Power Through Community

Good morning everyone. Hey, let's thank the worship team for leading us in the music. Thank you Trent for giving us perspective this morning, sharing your story. Good morning my name is Mark, one of the pastors here. I want to welcome all of you. Those of us here watching online, maybe on Community Access TV, however you're joining us, we are so glad that you are.

And before we go into the message today, I want to give you a quick 2020 vision update. If you've been with us for a while, our 2020 vision, those are the big goals that we hope to accomplish as a church by the year 2020. And right now one of those big goals is to build a children's ministry building right here on campus. We're funding one at an orphanage in India. They've broken ground there, we've broken ground here.

In fact, on our job site this past week, let me just take you there. If you look at this next photo here on the screen, you can see those big trenches down in that nice hard base rock that we brought in. Those are where the footings are for the foundation and they are massive. In fact, there's 60,000 pounds of rebar in those trenches and this Thursday there's gonna be almost 50 concrete trucks cycling through to start filling them. And it's such a big foundation that I have to think it's gonna be there for like the next thousand years. I don't know about the rest of the building but that foundation is planted.

And thank you so much for all of your enthusiasm, your support, and it's just so exciting as it takes shape. If you're new to all this and you'd like to learn more about our 2020 vision and how you can be a part of it, there is a display right out in the middle of the lobby. You can pick up information there. You can also go to our website TLC.org and when you see the banner that looks just like that, just click on it. There's information as well as our live webcam. And so maybe if you're at work and you want to take a break and just watch other people work, you can do that by just going to our website.

Well, why don't you grab your message notes as we continue with our series, "Empowered." And while you're doing that, I want to start with a little story. This Christmas, my son Jack got one of those little quad copters. It's a drone and along with it a little video camera and he's been having fun with this thing. This last week when he was still on vacation, he was flying it above our house and he had tinkered with it so that he could see what the camera was seeing through his phone, but that somehow started to create some interference between his remote control and the quad copter that's hovering about 150 feet above his head.

And mind you, this is pretty much the sum of Christmas 2014 for Jack and it's now struggling and sputtering like a wounded duck because the motors start to cut out and then they come back on and then they cut out. And did I mention it comes with a camera? So you can see what happened next. Watch this. This is above our backyard in a lovely Corralitos, our neighbor's house right there. And it's looking fine until well right about here, Houston, we have a problem. Oh, that's not good. Oh, back on. And then more interference. Uh-oh, this is not looking like it's gonna end well. He hits our neighbor's tree and it just does this Rambo fall all the way down to the ground and then just starts to blink its lights like, "Come get me." The good news is that it survived the crash. He's still playing with it.

I show you this because it serves as really a metaphor of how trouble and hardship can enter our lives so unexpectedly. Because you're gliding along, blue skies, and suddenly there's an interruption. Your health, your marriage, your kids, your job, somewhere in life you find yourself in a state of freefall. Now if this is going to happen in some way at some time in your life, that's not really a question. The real questions that we should be asking ourselves is who's gonna be there to catch me? Who's gonna be there to at least try to break my fall or help pick me up afterwards?

And your ability, my ability to answer those questions really comes down to one word and it's this, community. What kind of community do you have around you? Do you have a rich community of fellow believers that are there to support you or are you isolated? My hunch is that most of us, we fall into one or two groups here today, you either feel reasonably good about the community of folks around you or you're starving. You're dying for it.

And if you're in that first group and you're comfortably tucked into the community here at this church, my hope is that today you will come away with a renewed sense of compassion and mission for those who don't have it so good. And if you are just starving, dying to connect on a deeper and more meaningful level, that not only will you leave today with renewed hope, that doesn't have to be that way forever, but you'll also be armed with some ways that you can go about building and developing a deeper community in your life.

So I'm gonna invite you to grab your Bible or the one in the pew rack in front of you, open it up to Mark chapter 2. Let's see what God's Word has for us today. Mark chapter 2, the verses are in your notes and on screen so you can follow along there as I read, again starting right at verse 1 of Mark 2. A few days later, wait a minute, let's just stop right there, a few days later than what? Well if you read back in chapter 1, Jesus is staying at Peter's house in Capernaum and he's preaching, he's teaching, he's healing people and the crowd swelled to such an extent that he's got to kind of ditch them and he goes off to a lonely place and then he comes back and he says, "Hey we got to go around to the other villages in Galilee," and he does that and then it just, things just go berserk because he can't go anywhere.

Mark says he can't even enter a village without the crowds forming and so he stays in lonely places. In our terminology, Jesus has gone viral and a few days later when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. Well who's home? Well more than likely it's Peter's home, the same one that he had left previously. He's at Peter's house and here they come, verse 2, "They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them." Now I want you to picture this because there's such a crowd swelling around them that people are just packed in as tight as they can be and it reminds me, well it reminds me if you've ever been to one of our Christmas concerts, you've experienced this or candlelight services and probably a lot of you, you know, you get here a little early and you find your seat and you're kind of tucked in there and then it comes a point when we ask everyone to squeeze together and you kind of begrudge, you know, okay we'll do that because that's the Christian thing to do.

But then you know 10-15 minutes later someone's kind of coming down the aisle and they're kind of looking like this. Can I just ask you, do you really feel sorry for that person at that point? "This is church, we have to be honest." No, because you got there man, you worked, you got your spot and now they're trying to make eye contact with you but you don't want to look at them, right? Six inches next to you and they're like, "No, you don't want some stranger sitting on your lap." And that's the vibe at Peter's house. It's a little bit tense because some people, you know, they got there first. People are still showing up, showing up.

In fact, verse 3, "Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by four of them." Now whoever this guy is, he's got somewhat of an entourage. Mark doesn't say how many men are there but four of them have, you know, pallet duty. They're carrying the stretcher and they're met by this crowd and yet I have to think that this group that this guy has around him, you can't hail people like you can a taxi to do what they're doing. These aren't strangers, these are people, they're not casual acquaintances, they're tight. They're a community. They love this guy. They're committed to him. In fact, so much so, they will do anything it takes to get him in front of Jesus.

How do I know? Well I read verse 4, which goes like this, "Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then they lowered the mat the man was lying on." Now again, imagine this because in those days the typical roof was constructed. They would take planks and they would lay them across the walls. Just lay them there and then they would pile on some brush, some twigs, presumably as an insulation and they would cap it with a layer of clay. And these guys, they get up onto this roof and my point is you can't just, you know, in 30 seconds get through it. This is gonna take some time.

This is gonna provide opportunity for people on the ground that again got there first to say, "Hey, what in the world do you guys think you're doing? You can't do that. Do you know whose house this is?" And yet they just start digging away and ignoring whatever objections are around them and people inside they're hearing the scratching noise and distracting from the message and suddenly they see debris outside the windows, you know, chunks of clay and sticks raining down and now something just hit me in the head and that's coming down in the room. Little rays of light and this is all happening while Jesus is giving the sermon.

You know, I've had some funny things happen while I'm preaching. People fall asleep pretty regularly. Some people get up and walk out. Some people text their friends or, you know, check the scores on ESPN during playoff weekend, of course, all that kind of stuff. This is Jesus Christ preaching, the greatest preacher ever and yet while he's preaching there's a full-on roof demolition going on right above his head and now Peter has what might be the very first skylight ever recorded in history and there's this dramatic beam of light coming down through all the dust. People are coughing and Luke's account tells us that they lower him down right in front of Jesus's feet which, you know, had to take a little bit of time.

So Jesus, when did He stop speaking? Just kind of like, okay hold on a second, we're just gonna... Verse 5, "When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'" Okay wait, time out Jesus because clearly He came here for a different purpose, right? He came to get healed. Why does Jesus say your sins are forgiven? Well first I think it's because that was His greater need. It's always our greatest need but not only that, Jesus is setting the audience up because in the front row, again from Luke's account, there are folks that have come all the way from Jerusalem to hear Him. There are a group called the Pharisees, they're part of a strict religious group and they're suspicious of Jesus, they're gonna check Him out and Jesus basically says to them, "What's harder to heal or forgive but so that you may know who I really am I'm gonna do both because they know only God has the power to heal and the authority to forgive and it leads to this big aha moment in the story.

Jesus is doing things that only God gets to do. That's the point. But the run-up to this big aha is this incredible circle around this man, this community that's so devoted to them they will break the rules, they will break a hole in a roof to get Him in front of Jesus and I want you to notice something because again Jesus is going to say in a few verses, "Get up, pick up your mat and go home" and I have to think they're looking through the hole in the ceiling and when this happens they're like, "Yeah!" They're cheering and they're high-fiving and they're making a commotion and they don't care what anyone else thinks because mission accomplished.

But look at this detail that's easy to miss, verse 5. Why did Jesus do all this? When Jesus saw what? Their faith. That's surprising isn't it? We tend to think of it as my faith but Jesus saw their faith and then blessed their friend in response. Now presumably He had faith of His own but the spotlight is on their faith right? In fact if you take their faith out of the story what do you have left? You have a guy isolated in his house away from Jesus, no way to get to Him. And again God can do anything He wants, Jesus could attract Him down but that's not the way God chose to do it. God actually chose to use the community around this man to connect him to the power of Jesus and you want to know something? That's the norm. That's the way God almost always does it. He works through His people.

And I get it, you know if you're like me you want Jesus to just materialize right in front of you. What can I do for you today Mark? But the norm is for God to work through His people and if you're following through this empowered book this week, Kevin Harney begins with a question, "Am I on the mat or am I carrying it?" You might want to write that down if you're taking notes. Am I on, where are you? Are you on the mat right now or are you carrying it because chances are you're going to experience both in life over and over again and when we're on the mat we learn how to receive love and grace in ways we never would otherwise and when we're helping in some way to carry someone else's mat we're learning to extend love and grace in ways that we never would otherwise.

And Paul really gets to the heart of this he really kind of almost sums up this story in Galatians 6:2 when he says, "Carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." Now what's the law of Christ? It's the law of love. Love overflowing with grace and gratitude because I know that Jesus is carrying infinitely more for me than he will ever ask me to carry for someone else. So we're called to carry each other's burdens and it's a great system except we all know it doesn't always work. It breaks down because we don't live in a perfect environment and sometimes people will actually decide that what they need to do is try to carry their own mat.

As implausible as it sounds people will actually try to do this. Why would anyone think that it's a good idea to try to carry their own mat? Well I can think of just three reasons and there's probably more but for today the first one would be isolation and the isolated person just says, "Hey I don't have anybody!" And perhaps you're no fault of your own. You know someone bailed on you, your spouse, your family, your friends or you're bereft and now you find yourself isolated. But if that becomes a consistent theme in your life then it would be wise to ask, "Well is it possible I'm contributing to my own isolation?" Because one of the ways that we do this is when we adopt a policy of this next thing autonomy.

The autonomous person says, "I don't need anyone!" And maybe we say that out of pride or because we don't want to get burned again, we don't want to trust anyone. Sometimes our culture sets us up in this way and I think guys in particular there's a trap for us when it comes to autonomy because let's face it gentlemen we admire autonomous men. We admire men who are strong and smart and successful and seem to have the resources and the wherewithal to handle whatever life might throw at them and although those things are good in their own way but none of them are a substitute for authentic community.

And so gentlemen if you're married you may not perceive a deep need for community but I bet your wife does and I'll preach it to myself here and if you're a dad again you may not perceive a strong need for community but your kids need it desperately. They need Christian community around them now, not someday. In fact in many cases they need it yesterday. And guys if we don't value the power, the need of Christian community how can we expect our kids to?

The third thing that I think motivates people to try to carry their own mat is some kind of self-destructive behavior. Maybe it's just a personality trait that just gets in the way of relationships. Maybe it's a habit or oh it's not an addiction I can be sure about that. We push people away and we don't let people speak into our lives and it becomes really a vicious circle because that just makes me furthermore isolated, motivates me to try to kind of do for myself and it just gets worse and worse. And all three of these things begin to destroy community, make it frankly impossible.

And if that's the case I'm going to spend the rest of our time focusing on the ways that we can counter that, the ways that we can actually build, develop deeper community in our own lives. And I'm going to warn you the first one is probably the hardest and it's this. I have to accept that help does not always come on my terms. Help does not always come on our terms. In fact think of the man in this story, the paralyzed man. Do you think that he envisioned that day unfolding the way it did? When his friends came and said hey Jesus is back in town we're gonna take you to, there's no way he thought he was gonna get lower through a hole in a roof at Peter's house.

He probably thought well we get there, we get there late, I'm sure all those kind loving people they're just gonna move out of the way because they know my need and you know the angels are gonna sing and we'll just go approach the light and they'll all be just beautiful. Didn't happen that way did it? And as they're saying hang on buddy you're going down through the hole he's got to be thinking wait this is crazy there has got to be a better way and you know what maybe there was but that was the only way that had been offered to him and it wasn't the most comfortable way it was just the way that was set in front of him.

Now I mention that because sometimes I think and I'm guilty of this we can be far too picky about the mode of help that's being offered to us. You know we want it to dazzle us we want it to be just like the perfect fit and yet so often life just doesn't actually offer that in the ways that that we might want. In fact I listed some of the ongoing helps that we have here at our church at the bottom of page two, a better part of page two of your notes and you'll notice it one of the first things mentioned if you need someone who can listen to you and empathize with you, Stephen ministry is all about that trained prepared people for this but you might go Stephen ministry that's a weird name like why do they call it that I don't know but there's gonna be something wrong and and what if they pair me with like you know the dud of the Stephen ministers and you know it doesn't go so well and it's kind of awkward because I kind of step back from the person it's almost like a breakup I don't want to do it why even begin or you look further down the list and you see we talk about small groups and there's other ways to get into a group but that's one of the consistent ways it's right there.

But you know I don't know if I'm a small group person you know and you know that the book they did last year like that one but this one oh maybe it's okay and pretty soon we talk ourselves out of the helps that are in front of us holding out for this perfect thing that may never come sometimes we just have to come to terms with with what's there and there's a reason why we try to get people into smaller groups around here again in a variety of ways because think about it in this story what was the obstacle between this man and Jesus what was the obstacle I'll give you a hint it starts with a C was the crowd.

Now crowds are great I love this crowd I love being a part of crowd crowds are great for a lot of things but experiencing meaningful community is not one of them and one of the things that I heard a pastor named Andy Stanley say is this is great circles are better than rows circles better than rows in other words it's awesome that you're attending here today and I hope you will continue to do that but at some point my hope is you'll go from attending here to attaching here and it's hard to attach in a row but you can attach in a circle and this guy had a circle around him that made all the difference.

I mean right now in this crowd there are people there are people who have any number of hardships health related or in their finances their circumstances their relationships their families you name it just about every problem known to humanity is represented in this room but you know what the people that are getting the most consistent care this is gonna sound funny to you but they're probably not getting it through the church office now we have an awesome staff we've got some great systems we do everything we can but what we can't do is just instantly create a community around someone takes some time and the people who have had time and have invested themselves into the community man it just just happens organically for them.

So if you're here today and you're just checking it out or you've come from some you know weird experience and it's like no that's okay for a season but at some point the truth of the matter is that circles are better than rows and I hope that you will move deeper into the community here you know whatever ways that are available. The second thing that we can do to develop deeper community is to put your faith into action on behalf of others that's again so much a part of the story these guys they don't know how it's gonna end they just pick up their friend and off they go and when we do that talk about making fast friends in two weeks during our world outreach week we're gonna roll out all sorts of short-term outreach trips some of them are a weekend some of them maybe two weeks some are nearby some are around the world we've got a group in Africa right now we've got a group in India right now man you talk about getting to know people really quick you go on one of these trips man you're gonna get to know people long after the makeup and the deodorant has worn off if you know what I mean and you just get tight.

But you know what that's real life and it doesn't have to be something that we prescribe there's innumerable ways that you can put your faith into action in fact I heard of a project that some church people took on and it's such a powerful story that I want you to hear it and you're not gonna hear it from the people that took on this project you're gonna hear it from the person who was on the receiving end someone you know and love Valerie Webb so let's welcome Valerie as she makes her way up here on the stage morning Val thanks for coming down out of the booth so you could be here hiding up there controlling things yes well we were talking this week about not controlling things but community and that sparked a memory for you that was very powerful when you told me this story I just knew I wanted you to share it this weekend so take it away.

All right well the story I told Mark is one of the most imprinted stories from my childhood that I have and this happened when I was a young girl and my parents made a decision that pretty much changed my family's life forever and they took a position at a place in Michigan and it was a home for emotionally disturbed teenagers and this was really an answer to my dad's prayers because he had somehow wanted to serve the Lord and so we were living in Seattle Washington at the time home of the Seattle Seahawks who won 31 to 17 last night just in case you didn't catch the game I will tell you that so we were living in Seattle none of us had ever been to Michigan we literally sold everything we sold our house we sold my toys something I remember very clearly we sold our furniture our dishes our pots our pans our silverware we sold everything we each had a suitcase of clothes loaded in the back of the brown station wagon and off we went to Michigan across the country.

The time in Michigan was wild we ended up in a home with 12 emotionally disturbed teenagers six boys and six girls and my family my dad was a drill instructor in the Marine Corps he fared okay because this was just a new platoon to him of people to manage my mom however whose primary spiritual gift was mercy was just crushed she was crushed physically she was crushed mentally she was crushed emotionally and she ended up in the hospital back in Michigan for a fairly extended period of time and so eventually we loaded up our clothes in the suitcases in the brown station wagon and we headed back to Seattle.

My dad before we left Michigan had called some of his friends from the Little Baptist Church that I grew up in and told him we were coming back and asked if they could find some kind of apartment for us to rent because we had sold our house pretty much my family was destroyed at this point my mom was very unsteady still we were completely poverty-stricken I mean poverty was in the rearview mirror we were so poor at this point and we had you know we just had nothing and so I remember very clearly heading back to Seattle we pulled into our new house which was nothing like the beautiful split-level entry home that I still remember that we had sold it was on the wrong side of highway 99 it was in a place I had never been and I remember still pulling up at night and we were on the top floor of the duplex so we grabbed our suitcases and we went up the stairs and my dad opened the door and I'm not really sure when I realized what had happened but I remember my mom and my dad just gasping as they looked around the room and I thought the third time I wouldn't cry all these dear friends from this little church had given back everything they bought from us when we left everything my toys the silverware I remember my mom singing over and over again the silverware that gave us back even the silverware it was all there and this community this little tiny community in Lindwood Washington was that my community it was our community to this day it's my dad's community and I remember all these people celebrating their 40th birthdays together and now they're celebrating their 80th birthdays together my dad has breakfast every Thursday morning appointment he will not break with these men 6:30 a.m. and you know honestly that little church with all of its quirks and it had them doesn't actually even exist anymore but that community still does and it's completely informed how I purposely live my life forming community around me because I have seen in many ways the power the amazing power that happens when you allow yourself to be in a community.

By the way if you're just brand new to Twin Lakes Church Valerie Webb's one of our pastors and does so much but you don't have to know her to see the impact of something that took place decades ago when people were willing to put their faith into action. The third way that we can deepen develop and in fact expand the community here is to make it our goal make it your goal to bring others closer to Jesus again that's where the story begins with these great guys who were just unstoppable willing to improvise willing to do things that maybe others didn't think was the thing to do but they were just unstoppable in their determination and whenever we pray for people we're helping lift their mat whenever we encourage them whenever we reflect Jesus to them in a winsome way we're helping to bring them closer to Jesus.

And one of the things that we often have to remind ourselves is that the people you work with the people on your street the people in your school the people wherever they're more desperate and lonely than they let on most of them are far more desperate and lonely than they let on and I you know that and I'm preaching to the choir a little bit but even think about when most of us came into this church today you know what to expect you knew that you know the certain grader was gonna say hi and shake your hand and and they weren't gonna frisk you or anything like that you knew where you were gonna sit because you sit there and every week the same place more or less you know you know the lingo you know that the quirks you don't even notice the quirks anymore but boy if you're on the outside of that and you're trying to enter into that it can be awkward it can be hard and yet those people they just like you they want a place to belong they want a place where they can find meaning and purpose and love and grace and God has given us the privilege of inviting them in but again it can be awkward.

And so one of the things we're gonna do in two weeks we're gonna have a guy named Michael jr. here and I mentioned that first of all because I'm just shamelessly promoting that right now in the message Michael jr. is gonna be here in two weeks but also because he describes the very thing I'm talking about a time when he started going to a particular church and I want you to hear his telling of this watch this.

I remember going to church as an adult right for the first time when I started going to church and I walk in and the pastor was like he said I want you to pray with your neighbor and I'm like my neighbor don't go to this church I don't know you want me to call my neighbor on the phone that's creepy I ain't gonna do that right then they explain to me right your neighbor's a person sitting next to you listen I'm brand new at this Christian stuff I don't know I didn't even know you're supposed to pray out loud let alone with this lady I don't even know this lady what I'm supposed to pray about Lord help these bumps go down on this lady face I don't know what to pray about I don't know what to pray about right she went first she was praying all good and she must have been John the Baptist little sister or something she was like dear Heavenly Father you say any of word in the sixth chapter the third third verse but a book of Matthew the 600 first word on page 1248 Lord you said but seek this is a search isn't everywhere is an excellent K as in kingdom you're the alpha nisi Jehovah Jaira Jehovah Raph I'm thinking man she even know his nicknames now it's my turn to pray right but I don't got the spiritual vocabulary does this but I'm not gonna let her out pray me so I'm like okay God first of all you are good people you know you were good Lord you were good you were good to the last drop Lord cuz Lord I just got to obey my thirst Lord you know cuz choosey moms choose Jesus so no as direct is the Rockets red glare Lord it gave proof to the night Lord I believe I could fly a man two weeks friends love this is the easiest invite of the year people and I love this because you know what where the Spirit of the Lord is there's joy there's freedom there's laughter laughter is a great community building thing too and there are people longing to connect to this big community and in little communities that make it up because in the center of all of those little communities is Jesus.

Jesus is the power of community working through us in us despite us he's still healing he's still redeeming lives. Friday we got an email from a young lady celebrating what was for her her 11th anniversary of what was really her salvation and I mean that in a holistic way she she believed things about Jesus but 12 or 11 years ago this weekend she's down on these steps she's sobbing on Valerie's shoulder this gal was all of 12 years old and yet she lived in one of the most dysfunctional situations you can imagine all sorts of self-destructive behavior and she just didn't know what to do we know a little bit about her but it was this event that really catalyzed the community around her in fact one of our staff members eventually adopted her and she talks about that in the email the power of that but also the power of the community that formed around her.

You know in one person she saw a father that she never had and other people she just learned how to kind of do life in a different way she gained courage she gained hope she gained an understanding of who Jesus was and how he could meet her and how she wasn't doomed to follow in the footsteps of her parents and it was all because of the power of the community right here.

Some of you may feel as helpless as that 12 year old girl some of you may be as helpless as a 12 year old girl you just don't know it yet but if you find yourself on the mat I believe you're in a good place I believe you're in a place where care can happen community can happen and if you are week in week out you're praying for people you're serving you're giving you're doing all sorts of things that that make this happen I hope I hope that you will be reminded today that God can take those little acts of service or generosity or whatever it might be and literally transform lives.

So may he empower you bless you sustain you motivate you whether today you're on the mat or you're helping carry it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father I ask that you would continue to work through this community I pray Lord for those who are on the mat today I pray that you would give them hope I pray that you would give them encouragement strength whatever it is they need to get through this day and to take whatever steps that you might encourage them to take in your power in your strength and I pray for those who are doing reasonably well we thank you for that we praise you for that we don't take that for granted and we're reminded today that Lord you bless us because you love us you're a blesser but you do that not only so that we will be blessed but that we will be a blessing and so Lord we pray again that you would give us the desire the energy the vision to be about doing your marvelous work. Thank you Lord for your goodness and your grace upon us all it's all because of the Lord Jesus Christ in whom I pray. Amen.