Karen W from Heart of the Matter Ministries International is a friend of Word of Grace Church and has been a blessing to us over the years. This message was preached by Karen W at Word of Grace Church on July 2nd, 2017. To listen/download the audio please click here.
I made some declarations during
worship over Word of Grace- that this be
a place where the angels dwell. People are going to experience his presence and
they are not going to know why. We will talk about healthy life-giving
relationships. So we are talking about building a caring community of
believers. One of the things that’s
happening in the church today that because church being so used to being
church, our community is based on what you do. We base our worth and place
as people, on the culture of the church. But in the kingdom we base our
connection on the basis of identity. Who we are is the most important point of
connection. You belong to the kingdom of God because of identity. It means
moving away from dead works and move into sonship. A caring community looks
like this- a healthy church:
1.
Grace:
the church consists of Grace. A caring community must be filled with Grace. It is the relational part of God. You
come as you are. Your strengths, weaknesses, secrets, addictions, all of it.
Grace is a place where there is no judgment. But Grace and Grace alone is not good. There is no responsibility.
2. Truth: So we need to have the truth. Truth is the instructional part of God.
it is His direction, an order of what we need to do. It teaches us about value,
what we need to do morally. But truth
and truth alone is not good. It becomes legalism. When people speak the
truth and not in grace, they don’t want to be around them. It puts people in
bondage. It makes us become a slave. So,
Grace and Truth need to be together. When we are in relationship and in
truth, we can speak the truth in love. When
there is acceptance, His truth pours in direction, value and conviction, not
condemnation. When it is grace alone, its slippery and there is no
accountability
3. Gifts: When Grace and Truth are in
alignment, there are gifts. We love the gifts. In churches, when someone is
functioning in gifts, people go gaga over it. But gifts without truth is dangerous. I’m partially blind in both
eyes. One day, a friend of mine who thought she had the gift of faith like
Smith Wigglesworth. So she operated in the gifts without truth. she popped my
eye with the palm of her hand. So I prophesy, but I teach people about the
truth. even in the gifts we can make mistakes. If I do something wrong, grace says, its okay. With the balance
of Grace and truth, the church is able to operate in gifts. We are empowering one another to operate in
their gifts.
4. Fruit: When Grace truth and gifts are
in alignment, we can bear fruit. Fruit is very important. The church must
operate in the attirutes of God to bear good results. The fruit has two parts.
One is the attributes of God and the results of what we do.
5. Teleois: it means wholeness, completeness
and Christian maturity. A
healthy community should contain all there to have wholeness.
This is what the Body of Christ
should look like over the world.
I want to open up with James 3:17-18 “Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized
by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with
mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can
develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its
results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating
each other with dignity and honor.”
The wisdom of God is in getting
along with one another. Relationships are important to God.
Q. What are some of the descriptions of kingdom of culture
relationships?
It is controlled, perfectionistic and judgmental. We often find
ourselves doing things according to our cultural norms. So we base our
relationship with God on our culture. So there is two cultures. The Kingdom of
Culture has a lot of restrictions.
Q. What do relationships look like in the Culture of the Kingdom?
·
Identity-
we have a destiny. When we have an identity in Him, we can go deeper in
relationship with Him. If everyone is doing the same thing then we cannot grow
closer in relationship with God.
·
No Shame
and no blame
·
Equality:
In American culture, we have equality, we have lots of freedom. We can be
whoever we want to be. There are people who identify with other genders, with
animals, etc. There is more equality for women in this culture. But with
freedom comes responsibility. But in Indian culture, there is not a lot of
equality. People are treated a certain way based on skin colour, caste, gender,
etc. But in the culture of the kingdom, there is equality.
When we operate in the culture
of Kingdom where God lives, then what God says is truth, is truth. There is
some good stuff in every culture. Indians could keep their hospitality,
family systems, etc. In America, we love that we can marry out of our race. There
are a lot of multi racial situations. Women in the church can stand and flow in
5-fold ministry gifts. So there are some good things in the culture, but the
Kingdom of God trumps it all. Where we find our identity is from who gave it to
you.
Pygmalion’s problem- in Greek mythology, there is a guy named
Pygmalion who was a famous sculptor. Historians say his work was so life-like.
All the women fell in love with him. But he didn’t like any of them. So he
sculpted a beautiful woman. He fell in
love with the statue. He brought beautiful silks and pearls to drape this
statue. But here was the problem- the statue couldn’t fall in love with him. he
created something that could not give life back to him. when we put on people how we want them to act, they cannot give us
life back. So that is the kingdom of culture.
In India we see commercials on
fairness creams. I know 2 people back in my day, when black women would use
fairness creams to become fairer. No matter how you look, God made it all and
loves it all. My sister bleached her skin because she was ashamed of it. I am
yet to see a black-skinned actor in India. So, her skin turned greyish pale and
she looked like a Panda bear.
When we live in the eyes of Pygmalion, we create images that are not
true. Everyone in India doesn’t look white. We come in beautiful colours. So when we get stuck in this, relationship
becomes contrived.
Friendship has levels:
1. Acquaintance: as we begin to cultivate
relationships, they start at an acquaintance level.
2. Good Friends: someone you meet at
church. You probably share what school you went you, where are you from, etc.
you wouldn’t share anything deep.
3. Close friends: these people, you are
now developing a heart-to-heart relationship. You may tell them your story and
a bit about you.
4. Best friends: people who you might have
grown up with. They know everything about you. They know your best and your
worst qualities.
5. Intimate friends: They know the deepest
darkest part of your heart next to God. they may know things no one else knows
about you.
In this boat, what is interesting
is that it is decreasing in size at each level. The boat of your acquaintances is
larger, but then it gets smaller because it gets deeper. When you jump from an acquaintance to intimate friends, it reflect
insecurity and loneliness. This is not healthy.
Q. Why is it not healthy?
Healthy Relationships take time. It has to be cultivated gradually. I
want to honourably present this- often, arranged marriage on this ship looks
like an acquaintance jumping into intimacy. Even online dating can run the same
risk. There is a proper way to do
arranged marriage where people feel empowered as they begin to grow. But it
is awkward when you jump in with someone based on something your family said. I
honour it. But we must put it in a healthy way where people can grow into
intimacy.
Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again), Spirit filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that have people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment