's the way to sign up for the Christmas services.
36:00
That's another point. Disregard.
36:01
I've seen the QR code because here's where you can sign up for
36:03
a team or group. If you're interested in going
36:06
deeper with Sane City, this is the place to sign up now.
36:09
QR code will take you to a space on our website where you're
36:13
like, hey, I want to join a team, I want to get in a group
36:16
and this is where we're going to rally together.
36:18
We're hanging on what we're not settling for the shallow end of
36:21
connectedness anymore. We're not settling for just
36:23
coming to church and not knowing people.
36:25
We're not setting for church. We're just singing a few songs
36:26
and going. We're actually going into God's
36:28
invitation for us, the deep community that we long for, that
36:32
we need that God is calling us into.
36:34
He's saying, hey, I have something better in mind than
36:36
just singing songs on Sundays and hearing God's word.
36:39
That is a good thing. That is a needed thing, but it's
36:42
not the entire thing. That life change happens best in
36:45
circles rather than rows, and you need real community to fight
36:50
your loneliness. You need people that send you a
36:54
text when you got a hard day at work.
36:58
You need people you can confess sin to, that you feel safe to do
37:02
so because you know them and they know you.
37:06
You need a people that you can invite to lunch even after
37:08
service today and go, You know what?
37:10
That's my church family. Like a family.
37:13
Guess what? We got chores to do, bills to
37:15
pay, and meals to eat together. Join a team.
37:20
It'll be worth the yes, I promise you it is.
37:23
The greatest thing is being a part of a church like this.
37:28
There was 10 names listed there on the page in Colossians 4 for
37:31
us. And the whole book is about how
37:34
Jesus is better than anything you can imagine.
37:38
It's better than all the knowledge you can find.
37:41
He's better than literally anything you can think of that
37:44
it's not Jesus plus, it's Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
37:48
So you have Jesus, you've got all that you need for life of
37:51
God, right? Or exceeding all that you need
37:53
for salvation. But you need God's people to get
37:56
you more sanctified. It's his agent of them.
38:01
So this is closely said city. There were 10 names there, but
38:04
your name wasn't there. And that's OK, because God is
38:07
still writing the story here. You will be listening to Paul's
38:12
letters. Neither will I, But you need a
38:14
community just as much as you need to cost that.
38:17
Your name might not be written in Colossians 4, but your name
38:19
is written in the book of life and God is at work.
38:24
He's using him for his glory and for your good.
38:28
And I wonder what difference a community that sold out for his
38:31
namesake could make. I wonder what difference a
38:35
community who lives like this, who relies upon God, who is like
38:41
fired up about raising people up and letting others build them
38:45
up. I wonder what difference that
38:47
might make in your life. I wonder how much less lonely
38:50
this room would feel is if we were obsessed with getting to
38:55
know each other, captivated by the opportunity to get to know
39:00
somebody. I think it was Mr. Rogers who
39:04
kept a car in his wall that said there's not anybody who can get
39:07
to know and love if you just got to know their story.
39:10
I think that might be a great way to look at people here at
39:15
Saint City as made in the image of God, worthy of connection,
39:19
worthy of community. A place where the sting of
39:23
loneliness is like the sting of Jesus, of death on like the
39:27
death of Jesus. Excuse me, that the sting of
39:30
death is no more than the sting of loneliness.
39:33
Could not have the last word, but the gospel would.
39:36
You need a community just as much as you need a 'cause we're
39:40
here for the cause of Christ. Yes, but we are here.
39:45
So come join the week with us. Would you pray with the Lord?
39:49
Thank you for your work. Thank you that it's living an
39:51
active sharper than A2 edged sword.
39:54
Lord, I think it's the kind of community you call people to be
39:56
a part of. And I pray, Lord, that that we
40:00
would be that community that we have people who rely upon you.
40:03
The gospel is fresh on our lips and fresh on our minds.
40:06
That Lord, not only that, that we have people who are obsessed
40:09
with building others up and letting them build us up, that
40:12
we would receive it. We wouldn't be too prideful.
40:15
We wouldn't let hurt stop us, but God we would be of people
40:18
who are about the mission together on the cause for the
40:24
cause of Christ. Don't let any of those drivers
40:29
drive us away from community, Lord, but let them be drivers
40:33
back into the community you designed and given for us.
40:38
Laura, I pray that you would call people to deeper
40:44
relationship with one another, that in their hearts and in
40:52
their minds right now, they would resolve to be a person who
40:59
creates community wherever they go.
41:05
Then if they're not even experiencing lowliness right
41:06
now, they would go helping in somebody else or this is a good
41:12
thing. Your word is good and your name
41:16
is worthy. And so wherever we experience
41:18
relational suffering, God would you give us the hope of Jesus,
41:23
the one who suffered in our place on cross, in Jesus name,
41:27
Amen.