We Need Each Other
April 23, 2020
Jennie Allen
Bible teacher, founder of IF:Gathering
It's ironic that we're talking about connection in such an isolated time. Some of you have been alone and isolated for so many weeks. We were not built to live this way. We are supposed to live in community. Right now, we're all well aware that we need each other. I want you to understand how God created community. It's not optional or just a suggestion for our lives. It is how we were created.
God is three in one. He has community: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He birthed us out of his own communing with himself - the trinity. I know that's a really mind-blowing concept if you've never heard it before. It's important to realize that even God himself exists in community. If God himself exists in a community, then how much more are we going to need it in our lives? When God built Adam and Eve, he said it's not good for man to be alone. The animals weren't cutting it. So God created a woman, Eve. Community doesn't just exist in marriage either - the church of God, this family of God that he's created us to function as.
Throughout the whole Bible, God is talking about the "one another's" - how we treat one another, care for one another, serve one another, and encourage one another. It's a massive theme of the Bible. He knew we couldn't live without each other. He designed us to not be able to meet all our needs ourselves. From the time we're born, we need somebody else to feed us. Curt Thompson talks about coming out into the world. You're born into the world looking for somebody looking for us. From the time we are born, we want to live known, attached, and connected to other people. So right now, we find ourselves in quite a challenging spot. We're all isolated.
But this need for community doesn't change. The qualifiers for a strong, awesome community are not that many. My family moved to Dallas a couple years ago, and it was scary, because we had to restart our community. I knew after planting a church and living in really deep community because of that, I wanted to be known. I wanted those deep friends. I knew I couldn't go back to having a season of my life where I couldn't confess or where I wasn't known. I didn't know how to create that fast when we moved, but I knew it wasn't optional. We took our time finding community, but once we decided these were our people, we jumped in the deep end.
God says in 1 John 1:6, "if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin." The number one thing we need more than any other thing is to be cleansed of sin. The number one thing we need more than anything is fellowship with God. He says the way that all comes about is living in the light. How do we live in the light? We confess our sin. We are fully known and transparent. There is not a more freeing concept in life. To actually believe Romans 8:1, that "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I can bring people into my weakness and sin. I can live in the light and experience God's forgiveness.
I remember even after we moved to Dallas and picked our people, when we started meeting together, I still felt so guarded. Community rarely goes well. What I mean by that is even when it does go well, it's built on moments that didn't go well. The best friends you'll ever have are the ones you'll probably have the most conflict with. Living in the light doesn't mean all our sin goes away. It means we are being cleansed and sanctified from it. Sin is still being pruned out of us, and a lot of the time the way that happens is by bumping up against people. Part of the point of community is that it's supposed to be hard.
You are all craving this and know you need it, but it is so hard. Here's what I would say: if you're lonely, it is not on anyone else. I know that is hard to hear. People have rejected you. There are stories of hurt in my own life. The truth is - it's on us. If a relationship you're trying to make work isn't working, move on. But you have to try again. You have to have community in your life. You have to have healthy, safe community in your life. Without it, we will not persevere.
I think about the Marvel movies and specifically Iron Man. In his first movie, he is such a jerk. So selfish, narcissistic, and just the worst. But then by the last one (spoiler alert!) when he dies, you're crying! So what humbles him? Why does he change? He gets a mission and he gets a team. His mission is to cause thriving and rescue from suffering, and his team is the Avengers. He realizes they're more powerful together than they can be alone. That's how we were made to live - on a team and with a mission.
I don't think we can do this thing alone. Everything should be a team sport. Even if you could thrive alone, it is not God's ideal for you. It will not accomplish all the purposes you could accomplish with a team. That's my hope for us. That you - with your neighbors, friends, people in your church - would come together and be the body of Christ. That we would watch him move in our generation. That is my crazy dream. But it has to start with you, in your place, taking initiative. Jesus didn't take a microphone to the whole world. He invested in 12 people, and even more intimately, three people. Then he sent them out because he knew discipleship is what would change the world.
When I was hesitant with my new small group in Dallas, I ended up deciding that I just needed to jump in, stop playing it safe, and open up to them. Because I knew our lives would be different because of it. Within six months, it felt like they had been my friends for six years. It was a choice on all our parts to play the last card. We walk through marriage issues, rebellious kids, junky sin, and even our finances. We had to walk through our budgets, with numbers, together. All of those things have challenged me and made me look more like Christ. It has not been easy. There have been times I wanted to walk out on them. But they have made me better. Living in the light is not always comfortable or fun - but it produces life.
So this is what you do. Decide you're going to build this in your life. Pray today that God would give you two names to reach out to and put a regularly scheduled thing in your life with them. My life is crazy busy. But I stick those meetings in every week. Right now that means every Monday I have a Zoom call with all five of my people. It's one hour, and we go deep really fast. Be brave. Stick with it. Ask the awkward questions. Take the initiative. It's worth it, I promise.