Pastor Jon Burgess
December 22, 2019 - W1951

“Making Room For Friends”

Making Room

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro & Pastor Jon Burgess 

December 21 & 22, 2019  

PASTOR WAYNE CORDEIRO: Welcome, New Hope! Today we will look at two stories on the importance of “Making Room For Friends;” I will tell you one and Pastor Jon Burgess will tell you another."  Jesus said that the greatest commandment is making room for relationships—vertically for God; horizontally for friends:

Mark 12:30-31 NIV says: “³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  ³¹ The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

In a Christmas Carol, we sing: “Joy to the World, The Lord has come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room…” It was on the first Christmas, and there was no room in the inn for Mary to have her baby; but Joseph found a barn that had room.  If your life is cluttered with self, regrets, pride, past hurts, un-forgiveness, you're like the inn; and history repeats itself!  Making room for relationships doesn’t just happen, because our lives can get too busy and too full. God is saying, “I can't add to what's already full!”  We must intentionally make room for friends!

Paul the apostle reemphasizes the importance of relationships in Galatians 5:14 NIV, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command (what is it?): “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

When relationships go bad, everything goes funny. To resolve and rectify that, God wants us to make room for healthy relationships.  A young pastor who became head pastor by default tells me this story: "I was the youth pastor sitting on the front row, and the head pastor came in one Sunday morning, put his Bible on the pulpit, and said, 'Could the board members stand up.'  The board members stood up. And the pastor said, 'These are the reasons that I'm leaving the church today.' And pointing at me he said, ‘You are now in charge.’ He picked up his Bible and left.  I was not prepared—it was so sudden!”

I said to him: "No, it didn’t happen that Sunday—it happened a year or two before when the church began to tolerate broken relationships. The broken relationships began to seethe and poison everything, and ulterior motives started to intertwine and, ultimately, took the whole church down!   He said, “What should I do?” I said, “Go ahead and have church, but I’d suggest that you don’t preach anything except reconciliation until it happens!” God did not design that we live well in broken relationships; you can’t do it! 

Matthew 5:23-24 GNT says, “ ²³So if you are about to offer your gift to God at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift to God." Jesus is saying that healthy relationships are more important than just going to church!

There’s an almost cryptic story of Jesus coming from the north and going to Jerusalem to actually be crucified! He passes through Samaria, the capital of the Assyrian Army (a fierce military people who took advantage of a civil war that had weakened Israel in 722 or 721 BC), called the Assyrian captivity. The Israelites are disbursed into the ten lost tribes of the north and two tribes (Judah and Benjamin) in the south remained.  Samaria becomes the capital with a lot of intermarrying. It was prophesied that Messiah would come through a true Jewish lineage—not a mixture of Jewish heritage. If you married outside the Jewish heritage, your inheritance is gone as Messiah would not come through you! 

Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at a well, and I thought...not only was Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman, He was actually offering her an opportunity for eternity—to someone who wasn't even a Christian! He makes room for a gentile with a crazy lifestyle—a Samaritan!  And I thought...what a gift!  You made room for her and these people! She is excited and runs throughout her village telling all her friends and family about Jesus. Scripture says many of the Samaritans of that town believed in Him and urged Him to stay, so He stayed two days, and because of His words, many more became believers! 

John 4:5-10, 13-15, 27-30 NIV says: “⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.”  ⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. 

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  ²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.”

You were designed to live in healthy relationships; broken relationships and unresolved differences are deadly because you were never designed by God to live alone! If you don't intentionally make room for this type of relationship, it won’t happen!  Jesus made room, and when His disciples returned, they were astonished, "What? You made room for this woman?"  If you would do the same, maybe we could change history—it’s the work of God.   

A 75?year Harvard study was concluded by a research director, Robert Waldinger (this is the longest research ever done by any human behavior scientist). Even secular scientists are beginning to understand the importance of what we're talking about!  

From this study, they learned three lessons about relationships:  First, that social connections are very good for us; and that loneliness kills!  It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, friends, and community are happier, physically healthier, and live longer than people who are less well?connected.  Second, that the quality of close relationships matters:  Those who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80. Third, the people who are in relationships where they feel they can count on the other person in times of need, their memories stay sharper longer.  

People who are isolated are less happy—their health and brain function decline earlier in midlife, and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely. It's the quality of close relationships that matters. Living in the midst of conflict is bad for our health.  High conflict marriages, for example, without much affection, turn out to be very bad for our health, perhaps worse than divorce.  The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.

Good relationships also protect our brains.  It turns out that being in a securely attached relationship to another person in your 80s is protective, that the people who are in relationships where they really feel they can count on the other person in times of need, their memories stay sharper longer.  Even cantankerous octogenarian couples could bicker with each other every day; but as long as they felt they could really count on the other when the going got tough, those arguments didn't take a toll on their memories. 

Good relationships don't have to be smooth all the time.  Some relationships are messy and complicated.  Many of our men, as young adults, really believe that fame, wealth, and high achievement are what they need to have a good life, but the 75-year study has shown that those who faired the best were the ones who leaned into relationships with family, friends, and community through a life time of commitment that may not be glamorous or sexy. Research has learned that social connections are good for us, and that loneliness kills!  So, make room for relationships. Pastor Jon will now tell you a story about how God makes room for relationships.   

PASTOR JON BURGESS: 

Luke 2:15-18 NIV says: “¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” ¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.”

Science backs up the fact that when we follow God's greatest command (loving God vertically and loving each other horizontally), we actually benefit from that, not only in the relationships around us, but in our own lives. There's no one that I've ever met that models this principle better than Pastor Wayne. It never ceases to amaze me how he remembers all of our names, and I'm always in awe at how he makes time for each of us.  You never hear Pastor Wayne at any time saying, “You know what, I don't have time for that.  I need to go do my thing over here.”  No, he always makes room for each of us, and so when he's preaching, I'm leaning in because he lives it!

Jesus made room for people who were entirely different than Himself.  He chose a bunch of grungy fishermen and said, “Hey, come follow me.”  He chose Simon, the zealot who was politically against most people and angry at the world, and said, “Hey, come follow me.”  He went to Matthew, the tax collector, that most Jews despised, and said, “Hey, come follow me.”  Jesus was accused of hanging out with sinners, drunkards, and prostitutes.  There was always room at Jesus' table for people that none of the religious leaders would ever be caught dead with, speaking life to them. Notice who God used to announce His arrival to earth! He made room for people that others avoided—a group of despised shepherds, pretty low on the totem pole, just showing up to work one night, and Jesus decides to have them herald His arrival to earth! He sends the angels, not to King Herod or the religious leaders, but to this scruffy group of guys guarding the sheep at night.  

Cyndi and I went with Pastor Wayne to Israel, and as a part of the tour, we visited Shepherd's Field. There is a surprising lack of anything there, but I loved looking out on that field. I wonder if we don't feel the way the shepherds did and figure that when God does something radical, He would use someone like Pastor Wayne. But when God says He's making room—He makes room for you and me!  

There's no one that shines a brighter, more convincing light than a transformed life!  God wants to use your story, even your struggles to shine His light of hope into the lives of those who are lost in darkness. So, the best evangelist to share the good news of the reality of Jesus Christ is you!  Make room for those everyone else is passing by.

I want you to meet Jesus, the Light the world, if you don't already know Him. This entire service has been handcrafted by our Savior, just so you don't have to live another moment in darkness.  Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord?  Take the next step, light your candle!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What is the message in Matthew chapter 5?

2. If you were to invest in your future self, where would you put your time and money into?  

3. What does it mean to spend quality time with The Lord?

4. The holidays are the loneliest time of the year for many; ask God how you can make room for someone lost in darkness?