Marked by Community: Rowing the Boat Together

There was no physical needs. They were together and everything. They were committed to learning and following Jesus and his teachings, and God was adding to their number daily, those who are being saved because of the good news of Jesus. What they were really doing is they were rowing the boat together. Now let's just imagine if this room was just a boat right now. And we're sitting on water, and everyone has their oars, but you guys are just chilling like, I'm gonna hold my oar like this. And then, there's like me and a few of us, we start rowing our oars. We would get moving because it's water. We just wouldn't go very far. We wouldn't go very fast. But, every one of us took an oar instead of rowing in stride, in unison together, we would go further, faster because we were in this thing together. [00:28:45] (43 seconds)  #RowTogether

and everyone has their oars, but you guys are just chilling like, I'm gonna hold my oar like this. And then, there's like me and a few of us, we start rowing our oars. We would get moving because it's water. We just wouldn't go very far. We wouldn't go very fast. But, every one of us took an oar instead of rowing in stride, in unison together, we would go further, faster because we were in this thing together. [00:29:05] (23 seconds)  #OarsInSync

The first thing he noticed about Adam in the story of creation was that it was not good for him to be alone. We need to be together but we are so fiercely independent that we treat our faith and our church as something we are independent from. We are a part of it when it works for us. We engage with it when it's convenient for us. We strive to live out the mission when it's comfortable for us. And because of that, we miss the point. Something we see in the book of Acts is it was far from convenient, far from perfect. In fact, people were losing their lives because of following Jesus [00:34:47] (37 seconds)  #CommunityOverIndependence

And, what happens is when we disconnect from community, we won't grow. This is the reality. If you feel stuck or stale in your faith and in your life right now, it might be because you're not consistently in community, especially if you're a longtime believer and follower of Jesus. I'll be very blunt. Sunday mornings, if you're a longtime follower of Jesus, and I would count myself as this. I've been following Jesus for a long time. Sunday mornings are not going to be your main growth engine. [00:32:40] (31 seconds)  #GrowInCommunity

It's missional impact. The last part of this section of scripture, Luke says this, verse 47, and the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. Those who are being saved. This is what God does through us as a church, through the community of believers. Most people are saved through, the this community. More people are saved through Jesus. And I wanna be really honest. This is the point because the ones matter to God, those who are far from God, seeking God, trying to figure out who Jesus is, trying to figure out this whole church thing. This is what God's heart longs for and he started his church to go find more ones. [00:43:32] (38 seconds)  #ReachTheOnes

And listen, there are moments where life hits and it's hard. There's marriage struggles or parenting struggles or job struggles or whatever. And it's really not even the physical need someone can meet, but you just need to talk to somebody. One of my favorite things is I have some friends. We just have this we can just call each other. Now, I know it sounds weird to talk on the phone, but I literally have friends that I'll talk to for over an hour at a time on the phone, which is weird. But, this is just what we do. Usually, what it is is like, hey, I've got some just needs right now because life sucks. We can deal with that. [00:42:13] (36 seconds)  #TalkItOutTogether

And, sometimes, that's going to happen and we don't see it as a community to be a part of. Now, to be very clear with you all, whether you are a part of one church or you're visiting today or whatever it may be, we wanna do everything that we do here with excellence. We wanna make sure the sermons are good and the music is good and the food is good and the outside looks good and all these different things. But, I'll be honest, if you're a part of one church, we don't do that with you in mind. [00:30:44] (25 seconds)  #ExcellenceForTheOne

And I'm not that's not a guilt thing. That's just the reality of our culture now. They're every day, like, nope. We're getting to the temple. We're listening. We're learning. And then beyond the big gatherings of the temple, they would meet in people's homes. They would go have meals together and they would talk about what the apostles talked about. And if you're a part of a small group of one church, you're basically doing what they were doing back then. You dig into it. So, in the temple courts, it was about instruction and inspiration. And in people's homes, it was about accountability and application. [00:36:37] (27 seconds)  #LifeInSmallGroups