Sermon Series Wrap-Up: You BElong Part 3
The UBC Sunday Encounters continue to explore the concept of belonging. The previous entry focused on trust and the part it plays in making people feel like they belong within groups, most notably church families. The previously referenced sermons focused on how we can build trust with the people around us. However, trust is a two-way street. It is one thing for us to be trusted by others, but for people to feel like they belong, they often have to feel like they are also trusted.
Pastor Pope addressed this in a sermon that posed the question “Who Is Going With You?” He used a story from chapter 15 of the Book of Acts that involved two great figures in early Christianity, Paul and Barnabus. The two had somewhat of a dispute over Mark. On a past occasion, Mark had proven himself to be less than reliable. As a result, as Paul pushed forward on his mission to spread the Gospel, he did not want to take Mark with him. Barnabus, on the other hand, insisted that Mark be brought along. The disagreement was bad enough that it seemingly created a rift between the two men.
Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And Barnabas took Mark and they sailed to Cyprus. - Acts 15:39Paul and Barnabas trusted each other. They had already established that they could do great things together in the Lord. They already knew that they belonged to the Body of Christ. Both shared the goal of wanting to bring others into that body. However, Paul was so focused on the bigger picture that he may have missed a smaller detail. God wants everyone to play their part. While it is certainly good to try and bring masses of people into the fold, it is also good to make sure every single person feels like they belong in the group.
Barnabas understood that. He knew that Mark may have fallen short, but he also understood that showing some trust can be beneficial to building others up and helping them feel like they belong and are important to a cause. For that reason, he was willing to part ways with Paul on Mark’s behalf. The Bible lets us know that Barnabas made the right choice because eventually even Paul had to acknowledge how much Mark had grown in the Lord.
Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry. - II Timothy 4:11Barnabas being not only a trustworthy person but also capable of trusting helped Mark feel like he belonged to the movement, and not only that, it helped Mark find his way into being able to stand on his own as a minister.
The problem Paul initially had with Mark was a matter of reliability. Reliability happens to be the second term in the BRAVING acrostic Pastor Pope introduced in the previous message. It is an important concept because a lack of reliability can make it difficult to build trust within a relationship. It might be easy to look at Paul in the previous encounter and think of him as the bad guy because he didn’t show enough faith in Mark, but the passage also serves to show us how important reliability can be.
Jesus was put in a similar situation. We don’t often think of Jesus as being vulnerable or needing anything. He was God in the flesh. However, we often forget that he was still a human being subject to the same frailties that we face. Just before he was betrayed, he took several of his disciples with him to Gethsamane to pray. Jesus knew what was about to happen, and he was impacted by it.
They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”Jesus wasn’t asking for much. He really just wanted company as he jousted with the terrible fate that awaited him. He brought his trusted disciples with him expecting that he could rely on them for comfort, and multiple times they failed him. Jesus didn’t stop loving his disciples because of their failure, but it’s still easy to see that he was disappointed. This was probably the point in his story where Jesus, the man, was at his lowest, and yet those he chose to help him up were unable to play their part.
Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba,[f] Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. - Mark 14:32-40
Of course Jesus still went on to take the path God chose for him, and we are all blessed because of that, but we must be mindful that if a lack of reliability can adversely affect people like Paul and Jesus, it can certainly hurt the relationships within our groups.
We must be willing to show trust to others, but we also must strive to be reliable and worthy of trust ourselves. If we agree to do something or be something for our groups, others have to be able to count on us to follow through, and if everyone can do that then our bonds will remain strong.
Who Is Going With You?
Chris Lawyer
Comments
Post a Comment