Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
We're glad that you're here. We help people find abundant
life in Jesus Christ, and we're doing that in the series called
Community. If you're ready, open your
Bibles. We're going to be in two places,
really a bunch of places, but starting in John chapter 19 and
Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 4.
If you want to put a bookmark in the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes
4 and John 19, we're start with first.
If you need a Bible, raise your hand.
That's why our ushers are meandering around here, these
fine young gentlemen. Thank you, Andy.
Thank you, Carrie and Lady, thank you so much for those.
Anyone else in the Bible. John chapter way over here,
Terry. Oh, they're coming to you, John,
chapter 19, Ecclesiastes chapter 4, in that order.
And eventually we get to some other stuff.
But as you're doing that, let me pray.
Father, in the name of Jesus, we welcome you.
You are the King, You are the honored guests.
We're the guests. This is your house.
We've come into your presence. So Lord, speak to us, refine us,
shape us, make us more like your son, Jesus.
Holy Spirit, this is your space. Come and minister to us.
You say that you would lead us into all truth.
So Holy Spirit, lead us today. Heal us today.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen, Amen.
I I believe that in our society in 2026, we have created a
culture of runners. And I'm not talking about the
people who have the brilliance of mind to go outside in 150°
day heat to the pavements like, like melting and they're out
there moving their arms and legs very fast in a singular
direction. I'm more talking about the, the,
the truth that we have become because of technology or
whatever you want to say, a more transient kind of people.
It used to be back in the olden days, like even before
automobiles got that far back, people just stayed where they
were. And then even with the eventual
auto, what is plane, trains and planes, trains and automobiles,
What people still in general stayed where they were from?
It wouldn't be unusual for a family to grow up and the next
generation to grow up behind them and they're living in the
same region or the same neighborhood, sometimes even in
the same home. That was just normal.
And we become a little bit more transient.
It used to be that the person you were going to marry, you
probably knew for your whole life.
You just didn't know you're going to marry them till later.
Your family grew up with them. And it's like, oh, yeah, the
whole time it's been Jane. You should marry Jane, Right?
That's the way it kind of used to be.
Technology has changed that. Now we can have friends all over
the globe. We're moving for jobs.
We're moving because of political persuasions.
Anyone migrated from someplace to don't raise your hand?
We're moving for weather reasons.
We're here and there and we're everywhere.
And on social media and in life, it's become normal just to
unfriend somebody. Like, I'm just done with you.
This is not working. So I'm out.
In the words of Mr. Cube. Ice Cube.
Bye, Felicia. Remember this, anyone?
Of course. Yeah.
Everyone's favorite Cube. Yeah.
When things go South, we don't stick in general.
We run. And when we run, what we're
running from is what we were designed for.
And that's the issue. We were designed for community
by a community. The triune godfather, Son, Holy
Spirit living in community. Boris in his image and his image
is community. And he said go and be community.
And when things get hard and there's we're out, Deuces, I
believe, is the terminology Now, we think the silver lining of
moving away from one community and just going and joining
another one or staying by ourselves is that we no longer
have to deal with the issue over here.
And I get to recreate myself in this new space.
They don't know me here like they knew me there.
You picking up what I'm putting down?
Yeah. So as the saying goes, the truth
is wherever you go, there you are.
Meaning that if you were rude and selfish in Toledo, you're
going to be rude and selfish in Topeka.
If you were lazy and self-serving in this
relationship, you're probably going to be lazy and
self-serving in the next relationship.
If the church you're leaving, you're leaving because they
don't do it the way you like and you get upset and offended, then
the next church you go to, at some point you're probably going
to be feeling the same way. I'm just, it's not, I don't like
it. They don't do it the way that I
want it. It got quiet.
I'll say this, sometimes we leave our community so that we
don't have to change our character.
Running from community allows us to hide.
Running from community allows us to stay the same.
And Jesus says that we're going to grow from glory to glory, not
be flat lined, stay the same. So what I hoped that will show
today, biblically speaking, is that staying and committed
biblical community is actually the thing that God has
prescribed to shape and form us into a more glorified godly
version of ourselves that represents him well, even when
it goes hard, even when there's confrontation.
So the message titled today is simply don't run, don't run.
Here's why. John chapter 19, something
beautiful happens. Besides the fact that we've been
created for community. Look what Jesus does.
John chapter 19. We're at the crucifixion.
Jesus has already been stripped, beaten, mocked, spit upon,
unjustly sentenced to death. He's been whipped with the
catanine tails upon his naked back.
He's had the crown of thorns placed upon his head and jabbed
into his forehead. Then he's asked to place the
crossbeam on his shredded back and walk up the Via della Rossa
to Golgotha where they lay him on the ground on the crossbeam
and Pierce his hands and his feet and raised him in a public
spectacle of shame for all the world to see.
And then we have this scene. It's kind of breathtaking.
Jesus is thinking when he's on the cross.
Verse 25, near the cross of Jesus stood his mother.
Just let that sit with you for a second.
She's watching her son perish and he's up there dying saying
there's my Mama. Like, don't dehumanize Jesus
just because he's also God, right?
His mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopis and Mary
Magdalene. It's a merry party.
Verse 26, When Jesus saw his mother there, that is, and the
disciple whom he loved, who's John?
Not John the Baptist, but John the disciple, He said to her,
woman, here is your son, and to the disciple he said, here is
your mother. From that time on, this disciple
took her into his home. Jesus is hanging from the cross
and he speaks to his mother and says, woman, some of the moms
here, like if my son called me woman, I would also bring out a
cross. I would.
But woman here is actually a term of endearment.
It means like my lady or mademoiselle, there's a certain
grace to it that we don't get in our translation.
But it's also a cover up for Jesus knows that many there had
no clue who his mom is. They barely know who he is.
There's no pictures or videos of Jesus.
So some of them are seeing him for the first time, hanging from
the cross and they have no idea who his mother is.
And so instead of saying mom and drawing the ridicule of the
crowd to her, he just addresses her as woman.
And then Jesus tells Mary, Mom, you have a new son, it's John.
And he looks at John and says, John, you have a new mother,
it's Mary. If you read the scriptures
through and through, you'll find that one of the greatest themes
in all the Bible is the honor and care of 1's parents.
And here is Jesus dying on the cross, caring for his mom.
Scholars believe, and I would agree with him, that Joseph,
Mary's husband is dead, otherwise she wouldn't need a
new home, a new covering. And so he says, Mom, you're now
a widow and your son's about to die.
I want to care for you. So I'm putting you in a new
family. And John, I'm putting you in a
new family too. So much so that John takes her
into his own home. Remember a few weeks ago when
Christine preached about in the old days in Jesus day?
You can see this when you go to Israel.
They wouldn't build a house and then the kids move over there
and build another house and the kids move over to that suburb
and some are in celebration and some are in Poinciana, right?
They would just add on to their house when the family grew and
more and more rooms. That's why Jesus says, I'm going
ahead of you to prepare a place for you.
Jesus right now is building on to his Father's house for you.
And John does this for us right here.
Now. Mary wasn't a part of his
family, wasn't living in his home.
And John, because she's now a part of the family, invites Mary
into the home. What's happening here?
Jesus is demonstrating that through his blood and by their
faith. Mary and John are the first
members of this new community, this new family of faith.
He's instituted a brand new family, remember in the Psalms
that says he puts the lonely in families and he does it first
with his mother. This is your new son, this is
your new mother. This family that is entered into
by faith and purchased for us through the blood and the
suffering of Jesus Christ so that all the world will know you
can be included. You are invited.
Everybody is loved. Everybody can be in in this
family. That's why I keep saying to you
during this series over and over again, the people sitting next
to you who are believers in Jesus are your literal brothers
and sisters. Sunday mornings are family
reunions in the name of Jesus. Stand up with me right now and
find a brother or sister in this room.
Come on everybody. Even if you're an introvert, hug
your family members right here, right now.
Your brother, your sister, your family, all of your family get
to know each other. Let's have a giant Thanksgiving.
Everyone's invited for Christmas.
Hug somebody you don't know. Hallelujah.
Yeah, if here's the point of what I want to say to you in
regards to this. If Jesus gave his life so that
we can have community, shouldn't we give ours to keep it?
Which means I'm going to let my ego and my pride and my comfort
go down so that I can stay in community with you and you and
community with me. If Christ has done the work to
unite us by the shedding of his blood, how can we be so
frivolous to undo this work? By walking away when things get
hard. Let's flip to Ecclesiastes.
I'll show you another part of community.
I'm trying to convince you to not walk away when it gets hard.
Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, verse 8.
There was a man. Notice his condition all alone.
He had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil.
Yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
He says. For whom am I toiling?
He asked. And why am I depriving myself of
enjoyment? He's got no one to share all of
this stuff with. All of his work produces stuff
and he's got no one to share the stuff with.
This too is meaningless, A miserable business.
Verse 9. A bunch of verses you might have
heard before and you thought they might have been secular
sayings or somewhere in the Bible.
They're all right here together. 2 are better than one because
they have a good return for their labor.
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up, but
pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm, but how can
one keep warm alone? Something I learned when I was
in scouts. If you get hypothermia, you
remember this you just got to get another warm body.
Verse 12 though one may be overpowered, 2 can defend
themselves. A cord of three strands is not
quickly broken. The power of community all in
one little section of scripture. A man has everything except
anyone to enjoy it with. Meaningless.
Or instead 2 can produce more than one.
One can lift another up if together, 1 can keep the other
warm if together 2 can withstand the attack better than one.
There's strength in numbers, which comes right from the
Bible. If the community has so much to
offer us, then why are we so often quick to leave it?
If this is the fruit of community, I want to stay in it,
even if it means some hard work and you may say, pastor, what do
you mean we're quick to leave community?
I've kind of already intimated it some, but often we leave
community. We go away from the shaping
relationships around us, typically for one of three
reasons. You could probably add 1000
more, but these are the ones that came to my mind.
Number one, I get offended by Felicia.
This is I'm taking my ball and going home.
I no longer want to play with you.
I don't want to be with you. I don't want to hang out with
you. I don't like I just I'm out,
right Or they require too much of me.
Somebody's trying to hold you to a standard and you don't want to
be held to that standard. So you want to go somewhere else
where there's no standard. I'm out or their teaching is too
hard. Like the what, what who could
ever do that? All three of these happened to
Jesus disciples. So do you think it might happen
to you? You don't have to turn there in
John chapter 6 Jesus is teaching he says I'm the bread of life
and they're like what we supposed to eat you?
Are you turning this into cannibals and Jesus double S
down he he goes on from saying I'm the bread of life.
Then he says if you do not eat of my flesh and drink of my
blood. This is what the Bible says
there is no life in you. Now for us on this side of
Jesus, as partakers in Holy Communion, once a month here at
Illuminate Church or whatever church you grew up in, we're
used to this symbolism, the body and blood of Christ represented
by the bread and the juice. And so it's normal to us.
But imagine standing there and watching this guy that you're
like, we're following Jesus. He's like, you need to eat my
flesh and blood. He's like, oh, this just got
weird. The Bible records in John
chapter 6 that they said to themselves, the teaching is too
hard. Jesus is set the standard too
high. And then it says this, they
turned from Jesus and walked away.
Can you imagine? They they turned their back on
Jesus and they left the community of the disciples and
walked away offended require too much.
The teaching is too hard. I wonder this morning, have you
ever walked away when someone has tried to teach you or hold
you accountable or require of you godliness and you're like,
ah, I need to get out of here. When someone holds up a mirror
to you and you don't like what you see, you can either leave
from the mirror or you can learn from the mirror.
Maturity says that we learn from the mirror.
American Society seems that says like just leave.
You want to find people who don't hold up the mirror to you.
That's what your comfort will tell you.
You know what they call people who will not hold up the mirror
to you? Enablers.
Coddlers, I just want you to feel good, so I'm not going to
address what doesn't feel good. Enablement.
Don't run. Don't run.
I'm about to do something I've never done on platform.
I hope it's not weird. That's a knife.
That's not a knife. OK?
Anyway, Crocodile, OK, knives are, yes, they're dangerous, but
they're also incredibly great tools that the Lord has given
us. If you think about what the
knife does in the preparation of food, in the defense of oneself
in the sacrificial system before Jesus, in surgery, scalpels,
they're they're very, very useful.
Unless they are absolutely dull, you do not want to be on a
surgery table with a doctor whose scalpels are dull.
And they're like, yeah, we don't want to be useless tools.
And so the Bible gives us a prescription.
Proverbs 2717. A very famous scripture says
that as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
I'm not a professional away from you.
Is that how you do it? Not this way, because this way
is safe and this way makes people nervous.
Really. Really, I'm fine.
I'm fine as iron sharpens iron. So one man, one woman sharpens
another. But do you notice how it works?
Friction. And nobody likes friction.
And God says, yeah, that's the way that we grow.
And when this happens, what we want to do?
And then it's. Right, no friction.
I got more to say. I want to talk about friction
this morning. It's the friction that sharpens
you, friction which is uncomfortable.
I'll say to you this when your comfort goes down, it's often
then that your character will go up.
Think about working out of the gym.
It's not comfortable. Think about eating better, it's
not comfortable. Think about being trained in
righteousness, it's not comfortable.
But the results are typically always the same.
When your comfort goes down, it's often then that your
character goes up. I'm going to show you what
friction looks like in the church and that the idea today
is that we re address or re see friction.
I want to put it in a better view.
I want to actually appreciate friction in relationships
because then I know that God is at work.
He's doing something. He's going to make something
from this. Amen.
You're so enthusiastic this morning, Ephesians Ephesians
chapter 4. If you want to flip there really
quick, it's all the way over to the New Testament Ephesians
chapter 4 verse 11, where see the work of the church and the
point of community all in one little section of scripture.
Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 says so Christ gave the fivefold
ministry, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and
teachers. Why?
To equip His people for works of service, so that the whole body
of Christ may be built up until we all, everyone say all, reach
unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and
become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of
Christ. Then we will no longer be
infants tossed back and forth by social media, by talking heads,
by schemes and cunning of the enemy, by waves blown here and
there, by the every wind of teaching and the cunning and
craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in
every respect a mature body of Him who is the head, that is
Christ. From him the whole body, joined
and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and
builds itself up and in love as each part does its work.
What is this teaching us? Friction actually grounds us and
matures us. The church community, which is
represented here by the fivefold ministry, the apostles,
prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers, and the body of
the church is meant to come around us and you, me, me, you,
to shape one another towards maturity.
I cannot do this alone. I have to be in community to
attain the full measure of Christ.
It's almost like we're learning here that there's a certain
level of maturity that I can attain on my own and personal
study and devotion to the Lord. But the fullness of my maturity
and my walk with Jesus is going to come from the friction and
the shaping of other believers in my life who are willing to
hold up the Word of God. That is, I skipped the scripture
earlier. I just want to make sure I read
it. Second Timothy 316.
All scripture is God breathed, useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training and righteousness.
We sit together and open the word together.
Our friend says, hey, I was reading Luke and you're not
living like Luke. They wouldn't say it like that,
but friction is meant to ground us and mature us.
It's the refinement from the body.
It is the iron sharpening iron. You cannot be sharpened by air.
Your growth requires community alone.
People end up to be dull people, a tool of the Lord, but you
become a little bit useless because of the lack of the
refinement that comes from the community, which feels to us
like friction, but it's actually a grace from the Lord to shape,
to refine. So my counsel use don't run,
decide to stay, meaning I'm going to stay where it hurts.
And listen to me. I'm not talking about church
abuse. I want to be very clear.
I'm not talking about something that's amoral or illegal.
I'm talking about character shaping or somebody's
challenging the way that you live, the way that you speak,
the way that you think, and say, Hey, can we align this to the
Lord? And you were like, I, I'm going
to turn my back on Jesus and walk away from the community
because the teaching is too hard.
And Ephesians chapter 4 is saying, stay in the body and be
sharpened in community. Don't run, stay.
Decide to say #2 just so we're clear, friction doesn't have to
be ugly. There's this assumption that
confrontation means bad, and really it's the friction.
It's the confrontation that shapes us.
We have something here at the church called our field guide,
looks like this. It's got Pastor Kim involved
around and Patrick on the front. They're looking great.
Baptism. Yep, in the field, guys.
A lot of things with the two major things that are in here
are our vision, which is what we do, and our cultural values,
which is the manner in which we do what we do.
You understand, one of our cultural values essentially says
this. We speak the truth as a staff,
as dream team members. We speak the truth in love,
which is right here out of Ephesians chapter 4, but we also
receive the truth as love. So the assumption is that when
you walk into my office or I walk into yours and there's
correction, there's friction, there's confrontation that we
need to walk through. The assumption is that you're
walking in in the motive of love, and I'm going to receive
what you're saying to me as love, which makes it much more
easy for you to say what you need to say to me, knowing that
I'm perceiving it correctly. You're coming in to say this
because you love me. Candor is king in the context of
love. As a result, we will not walk
away in fear of giving or receiving truth, even if it
causes healthy confrontation. We embrace it because it makes
us better. How do you speak the truth in
love? Lots of ways.
Let me just give you 2 ideas. Number one, always go to them,
not to others. When you go to others, it's not
very loving. What's private has now become
public, and there's public opinion about something that's
private between two people. And so because I love you, I'm
not going to make a spectacle of this.
Instead, I'm just going to talk to you because I love you and #2
check the motive of your heart before you walk in.
What's your motive? Is change your desire?
Is your desire for good? Or is it really, let's be
honest, to punish them? You can walk into an office or
to a relationship or to the church and your motive be I want
to bless with my words or my motive is I really just want to
curse you. I I want something bad to happen
to you because of the way that this has made me feel.
That's not speaking the truth in love.
That's speaking the truth. Had a selfish motive out of
anger. So my counsel to you is don't
run. Instead, you be an agent that
cultivates safety. You want to be the man or the
woman who says, when I walk into the room, I trust that you and I
have love between us so that we can talk about anything for the
sake of growth. Patrick Lincione says the best.
He's an author. He's written a bunch of
leadership books. He's a believer in God.
He in in the Five Dysfunctions of a team.
He says when there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the
pursuit of truth and attempt to find the best possible answer.
How about that conflict, seen rightly, is actually a good
thing. We're seeking the truth.
We want the best outcome for you and for me #3 Finally, friction
eliminates false peace. What a deception.
False peace. We think we're at peace, but
we're really not. We think everything is OK, but
it's not true. We just shoved it under the rug.
Luke chapter 6. Let me just read these two
scriptures to you. Why do you look at the speck of
sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the
plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother
or your sister, let me take the speck out of your eye when you
yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye?
You hypocrite, This is Jesus speaking.
First take the plank out your own eye and then you will see
clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
The main point of Jesus's teaching here is that
introspection must come first. I got to check myself in the
mirror before I go. Hold up the mirror for anybody
else to show them a blind spot. That that's the point.
Don't miss it, but also don't miss this, the very end of the
passage. Jesus doesn't say in the end,
Don't go, Jesus doesn't say. Don't help them.
Jesus doesn't say. Just sweep it under the rug and
deal with this another day which never comes.
That is false peace when we say nothing about the issues between
us because we want to keep up appearances or just keep the
relationship. If no one talks about specs and
planks with one another, then we're going to walk around with
a lot of specs and planks. And that's what false peace
looks like. Nobody willing to have a hard
conversation, to be candid, to be loving, no one really willing
to receive somebody that comes with candor and love.
Like I'm leaving. And if you are in a community of
people who pretend there are no specks and doesn't deal with
planks, don't run. Lead the way.
You lead the way by asking them. Is there anything in me that
needs correcting? Christine and I have a weekly
meeting Sundays. We talk about everything,
finances, plans for the week, and one of the questions we ask
each other. Is there anything I did this
week or said this week that we don't use these words but needs
correcting and vice versa. And we share.
Yeah, when you slam the fridge never happens.
I don't know what to make up, but we we share.
Yeah, that was a hard conversation or that didn't land
right. Or when you do this, it makes me
feel this. And you know what's happening
the whole time. And Sunday by Sunday, our
marriage matures because we're open to receiving the frictions
saying there's something not right, so let's make it right in
Jesus name. When you have Patrick Lincione,
he doesn't call it false peace. He calls it artificial harmony.
And he says it's a relationship killer.
When there's false peace, there's no real engagement
because the entire relationship is built on falsehood.
When there's false peace, there's no truth.
So you can't tell when somebody's talking to you like,
is this truth or lie? Are you giving me the real
truth? Are you covering up or?
And when there's false peace, there's no hope for growth or
improvement. We're just going to pretend like
everything's OK and stay this way for the rest of our lives
and not mature. Stay in broken places, broken
relationships. And then we wonder why we're
upset. Don't run.
Instead, surrender your view of yourself to the shaping of the
community. It's a very vulnerable place to
be, to say I know that the only way that I become the fullness
of Christ is to allow myself to be examined by you and for you
to tell me the truth. Yeah.
Tim, you are flapping in the wind in this area.
You don't even know it. But I love you.
I want to show it to you. You know, I really, when I say
this, I really love the staff here at Illuminate Church.
I love these people. I love seeing them in the
office. There's nobody's office that I
like walk by like really quickly, you know, love it when
we have meals together, we laugh, we cry together, we pray
together, we read together, we go on retreats together and
actually enjoy it. Hallelujah.
But it wasn't always that way. When we started as a church, I
thought that our culture would just form around the fact that
I'm a nice guy and we love each other and working for Jesus is
fun sometimes. We had no cultural values, and
so a lot of things would happen on staff in the early days and
just wouldn't be addressed because we didn't have know how
to address them. We didn't know how to speak the
truth in love or receive the truth in love.
We didn't know how to seek First things first.
We didn't know what that meant. That alignment is more important
than assignment. It's better that we have
relationship than we get this thing done.
We're just getting things done at the sake of relationship.
You understand what I'm saying? And so the Lord had us write the
culture guide and now this staff that we have and some former
staff members too, it's just been a wonderful ride.
We know how to walk through hard things together.
And I promise you this, our staff, we ain't perfect.
We got issues, we got problems. There is friction regularly, but
nobody clinches, nobody deuces and runs away.
We come to the table and then we stay at the table.
We have hard conversations and I watch staff member sharpening
staff member, and I've experienced staff members
sharpening me and none of us on this staff are the same that we
were a year ago because we've decided to not run and to stay
even when it was friction and it's been happening.
I'm better, Christine's better, Ronnie's better, Sarah's better,
Dave is better, other Dave is better, Alex is better, Kim's
better. There's a lot of work on Kim.
I'm just kidding. I want to close today by saying
to anyone here who's been a runaway that the Lord brought
you here today, say, come home. This message is not meant for
condemnation. It's always meant for
invitation. You may feel conviction that's
the Holy Spirit, but maybe you've run from a community
that's trying to shape you or run from the Lord who's trying
to shape you, and you just say today I'm turning back around
and facing Jesus. I'm turning back around and
entering the community. Maybe it's at your home.
Maybe you need to sit at the table and say we're not leaving
the table until we speak the truth in love and receive the
truth is love. Maybe it's at your workplace.
You got to set the culture yourself, even if it's just you.
I'm going to cultivate safety. I'm going to walk through hard
spaces knowing that it matures me and hopefully the other
person as well. Not going to run.
I've done the running, it just delays the inevitable.
I'm going to stay. I have these 3 words for you.
Return, repair and recommit. Return to community.
Allow the community and you to them, them to you to do some
healing, some repairing, and to make a commitment.
We're not going to run from this table.
We're going to stay when it gets hard.
We're going to do the work knowing that the friction
actually makes us better as we resolve it together.
I have one question. You can write this down.
Ask it of God. Ask it of.
Someone you trust, but don't ask him unless you're willing to
hear the truth. These 4 words, will you sharpen
me? Thanks for joining us today.
We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can text connect to
407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot church.
Have a great week.