Download What`s your response - flowing together. Is anyone here a fan of the

What’s your response - flowing together.
Is anyone here a fan of the board game monopoly? Hopefully
we all know what monopoly is? For those of you who don’t, it’s
that family friendly game, based generally on London streets
where the aim is to become the person who owns everything;
to monopolise the game; to be the one with all the control.
Personally, due to my competitive nature, I try to avoid this
game like a plague but once in a while there comes a point
when playing is unavoidable...and one of those unavoidable
chances came last summer when on a family holiday, Jonah
was asleep and Annie and I found ourselves tv-less, book-less,
phone reception-less and only the monopoly board available.
Things started well for me, I thankfully landed on some great
properties, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, The Strand, Bow Street, a
train station or two, or three, things were looking good. I had
staked my claim on the bottom left of the board, all the yellow
and green ones – something special about Yellow and Green! and my wife was in prison with only the purples and oranges,
things were falling into place, I was jovial, flashing the cash,
laughing and joking, until suddenly Annie escaped from her
bonds with lucky double and proceeded to build houses on all
her properties expect one – FLEET STREET – where she
plonked a big fat hotel.
And the rest is history, within 3 goes I was bankrupt, every
journey around the board saw me land on FLEET STREET – or
another hotel that she paid with through my hard earned
pounds. 3 goes to bring down my empire and see my mood
drastically change, I was fuming, stomping around, refusing to
talk, I had gone from mr big shot to mr grumpy, sulking and
refusing to engage in conversation.
Seems totally stupid right? I mean it’s just a board game, but
isn’t it amazing how often the way we interact with people can
change when things aren’t going our way, or that we don’t get
our own way.
Or am I the only one? Maybe you’ve experienced it in a
different way;
-­‐ Things are going great at work, a potential promotion is
coming up but it goes to someone else who in your
opinion works nowhere near as hard
-­‐ Having to take directions from someone else, who is less
experienced than you or worse still younger
-­‐ Perhaps it was when you didn’t get your own way in that
discussion with your partner, siblings, friends or work
colleagues
-­‐ Or when somebody else’s idea was picked ahead of yours
-­‐ Perhaps you voiced your concern about something but
nothing was done about it
-­‐ Maybe you find yourself in transition and things aren’t
going the way you thought they would
The way we interact and flow with people in our lives is of vital
importance, especially when something doesn’t go our way and
that’s why today I want to discus something we at Proclaimers
refer to; as flowing together or a little word called submission.
For a lot of people we can enjoy the idea of submission....when
it’s about people submitting to us, flowing in our direction,
following through on our idea. SUBMISSION IS EASY WHEN
IT’S NOT BEING TESTED.
But when it comes time to be tested, when it’s us having to flow
with them or submit to them – what’s our response?
Often we can view it as a negative word, we think of
submission as having lost out, being the weaker person, the
loser, the youngest, and our natural response can be “I don’t
like this – this is humiliating - I’ve had enough”.
Submission can be a controversial topic causing fall outs,
bitterness, bossiness, splits in work-places, friendship circles,
families and churches and that’s why it’s so vital that we take
time to look at how we can flow with other people.
We read in Matthew chapter 20 a story of a mother coming to
Jesus with her two sons and asking him a favour – never a
good start when it’s your mum coming to ask on your behalf!
Despite the embarrassment of her sons, she asks Jesus if he
will allow her two sons to sit on his right and left in his Kingdom
to which Jesus responds:
22
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to
them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
“We can,” they answered.
23
Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to
sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong
to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”
Now this did not go down well with the other disciples;
24
When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the
two brothers (Annoyed, cheesed off, mad, angry, annoyed,
furious). 25 Jesus (obviously He heard all that was going on)
called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise
authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants
to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and
whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the
Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give
his life as a ransom for many.”
So here we are looking at a bit of a fall out between Jesus
friends and followers – it’s almost impossible to imagine, the
disciples didn’t get annoyed or angry at one another, they lived
in perfect harmony! That’s what we should be aiming for right?!
Or that’s so often how we imagine – but here they are falling
out with each other too, they tried to get one up on each other,
they struggled to flow together well. This is itself –makes you
feel better!
But what is at the centre of this falling out? What’s the real
issue? Is it the fact they got their mummy to ask? Is it that they
asked for the seats? Or is it the fact that the other disciples
wanted to be the ones who sat there? They wanted that seat of
importance for themselves; they wanted to the one who was
ahead of everyone else, they desired to be recognised, they
wanted to be the prominent one.
And isn’t the same true for us, when we struggle to flow with
others could it be that we want our voice to be heard, our
thoughts to be acted upon, our desires met. We all long for
recognition, to be seen, to be heard, we desire prominence.
As we said earlier, we don’t mind the issue of submission when
it comes to people having to submit to us and go with our ideas
and our ways but Jesus flips the whole human nature on its
head when HE says ‘whoever wants to be great among you
must be your servant’.
-­‐ The greatest threat to a family unit, husband wife, siblings
etc,
-­‐ the greatest threat to teamwork in an office or group of
volunteers,
-­‐ the greatest threat to being able to flow well together with
the people in your world and for us here as a church is
me, myself and I.
My idea, my favourite, my choice, my wants, my time, my
money, my turn, my rights. As I look at the group dynamics of
what Jesus did with His followers here I can see how He
showed them it’s not about being served by others, having your
way, getting the best seat or your turn, but He showed them
how to flow well together by serving others, being a group who
care more about significance by putting others first, than we do
prominence. A key to flowing together is about significance not
prominence.
Prominence says: what can you do for me? When does my
voice get heard? When do I get a turn?
Significance says: what can I do to help you? What can I do to
help the team? What can I do to achieve our goal? Significance
is about adding value to the lives of others.
It can be so easy for us in different situations and settings to
want things to work out our way. But submission doesn’t mean I
don’t have a mind or an opinion on things but it recognises that
the greatest posture in life is to put others first. Jesus shows us
that the key to greatness isn’t about prominence and getting the
best seat and having everyone work around you, but it’s about
seeking significance as we ask others ‘what can I do to help
you?’
So what might this look like for us? How can we flow together
with others?
• Put personal preferences aside – I don’t like this song so
i’m not singing, I don’t like that idea so i’m not going to do
it
• Genuinely listen to others – how else can I help? Not
about having the answers or giving our opinion, but
looking at how we might help
• Not always having to have an opinion – time to get behind
what someone is doing
• How we speak about each other – gracious – don’t jump
on someone – have their backs – even when it goes
wrong – saying I told you so
• After decisions that have been made we back it – not
corridor talk
• Letting go of an offence
• Developing tolerance with people who can irritate us
• Changing our perspective Submission is a position of service. And it’s not a position of
weakness or failure or incompetence, instead it’s a position of
strength and wisdom and, in Jesus’ words, greatness. Live a
life of significance, not prominence and you will see an
outstanding impact on the lives of the people you do life with as
you find you flow well with them.
Just talk to the Christians for a moment:
God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how
we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and
prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in
brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the
cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking
shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built
into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
Eph 2:21-22 (Msg)
These scriptures help us understand our part in the church.
That each of us, being built together, is what makes the church.
It’s not just an attendance thing but it’s about us being
cemented together through thick and thin, it’s about becoming
established and part of the very fabric of the organisation. And
as more of us allow ourselves to become cemented in it adds
strength, stature and influence to the church; each of us
providing support to the other, creating a platform for others to
build on.
Often when we look at a wall we can see that not all stones are
the same size or shape. It has to my chipped and formed and
sized up to fit into its allotted space within the structure. And the
problem is that really we don’t like this! What this looks like for
us as living stones is allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives
to shape and form us to being all that God has intended for us
to be. And this can look like:
-­‐ forgiving someone who has hurt us,
-­‐ letting go of an offence and building a bridge to move on,
-­‐ developing tolerance and patience with people who irritate
us,
-­‐ dealing with pride,
-­‐ allowing significance to be the thing that drives us rather
than prominence
But it can still feel hard can’t it? Even if as I have been talking
you’re sitting here thinking – yea I have got a personal
preference, actually someone did say something that hurt me, I
do think my idea is the best idea and it must be my turn by
now... Let’s not be naive as to pretend this stuff never crops up!
HOW do I deal with this?!! The answer lies in the verse ‘Christ
Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together’.
It’s not simply about effort; about thinking “I’m going to love that
person, even if they do annoy me” – or about saying “I’m going
to forgive that person” inevitably that person will wind you up or
all those memories will come flooding back, the ONLY way it
works, the only way all of us with our different backgrounds,
experiences, ages, bank balances can come together to build
something great, is when we each keep Jesus as the
foundation on which we are building our lives.
As the cornerstone Jesus is the one that sets the entire
structures position and we become out of alignment when we
don’t keep Jesus as our focus and basis. We can deal with
hurts and frustrations and disappointments when we keep fixed
on Jesus – on His purpose and cause and not my dream and
my gifting – when we allow the word of God to shape how we
respond to situations and to mould and shape us so that we fit
together each of us aligning ourselves with Christ.
The reason we can flow together is because of a common
purpose in Jesus Christ.
Imagine your life having significance about helping to see
others grow, imagine what our church could become, of the
influence it could have, imagine the impact that Jesus could
have in the lives of your friends and families
In a moment I am going to give you the opportunity to respond
to Jesus.
28
just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to
serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”