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Because Adam had been created for relationship – being alone wasn’t good so God created for Adam a helper and companion. We all need helpers and companions in life and I’m not just talking about the relationship and companionship of marriage. While those are important and the covenant of marriage between men and women has been ordained by God, those are not the only relationships we need in life – we also need friends to travel with us in life and to support us in faith. God makes this clear to us throughout the Bible.
At the beginning we see that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone so God created Eve. When God called Abram to follow him to a new land, he wasn’t to go alone, he was take his wife and his nephew Lot and all the people who were part of their family. When God called Moses to be a leader of the people, he sent along Aaron and Miriam to support him. When David was a young man his support came from a friend named Jonathon and what was the very first thing Jesus did when he entered into public ministry? He called together 12 men and created a team for support and companionship. God has created us to be in relationship with one another and that is why God called the church into being. The church is God’s instrument to bring people together. The church isn’t our idea, it is God’s. Jesus said that where two or more gathered that he is there with them, so it is God’s desire for us to meet together and grow in our relationships and commitments.
So it is God’s will for us to be in relationship with one another, we not only see it through the stories of the Bible, but God is so concerned about our relationships with one another that over 30 times in the New Testament God gives specific teaching about how to develop and strengthen those relationships. We have listed many of these passages for you on the next steps, and these “one another” passages show us how important it is to God’s purpose and plan that we get along with one another.
So we were created for relationships and if we are going to experience the fullness of life and the power of our faith then our voyage needs to have shipmates. Noah, Jonah and Peter all had shipmates who were vital to their survival. Let’s look at Noah; while we always call it Noah’s ark, he was not the only one on it. There was his wife and their three sons and their wives and they were all vital to God’s purpose. Noah needed all of them to accomplish God’s plan. I mean think about it, there is no way that Noah could have built the ark by himself and there is now way he could have fed, watered and cleaned up after the animals for an entire year without some help. And when they left the ark there is certainly no way Noah could have repopulated the earth by himself. He needed his wife and they needed their sons and their wives. So Noah simply could not have been successful on his voyage if he had been alone.
Jonah also didn’t travel alone. While he may have been running from God all by himself, when he got on the boat and started sailing to Tarshish, he had shipmates and those shipmates saved him. When the storm came it was the shipmates who came and woke Jonah up and began to question him. They challenged him and asked him the hard questions and you know what, we all need friends who will be willing to ask us hard questions in life. Now Jonah’s friends did threw him overboard - which I know doesn’t sound like being a very good friends, but remember what we learned last week, Jonah was saved by being thrown off the boat – so those shipmates saved Jonah’s life.
Peter also had shipmates, in fact when Jesus called Peter to follow him – he wasn’t alone, he was on the boat with his 3 fishing partners and when we look at that story we see that Jesus shows us the importance of friends and companions by not just calling Peter to follow him but by calling Peter, Andrew, James and John. The first 4 disciples were already a team so we see here the importance Jesus placed on our need for strong relationships and partnerships.
Having shipmates in life and faith is important and we need to understand and accept this truth before we can go on and talk about where to find them, and how to develop them. So let me ask you what might be a difficult question. Beyond your spouse, if it is 3:00 in the morning and you really need some help – who could you call? If you needed someone to sit with you or talk with you in the middle of the night – who would you call?
I remember clearly the night that my grandfather had a heart attack while he was visiting us. After the ambulance took him to the hospital and my Mom and Dad drove my grandmother to the hospital, my sister and I found ourselves home alone. It wasn’t 3:00 in the morning, but it was late at night and we didn’t know what to do. None of our friends could drive to be with us, so who could we call? We ended up calling out youth leaders, Ed and JoAnn Foster. Ed and JoAnn came immediately and sat with us and talked with us and helped us through that difficult time until our parents got home. Who are the Ed and JoAnn Fosters in your life? Do you have these kinds of companions?
Now let me ask you a more difficult question. Who would call you at 3:00 AM if they needed someone to talk to, or sit with? If you have come up with some names of people you would do that for, do they know it? Do they know they can call you at three in the morning? If not, can you tell them?
Now, if you had a hard time coming up with any names, you are not alone, finding and developing good friends is difficult and the first step is to understand that we need them - the second step is to be intentional in beginning to make them. Are we willing to open ourselves up and begin to make friends? If you are at a place where you are looking to do that then let me encourage you to look for these friends in the life of the church. While we can certainly find and develop close friendships outside the church, when we develop them among God’s people we share values and priorities that can help us go deeper with one another. Now if you are looking for a place to develop relationships with those in the church, the best place to start is in a small group.
Small groups are the best place where strong friendships can develop. Small groups can be the place where we can find those people who will be willing to get a phone call at 3:00 AM and then come to our house to help. Small groups can be a place where we can develop a friendship so strong that we won’t mind getting a phone call at 3:00 AM to go and help someone else. Next month we are going to start up our small groups and if you want to find and develop these kinds of shipmates then we want to help you get connected. In fact connecting people to one another is one of our core values at Faith Church – we don’t want to just connect people to God we want to connect people to one another because we know that relationships with one another are vital to our spiritual life.
In the narthex we have a table that we have often called our welcome table, but we are now going to be calling it our connection table because if you stop there you will find people who will work to help connect you to a group in the church that will not only deepen your faith but give you the opportunity find shipmates that will voyage with you in life.
Now if you join a small group, I want to prepare you for something, because after your first meeting with these people you will go home and say to yourself, that wasn’t all that great, in fact I felt strange and uncomfortable and some of the people seemed just a little odd so I’m not sure I’ll go back. I know you will think that because we all think that. The truth is that it takes time to develop strong relationships. I remember one of my best friends in college was a woman named Rachel Manring and I met her at our campus Christian fellowship one night and then a few days later I saw her eating alone in the dining hall and I asked if I could join her. By the end of lunch I thought to myself, wow, I hope that I never have to eat with her again. She was what one might call an air-head and we had absolutely nothing in common. By the end of the year, however, we were the closest of friends, and we remained friends for many years after college (and by the way, she knows this story).
Friendships take time. Companionship takes time so if you join a small group this fall, give it some time. More than that, take the time to work on the relationships. Invite people from your small group or Sunday School class to your home for dinner. If you all work at Penn State, find a day to have lunch together or take a walk on campus together. Relationships take time and energy and effort but they can be rewarding and in the end we might even end up with lifelong friendship with people that will support us through the storms.
That happened to one small group I heard about a number of years ago. They were a very diverse group of people who shared nothing in common but chose to travel together. During their journey a storm set in and they were forced to depend on one another and through the years they grew together, maybe you’ve heard their story.
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Ok, so it wasn’t a true story, but Gilligan's Island illustrates something really powerful about small groups. Each group will have a skipper who tries to lead and each group will have a Gilligan who in the end makes everyone laugh. There will be people who will have more money than you, be more beautiful than you and smarter than you, and there will also be some wonderful person who will show up each week with a coconut cream pie – or homemade cookies. Each group will be diverse and just like on Gilligan’s Island, each group will grow. Leaders will become humble and listen to the Gilligans of the group. The rich will learn that they can’t find meaning in their wealth just like those who are beautiful will learn that physical beauty and strength is only skin deep. In other words, everyone will grow themselves and the group will grow together and you will learn to be there for one another when the head hunters come!
All joking aside, strong and healthy relationships take time and energy to develop, but they can be rewarding and life changing if we will invest in them, and it is God will for us invest in them. That God wants us to have shipmates in life can also been seen in the sacrament of communion. This is a meal we share in together. We don’t eat it alone, we eat it with others. We are handed the bread and the cup by others. We are all part of one loaf and share together in one cup which means we need to come together as one and be committed to one another so we hold together as one loaf.
All that we do in the church is to bring us together and develop ourselves as one body which shows us that God’s desire is for us to be connected. So don’t go through life alone seek out those shipmates who will help you and help bring you the fullness and power of life.
Next Steps ~ Our Shipmates
1. It is 3:00 in the morning and you need some help…
• Who do you call?
• Who would call you if they were in need?
• If you can’t name some people above, make the decision today to begin to develop shipmates who can be friends, helpers and companions on your journey.
2. Name one person with whom you would like to develop or deepen a friendship.
• What can you do this week to be their friend?
3. Beginning in September, small groups will form around the sermon series Life Apps. If you are not currently part of a small group, sign up to be part of one at the Connection Table.
4. Over 30 times in the New Testament we are given direction on how to develop relationships with “one-another” (these scriptures are listed below). Read and apply one of these scripture every day for the next month.
The One Another passages from the New Testament
John 13:14
John 13:34
John 13:35
Romans 12:10
Romans 12:16
Romans 13:8
Romans 14:13
Romans 15:7
Romans 16:16
1 Corinthians 1:10
1 Corinthians 16:20
2 Corinthians 13:12
Galatians 5:13
Ephesians 4:2
Ephesians 4:32
Ephesians 5:19
Ephesians 5:21
Colossians 3:13
Colossians 3:16
1 Thessalonians 5:11
Hebrews 3:13
Hebrews 10:24
Hebrews 10:25
James 4:11
1 Peter 1:22
1 Peter 3:8
1 Peter 4:9
1 Peter 5:5
1 Peter 5:14
1 John 1:7
1 John 3:11
1 John 3:23
1 John 4:7
1 John 4:11
1 John 4:12
2 John 1:5
