Commitment | How to Have a Relationship

what's up lh online we are so glad you are here today tuning in wherever and whenever you may be joining us if you don't know us my name is brittany guy i'm the executive arts director here at lighthouse church and i'm tc one of the pastors we are so glad to be joining with you here at lh online if you're new to the lighthouse online community welcome yeah we're so glad to have you with us if you're watching live throw something in the chat room we would love to just say hi to you as well you can text lhconnect to 24587 so we can start the process of just getting to know you but let me tell you just a little bit about us we are a group of people who follow jesus yes we believe he has the words of life and we listen to him come on because we believe he transforms us and we have a life of joy when we follow him amen and you know one of the things that i love about this community is church is not the building right like we are constantly meeting together praying with one another worshiping with one another so i've got a special announcement for all the ladies in the house coming up january 24th we are hosting a ladies prayer night if you can remember back to august of 2020 which seems like it was forever ago right another lifetime yeah so long ago we had our all for love women's conference that was all about prayer why we pray how we pray and now we have the opportunity as women to come together and pray with each other and for each other so you can register on our website lighthouse coming up and you want to mark your calendars where it's going to be awesome that sounds amazing i'm not a lady so i can't go to that but we have other things we do for everyone and in fact our small groups are a wonderful place to connect with people who will pray with you pray for you you can make relationships if you visit our website you can sign up for one of our many many small groups right now they're all over the place they're online and in person they're on all different kinds of topics all different groups of people please jump on sign up we would love to see you at one of our small groups absolutely well hey we've talked about him a lot we here at lighthouse church keep the main thing the main thing and that is focusing our hearts on jesus one of the ways we do that is through worship so before we get started wherever you are let's worship jesus [Music] together [Music] but the miracle that i just can't get over my name is registered in heaven i believe in signs and wonders i have resurrection power still the miracle that i just can't get over my name is registered in heaven oh my praise belongs to you forever this is my testimony from dead to light cause grace rewrote my story i'll testify by jesus christ the righteous i'm justified this is my testimony this is my testimony [Music] sing the praises of the spirit son and father our god will finish what he's done [Music] [Music] christ the right i'm justified this is my testimony this is my [Music] testimony [Music] i'm not dead you're not done [Music] greater things are still to come [Music] oh [Music] this is my testimony from dead to life cause grace rewrote my story i'll testify by jesus christ the right i'm justified this is my testimony [Music] jesus christ the [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] lord bless you and keep his face shine upon you be gracious give you peace [Music] lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon you and be gracious [Music] face of you and give you peace [Music] um [Music] lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon be gracious face on you and give you peace [Music] um [Music] [Music] oh [Music] amen [Music] this figure [Music] their children makes faith [Music] [Music] the children their children and their children face faith your children their children and their children made his presence [Music] in the evening [Music] he's [Music] [Applause] me [Music] is [Music] go before you [Music] he's with you [Music] is [Music] [Music] now [Music] [Music] generations [Music] [Music] he's with you [Music] he is for you he is born [Music] [Music] am [Music] man i love that new song we just sang my testimony and there's a line in the bridge that says if i'm not dead you're not done yeah and i absolutely love the truth in that because i think so many times we can think man i really messed up god can't use me or we think our story ends once we meet jesus but he is daily writing news stories and giving us new stories every single day that's great and i think it's important that we occasionally pause and look at the testimony he's writing absolutely not only at ourselves individually but in our community yes so to that end i'm going to invite up our student director ryan minter ryan come on how are we doing good to see you guys good to see you hey what is god doing in the midst of students at lighthouse yeah let me tell you a story because god is moving in the students at lighthouse um that over the last three months we have been able to uh partner with 250 plus families to provide food and clothing and uh just last week i received a letter from one of the local school counselors just thanking us for our students showing the love of jesus in such a dark time wow that's absolutely amazing and what i love about lh students is it's comprised of primarily students but you also have leaders that are involved and investing in your students lives so tell us a little bit about what's going on with the leaders yes i like to always say that uh we are a group of leaders that are passionate about students and passionate about growing closer to jesus and in fact i have a student leader that moved here from texas looking for community and found community within the lh student ministry amongst our leaders and in fact she's about to take the next step to get baptized come on so good so good so obviously lh students is thriving jesus is writing stories he is having transformation change happening if i want to get involved or our lh online fam wants to get involved with lh students how can they do that yes i encourage you to email students at lighthouse.church so that you can be a part of what jesus is doing through the students right here incredible yes well thanks for all you're doing man at this time we're gonna hear the start of a new series called how to have a relationship pastor don john is gonna share with us what god has to say on this why don't we join together in prayer all together and hear what god has for us today yes lord we invite you to speak to us today through your word we know you love us we know you want what's best for us speak through pastor john today help us come out of this change so that we can be part of your kingdom come and your will be done because god we want peace in our nation and we're raising our hands saying we want to be people who are conduits who are vessels of your peace to our nation that we love so much we ask all this in the name of jesus amen hey lighthouse church online it is so good to be with you this morning this afternoon this evening whenever you're watching this i just want to say thank you so much for taking a few minutes out of your busy week to do church with us whether this is your first time watching this or your 100th time joining us for church i just want to invite you if there's anything we can do to love you or to serve you please let us know send us an email let us know in the comments call the church office we want to serve you and share the love of jesus with you so please let us know how we can help one way i know that we can help is that our small groups sign up has launched and so if you go to lighthouse.church groups you'll get the list of all of our groups for our spring semester some of them are online some of them are in person they study different topics they meet different times i'm confident we can find one that fits you if you can't find one give us a call we would love to help you find a group that fits your schedule your personality and your needs perfectly that said i'm gonna pray and today we're actually launching a brand new series i'm pretty excited about it but let's pause together in a moment of prayer as we do that jesus thank you that uh you hear our prayers that as we gather together uh across the internet different times different places different households different states some even in different nations that you hear it all you're not limited by time or space but you draw us together and you make us family thank you that in the midst of all the chaos and all the craziness of our culture and of our world you reign supreme and you are secure so jesus as as your church i pray we'd get our security from you i pray we'd get our peace from you i pray we'd get our confidence from you for those that maybe are watching this and they're not they're not sure about following you i pray that you would show yourself so real so true so powerful as we gather together we're looking for a word from you would you please speak to us that we would leave this moment whether we're in a room with other people or whether we're watching this by ourself this jesus we consecrate this moment as a special moment to hear from you would you please speak to us that we leave here different more in love with you more like you i'm more ready able and willing to share your love with the world around us in your name we pray these things amen well it was a few years ago that my wife mary and i moved into our first house we had rented a place beforehand but uh we bought our first house and it was perfect for us it was it was small it was just what we needed for our growing family but there were a few things that we had to work on the house was um about a hundred years old i'm pretty sure george washington himself built it after he cut down that cherry tree and so we moved in and we just knew there's some things we're gonna have to take care of first and foremost the entire house had been painted the color of gravy which i'm not really sure whose idea that was maybe george washington but we knew we're gonna have to take care of that there's a few other things but then there's things that we didn't even know about until we moved into the house number one the oven thermostat was broken so anytime you turn the oven on it would just go to its hottest setting and for real incinerate anything that was in the oven it was a mess the other thing we didn't know about is that the uh the pipes to the outside hoses had not been properly winterized so when we turned the water on water just started pouring in from the ceiling in the basement we realized both these things on the same day actually at the same time that i was upstairs in the kitchen mary was getting ready to make some cinnamon buns and i heard water running in the basement so i ran downstairs there i am in the basement water's pouring out of the ceiling and i can't figure out exactly what's going on as i'm trying to figure this out and stop my basement from flooding i hear mary upstairs yell john the stove is on fire or smoking that the cinnamon buns had combusted so i go from the basement flooding run up the stairs into the kitchen the stove got to figure out what's going on with that um i wasn't sure frankly what was gonna get us first if the water was gonna get us if the fire was gonna get us if they were just gonna cancel out in the middle somehow and you know like put each other out but the thing of it is that when we moved into that house there was a vision for that house and the vision was that that house would be a place of sanctuary that would be a place of safety that it'd be a place of of rest and tranquility first and foremost for us and for our family and for our children and for our cat but outside of that for friends and family and people would come over small groups that we wanted to host the goal was that this house this this home would be a place that we could invite people into but we both knew before we go inviting people into this house we can't invite them in while it's flooding and smoking and burning we got to take care of the house before we go inviting people into it i say that because sometimes as followers of jesus and members of his family called the church sometimes we can get so caught up in our mission which is to reach the lost and to tell people about jesus and to invite people into church and to invite people into god's family sometimes we can get so caught up in that that we don't pause to ask what is the condition of the house of the church that we're inviting people into don't get me wrong it is first and foremost that we share the gospel and make jesus famous but sometimes you got to ask is the place i'm inviting them into safe and i'm not just talking about physical or you know paint i'm talking about is the house of god is the church is the family that i'm inviting these people into is the safe emotionally intellectually and spiritually is it healthy and does it meet the standard that jesus calls his house to be held to because make no mistake about it there is a standard and the standard is given to us in john chapter 13 john chapter 13 is part of a collection of talks that jesus gave his disciples prior to his crucifixion so you can view this almost as jesus marching orders for his disciples his manifesto if you will this is what my family this is what my church looks like this is what jesus says a new command i give you love one another as i have loved you you pause right there how has jesus loved you faithful has jesus loved you when you were ignorant as jesus loved you when you were obnoxious as jesus loved you when you ran away from him as jesus loved you when you needed forgiveness has jesus all those things jesus says as i have loved you so you must love one another and then he says something that is frankly remarkable he says by this everyone will know that you're my disciples by what if you love one another just know that that phrase one another you can use that in the new testament essentially to mean other christians so what jesus is talking about right here is he's not saying love the world though that's important and he talks about that he's saying that the key to the standard for what his church should look like is how we love one another see i'm sure at the outset i could have asked what's the distinguishing mark of the church how do you know that a church that a f that a group of followers of jesus is legit and i'm sure i would have got different answers someone say theology or someone say man it's how we read the bible or some would say it's you go to a place where there's music and worship and some if you're old school you might say man there's a steeple on top that's how i know it's a church and there's nothing wrong with those things theology the gospel the bible worship those are essentials you don't get you can't get by without those but the distinguishing mark that jesus gives he says here's how the world will know it's legit how you love one another the way the world will know it's real is how the church loves the church it's pretty wild i mean what jesus is talking about here he's not talking about like hey church people be nice to each other he's not saying hey be polite like i you know how you doing brother i'm doing pretty good sister you know any day it's it's the day the lord is made that's not what he's talking about he's not talking about being polite when you pass the church bulletin down your row he's talking about a love that makes people outside the church go whoa i think this might be legit i think it might be legit based on how they love each other because that's a room full of people with different backgrounds in different races in different nationalities and different ideas and different socioeconomic status but somehow they all come together like a family and jesus goes that that that's how the world will know and so what we want to do this is a relationship series and it's called how to have a relationship we're going we're going back to basics what does it look like to have a healthy relationship and we're focusing on the church we're focusing on the house of god but make no mistake about it every single principle that we're getting ready to talk about can apply to any relationship that you have be it a romantic relationship engaged or dating or married or if you're single ready to mingle or not whether you are talking about friendship whether you're talking about co-workers whether you're talking about family all of those relationships i'm going to say the four things that we're getting ready to talk about in this series four things modeled by jesus that if we practice them will revolutionize your relationships i know that's a big promise i know that may sound like an exaggeration but that's how confident i feel in these principles it will change the relationships in your life if you take it seriously so over the next few weeks we're going to talk about what does charity look like in a relationship we're going to talk about what does it look like to honor other people next week pastor sammy's gonna be talking about how do we confront what does it look like to confront in a healthy relationship but this week we're gonna kick things off with what i believe to be the bedrock which is the idea of commitment now please as i say that don't turn the video off just hang on i know uh our culture is terrified of commitment we we we are not cool with commitment we don't like that i know just in casual conversation it seems like more and more people will say i'm not really into commitment i have a fear of commitment i got a thing about commitment and that may come from a variety of different areas you can analyze it culturally some would say that it's because our culture is so individualistic used to be in western society that we defined ourselves by our commitments i'm a husband i'm a wife i'm a father i'm a mother i do this i do that it's my occupation now we essentially define ourselves by by rejecting commitments this is what family says this is what culture says but i'm going to find my own way that is essentially the plot of every disney movie so maybe part of why we don't like commitment is just because of our individualism or maybe another another culprit could be fomo fear of missing out that with the advent of the me of the internet the advent of social media it is easier than ever to find somebody who is having more fun doing something more exciting they're more successful than you feel you are what this creates is a fear of commitment because what if i commit to something and it's not as good as what i see online and so maybe i just won't commit to anything it creates a real fear or maybe you don't like commitment because you're afraid of failing my generation in particular has been told you can be anything you can do anything and while that's been said with the best of intentions sometimes that creates a fear of what if i don't measure up so maybe i'll just hang back or maybe i'm just totally overwhelmed by all the options whatever culprit you you decide has led to our fear of commitment individualism or fomo or too many options or fear of failure at the end of the day there's no denying you can look at statistics culture as well as especially younger generations are less likely to partake in traditional forms of commitment marriage or buying a house or just you don't need statistics you can just anecdotally look around and go you know what this is a flaky non-committal opportunistic culture that we live in that's our culture contrast that with scripture that the book of galatians this is a letter that the apostle paul wrote to the church in a city called galatia paul lists something called the fruit of the spirit and the fruit of the spirit is the result that we should expect from following jesus that paul is essentially saying if you love jesus know jesus live with jesus these things will show up in your life these fruit will be a part of your life and here's the crazy thing they are all relational this is what he says the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace forbearance or patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such things there is no law that essentially what the apostle is the fruit the result of walking with jesus it's not that man you get a big flashy church or it's not light or it's not man you're so cool or he said it's not the fruit of walking with jesus not you're so smart he said the fruit is love joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control the fruit of walking with jesus is faithfulness faithfulness uh you can define as loyalty or steadfastness and can i just say man in in this culture with everything we've been through in 2020 and everything that has happened in the first week of 2021 if there was ever a time for the church to set the relational standard this is what relationships look like if there was ever a time for the church to radiate love joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control it is right now this is our moment to bear the fruit of the spirit and to show people this is what it looks like to follow jesus and right in the center of it is faithfulness loyalty steadfastness now let's take this from from culture in general let me apply it to you and me in particular if i was to ask or if you were to ask your closest friends and family looking back at 2020 hey uh on a scale of one to ten ten being rock solid faithful committed and one being flaky as a popeye's biscuit where would they say you are they say man you're committed man you're loyal man i could count on you or would they say you're a little flaky to be honest with you i'm not really sure i can trust you you might say hey john we know our culture doesn't like commitment why do we need to talk about this why do we need to go into it how about we just acknowledge nobody's committed and then we just move on we can't do that for two reasons number one commitment or faithfulness i'm going to use those terms interchangeably is a bedrock of who jesus is revelation chapter 19 this is the end of the bible this is when jesus returns to right every wrong to correct every injustice jesus comes back in revelation 19 and the apostle john says and i saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider this jesus is called faithful and true jesus his title his name is faithful and true meaning faithful committed loyal steadfast that's not just what jesus expects from us that's not just what jesus does it's who jesus is he is faithfulness incarnate and if we're going to follow him that means we are faithful as well but there's another reason why we got to be committed that commitment is the bedrock and the foundation for any relationship you can't have a relationship if there's no commitment commitment psychologists will tell you that any social interaction we find ourselves in we're constantly evaluating is it safe here is it safe intellectually is it safe emotionally is it safe for me spiritually and if it's not safe then we don't invest we protect ourselves so so if there's not commitment in a marriage no one's building on that marriage if there's not commitment in a friendship there's not commitment in a family commitment is the foundation that has to be laid for anything else to be built upon it without commitment you don't have a relationship you have an acquaintance or maybe an associate but you don't have a deep life-giving growing thriving relationship this is why the author of proverbs says let love and faithfulness never leave you bind them around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart he says write it on the deepest part of you let faithfulness let commitment be so deep a part of you it's not who you it's not just what you do faithfulness it's in your bones let it be so engraved in you that you are committed you're such a committed person it's not something that you have to think about it just comes out of you because that's who you are let love and faithfulness never leave you engrave it on the tablet of your heart now commitment i know up until this point commitment has been kind of like this big idea so the question is where do we go from here and we're just supposed to go okay i want to be a committed type person what does that actually look like what i want to do for our remaining moments together is i want to switch gears and i want to get real practical i want to get practical as to what a committed person actually does and some of these may seem like small things but just know it's those small things that lay a strong foundation or it's this neglect of those small things that makes that foundation shaky and unreliable small things that are the marks of a committed person we're gonna roll through these pretty quickly number one how to be a committed person mean what you say if you want to be a committed person just start with mean what you say this is what jesus tells his disciples in the sermon on the mount he says again you have heard that it was said to the people long ago in this talk jesus takes old ideas and then he breaks them down and gives his interpretation he says again you've heard it said to the people long ago do not break your oath but fulfill to the lord the vows you have made that seems pretty reasonable but i tell you do not swear an oath at all either by heaven for it is god's throne or by earth for it is footstool or by jerusalem for it is the city of the great king and do not swear by your head for you cannot make even one hair white or black all you need to say is simply yes or no anything beyond this comes from the evil one jesus was speaking to a culture that if you really want to be taken seriously you would swear by jerusalem or you'd swear by man heaven or you swear by the entire earth you swear by your head and jesus goes man don't don't play that game just mean what you say if in order for someone to believe you you need to swear by all these things you're probably not a very trustworthy person you're probably not a very committed person you're probably not loyal you're probably not faithful so just mean what you say and be honest this one kind of struck me because for time from time to time in my life i haven't met what i've said i've used commitments even small things like social commitments like fishing lines i'll say yes to this and yes to that and yes to this but then i'll wait to see how they pan out and whichever one of those ends up looking best the day of that's the one i'll do and then i'll bail out on the other ones that's not doing what jesus said let your yes be yes and let you know we know this is our culture this is the culture of a of a last-minute cancel tax this is the culture that yeah i said that but you don't really know if you can trust me this the culture of man commitments and vows and promises that are made and then a few weeks or months later they're just thrown away and they're completely forgotten you know what it is when we do that when we don't mean what we say it undermines relationship because people realize oh you're not committed to me you're committed to yourself and so maybe you'll say yes but if it's not the best option or the best opportunity you'll bail on me and you can't build a relationship on that you want to radically revolutionize your relationship hold yourself to your word if you say you'll be there be there if you say you'll handle it handle it if you make a vow and a promise like for better or for worse keep it and in so doing you will be a blazing standard of commitment in a culture that by and large lacks faithfulness just by holding yourself into your word second if you want to be a committed person this one is also very practical and it also has to do with the words that we use second if you want to be committed refuse to gossip this is what uh the author of psalm 15 says lord who may dwell in your sacred tent and who may live on your holy mountain essentially he's contemplating what what type of people live in relationship with god what does it look like to walk with jesus what are the distinguishing factors of someone that is in close proximity to their creator this is what the psalmist says the one whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous who speaks truth from their heart whose tongue utters no slander who does no wrong to a neighbor who cast no slur on others who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the lord they don't emulate evil people but they emulate people who follow jesus who keeps an oath even when it hurts who does not change their mind who lends money to the poor without interest who does not accept a bribe against the innocent who's who whoever does this will never be shaken he says who who can live in a relationship with god what does it look like well you care about justice you don't oppress the innocent he said you keep your oath even when it hurts why because you mean what you say and then right in the middle he says and you don't gossip you don't use your words to hurt somebody else now gossip that sometimes we need to unpack what that is for some gossip is uh well gossip is starting a rumor i don't really do that i don't start rumors to hurt people's reputation i don't make things up i don't say things intentionally to hurt i think jesus standard is a little higher than that gossip is not just saying things to hurt people but gossip is when we share things about other people when our motivation is not to help that person meaning i may say something about somebody like man did you hear they did this and maybe i want to hurt them but maybe i just don't care about them and maybe i care more about being the center of the attention than i do about their reputation so i'm going to talk about them because i don't really care that is gossip and there are a few things as detrimental and as acidic to the foundation of commitment and healthy relationships as gossip why because what gossip essentially says is i will sell you out to be interesting for a moment i if i hear something juicy about you i will sell you out because i care more about being interesting than i do about our relationship and i think it also undermines commitment because all of us know if somebody if someone comes to me and says hey i i really shouldn't be telling you this but so and so i think we all kind of make a mental note oh okay i can't trust you because how long is it if you're talking about them how long is it until you're talking about me and so it undercuts and it undermines and it eats away at the foundation of relationships you might say oh so i can't ever disagree with someone or i have to i have to always like what people are doing absolutely not absolutely not committed people don't gossip committed people confront because committed people care about the relationship so if if we have a problem i don't talk about you behind someone's back i talk to you because i care about the relationship and what's crazy we're going to see this next week confrontation if done right actually strengthens the foundation of a relationship rather than undermining it but if you want to be seen as a committed person settle within yourself here and now i do not talk about other people unless my motivation is their best interest and that takes a lot of conversations with jesus and that takes a lot of heart checks to go hey am i doing this for me or for them lastly one practical application of being a committed person determine where you will invest jesus again talking to his disciples said suppose one of you wants to build a tower suppose you wanna you wanna embark on a little construction project won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it for if you lay down the foundation and you're not able to finish it everyone who sees it will ridicule you saying this person began to build and they weren't able to finish he's saying hey people will walk by your house and go all right they got a foundation and they got some some some cross beams going on but they didn't even have enough to put the roof on it didn't they think through it didn't they plan didn't they examine whether they had enough money to finish the project and in contract context jesus is referring to counting the cost before you follow him but following jesus just so we're all clear it's not a little it's a little jesus isn't a little spice that you sprinkle on your life just on top just to give it a little extra flavor following jesus is a radical different whole new life scripture goes as far to say when you follow jesus you are a new creation so he says you got to make sure you're ready for that if you're going to follow me but that principle of counting the cost that can apply across the board especially to relationships and especially to commitment because the fact of the matter is you and i we know hundreds of people not only that if you count everyone that we're friends with or followers with online and for many of us that count goes up to hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of people and i know it's obvious i think it goes without saying but i'm gonna say it anyway you can't be equally committed i can't be equally committed to all those people that really if we try to be committed to everyone at the end of the day we're not committed to anybody because we're spread so thin we can't be there when the people that we want to be committed to really need us so there has to be a county of the cost there has to be a time this is jesus what relationships are you calling me to be committed to right now for most people in most situations that priority list is physical family it's god's family and then a few others that the holy spirit will lead you to commit to other than that we don't really have margin to be committed to everyone and every single person that we might come in contact with and so we have to ask jesus who are you calling me to to commit to right here and right now now so we're getting ready to wrap up i just want to be real clear about something i don't want this message on commitment to come across as a list of moral do's and don'ts the fact the matter is that moral do's and don'ts behavioral modification that doesn't change the inside of us checking boxes that doesn't change our heart just just following the list that doesn't change our soul the inside you that's why when it comes to the topic of commitment the whole thing is centered on jesus that we're committed not because it's cool or not because it's popular we are committed we are faithful because jesus himself is faithful that's why we do this and the reason why we're not just why we do it but the reason why we're able to be committed is because of jesus also so as we close let me just talk to those that maybe you really do have a legitimate fear of commitment and maybe it's because you were committed in the past and you got hurt or maybe it's because you have a fear of failure or maybe there's something up that's hanging you up about commitment and your thought process is man i want to commit i am so scared i'm scared i'm going to fail or i'm scared i'm going to get overwhelmed or i'm scared i won't know what to do or i'm scared scared to let down the walls around my heart again can i just tell you the reason why you can be committed is not because you're so cool or because you're so clever or because you're so competent the reason why you and i can be committed it's because jesus is committed to us we see this so clearly in one of my favorite stories in scripture it's the story of peter if you know peter man peter he he was bold he would put his foot in his mouth all the time he was the first one to say jesus was the messiah he was the first one to say he would fight to the death to defend jesus peter thought man i i'm jesus right hand man jesus the messiah we're going to overthrow rome we're going to build a kingdom it's going to be cool we're going to have armies and then jesus died and all of peter's dreams crashed in around him and all of a sudden everything he thought was going to happen didn't happen you know what peter said he said i'm done jesus found peter fishing peter said i'm going back to fishing i'm pretending like this whole jesus thing this three years of my life i'm pretending like this didn't even happen i'm going back fishing why because jesus died i guess it wasn't real and three days later jesus rose from the grave one of the first things he said is i'm going back to get peter and so he went to find peter fishing just like he did at the beginning of peter's walk with him he goes back to find peter fishing peter realizes jesus he jumps in the water he swims to jesus jesus has cooks and breakfast has a conversation with him reinstates him and essentially what what jesus was saying is hey peter you may think that you were done with me i'm not done with you you may have run away i'm running after you you may have walked away peter but i rose from the grave to build this family called the church and i want you to be a part of it so peter i am committed to you i want you to hear me something church if you're afraid of commitment or even if you're not because you live in a culture that is terrified of commitment we are committed because our savior is committed we are committed because his name is faithful and true that's not just what he does that is who he is and the reason why you can be committed to the people in your life that god has called you to is not because of your skill set or not because you're so educated it's because god almighty is committed to you and he will not leave you or abandon you so you can walk with a confidence and a humility that when god calls you to someone he'll be with you even in the midst of it we are committed because jesus is committed to us we are faithful because he is faithful and so we mean what we say and we don't gossip and we determine where we invest because we're emulating and we're following our savior who is faithful and true and his name is jesus we're going to talk about other relational dynamics moving forward but commitment is the bedrock for all of them for friends for family for co-workers and it's the bedrock for the church jesus died to build this family we should be committed to it and so jesus thank you that you're faithful and true and thank you in a culture that is flaky and scared of commitment we can be anchors not because we are so capable because you are so committed to us help us to walk with the confidence help us to walk with the peace and joy that we get our joy we get our satisfaction we get our life from you and i pray that would radiate out to the world around us in your name we pray these things amen man i always love hearing from john he's always so thoughtful and so practical he said that we need to be reliable faithful and intentional in our relationships and if we do that if we give that to others we're going to get that back so good and we live in a world today that needs a beacon of hope it needs people absolutely who are demonstrating what healthy relationships look like you know i've been on social media this week and i'm seeing so much conflict arguing and anger and frustration i want to be reliable faithful and intentional so that people say hey i want some of that and to me it boils down to the golden rule jesus said treat others the way you want to be treated so i want to take that i want to live that out this way absolutely so many good practical handles for us to take into this next week and man we have just absolutely loved being with you and having you join us we couldn't do what we do week in a week out without your faithful giving and generosity so thank you so much to all of you who financially partner with us we are so grateful and we absolutely couldn't do this without you so we love you guys so much have a great week we'll see you next [Music] time you

Channel: Lighthouse Church

Views: 3,678

Rating: 4.6363635 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: Kz7Dpq_86FI

Length: 55min 8sec (3308 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021