Form A Fellowship

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our [email protected] we would love to stay connected with you throughout the week through social media, so be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter now. Enjoy the message. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Well, good morning everybody. Thank you, Chima, for worship and thank you, Ember, for updating us on all that's happening in the life of our church. And guys, thank you for tuning in. This feels kind of like Covid a little bit, right? But I am so glad that technology allows us to be able to bring the service right into your home, right where you are. And I'm so thankful that we have this ability to be able to do this. And so it allows me to stay on track too, in terms of teaching in the Book of Nehemiah, because it really is such an exciting study and I felt like it was very appropriate. As we talk about the theme this new year of Begin again. It's the idea of wherever you are, whoever you are, regardless of the state, stage or station of life, you can begin again. I absolutely believe that you and I are immortal until God is finished with us. And there's a purpose and a plan for your life. You may be in a season right now. Maybe you're in school or maybe you're right out of school. You could be a new married person or a single. Maybe you're a young family or you might be even at retirement age. I'm just convinced that regardless of where you are in life, you can begin again. God. God has something for you to achieve. He has something for you to accomplish. And Nehemiah is a great example of that particular value and that principle that we're going to be teaching throughout this series. In fact, the first weekend out, we talked about how he kind of found his function. You know, he was the king's cup bearer. When you read that in chapter one of Nehemiah, he had a highly respected position. He was paid well. He was very well respected and obviously very well trusted. But God had something different. He he was redirecting him in a new way. And sometimes God redirects our path. He will kind of stir up the nest to get us uncomfortable in the nest so that we fly to another location. And sometimes God stirs the nest, sometimes he makes it uncomfortable, sometimes he gives us a new view, a new vision. And so God often will Work that way. I know in my life. As we talked a little bit about last weekend, that was one of the ways where Cindy and I began to realize God was kind of redirecting us away from our old traditional church that we love into a brand new and exciting ministry venture. And so I know God works that way, much like he did in the case of Nehemiah. He could be working like that in your life in some measure. So he. He began to find his function and then he began to really dial in and began to get focused. He began to fix his focus, in fact, on what God have would have him to do and what that would look like. He evaluated and assessed. What's this gonna cost? You know, what am I going to need to be able to achieve this? What type of move do I need to make laterally in order for this to happen? And so he be evaluate and assess what was going to be happening in this brand new venture of life. And this week, this weekend, I want to, I want to talk about probably one of the most essential and crucial elements in that, in that progression. And that is he began to form a fellowship. He found his function. He found his function and he began to fix his focus. And then he began to form a fellowship. He began to understand that he could not do this work on his own. And, and it's interesting because God has created us to have relationships with other people. He's created us to function within the context of a team. Even a church is really a team idea. A church is not just an individual. A church is a collective group of individuals. And together we can do so much more than we can as an individual. And so God uses the principle like that to teach us how to grow a church. He uses a principle like that to teach us how to grow a family. He. He uses a principle like that to teach us how to grow a business. And so God uses people working together collectively to achieve mission and to achieve a goal. So guys, whatever God is calling you to do, one of the most essential things you'll have to do as you begin to move in that direction is you have to form a fellowship. You have to begin to find and build a team. When you study Nehemiah, particularly chapter one and chapter two is where my thoughts are going this morning. He found people who were receptive when he began to share his vision that God had placed into his heart. He was very selective, and he began to find a very selective group of people to share that with. And he found that they were receptive to what God was doing in his life. And not only were they receptive, but they were also very objective. They were very open minded to what he had them consider doing, to helping him. But because going back to that old city, leaving their life behind, their old jobs behind, and going into this new venture, man, there was some risk involved. Have you thought about that? There was a challenge involved. They were gonna be uprooting and they were gonna be moving into a new area. And so they had to be open minded, not only just receptive to something new, but had to be very objective. And if you found in life there are people who are objective or subjective, an objective person says, hey, share that with me, and if it makes sense to me and I feel right about it, I' my opinion maybe come on board and help you with it. I'm objective, I'm open minded. And then contrast that with someone who's subjective. A subjective person might say, listen, I can hear the same facts. My mind is made up. Nothing is going to change me. And guys, you cannot fulfill a big vision with small people. You have to have people who are receptive and you have to have people who are objective. And really, the key to my talk this morning is in Nehemiah, chapter two and verse 20. And I love the first part of that verse where it says, nehemiah said, the God of heaven will give us success. Notice he's talking to his team. He's saying, we're going to be successful. The God of heaven. This is a vision that God placed in our heart. This is a business that he laid on my heart. This is a family that God wants me to form. This is something I'm absolutely convinced God would have me do. And because this thing is coming from God, he will give us success. And then he went on to say, we his servants. We his servants. Together we will start rebuilding. And so you see him now as he's taking that important step of forming a fellowship, of building his team. So if I'm. If I could give you four thoughts here. If you're taking notes with me on this idea of forming a fellowship, building the team, let me say, number one, this is important. You have to find them. The first thing he did is he found them. In life. In life, you and I will make a lot of acquaintances. You're gonna know a lot of people, but you'll make very few friends. And so you're going to find that man. I'm gonna know a lot of people, but there won't. And a lot of people may know me, but out of that Great large number of people that I know, those acquaintances that I care about, there's only going to be a certain number of them that will be close and that will be on the same page and that will share values and that I could count on to be a friend, to be on my team. You think about a deck of cards. There's 52 cards in a deck, but you only have four aces. So you gotta go through a lot of cards. You got a joker in there, you got an old maid in there, but you're gonna find those four aces, and you're gonna go through a lot of people in life that just. You won't click with, you don't connect with. And you're gonna do that in order to find those quality people that God has sovereignly placed in your path to help you achieve the purpose of that he's called, you would achieve. Think about it this way. There's three types of people. You have who I would call. You have constituents. Constituents. Now let me define constituents for you. They're people who are for what you're for. They have mutual goals, but they're not for you. They're for what you are for, but they're not for you. Maybe they like the business idea. Maybe they'll come alongside of you and help you with that. They're for what you're for, but they're not for you personally, but they're constituents. And then secondly, you'll have confederates. Confederates. Those are people who are not for you, and they're not even what you're for, but they are against what you're against. They're in it for the fight. And they like that sort of thing. They love a fight. And what will happen to those people is they'll move on when this fight's over to the next fight, and they're gonna leave you behind. They will help you for a period of time, but they're not gonna be with you for a. For the long haul. In fact, I kind of think about people like that. Think about it like scaffolding. Scaffolding. When you're building a building and you go inside the building, there's a period of time where you have scaffolding everywhere. And the workers are using the scaffolding, you know, to, to get lighting and to get perhaps the ceiling in. And all those things are important. And the, and the. The space may be occupied with scaffolding, and scaffolding is important for a period of time, but once the purpose of the scaffolding is done, the scaffolding goes away and you're on to the next thing. And God will put people like that in your life. He'll put people like that in your business who will help you for a period of time, but they're not going to be with you for the long haul. People who will get you so far, but they won't get you all the way. People that you need in your life for a certain season, but they're not going to be with you for the long haul. I would give you this to think about. If someone can stay with you, it's because they couldn't leave. If someone can leave you, it's because they couldn't stay. And God will sovereignly put people in your life. And you have to understand, is this person a constituent? Is this person a confederate? And here's the third one. And this is what you pray for, what you work for, what you really want. That's a confidant. Those are people who love you unconditionally. They are there for you. They're people that you are pouring into and they are pouring back into you. It's reciprocal. That type of relationship we talked about. When you think about a confidant, they're either a replenishing person or they are a draining person. And this might be another way to evaluate as you begin to try to find your team. Is this person adding value to my life? Are they reinvigorating me? Are they re energizing me? Or being around them just drains life out of me? I mean, part of what we do, you understand, is we give ministry to people and we receive ministry from people. But if it's always going one way, then you have to define that relationship. So many times people make a mistake by putting the wrong assignment on the wrong people. You misdefined the relationship. And there are gonna be people, honestly that that's gonna be going one way. You're gonna be pouring into them, pouring into them. You're gonna be ministering to them and you're getting nothing back in return from them. And that's okay. And. But you just gotta be careful putting them into your closest circle. They're not gonna be your confidant. There's someone that you're working on and working with, but they're not going to be reciprocal. It's not gonna come back to you. And so you have to define, is this a replenishing relationship or is this mainly just a draining relationship? And don't put the draining relationships in the closest circle to you. So he first and foremost, don't miss that he had to, first of all, find them. He had to take the initiative. There is a principle of Proverbs that says, if you and I are gonna have friends, we have to show ourselves to be friendly. In other words, the responsibility of having a friend is on us. If we want a friend, we have to take the initiative. We have to be proactive. And I'm saying in building your team, you have to take the initiative. You have to be proactive, knowing you're gonna go through a lot of acquaintances to get to those four. Think about Jesus, for example. He ministered to thousands of people, feeding of the 5,000. Right, that comes to mind. But he was only close to only 12, 12. And then out of the 12, he was only really close to about three. Peter, James and John. Right, Mount of transfiguration, you guys stay behind. I'm taking them with me there. So the point I'm making is, if you look at that principle of leadership, Jesus had great relational intelligence. Shall we say that he had this ability to discern the people that he would closest to him and the people that he would allow to have access to him. And so he would find those people, strategically pour into them, and they in turn would minister to him. So, guys, number one, you gotta find them. And number two, this is as important. Once you find them, you gotta filter em. You gotta filter em. Now, this kind of overlaps a little bit of what I've been teaching this morning. You have to learn how to filter these people out of your life that are not going to help you to achieve your goal. You almost look at it like this. When helping them starts hurting you, you have to make an evaluation. You have to make an assessment. When you look at the principle of Genesis 13, this is a great thing. I taught it about a year ago. I came across. It's great teaching. In Genesis 13. You have Abram and his nephew Lot, and they're trying to work together and they're trying to stay together. And they had conflict. And there's a beautiful way in which Abram, he tries to filter this relationship, redefine this relationship. And it was especially challenging because he was talking to a family member. This was his nephew that he was dealing with. And those of you that have worked close to a family member know it can get dicey. And it has its own challenges. But in this principle of Genesis 13, there are four things that he did that are very important if you're going to effectively filter the wrong people and out of your team, even if they're related to you. Number one, what he did was he had a conversation with them. He went ahead and had that comfortable conversation. And I don't know about you, man, but I hate those types of conversations. What I've tried to do, and we talk about it as a staff, and I've shared the principle with you before. If I've got an uncomfortable conversation that I have to have, I try to put that at the very beginning of my day, man, I want to get that out of the way. I don't want to put it off. I don't want to punt that to the end of the week. I want to do the get the worst first. I mean, get that out of the way. And the principle here was the first thing Abram did is he had this uncomfortable conversation with lot to make sure that they were understanding where the other person was coming from. He was honest. He just said, this is how you're acting. How you're acting is affecting me. And I just want to have a. If you can pull the emotion out of it, that's important. And you just say, hey, can we talk? And remember the principles of confrontation. Find the right time, take the right tone, find the right turf. And when you can put that together, the first step is the conversation. The second step that you followed in Genesis 13 was limitation. When he got nowhere with the conversation and really sharing what was going on, he began to limit the relationship. In other words, he set boundaries and he determined what the boundaries would look like. And there may be people in your life, as you began to filter them. Not only do you need to have a conversation with them, but you may need to limit access to them. You may need to establish some barely clearly defined boundaries. You deal with them in dosages and then you determine the dosage. So there is conversation limitation number three, separation. I mean, for a period of time, you may have to back away from that person. You may have to set em aside from the organization. You just may say, look, this is not working. It's not working for either one of us. And you have separation. And the fourth step, I hope it doesn't get there with you, but if it does, is elimination. That's when you just terminate the relationship and just say, hey, this is not gonna work. You see in the Bible where Paul and John Mark, they were on one of the missionary journeys. And right in the middle of the journey, the John Mark just quits on Paul. He just leaves him high and dry and walks away. And man, for a while, I mean, Paul didn't want anything to do with him. They Weren't talking, they weren't getting along. And then later on, they began to patch up their differences. But what never changed was the working relationship. Paul basically said, I love John Mark. He's a great guy. We'll never work together again. That's never going to happen. And he didn't burn the relationship, but he did burn the working relationship. And sometimes with a person, they can't be on your team. You can love them and pray for them, you can be related to them, but you're not gonna have them on your team. You have to eliminate them. And so finding them is so important. Filtering them is so important. Here's the third step. You have to form them. Once you find them and you filter them, then you begin to form them. That's when you really begin to pour into them. You begin to make sure you're on the same page. You share the same vision. You have the same values. That takes time, man. When we started the church, one of the things we were doing with our core of about 27 people is I had to make sure we were all on the same page, that they knew, completely knew, what God had poured into Cindy and my heart, the direction that we felt God was taking this church. And so we mentored them and we spent time with them, and we tried to disciple them into the vision that we felt that God was giving us here in this place. And I'm just saying, ladies and gentlemen, one of the things you have to do, if you're building a business or whatever you do in life, you have to have that team, and you have to have that team on the same page. And part of finding them and filtering them will also be involved forming them. You'll have to pour into them. Listen to Proverbs 13:20. When you walk with wise people, you'll become wise. There's a principle, Proverbs 27:17, that says, Iron sharpens iron. I would tell you this. As you build your team. There's no such thing as a neutral relationship. Your team, your team members, is either helping you move forward or they're pulling you backward. There's no neutral relationship. So you have to implement these principles sometimes of confirmation, see if you can work through those levels and hopefully restore the relationship in a way that you can move the organization forward or you cut your losses. You find somebody else that can step into the gap, you move forward with them. But there is that idea of forging those relationships and doing it with honesty, authenticity, and integrity. And the fourth thing I would give you guys, as we kind of Wrap up. Our talk this morning is he forged them. He forged them. So he found them, he filtered them, he formed them, and he forged them. They bonded together. They shared the same values, they had the same goals, and they determined that they were going to do life together. They're going to be on this team with one another as long as God was in it and as long as God was blessing it. Listen to Proverbs 27, verse 3. It says, do not forsake your friend, man. When God gives you those special people in your life, he admonishes us through Solomon there in Proverbs, he said, man, don't forsake those people. When you get those people that are close to you, that have poured into you, you're pouring into them. You forged that relationship. You filtered them because you found them. Now you just want to. You want to forge that relationship. You want to make it last and go the distance. And I can tell you guys from personal experience, some of the greatest, closest, and best relationships that I've had in my life and still have in my life are relationships that were forged in the fire. They were forged in the fire. We've gone through hard times together. We've gone through heartaches together. We've gone through setbacks together. But we worked through it and we found our way to the other, to the other side of it. In fact, there's a great principle. It's In Hebrews chapter 12, in verse 27, where the Bible says that there's going to be a shaking that will come along. And the purpose of the shaking is to reveal the things that are permanent. Get that word picture? The shaking that will come will. Will reveal the things that are permanent. And the things that are not permanent will fall away as a result of the shaking. And when the shaking is done, the things that are permanent will remain. And I think about that when I think about relationships. Sometimes, man, the relationship goes through a shaking. It goes through a difficulty. And the relationship that you have in life, that you forged in life, those relationships will still be there. A friend loves at all times. I said it is that person that will stay with you in thick or thin, that will be with you. Someone has said that a true friend like that, a true teammate like that will come into your world when every other friend has walked out of your world. And that relationship requires those relationships being forged. There's three great distinctions of that kind of relationship. I want to give them to you. Here's number one. It's a relationship built on love. Love. Again, Proverbs 17:17. A friend like this will love you at all times. They're your safe people. They love you enough sometimes to let you say things, maybe that you don't even believe. Things that may not even be very sanctified or sacred. But it's in your mind and heart. You needed to tell someone, and they're your safe person. They'll be that one that will allow you to say what you really feel. And they are there because they love you and they care about you. So love is important. The second quality of that type of friend is loyalty. Loyalty. The Bible speaks of Proverbs 18, verse 24. Listen to this translation. One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin. Did you catch that? One who has unreliable friends will come to ruin. But there is a friend that will stick closer than a brother. Again, Proverbs chapter 11:13. I talked about safe people. That proverb says, these friends and keep confidences, meaning you can confide in them. And you know that what you've shared with them is safe. So let's put it together. These friends that you forged based on love, based on loyalty. Number three, based on longevity. Longevity. Proverbs 27:10. Again, I go back to that. Do not forsake your friend. That's a friend that is there for you, who has been there for you. And those are the people in life that you have to continue to pour into, as they pour into you, and you have to develop them. Because the effectiveness of your life, the success of your life will be tied to the team that you build around you, the people that you put into your life. I love this illustration. I don't know, guys, if you've been out by the speedway or you've been in the alliance area before, and you see these big Canadian geese, there's kind of seasonal. They come in at certain times. And if you've ever seen those. Those geese and they fly. Have you ever noticed they fly in that V shaped formation? We've all seen that. Have you ever noticed that most of the time, one of the sides of that V will be longer than the other? Have you seen that? Do you know why that's so? Because there's more geese on that side than there are on the other. But anyway, that's beside the point. But they've actually done wind tunnel studies based on how those geese fly in the V formation. And they have determined from wind tunnel studies that God has. Now, they may not say God, they'll say nature, but I say God. God has instilled in them this idea that they discovered through these wind tunnel studies that that formation allows the geese to fly 72% further than they would be able to fly if they were scattered and trying to fly on their own. There's something about that formation that allows the drag to be reduced from the others. And they say that that goose that's at the point position when he becomes tired and he just kind of falls back in line and the other one will take his place. And they just keep going because they're on a mission. They have a destination in mind. And God has instilled that into those birds in that way. And I thought about as I read that illustration, that's it. That's what Nehemiah was going for. He said, man, I got a destination in mind. We're a man on a mission. I gotta build a team around me. I can't do it by myself. I need help. I need some people that catch the vision that see where we're trying to go. That will go with me. And he found them and he filtered them and he began to pour into them and he forged them. And man, what an incredible thing as we're going to see in a week or two how God used Nehemiah and that group of people to rebuild those walls. They rebuilt the walls around that city in less than two months time. And a phenomenal accomplishment that could not have been done by one person. It took the entire team working together to achieve that. Well, I hope, man, my message this morning has been something that will help you guys. I hope you've been able to take some principles, precepts away from what I've shared with you that will help you be more effective in your family and your business. Certainly help us to be more effective in the life of the church. And man, I look forward to seeing you back in here. This is tough doing this with about half a dozen in here. It'll be great having a house full of people in those services. So I look forward to seeing you. Let me pray over you as we go and thank you again for being here. If you appreciate it or you have questions again, as Amber said, put in the comments, let us know. Our staff is monitoring this feed and we love to respond to you and I look forward to seeing you soon. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you. That your word is powerful. It is incredible. It's sharper than a two edged sword discerning the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Your word is powerful, but your word is also practical. It's possible it's something that we can actually put into play in our life and we can apply it in a way that will change our life. And so, Lord, help us not just to have heard the Word this morning, but help us now to be able to implement the Word, to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. And then finally, Lord, I pray for my friends who are watching this morning and many may watch some other time during the week. I pray that if they've never trusted you as Savior, what an amazing day this would be, what an incredible time this would be for them if they just humbled their heart right where they are and prayed a simple prayer like this and just say, lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. You come into my heart, forgive my sin, and I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.