UNLEASHING THE POWER OF CONNECTION

Let’s Do Life Together!

Pastor Tayo Adeyemi

Senior Pastor of New Wine Church

                                                                Sunday 17 October 2010

Foundation Scriptures: Psalm 68:6 & Psalm 92:13

Pastor Tayo Adeyemi continued his refreshing and enlightening series, Unleashing the Power of Connection today as he challenged us to view relationships with a fresh appreciation of their importance to our lives individually, and to the Body of Christ corporately.

He began by recapping his previous message, particularly the five distinctives of church life, namely profession, participation, prayer, praise and practice, which in addition to the foundational distinctive of preaching, captured the essence of church life as God intended it to be.  We were reminded that the new believers in the early church understood that church life was propagated by way of membership, memorial feasts (communion) and meetings and that they had opened their hearts, hands and homes to one another in fellowship.

Life......A Journey of Journeys

Today, Pastor Tayo announced that having considered the power of connection on a macro level, it was his intention to examine the micro-dimensions of connection power in our individual relationships.  Drawing from the truths in Ecclesiastes 4:7-12, he commented that it was often said that life is a journey, noting this to be particularly the case for Christians, as our faith is a pilgrim faith.  He drew attention to the the bible making reference to us as sojourners and pilgrims on the earth (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11). He further explained that within the journey of life we take multiple journeys, often at the same time, and therefore life would more accurately be described as a journey of journeys.  By way of illustration, he observed that a person could be on a career journey at the same time as being on a relationship and health journey. In some of our individual life journeys we could already be close to  the desired destination whereas with others we could still have a distance to go. Pastor Tayo highlighted that with others still, such as our spiritual journey, we journey towards a destination at which we never arrive until we get to heaven.

Who are you travelling with?

Pastor Tayo, observed that some people consider that the journey is more important than the destination, whereas others conclude that it is not the journey, but the destination that matters. He expressed the view that the truth was somewhere in the middle, namely both the journey and the destination were of importance but of greater importance was the question of whom we were travelling with.  He reminded us of the saying that “If you don’t meet God on the journey, you won’t meet Him at the destination” from which he concluded that we need God to travel with us. In addition to this fundamental truth, Pastor Tayo said that we also need people, and  challenged us to examine ourselves as to whether we were doing the journey of  life alone.  He explained that the joy is not just in the journey, it is also in the relationships that we have. In addition to this, he made clear, we cannot get to our desired destination without the help of others and we cannot enjoy the journey without the company of others.

The story of the bible was, Pastor Tayo explained, the story of divine love; the story of God’s desire for a relationship with mankind; the story of the gospel being the story about a God who embarked on a journey from heaven to earth and then journeyed back to heaven to go and prepare a place for us in order that where He is, we might be also (John 14:2-3). More than anything else in life, we need relationships; guides and guards who can help us on our journey and be there with us when we reach our destination. He observed that sadly, many people who are so determined to reach their destinations sacrifice the significant relationships along the way and when they finally reach their destination, there is no-one with whom to celebrate. Relationships, he declared, released a dynamic power that draws us beyond ourselves and beyond our natural abilities. Psalm 133:1-3 made reference to a commanded blessing in unity and in relationships. Thus, he encouraged us, to refuse to run the race of life and cross the finish line alone.

Pastor Tayo drew our attention to St Thomas Aquinas, whom quoting Aristotle stated “Anyone who doesn’t need company is either greater than a man; and is a god or lesser than a man; and is a beast” and reminded us that the instruction from primary school when going out on school trips “watch out, hold hands and stick together” still very much applied. Our success or failure in life would be determined and shaped to a large extent by our relationships. Continuing, he explained that the people by whom we were surrounded and how we interact with them will determine whether we spend our lives in happiness or misery; well or sick; whole or broken. “The people with whom you run will determine how you run, in what direction you run, how fast you run and how far you run!” Pastor Tayo declared, making clear there is no such thing as a self-made man.

“It is not good for man to be alone” Genesis 2:18

Emphasising the fundamental importance of relationships further, Pastor Tayo made clear that we are not solitary creatures but every day, we are thrown into unavoidable interactions with countless numbers of people from different walks of life and that regardless of the age in which we lived, in which isolationism and individualism were celebrated, God’s word “It is not good that man should be alone” remained true. Noting that God had commanded Noah to take two of every kind into the ark, this was, Pastor Tayo explained, a reflection of the truth that connection was necessary for continuation and that each of us have been assigned to be connected to specific people. Our God-ordained connections, he made clear, are not optional but an integral part of our destiny and when we ignore our God-ordained connections, we short-change ourselves and deprive ourselves of the blessings that God has intended for us.

Pastor Tayo then shared three truths about relationships as follows: (i)”You need others in your life” - No man is an island” ; (ii) You need more than one person in your life – no one person can meet all the needs of another person. We live life on many different levels and need multi-level relationships with different kinds of people in order to be healthy and whole. (iii) You need more than one kind of person in your life – developing relationships with only people who are like you or like each other is dangerous, he observed. Noting that twice in the book of Proverbs we are instructed that “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety”, he explained that multitude means abundance but also means diversity, encouraging us to develop relationships with people with varied experiences, attitudes, aptitudes, politics and belief systems.

No connection? No Life!

Drawing from the account of the Prophet Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37:1-10, Pastor Tayo invited us to observe that as long as the bones were scattered they remained dry and dead. When Ezekiel prophesied, he explained, the first thing that occurred was that there was a rattling and a noise; the status quo was being challenged; the bones were about to be moved out of their comfort zones. Following this, the bones came together; bone to bone; each bone locating and attaching itself to its own God-ordained connections. This coming together was the pre-cursor to a great revival, he explained noting that as long as everyone is pursuing their own agendas there will be no revival but, as the events in the valley of dry bones illustrated, once connection is established, significant change followed. He observed four distinct resulting benefits of the coming together of the bones as follows: (i) sinews or ligaments were added, which spoke of reinforcement (ii) flesh or muscles came upon the bones, which spoke of strength (iii) skin which reflected beauty and protection and (iv) breath which represented life and the spirit.

“Heaven is waiting for us to arise as an exceedingly great army but we must first establish our connections!” Pastor Tayo declared. Continuing to illustrate this point from the account in Ezekiel 37, he emphasised that each bone did not have to connect to every other bone to be part of the body but it had to be connected to at least one other bone and likewise, we did not have to be friends with every single person in a church of this size but we must find and value our God-ordained connections.

In concluding this powerful message, Pastor Tayo reminded us that the place at which bones connect are called joints, and drawing our attention to Ephesians 4:15-16 he noted that joints provide flexible connections, allow us to move and that when we have problems with our joints, every part of the body is affected. He encouraged us to recognise the importance of the joints to the overall health and strength of the body. “You are not responsible for every joint in this body but you are responsible to the joints between you and your brother or sister.”  He stressed the importance of refusing to get upset with each other noting that when we do so we dislocate the joint between ourselves we disable the body and disconnect ourselves from the flow of life from the rest of the body. “ You are not strongest when you’re  alone, you’re strongest when you’re connected”. “This”  Pastor Tayo said in closing, “is what the Law of Connection is all about”.