It?s hard to believe we are in our 4th week of The Daniel Plan. I have really been enjoying the various ways we have been able to grow together, get healthier together, learn together, and be challenged together. The group factor for change is absolutely huge! I don?t know many people who can make changes in life without the support of other people. I also haven?t met many people who go through life well-being alone. Community is truly key for health, longevity, growth, and fun. Relationships can bring healing, wholeness, and restoration. Relationships can also be hard, painful, and broken. For me, community is bigger than relationships. In community, we can go through everything together and come out stronger on the other side. Relationships are vital for community to exist.

Romans 12:5 says ?In the same way, though there are many of us, we are one body in Christ, and individually we belong to each other.? We need each other. Community is not optional! Although many of us try to make community optional. We say things like, ?I’m very self-sufficient. I don’t need other people in my life.? But the truth is you absolutely have to have other people in your life if you?re going to be all God wants you to be. Community, the group factor, is vital to life.

Today we are going to start a journey into a bigger idea. Into a place where I have dreamt for this congregation to go. It is based in the fact that you cannot fulfill God?s purposes for your life by yourself. There?s no way. There?s no way you can be all God wants you to be, do all God wants you to do, fulfill the purposes that you were put on this planet to fulfill by yourself. You have to do it in relationship to other people. We need each other and we belong to each other in the body of Christ. On this journey to a bigger idea and way of being the church, we are going to focus on the greatest lesson in life. That is, learning how to love. Why do relationships go bad? How do you turn a bad relationship into a good one? What is it that God does when God uses other people in our lives and how does God do it to make us what God wants us to be? So we?re going to discuss and discover what it really means to develop true, intimate relationships. We?re going to look at why we need each other. Why we need God?s family specifically the five reasons God says you need other people in your life. This is the beginning conversation for why we need to be in small groups. Why we need to be in relationships with one another and we will begin the process on exploring what small groups can mean for Wintergarden.

Scripture shares many different reasons for being in community. We are going to discuss 5 reasons as a starting point for being in community together. I am also going to share some small insights that I have gained by doing life together with a group.

I need others to walk with me.

There are times when I enjoy walks by myself. I am able to think. I am able to pray and process life. Also, when others have walked with me around Ollie?s Pond or in my neighborhood, I walk a little faster, I hold my head a little higher, and enjoy the conversation. Yet, when things got pretty rough in life, I thought I could walk through it alone. I could buckle down and power through. But I realized that I did not enjoy walking through life without people with me. It was easier to share my burden and heart with others who were able to walk the journey with me. I do not believe that God intended us to walk through life alone. This has nothing to do with whether you?re single or married. Nothing at all. We have lots of folks in our congregation and in our community who are single adults and involved in very involved in deep, intimate, meaningful community. We also have married couples in our church and community who are desperately lonely. Marriage does not solve the issue. Community does.

So some of you might say, ?what?s wrong with walking alone? I like walking alone. In fact, I prefer it. I can go at my own pace, my own speed. I don?t have to wait for anybody. Whatever. I like walking alone.? You may like it but you need others to walk with you.

Here are three reasons.

It?s safer. Walking through life with other people in your life is safer. It?s less risky. Have you ever had to walk through a dark alley at night in the inner city by yourself? It?s a little scary. Or a walk down a long road in the countryside by yourself. It can be scary. It?s safer to walk through life with others.
It?s supportive. Support keeps you from giving up. When you?re walking with other people you get the energy to keep on going that you wouldn?t have. Have you ever been in a race where you?re running and you start to get a stitch in your side, a little pain there and you want to give up. You start going, I can?t go on. I’m not going to be able to do this. I want to give up. But if you have other people walking with you, you can keep on going-because people start to encourage and support you on the journey.

There?s an old Zambian proverb that says, ?When you run alone you run fast. But when you run together you run far.? Good words. Life is not a 50-yard dash. It is a marathon. You want to make it to the end of life. The only way you?re going to make it to the end of life the way God wants you to is by having other people involved in your life.

It?s smarter. It?s just smarter to go through life with a few really close deep friends. You learn more by walking with others than you do by yourself. Proverbs 28:26 says ?Only fools trust in what they alone think.? In other words, if I’m the only one who thinks this and nobody else agrees with me, guess what? I’m wrong. You may be walking in the wrong direction. But if you?re walking by yourself through life you don?t have anybody to go, ?We?re off the path. We missed it. We?ve got to get back on the path.? The Bible tells us ?In a multitude of counselors there is safety.?

Community is God?s answer to loneliness. We all need a place where we can practice love. It?s what the world needs. We need to learn how to love. So we?re going to begin a revolution of love today.

The Bible says that I?ve got to have other people in my life as I’m walking through life. I need other people to grow. I can?t grow without others. The Bible is very clear about this. I cannot grow without other people in my life. Why? Because life is about relationships not about achievement. God is love and God wants me to learn to love God and to love others. Those are the two greatest lessons in life.

The Bible gets very specific about this. 1 Corinthians 14, I love this in the Message paraphrase. It?s pretty clear. ?When you gather, each one of you be prepared with something useful for all. Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight? Take your turn, with no one person taking over. That way you all learn from each other.? You can?t learn community without being in a community. Not a crowd but in a community.

The Bible says this in 1 Peter 4:9 ?Open your homes to each other without complaining.? What?s your complaint? What?s your excuse for not opening up your home? ?My home is dirty!? Clean it up! That?s a real easy thing. ?My home isn?t big enough.? Can you put three people in it? Then you can have a group, you have a community.

The Bible says, ?Where two or more are gathered in My name, I’m there in the midst of them.? You say, ?I don?t like my neighbors.? Don?t invite them! I’m not telling you to invite people you don’t like. Invite the people you do like and want to get to know more. Invite your friends. Invite your coworkers, your family. You say, ?Nobody would want to come to my house and study this.? Really? Everybody has a longing for belonging. Everybody. Deep in the human spirit is a longing for belonging. It?s why the worst kind of punishment is solitary confinement. We?re made for relationships. God wired us that way. That?s why people will join all kinds of stupid causes just because they want to belong. The people in your neighborhood would love to come to your house.

Community is God?s answer to loneliness.

I also need others to work with me.

I need people to work with me. The Bible says God put you on earth to do a certain work that only you can do. Ephesians 2:10 says this ?God made us to do good works, which He planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.? God gave us all different natural abilities and wants us to use them! God has a purpose for your life and part of that purpose is that God has some work for you to do.

What happens here on earth though is you?re worn out. You?re exhausted. You?re burned out. Some of you came to church exhausted. Why? Because you?re trying to do it all and you?re trying to do it all by yourself. That?s why you?re worn out. God never meant for you to go through life walking alone or working alone. You need to be in relationship with others who help you get done what you need to do. Otherwise you?re going to be worn out and fatigued all the time.

God tells us in the Bible why we?re supposed to work together. Ecclesiastes 4 ?Two people are better than one, because they get more done by working together.? They get more done by working together! Everybody knows this. You always get more done as a team than you do as an individual. It?s also a whole lot more fun. It?s also less tiring. You learn to cooperate together. There?s all kinds of benefits to working together.

Community is God?s answer to fatigue. One of the reasons you could be tired is because you don?t have the relationships built in to support you that you need in what God has called you to do.

The Bible says this in Galatians 6:10 ?Every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, [I need others to work with me] starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.? What?s the community of faith? It?s our church family.

I need people to walk with me through life and I need people to work with me through life, but also?

I need others to watch out for me in life.

I’m talking about people who?ll defend me, stand up for me, protect me. Who will help me keep staying on track, watch my backside, warn me. We all need this because we all have blind spots. The Bible says in Philippians 2:4 ?Look out for one another?s interest, not just your own.? If you want a counter culture verse, that?s it. In America, the general idea is it?s all about me. It?s all about my needs, my interest, my wants, my desires, my ambitions. The rest of you, forget you! I live for myself. Forget everybody else. This verse says don?t just look out for your own interest, look out for others too.

Neighborhood Watch?s are a great way to be in community. It?s the sign of a community working together. It says we watch out for each other here. My guess is if you went on vacation this summer, you were gone for a week, maybe two weeks, you probably told your neighbor you were going to be gone. You said, ?I’m going to be gone for a couple weeks. Would you kind of keep an eye out on my house? Look out for my stuff.? We all want our stuff looked out for! That?s a good thing to have your stuff looked after, watched out for.

But my question is not is anybody watching out for your stuff. Is anybody watching out for your soul? Your soul is a whole lot more important than your stuff. Is there anybody in your life who helps you stay on track spiritually? Is there anybody who loves you enough to say, ?I’m not going to let you get discouraged. I’m not going to let you drop out. I’m not going to let you get tired. I’m here with you. Let me support you.? And they encourage you in your spiritual life. If you don’t have anybody like that, that?s sad. Small groups can do this. They are ways for us to invest in one another and help one another grow in life.

Community is God?s answer to defeat. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:10 ?If one person falls, another can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble.? All groups are based on this principle. You got something in your life you can?t get control of I guarantee it. I have never yet met a single person who doesn?t have something in their life they?d like to change but have been unable to change. You?re never going to be able to change it on your own. If you could have, you would have but you can?t so you won?t. So you need other people. Some problems in our life only get solved by team tackling together. I need people to walk with me and work with me and watch out for me.

I need others to wait with me and to weep with me.

To wait and weep. I’m talking about they wait while I’m waiting for the bad news. And they weep when I get the bad news. I need people with me in the inevitable crises of life, when the tragedies hit. I don?t want to face that alone.

As your pastor I especially feel this one. I see it on a daily basis. There are situations that nobody should ever have to go through alone. Nobody should ever have to wait in the hospital while a loved one is in a life or death surgery. Nobody. No woman should ever have to wait alone waiting for the lab report back on a problem pregnancy. Nobody. Nobody should have to wait for news from a battlefield alone. Nobody should have to stand at the edge of an open grave alone. Nobody should have to wait at home alone for the coroner to come and publicly identify the body of a loved one who just died. Nobody. Nobody should have to spend the first night alone after their husband has died or wife has died. Nobody should ever have to spend the first night alone when their partner has just walked out.

The fact is some of these things are going to happen to you. They?re inevitable. You?re going to have loved ones die. You?re going to go through tragedy. You?re going to get bad health news. You?re going to find out one day that you are dying. You need other people in your life. Only a fool would go all the way through life totally unprepared for something that you know is inevitably going to happen. The time is now to build the safety net, the network of supportive friends. Get it in place now because at some point the tragedy is going to happen. You don?t know when. The time to prepare is now.

What is God?s safety net? It is a group of other believers. You don?t need a hundred. You only need five or six. But it?s a group of other believers who are committed to you.

The Bible says this in 1 Peter 3:8 ?You should be like one big family, full of sympathy toward each other.? When you?re in the hospital you don’t want the whole church to visit you. In fact, it?d be kind of crazy if all of us came. But it would be nice to have two or three come see you and say we?re praying for you.

Here?s God?s plan, 1 Corinthians 12 ?If one member suffers, all suffer together.? I read recently about a guy who died at home in his bed and nobody discovered it for two years. I thought how tragic! That a guy was not even missed for two years. Can you imagine the despair in that man?s heart as he was dying in bed? Nobody should ever die alone. Nobody should ever have to go through that kind of despair.

Community is God?s answer to despair. Romans 12:15 says ?Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep.? We do that in the group. Somebody has a good thing a promotion or celebration, a graduation, we party. We have a good time. We have fun. Somebody has a tough time, we weep with them.

In fact it?s usually when we start talking we get in trouble. We give stupid advice and stuff like that. Just be there. Sit there with them and sometimes you sit in silence. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says this ?Encourage each other and strengthen one another.?

The fifth reason I need other people in my life is?

I need others to witness and serve with me.

What do I mean by that? You have a life message that God wants you to share with the world. It?s part of your mission. The Bible says God put you on earth to do a mission. There is great power in group witness. God never meant for you to do your mission alone. God would never send a soldier out by himself. God says we go out together, at least two by two.

What is the way you witness and serve best to people who don?t know the love of God? How do you witness best to them? God says it?s by loving others in the family of God. Jesus said in John 13:35, ?Your love for one another [He didn?t say for Me. Not for God. Not for Jesus] will prove to the world that you are My disciples.? What impresses the community the most? When Christians ? believers ? love each other. The one thing that proves to the world that you?re in the family of God, that you?ve stepped across the line, that you?re headed for heaven is that you love other people in the family of God. If you do not love other people in the family of God you?ve got every reason to doubt, ?Am I in it?? Because that?s one of the things. When you?re truly in God?s family you start loving others in God?s family.

That?s what impresses the community ?See how they love.? I think this is something we do pretty well. We love others as instantly part of our faith family. It?s a place where people can be loved for who they are and where we love people enough to help them grow in their life. Wintergarden is where they love you, for you!. That?s where it?s ok for a guy to stand up and go, ?I?ve got a sex addiction.? That?s the place where it?s ok for a woman to stand up and say, ?I just lost my husband. He walked out on me.? That?s the place where you?re not perfect but they love you still. That?s what we want to be known for.

We?re going to do it together. God?s answer to fear is community. Philippians 1:27 says ?You are working together and struggling side by side to get others to believe the Good News.? That verse has the two goals of what we?re going to do. First, deepen community within our church. ?We all need each other. We need other believers to walk with us, to work with us, to watch over us, to weep with us and wait with us when we need to wait, and to witness with us. Say this, ?I really, really, really need a group.? That is your declaration of interdependence.

Of all the people that God could have chosen to be here at this time and this place He chose you. Why? Because He wants to use you. He brought you here because He wants you to be a leader in it. To be involved in it; and I don?t want you sitting on the sidelines.