Share Life with People

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Good morning Chapel family. So good to be back with you today. We are starting the new year with a series called “Getting the Right Things Right.” The right things. Because if you think about it, there are a lot of things you could choose to focus on in 2022.

This Christmas I got a unique gift from Norma Jean. Do you know what this is? Juggling pins. Kind of an antique set of juggling pins. I love this gift! Now: I can juggle…tennis balls, baseballs, oranges, anything round. Learning to juggle these would be a whole new skill for me: I’d have to learn to release them with just the right flip so they land in my hand the right way, and that would take time and repetition. And I’m going to be honest with you: there’s a part of me that wants to do it. There’s a weird part of me that wants to put in the hours and amaze my friends with my pin-juggling prowess.

But here’s what I realize: if I do that—if I get to the end of 2022, and I’ve become a circus-quality pin-juggler—that means there were a bunch of other things I chose not to do. Right? Because you can’t do everything. There are only so many hours in a day. So saying “yes” to pin-juggling will mean saying “no” to lots of other things. Now: if pin-juggling is truly important, then it’s worth the trade-off, right? But if pin-juggling is actually not that important, I’ve just made a really dumb decision. I’ve gotten something right, but it wasn’t the right thing to get right.

So let me ask you a strange question: what is your “pin-juggling?” What are those things in your life that you could spend a lot of time on this year, but they’re probably not the right things? Maybe it’s perfecting some skill, or watching all 8 seasons of Game of Thrones, or never missing a Yankees game on TV, or getting six-pack abs by spending two hours at the gym every morning. What’s your pin-juggling? And don’t hear me wrong: none of those are inherently bad things, and hobbies are great; recreation is important. But here’s the point: if that thing keeps you from focusing on the right things, that means it’s wrong for you. Make sense?

We cannot do everything! Which means we get to choose. And that’s what this series is all about: making the choice to get the right things right.

From the teachings of Scripture, I think we can say that four of the right things for all of us are our spiritual life, our relational life, our physical life, and our financial life. So if you get to the end of 2022, and you can’t juggle pins or any of those other things you’re thinking of doing, but you’ve gotten those four things right, it’s going to be a good year.

So…last week Pastor Ted talked about “Spending Time with God”; today let’s talk about the second one: “Share Life with People.” We have to get this one right. And that’s not easy, because we’re living at a time in history when people are more isolated from each other than we’ve ever been before. Listen to these recent headlines from major news outlets:

“Surgeon General Says There’s a Loneliness Epidemic”

“Young People Report More Loneliness Than the Elderly”

“The Surprising Effects of Loneliness on Health”

“How Social Isolation is Killing Us”

“The Biggest Threat Facing Middle-Aged Men Isn’t Smoking or Obesity. It’s Loneliness”

That’s scary, isn’t it? Now, you ready for the shocker: all of those headlines were written before the pandemic! Before we had to lock down and keep our distance and learn to use Zoom, etc. So if there was a problem back then, can you imagine how bad it is now? So more than ever, we have to get this one right.

So I want to look at a passage at the very end of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is actually a long letter that covers all kinds of topics. But the last thing the writer focuses on—the thing he wants to leave his readers with—is their relational lives. Look with me at Hebrews chapter 13, starting in verse 1. I invite you now to hear the Word of God…

1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. 3 Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

And then go down to verse 20…

20 Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. This is the Word of the Lord.

So instead of giving in to the individualism and isolation all around us, God is calling us to live relational lives. So let’s talk about two things today: The Call to Relational Living and The Secret of Relational Living. The call to relational living and the secret of relational living.

So, first: The Call to Relational Living. And we find four kinds of people that God calls us to love.

First, Love your spiritual family. Verse 1 says: Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. A more literal translation would be, “Let brotherly love continue.” Anyone know the Greek word for “brotherly love”? Philadelphia. The city of brotherly love! Philos means “love”; adelphos means “brother”; put them together and you have brotherly love. So this is talking not about biological siblings; it’s talking about the connection we have with fellow believers in Christ.

Let me ask you something: how is the depth of your relationships with other Christians? With other people in the church? For some of you, that might be a painful question. Because you’ve been hurt in friendships, or you’ve had a hard time getting close to other people. For some men, especially, this is a foreign concept. Work is busy; life is busy; maybe we never saw relationships modeled to us; so most of us are pretty good at isolation. And it’s a dangerous way to live. It’s one of the reasons middle-aged men so often do destructive things—because they don’t have a relational web that helps them to walk wisely.

There’s a researcher at Harvard named Robert Putnam. About 20 years ago, he wrote a pretty well-known book called Bowling Alone, all about the growing isolation of American culture. But more recently, he made a fascinating discovery. He knew there was a correlation between religious affiliation and altruistic behavior. For example: people who practice some kind of faith are more likely to give to charity, to volunteer, to serve people outside their own religious group. They’re even more likely, if they realize they were given too much change, to return change to a store. So that was a

known correlation: religiously affiliated people do more good for the world. But the question is: why? What is it about their church life that leads to that? And no one could empirically show what that connection was. But finally Putnam found it. It wasn’t just people with religious affiliation; it was people who had good personal relationships with others in their church. In other words, the people who do the most good for those outside their church are the people who have the deepest relationships in their church. Isn’t that interesting? Maybe that’s why so much of the New Testament focuses on loving one another within our faith community.

So one of the most important things for you to get right is to have some quality relationships in your church family. If you’re not currently in a small group, join one. Or come out and join us as we serve the homeless in Paterson at the end of this month—not only will you be helping people, you’ll be meeting people. Or—if you’re new at The Chapel—if you’ve been here a year or less, there’s something happening today—right after our 10:30 service, in the Chapel Café, there’s an event called “New You in ’22.” It’s very casual; you can ask any questions you have about The Chapel, you’ll get to meet some of our leaders, and if you want to join a small group we’ll help you do that. So if you’re interested, just show up—we’d love to see you.

Okay—let’s keep moving—here’s the second one. Love strangers. Verse 2 says Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. So if the Greek word for “brotherly love” is philadelphia, anyone know the Greek word for “love of strangers”? This is a harder one. It’s philoxenia. You ever hear of “xenophobia”? Fear of outsiders. So this is a call for Christians to go from xenophobia to philoxenia. From fear of outsiders to love of outsiders. Hmm… And he says some people, by living like this, have shown hospitality to angels without even knowing it—he’s probably referring to something that happened to Abraham back in the book of Genesis. But the point is: you never know who you might be showing love to. It might turn out to be more significant than you ever thought.

So this is a call for Christians to open our hearts, and unlock our doors to the people God brings across our path.

A while back, I was driving, and it suddenly started to rain. And I saw this elderly man at a bus stop, waiting to get the bus to New York. And he had no umbrella—his business suit was getting soaked. So I passed him up, and I thought, “Lord, you want me to help this guy, don’t you?” So I went around the block, I parked the car and walked up to the guy with an umbrella. I said, “Hey—I’ve got an extra umbrella—this is for you.” And he said, “Oh—thank you—I have one in my brief case—I’m enjoying the rain.” So I felt pretty dumb. But I tried!

A couple of weeks later, Norma Jean was driving, and she saw a woman sitting by the side of the road, crying. And she passed her up. And she said, “I need to talk to that girl.” So she turned around, and asked her if she needed a ride; this young woman said yes, and Norma Jean was able to talk to her and encourage her while she drove her home. That was a little risky, but love can be like that.

Last summer I had a strange thing happen: an elderly woman that I had never met before just showed up at my house. Norma Jean and I were out, and we pulled into the driveway, and here was this woman, walking up our front steps, getting ready to ring our doorbell. It turned out she lives in the retirement community near my house, and she was out walking and was feeling tired. So we invited her in, and had coffee together, and just talked for about life and faith for about an hour, until her adult son came and picked her up. Totally unplanned, but I’m convinced it was planned by God.

You know, I think a lot of times we’re so focused on pin-juggling that we miss most of the strangers that God intentionally brings across our path. So we are working on this. It’s an adventure to lift up our eyes and get in tune with what God is doing.

Alright—now he’s going to raise the stakes a little bit. The third call is to Love Suffering People. Here we go—verse 3: Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. So this is getting harder, right? Because a stranger might come to you. A prisoner—you have to go out of your way to find them. Back when this was written, prisoners were usually dependent on outsiders to come and visit them and bring them food and blankets and other necessities. So here’s what he’s saying: when you’re a follower of Christ, it changes the way you think about things like this. It’s not just ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ If you know there are prisoners around you—and he expands it beyond prisoners—he says ‘people who are mistreated’—if you know that’s going on, allow yourself to feel it as if you were with them. And then act on that.

This is the same thing Jesus taught, didn’t he—in Matthew 25? He said the reality of your faith is demonstrated by how you treat the sick and the poor and the prisoner. And then he said, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you’re doing it for me.”

One of the missionaries the Chapel supports is named Chip Nelson. Just last year, Chip left his job in corporate America, and he now serves full-time in prison ministry. So several times each month he and his team go into prisons; they spend time with the inmates; they share the gospel through worship and teaching. He has truly taken this to heart, and it’s become his life calling. My friend Paul Dangelmajer, right here in the Chapel family, volunteers regularly at Otisville State Prison and Bergen County Jail—amazing ministry. Go talk to Paul if you want to find out more.

But you don’t have to literally go into prisons to live out this calling. Because there are suffering people all around you. I keep a prayer journal. And whenever I hear of someone going through a rough time, I write it down. Because honestly, the older I get, if I don’t write it down, I’ll forget. But that’s the easy part. The act of love comes when I open up the journal and see that name. It is so easy to just a say a quick prayer and move on! But when God has a hold of my heart, I go beyond that. I call or text to see how they’re doing. If they’re in the hospital or recovering from something at home, I try to go and see them. I have learned that I can preach 1,000 sermons, and most of them will be forgotten. But if I spend twenty minutes with someone in the hospital, they will never forget it. Love means showing up.

So he keeps raising the bar, right? Love your brothers—that’s not so hard; Love strangers; that’s a little tougher. Love suffering people—that’s even more challenging. Now here’s the fourth one…

Love Your Spouse. Now he’s asking too much, right? Verse 4 says: 4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. This whole message is about relational living, and there is no more important relationship than your marriage. So honor it. Don’t let it grow cold; don’t let it get distant; take her out; take her away; take her to the movies; take her to dinner; take her hiking; take her for coffee…you want some more ideas? Text her during the workday; bring her coffee in the morning; ask her how she’s doing and then listen to what she says. I know I’m focusing on men here, because I am one. Honor your marriage.

Because listen: when we don’t do that, it talks about God’s judgment, right? And part of that is simply this: if you don’t honor your marriage, and it explodes, there will be deep pain. And I know there are lots of divorced people in here, and that’s why I love grace and forgiveness and second chances. But

the warning is real: when we don’t honor our marriage, there is heartbreak and suffering. If you are married, there is simply no more important relationship than your marriage.

So in a culture that’s becoming increasingly isolated, God calls us to turn outward and live a life of love: Love your spiritual family; love strangers; love suffering people, love your spouse. It sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? The problem is, we’re not very good at this. We struggle to make this happen. And that’s why this passage is so great—because it doesn’t just call us to relational living…

…it tells us The Secret of Relational Living. Let me give you a principle that’s always true. You ready? Alienation from God leads to alienation from people. If you are alienated and disconnected from God, it will always lead to alienation and disconnection from people. And you can see this from the very beginning of the Bible…

Adam and Eve rebelled against God be eating from the forbidden tree, and what happened? They were alienated from God—they hid from Him in the garden. But what happened to their relationship with each other? It broke down. They started accusing each other and being suspicious of each other. Their broken relationship with God caused their relationship with each other to break. And you see that all through the Bible: distance from God leads to distance from people. And bottom line: this is the reason we have such a hard time with relationships. This is the reason it’s so hard to do what this chapter is calling us to do!

But look at verses 20 and 21—this is the secret: Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will… And I’ll stop there.

“Through the blood of the eternal covenant, God brought Jesus back from the dead.” On the cross, when he shed his blood, Jesus went through the ultimate alienation from God. When he cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he was experiencing cosmic alienation—complete relationship breakdown. So why did he do that? He did it for us. It was our rebellion; our sin, that deserved banishment from God…and Jesus took all of that in our place. All those things that alienate us from God, which in turn alienates us from other people, were paid for at the cross. So now, those things don’t have to ruin our relationships any more.

But it gets better—because it says God brought Jesus back from the dead. And look at the rest of verse 21: and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. In other words, not only did the death of Jesus remove the things that alienate us from God; now the life of Jesus works in us so we can relate to people in a whole new way!

You hurt my feelings, so I don’t want to talk to you. But then I hear the voice of Jesus, “But Dave, you’ve done much worse things than that…and God forgave you because of the cross.” So that makes me feel a little less self-righteous! But also, the life of Jesus stirs in me, and he gives me the desire and the power to move toward you. So I give you that call, or send you that text. I don’t let the relationship go cold. None of that comes naturally! But God is working in me what is pleasing to him. It’s a supernatural thing.

I don’t want to take my time serving that stranger—it’s not worth the risk! But then I hear the voice of Jesus: “But Dave, you were a stranger to God, and the cross reconciled you to him.” And that makes me want to go to that stranger, like God came toward me.

I don’t want to take the time to talk to that suffering person, because it’s messy or I just don’t know what to say! But I hear the voice of Jesus, “Just show up. Like I took on human flesh and showed up in

this world for you. Just show up and be present.” And that softens my heart to move toward that person.

Do you see the point? God is calling us to go against the cultural grain and live a highly relational life. But he doesn’t just command us: Stop being so self-centered! Have better relationships! He gives us the power to do it. For every relationship God calls us to, it is the death of Christ for us and the life of Christ in us that give us the ability to love the people around us—even the difficult ones. So keep on leaning into Christ, and then leaning outward to love people.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of sitting at the bedside of many people who were dying. To this day, I have never heard a dying person say, “Bring me my diplomas. Bring me my trophies. Bring me that award I got for top sales. Bring me a picture of my vacation house.” No one ever says that! You know what they say? “Bring me my family. Bring me my friends. Bring me my pastor.” Something in us just knows that at the end of the day, life is about relationships. In a culture that’s becoming increasingly isolated, God calls us to turn outward and live a life of love. You might never master pin-juggling—or whatever else you’re into—but that’s okay. Choose to get this one right.

Let’s prepare our hearts for communion.