How do we experience the reality of being God’s family in practical ways? This question is especially crucial in a world that promotes judgment, division and isolation. Dan Kent addresses this by highlighting the instruction to “bear with each other.” Living in love does not mean only embracing those who are easy to love. Real love calls us to embrace those who require patient endurance. In this way, we reflect the love of the cross.
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Disarming the Algorithm
• Dan Kent
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Being a Christian means to be in covenant with God as a part of God’s family, and therefore, we have brothers and sisters. In this sermon, Dan Kent looks at common patterns that hinder our ability to love each other as brothers and sisters. He does this by building upon a quote from Cole Riley: “Pay attention to who you’ve been trained to demonize.” We have been trained to treat each other as an enemy because someone intends for us to demonize each other. We’re victims of a conspiracy of disconnection. Love is destroyed through dividing, and we are defeated as we demonize each other.
Dan looks at Colossians 3:13, quoted above. Christ makes a new humanity possible through the cross, but God will not force this reality upon us. We must participate in it as we “bear with each other.” When we bear with another person we are enduring, tolerating and putting up with them. In other words, we are refraining from reacting. This does not mean putting up with abuse or oppression. It’s showing patience with the others who do not see things the way that you do.
Dan shared Shawna Boren’s observation from last week’s Musecast about how it is now easier than ever to abandon one another. The way to deal with difference is to discard people we don’t like. We judge and rank others—something that the Colossian church was also doing—which leads us to join in the conspiracy to divide and conquer.
To overcome this conspiracy, we need to increase our frustration tolerance. Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT) is the belief that discomfort is unbearable, that things must go our way and that difficult people or situations are intolerable. High Frustration Tolerance (HFT) is the ability to endure discomfort, delay gratification and remain in difficult relationships or situations without emotionally collapsing or fleeing. When Paul says “bear with one another,” he acknowledges that people will irritate, disappoint and wrong you. But our response is not to hide or run away but to increase our frustration tolerance.
Dan closes with three questions:
1. Have you been guilty of confusing peace with avoidance?
2. Are the people closest to you only there because they never challenge you?
3. What if God sent frustrating people in your life not to frustrate you, but to form you?
Nothing grows without friction. Resistance is what grows the muscle of frustration tolerance. It requires practice to stand against the flow of the culture so that we can love each other in ways that the world does not know.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Community, Forgiveness, Relationships
Sermon Series: Wholehearted, Better Together
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The MuseCast: April 28
Focus Scripture:
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Colossians 3:13
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
