Come Alongside

A young couple came to our church on Sunday.
They are still newlyweds…two years married.
They are expecting their first child this summer.
They are building a house…which will be ready this spring.

I knew the husband from when he was a little boy.
I have watched him grow into a fine, Godly man.

I stood there listening and watching and remembering.
They are now where I once was.
I have walked where they are now walking.

I thought of the older people in my life back then…as they listened to me?
Did they feel the same way then…that I felt today?
Realizing the passage of time!

Not the passage of time in a wistful sense.
Rather, the passage of time in an amazing sense!
The grace of God in the generations.

I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20:5,6)

I know both sets of parents of this young couple.
Godly parents…who taught their children well.
Godly parents who showed them what it means to know and love the Lord.

There is such wisdom that comes with age.
Wisdom simply because you have lived longer and have experienced more.
There is an even greater Wisdom that comes from the fear of the Lord.
Not a “shaking in my boots” kind of fear, but an awe…a reverence of Him.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. (Proverbs 1:7)

There were things that I could only learn by doing them.
It’s not that I refused to listen to advice.
I don’t think I had the ears to hear it…back then.

That is the beauty of your family and your church family.
They are people that know you…love you…care about you.
They are people that you trust.
They are the people that can speak into your life.

God designed community that way…for those very reasons.

In his poem, No Man Is An Island, John Donn wrote these words:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

We are part of the main.
Part of the individual families God has placed us in.
Part of the church families God has led us to.

Community.
One-anothering.

This is how we are designed.
The older helping the younger.
The married helping the single.
Those married many years helping newly married couples.
Mentoring. Discipling. Walking alongside.

We are not meant to travel this journey of life alone.
Especially today, when families are fragmented, and extended family is a rarity, we need to come alongside one another.
We need to pray for each other.

How vital it is to be part of a community.

You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the Word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. (Titus 2:1-8)

There is accountability in community.
There is support in community.
There is encouragement in community.

Today, churches tend to segregate ages.
How can the young effectively learn from the old if they are not with them?
How will children know other adults who will spur them on in their walk with Christ?
How is the Christian walk modeled, if there is no one older to look up to, and learn from?

We do ourselves and our families a disservice when we stay in our homogeneous groups.
We glean wisdom through Godly discipleship.

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
(Proverbs 13:20)

The young couple today needed no advice from me.
Yet, if they did…they know I would be available to them.
They each have wonderful, Godly parents they can go to and learn from.

How are we doing with discipling?
Discipling is not something that happens in a vacuum.
Discipling is intentional.
Discipling takes time.

Jesus walked alongside twelve men.
Ho poured Himself into their lives.
He taught them.
He discipled them.

The fruit of that discipleship is evident today.
WE are the fruit…His Body…the Church.
How can we not take discipleship seriously?