Enjoy: Shared Life Together

[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our website at River Church uk. [00:00:12] Thank you. Thank you. [00:00:14] Great. [00:00:15] Lovely to be back. Good to see you. And if Ian's argument didn't convince you to get the app, can I appeal to you? Do it for Emma. For those of you that know Emma, my wife, she's the brains behind pretty much everything that we do. She makes us look good and she has spent months on this. And in case that doesn't convince you, she knows your address, she knows where you live, and she will come knocking. So it's up to you. [00:00:40] Right? [00:00:41] Good, good. [00:00:43] I think she's also prepared an incredibly colorful slide for us. Olu. Can you please find it? [00:00:49] There it is. Sunglasses on if you'd like. And it gets brighter. That's the warning I've got for you. I want to talk today about. [00:00:58] About shared life. [00:01:00] Who do you share life with currently? [00:01:03] Who do you share life with at the moment? [00:01:07] I was thinking about this. I was thinking we've got a bunch of people who we share life with that we probably always maybe not choose to spend life with. Do you know what I mean? Like work colleagues, that sort of thing. It's not true of me, Ian. Just so you know, got a good team. [00:01:23] And what about there are people that we are bound before God to share life with, so maybe your spouse, your family, kids, that sort of thing. [00:01:32] And then finally there are those people that we choose to share life with, and somehow we don't have time for them, do we? [00:01:42] Do you ever struggle with that? [00:01:44] So you can live then with this guilt about how you share life with people. [00:01:51] But the thing that I've tried not to let go of is the fact that there is more than just potential in God to enjoy life, particularly life with those around us. [00:02:04] And that word enjoy is really important because it's kind of God's reminder, we feel, in the season that we're coming into. [00:02:13] Because the chances are is September for you, the beginning of the new year or January. [00:02:18] Right. Because for a lot of people, if you're connected to education or schools or anything else like that, even a lot of financial years do actually align and reset in September. For us as a church, it's a new start as well. And it might be that after a nice relaxing summer, you've suddenly realized, well, there's some new stuff. New projects starting, new year groups for kids at school, new financial commitments that somehow you've signed up to or even just health concerns that won't go away. [00:02:50] And the church is no different, let me say, not just new projects, like launching an app, but we've got new leaders, we're raising and releasing. We've got projects, budget gaps, team gaps, you name it. The pressure is building. [00:03:06] So that's why we pray. [00:03:08] Even as pastors, we pray for the church, not just for our activities, but what you are sent out to go and do in your workplaces and families. And when we were praying for us, particularly when I was with Ian, we felt this word enjoy was so central to, to this season ahead that we enjoy the life that God has given us. [00:03:32] So we want to explore that over the next three weeks. [00:03:35] What does it mean to enjoy our relationship with God? [00:03:39] What does it mean to enjoy shared life together with one another here? [00:03:44] And also what does it look like to enjoy sharing what we've discovered in Jesus with those people who don't know him? [00:03:52] And to make things a little bit confusing, we're going to start with the second one today. [00:03:57] So we're going to look at how can we enjoy shared life together. [00:04:03] Now I'd like you to cast your minds back a few months. I think I was preaching or Ian. We shared it a little bit, didn't we? We talked about following Jesus together and we talked about the fact that, hey, this is not a solo sport that we've been called into if you're a Christian here today. [00:04:21] In fact, the Bible, as you look at a number of different examples, particularly Paul's writing, it's so much deeper than just church attendance. [00:04:30] Paul says, in Christ we belong to one another, belong. [00:04:37] You know, Jesus has crafted the church, designed the church so that we would most flourish when we do share life together. [00:04:47] But we also saw that it doesn't just happen. [00:04:52] You know, Sundays are vital, but it's easy to get lost in the crowd, isn't it? [00:04:57] It's easy not to feel like you can truly belong, which is why we said we feel we need some slightly smaller circles. We talked about church being the biggest and then community and then core. [00:05:11] But smaller circles give way for relationships to form. [00:05:16] And actually, you guys said that's what we want, too. We want deeper connection, but we're not sure connect groups are working to help with that. [00:05:26] Is this sounding familiar? Yeah, to some good. And if it's not familiar to you, hopefully that's been a helpful reminder. [00:05:33] But we knew the answer couldn't be, well, let's just rehash, you know, midweek grooves, spin up another program. [00:05:39] We Kind of needed to call ourselves to a slightly different rhythm in life. [00:05:46] Communities was that rhythm that we mentioned, eating together and spending time together and practicing the way of Jesus together, staying long enough so that relationships can get even deeper. [00:06:03] So rather than rehashing any of that, I just wanted to get that up front so we can take it a step further. Today, rather than thinking, well, is shared life a good thing? [00:06:12] I want to ask the question, is shared life something we can even enjoy together? That makes sense. So that's where we're going. And we're going to just start by quickly looking at Jesus and his community. [00:06:24] Previously we talked about Jesus having different circles himself. He had the 12 and the 3, but also the bigger circle, the 70 plus, where he connected, sent out, did lots of things, but the 12 were really interesting. [00:06:38] You've got these guys that were hand picked, chosen by Jesus to be together and they were an odd lot. Okay. But they were then sent out together in pairs and other groups to go and see the most amazing stuff happen. They went into crazy, dangerous situations which meant they saw storms, calmed down with their own eyes in a heartbeat. [00:07:02] They saw multitudes fed a number of times. They saw the sick healed, the dead rise, and all of it really was when they were together. [00:07:13] So this was a roller coaster for them. And after three years of following Jesus as a group, Jesus began to prepare his community for then his departure. [00:07:25] And you can read about it kind of across John's gospel 13 through to chapter 17. [00:07:33] And you'll be pleased to know I'm not reading it all out today, but I am going to do a whistle stop tour of something that I think Jesus is pointing out because there is a few themes in there. You know, you have got the power of prayer, you have got the promised Holy Spirit. A helper will come, I might be going, but he will help you. So there's some amazing promises. [00:07:59] But then what's interesting is Jesus says there's going to be a context to where the Spirit and particularly prayer work themselves out. [00:08:09] And that's generally going to be in shared life, in community. [00:08:14] So I just want to have a look now at John 13 all the way through to 17 just to see the thread that Jesus runs through it all. And we're going to start in John 13. [00:08:23] You can get your Bibles out, but we're just going to be looking at a few verses, but if it helps, please do it. [00:08:30] But it starts with Jesus on his knees and he's not praying, he's demonstrating something. [00:08:40] He starts to wash his community's feet. [00:08:44] And straight away after he's finished, it's like he looks at his guys and says, right, your turn now. [00:08:52] He says, I have set you an example that you should do as I have done. [00:09:00] So this wasn't just a nice thing Jesus did. It was a very confusing thing culturally. But he's saying, guys, first and foremost, I want you to understand, look at each other. I want you to understand that your task is to serve one another, to care for one another, to humble yourself for each other. [00:09:21] And then he says something really interesting. [00:09:24] He says, now that you know these things, you will be blessed. If you do them, you'll be blessed. [00:09:34] Right? That is some good news. [00:09:38] Jesus is saying, if you really get hold of my vision for you as a community, you are going to be blessed. That means there's something good or life giving about this. There's something even enjoyable about this. [00:09:51] Which is why Jesus was so emphatic to use this to tee up his new commands. [00:09:59] So he said, okay, guys, therefore, love one another. [00:10:04] As I have loved you, so you must love one another. [00:10:11] Can we read that out together? [00:10:12] Yeah, I want you to get it. You ready? [00:10:15] Love one another. [00:10:17] As I have loved you, so you must love one another. [00:10:25] Have you ever spotted the word must in there before? [00:10:28] Because I'm not sure I had. I knew Jesus had said this, but the word must is pretty emphatic, isn't it? It's not just a good idea. This really is a command that Jesus is giving us, which must mean as good as the worship is when we get together, and frankly, as good as our prayer meetings are, and even our shared theology, Jesus seems to be drawing a line under something else that's super important. [00:10:59] We must love one another. [00:11:04] I mean, I know quite a lot of you, right, but some of you are going to be pretty new around here. We've got lots of new faces in Gravesend as well, which is brilliant. And maybe you're getting to know a few names of us too. It's brilliant. We can't wait to get to know you more Then others of you might have gone through the membership course and you consider yourself a member of this church, which is fantastic. [00:11:27] And then others of you, well, you've been here since the foundations of the world, which is great glory. [00:11:35] But there is, there is a question which all of us, no matter where we're coming from, need to answer with this in mind is, well, who do we feel responsible for loving here? [00:11:49] Like who truly are we sharing life with? Who is our community? [00:11:56] Because if we were Going to take Jesus emphasis there really seriously. [00:12:03] There should be people's names coming into our head. This should be a really simple question to answer. And it means something really powerful. It means that you know someone and they really know you and you kind of belong to each other. There's something really to enjoy in it. [00:12:21] And I think this is what Jesus knew would happen. In fact, he expects it to happen. [00:12:28] If we go from John 13 now to John 17, he says this. He says, look, I have told you this so that my joy will be in you, and that my joy or your joy will be complete. [00:12:45] Isn't that amazing? He's talking about joy, enjoying this. [00:12:50] And then immediately he repeats what he had originally said. That new command says, love each other, as I have loved you. [00:13:00] So if there's something I just want us to see before we carry on, it's when the love of Jesus is in you, and when that love is expressed towards someone else, your joy is complete. Do you believe that? [00:13:15] I think very often we go from, I've got God's love, and therefore my joy is complete. [00:13:21] But there is this middle bit which is really important in terms of application. [00:13:26] And there's something about it which is a new gift in terms of us being blessed and full of joy when we do it. [00:13:33] And it is when that kind of community starts to form. [00:13:37] Jesus is like, he's looking back, he's resting in the goodness of his plan being fulfilled. And he just says to the world, see, they're one of mine. [00:13:47] Yeah. Have you ever wondered why he writes or says, by this everyone will know that you're my disciples? If you love one another, it's because that's the thing that stands us out the most. [00:13:59] It's missional when we love one another. [00:14:03] So we could close our Bibles, that could be the end of the lesson. [00:14:07] But we've still got two chapters to go. [00:14:10] And I just want to say that this can bring us joy. [00:14:17] God's love brings us joy. When we express it towards each other, it brings us joy. [00:14:25] But actually community protects our joy as well. [00:14:29] In John 16, Jesus says, Hard times are going to come. [00:14:34] There will be pressure and disappointment. Your community will be challenged. It will need correcting, which is exactly why we need each other to keep going. [00:14:48] So when you turn to John 17, once Jesus is finished, you find him praying before the Father. And with all of this said, his prayer for his church is crazy simple. [00:15:01] He simply prays, oh, Father, that all of them may be one, as I am with the Father, truly belonging to one Another, have you ever tasted community like that? [00:15:21] Have you ever tasted community like that? A place where someone knows not just your name, but your story. [00:15:30] They know what you've been through, they know when to celebrate in your life, and they notice when you're struggling. [00:15:39] And you know what, it works the other way around, too, because you don't need them to explain everything, because you already know what they've been through. [00:15:46] You know about their life, and you already know about their worrying appointment, which is why you remember to ask, look, how are you really doing? [00:15:56] It's the place where you can be at your worst or your best. [00:16:00] It's where you could admit, I'm struggling, or I need help and expect to get it. [00:16:06] And these are the sorts of things I think Jesus is trying to get at. [00:16:12] I mean, preaching is good, books are good, podcasts are good, retreats on our own with Jesus is good. [00:16:22] But I'm looking at his vision, Jesus vision for his people. And I am convinced that deep, committed community is where we can learn to really follow Jesus, really become like him and do as he did. Because we need each other to be encouraged, to sharpen and to grow. That's how we mature. [00:16:44] So we're so convinced that we feel we've got to take a practical step now towards life that looks like this for all of us. We want to have an opportunity. [00:16:54] And when we reflect on our sites, we've now got two sites. It's great, Particularly in Dartford. We're continuing to grow, praise God. Wonderful. And there is real community here. [00:17:07] You know, I'm not on every WhatsApp. Thank you for not adding me, but I see enough to know that you're praying for one another. [00:17:14] When someone has a baby, you're caring for them. The meal train fires up, hospital visits happen. [00:17:20] It's absolutely outstanding. Even games nights, I've heard, are completely mad in this site, which is great. [00:17:30] But the danger is, as we grow, well, unless it's on the app, we're not going to know about it. Maybe. But it's really hard to feel like community is accessible if it isn't part of how we normally do things around here. [00:17:45] It might be the overflow of friendships that have had the chance to form, but when you're new, it's hard to plug in. [00:17:51] So what we want to do is not allow growth to cost us community. [00:17:57] So we need a way of just making it accessible. And Ian's mentioned, we want to start community groups here in Dartford. We want to launch seven community groups and EngraveZen five, so that we can have an opportunity to put some of this into practice. [00:18:13] So I just want to finish by telling you three things about these groups. Is that all right? [00:18:19] Okay. [00:18:21] Right. So three things that community groups are not and are. [00:18:27] So community groups are not another meeting to go to, but an invitation to shared life. [00:18:35] I want you to imagine a group of 10 or 15, a group where people can truly belong. [00:18:42] And we think one of the best ways to express that in the simplest way is to think of it as two circles or rhythms that we're going to be in with these groups. The first one is the gathering, when we'll see each other face to face. And the other is the shared life together. [00:19:01] So if you just think about the gathering just for a minute, we've actually had a long discussion about, well, how often should the groups meet? [00:19:10] You guys have said real life doesn't slow down. We can try and make stuff a priority, but stuff happens, and we kind of see a bit of a decline when we try and do something weekly. It gets hard to do it every week. [00:19:23] So we've made the decision to put our best foot forward and say, right, let's make these groups fortnightly. Then giving us this great rhythm of not forgetting to meet together, but at the same time giving breathing space for anything you've got in your life, including hanging out with those people you choose to hang out with and those that you want to share the good news of Jesus with. [00:19:43] So we feel that this would be a good rhythm. And I want to tell you a little bit about the gathering now. [00:19:50] So this is kind of what we see it looking like in person, in homes. [00:19:54] We see people gathering for a couple of hours. And these groups are going to be at different nights of the week. And the first thing is it's family time. [00:20:04] This is a chance to gather, sit down, catch up. It's a chance to put a meal on the table or a slice of cake, it doesn't matter, but it's looking at each other face to face. How are you really doing? [00:20:16] And we've got some. We call them table conversations, but little starters to help us out a little bit. [00:20:24] And it can be very small questions to get us going. Things like, what is one of your favorite activities to do on a day off? It's interesting to know, but also, let's go deeper. What aspects of following Jesus are natural and unnatural to you? [00:20:42] Yeah, because it helps us get to know each other even more. [00:20:47] And then we want to grow together. So there'll be a time where whether It's a discovery Bible study or a video resource or we're following up a preach. [00:20:56] It's a chance to open God's words, ask his spirit to speak and we'll get deep into discipleship. [00:21:05] And lastly is the chance to pray. [00:21:08] And I don't want us to be thinking, oh, it's a chance to go through everyone's prayer lists. [00:21:14] That's good to pray for one another's needs, but we also want to make space to pray in lots of different ways. You know, have you slowed down enough to listen to God? [00:21:26] Do you have an expectation that you're going to receive from God? [00:21:30] You know, don't we, if we exist as a community to encourage one another, don't we want to make our prayer times encouraging? [00:21:36] So what's going to be shared from the heart of God through you to someone you're sat next to? [00:21:41] That's what we want these times to be like. [00:21:44] But this can't be the whole picture. We can't stop at a two hour gathering and then say goodbye until we might see you Sunday. [00:21:52] There is something about going beyond when we look at the life of Jesus with his community. They did share life together. [00:22:00] So that's what we want to do. We want to share life. We want friendship. [00:22:04] What does it look like for your group to meet up and hang out and drop into each other? [00:22:08] It could be going for a walk, having a coffee, hanging out with young families, or if you've got loads of time organising all sorts of different things, that's great. But have time together. And I want to say we really need some fun. We need to laugh together. Do you agree? [00:22:25] Yeah. Laughter, man. I love spiritual rhythms. I love opening up the Bible and hearing the heart of God. I also love giggle and going back to my lovely wife Emma. Thank you. She is so good at helping us laugh as a family. Every now and again she posts these little things she finds online and I thought I'd share a couple with you. I'm not going to read them out. You can read them yourself. Are you ready? [00:22:49] There we go. [00:22:52] You got it? Yeah. Where are the cookies? Show me the cookies. Okay. Do you want another one? [00:23:02] You got it? Yeah. [00:23:05] All right, here we go. Two more. [00:23:12] I live with teenagers and a young boy. I'll just be five minutes, dad. Yeah. And here we go. For cake lovers. I want to give you. [00:23:22] It's a gift. [00:23:28] Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. [00:23:31] See, we chuckle when these come through. All right. But I'm imagining Emma's going to print them out and stick them all over the wall on a laughter wall or something. But life is hard enough and we've got to remember we're supposed to enjoy it. [00:23:45] So what does it look like for these groups to really enjoy being together, but also we want to care for one another because, hey, we all go through it. But care doesn't just mean bad times, it means good times. What does it look to care for someone who's celebrating a big occasion or remembering a big date? Or what does it look like to help someone who's just not gifted in the area of diy? They might need a hand. [00:24:09] We want to try and support each other in really, really practical ways, but we also want to step into these community rhythms as well. [00:24:20] We talked a little while ago about forgotten pathways. [00:24:24] We might end up in the territory of forgotten preachers in a second. But if you do remember, we talked about these spiritual rhythms or practices that Jesus did that he passed on to his disciples, which include us. Things like fasting and resting or sabbathing, hospitality, generosity, they get worked out in community. [00:24:45] And when we start to take on rhythms with other people, it keeps us going so they bear even more fruit. Do you know what I mean? [00:24:53] So this is the sort of thing we've got in our head. We've got the gathering, we've got the shared life together. [00:25:00] But they are different to groups we've done before because community groups are not where leaders do it all, but everyone takes shared ownership. [00:25:10] So we've got 39 fantastic people across our two sites that have been trained and ready to go as hosts. But the thing is, hosts might physically host, but they're not going to do everything. [00:25:25] It's much, much better than that because the group are going to just take shared responsibility for things. Now, who's going to make the food this week? Who's going to work out where we're meeting, who's bringing the birthday cake, who's leading the discussion, who's leading the prayer time? [00:25:42] It's because we're all gifts to the body of Christ and we've got to make room to grow in those gifts, right? [00:25:48] So these groups are just going to be set up just to do that. The group will run the group, but the last one to make this work is probably the most important. [00:25:59] So we're called to share life, called to shared ownership, but also we're not called to a casual sign up in the hope I might make it. [00:26:08] But we're called to shared commitment to each other. [00:26:14] Jesus said, follow me, and actually it might as well have said follow me together. [00:26:22] That was the commitment they were signing up to. And you know, we can love the idea of deep community, but. [00:26:30] But it requires time to build trust, it requires effort to build that time up. We've got to be there. And that's why we think these are going to be about a year long. That's the commitment. [00:26:41] And over the next year, so everyone knows what that means is 19 different fortnights between now and summer. [00:26:50] So the critical question as you're looking at these groups on the new app is to say can I realistically commit to being there every time? [00:27:00] Don't mishear me. We know stuff happens. [00:27:03] Young children, work commitments come up last minute, things change. If they're changing every week, that suggests that maybe this isn't the bigger priority as it could be, but it's a shared commitment that we're making. So we've got to know ourselves well. [00:27:22] Are we willing to reprioritize stuff, to invest in this so that we can also reap the goodness of it? [00:27:30] So that's something really to think about. But I want to encourage you as well if you know that this is going to be a struggle. You know, there are no groups when I'm free, maybe because your work pattern or single parent or something like that, we get, it's tough. [00:27:47] Please speak to us or the community host to see if there's stuff we can do. Like we're family. [00:27:53] Some groups might have all the kids in one room being looked after while they meet in the other. Other groups might decide to go on a rota so we can all look after each other. Somebody might give you a lift. [00:28:04] We want to make it accessible. But I would say that if, you know, if this is just unworkable for you, don't not take a step forward. [00:28:15] It just might not be a community group. [00:28:18] So we talked about core groups, these maybe monthly gatherings of three or four people where you meet up and you intentionally just ask good questions and you talk and you share and they might not be as fully formed as community groups, but they're an opportunity for you to gather with someone else. Now I'm not going to say any more about call groups today, but we are going to mention them in a few weeks time. [00:28:44] But it's something to think about because whatever season you're in and we all live with a certain type of restriction, we would love nonetheless for community to be accessible and a next step that everyone who is a part of this church takes. [00:29:02] So that is something to pray about. What is the next step for you at this time, what's the right thing for you? As I say, the groups are now, I think they're open in the app. I think they're available to sign up to. [00:29:14] But how about taking a breath first? [00:29:19] Who are others that you know? What are they thinking about? Don't say, can you come to this group, Maybe open it up? Have you thought about which group you might go to so they can be left to the side, but at the same time, you might know each other well enough to say, I would love you to come have a think about it. [00:29:37] But it means that over the next few weeks, hopefully these groups will form. [00:29:43] There is one slight problem, though. We do want to be open. [00:29:47] If these groups are going to be 10 to 15 people and there's 12 across the church, there isn't enough room for everyone. [00:29:53] And that might be okay if people can't quite feel like they can reach the shared commitment. [00:30:00] But I want to say we're really committed to raising new hosts. And hosts are always going to be the bottleneck, people that can physically host and facilitate our discussions and things like that. [00:30:14] If we get to a point where groups are full, we will do a waiting list. [00:30:18] And that means that we remain completely committed to training more hosts if there are those that want to do it. [00:30:27] We just want to start strong so that we can grow strong. Does that make sense? So have a think about it. You've got the next week or two. [00:30:36] We are super excited. [00:30:38] We think shared life is something really to enjoy and we really want to invite you into it. [00:30:44] But we want to actually, I think with the time left, can we, can we pray? [00:30:49] Would you mind standing? [00:30:51] I think if we don't. If we don't just bring this before God, it's a missed opportunity. [00:30:58] We've prayed as a leadership team with our site teams as well. We've prayed, prayed with hosts of those being trained. But we want to pray as a church that this season would be really fruitful, that the right groups would gather, that relationships and friendship across the church would really grow and mature. [00:31:17] So look, why don't you just turn to a couple of people next to you and we'll pray for a couple of minutes and then we'll wrap up in prayer. But just bring this before God and ask him to really bless what we're doing next.