Paul Tripp: I was made to live in humble and worshipful community with God, and I was made to live in interdependent community with other people. Now, that only leaves me with one question--it's a very, very important question--here it is: What is the health of the communities that I live in right here, right now?

Kate Crowley: Welcome to Right Here, Right Now and today's program from Paul Tripp Ministry. Join as Paul connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.

Recording: "Please record your message after the tone." (beep): Susan, I am so excited. I just got approved for my loan. I'm actually going to get that loft that I was telling you about. It's on the tenth floor, and there are only two other tenants on the floor; each one is living by himself.

When I quit living with my family, I thought I'd be living by myself, but then I got trapped in all those years of living with all those roommates. I'm tired of sharing space with people I don't really want to live with. I'm tired of having people looking over my shoulder and breathing down my back. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to being able to close my door and shut the whole world out.

If I get lonely and when I want to spend time with people, well, I can do that. But, if I want to be by myself, I will always have my loft to go to. I know friends are important, but it's not like I need someone to watch over me. I'm an adult, after all. I can take care of myself. I don't even think I'm going to join a small group at my church. I just need a break from all the demands of all the relationships. I just can't believe that I'm actually going to be living all by myself--it's like a dream come true.

Music: "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" by U2

Tough, you think you've got the stuff
You're telling me and anyone
You're hard enough
You don't have to put up a fight
You don't have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight
Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone
And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own

Kate Crowley: And you're listening to Right Here, Right Now. How important are others? That's coming right up from this series, "Back to the Beginning," in today's study, "Community With Others," from Paul Tripp. Why don't you call a friend and invite them to join us on today's broadcast?

And while you're listening, we invite you to log on to paultrippministries.org, or you can pick up a copy of Paul's book War of Words, an in depth look at the impact of talk--both words of grace and what words of harm do. While there, you'll also find other video, audio, and print resources dealing with marriage and parenting. That's paultrippministries.org. Right Here, Right Now continues with Paul Tripp.

Paul Tripp: I know you find yourself in some kind of fabric of relationships. I know there are people in your life--friends, family, coworkers, fellow members of the body of Christ, citizens of a community, so I'd like to ask you this question, "How do you view the relationships in your life?"

Are they places to get your needs met; are they obstacles in the way of the things that you really want? (You could really deal with less people in your life and less hassle because there would be less people in your life) Are your relationships places of comfort and joy, help, retreat? Do you live in them walking on egg shells, hoping that you can avoid the next moment of conflict or trouble or hurt?

Do you live protectively and self defensively? Are you demanding, critical, selfish? Do you see your relationships as luxuries to be enjoyed when they are working? Or, do you see your relationships as essential to God who wants you to be in them and to do His work there? Are you tired of living with flawed people? Are you tired of dealing with the same old problems over and over again?

Do you wish that the people in your life would do a better job of getting their act together? How do you see your relationships? What in the world are you trying to get out of them? In those relationships, what are you doing, and why are you doing it?

Now, Genesis 2 makes something very clear, and it's clear as can be, that we were not only made for community with God: we were made for community with one another. Now, another way of saying this is this--that God made us to be social beings. It is an identity that cannot be avoided, and again when you try, you actually end up denying your own humanity.

Now, I know relationships are really messy because you don't ever get to live with perfect people. And they are really disappointing because as much as a person promises to do X, Y and Z, they're always going to fail in some way.

And I know that relationships, good relationships in particular, consume an amazing amount of time and energy. I know that relationships can be very encouraging, and I know they can be very disappointing. I know they can be attractive, and I know they can be scary. I know they can be stained with joy or wracked with pain. Relationships can be many, many different things, but they are, they are, what we have been designed to do.

We have been designed to be people who live in community, specifically two communities. We were created to live in community with God, and we were created to live in community with other people. The Bible defines successful living that way--in living in worshipful community with God and loving community with other people. We were made for community.

Music: "Do You Have A Little Time?" By Dido

If you're feeling low and lost today
You're probably doing too much again
You spend all your hours just rushing around
Do you have a little time?
Do you have a little time for me?

Back to the Beginning: Genesis 2

Paul Tripp: Now I'm afraid you're going to get tired of me saying this, but I just have to say it again. "If you're going to understand what it means to say that we were made for community, you just have to go back to the beginning."

Genesis 2 records God saying something very important when you talk about community. He says this, "It is not good for man to live alone." Now, I want you to hear what I'm going to say next because I think this is a passage that's often misunderstood or misinterpreted. "There is no indication from the passage that Adam was sulking around the garden, sad because he was so lonely." That's often how the passage is interpreted. There is no indication that God created Eve because Adam was so sad.

I'm convinced that we have read things into this passage that are just not there. When God said, "It's not good for man to live alone," He wasn't making a new observation. What He's actually doing is he's verbalizing His original creation intent. Let me say again: He's not making a fresh or new observation; what He's only doing is verbalizing His original creation intent.

He is saying this, "When I created Adam, I created him to be a social being, and so he cannot fully express who I have made him to be if he is living all by himself. So what I need to do is create another human being so Adam will be able to live in the kind of community that I created him to live in."

You see, God is now going to act by creating Eve on the original intent for making Adam. He was made for community. We were never designed to live isolated, self-protective lives. Rather, we were created to live in humble interdependent community with one another.

As I said on a previous program, "Your life is, in fact, a community project," yet in the middle of this call to community, we all have a problem--it's called sin. Sin is by its very nature antisocial. Think about it; in its purest form, sin is not first about the breaking of rules. Sin, at the heart, is about breaking of relationship--I first turned my back on God, and as a result of turning my back on Him, I go out, and I break His rules.

Think for a moment even of the order of the 10 Commandments. The command against idolatry is the foundation on which all of the other commands rest. You see, if I have God in His right place, if I'm in a right relationship with Him, then I do not have a desire to break His rules. It is because I've replaced love and worship of God with worship of other things that I then turn and disobey Him. Sin is antisocial because, at the heart of it, it is all about breaking relationship first with God and then with other people.

But it's antisocial in another way--sin is all about self-love and self-focus. Sin is about loving myself more than I love anyone else. Sin is about caring for little more than what I want, how I want it, when I want it, and where I want it. Sin does something dramatic to me; it really does cause me to shrink my life down to the size of my life.

So here's what happens to my relationships; it's really a sad and terrible thing. In my sin, rather than love community with you, I see you as a threat. I realize that you could get in the way of what I want, and I don't want you in the way of what I want. I realize that you may want different things from me; and if you want different things from me, you make it your way, and I may not get what I want.

You see, sin causes me to meet more dedicated to one relationship in my life than I am to all others. Sin causes me to be dedicated to my relationship to myself. Because of sin, then, relationships are messy and dangerous. Because of sin, we fear the vulnerability of relationships. It's a sad, sad thing to recognize. It's a sad reality of all of our lives, but it needs to be said.

In case you hadn't noticed, we no longer live in the perfect days of Genesis 2. We do say wrong things to one another; we do, at times, hold a grudge; we fight for power and control; we fight to be right and to be affirmed; we do get enslaved to the acceptance of one another. So, it's tempting, then, to look at relationships as all too dangerous and way too much of a hassle. It is easy to convince ourselves that we really don't need other people. Why, look at the people that are around me? Do I really need them? But it is all one big fundamental lie. It all leads to one of those fundamental denials of my basic nature as a human being because part of the core about my humanity is this issue of relationships. I was made for relationships. I was made to live in humble and worshipful community with God, and I was made to live in interdependent community with other people. Now that only leaves me with one question, it is a very, very important question, here it is: What is the health of the communities that I live in right here, right now?

Music: "You Are My King (Amazing Love)" by Newsboys

I'm forgiven because You were forsaken
I'm accepted, You were condemned
And I'm alive and well, Your spirit is within me
Because You died and rose again
I'm forgiven because You were forsaken
I'm accepted, You were condemned
And I'm alive and well, Your spirit is within me
Because You died and rose again
Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love and I know it's true
And it's my joy to honor You, in all I do to honor You
I'm forgiven because You were forsaken
I'm accepted, You were condemned
And I'm alive and well, Your spirit is within me
Because You died and rose again
Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love and I know it's true
And it's my joy to honor You, in all I do to honor You

Hiding Behind Terminally Casual Relationships

Paul Tripp: I must say that I know a lot of people who are hiding behind terminally casual relationships. The relationships never ever get down to real community. They're distant, and what is often called fellowship is not fellowship at all. It never really rises to the level of true fellowship. Very often we don't want to be vulnerable; we don't want to pay the price to build truly meaningful community with the people in our lives.

So, I want to ask you some questions as I often do on this program. Do you struggle with any of the following things? Do you struggle with letting go of a moment of hurt at work-- you know you should; you know it's right to do that, but when you see that fellow worker again, you're filled with rage inside? Do you struggle with getting angry at the way someone has complicated your life--you thought you had a friendship, and now it's such a mess, and you don't even want talk to the person--you're just tired of dealing with it?

Do you struggle with becoming defensive when challenged? Are you thankful for people, for the people who challenge you? Do you struggle with being way too political at church or work--you use relationships as a forum for acquiring power? Do you struggle with being resigned to a broken relationship when it could be healed--you've just, you've given up trying to heal it, and you are just living in the midst of something that's very broken?

Do you struggle with gossiping about other people? When you're with others, do you talk about the person who's not there? Have you ever struggled with lying out of fear about what others will think--so you tell your story, or you recount an incident in a way that makes you actually look better than you actually were in the incident?

Do you compromise your convictions to win others' approval? Do you struggle with pursuing comfortable relationships and avoiding the difficult ones? Do you stay in a relationship just to the point where you know it's going to be difficult, and then you get out before trouble hits?

Do you struggle with doubting God when your relationships are messy? Do you doubt His love, His goodness, His faithfulness, His patience? Do you struggle with envying the friendships of others and wish you could have friendships like they have? Do you struggle maybe with controlling relationships out of a desire for security, and the only way that you can be secure is if you're in control? Do you struggle with blowing up at somebody when your agenda is ignored or obstructed? Do you struggle with living in self-imposed isolation after you've faced disappointments in your relationships? Do you struggle even with facing the fact that you were made for relationships?

As you thought about the questions, how are you doing? Are you thankful and involved in the relationships God has given you, or are you fearful and withdrawn? What is the present state of the communities in your life? Are they healthy?

(Music Interlude)

Have you ever noticed that there is a crescendo of relational disappointment at the end of the life of Jesus? The disciples are too busy debating who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom, to take time to wash the feet of the Messiah at the Last Supper. Jesus had to get down like a servant and do it himself. Peter, James, and John fell asleep in the Garden the Gethsemane when Jesus had asked them to pray with Him as He faced the cross. Peter publicly denies that he knows Jesus.

But there's a final moment of relational pain where the sad music of relational sufferings swells to its loudest. Jesus is on the cross, and He faces the unthinkable and screams, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

You have to ask why would Jesus be willing to face such rejection? The answer is that there was no other way. Jesus was willing to face rejection so that we can experience reconciliation, unity, and love in our relationship. He was willing to face the unthinkable. He was willing to go through an experience of the utter rejection of His Father so that we could be restored to community with God and community with one another. You see, because of Jesus Christ and because of what He willingly suffered, there really is hope for you and your relationships right here, right now.

Kate Crowley: Restoring the brokenhearted, Paul Tripp and the grace of God from the series, "Back to the Beginning," in today's lesson, "Community With Others" on Right Here, Right Now. Be sure to turn in tomorrow for more of these important talks.

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Now, if you'd like to hear Paul in person, he would love to come to your church or special event as a guest speaker. Just go to our website for more information. Next time we are together, Paul continues his new series, "Back to the Beginning." For Paul Tripp and all of us at Paul Tripp Ministries, I'm Kate Crowley reminding you that, in Jesus Christ, there really is help, right here, right now. See you tomorrow.