"What Have We Learned?" - Message 6

40 Days of Community, week 7

Today we are coming to the end of our 40 Days of Community campaign, and I hope that it has been a rewarding experience for you. More than that, I hope that you learned something new over these past weeks. This morning I just want to review with you what we learned during 40 Days of Community.

First, we learned that love is the beginning of real community. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (Jn.13:34-35). Love must be the starting point for everything we do together. As we learned, if we don’t love one another, nothing we say, know, believe, or do will matter. We have also seen that love has got to be more than just talk; it is something that we do together. John said, in 1 John 3:1`8, "Let us stop just saying we love people. Let us really love them and show it by our actions." When we begin to love one another in word and in action, we begin to become family, and that is at the heart of what we want to be as a church. We learn that best in small groups, as I think many of you found out with our Community Groups.

We also learned something about worshiping together, didn’t we? I believe that we say clearly that although God is with us all the time, there is a special sense of God’s presence when two or three are gathered in His name. Jesus said in Matthew 18:20, "Wherever two or three of you come together in my name, I am there with you."We’re able to sense God so much better in a group.

Worship really wasn’t meant to be done alone. When we come together and use our gifts to help one another worship, we really are at our best. When the choir sings, not because they love music, but because they love God, our worship is strengthened. When we bow our heard together in prayer, we are operating as a body. When we receive communion or witness a baptism, we doing something we really can’t do alone. Indeed, our very presence helps encourage and support one another, and gives us an even greater desire to worship God. "Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation!"(Ps.95:1-7).

During the past 40 days, we learned something important about fellowship as well. We learned that true Christian fellowship is much deeper than simply getting together for food and fun, and much more important. We need the fellowship of other Christians because we need others to walk with us through life. We weren’t meant to go through life alone, and we don’t have to. That’s why God places us with his people in church. Christian fellowship gives us a group of people who will work with us to accomplish ministry. "Every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the fellowship of faith." (Gal.6:10). When we work together, no one has to get worn out or burned out. We also saw how important it is to have people in our lives who will watch out for us, who will wait for us, and at times will weep with us. True Christian fellowship gives us all of that: a family of believers who love us, who are walking with us on the same journey, working side by side us for the same goals, who are watching out for us and supporting us all the time. Again, our community groups are a great place for that to happen. We are always better together!

During 40 Days of Community, we learned that we grow better together. The great goal for a Christian is to become more and more like Christ, and we need one another to accomplish it. Paul said, "This work must continue until we’re all joined together in the same faith and in the same knowledge of the son of God. We must become mature, growing until we become like Christ and have his perfection."

Have any of you attained perfection yet? Of course not. I hate to let you in on this, you’ll never grow into perfection until you get to heaven. However, with each other’s help, we can at least draw closer while here on earth. It’s within the body of Christ that we find the teachers we need to train us, the role models we need to guide us, and the mentors we need to support us. It’s also within the body that we have the chance to be a teacher or role model or even mentor for someone else.

What did we learn about serving together? We learned that when we put our hands together, we can accomplish a lot. When we use our talents together, we compliment one another. Galatians 6:10 says, "Every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith."Remember the celebration we had, as we thanked God for various people and a variety of ministries? They are all important. Look at the list of all that our church has been doing this year just with outreach. We could never do that alone.

Friends, two of the most dangerous words you could ever pray are, "Use me." When you say, "God use me," get ready to have your socks blessed off because God is looking for people to use. But there’s another word that’s just as dangerous: Whatever." Whatever, God. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. Whatever you want me to be, I’ll be it. Whatever you want me to say, I’ll say it. Whatever you want me to give, I’ll give it. Whatever you want me to think or go or whatever, I will do it. When you come to that point in your life, "God whatever," then you begin to experience life as the adventure it was meant to be. Oh, how we serve better together!

Finally, what did we learn about reaching out together? Well, we learned that our best witness is made together. As a church, we should care deeply about the people around us in our community and in the world. When it comes time to reach out to them, we support each other with a consistent witness. When our whole church loves one another and desires to extend that love to others, the people we invite to come to church with us will feel that.

Now what are we going to do? What are we going to do now that 40 Days of Community is over? Let me suggest two things. First, keep meeting together. Stay in a group. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Let us not give up the habit of meeting together as some are doing. Instead let us encourage one another all the more."Now I told you I only wanted you to stay in a Community Group for 6 weeks. Tonight will be the last time these particular groups will meet. However, my hope and prayer is that we will start them up again in January and that they will become an integral part of our church program.

Now, I hope that those of you who met in Community Groups had a good experience. However, if that didn’t really click with you, it’s okay. Just don’t give up on it. It’s like when you go to a doctor for the first time. If you don’t like that doctor, you don’t say, "Well I’ll never go to a doctor again" do you? No, you just find one that you like. If you eat a meal you didn’t like, you don’t say "Well, I didn’t like that meal, I’m never eating again." No, you just eat something else the next time.

If you didn’t happen to really click with your group, that’s okay. Congratulations for sticking it out. I don’t care if you stay in this group or not, but you need to be in a group because you know better now. You can’t go through life alone.

Here’s the second thing I want you to do. Keep on doing what you’ve been doing. Philippians 4:9 says, "Keep on doing the things that you’ve learned and received and heard and the God of peace will be with you."Keep on doing what you’ve been doing. If you’ve been in a small group, don’t give up the habit of meeting together. If you’ve been having a daily quiet time, reading a daily devotional, reading some from the Bible, some quit. If you’ve been coming to weekly worship and you’ve been working on projects of serving and sharing, keep it up! "Keep on doing the things that you’ve learned and received and heard and the God of peace will be with you."

Friends, we’ve learned a lot. Now it is time for us to live it. We are better at worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and mission when we do it together. In the name of Christ, we are better together!