Becoming Like Jesus: CommunitySample

Finding People

Pray …

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your faithfulness and pursuit of me. Today, would You remove any blinders and barriers that keep me from seeing You clearly, myself truly, and others compassionately? I want to see as You see. Lord Jesus, help me. Amen.

Consider …

Right after sin entered the world and separated us from our perfect relationship with God and others, the promise of a Redeemer was there. Because God is the personal, loving Creator of everything, and He wants a relationship with you.

When Jesus—God in the flesh—steps on the scene, He’s clear about what He came to do: He came to find what was lost, repair what was broken, and rescue what was stolen. He came to bring you back to God and remind you how relationship with others was always meant to be.

So, when He started His ministry, Jesus started by finding friends.

Don’t miss this. The Son of God and Savior of the world wasn’t a one-man show.

If we really believe He came to show us what it means to be human, we can’t ignore the fact that Jesus had community. He had friends He did life with, ate with, asked things of, and fought for. How did He go about finding these guys? Let’s dive in together and, in the process, bust some myths about making friends. Starting with …

Myth #1: Making friends takes too much time.

Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Matthew 4:21-22 NIV

Something to notice in this Scripture is that community wasn’t meant to be this thing you add to your life if you have time. It was meant to be how life happens. James and John were doing their normal day job together. This is just how it was in Jesus’ culture.

The idea that making friends takes too much time is a result of living in a culture where we operate solo. We don’t want to rely on anyone. We want to be able to work independently and do all the things by ourselves. We fill our schedules with classes and work and achieving “this” and attaining “that,” so it’s no wonder we think we don’t have enough time to invest in making friends.

What if we’ve got it all backward? Because for Jesus, making friends was the method He used for accomplishing His mission, not the other way around. Or, put another way: For Jesus, people weren’t a distraction from the mission or something to deal with when He wasn’t on mission. From the very beginning, for Jesus, people have been and still are the mission.

As we’ve been making our way through the biblical story, we’ve seen the thread of community woven through Genesis and Exodus. Now, we’re moving to book three of the Bible, Leviticus, where we read:

“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.’” Leviticus 19:18 NIV

Leviticus is a book all about what it looks like to be holy. Every law, sacrifice, ritual, and command is designed to paint a picture of the otherness of God and how we’re meant to live differently as His people. And at the heart of what it means to be holy, we find that verse—a verse Jesus quotes when He’s asked what the most important commands in the Law are.

… “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40 NIV

Love people. This isn’t just part of the mission—it is the mission.

Tomorrow, we’ll continue busting myths about friendship, but today’s teaching is where it all starts, it’s our foundation. Because if we don’t understand that community is our calling—if we don’t get how important it is—we won’t have a reason to persevere when things get hard. And they will get hard.

Practice …

In a journal, your notes app, or the discussion portion of this Bible Plan, write down your answers to these questions:

What is your “why” for relationships? Why does community matter to you? Does your “why” line up with God’s? If it doesn’t, be honest about it and ask God to help you have the same heart for relationships that He does. Lastly, how will you remind yourself that community is worth it, even in the face of hurt, offense, or conflict with friends?

Listen …

Find a quiet place where you can continue to spend time with God. Maybe you have a favorite chair, a certain spot in your backyard, or a particularly cozy closet. Wherever you need to go to limit distractions, do it.

Set a timer for 5-10 minutes.

Ask God to speak to you.

When you get distracted in your mind, and you will, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, use it as a chance to practice coming back to Jesus by praying this prayer:

Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. Heavenly Father, speak to me. Holy Spirit, breathe on me.

When the timer ends, thank God for the time you spent together and go into your day looking for opportunities to love Him and love others.