The Church of Eleven22 - S02E01 - Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

In this episode, Pastor Joby talks about the first "one another" in this series: Greet one another with a holy Kiss, and what that means for our relationships with others. This "one another" is referenced in four places in the Bible: Romans 16:16, 1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:13, 1 Peter 5:14.

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ, and we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Howdy Church family? Welcome to Season 2 of Devo's with me. It's good to be back, and I just wanted to give you a little framework about what we will be doing once a week over the next 28 weeks.

You can tune in, and we will. just walk through some of the scriptures together. And as you know, we just started the Gospel of John and myself and some of the other pastors will be teaching through the Gospel of John for 28 weeks. And so hopefully by the time we get finished with the Gospel of John, you'll have an understanding of the Gospel according to John. But what I want to do in these Devo times is in the scriptures, there are 59 what we call one another's, commands or admonishments, things like admonish one another. encourage one another, love one another, be devoted to one another, pray for one another, those kind of things. Fifty-nine separate times in the New Testament, God commands us to one another, one another.

So a part of the reason I want to walk through that, really what we're going to do is kind of this intersection between our teaching and the gospel of John and I will choose one another's that have to do with the thing that we just studied this week. You'll see what I mean. But a big part of the reason I want to tell you about this and why I landed on teaching the one another's is because the scripture is very clear that you and I need one another. And about this time last year, the world shut down. And there are still churches all over the country and all over the world that aren't meeting together. We are meeting together. And if you haven't come back yet, if it's for medical reasons and that kind of thing,

look, there's no pressure, there's no rush, you pray about it and you do whatever you think is best for you. But if you've just fallen out of the habit of meeting together with one another and all you're doing is watching online, then I would highly encourage you to come on back. And here's why. We love our online audience. We love that people all over the world can watch. We love that when you can't be here, you can watch. We love all of those things for sure. But one of the things that is so important about the church family meeting together is you can't one another, one another without one another. I hope that makes sense. So the first one we're going to talk about is actually, it's given to us in four different places. And the Bible says that we are to greet

one another with a holy kiss. Roman 16, 16, 1 Corinthians 1620, 2nd Corinthians 1313, and 1st Peter 514 encourage all of us to greet one and other with a holy kiss. Now, you may say, what in the world does that have to do with anything? Well, ultimately, I think what we just found out as we studied John chapter one is that our God is not a distant God, that the key verse in 1st John, I mean, excuse me, in John chapter 1 is probably verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory, as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and full of truth, that the Word, God Almighty, the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus the Christ, put on flesh and dwelt among us.

In other words, he came to us and he got close. You see, we were created to be in relationship with one another. And the reason that we are created to be in relationship with one another is because we are image bearers of God. And that God in and of himself is a perfect relationship, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is in a perfect, submissive love relationship with himself. So when the Bible says in Genesis chapter 1, God says, let us make mankind in our image and in our likeness. And so God created the very first human being.

I talk about this all of the time because it's so, so, so important. And the Bible says that God speaks into existence everything that is. until it came to his image bearer, that then God, he takes the dust of the earth. The Hebrew word for dust or dirt is Adam. We get the proper name Adam from that Hebrew word, and he takes the Aram of the earth. And the Bible says that he forms the man, but he is not yet a living creature. Not until God breathes the ruach of life, the breath of life, the breath of of life into his nostrils. The Bible wants us to know that God did not create the first man at a distance,

that God created the first man with a kiss? I mean, nostril to nostril, really, really close. He breathes the breath of life into Adam. And again, you know this, that that word ruach in Hebrew can either be translated breath or spirit or when. And then Adam, the very first man, opens his eyes. And he is nostril to nostril face to face, close with God. And so then, four times in the New Testament, God says to his people, so when you see each other, I want you to greet one another with a holy kiss.

Now, I did a little research, and in the first century, a common greeting for family members was to kiss one another. And we don't have a lot of, I don't know if it was lip to lip or cheek to cheek. I don't know how it was. You know, maybe it's the kind of Italian thing where you do one on each side. I grew up in a family. My extended family, they would kiss you on the lips. And I wasn't into it growing up because it was like my grandma and my aunts.

And, you know, they would just try to kiss you right on the mouth. In fact, the first time I ever took Gretchen to meet my family, I pull up in the driveway and then I think, oh goodness, I've got to warn her, and I let her know, hey, listen, my family is going to try to kiss you on the lips. I mean, my uncles, did it don't even know you? It's kind of weird. My grandma, my aunt, my cousins that are your own age, they are going to just lip to, they're coming after you, okay? So be ready for that.

And it was just, in my family, by the way, we don't do this at my house necessarily, but in my family, it was just this show of affection. But here's a part of why I think the Bible tells. us that we are to greet one another with a holy kiss. Because we are supposed to acknowledge the Amago Day in one another, that when I walk into a room, it is not okay for me to just ignore the other people in the room. I think what we're supposed to do as a demonstration of the gospel, as a demonstration that the word became flesh and dwelt amongst his own people, that when you and I walk into

a room to dwell for however long it is amongst those people. We are to greet one another. We are to acknowledge one another. And you may say, well, you know, I'm not, I'm not a very affectionate person. So the Bible just commands four separate times for us to greet one another physically. Now, I know it's all COVID and everything. So some people, it's so awkward right now, isn't it? Do you bump? Do you high five? Do you elbow? Whatever it is. But I can tell you this. You may not be a very affectionate person now, but you could learn to be. And I think these things are killing us. I mean, think about it. You see it all the time. Go to a restaurant and you'll see four people at a table and no one is even looking at each other anymore. That oftentimes, here at work, somebody walks into a room and sometimes

people's head don't even come up out of the screens. They're so buried in these things that they don't acknowledge that other living, breathing, image bearers of the most high God just walked into the room. And so let me ask you this. How do you greet one another? Do you kiss? Do you hug? Do you do that bro hug thing? It's really important because it acknowledges, it acknowledges that an image bearer of God has just walked into our presence. And another thing that greeting one another does is in order for us to greet one another, you have to stop what you are doing, put that on pause, and make that other person a priority. And so I think it's important. So I want to start, I want to, I want to, challenge you. I want to challenge you to start greeting one another, however you don't want

to. You don't have to be a holy kiss. It could be a holy high five or a holy fist bump or a holy hug, whatever it is. But I want you to start greeting one another. And I want you to start with your family. Now with this one, if you have a family, you can greet one another with a holy kiss. And so, because the way that we treat one another, the way we greet one another, oftentimes, particularly in our family, it can kind of set up the whole day. It can begin on the right foot an entire evening with our family. Also, when you get to work, I challenge you to go around and greet one another in a very appropriate but wholly set apart kind of way. We've got we've got one of our elders, Elder Rusty,

and he makes it a habit of whatever room that he walks into is he shakes everybody's hand. Now, maybe not like at church if there's 2,000 people sitting in here, but, you know, if he walks into an elder meeting, he shakes everybody's hand, and one of the things that he'll do is really intimidating is that he will not let go of your hand until you make eye contact with him.

And I think that's his version of greet one another with a holy kiss. Because what he is doing is he's basically saying, I'm going to give you however much time you need to get your eyes off of the screen and get them up here to me. So again, I challenge you to begin to greet one another in a significant and meaningful way. And again, if you say why, why? Well, the reason, first of all, is because God commanded it four different times. But it is an expression or a demonstration of, one, the kind of God that we serve because we are created in his image and he is wired for relationships and

therefore he wired us for relationships. I think it's also just a demonstration to physically greet someone. It can be a demonstration of how God loved us, that he did not just love us from afar. He didn't just see us in heaven and acknowledge us mentally or even theologically. but God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that the word became flesh and pressed his flesh against us, that he dressed himself in humanity, and he lived among us. Eugene Peterson's translation of John 114 says, and the word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood. So for the next 28 weeks, as we study 28 of the 59 one another's, my challenge to you is to begin to greet one another at home, at work, at church, with your closest friends, with the people you don't know that well,

my challenge to us as a church family is to begin to greet one another with a holy greeting. I love you like crazy. Let me pray. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we thank you that that on that day that we celebrate this Christmas morning, you became flesh. That you did not love us just from heaven and acknowledge that, but you put on flesh and you showed up here amongst us. God, I thank you that when you created the very first man,

ultimately you created him with a kiss, nostril to nostril, mouth to mouth. You breathed in the real life. So, Lord, I pray that when we come in contact, with coworkers and neighbors and friends and family members, that we would stop what we were doing. We'd get our faces out of the screens. We would look eyeball to eyeball with these image bearers that you have put before us,

and we would greet them in a meaningful way. And God, I pray. I pray that something as small as a meaningful greeting would make an everlasting difference. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining. joining us for Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin.

If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, visit C-O-E-22.com slash resources. We're praying this message you heard today helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. And as always, be free.