Glad-Hearted Community

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Loneliness is a big problem for many—maybe even you. Dannah Gresh talks about the solution.

Dannah Gresh: True community does not happen when we come together as pious, perfect people. The true togetherness comes when we become humble, broken sinners who desperately need Jesus together and aren't afraid to tell our sins to one another.

Nancy: We’ll learn more about true togetherness, today on the Revive Our Hearts podcast for March 1, 2022. I’m Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

You know, we live in a day of what one sociologist has termed “crowded loneliness.” With all the technology available to us, we have a jillion ways to connect with one another. You’d think no one would be lonely! But study after study has shown that in reality, many of us are feeling increasingly lonely and isolated. 

You might be able to identify with that. But God’s Word calls us to a life of interconnectedness. That’s what Dannah’s going to show us today. We heard part one yesterday, when she took us to Acts chapter 2 and showed us some characteristics of the early church, things that should be true of us, as well.

If you missed yesterday, you can read the transcript or review the audio through the Revive Our Hearts app, or at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Dannah gave this message last fall at the Revive '21 conference. Here’s she is with part two, helping us know how to be grounded in community.

Dannah: I believe there are a lot of lonely hearts in our churches every week, lonely hearts feeling isolated, not feeling together. We have to tend to that. We must do something about it.

 

The writer of Hebrews tells us something about it. Look at Hebrews 10, because some of you need to see this. So, look at Hebrews 10:24–25. In chapter 10:21 God tells us the prescription for the loneliness is drawing near to God. He alone is the one that will truly erase our loneliness. But then it goes on to say in verses 24–25 of Hebrews 10,

Let us consider how to stir one another up for love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We’re told to draw near to God, and then we’re told to draw near to each other. They’re both critical. Let me say this gently, sisters, because we all have different sensitivities and different needs. But I think during the pandemic, some of us have gotten in the habit of not meeting together. “I enjoy church online,” some of my friends tell me.

Forecasters are saying that a third of the people that have stopped going to church since the pandemic began will never return. “Do not neglect meeting together, as is the habit of some.” Don’t be one of them that is in the habit of not meeting together, and if you have become in that habit, get out of that habit! Isolation in the body of Christ is the medium that Satan works in.

First Peter 5:8 reminds us that the devil “walks around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 

Years ago, my family got to go on a safari in South Africa. We were on a mission’s trip. We thought, We’ll never get back to Africa. Let’s see some lions and tigers and bears. Well, I don’t think there were bears or tigers, but you know, we’re not being ecologically accurate here.

As we got in the Range Rover thing with the ranger guy, early on we started following these four lionesses, and they were obviously hunting. You could tell they were hunting. I’d never seen a lion hunt, but I knew that’s what they were doing. They were crouching. They were talking, communicating to each other, and they were looking for something to devour.

Then, suddenly, there was a lone wildebeest, and as confident as if it was already done, he said, “They will eat that wildebeest. They will catch it, and they will eat it.”

I said, “How do you know that?” because I was rooting for the wildebeest.

He said, “Because it’s alone.”

Satan wants you to isolate yourself. He wants you to be alone. He wants to devour you with sin, with selfishness, with temptation. Roaring lions look for lone prey. Don’t be alone; be together!

Maybe you’re saying, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I am together. I am going to the formal gatherings. I’m going to the table gatherings. But I still feel lonely.”

Let me suggest that true togetherness, true community does not happen when we come together as pious, perfect people. The church is not a country club where we all behave the same. The church is a hospital. The breakthrough to true community comes, the true togetherness comes when we become humble, broken sinners who desperately need Jesus together and aren’t afraid to tell our sins one to another. The church is a hospital for those who understand they are sick and in continued recovery from a very fatal condition.

Here’s where I have to say I once was very lonely. I finally got lonely enough that at a table with four friends I told that one secret that I thought, Nobody else has ever done this. Nobody else has ever felt this. Nobody else has ever known this shame.

You know what happened when I did that? I thought I would be the leper, the one they didn’t want in the group anymore. You know, that night one of the others called me and she confessed her sin to me: an abortion. It was a secret she’d been carrying for two decades. Another was at my kitchen table one week later, sharing with me that it was not her sin but someone else’s that had her in shame. For thirty years she’d been carrying around the secret that she was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, and no one knew.

When we’re alone in our sin or the sins committed against us, we are utterly alone. James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins one to another, and then you will be healed.” I cannot tell you how my life is a testimony to the truth of that verse. I know how terrified you are to tell your secret. I know, because I’ve been there, but I can promise you that on the other side of that is a freedom that you will not ever experience unless . . . God’s given us Him, Him alone, for confession and forgiveness of sin. But He’s given us each other for the healing of our hearts and our souls! Tell someone, and be thankful. Be thankful that you have sisters to openly confess your deepest secrets to.

The early church was grounded in community through generosity. This is where I get really excited. I found something new as I was studying that I’d never seen before, because verse 45 reads (we’re back in Acts),

They were all selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as many as had need. They were meeting the needs of one another.

Again, faithful Jews would have known that this had special significance. It was actually something that was supposed to have been happening under the law of the Old Testament. 

I’m going to turn to the book of Deuteronomy and read to you one of the commands found in Deuteronomy 15:7–8. It says,

If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. (NIV)

Doesn’t that sound like Acts 2? But here’s the thing: it wasn’t happening. They couldn’t do it. They didn’t have the power to do it, because the presence of the living God was not in them, the Spirit of the living God was not on them. So even though this was supposed to be happening through the temple, through the Jewish leaders, it was not happening, it was just a duty, a hardship. But then the Holy Spirit comes, and His presence is on them, and suddenly, they’re able to do it spontaneously and naturally!

Do you remember how Jesus said He came to fulfill the law? The presence of Christ in them was enabling them to do what they could not do previously.

You know, as the pandemic happened, I was really inspired by one specific donor to our ministry who lost his job. The husband lost his job, the wife was a stay-at-home mom; they were very generous givers to not only my ministry but many ministries. They called to say, “We’re having to sell our home; we want you to pray for us.” When they were talking to my COO, he was expecting them to say they couldn’t give anymore. They said, “We’re selling our home because we aren’t going to stop giving what we’ve been giving. We want to find a way to give more as we have less.” Second chapter of Acts; it’s possible.

I was so inspired. I was like, “Lord, let me be like that! Let me be willing to give away anything that is mine, because it’s not mine; it’s all Yours.” It’s only through the Holy Spirit. They gave all the credit to the Lord. It was only through the Holy Spirit.

Listen, we’re called to meet the needs of one another in a way that the rest of the world is not. The New Testament is full of one anothers. If you’ve heard Nancy teach, you’ve heard her teach an entire series on the one anothers of Scripture, right? You’re all nodding your heads up and down, like little bobbing dolls. You know that teaching. Forgive one another, comfort one another, serve one another, pray for one another, bear one another’s burdens.

Let’s be honest about that. It’s highly inconvenient. It’s highly inconvenient to bear one another’s burdens; it’s messy, it’s frustrating. Let me remind you that the Christian life is a cross-bearing life.

As girls, we don’t want to be burdens to each other. We’re like, “I don’t want to inconvenience you.” Listen. Look right here. You are a burden. It is as it should be. You are a burden so that I can receive the blessing of carrying it with you.

When we have that false pride of not asking for help, that’s one of the reasons why we’re not having our tables open enough. What if we opened our table and said, “Hey, the toddlers have decorated the living room, so could you clean that up while I cook some popcorn?” That is bearing one another’s burdens together. That’s what we’re meant to do. The Christian life is a cross-bearing life.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16.24). This could make us look so different. If we allowed the Spirit to fill us so fully, the presence of Christ to work in us so completely that we became the bearers of one another’s burdens in a way that the rest of the world didn’t understand—wow! In a world that discards inconvenient, burdensome relationships to the point of being known for cancel culture, I want to tell you that when you’re in a difficult relationship with a sister in church, you do not cancel your sister. You cancel the debt because we forgive one another. 

When you’re in a marriage that’s messy, in a world that discards relationships to the point of divorce, I want to tell you, if that’s you, sister, you are never a fool to be a part of the redemption story of Christ in a man’s life. Now, God doesn’t want you to be in a harsh, abusive relationship, but if you’re married to a sinful, messy man who leaves his socks on the living room floor—like the rest of us who are married—bear one another’s burdens, including his.

In a world that discards inconvenient, burdensome relationships to the point of calling it a woman’s right to abort a baby, I want you to know that when God forms a child inside of you, He’s inviting you to put yourself on a cross, as He did. He’s inviting you to give up living the way you want to live, the way you wish to live, the way you planned to live, and He’s bringing whole new meaning to your spirit and to your life, opportunity to receive one another, care for one another, serve one another. So, we have to be women that say, “Thank You, Lord, for the messy and very inconvenient burden of bearing the burdens of my sisters.”

The early church experienced community with glad hearts. What’s that mean? They were pleased, they were delighted. Yay! Does that mean everything was peachy, keen, and wonderful? No! Do you know these were believers who weeks earlier were hiding for their lives, who were terrified for their lives, under a terribly restrictive, oppressive persecuting government? This wasn’t easy, what they were doing, but they were glad. Christian fellowship can make sad days glad.

Sometimes just regular sad days. I really wish my job was always teaching, researching the Bible, writing teachings, and writing books. But it’s not. A lot of my job is proofing marketing copy—yay. Meeting deadlines—hoorah. Answering all the emails that Aubrey and Noli and Wade send me—yay. I don’t always have a lot of passion for those days. You have some of those things on your to-do list that you’re like, “Lord, get me through!”

I was having one of those particularly bad days where I was really kind of grumbling about the tasks at hand. Janet, who’s a part of my church, walked in. She invited Aubrey (not me) to go out for Mexican food. I intercepted the pass. “I’ll go!” I was just like, “I don’t want to work anymore!” But I can’t tell you enough how discouraged and distraught I was that day, really weighed down, like we are by the laundry, like we are by the bills that need paying, like we are by the vacuuming—that kind of weighed down.

But there, with chips and salsa, Janet and I started talking about Jesus. I want to tell you, my heart was dead when I sat down in that booth; and when I left, because we talked about Scripture, and we talked about what God was doing in our lives and what God needed to do in our lives, it was like . . . I don’t know, have you ever experienced that, where the Spirit just stirs in you?

I went back and I was like, “I get to edit marketing copy—yay!” It changed me. Christian fellowship changes us. 

As I was studying this whole glad thing, I just felt so drawn to the word “glad.” Do you ever feel like the Holy Spirit just takes a holy highlighter and He’s like, “This word.” Have you had that?

I did not know, but the Holy Spirit did, that I needed to learn a lesson of gladness concerning my church for an upcoming trial, one that I don’t want to walk through, a burden I don’t want to bear, tears I don’t want to cry. God’s done some really beautiful things in our church since the beginning of the pandemic, and it started to feel like we were headed toward Acts 2. I don’t think Satan liked that. So, we’re being faced with a test right now.

Here’s what I’m learning: gladness is not a condition of our circumstances. It’s like joy, a miraculous work of God in spite of what is going on around us.

Yesterday morning I still hadn’t figured out, “What does the Lord want me to understand about this whole gladness thing?” I got a text from my friend Collette, who’s a part of my church. Now, I don’t even know if she knows I’m at Revive, honestly. I know she didn’t know what was in my notes. But this is what she texted me yesterday morning. “Hope the Lord revives your glad.” Does that even sound like a regular sentence? (laughter)

She attached a worship song for me to soak in, and it was a song based on Psalm 92:4. So I followed the trail, and I got into Psalm 92, and it starts, “For You, O Lord, have made me glad.” 

It was the presence of Jesus in Janet over that Mexican salsa and chips that made me glad, not Janet herself (although Janet’s amazing). When we go through burdensome times, hard times, painful times, it is the presence of Jesus that helps us hold onto our glad.

Have you been hurt or disappointed by someone in the church? It’s not us that makes each other glad. We are sick, we are sinners, we are needy. No matter who we are, we will disappoint. We will at times make one another sad. That’s when the rest of us bear the burden, and we pick that one up and we carry them. They are our cross for a time. When we do that, the Spirit stirs inside of us, and He makes us glad.

Sin will try to take the glad right out of you. That’s precisely why we need the presence of Christ, because we are no match for sin. Only His Spirit, only His presence.

Look back, if you will, in Acts 2. Peter was preaching the first public message of salvation to the masses. I thought this was so interesting, in light of what we are talking about, being grounded in a world that’s shaking us. Peter, of course, is talking about Jesus. He’s sharing the gospel for the first time publicly. I get chills when I think about that. He quotes David in Acts 2:25–26.

I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh will also dwell in hope.

You know what? The world is shaking, but I will not be shaken. I will get myself into the community that allows me to experience the presence of Christ—“Where two or three are gathered, there I am.” I am going to be thankful for that community, no matter how messy it is. I am going to be thankful that the Lord, not those in fellowship, but that the Lord is the source of our gladness, no matter the circumstances.

If you need to work on your thankfulness, this is what I want you to do. I am deeply convicted that I am not thankful enough for the body of Christ, that I do a whole lot of grumbling. I don’t think people think of me as a grumbling person. Mom, do you think of me as a grumbling person? She didn’t answer. (laughter) But the Lord wants our hearts to be holy.

Our plumbline is not the world, it’s His Word. He wants me to be glad and thankful for what’s happening in the body of Christ. That means I have to practice my devotion; that means I have to practice my generosity. That means I have to practice my gladness, and whatever else the other point was that I can’t remember right now. (laughter)

I don’t want you to stand until you’ve talked to the Lord about this. Confess to Him where you’ve been grumbling instead of glad. Confess to Him where you’ve been grumbling instead of thankful, because oh sisters, I long to see revival, and I want it to start in me. After you've talked to the Lord, then I want you to stand, because He is the source of our gladness.

Nancy: Wow! those are some great reminders from Dannah Gresh, my cohost here on Revive Our Hearts. Dannah gave that message last fall at the Revive '21 conference in Indianapolis.

You know, Dannah mentioned the importance of physically attending church if you’re able to. That was a convicting moment for Sharlene, who attended Revive '21. She called us a few days after the conference was over, with this testimony.

Sharlene: I've been to a lot of Christian conferences, and so many of them have been really fluffy. But there was so much depth to every single speaker, and I feel like there were just so many takeaways for me. One that I want to share with you is when Dannah talked about getting back to church. Our church closed during COVID. It was just grievous. I haven't been able to really re-engage since then. And so, when I heard that message, I just knew that God was telling me that, “The time is now.” I don't know how or where I'm going to find a church home, but I know I have to do it. So I just want to thank you for that, because I really needed that word.

Nancy: Sharlene went on to tell us about a ladies’ small group Bible study she’s leading, using resources from Revive Our Hearts.

Sharline: It's been a huge blessing to so many of us. I'm just so thankful for all the wonderful resources and materials. God is so good, and we are so grateful. We just pray for you all, for the ministry, and it's just a privilege to partner with you, to be a ministry partner. And, just to be a small part of helping to spread the Gospel. So I just want to thank you all for that today. God is so good. Thanks so much.

Nancy: Thanks, Sharlene! It’s so encouraging to hear how God has been at work in your life, and using Revive Our Hearts in the process. And thank you so much for your prayers, and for being one of our monthly ministry partners.

If you’re a Monthly Partner, you're helping us reach out to people like Sharlene and the friends in her Bible study. And you’re helping bring content like what you heard today to listeners all over the world.

When you join our Monthly Partner Team, you commit to giving at least $30 per month to support the work of Revive Our Hearts. Members of our Partner Team also pray for the ministry and spread the word about Revive Our Hearts and its resources to others who can be blessed by them. 

So here’s a challenge: think about how God has used Revive Our Hearts in your life. Don’t take anything away from what you normally give to your local church. But ask God if there’s an amount He’d like you to give every month to help support Revive Our Hearts. Then contact us. We’d love to hear from you. If you sign up to be a Monthly Partner during the month of March, we’ll send you a special welcome package. And you’ll get a free registration to True Woman '22 this coming September.

All of it starts by contacting us at ReviveOurHearts.com, or by calling us at 1-800-569-5959. Be sure to ask us how you can become part of of Monthly Partner Team.

Well, tomorrow is the beginning of the forty days leading up to Resurrection Sunday. I can hardly wait And throughout the Lenten season this spring, we’re going to spend each weekday looking at a different name of Jesus—thirty-two of them, to be exact. So I hope you’ll join us as we kick off this rich study called "The Wonder of His Name," tomorrow, on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts wants you to be grounded in community, as you find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.