30 days to Live - Week 2 - Pastor Nick Grim

Last week we learned that Life is meant to achieve God honoring goals and I encouraged you to make a bucket list and have 4 separate categories so here is a quick recap:

1. Kingdom

2. Relationships

3. Work

4. Pleasure

This week if you only had 30 days to live we are going to ask the question who would you want to spend time with? What relationships would you invest in?

Remember that little changes are what creates growth in Jesus.

Dunbar’s Circles is a theory created by Professor Robin Dunbar that postulates that there is an approximate limit to the number of friends you can have, and it organizes them into circles as such:

Circle 1: 5 people: Intimate

Circle 2: 15 people: Good friends

Circle 3: 50 people: Friends

Circle 4: 150 people: Acquaintances

Beyond 150: The modern world (like social media)

Source: http://changingminds.org/explanations/groups/dunbar_circles%20TODO.htm

I think to understand this we can see the principle of it even in Jesus’s life.

Our relationships should exemplify Christ in our lives

If given 30 days to live who is a priority?

Luke 22:14-20 “And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Who is sitting at your last meal? Who was at Jesus’?

Who are your intimate friends? (Jesus: Peter, James, John)

Who are the people in your life if you told them you did some atrocious thing they would still love you?

Who are your friends?

Rest of the disciples (Who are people that you share life with?)

Who are the people that need ministry in your life?

Judas’s (Who are people that you need to be with because God has placed them in your life?)

Luke 14:12-24 “He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Why does it matter who my relationships are with?

John 16:20-26 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

We are united by the blood of Jesus and there is nothing thicker than that.

Create your Relational list:

—Intimate-5

—Close-10

—Friends-15

—Ministry-5

John 15:1-5 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Our relationships should exemplify Christ in our lives

The only way this happens is if we are making our most important relationship our most important relationship.

Your relationship with Jesus is paramount

Steven Covey says one of the most important habits someone can get into is “Put first things, first.”

You can not go deeper into relationship with others if you don’t understand the deepest importance of your relationship with Jesus.