Character and Community

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

Hi. Continuing in our series, working through the letter of John, talking about how do we build a community of joy, which is what John tells us his letter is all about. Today, I want to talk to you about how character is the foundation of community. You know, a lot of times we think that community is about affinity. We think that community is about shared activity. We think that community is some sort of affiliation. And all those things, certainly, can be are factors. But healthy community, a community that is filled with joy, requires that each person operate with character. And what John writes in chapter three of his first letter to the church is essentially outlining to us three things.

He tells us that we want to be people who lean into our true humanity. We want to be people that embrace God's kingdom and relationship over lawlessness. And then lastly, that we want to grow in love versus hate. And so I want to sketch out three things, these ideas, a little bit more for you. So that whether you're trying to build a community of joy in your home or your workplace or here at the church, that you would feel like you have a sense of how to do it and some next steps.

So John is writing and he's telling his followers that he wants them to understand that they should live as Christ lived. He's talking about the future of the resurrection and that when Jesus returns that they will see Jesus as he truly is and that they themselves will then understand who they truly are.

So he says, because of that, purify ourselves. Now here's the idea. The thing that's happening, based on what we can tell from John's letter, is that some people are suggesting that because of what Christ has accomplished in his death and resurrection, is that they can live however they want. They can do whatever they want, they can be whoever they want, they can do what they want when they want.

You know, and I think that as Americans, sometimes maybe we can resonate with that. We like to do what we want when we want. That's what we prefer. And he says, no, no, rather than do that, what I want you to understand is I want you to understand who your true self is. And the true form of humanity is revealed in who Christ is.

Christ gives us a picture of what true humanity looks like. And what does that look like? Well, when we consider Christ, we see Christ as a person who understood that he was loved by the Father, loved by God. And so John wants us to know that too. That's why he begins that little section with Beloved. So we too are beloved.

We are people who are loved by God. And that should, for us, give us a sense of peace. And out of that peace should come love. And that love looks like gentleness, kindness, self control, our willingness to be patient and honest, endure all things, and bear all things. And so that's our true self. And I want you to think about it.

When you are in a place of security and love and contentment, you feel free to be your true self. When you are in a place in which you question whether you are loved and whether you are safe, that's when insecurity and envy and discord arrive. And so what John is telling us is if we want to build a community, we have to build that character inside of us, which we operate as our authentic selves as revealed in Christ and enabled by Christ's love.

The second thing we want to do is we want to understand that the way the world works is via relationship, not lawlessness. That's what he talks about. He says, sin is lawlessness. Now, the way I like to define sin is our tendency to choose to find life in things that bring us death. And that can happen all kinds of ways.

We can mutate good things and turn them into bad things, but it's always this choice to try to find life in things like money and power and sex and prestige. Things that if we try to find them, that we use them as their ultimate end to find life, they will always leave us wanting. And so that's sin. Or, in another way, as John talks about it in his letter, is what we see as the adversary.

He talks about Satan, the adversary, the one who's doing the opposite of what God is about. When we think about what is God about, God is about relationship. God's call to us is to love God and love neighbor. Lawlessness is operating with a complete sense of lack of relationship. It's chaos. It's just doing whatever you want.

So he says, don't do that. Rather, live your life in such a way where you recognize that you are actually interdependent. Interdependent with God, interdependent with one another. And to operate with a sense of consideration. You're not an independent agent that just does whatever you want. Rather, you're a dependent agent. Trusting and living in relationship with God and neighbor. Amen. And so that's the kind of character we want to build.

So my question for you is, where do you see yourself resisting interdependence? Whether it's home, it's at church, it's with God. In all of our relationships, there's a call to dependency in which we know one another and we allow ourselves to be known. We serve one another and we receive service from one another. And if there's a place in your life where you are pushing back on this interdependence and you want to be your own independent person, you want to make your own way, then I would suggest that for you, you are going to not be able to contribute to a community of joy because a community of joy requires you to have this character that is built on the interdependent relationships that you find yourself in.

So lean into those where you find yourself resisting and trying to choose independence this week. Maybe lean in to foster some interdependence. Okay so we want to be our true selves. We want to be interdependent with one another. We don't want to pursue lawlessness, but rather we see ourselves in relationship to everyone else.

And lastly, we want to choose love, not hate. I think this is a simple idea, but obviously a very difficult idea. It's funny because as human beings, I think it's so easy for us to just slide towards a sense of dislike. And from that dislike, to separate and characterize another human being just as the other.

And from there, we create a characterization of them. And that characterization has some parts that might be true, some parts that are false and then the next thing you know, we begin to blame them. And from there, we hate them. And sadly, human beings have shown tremendous capacity for this throughout history.

Our ability to hate others. To stop that slide, John says, I want you to understand that the life of others is as important as your own life. And this is how we know that God loves us, he says, that Jesus gave his life for us. And so that's the way we want to be. We want to be people of character that pursue love.

People who are willing to serve rather than be served. People who see the lives of others as important as our own life. One of the key ways that we can connect with this is to work on our ability to foster empathy. Empathy is our ability to put ourselves in another's shoes, to understand how they might be feeling, how to understand how we might feel if we were in their shoes, so that we might reflect back to them.

Maybe some of the challenges, some of the emotions that they're experiencing. Now we're not always right. So what we want to do is we want to just ask, let's say, Hey, is this hard for you? I would imagine this is hard for you. Are you feeling angry? I would imagine you would feel angry and then let them tell us, but this give and take opens us up to connection that is based on this reality that we are interdependent upon one another. And that commitment to building empathy, having empathy for people we work with, and even that empathy for the people we don't know moves us away from hate and dislike towards a willingness to share and engage. And all of these elements are parts of our character that God is hoping to develop in us so that we, together, could build a community of joy.

Hope this was helpful to you. Have a great week.