Confusing Things Christians Say - Week 3 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny
Confusing Things Christians Say
Week 3 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny
Good morning once more and welcome back to week 3 of “Confusing Things Christians Say”.
Did any of you read the news report in May of 2023 about a new epidemic? That's sweeping through the United States of America? I came with urgency a message from the US Surgeon General. Apparently something is happening right here in this country that he says is as dangerous as obesity in America, tobacco use in America. Something that is killing people at a shockingly fast and early rate that something was
Loneliness. According to the US Surgeon General in America. Right now, there is an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. That is physically killing people like eating too much or smoking a pack a day. It's interesting if you not a sad. It's not the first time I've heard someone Sound the Alarm about what's happening in modern day America. I recently heard that Generation Z which are the Americans born between 1997 and 2012 are called quotes. The loneliest generation in American history. It seems like there is something about living in this country at this time that is separating people and isolating people and leaving people feeling absolutely separated and alone.
Yeah, I suppose it until I read that story, I never really thought about all the things that have happened in the last generation or two. That just step by step, by step by step, by step separates, People Like Us from each other. Could you put at least 10 things on that list? America for one is a culture that works. Other cultures take siestas to connect with family and friends who we have lunch at work and we often call it a working lunch, eat a salad, while I catch up and try to get 20 in my email inbox. And now, since the pandemic, lots of us, don't even go to work, we work remotely where we see people's faces when we kind of multitask on our phones during company Zoom meetings. There's no more water, cooler Chad's, there's no more smoke breaks. There's no more grabbing lunch with your co-workers work. As isolated us from each other.
I think about church.
Our grandparents' generation made every Sunday just a given. You’re going to church, you connect with your community. And now you make it when you can, and if you're out of town and you can't make it, you catch the live stream or listen to a podcast, which isn't bad, but it just takes this one step further from each other. Before, would you want to connect with your friends? You get in the same room and you would talk or you would pick up the phone and you would chat. Now we pick up Snapchat and we try to connect with 100 people at the same time which leaves us with one one-hundredth of the connection we used to have. We found the get together with family members and friends, and man doesn't take long till one phone is out, and then two phones are out. And you're fighting just to get someone's attention. Crazy inventions, like the car on the airplane, mean that families live further apart than ever. The people who stood up in my own wedding party. I barely see. Let's talk to my cousins and I saw each other this past weekend for the first time in seven years. There's any big family drama, but just because I've been living my life and they've been living theirs. Before we used to make awkward small talk in the grocery store line.
When's the last time you talked to someone in a grocery store line, you got about four seconds and I'll for before someone reaches for their phone and everyone else follow suits But there's so many things that are different about modern day America and it's not necessarily wrong, it's not immoral or sinful. But you're going to church and someone staring at their phone or their watching at home on a livestream and you go to the gym and you can't talk to someone on the treadmill next to you because they have their ear buds in and when you like to connect with someone at work but they're multitasking during the meeting or working remotely. There's just thing after thing. After thing. After thing. After thing that makes the surgeon general's findings really not that shocking. That we asked people especially people raised in a digital age if they feel connected and close to a group of people that group has shrunk, and shrunk and shrunk leaving modern Americans feeling. So so alone,
Now the Surgeon General is concerned about that because apparently isolation and loneliness leads to an early death
Effects, your heart, your stress level, your ability to cope with life and the time when you will take your last breath,
But as a pastor, I'm just as concerned with the new normal because I've actually seen what makes Christianity really good. And I've seen what makes Christianity not so good.
Here's what I mean, every single week. I get to sit down and maybe 20 feet on the other side of that wall, in my office, with some of you from our church family and talk about life, the good stuff, the bad stuff. What you're celebrating, what you're battling. We talk about addiction. We talk about marriage, we talk about pornography, we talk about anxiety and mental health and I grabbed my Bible, I try to give you some comfort. I remind you of the love of Jesus. There's this question that a lot of, you know, that I try to ask almost everyone. And the question is, who can help you with this.
Okay. Your addicted to porn. You're not the first one. Who can keep you accountable, who can remind you of God's forgiveness, when you feel unworthy, who can you text when you're feeling a strong Temptation? Oh okay. Your marriage is kind of stale and it's kind of stuck who knows you and loves your marriage that you could be open with talk with who can mentor you.
You're the most common answer to that question is.
This culture, even this church culture has created tons of people, tons of you who go through life and you hit those moments. When you just need help, you need someone to walk with you, you need someone to pray for you, but no one knows the real you. With all the good and all the bad. An early death isn't the result. You just miss out on the fullness of life that God wants to give.
If the new normal makes me think of one of the first things that God said, in the whole Bible, Genesis 2 Verse 18, remember this verse God said it is not good for the man to be alone.
It doesn't mean you have to get married. It just means that God intended for every one of his children, every son, every daughter, every Christian believer to live life in a robust honest, beautiful support network that we call Christian Community. That's why. Today I want to talk to you about a word that can be kind of confusing in the Christian church. The word Fellowship. Now pastors like me have messed up the word Fellowship because over the years, when we use the word Fellowship is what happens after church when someone brought Donuts or cake, right? Want to make small talk when you stick around for a few minutes. And that might be a part of it, but I'm hoping to show you today that that is so far from the best of it. I've had a chance to look up every passage in the Bible that uses the word fellowship. And I want to share with you 2 big passages that unpack the importance and the urgency of living life together as brothers and sisters in the family of God. But before I jump into that, I just want to give you a quick definition of what I'm talking about. So after taking notes at home here live what exactly is fellowship is my definition
How was Europe is a group. With a goal.
That's my simple way of defining it. Fellowship is a group you can't technically have fellowship with yourself. You can talk to yourself and you can look at yourself in the mirror but that is not biblical Fellowship. You need other human beings involved but not just any human beings. You need other human beings who share your goal. That's what Fellowship is at its very essence. You might have seen the movie or read the book. The Fellowship of the Ring where you had a group of people, there was a hobbit and a human and an elf and a dwarf, they were very different but they came together in a group. Why? Because they share the goal of destroying the one ring in Mount Doom. If you know the story, you might be familiar with a medical Fellowship. Where an aspiring doctor will join a group except just studying by herself or himself with the goal of practicing a special area of medicine. That's what Fellowship is a group with a goal. Then in Christian slang, Christian Fellowship, is when you have a group of people Various Christians who've come together. They're United in faith and they share the same goal of seeking God of believing in the Forgiveness of Jesus of going after the will of God in the kingdom of God. And the glory of God, when you get together with other Christians who share that same passion, that same goal of Life. You've discovered Fellowship,
Now, one of my favorite passages, one of the two I want to share with you. Today comes from the book of First, John chapter 1 So this is one of Jesus' closest friends, the Apostle, John. And right in the beginning of his letter. Listen to what he writes.
He says we Proclaim to you, what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. Fellowship used twice in one verse and I want to try to pull three big throughs of that passage. Here's the first one. If you're a Christian, if you've repented of your sin and believe in Jesus, you have fellowship with God.
Now the expression on your face is does not match the gravity of what I just said. So let's practice, I want you to take your eyebrows and I want you to get them as close to your hairline as you can. If you ever sitting here try harder, he says, this our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. John is trying to say. If you're a Christian, God stops being some, you know, vague higher power.
You don't have to pray, God. If you're listening. But you have entered into a small group into the closest connection with the God who runs the universe and forgives every sin you've ever committed. Isn't that insane?
I can imagine, if you're signed up for like a church small group, you show up at some random address and you walk in and it looks like there's God sitting on a couch. The next name is Jesus and he says, what's up? I brought taco dip. Act like you're like, you're in a group, you get to spend time with God, the god of the universe, that would blow your mind and John is trying to tell you that even though you can't see them, that is exactly what every day of the Christian life is like
I do practically when you feel alone, it means you're not. The father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are there. When you're dealing with something at work or at school, when you just feel totally overwhelmed like I can't get through this. That feeling is not true. Because the God who can get you through, it is not far away. Trying to squeeze you into his busy calendar. You have Fellowship, a close relationship with the God wants to help you meet that goal.
So if you've had a rough week, if you're just overwhelmed by life, like write this down, meditate on this beautiful phrase, our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ.
Second point from this passage, John says we Proclaim to you. What we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us.
So, John loves this personal relationship that Christians have with Jesus but he doesn't stop with the vertical he expands it to the horizontal. Yep, you're a child of God, if you believe in Jesus, but you are not God's. Only child. He's got a pretty big family.
And this is one of my favorite things about doing what I do. So normally, when you come to church, you see like the lot like the back of people's heads a lot, but I get to see a lot of faces. And I love looking out at all of you thinking you are so different. Just visually, you're so different and yet, here you are. Sharing the same goal, singing the same songs, loving the same gospel being comforted by the same message there. You might never be connected. You might never be part of the same group and yet here you are.
Let me give you just 10 awkward seconds. Could you look around church? If you're in the front you might have to turn around a little bit and try to make eye contact with someone who just looks very different than you. All right, let me give you 10 seconds. You can turn around if you need to.
Someone who is someone who's really young and attractive if they're looking at you really real and tell me right now, that's a red flag. All right. So I think about that, I mean I see people who are older and I see people who are younger. I see people who have hair and people, who don't. I see people with their natural hair color. Some were experimenting with other colors and I see people who are Hispanic and black and Asian from Thailand and Brazil, people who are German, I see people with kids, people who don't. I see widows, I see people who are dating, all of us are so different. Like we're probably not going to be on the same like texting thread in the social media world and yet and yet, think of this, the deepest desires of our hearts. Are exactly the same.
Like you might be older and the average teenager in America might confuse you. But if you both follow Jesus like men, the love of God that comforts you is the exact same thing that they're holding on to. And this calling to be patient and kind in a good neighbor to our neighbors. We have to be rich, we don't do the same thing. We actually gather together to encourage each other for the exact same goal. This is a profound thought that the Christian life is never meant to be lived alone.
Which line is famous prayer. Jesus taught you to pray. Our Father. Right? And here we are Sunday after Sunday being reminded that even though life might be so different from Monday to Saturday, God has given us community and people who share our goals and are part of the same group.
Someone might ask. Well, how did that happen? We live in a world that just wants to divide us up into the tiniest little slivers of division. How did we come together like this? And the same verse has the answer? John says, we Proclaim to you. What we've seen and heard.
So that you may have fellowship with us.
It's a fancy way of saying this. The word of God has gathered the people of God to carry out the purposes of God. There's some magnetic power about the Jesus of this book. That makes us leave behind lesser things to come to share the same Heart. The Same Spirit, the same purpose, and the same hope.
Let me demonstrate like this. Imagine this paper clip is you.
Just you, isolated and alone. Living life without God and without people And then God showed up. Or a giant fishing magnet. I found on Amazon. Let's pretend that this is God. Right in there were you, you, I'm, you couldn't get yourself to God, but God came down through his son, Jesus Christ, and was something about the waiting for it. Your son about the magnetic power of Jesus. Love that. Just like Drew your heart, change you and then gave you this really strong magnetic connection to the love that has got. This is what it looks like that fellowship with God.
But that wasn't done once he got you.
There are other people that God cared about because God, so loved the world and so whether it was through you or through someone else, God came along and did the exact same thing through this message. We proclaimed and we have heard God started to draw people to himself until
Fellowship.
Right without the oh, yes.
Magnets, right? If if we won have the magnet,
These would not be connected, but because there's something powerful working upon them and working through them, there is this connection. This is always what? God wanted, a personal connection with you to be his child, through Jesus and a community connection with each other. Back in the old days people punch the box and went to church and thought I've done my religious Duty. Well that was a good start. But it was ever meant to end with the amen. God has a community of life to be lived out in this world, with all of his sons and all his daughters.
Not to make this work. Like it's supposed to work. It can't be some like item number 17 on the to-do list for Christians.
And I want to share one more passage with you today. I'll come from the book of Acts. This is a description of the early Christian Church. And look in verse 42. What the word of God says?
They these are the early Christians, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to Fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer. The simple summary of what the first followers of Jesus look like. Like, how did how did they spend their time? What mattered to them? We'd say Doctrine? The right, teaching the apostles, teaching prayer for sure, because prayer is powerful and effective. But what else? Makes the top, four. What do you know, Fellowship?
And please don't miss this verb. They Devoted themselves to Fellowship.
Didn't show up on a Sunday and God dropped some fellowship in their lap. They were devoted which means committed to passionate about. They knew the blessing of being able to do the Christian Life with each other. And so loved the description they devoted themselves. The fellowship and maybe these days in a very isolated and lonely age, which can happen, even to people who go to church, You need this reminder as much as I do. That real Fellowship true connection with other Christians requires devotion
Not going to happen. Because you go to a church just because you're a member of a church, doesn't mean you're going to reap the benefits of all the church has to offer. It requires a devotion of passion, a priority to get everything out of this community that God wants you to have.
So, what does that look like in practice? Write this down. I'm gonna give you three things as I've thought about you, my own spiritual story, there's three things that are my guarantee. Human relationships are unpredictable, but three things I think they're gonna get you a bunch of steps closer to the fellowship that you and I both need as we follow Jesus' thing. Number one, Effort.
You got to put in some effort.
When you go to a church and if you don't know people who show up on a Sunday, man, I just want to push you and urge you to get past the awkwardness and put in the effort. Here's classic church Behavior. I show up, I find my seat that we sit in the one, two, three, four fifth row. One two, three, four, five, six, seven, seats, ten. I'm a little bit early. Pull up my phone. Oh church, starts, boom. And then I'm gone.
Shocking. Ha ha ha I've discovered your community. You have to put in the effort yet. You have to use the muscles that God gave you in your neck, you have to find another human being. And then you have to use the vocal cords that he also gave you and say hi. All right, so practice with me on the count of three. One, two, three, hi. See that. You can do that in a group and you can do that. If it's just one-on-one, I can almost guarantee that. No one's gonna give you this. Look, what are you talking to me for? They're gonna say Hi. And then you're going to have what some people. Call a conversation and afterwards, you're going to know that person better. And then the next Sunday is going to be a little less awkward and a little less awkward and a little less awkward. And that is how human connection happens. So I thought, so my wife, when you're taking a walk yesterday and she said, Mike not everyone's an extrovert that makes some people nervous and she's right.
For some of you, this is more work than others. Your palms will sweat. So don't shake hands, just say hi first. But I know of no other way around it, you have to, you have to put in the effort to stay connected. And then once you find your people, once was it just a good personal connection that you like spending time, it requires, especially in our busy culture to block out the effort.
I love it. When I see people grabbing lunch, or brunch after church, Or when you got some people that you do coffee with every Friday morning, I have a group of friends that gets together once a month to do dinner and we rotate houses and I've kind of noticed that it's the relationships into which we put the most effort that bring back the most blessing. So you've got to know everyone from church, you're not going to know 100 people from church, but if you knew just five, Five people that you invested in you put in the effort to stay connected. May you would have something that very few people in this country have a support network of deep and beautiful Christian Fellowship. Effort over to the best Fellowship, also involves time.
And I was kinda thinking of our church family who seems connected, and who doesn't. And here's what I've noticed.
The people who come a little bit early, And the people who stay a little bit late, seem to find the best community.
Now, some of you are feeling super guilty right now because you showed up like during the second song and you're like, oh man, that was me. And some of you got to go somewhere right after church, you like everyone's going to judge me when I woke up to my car. All right, stuff happens. But let's just say in general if you don't treat church as like starts exactly in this minute and ends exactly here. If you budget just a little Time on both ends. Now, hours and hours. Just a few minutes to connect with familiar faces when you got the time. And I've seen that people who are new to church, you just put in that effort to take a little bit of time. And when you're here, getting your first cup of coffee before the first song, When after church you know the ushers are shutting off the lights and say hey we got we got to lock up the building. I can almost guarantee you will find more than a church. You will find a church family.
Third.
Maybe the most important, maybe the most difficult. The best Fellowship. Also requires honesty.
And I've noticed this in my life as a Christian 40-plus years.
There was a stage of life when I went to church. But barely knew anyone from church. Another was another stage when I was honest with some people that went to church,
And I could tell you if I could go back and tell little Mike how to do church, right? I would tell them to be honest.
Where there's just something and maybe it's even worse when you're in church because we all have the same goal of living a holy life. There's something about being honest, when you fall short of that goal
When your relationship is not good, when your mental health is not good, when you don't know how to get through it. So there is just some, there's something magnetic about that.
If I just see your perfect life and the victories and all the great things that you did, It's just tough for me to relate to that because I know my own struggles but when you are honest with people Like not standing up in front of church and telling everyone. But just telling a few people, like God, just like intertwines lives through honesty and bonds them together beautifully.
And on that, I don't know not guarantee you, but as close as I can come to say that if you would come to church a little bit early and you'd stay a little bit late, And you do the scary thing of introducing yourself to people, but putting the effort try to write down their names and reconnect with them the following Sunday. And if when the time comes that there's just a little bit of trustee you say something that's kind of vulnerable and they respond with Grace. I I can almost guarantee you. This will be one of the best Church experiences you have ever discovered. Because this is what church was always meant to be. Never an hour. Never just faith. But faith that is filled with real Fellowship.
Because I'm, you know what, I know that having a friend is sweet, having a friend who can pray for you and tell you about that. So much sweeter. Having a group of girls that you can hang out with having the guys, you can watch the game with that's fun. But having people that you can reach out to when you're struggling celebrating flat on your face will tell you that God. Forgives God heals God Saves God made a promise and he's going to keep it.
Much sweeter. Having someone that can applaud your social media posts is amazing. Having someone that can redirect your anxious thoughts to the God, who loves you and is in fellowship with you through a son is Amazing Earth. And so my friends, whatever you got to do, Whatever step you got to take whatever confession, you need to make. I pray that you and I would get closer to the model of the early church and devote ourselves to one of God's greatest gifts.
If Mexican actor Danny Trejo was here. He would agree with me.
I recently read his autobiography and he talks about the day that he was released from prison in 1969. He grew up in a really rough environment. Drugs, violence, gangs ended up in prison for a long time, but in 1969, he was out and he was ready to make a fresh start, a different Danny Trejo, But because the devil's pretty good at his job.
Literally minutes after he got out of prison, he faced some crazy temptation.
He was just let out from behind the walls and he's walking down the street and this car pulls up next to him with a very beautiful woman who's very wearing a very small amount of clothing
You're Danny Trejo. She said, She knew his brother. You could tell by her words that she was drunk or high on something and she had an invitation, you should come party with me and my friends.
And there was Danny.
Hadn’t seen a woman in a long, long time. Fresh out of prison. Ready to be a different man. But brand new to this journey. What would he do?
I'll tell you what he did. He ran to a group that shared his goal.
Danny said, he went to a nearby truck stop on the closest pay phone. Dialed the number of a man who knew him and loved him. His name was Frank and he said Frank, I'm about to go back to prison.
Frank said you stay right where you are. I'm getting my car, stay on the line, you can talk to my wife, Frank dropped everything raced over and found Danny before he could take a hit. Before he could take a drink, before he could go back to his old ways, Danny, and his autobiography later wrote. If Frank had not been there, I would be in prison or I would be dead.
But then he threw a whole did not go back to prison. And he was alive enough to write those words.
And he's a man who knows that there is power, have a group of the goal. So, take the donuts or leave him. Have a cup of coffee or don't. But I pray that you and I would be devoted to this fellowship with God and to each other. They're few blessings quite as good.
