June 2, 2024 Church Service
Explain what Valuing that Lives are Changed in Relationships Means at Three Levels
For a church to thrive, it must value relationships. That’s where meaningful life change happens. These three pictures show how lives are changed in relationships.
Level 1: Wearing the same shirts
Imagine showing up to The Big House and seeing 50,000 other people dressed in maize and blue shirts, just like you. Immediate connection. The shared shirt brings you into something bigger than yourself: a relationship.
The starting point for changing lives is making connections.
Level 2: Learning to swim
Swimming is easy, once you’ve learned how. Since your body more or less floats anyway, the art of swimming is learning to relax into the support of the water rather than fight to stay on top. Gaining this comfortable familiarity requires time wading in the shallows, then venturing out into the deeps.
Lives are changed in relationship as people build comfortable familiarity. This comfortable familiarity allows people to take off their masks, to be more open and honest with each other about their strengths and weaknesses–and the odd ways those are intertwined.
Level 3: Sheep yoked together
A friend with a sheep farm occasionally had rams that wouldn’t stop fighting. The solution? Tie them together with a very short strap. The result? After being forced to do everything together–eat, sleep, play, walk, etc.–they became fast friends.
The deepest change comes in lives that are bound together by a lasting relational connection. Lives are deeply shaped by sticking together and sticking it out.
Want a thriving church? How are you moving from shirts to sheep?
Explain What Valuing Biblical Truth Means at Three Levels
Level 1: Beginner – Signs
Biblical truth is like a sign. Road signs give an important piece of information to guide you about the right way to act at the moment: STOP, turn right, get on the off ramp, etc. Signs are extremely useful.
Just like road signs, biblical truth gives important information to guide you about the right way to act in the moment. Some famous signs in the Bible: the 10 Commandments, Jesus’ Great Commandments, and the Golden Rule. Valuing biblical truth begins with following the signs.
Level 2: Intermediate – GPS
Signs are helpful, but only when you already know where you are going. You could drive around a roundabout forever and never violate a sign…and never get anywhere. Enter the GPS. It tells you how to get from where you are to where you are going. The big picture is essential for successful travel.
Just like a GPS, biblical truth gives the big picture of where life should go. Valuing biblical truth deepens through learning the big picture to make sense of life.
Level 3: Advanced – Conversation Partner
A GPS is great for guiding your journey from A to B. It helps with the “how.” But it doesn’t do much with the “who,” as in, “who are you?” For that, you need a conversation partner. A skilled conversationalist draws out who you are.
Biblical truth is a skilled conversationalist that draws you toward grace, again and again. Valuing biblical truth means engaging the conversation.
biblical truth 3 levels
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1 Peter 4:5-6 – what about proclaiming the gospel to the dead?
There are some passages of scripture that encourage endless speculation. What are we to make of 1 Peter 4:5-6:
5 They will face a reckoning before[a] Jesus Christ[b] who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 Now it was for this very purpose[c] that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead,[d] so that though[e] they were judged in the flesh[f] by human standards[g] they may live spiritually[h] by God’s standards.[i] (NET)
Here are a few thoughts on this passage.
There are lots of details to debate in this passage. But here’s the big picture: the dead in Christ have eternal hope; the dead outside of Christ…not so much.