WEBVTT 00:00.451 --> 00:28.708 [SPEAKER_01]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com Good morning I'm Scott, I serve as one of the elders here If Citizens is home to you or if you're new, welcome Recently, in two different conversations 00:29.797 --> 00:39.020 [SPEAKER_01]: with two different friends, two different parts of the country, two very different experiences of community. 00:40.340 --> 00:43.741 [SPEAKER_01]: See if either of these have some resonance for you. 00:45.242 --> 00:54.324 [SPEAKER_01]: A little over a year ago, as I taught to my first friend, a little over a year ago for her, she was diagnosed with cancers. 00:55.825 --> 00:56.865 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, cancers. 01:00.058 --> 01:04.880 [SPEAKER_01]: in the large B-cell lymphoma, both at advanced stages. 01:05.820 --> 01:16.444 [SPEAKER_01]: The prognosis was bleak to say the least intensive chemotherapy, immunotherapy, her husband took early retirement. 01:16.684 --> 01:24.787 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a care for her and to see her through this battery of treatments that they really did not know if it would have any effect. 01:26.265 --> 01:44.261 [SPEAKER_01]: But when I saw her a couple weeks ago, a year after all of this started, and had been reading the carrying bridge and following the midnight ambulance visits to the hospital and the treatments were having their effects on her body and praying with them that I saw her a couple weeks ago. 01:44.922 --> 01:48.024 [SPEAKER_01]: And over dinner, she was all right. 01:48.865 --> 01:51.527 [SPEAKER_01]: Her body was frail, her hair was absent, 01:52.943 --> 02:03.228 [SPEAKER_01]: But the cancer had abated, and her spirit was full of life, her heart was warm, and I asked her, I said, what is something that has carried you through this last year? 02:05.249 --> 02:07.230 [SPEAKER_01]: Such a traumatic year, such a hard year. 02:08.331 --> 02:11.172 [SPEAKER_01]: Something nobody would ever want to go through, but you've made it. 02:11.252 --> 02:16.515 [SPEAKER_01]: And what carried you through, and she said, God and my community. 02:18.035 --> 02:20.977 [SPEAKER_01]: She spoke of the love of God and her confidence in him. 02:22.060 --> 02:30.328 [SPEAKER_01]: and that how that love of God had been displayed to her in meals brought over, understanding words spoken. 02:32.249 --> 02:37.054 [SPEAKER_01]: Our is spent with people that were simply there with her when there was nothing to say. 02:38.675 --> 02:45.101 [SPEAKER_01]: Amidst some of the most painful medical experiences that you could have was sustained her was her friends. 02:47.083 --> 02:47.944 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you know what that's like. 02:49.005 --> 03:02.051 [SPEAKER_01]: You've had an experience like that, in your hour of greatest need, in your hour of pain, a season of challenge, somebody has been there with you, or people have been there with you, and God showed you his love through his people. 03:04.232 --> 03:10.315 [SPEAKER_01]: My other friend has been having a very different experience, in conversations with him recently. 03:11.155 --> 03:13.076 [SPEAKER_01]: He's been going through over the last months year, 03:18.835 --> 03:21.597 [SPEAKER_01]: and of confusion in the church where he's a member. 03:23.619 --> 03:36.570 [SPEAKER_01]: In an effort from his perspective to bring some good faith concerns about another member wasn't received well, he was sideline in his experience. 03:37.290 --> 03:38.351 [SPEAKER_01]: He felt misunderstood. 03:39.372 --> 03:43.856 [SPEAKER_01]: He felt like he was being the one told he was wrong, even though he didn't understand why. 03:45.477 --> 03:47.399 [SPEAKER_01]: Suddenly the church where he was a founding member, 03:48.443 --> 03:52.384 [SPEAKER_01]: didn't feel like the community of friends, but he felt like he was on the outside. 03:54.545 --> 03:59.067 [SPEAKER_01]: He told me that this has been the hardest season of his entire life. 04:01.268 --> 04:02.288 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you also know what that's like. 04:03.669 --> 04:10.111 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you've had an experience like that where people you trusted, trust has been broken. 04:11.772 --> 04:15.713 [SPEAKER_01]: And more than that, you're realizing that maybe they're not who you thought they were all along. 04:16.683 --> 04:24.785 [SPEAKER_01]: We have those occasions in relational conflicts where not only do you feel wronged by them, but you feel maybe you were wrong about them. 04:25.765 --> 04:30.306 [SPEAKER_01]: And you're forced to question years of investment with one another in time spent together. 04:32.447 --> 04:37.428 [SPEAKER_01]: And in those moments, maybe you just feel alone and hurt. 04:39.669 --> 04:42.109 [SPEAKER_01]: Two people, two experiences of community, 04:46.625 --> 04:50.168 [SPEAKER_01]: the other, the community was the source of terrible pain. 04:52.689 --> 04:54.291 [SPEAKER_01]: How do we handle that tension? 04:55.511 --> 05:03.217 [SPEAKER_01]: How do we live in a world where the people around us can be the greatest source of help to us or the greatest source of hurt? 05:05.058 --> 05:07.460 [SPEAKER_01]: That's from some conversations with a couple of my friends. 05:08.541 --> 05:09.822 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me turn it more personal. 05:11.297 --> 05:13.798 [SPEAKER_01]: indulge me a moment in that. 05:13.858 --> 05:16.159 [SPEAKER_01]: This is what it's looked like in my personal experience. 05:16.199 --> 05:18.420 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, maybe some of it resonates with you. 05:20.582 --> 05:23.763 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm the third of six children in my family. 05:24.183 --> 05:32.067 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a pair about closer and age that are about four years above me, and then it's four years down to a trio that are closer and age. 05:32.087 --> 05:33.748 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very much the middle child. 05:34.460 --> 05:40.565 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you've done any reading on birth order dynamics, it's pretty much maps true. 05:40.785 --> 05:44.028 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'd just love to be where the action is. 05:44.128 --> 05:47.351 [SPEAKER_01]: If the older kids are playing and doing something fun, I want to do that. 05:47.431 --> 05:50.253 [SPEAKER_01]: If the younger kids are doing something, I want to be involved in that. 05:51.134 --> 05:57.519 [SPEAKER_01]: My only disagreement with the birth order stuff is it typically says the oldest or the youngest is the favorite child, obviously I disagree. 05:58.640 --> 06:00.902 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm 42 years old and still chasing that title. 06:03.491 --> 06:06.418 [SPEAKER_01]: My grandparents, my dad's parents, lived with us, growing up. 06:07.120 --> 06:11.411 [SPEAKER_01]: So on a normal day, normal evening, there was 10 people around the dinner table. 06:12.869 --> 06:17.452 [SPEAKER_01]: We're part of a vibrant church in Richardson, just down the way on Beltline. 06:17.472 --> 06:20.293 [SPEAKER_01]: You're the police station there, familiar with that area of town. 06:20.974 --> 06:28.018 [SPEAKER_01]: Highlights for me, where Wednesday night, Alwana, sparks, pals and pioneers that whole thing, if you guys are into that. 06:29.419 --> 06:36.323 [SPEAKER_01]: Youth Group, Sunday Services, my earliest memories and my happiest memories are just being with people. 06:37.938 --> 06:45.042 [SPEAKER_01]: And in my adult life, I've had the privilege over the last 20 years to more or less be in full-time ministry in some former fashion. 06:46.123 --> 06:50.425 [SPEAKER_01]: And being a pastor is a wonderful experience. 06:50.485 --> 06:55.368 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a wonderful experience because you get a front row seat to so many of the stories that I told first. 06:56.209 --> 07:01.632 [SPEAKER_01]: Of people being a life-giving, redemptive influence and impact in others' lives. 07:02.530 --> 07:08.614 [SPEAKER_01]: I've seen so many occasions like that where the community came around someone who needed love and it's such a joy. 07:10.416 --> 07:20.783 [SPEAKER_01]: And I've also experienced personally that second side where no pastor is perfect, certainly myself included, and no church is perfect. 07:22.004 --> 07:28.369 [SPEAKER_01]: And occasionally what that means is that members and friends, relationships, decide that 07:33.398 --> 07:36.960 [SPEAKER_01]: They leave the home group, they leave the church. 07:37.421 --> 07:43.785 [SPEAKER_01]: Some do so quietly, and so there's the confusion of feeling ghosted, where'd they go? 07:44.766 --> 07:53.411 [SPEAKER_01]: Some do so loudly, and there's the confusion of being accused often for things related to misperceptions about the church, but feel personal as a leader in the church. 07:55.693 --> 07:58.655 [SPEAKER_01]: And if I'm being honest, I have a concern and even mentioning that. 07:59.435 --> 08:01.397 [SPEAKER_01]: I know it's self-referential, I know it's personal. 08:02.920 --> 08:10.006 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, that I need to nuance it so much, because so you know that I really do love people and I love the church, and I don't think I'm always right. 08:11.087 --> 08:13.869 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's not me saying poor me for being in ministry. 08:14.670 --> 08:20.495 [SPEAKER_01]: The banner over ministry is the joy of seeing those relationships and God at work among his people. 08:21.856 --> 08:29.102 [SPEAKER_01]: And there can be well-justified reasons for people to leave and go on to other places and other contexts. 08:31.130 --> 08:32.691 [SPEAKER_01]: pastors can experience that as hard. 08:33.232 --> 08:34.473 [SPEAKER_01]: All those things can be true at once. 08:35.394 --> 08:37.015 [SPEAKER_01]: The challenge of life in community. 08:38.016 --> 08:47.564 [SPEAKER_01]: And I trust if you've served in ministry of any capacity, be a pastoral home group leader, kids ministry leader, or simply as a neighbor and friend trying to serve somebody else. 08:48.365 --> 08:50.867 [SPEAKER_01]: You've experienced something like that in measure. 08:52.775 --> 09:03.578 [SPEAKER_01]: If you go down the hall, where the kids' ministry is, pass the chapel, you'll see something written on the wall, and it's from a quote from a pastor, I'm called JR Vaster, over in great fun. 09:04.298 --> 09:10.140 [SPEAKER_01]: And he says, like this, healthy community can double joys in divide pains. 09:11.420 --> 09:14.601 [SPEAKER_01]: Healthy community can double joys in divide pains. 09:16.521 --> 09:18.802 [SPEAKER_01]: And unfortunately, the opposite can also be true. 09:19.761 --> 09:29.768 [SPEAKER_01]: where an unhealthy member participate in a community can double pains and remove all the joys. 09:32.490 --> 09:39.435 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, as I was already mentioned earlier, we're in a series, looking at what the Bible says about what it means to be human. 09:40.695 --> 09:48.601 [SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the essential truths about what makes us who we are as humanity, what was God's design, what happened, what hope do we have? 09:49.966 --> 10:01.710 [SPEAKER_01]: And the thread that we're pulling on this morning is the idea being made for others, relationships, that humanity is not meant to be alone, but we're made for other people, we're made for connectedness. 10:03.571 --> 10:14.915 [SPEAKER_01]: In the verse that we're read a few moments ago, we heard some snippets, some sum of what Jesus had to as followers in the final hours of His earthly ministry. 10:16.315 --> 10:20.257 [SPEAKER_01]: It's from John, we've read from chapter 15 and chapter 17. 10:20.277 --> 10:27.059 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you have one of those Bibles with the Red Letters, this portion of the book of John is basically all read. 10:27.679 --> 10:35.682 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just Jesus talking to his disciples and then turning what he says to his disciples in prayer to God the Father. 10:36.443 --> 10:42.425 [SPEAKER_01]: It's the farewell discourse, as it's called, and it's the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. 10:44.541 --> 10:48.783 [SPEAKER_01]: Look at the verses back in chapter 17, if you have your bibles, and I think you'll be up on the screen. 10:51.264 --> 10:55.065 [SPEAKER_01]: John chapter 17, verse 20, let me read to 26 again. 10:57.226 --> 10:58.886 [SPEAKER_01]: My prayer is not for them alone. 10:59.967 --> 11:06.169 [SPEAKER_01]: I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one, Father. 11:07.129 --> 11:13.792 [SPEAKER_01]: Just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 11:14.892 --> 11:30.719 [SPEAKER_01]: I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I and them, and you and me, so that they may be brought to complete unity, and then the world will know that you have set me and love them even as you loved me. 11:31.859 --> 11:40.803 [SPEAKER_01]: Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me, because you loved me before the creation of the world. 11:43.651 --> 11:48.034 [SPEAKER_01]: Though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know you have sent me. 11:49.255 --> 12:00.643 [SPEAKER_01]: I have made known them to you, and I will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and that I myself may be in them. 12:02.706 --> 12:07.969 [SPEAKER_01]: These verses from Jesus are a very hollowed ground. 12:08.929 --> 12:19.615 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a holy place in a unique way because what we have here in Jesus' prayer in John 17 is God talking to God about God. 12:20.756 --> 12:24.298 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's pretty peer theology as far as it goes. 12:25.237 --> 12:32.760 [SPEAKER_01]: And what Jesus is reflecting on in his prayer is he's celebrating the unity and love that he enjoys with God the Father. 12:32.820 --> 12:33.480 [SPEAKER_01]: He'd to catch that. 12:35.181 --> 12:38.182 [SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about the love that the Father had for him before creation. 12:38.442 --> 12:40.963 [SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about the glory that he shares with the Father. 12:40.983 --> 12:42.023 [SPEAKER_01]: They're not on different levels. 12:42.323 --> 12:43.043 [SPEAKER_01]: They are one. 12:44.184 --> 12:46.885 [SPEAKER_01]: One in glory, one in love, one in unity. 12:48.445 --> 12:49.306 [SPEAKER_01]: It's one God. 12:53.469 --> 12:56.792 [SPEAKER_01]: We found ourselves knee-deep in the doctrine of the Trinity. 12:58.553 --> 13:08.901 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're new to Christianity, or if you just need a refresher, as we all often do in matters of theology, the Trinity is a core doctrine of our faith. 13:09.782 --> 13:12.804 [SPEAKER_01]: And Citizens Church's doctrinal statement says it better than I ever could. 13:13.564 --> 13:15.826 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I want to read our doctrinal statement. 13:16.267 --> 13:18.488 [SPEAKER_01]: It's long, but it's worth reading. 13:20.871 --> 13:24.815 [SPEAKER_01]: You're just going to lock in, because this is going to take a second. 13:24.955 --> 13:25.816 [SPEAKER_01]: Don't check the scores. 13:25.836 --> 13:26.937 [SPEAKER_01]: There's no sports being played. 13:28.218 --> 13:28.938 [SPEAKER_01]: Just listen in. 13:31.886 --> 13:37.929 [SPEAKER_01]: We believe in the one true God who eternally exists as one essence in three distinct persons. 13:38.309 --> 13:41.211 [SPEAKER_01]: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. 13:41.971 --> 13:47.434 [SPEAKER_01]: Each person of the Trinity is fully equally and eternally God yet there is one God. 13:48.334 --> 13:54.257 [SPEAKER_01]: Each person has precisely the same nature and attributes and is worthy of precisely the same worship on her embrace. 13:54.577 --> 14:00.660 [SPEAKER_01]: The entire Christian faith is bound together with a confession of God's trinitarian nature. 14:01.745 --> 14:04.208 [SPEAKER_01]: We believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. 14:04.228 --> 14:07.772 [SPEAKER_01]: We believe in the Son, God from God, it turnedily begotten but not made. 14:08.073 --> 14:12.739 [SPEAKER_01]: Who in history assumed to Himself a human nature for the sake of our salvation? 14:13.825 --> 14:18.868 [SPEAKER_01]: He is fully God and fully manned through him, all things came into being and were created. 14:19.188 --> 14:24.452 [SPEAKER_01]: He was before all things and in him, all things hold together by the Word of His power. 14:25.132 --> 14:35.638 [SPEAKER_01]: Christ, the Son of God's suffered, died and was buried, resurrected, ascended and sits at the right hand of the Father until he returns for the final judgment and consummation of the kingdom. 14:36.179 --> 14:37.600 [SPEAKER_01]: We believe in the Holy Spirit. 14:38.320 --> 14:42.621 [SPEAKER_01]: who eternally proceeds from the Father and Son in the sent by the Father and Son to give new life. 14:43.081 --> 14:50.242 [SPEAKER_01]: The Holy Spirit unites believers to Jesus Christ in faith and brings about the new birth and dwells within the regenerate. 14:51.003 --> 15:00.685 [SPEAKER_01]: The Holy Spirit has come to glorify the Son who in turn came to glorify the Father, He will lead the church into a right understanding and rich application of the truth of God's word. 15:01.025 --> 15:02.345 [SPEAKER_01]: He is to be respected. 15:03.065 --> 15:15.888 [SPEAKER_01]: honored and worshiped as God, the third person of the Trinity, the triune God, father, son and spirit, is the creator of all things visible and invisible as the immortal and eternal creator. 15:16.408 --> 15:19.029 [SPEAKER_01]: He's sovereignly rules over all of his creation. 15:21.169 --> 15:21.869 [SPEAKER_01]: I know that was a lot. 15:22.669 --> 15:23.650 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for sticking with me. 15:26.030 --> 15:29.631 [SPEAKER_01]: Before we move on, can I just pause and say that doctrinal statements are worth 15:31.365 --> 15:38.791 [SPEAKER_01]: And not just as a box to check in the membership class, it's worth reading and going back to our doctoral statement. 15:38.811 --> 15:40.332 [SPEAKER_01]: You can find ours on the website. 15:41.033 --> 15:59.007 [SPEAKER_01]: To read theology like that, clearly articulated by men, much smarter than me and women that have labored over these truths over the centuries and brought them into clarity for us is like washing the drains of our mind and getting out the filth of the world with the clarity of truth. 15:59.587 --> 16:02.869 [SPEAKER_01]: So just commend it to you to read good doctrine. 16:04.350 --> 16:06.251 [SPEAKER_01]: But did you notice in that statement there? 16:08.112 --> 16:08.652 [SPEAKER_01]: A few things. 16:09.292 --> 16:15.936 [SPEAKER_01]: One, the entire Christian faith is bound together with the confession of God's trinitarian nature. 16:17.837 --> 16:20.779 [SPEAKER_01]: The entire Christian faith is bound together in God's trinitarian nature. 16:21.019 --> 16:22.140 [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't a side belief. 16:22.200 --> 16:23.881 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a fringe thing. 16:24.581 --> 16:25.822 [SPEAKER_01]: We can't add or remove it. 16:25.862 --> 16:28.063 [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't one where we can agree to disagree. 16:29.922 --> 16:35.023 [SPEAKER_01]: At the center of our faith, is the true reality that God is a triune God. 16:35.903 --> 16:45.125 [SPEAKER_01]: One God who is eternally existed as one essence in three persons, three in one, one in three, metaphors and illustrations don't help, I'm not even going to try. 16:45.145 --> 16:50.766 [SPEAKER_01]: This is a transcendent reality that's an irreducible complexity, it's a mystery. 16:51.726 --> 16:57.327 [SPEAKER_01]: We see in Scripture, the triune God of Father, Son, Spirit, one God who is all in all. 16:58.963 --> 17:12.830 [SPEAKER_01]: And amidst all of that, amidst that, doctrinal statement, amidst what I'm saying, one thing I want you to pull right there is that in his essence, the nature of his very being, our God is relational. 17:14.871 --> 17:17.672 [SPEAKER_01]: God is by nature, relational. 17:19.433 --> 17:23.615 [SPEAKER_01]: At the center of our Christian faith is a relational loving, triune God. 17:24.867 --> 17:30.110 [SPEAKER_01]: Back at John 17, what Jesus is doing there is putting all that on display. 17:31.310 --> 17:33.372 [SPEAKER_01]: He's putting all that on display for us to see. 17:34.212 --> 17:41.856 [SPEAKER_01]: God talking to God about God, the sun Jesus loves the Father as united to the Father, shares glory with the Father. 17:41.876 --> 17:43.717 [SPEAKER_01]: And now what does that say about us? 17:45.658 --> 17:49.840 [SPEAKER_01]: That we, created by God, the Triune God, 17:56.845 --> 18:13.711 [SPEAKER_01]: created for relationship with God, created to share in the divine love that Jesus has with the Father and the Spirit has with the Father, and that they have with each other, created to share in that relational community of love and to experience that with our fellow man. 18:15.412 --> 18:22.835 [SPEAKER_01]: In John chapter 15, when Jesus was teaching His disciples, He said, My command is this that you love one another as I have loved you. 18:24.078 --> 18:31.744 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you've experienced, for me, the love that I have to you, God, demand, now you experience with each other. 18:34.807 --> 18:47.537 [SPEAKER_01]: And what's being said in John's Gospel isn't a new innovation that John came up with, or that Jesus spoke in John recorded, but it's consistent with what we see about who God is and who we are from the very earliest pages of the Bible. 18:48.938 --> 18:53.322 [SPEAKER_01]: In the first verses of Scripture, when we look at that creation story in Genesis chapter one, 18:54.321 --> 18:59.084 [SPEAKER_01]: It introduces us to this triune God, father, son, and spirit. 19:00.245 --> 19:06.309 [SPEAKER_01]: Creation is the united, created overflow of the love of those three persons. 19:06.349 --> 19:08.991 [SPEAKER_01]: God speaks and the world comes into being. 19:10.191 --> 19:19.658 [SPEAKER_01]: And John and back in his gospel in chapter one, John identifies that all things were made through him, the word, the word that God speaks. 19:19.818 --> 19:21.779 [SPEAKER_01]: And Genesis chapter one is Jesus himself. 19:23.798 --> 19:27.103 [SPEAKER_01]: The son who became flesh in Jesus was active at creation. 19:27.203 --> 19:36.757 [SPEAKER_01]: Every creative command in Genesis displays God bringing fourth life and beauty according to the word and we also see in Genesis 1, the Spirit of God. 19:37.738 --> 19:38.740 [SPEAKER_01]: Hovering over the waters. 19:40.793 --> 19:42.735 [SPEAKER_01]: actively present as the world takes shape. 19:43.156 --> 19:54.489 [SPEAKER_01]: His presence, the Spirit, anticipates the transformation of this unformed empty earth into something orderly, teaming with life according to God's good design. 19:54.749 --> 19:59.515 [SPEAKER_01]: Together, word and spirit, accomplishing God's creative purpose. 20:02.293 --> 20:10.436 [SPEAKER_01]: Not only do we see God's trinitarian nature on display when he says, let us create this world and let us do something else. 20:10.856 --> 20:13.437 [SPEAKER_01]: Let us create man in our image. 20:14.978 --> 20:17.459 [SPEAKER_01]: God declares his intent to create humanity. 20:17.979 --> 20:21.201 [SPEAKER_01]: And you know something very interesting happens when we get to that part of the creation story. 20:21.461 --> 20:22.161 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you remember it? 20:24.133 --> 20:29.434 [SPEAKER_01]: in the first days of creation, God creates, and then looks at it and says it's good. 20:30.274 --> 20:32.375 [SPEAKER_01]: He does this, and he sees that it's good. 20:32.395 --> 20:33.915 [SPEAKER_01]: He does that, and he sees that it's good. 20:34.575 --> 20:38.336 [SPEAKER_01]: And then there comes this point in the creation story in verse 18. 20:39.196 --> 20:40.156 [SPEAKER_01]: Where something different happens. 20:40.176 --> 20:41.316 [SPEAKER_01]: I think you'll see it on the screen. 20:41.336 --> 20:42.036 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at the verse. 20:43.457 --> 20:48.357 [SPEAKER_01]: The Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. 20:49.218 --> 20:51.178 [SPEAKER_01]: I will make a helper suitable for him. 20:53.667 --> 20:56.087 [SPEAKER_01]: Now that's strange, so this is the first time in that story. 20:56.108 --> 20:59.608 [SPEAKER_01]: If you go back and read Genesis 1 to 2, where something's not good. 21:01.189 --> 21:04.749 [SPEAKER_01]: So what's going on here is, did God make a mistake? 21:04.809 --> 21:10.950 [SPEAKER_01]: He was working through the Lego page by page, and he missed one of the blocks, and now it's wonky. 21:11.391 --> 21:13.031 [SPEAKER_01]: No, God doesn't make mistakes. 21:13.971 --> 21:15.251 [SPEAKER_01]: So what's he trying to get out of here? 21:15.271 --> 21:16.632 [SPEAKER_01]: What's he trying to get us to see? 21:17.132 --> 21:17.952 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a failure. 21:17.972 --> 21:19.592 [SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely not sin. 21:19.632 --> 21:20.832 [SPEAKER_01]: Sin is not entered the world yet. 21:24.475 --> 21:25.776 [SPEAKER_01]: So what does it mean that it's not good? 21:28.197 --> 21:29.238 [SPEAKER_01]: It means that it's incomplete. 21:30.619 --> 21:50.211 [SPEAKER_01]: Imagine God on that moment having created Adam and looking into himself and the father's son in spirit looking at that reality that Adam has now been made and what they would see there is something lacking because to fully image God himself, there would need to be more than one. 21:53.351 --> 21:57.637 [SPEAKER_01]: Not that man was not good, but it was not good for him to be alone. 21:58.618 --> 22:02.903 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a good for him to be alone, so God says, I will make a helper suitable for him. 22:04.145 --> 22:08.811 [SPEAKER_01]: The creation of humanity was incomplete until there was more than one. 22:10.401 --> 22:13.384 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, there is so much we could say from this verse. 22:15.145 --> 22:18.187 [SPEAKER_01]: There's so many things that we could pull from it, and time we could spend on it. 22:18.628 --> 22:32.839 [SPEAKER_01]: If time allowed, we could talk at length, specifically about the unique companionship of woman, to man, in the covenant relationship that we call marriage, and how that beautiful union finds this origin right here in this verse. 22:34.801 --> 22:36.482 [SPEAKER_01]: But for the sake of what we're focusing on today, 22:37.456 --> 23:05.040 [SPEAKER_01]: What I'm trying to get you to see is that this verse is not saying less than mankind from its origin was created to be a relational being connected to others, experiencing God himself and God's creation with others, a relational God, creating a relational humanity to live together in perfect harmony in the place that he made for them. 23:07.426 --> 23:09.887 [SPEAKER_01]: But what happened? 23:09.927 --> 23:14.850 [SPEAKER_01]: How did we arrive at the place we are now where we feel the tension I described earlier? 23:14.870 --> 23:23.594 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, rather than collaborating with God, following in his ways, as I hope that you know, Adam and Eve disobeyed God. 23:23.614 --> 23:24.914 [SPEAKER_01]: They choose their own path. 23:25.334 --> 23:27.395 [SPEAKER_01]: They reject the love that God has shown for them. 23:27.636 --> 23:30.437 [SPEAKER_01]: They rebel against God and sin enters the world. 23:31.780 --> 23:36.423 [SPEAKER_01]: the stain of sin, severs the relationship that they enjoyed with God. 23:37.263 --> 23:39.464 [SPEAKER_01]: And immediately leads to fractured relationships. 23:39.725 --> 23:41.205 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember the exchange that happens? 23:42.206 --> 23:42.626 [SPEAKER_01]: Immediately? 23:43.147 --> 23:43.627 [SPEAKER_01]: What happens? 23:43.687 --> 23:44.387 [SPEAKER_01]: Blameshifting. 23:45.488 --> 23:49.510 [SPEAKER_01]: God, I think it was Eve, that girl that you created, she's the one that caused this problem. 23:49.550 --> 23:50.731 [SPEAKER_01]: So you can't blame me for it. 23:51.932 --> 23:52.432 [SPEAKER_01]: What's he doing? 23:53.484 --> 24:05.912 [SPEAKER_01]: He's not only experiencing his distance from God, the shame that has come from that, but he is in that very act, distancing himself horizontally from the only relationship that he has in the world. 24:06.452 --> 24:08.354 [SPEAKER_01]: Relationships have been compromised. 24:09.290 --> 24:11.532 [SPEAKER_01]: who we are as humans has been compromised. 24:11.772 --> 24:16.556 [SPEAKER_01]: Listen to how the prophet Isaiah describes the effect of sin in Isaiah 59.2. 24:17.056 --> 24:21.520 [SPEAKER_01]: But your iniquities, your sins, have separated you from your God. 24:21.880 --> 24:26.624 [SPEAKER_01]: Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. 24:26.644 --> 24:36.933 [SPEAKER_01]: What Isaiah is trying to get them to see is that God and his holiness cannot be with someone 24:39.367 --> 24:47.331 [SPEAKER_01]: So the effect for the sinner is like searching for God and seeing, no, no, he can't even look at me. 24:48.371 --> 24:53.113 [SPEAKER_01]: He can't even hear what I'm talking about because my sins have separated me from this God. 24:57.836 --> 25:07.040 [SPEAKER_01]: Regardless of how many good things we've done, regardless of how noble you think your actions are or your performance has been, 25:08.645 --> 25:20.150 [SPEAKER_01]: Regardless of how well you've distracted yourself by the busyness of life or attention to other things, we at the end of the day, apart from Christ, are alone. 25:21.611 --> 25:22.191 [SPEAKER_01]: We're alone. 25:23.172 --> 25:30.335 [SPEAKER_01]: Made for relationship with God, because of sin, not in the community of His love, we are alone apart from Him. 25:31.676 --> 25:36.878 [SPEAKER_01]: And even if you're someone in here, and I think all of us experience this at times, 25:38.160 --> 25:39.123 [SPEAKER_01]: We don't acknowledge that. 25:39.183 --> 25:41.630 [SPEAKER_01]: We don't acknowledge our isolation spiritually. 25:42.533 --> 25:43.516 [SPEAKER_01]: We think, no, I'm good. 25:43.837 --> 25:44.900 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm strong enough on my own. 25:46.888 --> 25:51.993 [SPEAKER_01]: want to say, why don't we look out and how things are working out socially in the world? 25:52.633 --> 26:05.385 [SPEAKER_01]: If that's true, that we are able to be stable on our own without a relationship with a creator God of the universe, then that should mean that these thousands of years and hundred had depending on how you dated. 26:05.985 --> 26:10.549 [SPEAKER_01]: This extent of human history, we've gotten to a place where we figured out relationships, right? 26:12.571 --> 26:12.851 [SPEAKER_01]: In 2019, 26:14.370 --> 26:27.682 [SPEAKER_01]: The United Kingdom appointed the first government minister of loneliness to address the rampant issues that they were facing in the kingdom of chronic loneliness they called it. 26:29.204 --> 26:33.268 [SPEAKER_01]: And not just for our friends across the pond, in 2023, the U.S. 26:33.288 --> 26:39.073 [SPEAKER_01]: Surgeon General formally declared loneliness in social isolation as an epidemic. 26:40.617 --> 26:45.958 [SPEAKER_01]: warning that about half of U.S. adults experience measurable loneliness. 26:48.458 --> 27:02.541 [SPEAKER_01]: World Health Organization, in public health bodies, they treat social disconnection as a major systemic issue driven by digital overuse, shifting work patterns, and changing community structures. 27:05.061 --> 27:08.462 [SPEAKER_01]: One of those changing community structures, just to illustrate what we're talking about. 27:09.823 --> 27:17.870 [SPEAKER_01]: I read a article this week in a secular newspaper, secular author, not intending to make any sort of a religious argument. 27:18.791 --> 27:26.257 [SPEAKER_01]: What that author was pointing out is the rise in family astrangement, the rise in family astrangement. 27:27.678 --> 27:36.546 [SPEAKER_01]: There can be reasons for that, reasons why a child might not talk to their parents or siblings might stop communication, 27:37.763 --> 28:04.773 [SPEAKER_01]: There can be reasons for that that, unfortunately, are sensible at times, but in a unique way, this author argues, in a unique way for our culture, the therapeutic emphasis on emotional safety as the primary goal in relationships has led to an increased cutting of ties in relationships that nearly every other culture in the history of the human race has longed of thought to protect. 28:06.015 --> 28:11.219 [SPEAKER_01]: We are in a unique culture that almost glorifies isolation. 28:12.920 --> 28:30.292 [SPEAKER_01]: The loneliness, the polarization, the social disconnection, these are all actually just blank at terms, a way of saying things in a more nice way that actually the Bible gives a specific language for. 28:31.672 --> 28:36.033 [SPEAKER_01]: What causes these things, what causes loneliness, what causes polarization? 28:37.414 --> 28:40.275 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at Galatians 519 as one example. 28:42.895 --> 28:47.697 [SPEAKER_01]: In Galatians 519, the Apostle Paul, writing to the church, to warn them. 28:49.097 --> 28:51.058 [SPEAKER_01]: He says, now the works of the flesh are evident. 28:52.232 --> 29:13.886 [SPEAKER_01]: Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissentions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orages, and things like these, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 29:16.847 --> 29:20.710 [SPEAKER_01]: Now that's a sobering list, it's a punchy list, 29:23.320 --> 29:32.162 [SPEAKER_01]: What I want you to see there is notice that nearly all of those traced back to relational violations. 29:32.322 --> 29:47.186 [SPEAKER_01]: When Paul reaches to think about how can I describe to people what it is to be separate from God and to not be inheriting the kingdom of God, what would that look like in a society, and what would that look like in their life he goes to relational violations. 29:47.947 --> 29:49.827 [SPEAKER_01]: Physical intimacy outside of marriage, 29:54.008 --> 30:16.178 [SPEAKER_01]: idolatry, betrays a relational dynamic with God, sorcery, seeks to control others, enmity, so word that means a deep seed of feeling of anger, we have a lot of that in our culture, rivalries, divisions, envies, all of these play out in the field of relationships. 30:18.158 --> 30:18.358 [SPEAKER_01]: Paul 30:21.212 --> 30:27.957 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're wondering what it looks like to be a part from God to not know his love, look at the kind of relationships you have. 30:29.958 --> 30:45.609 [SPEAKER_01]: Listen to this, our outward experience of relational pain, whether we are the one causing it or the one receiving it, is a reminder to us of the relational separation of man in our nature from God. 30:47.337 --> 31:02.445 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me say that again, our experience of relational pain, whether we are the ones causing it or the ones receiving it, is a reminder to us of the relational separation that we have in our sin nature from God. 31:05.107 --> 31:16.113 [SPEAKER_01]: By nature, we're born spiritually alone, divided, isolated, lonely, and many of us have experienced community, 31:17.215 --> 31:17.855 [SPEAKER_01]: in the positive. 31:18.336 --> 31:27.281 [SPEAKER_01]: We've experienced community that has eased pain, but all of us, all of us have experienced community that has caused pain for us. 31:29.402 --> 31:40.169 [SPEAKER_01]: People that have let us down, people that have betrayed us, people that have heard us, when we've been left on our own, but there's good news. 31:42.130 --> 31:43.771 [SPEAKER_01]: Knowing our separated state, 31:44.917 --> 31:49.818 [SPEAKER_01]: in love, God made a way for us to return in relationship to Him. 31:51.338 --> 31:55.719 [SPEAKER_01]: Insending Jesus to the earth, God displayed a cosmic act of friendship. 31:56.719 --> 31:59.180 [SPEAKER_01]: He was the first mover towards us, towards his enemies. 31:59.940 --> 32:08.602 [SPEAKER_01]: And when Jesus hung on the cross, bearing the penalty of your sin and my sin, the way that He articulates that experience, 32:09.603 --> 32:18.186 [SPEAKER_01]: The way that he articulates the experience of bearing all the weight of the sin of the world, as he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 32:21.167 --> 32:22.007 [SPEAKER_01]: Why am I alone? 32:26.288 --> 32:27.228 [SPEAKER_01]: No one is here with me. 32:31.070 --> 32:38.492 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus experienced the separation, the isolation, the forsakenness. 32:39.981 --> 32:41.822 [SPEAKER_01]: that us and our sin nature deserved. 32:44.243 --> 32:44.983 [SPEAKER_01]: And he did that. 32:45.843 --> 32:48.384 [SPEAKER_01]: Friends, he did that so that we might not experience it. 32:50.245 --> 32:56.807 [SPEAKER_01]: He did that so that all of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ, we can sing, I have never walked alone. 32:57.667 --> 33:07.951 [SPEAKER_01]: Because Jesus says, come to me, he says, come to me, know the love that I have had with the Father from an eternity past and will have a fraternity future and know that I will never leave you or forsake you. 33:08.962 --> 33:12.923 [SPEAKER_01]: I will be with you always, even to the end of the age. 33:15.804 --> 33:25.368 [SPEAKER_01]: The Puritan, Richard Baxter, he once wrote, he that is with the king is not alone, though forsaken by all others. 33:26.428 --> 33:31.730 [SPEAKER_01]: He on whom the sun shines is not without light, the wall his canals are put out. 33:34.661 --> 33:54.949 [SPEAKER_01]: What he's saying there is that the starting point for our peace, our hope, our confidence can't be the flickering candles of human connections, but the bright shining sun of God's grace to us in Christ restoring us to our relationship that we have, we can have with the Father's Sun in spirit. 33:56.610 --> 33:57.630 [SPEAKER_01]: We're relational beings. 33:58.491 --> 34:01.072 [SPEAKER_01]: We're meant to be in relationship with a relational 34:04.432 --> 34:05.132 [SPEAKER_01]: never be alone. 34:07.854 --> 34:08.854 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's end where we started. 34:10.355 --> 34:21.920 [SPEAKER_01]: How do we live in this world where the people around us can be the greatest source of help to us and can also be the greatest source of hurt to us? 34:23.461 --> 34:27.623 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe as I've been talking, you've started to take stock in your relationships. 34:29.193 --> 34:38.000 [SPEAKER_01]: the kind of friends you do, or you don't have, the kind of siblings that you do, or you don't have the kind of spouse that you do, or you don't have the kind of home group. 34:38.040 --> 34:40.622 [SPEAKER_01]: You do, or don't have neighbors, we could go on. 34:42.063 --> 34:54.233 [SPEAKER_01]: You scan the landscape of your relationships and you ask, are they really reflective of this triune God and the love that Jesus has with a father? 34:54.693 --> 34:57.035 [SPEAKER_01]: Am I experiencing that in my relationships? 34:59.948 --> 35:02.069 [SPEAKER_01]: And so good question to ask could be a godly question. 35:02.389 --> 35:06.910 [SPEAKER_01]: It's appropriate for us to assess where our relationships are in our lived experience. 35:08.831 --> 35:17.993 [SPEAKER_01]: And what I'd like to do here for a moment is actually just to make a moment of space for grief, for a sense of grief. 35:20.194 --> 35:26.656 [SPEAKER_01]: Again, in a vibrant community like this, I love citizens' church, it's full of loving, kind people, 35:27.907 --> 35:31.788 [SPEAKER_01]: living, serving hard in, lives, and seeking to love each other. 35:31.888 --> 35:35.069 [SPEAKER_01]: And I hope that if you're part of this church, you have some of those relationships. 35:36.790 --> 35:39.231 [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just so pastorally aware. 35:41.652 --> 35:51.835 [SPEAKER_01]: So pastorally aware of the pain that can come from relationships or the lack of relationships that you desire, that that could be part of your experience as well. 35:53.783 --> 35:58.284 [SPEAKER_01]: the friend or the group of friends that you've wanted that has never shown up. 35:59.805 --> 36:12.748 [SPEAKER_01]: The sibling who stopped talking to you, the spouse you're finding hard to love, the child who's going their own way, the person who said or did that thing so many years ago that still rings in your head. 36:18.890 --> 36:22.531 [SPEAKER_01]: Friends, if that's you, I just want you to invite you to take that grief to the Lord. 36:25.282 --> 36:26.283 [SPEAKER_01]: take that grief for the Lord. 36:27.585 --> 36:28.166 [SPEAKER_01]: He's with you. 36:29.968 --> 36:30.749 [SPEAKER_01]: He's listening. 36:31.430 --> 36:32.090 [SPEAKER_01]: He's near. 36:33.112 --> 36:34.153 [SPEAKER_01]: You are not alone. 36:40.112 --> 36:44.153 [SPEAKER_01]: want to tell you that you're free to join us up here after the service for prayer tonight. 36:44.613 --> 36:54.315 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the most helpful things that you might be able to do is to not leave this room without giving voice to one of those experiences to somebody else. 36:54.355 --> 36:55.935 [SPEAKER_01]: Could be somebody sitting next to you in the pews. 36:55.955 --> 36:57.075 [SPEAKER_01]: Could be one of us up front. 36:58.995 --> 37:07.857 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's have an active response to God's word in our life and simply give voice to what we're feeling, knowing that he is near and you're not alone. 37:09.582 --> 37:18.966 [SPEAKER_01]: And as we grieve, as we grieve, I also want to ask another question, which might even be a more challenging question, and it's meant to be a more challenging question. 37:22.887 --> 37:27.989 [SPEAKER_01]: As we focus on the relationships that are not perfect in our life, that are hard, maybe hurtful, painful. 37:29.470 --> 37:32.731 [SPEAKER_01]: We can also turn the lens inward, and we can ask, 37:34.445 --> 37:41.610 [SPEAKER_01]: Am I becoming the better friend, the better spouse, the better sibling, the better neighbor that I would want others to have? 37:43.711 --> 37:54.979 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that look like, ask yourself, what aspect of my character am I making excuses for, that actually needs to be refined, because it's herding community. 37:56.560 --> 38:01.223 [SPEAKER_01]: What habit do I have that excludes others, rather than drawing them in? 38:03.154 --> 38:07.017 [SPEAKER_01]: What a way can I make space in my calendar to be more present with others? 38:08.498 --> 38:17.184 [SPEAKER_01]: What grievance do I need to let go of to be able to genuinely praise the good things in someone's life even after they've hurt me? 38:20.266 --> 38:29.012 [SPEAKER_01]: How might the Holy Spirit be longing to work in me to make me someone who's love for others reflects the love that the Father, 38:34.842 --> 38:39.605 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, one day, one day we're going to gather in the new heavens and new earth. 38:41.567 --> 38:49.933 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the most clear things we know about the new heavens and new earth, the eternal state, is that we're going to be there with other people. 38:51.380 --> 38:52.881 [SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be other people there. 38:52.901 --> 39:20.623 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be there together with people from every tribe, tongue in nation and on that day, we are going to both experience and indescribable and profound ways the love that God has for us and we will be able to rejoice in it together, living in community, sharing meals and life together in a place where there's no more tears, no more sadness, no more division, no more rivalries, no more enmity, none of that. 39:22.682 --> 39:35.915 [SPEAKER_01]: So, so every opportunity we have now is fleeting as though it may be to extend or to receive the love of God from another person is a taste of the eternity that we will share. 39:38.018 --> 39:44.104 [SPEAKER_01]: We're relational beings made by God, eternally relational in himself, made for others. 39:45.814 --> 39:59.223 [SPEAKER_01]: Friend, know that your greatest relational need, your greatest true comfort can only come from your relationship with the triune God who created you. 40:00.303 --> 40:05.146 [SPEAKER_01]: He offers you salvation, restored relationship through his son, Jesus, and by his spirit. 40:06.107 --> 40:07.408 [SPEAKER_01]: Will you consider that invitation? 40:09.789 --> 40:11.731 [SPEAKER_01]: And believe her, will you celebrate this morning? 40:16.678 --> 40:22.001 [SPEAKER_01]: In Christ, you are known and loved, and will never be alone again. 40:23.442 --> 40:26.404 [SPEAKER_01]: We pray for us, and then lead us into a time of communion. 40:46.328 --> 41:00.012 [SPEAKER_01]: of the potential for even bringing up this topic of how hard relationships can be, can lead for some of us to be a very, very difficult topic. 41:03.433 --> 41:14.737 [SPEAKER_01]: So Lord, I just want to pray against the spirit of defensiveness as we think 41:17.048 --> 41:30.295 [SPEAKER_01]: Broken relationships, hurtful relationships, Lord, you know, in my heart, there can be a self-righteousness that crops up, desire to be proved as right, or justified. 41:30.315 --> 41:33.897 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to pray that we just release that. 41:36.718 --> 41:40.460 [SPEAKER_01]: Pray in the name of Christ that we would find our hope not in 41:46.377 --> 41:48.399 [SPEAKER_01]: being able to know why this person did that. 41:50.721 --> 41:58.087 [SPEAKER_01]: We find our hope Lord, it was most clear to us that you have offered us restored relationship in Jesus Christ. 41:58.267 --> 41:59.108 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Father. 42:00.229 --> 42:00.589 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. 42:03.392 --> 42:12.200 [SPEAKER_01]: Lord, I do pray by the Spirit's power and in your restoring work that this church would continue to be a place full of life giving 42:13.294 --> 42:17.882 [SPEAKER_01]: Loving, kind, gentle, restorative relationships. 42:17.983 --> 42:19.405 [SPEAKER_01]: So God, give us that joy. 42:22.290 --> 42:23.492 [SPEAKER_01]: We ask this in Jesus name. 42:23.913 --> 42:24.193 [SPEAKER_01]: Amen.