It’s Complicated Week 4 – John Mark Comer

Overview:

In this week’s message, guest John Mark Comer spoke on going back into your past in order to move forward in healthy relationships.

The journey to healing is not done alone but in community. Opening up in Mark 5, we see the story of a woman healed of a wound of 12 years’ time. John Mark theorized that because the wound was so deep, she needed Jesus and she needed a community to know her wound and her healing. The practice of community in this day and age is challenged with connectivity and chemistry. Connectivity is mistaken for the community thanks to Instagram, Facebook, and other social media, but it does not replace the face-to-face we need with a dear friend. Chemistry is another obstacle we face, because while we may have chemistry with other we may not have community with them. Community is deeper than connectivity and chemistry. It’s the commonality as followers of Jesus to live life together in exposure and encouragement to develop who you are becoming in Christ.

John Mark reminded us of vulnerability and accountability. The center point of following Jesus is not the pulpit, but the body and blood of Jesus. Where we come before God and each other and lay our souls bare before Him. With vulnerability comes accountability. Freedom and breakthrough will happen when we confess our sins with one another and are vulnerable in our relationships.

We were designed and wired for relationships. Our adult relational patterns are set by the patterns of our parental relationships. Avoidant, Anxious, Scattered, and Secure attachment styles all affect our relationships with one another and with God. Following Jesus is being adopted into his family and about God the Father reparenting us. It means putting off the unhealthy ways and patterns we picked up early on and putting on the new way of love in the family of God. And the way God does this is through the community.

Verses:

Mark 5: 24-34

24 And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Quotes:

“Face to capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience ace conversation is the most human – and humanizing – thing we do. Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It’s where we develop the joy of being heard, of being understood.”

Sherry Turkle (2015) Reclaiming Conversation

“The root of all friendship is, ‘You too?’”  C.S. Lewis

Latin word was communitas is “to share in common”.

“If you decide you want to become a person of love in the way of Jesus… don’t start by trying to love somebody close to you… start by trying to love somebody you don’t know very well… a co-worker on the other side of the office, a neighbor one street over… because the closer we are to someone, the harder it is to love! We see through the illusion to who they really are… and they see through the illusion to who we really are…”

Dallas Willard, American Philosopher, and Author

“love-drenched accountability.” David Brooks’ Manifesto

“What does loneliness tell us about ourselves? Be it chronic or acute, slight or significant, loneliness is proof of our relational design. At the core of our being is this truth – we are designed for and defined by our relationships. We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others. Fundamentally, we are relational souls. We cannot, not be relational.”

“The Relational Soul” by Richard Plass and James Cofield

Questions:

1) What is THAT thing (past or present) that you need to reach out to Jesus and be healed from?
2) What are some areas in which you can give up “connectivity” in order to pursue community?
3) What are practical ways you can embrace the community the Lord has placed around you and not just connect with those who are like you?
4) What is the sin in your life that you have yet to verbally confess before your community?
5) What type of attachment style do you believe is most applicable to you (i.e. avoidant, anxious, scattered, secure)? Why? How has this affected your current relationships or how you interact with others?
6) What steps do you think you need to take to build a healthy attachment style and authentic community?