Relational Spirituality

1. Read James 4:1-10. What hit you most from this passage and the sermon today?
2. In verse 3, James says they do not receive what they ask for because they only spend it on their passions. How would you assess yourself in this season? Are you more focused on spending your blessings on your passions or passing them on to others?
3. Are you in a community right now that sacrifices for each other and passes blessings on to one another? If you are, describe some of those benefits. If not, what is holding you back from finding that kind of community?
4. Why do you think loneliness has become such an epidemic? In what ways has this epidemic affected you or your family?
5. Where have you been most convicted over the last few weeks as it relates to being in tight relationship with community?

Prayer + Practice:

Pray this week about what barriers keep you from going deeper into community and ask God to remove them. What next step could you take to go deeper into community.

Good morning. So we want to give you an announcement about next week, if I could, Vernon Brewer, who is the founder of a ministry called World Health. It's a missions, international missions, was a part of Liberty University when, when we were there as students, and he would speak every now and then, and we always loved to hear him. And eventually, you know, his life took on this international kind of ministry. He has since handed the ministry down to his daughter, and now his role is to travel around the world and record the stories of persecuted christians.

He reached out to me over the summer and asked if he could come and share their stories. They have stories and they want us to hear them. And so I said yes, and we arranged it to be for next Sunday. So next Sunday you will hear from Vernon Brewer, who is literally going to bring you the story. She just returned from North Korea, one of the top persecuted, and got to be able to hear stories of people.

So I want to invite you back next week. You don't want to miss what he has to share. I think it would be very powerful. So we're working our way through James, and James is describing what genuine faith looks like, especially in the context of community. And we've learned that the christian life is fundamentally relational.

So loving relationships are both the goal and the means for how we are transformed into the people that God wants us to be. So life is about others and to be what God wants me to be, which is to be like Christ, requires that I love others, and that means I have to win the battle, win the war. James says of selfishness, if you don't win that war, you can't be loving to others, which means less of me, less of what I want. And I've got to be in the thick of community for that transformation to happen. I have to be.

There's just no spiritual reality now. It's very possible. You say and have said, you know, I like everything about church except for being close to people. It's very possible that you've said that. I think lots of people say that.

I like going to church. I like the way I feel when I go to church. I like little things about church. I like singing. I like coffee, whatever you like.

But, you know, I don't want to be close to people, and I don't want the obligations that come with people. I like to keep to myself.

I don't want to have to be concerned for others.

Well, then I'm trying to tell you, and I think the New Testament is trying to tell you, and I think all of James is certainly telling us that. Then you miss the point.

And not only the point, but the process.

I've come across something else that I love that I read a couple weeks ago. It's this little. I say little. It's about 100 pages, but it's Jonathan Edwards. It's called heaven is a world of love.

I would put this in the category of need to read every year along with the weight of glory by Cs Lewis. Every year. Just find a time to read it. This hillside overwhelming. I have more to say about it next week.

But just listen to this. He's making points. One of his points is the joy of heavenly love shall never be interrupted or dampened by jealousy. Just listen to how he writes. Heavenly lovers will have no doubt of the love of each other they shall love.

They shall have no fear that the declarations and professions of love are hypocritical. Boy, what a joy that will be, huh? But shall be perfectly satisfied of the sincerity and strength of each other's affection as much as if there were a window into every chest so that everything in the heart could be seen. There shall be no such thing as flattery or dissimulation in heaven, but their perfect sincerity shall reign through all and in all. Everyone will be just what he seems to be and will really have all the love that he seems to have.

It will not be as in this world where comparatively few things are what they seem to be, or where professions are often made lightly and without meaning. But there every expression of love shall come from the bottom of the heart, and all that is professed shall be really and truly felt. The saints shall know that God loves them, and they shall never doubt the greatness of his love, and shall have no doubt of the love of all their fellow inhabitants in heaven and they shall not be jealous of the constancy of each other's love. They shall have no suspicion that the love that the others have felt toward them is abated or in any degree withdrawn from themselves for the sake of some rival or by reason of anything in themselves that they suspect is disagreeable to others or through any inconsistency in their own hearts or the hearts of others. Nor will they be the least afraid that the love of any will ever be abated toward them.

There shall be no such thing as inconsistency and unfaithfulness in heaven to molest and disturb the friendship of that blessed society. The saints shall have no fear that the love of God will ever abate toward them, or that Christ will not continue to always love them with unabated tenderness and affection, and they shall have no jealousy of one another, but shall know that by divine grace, the mutual love that exists between them shall never decay or change. Can you imagine love like that? Well, this is what he's arguing, that because that's what we're heading toward, we should already be learning to love like this. I think that's what the New Testament is trying to say.

It's not just the point of where we're going. It's the process of how we become people like that. It's what we're doing now together. So last week, James pointed out the link between our relational life and our spiritual lives. So community breakdown is essentially spiritual breakdown.

And we learned that right here in James, calibrated initially, saying, you know what that means? Do you know what that means?

Thank you, Brady. I love Brady. I don't know if you guys know that, but I love Brady.

He says, you desire and you don't have, so you murder, you covet, you can't obtain, so you fight and quarrel. And then he says, you don't have because you don't ask. So here we go from the sort of the selfish and the communal conflict to the spiritual element of asking, which for James is sort of the operation of the believer. Remember, we said last week, he's an asker. You don't ask.

That's a real deficit for the spiritual life if you don't. And then if you do ask, you do it wrongly to spend it on your passion. So, for James, remember he said in chapter one, if you lack wisdom, you need to ask. And so asking is a big part of what it means to relate to God and relate to community. They're linked.

So if you have a problem with one, you probably have the other with other. If you're avoiding community, you're avoiding asking God. If you're avoiding, or if you are attacking in community, then you're probably asking wrongly for yourself. And you're doing that with God, too. They're related.

That's something that's really hard to remember, but you got to do it.

So, asking is, for James, kind of a spiritual practice that keeps you in healthy relationship with God and with others. So we need to explore a little bit about kind of what that means. But whatever it means, it's the way to win the war of selfishness in community. Asking has something to do with winning the war of selfishness. So we want to picture this, and remember, we did it this way, where we are involved in the trinities, we all get caught up when we come to God.

We get caught up in this trinitarian mutual love, which is the fundamental essence of all reality. And then when we get. And then God's love flows toward us, and then it, by necessity, flows toward others. That's the dynamic of community and love. And so all James is trying to point out is that whatever these are inextricably linked in the sense that I can't just receive things from God and not give them out.

Now, we saw this in one John, let us love one another, for love is from God. So you can see the picture here. We love one another because we've been loved. I mean, it's very clearly stated. Whoever loves has been born of God, okay?

If you love, it's because you're a part of this, you know, perfect picture of mutual love.

Whoever does not love doesn't know because that's what God is. When you look at that, that's all that is. Is everybody mutually the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, mutually loving, glorifying each other, serving each other?

Let's take it one more. No one has ever seen God if we love one another. You have not seen God. You say, how do you relate to God then? You do that by loving others, and then his love is perfected inside of us.

That's how we're transformed. God's love becomes perfected in us as we love other people. That's what that means. Now, let's talk about this for a second. There's a couple things to be said here.

All reality, then, is relational. That's all. That is all reality is relational.

You are loved into loving. You're loved into loving other people. I read a book this past week. I don't. You know, you got to be really in the mood to read.

Called relational spirituality. Two psychologists married hall and hall, and it's a pretty thick academic kind of work on the need for psychologically, biologically, and everything else for human community. And the subtitle is a psychological, theological paradigm for transformation.

It is a profound work. And he starts the whole book off by saying there is a trinitarian spirituality. That's the essence, and the goal of what we're doing is to be like this in that loving relationship. And so this is why he calls it relational spirituality. And I think that's what the New Testament is teaching.

That's certainly what James is saying. The spirituality that, you know, asking God and relating to God well means I relate to others well. Spirituality is essentially relational because that's what God is. And so some of us in here, we really love to learn. Like, you're just insatiable learners, and so you can have a very rationalistic approach to spirituality where you just teach me something, and I'll feel better when I leave here.

Just teach me something. And I thought he made a good point in the book when he said, all of the doctrines that you and I love to learn about and love to believe all flow out of relationship. Name any doctrine you want. It all flows out of the relationship between these three and what they're doing together to make that doctrine possible. I don't care if you're talking about justification, sanctification, glorification.

You can talk about eschatology. You can buy any element of theology you want.

It's all going to flow out of what the three of these are doing. If you named any one of those doctrines and I sent you to a text, you'd see how the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son are all working together to make that happen flows up to ultimate reality, which is relationship. So rather than just being rationalistic, he's saying, relational is the essence of. So there's this vertical dynamic and there's this horizontal one. And I want to show you how this flow works, because remember we said there's no two.

There's no one way streets, really, in the kingdom. There's very few dynamics where it's just me and God.

Usually what comes to me is supposed to go out this way. That's how God sees it. That's sort of the flow of the spiritual life. All the things you think you need from God are supposed to flow through you to others. That's the dynamic.

I get it, and I give it a. And then in some fashion, in community, these people are doing the same thing. So it's coming back at me because I'm giving and receiving on that end as well.

So that's how you're formed. That is how you are transformed. When you mediate God's resources to you, to other people, that could be forgiveness. You want forgiveness from God, you take it. What do you do with it?

You get it. You get it out fast. That's how you're formed.

So the way I would say it is, this is what I wrote down in my notes, and I thought maybe we ought to just visually look at that for a second. I must receive in order to give. You got to get something in order to give it, right? That's what James is saying. Ask and it'll be given you.

But if you ask wrongly, you're not getting it. Or if you want to spend it only on yourself, let's go back to the verse. You ask, but you don't receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on yourself. So now look at this little picture. I must receive in order to give.

That's what this picture is saying. I got to get it from God to give it. And then, look, I must give in order to receive. Because what James is saying is, God's going to stop giving to you if you. If it stops with you, you're not getting any more.

Look what he says.

You ask wrongly, you don't get it.

I'm going to stop flowing to you if it keeps getting stuck at you and you keep spending it on yourself. It's a very interesting word here, because he's basically talking about a kind of relational currency.

He's talking about this flow right here. And the word here means that you completely spend it on yourself. Whatever it is God gives you, you spend on yourself, enjoy yourself, and it never goes out from you. That's why you're not getting anymore, because everything I give you stops with you.

Think about that.

Relational currency is how this is viewed.

This is what you were created for. I got a text message from Kirk one morning this week, and he said something like, FEMA rejected us. We're not getting any help from FEMA.

And he was just. He just couldn't believe it. They told him, you don't qualify for help. Lost everything. Everything.

Heartbroken. So then he tells me, we went to dinner, and we were sitting there, and we spotted an old lady from our church sitting at dinner all by herself.

I don't know if you've just heard from FEMA that they're not helping you anything. You're sitting at dinner. I don't even know that you notice anybody else.

We saw her sitting alone, and so we went over to her, see how she was doing, and then invited her to sit with us for dinner because she was alone. And she told us that her husband was in the hospital.

Their mobile home was destroyed. They have no insurance.

And so we had dinner together, and then we went with her to the hospital to see her husband. Got to be in the room with him. And Kirk described that. He said he just looked broken.

And I thought to myself, I don't know, would you have it in you to call somebody over to eat dinner with you when you were hurting that bad? Would you have it in you? Would you have it in you then to leave that table and go to the hospital and pray with that man and be with him when he's just lost everything to. That's what it looks like. I don't just think of myself even when I'm hurting.

That's what it looks like. And James is just saying what we all know.

In the book I was reading, they reaffirmed this issue of how loneliness has now become literally an epidemic. It's the new health crisis. And he reiterated in some of the studies that we've seen that loneliness is a greater risk factor than no physical exercise, obesity, and smoking.

It's the top killer, because when you have relationships in your life, then you can manage things so much better. Even if your life isn't a perfectly healthy, you have the most important thing, what you were created to be and do. And so that just confirms biologically and psychologically, what this book is saying, is that that's how you were created. And now when you come back to Christ, he's transforming you to become the best lover you can be by chipping away at the selfishness. I used to tell our congregation these because I read a book by Edward Hallowell in, like, 2000, I think it was on.

It's called Connect. And he was a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and he talked about all these things, and he talked about a couple of projects, and you remember them. I told our congregation these for years. And so you might remember this, but one of the famous research projects ever done on relationships was in Alameda county, headed by a Harvard social scientist. Took place over nine years.

They tracked the lives of 7000 residents of Alameda county in California. They found that the most isolated people were three times more likely to die than the most relationally connected people. Very interesting findings. They discovered that people who had bad health habits, smoking, drinking, obesity, poor health habits, but had a strong relational connected relationships, lived significantly longer than people who had great health habits but were isolated. That's interesting.

In other words, they found that it's better to eat Twinkies with friends than to eat broccoli alone.

Amen to that.

The Journal of American Medical Association, 276 people were infected with the virus that produces the common cold. And in this study, they found that people with stronger emotional connections, deeper relationships, did four times better fighting off illness than those who were isolated. Those with stronger relational connections were less susceptible to colds. They spread the virus less, and they produced significantly less mucus than relationally unconnected subjects, which also proved that unfriendly people are snottier than friendly people.

Now all they're showing is psychologically and biologically that's how you were set up. And James is saying, spiritually, you're set up the same way, and that's where you're headed. As Jonathan Edwards would say to a world of heaven, heaven is a world of love. Now, all that's happening here that James is trying to say is that you need things from God and you equally need to distribute them out of. And so you ask God for things anymore, not just for yourself.

You're always thinking, whatever I get, I got to give out. You know, what happens to the person here who only receives and never gives out? Do you want to be anywhere near that person?

Nobody does.

Turns out God doesn't either, as we'll see.

So there's this relational currency, which James says, you can't spend it all on yourself. You've got to give it out. And if you don't give it out, then you're going to stop receiving.

Imagine what this would look like. Can you even imagine what it would look like if there was only if everything just went one direction? You wouldn't even have a community. This would all be missing.

It's the weirdest picture in the world.

Something that I love, that Cs Lewis does. I did, by the way, finish the problem of pain. You'll be happy to know it was a couple of weeks ago, actually. Listen to this. He has this great picture.

I haven't been able to get it out of my head now for a couple weeks. I wanted to share it with you. He says the golden apple of selfhood is thrown around among what he says, the gods, because he was thinking of these mythical gods and selfless. But he just says, and everyone's scrambling for this apple of gold, of selfhood, to get what they need and what they want. And he says, they don't know that.

The first rule of this holy game, which is that every player must by all means touch the ball or the apple here and then immediately pass it on. You get it. You gotta pass it on. To be found with it in your hands is a fault.

A fault to cling to it is death.

But when it flies to and fro among the players, I love this. Too swift for the eye to follow, and the great master himself is leading it.

The ball's moving so fast here. Get it out of your hands. It comes to you. You get it out. It comes to you.

You get it. Remember the game. I love that picture because that's what's happening here. And the same thing has to happen here. You get in as fast as you get in.

You got to get rid of it. So he's picturing heaven with this sort of dynamic going on when it flies to and fro among the players, too swift for the eye to follow. And the great master himself, Jesus, who's giving himself all the time to his creatures and then back to sacrifice, then, indeed, the eternal dance, he says, makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Isn't that great?

As fast as you get it, you gotta get out of it. Gotta get rid of it. You have to touch the ball. I mean, you have to receive something, but then you gotta get rid of it fast. Love that picture.

And I think that's what James is saying, not Dallas Willard, thinking of this, said, if you're going to be.

If you're going to be asking for things, not just for yourself, but for others. Now, I want you to just think about this for a minute, because I think that's what James is trying to say. What are you asking for if you don't have anybody to give anything to? You see how self centered the asking becomes. If there's no people in your life that consume you more than just yourself, that's the kind of community you have to be in, by the way, not the kind where you just rub shoulders.

I'm talking about the kind where the moment you get something, you can't even imagine keeping it, because you have people in your life you can't wait to get it, too.

And so Willard says, our confidence in God is the only thing that makes it possible to treat others the way they should be treated. I mean, I'm going to God because I'm very confident that he's going to give me what I need so that I can treat people the way I'm supposed to treat them. Do you ever wonder in your life, how in the world am I ever going to love like this? What shot do I really have of being that kind of a loving person and not so focused on myself?

It's impossible for you to do it is unless you're going to God for resources to do it.

That's the only possible way.

And so he says, there's just, there's no human spirituality apart from that dynamic at work in your life. In fact, we must seek. I love this line, and you better ponder it. It's just essentially what came out of the book I just told you about. But he says there's.

He says we must seek our spirituality in that, in relationships.

I wonder if you've even thought about your relationship as in terms of relationship, or your spirituality in terms of being in relationship and what that means.

Just one other thought for you. In Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his book, Life together, he gives another great picture of this, where he says, he calls it community of prayerful love. Community of prayerful love. All relationships should be mediated through prayer.

You never, ever think this is what he says. You never think one on one. You're never one on one with anyone. It's always you, me, and God.

That's the mindset I think James has here. So the most direct way to love you, the most direct way to love you is to go to him first. The best thing I can do for you is go here first to get what I need so that then I can come back and give it to you. Isn't that amazing? That's Dietrich Bonhoeffer's picture.

And he says, I'm never approaching you as if I have everything I need, or it's just you and me. It's never just you and me. It's always the three of us. That's really, really a beautiful picture.

So he says, I dare. Bonhoeffer says, I dare not desire direct fellowship with anyone. Isn't that great? Remember that quote, say it with me. I, I dare not desire direct fellowship with anyone.

I'm coming to you with God, or I'm not coming. Isn't that amazing? Oh, I love that. So you say, well, what does that really mean for me? What am I supposed to do with that right now?

Well, here's the best thing I could say to you right now. The first thing I would say to you from an applicational standpoint is, do you have any relational disharmony in your life right now?

Okay. And you're wondering, how in the world are you going to be able to love that person the way they need to be loved?

And you have, you can't imagine how it can be done. How many of you have ever been there? I love. I gotta love this person. I have no idea how to love them.

Well, then you are in a great position to go to God for the resources and say, you know, God, I've been trying to figure this out by myself. I've been trying to love at my own strength. I've been trying to do this. I'm not going to go toward another person, especially one that I'm in. Maybe there's some conflict with that.

I don't go to you first and figure out what it is you need me to be to them. What do they need from me that you can give me? And I'm confident that together we can move toward this person. You see what I'm saying? I mean, that's just a great.

That's convicting and challenging all at the same time. The other thing I would say is, how can I move toward community and not away from it? Because most of us, if we have any conflict, we'll run from that. So we're either running from community because it's going to be an aggravating thing, or we're running from community because it's hurting us. One or the other just always seem to be moving away from community some way, shape, or form.

But what if we didn't do that? What if we ran to God first and then figured out, how in the world do we move toward people? And of course, it's messy, but.

And I think I'm just gonna, you know, I had two places to just drop here, and this is a. We're gonna take communion today, and I've probably given us enough to deal with that. I could get. I have a whole. I have a lot more here we could go to.

I was hoping to get to verse six.

That was a lie. That was a lie. I don't know. I told myself that. But here's something I want to leave you with, and it's probably worth that than me cramming in the things that I don't want to cram in.

And I love this thought, and I want to give it to you before we take communion, which is a few minutes from now.

And I got it in a book called eternity is now in session, and he says, obedience to Jesus. Let's say you want to do this, because obedience to Jesus in all things is the journey. But as we will see, obedience. And this is something I want to challenge us with today. Obedience is far more.

I love this thought, far more creative and proactive and grace powered an intelligent way of life than is normally thought of in our day. Now, I've been thinking about this line right here, because I read that book. It has to be at least four weeks ago. So that thing has haunted me since. Obedience is far more creative, proactive, grace powered.

In other words, instead of. Instead of shutting down because community is challenging, I'm going to figure out how to be proactive and creative in an intelligent way, to move toward people, to move toward community instead of away from it. I don't care if my personality gets in the way. I don't care if the obstacles gets in the way. I don't care if whatever is in the way, I'm gonna figure out how to do what God wants me to do, even if I've got to come up with something I had never thought of before, isn't that more challenging and more adventurous to go, God, how am I gonna pull off obeying you with this when not only do I not wanna do it, it's gonna burn me a little bit if I do.

So I just thought of a host of things that might be in this category, things that I might get from God and then creatively figure out how to get them out. Like, let's say you were sitting in here and you encountered a need over here. Let's just use money. Since the, since the illustration of spend it on your own passage, relational currency came into play. Because I think it's an easy illustration.

And you say, you know, God, I'd like to give, but I'm a little strapped right now.

So rather than just say so, I can't. Could you be a little more creative than that? Could you be a little bit more proactive? You know, I don't have it. I guess I could work an extra shift in order to help that family.

You see what I'm saying?

I guess I could ask them to dinner, even though I'd have to spend, you know, an hour and a half, God, help my ears to tolerate it. Like, let the food be good enough.

This kind of creativity and proactiveness, where you go, I've got to get. I've got to reach. How am I going to do that? How am I going to do that?

Just creative. Maybe part of the asking is God. I know you have put it on my heart to do something. I truly don't know that I have it in myself to do that.

What if you took the relational dynamic of your life and put it in that context? Because I think that's what James is saying. Either you don't ask me because you think obedience is a yes or no only. There's no creativity involved. There's no working with me so that I can work with you.

I'm never just work. I want to work with you, God, so that I can work with them. I mean, that's what it's going to take to love, I think, the way the scripture wants us to love. And now, so some of you have said to me, because you're introverts, you're struggling to find a way into community, or you might be busy. So you say, you know, lord, I got to figure out how to, how my, I got to figure out with you, God, how to help my busy schedule keep me from getting into community.

I got to figure out with you, God, how to adjust my world, arrange my life around the things that you say matter. How do I do that? That's where you need creativity and proactivity and intelligence. Let's be smart about how we serve and obey God. Let's be smart about it.

Doesn't that sound wonderful to be like that? Yeah. God, I gotta be a whole lot smarter when it comes to obeying you because I think I'm dumb when it comes to obeying you.

And I just take the easy way out. And so some of you won't go into community. You know, introverts throughout the history of Hillside Community church have always said, you know, I wish you guys did this. Oh, do you? I wish you did it this way.

Normally I would, but I can't because you guys don't. We don't. You blame yourself with your personality, or you blame the community because we don't do enough to on ramp you. If you don't want to go pick you up from your house and carry you to a community and set you down and introduce you to everybody. No, quit blaming the church.

And quit blaming. There's no church that's going to do everything perfectly for everybody in this room to get in community. Just walk out there to the hub and tell somebody you want to be in community, and we'll figure it out. And you might miss, you might go to nine groups and hate them, but the 10th one changes your life. Isn't it worth that?

If you're sitting in here and you say, I cannot figure out how to connect to this church, I will tell you right now, there's nothing that hurts our staff more than to hear that I cannot figure out how to connect to this church. Nothing hurts us more. You walk up to me, I'll direct you. I'll give you a direct path.

Be smart, be intelligent, be creative, and be proactive in doing what God wants you to do, isn't that a great challenge? We're about to go to the table here and at the table. All I want to say about that before we go is you're going to walk up to that table because you need grace. Anybody in this room doesn't need grace. You're going to walk up and you're going to get that.

And there can't be one cell in your body, not after today, that thinks you can retain that grace all to yourself. You never go to that table and imagine that you don't have to walk out to somebody else and figure out how in the world. You're going to get grace to somebody else. Don't dare go chomp down on grace and spend it all on yourself. Can we just think that way today?

So here's the first thing I want you to do. I want to take you to 30 seconds, and every single one of us bow our heads before we get up and go get it. And I'll explain how we're going to do that after we pray. But I want you to pray to yourself right now and say, God, forgive me for hogging all your great stuff. Just pray that.

Forgive me, God, because my first thought after I get something great from you doesn't come fast enough to give it to others. It just doesn't come to me fast enough.

And I'm sorry for that. In Jesus name, amen.