I have been impressed by this theme that is being promoted throughout the Evangelical Covenant Church having to do with what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ for life—lifelong discipleship. The acronym G.R.O.W. representing God’s Word, Relationships we are called into with each other, obedient living, and worship in our first session. We spent time on God’s Word and how it is to be authoritative in our life. My desire for you is the same as the desire for myself and those who I share a home with—that we will continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ in a process that extends over a continued period of time.

Today I want to talk about the second aspect of that acronym—Relationships that we have with each other. Our first passage is from Mark 10: 29: Jesus says in this section, No one who is left home, our brothers, or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel with fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age, homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields and with them persecution and in the age to come eternal life. For many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

The call of Jesus Christ is a powerful call. It needs to be such strong call in our life, that it holds more sway than the relationships we have in our home. Even more than mother and father—when we hear Jesus call, we must respond to him. When the disciples heard Jesus there was a choosing that had to take place in their life. Will I follow him? What will I lose to follow him? What will I gain to follow him? Usually what we are aware of most first, is what we will lose.

I’ll never forget this amazing brother from Jamaica who came to our congregation out in Troy. He talked about the woman at the well, leaving her water jar to answer the call of Jesus. She depended on that water jar. That’s her water for the day. She could have lost that. She could have lost something very important to her. The question is, What have you left for Jesus Christ? The call of Jesus is such that it throws us out of our comfort zones and throws us out of any commitment that comes ahead of Him. The call of Jesus is to put him first. When we put Jesus first, when we come to him, he promises that you and I will receive a hundred fold more family than we ever had before. We will receive our own flesh and blood back to us in a new and living way where we can minister something, even in our families, that we never had before.

I will never forget a quote from George MacDonald. “Who is the richer man? A man who owns one hundred houses or the man who has knocked on one hundred doors and met with welcome? Jesus invites us into a relationship with himself and along with that, is a relationship with other people. You and I do not choose who our relatives are once we come into the House of God. You didn’t choose your own brothers and sisters. We are family. In the Kingdom of God, it is not for us to select this one or that one. We are called into a relationship with one another. The way we live out our discipleship, the way we live out our commitment to Jesus Christ is largely in the context of how we treat the people of God around us. How do we strengthen the call of God in our life? Jesus, in establishing his word here in the few years that he had, proclaimed the gospel to many, but he developed a small group of disciples. He selected 12 people to be with him, who in particular he was going to pour himself into, share meals together, share a place to stay, travel, serve, that they would be with him in all things so that they would be able to carry on the work of the Kingdom of God after his death, resurrection and returning to the Father’s house. When he sent out his apostles, he would send them out in twos. There is power in not just going out on our own strength. What I lack, my sister or my brother has. It’s the desire of God that you and I would recognize that we are attached to one another. Something that you know to be true, to your own disappointment perhaps, and I know as well, is that when you are not doing well, when you fall prey to temptation to things not worthy to mention in the House of the Lord, it is usually when you were in isolation from God’s people, from the support of the brothers and sisters, that you were vulnerable to that particular attack—that made you succumb to that particular sin.

The book of James says, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” It’s hard for us to confess. It’s unnatural, but there is great strength in it. I would want to encourage each person in this house today, as part of your walk with Jesus Christ, find at least one person, or two or three in your life, and it’s good if your spouse is one of them, where we can be honest and we can talk about where our struggles are, where we can confess and hear forgiveness from another person. We confess to God that there are things that we have done that we should not do and that there are things that we should do that we have left undone. We don’t want to begin our Sunday morning worship without acknowledging this to God that we might experience forgiveness and strength and healing. The Lord wants you to have the benefit of another brother, another sister who understands your struggle, who keeps confidences. We draw life from that kind of vulnerability with one another.

I was also impressed when I picked up a Mother Theresa’s devotional book at the library. She said, “There are sick and crippled people who cannot do anything to share in the active ministry work of the Gospel. So they adopt a sister or a brother who then involves the sick co-worker fully in whatever he or she does. The two become like one person and they call each other their second self. I have a second self in Belgium and when I was last there she said to me, ‘I’m sure you are going to have a heavy time with all the walking and working and talking. I know this from the pain I have in my spine.’ That was just before her 17th operation. Each time I have something special to do, it is she behind me that gives me strength and courage to do that.”

What a great thing to have prayer partners and even perhaps our prayer partner may not be a person who can fully engage in all the things that you engage in, but they enter into intercession for you and on your behalf and together you are so much stronger than standing alone. I want to encourage the Saints of God to adopt one another and take advantage of the strength. Families should include single people as a part of their family life, especially from the household of God to just be family of God. Single ones among us have strengths and gifts and abilities, where they can really help a family through an act of kindness, an act of love. I tell my children that they are one of the few people I know who have a live fairy godmother, Caressa. Caressa is as family to our family. There is a richness that comes from just being the people of God, not so much in a pick and choosing way, but being open to the spirit and what he would like to do. The apostle Paul said in I Thessalonians 2:8, “We gave you not only the gospel, but our lives also, because you were dear to us.” The gospel is not just something that we proclaim on Sunday or some other time, but it is a relationship that we are entering into for life.

I remember hearing the story of a certain missionary down in Central America who was working very hard. When the people would have a holiday, she didn’t want a holiday. She wanted to continue with the work. Finally, one of the people native to the area came to her and said, “I have you figured out now. You don’t intend to stay. You just want to hurry up and get done your task so you can go back.” It was a powerful realization of something very true. Responding to the gospel is not a task we can complete so we can resume our lives. Let’s go to Sunday Worship and get it over with and let’s hope it’s over before the ball game starts. What the Lord Jesus is calling us into is a profound relationship with one another. Paul says in Romans 1:12 & 14 “I am anxious to join you that I might share my gift and that we might be mutually encouraged by one another’s faith.” What is supposed to happen when you and I get together is mutual encouragement. Like a potluck meal, where you bring something to the meal that I don’t have and I bring something to the meal that you don’t have and we come together, there is a mutual encouragement that fans up our faith.

I’m a person who is under obligation. I have a debt to pay. What Jesus has done in my life is so profound that everybody I will ever meet from this day forward I owe something. I am indebted to both Greek and Jew alike, Paul says. When he says that, he means, I am a debtor to both believer and unbeliever alike. How great do you value what Jesus has accomplished for us? Is it so profound to your life that we honestly and sincerely believe that every person we meet, we owe—not in a heavy way, but because Jesus freely gave us himself. Shouldn’t I give myself to you? There is a nobility there. In the congregation, think what a profound thing it is if you and I really believe this. Do we owe each other? That mutual encouragement that comes from faith.

Whether you and I are aware of it or not, we are encouraging or discouraging everybody we meet, everyday. You have a high calling. You have been called to be the ambassador of Jesus.

A few years ago I was backing out of my driveway to come here to put in an office day and I felt as if the Spirit of God was saying to me, “Boy, I’d hate to be Mary Lou (our secretary) today. You are just an accident waiting for something to happen and she is the next person you are going to meet.” I felt as if he said, “Your problem is that you take on more than I give you and then groan about it. And you take it out on the people with whom you work.” Do you realize that if you are not happy, your goal, whether consciously or unconsciously, is to make everyone you meet equally unhappy. It’s like picking at scabs. You come home and everyone is in a good mood and you think, “I’ll fix that.” Do you realize that life together is either heaven or hell depending on how we respond to the profound gift of Jesus Christ given to us.

Bonhoeffer says in his book, Life Together, that you and I need to know how to stand alone and we need to know how to be in community. If you cannot stand alone in your relationship to God beware of community. Community can’t carry you. Don’t expect that your community will cater to your every whim and desire. Stand alone before God, draw life from God, expect God to satisfy you. You can’t get enough from your spouse. You can’t get enough from your children. You can’t get enough from your parents. You can’t get enough from your church. Go to God. You must go to God alone for that oil that fires your faith. At the same time, especially in America, we are so individualized—that if you cannot relate to a body of believers, brothers and sisters, then beware of being alone. There is going to be something messed up in your faith. So often when we stumble and fall, it wasn’t that particular temptation that felled us, but rather that we were already an accident looking for some place to happen. We had become proud, or we had become critical and judgmental. We had stopped being forgiving people. We stopped being surrendering people. We were waylaid and we didn’t even know what hit us.

The Word of God challenges you and I. This is part of the call that you are to live out your faith in connection with other believers—in relationship with other believers. It says in II Timothy 2: Paul said to Timothy, “I want you to take everything that I taught you about the Lord Jesus Christ and I want you to find reliable people to share all of this with, so they in turn will find others to share all the good news of Jesus Christ.”

One of the best models that I have seen for this, over a long span of time, has been our Genesis Group. They are so good at raising up new leaders every year. Some leaders graduate and new leaders are being raised up. This is the call of God for you and I to relate to a small group of people, to share everything that God has given us. We are supposed to expect them to become people who really don’t need us anymore. They themselves are sharing their faith and we stay attached not because we need each other, but because we love each other. As a pastor, I get many opportunities to preach the Word of God. If the work of God is going on as it should go on, with the priesthood of all believers, I have no fear that if I go out and get hit by a car, I have no fear for this congregation, because the Holy Spirit is at work. The Word of God is our authority and we are constantly raising up new leaders in the Kingdom of God. Part of God’s call in your life and mine, is that our love is not a controlling relationship. Giving our children responsibilities to do on their own, without putting our hand in there. When we place responsibility on them, and even let them stumble a bit, they become capable. When we are always hovering over and are never satisfied, we are creating dependent relationships. We are creating relationships destined to fail. Jesus, in his wisdom, calls each one of us to relate to one another in service, not in control. Many pastoral leaders can fall into a trap of control. The Spirit of God wants the Word of God to be our control—wants the Holy Spirit to be in control. There should be leaders, but the leaders themselves are servants under the Word. That in itself is freedom and liberty to serve Him and grow into who he wants us to be.

I feel it is beneficial for each member of this congregation to be a part of a regular weekly small group of some kind or another. Part of the call of Jesus Christ is to enter into relationships where we serve and allow ourselves to be served. Where we are answering the Great Commission, “To make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything I have taught you.”

You never learn so much as when you are teaching. When people ask you questions that you are not sure how to answer, that is sure to spurt growth in your faith. We are called to engage in the culture that we are a part of. We are called to be servants. We are called to respond to the needs of people. In Isaiah 58:6-9 the Lord speaks of the fast that he requires to strengthen us: “It is not this the kind of fasting that I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer, you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing of the finger and malicious talk. And if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and loose the yoke of the oppressed, then your light shall arise from the darkness and your night will become like high noon. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun scorched land and will strengthen your frame like a spring whose waters will never fail, your people will rebuild the ancient ruins. They will raise up the age old foundations. You will be called the repairer of broken walls, restorers of streets with dwellings.”

This is your call. You will be part of restoring a community. I was challenged by Pastor Harvey Carey when he came to our church and said, “When Jesus says we are the salt of the earth, the main use for salt is to preserve meat. If the salt is good, the meat will be good. If you are salt and light in this community, this community is going to start getting better.” There is something about the grace of Jesus Christ in you and me as salt and light that is going to lift up the whole community of Detroit. It starts to lift up the school we are in, the workplace we are in and it starts to heal our marriages and our relationships with our children and every other thing worth having.

We need to strengthen our relationships and the faith community helps us to learn how to be better parents, better husbands and wives, or better single adults are also in the family of God. We are called to let go of the hurts, the little things that we pick up. Put away that pointing finger, says God. Put away that religious talk. Let’s meet at the foot of the cross.

I want to challenge you to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to you in terms of who you relate with week to week, that is strengthening your faith, starving your doubts and how it is that God is calling you to serve in the community of which you are a part. Not just alone, but arm in arm with other brothers and sisters.