Who We Are - Together In Love Luke 5:17-20 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Dear Church Family, This weekend we continued our "Who We Are" series, moving into two more of our core values that are deeply connected: Gracious in Love and Committed to Community. We opened with a personal story — a season right after college that started in the warmth of real, consistent friendship, and then shifted into a new church and a new season where that same kind of community wasn't there in the way we expected. It's a familiar ache: feeling alone even while being "plugged in" somewhere. But toward the end of that season, something shifted — not because the community became what we wanted, but because we realized it was already full of people showing us gracious, kind love all along. As Bonhoeffer put it, loving our dream of community more than the real community in front of us can actually keep us from experiencing it. God, in His kindness, often gives us what we need rather than what we want. From there we looked at two truths that hold this whole message together: we were made in community, by community, and for community (Genesis 2:18) — and yet nearly 1 in 5 American adults report having no close friends today, a number that's roughly doubled since the early 1990s. We were built for connection, and as a culture, we're starving for it. We saw what that looks like lived out in Luke 5 — a group of friends so determined to get a paralyzed man to Jesus that they tore open a roof to lower him into a packed room. Jesus "saw their faith" — not just the man's — a reminder that sometimes God moves in our lives because of the faith and prayers of the people carrying us, not just our own. We need to be committed to community because we need friends who will carry us to Jesus. Then we turned to Exodus 34, where God reveals His own character as "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness" — long before Jesus ever walked the earth. That's who God said He was. And in John 8, we saw that God in the flesh: Jesus meeting a woman dragged before a crowd, alone and exposed, and extending grace to her face-to-face, unearned and unconditional. Condemnation and shame cannot survive where there is grace and love. We closed with Colossians 3:12-14 — "clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness... and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together" — and this reminder: loved people, love people. We only have love to give because we were loved first. Two questions worth carrying into this week: Who are the people in your life that you would carry — and who would carry you? Who is the one person you feel God has placed in your life that He wants you to show that gracious love to? We weren't made to do this alone — and we weren't made to earn our way into love. Both are gifts, given in relationship. -Pastor Aaron Perry
