A Rhythm of Loving-Relationship in a Culture of Performance

0:00 We’re part of, we’re in a six part series called Rhythms of the Day, thinking about the culture that we live in and how how the culture that we live in forms us. And then the importance therefore of having certain rhythms in our life where we can allow God to form us within the culture that we’re living in.

0:24 So this week we’re thinking about the culture of performance that we find ourselves in and the importance of a rhythm of loving relationships. So I’m going to pray, Father, we thank you so much that that that we can we can be together.

0:42 We can gather together as your people, be your body together, building one another up in love. And I pray that as we as we think about this, this rhythm of close loving relationships, that you would even now be forming us into who you’ve created us to be and give U.S.

1:03 Open hearts to receive what you want to do in us this morning. And I pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Robin Dunbar is an anthropologist that came up with a now widely accepted theory on community group sizes and friendships.

1:21 And there are multiple layers, but the inner ones are meaningful, which is a maximum of 150 people. And then there’s good friends and friends, which is kind of 15 to 50 people, and then the inner circle of around 5 people that he calls the intimates.

1:39 And the past few weeks we’ve talked about a rhythm of gathering, which kind of fits within the meaningful, and then a rhythm of community linked to our gospel communities, which fits within the good and close friends. And then today we’re thinking more about the intimate, which I’m calling loving relationship.

1:58 Because what that layer has is an even an even deeper ability to be known as we are at the moment in the West. We are increasingly losing that kind of relationship, that closer kind of relationship.

2:20 More and more people are lacking the intimate friendships. Some stats, in Australia in 2025, only 53% of adults had in person contact with family or friends outside of their household at least once a week. 53% of adults and and within that 35 to 44 year olds are the least likely to have contact with friends or family outside of their household on any given week at only 43%.

2:55 In 20/19 it was 70%. So that’s how much it’s dropped over the past few years. And the reasons that there are many reasons for this, like so many reasons, individualism, which we talked about last week, transience, modernity, technology.

3:11 And then also something that kind of comes all out of all of that is the culture of performance. And what I mean by this is our culture is teaching us to manage how the people around us see us. Our culture’s teaching us to manage how the people around us see us, to perform well and hide the weak parts.

3:36 And this works because performance is tied with identity. So we talked about last week a culture of individualism. In a culture of individualism, we’re able to kind of curate our own identity.

3:54 We, we make ourselves whoever we want to be. And that hasn’t always been the case. Identity was tied to vocation and family and geography. This is speaking very, very generally, by the way. But now we, we tend to, we, we live in a culture that kind of curates our own identity.

4:13 But then the way we communicate our identity to the world is through performance, how we live, how we act among other people. So performance is tied to identity. And the problem is, if we hide certain aspects of who we are, our flaws, the parts of ourselves that we’re not proud of in order to give a certain identity, then what happens is is when we have close friends get close, closer and closer, they can see through the facade that we’re putting up.

4:50 And it gets harder to hide with people who know us well. So those intimate friendships dwindle that low, That inner circle begins to dwindle. Let’s take it one step further. Performance is tied to identity.

5:08 We communicate who we are through how we perform. But because of that, there is so much anxiety around messing up. There is so much fear around performing in the wrong way or getting caught out for nothing and and the impact is bigger than oops I did something wrong and it becomes I am something wrong, which is shame as opposed to guilt.

5:40 If performance communicates my identity, then failure leads to shame. And so it’s not just loving relationships dwindle because I don’t want them to see my flaws.

5:56 It’s actually loving relationships dwindle because if they see my flaws, I will experience shame. And the most common way that we protect as humans, that we protect ourselves from shame, is hiding Adam and Eve in the garden.

6:14 They were once that they were naked and unashamed, but then after the fall, they hid from their intimate relationship with God because they felt shame about their nakedness. They hid because if you hide, then the self can’t be seen.

6:32 If you hide, then the shame of nakedness will not be looked at and you’ll be safe. So it will seem so. Is it any surprise that in the modern West, as this tie between performance and identity has grown, that intimate relationships have dwindled?

6:55 Is it is it any surprise that the circle in which we can be fully known, known as we truly are, has lowered at the same time that we increasingly feel like we need to perform to give a sense of self, and there’s a heightened sense of being caught out? The culture of performance is forming us, but is it forming us in light of the Kingdom of God?

7:22 It is forming us. It’s why we can talk about our successes very easily, but feel uncomfortable talking about our failures. It’s why we can tell people what we believe, but find it much harder to tell them where we’re struggling to actually live it. Because we live in a culture where identity is tied to performance.

7:41 So to prevent shame, we hide often from intimate friendships, from loving relationships. So here’s the question. How can a rhythm of loving relationship in that inner circle if we were going to commit to that?

7:59 How can a rhythm of loving relationship form us in light of the Kingdom of God? And I’ve got three things understanding grace, receiving grace and Dnas with with a lot of these talks, I’ve kind of, I’ve I’ve had to give a lot of qualifiers.

8:22 And here’s another one. I need to make two very important notes before I start. First one is, is established trust. Established trust is a must have when it when it comes to being open and vulnerable. So I’m not saying that we should go and bear our hearts to anyone or if you get into a DNA that that is the place you have to bear your heart instantly.

8:44 It’s not what I’m saying. We must have established trust. So inherent in the loving relationship that I’m going to be talking about is trust. OK, Just bear that in mind.

9:07 Secondly, vulnerability with God, I’m coming more at the angle of human relationship here, loving relationship, 5 people one another. So bear in mind this whole time that we have a God who we can be vulnerable with, who does hear us, who loves us, who knows all the crooks and crannies anyway. And, and then from that place, I think that will, that will lead us to encourage and and tolerate vulnerability with one another a bit more as we kind of receive God’s healing to our shame.

9:35 So, so those those two things there needs to be established trust. Don’t go baring your hearts to everyone. And I’m talking about human loving relationship with assumed vulnerability to God. OK, put them on the back shelf for now. Let’s go on to the first point, understanding grace.

9:55 The story of Ananias and Sapphira in in Acts chapter 5 is a wild story if you know it. It’s it’s it’s a story of a married couple who sells some property and then among themselves, they decide to keep a little bit of the money and bring the rest of the apostles feet.

10:17 But they lie about how much they sold the property for and they keep some without telling anyone. And then they drop dead and you, you read through it and the reader just has question marks over the head, just like what in the world just happened.

10:35 It is a crazy story, but it comes Chapter 5. It’s right at the beginning of Chapter 5, and it comes right after an explanation at the end of Chapter 4. If you’ve got your Bibles, it might help to open them, but this is an act. It comes right after an explanation in chapter 4 of many people who are selling their property and laying it down at the apostles feet.

11:00 And then at right at the end of chapter 4, there’s a story of Joseph or Barnabas who did just that. He sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles feet. And then we get to the story of Ananias and Sapphira.

11:18 And what we see in chapter 5, verse 3 is a heart swayed by Satan. And verse 8A lie about how much money they got. And even when asked outright in verse 8, they they didn’t just they, well, they lie about it.

11:42 And they could have just kept, they could have just been honest and kept some of the money. The money was theirs, but they tried to construct a particular picture for themselves. Now why? Why did they try and construct a particular picture of themselves? Maybe.

12:00 Maybe because they wanted to look like those people around them who sold their possessions. Maybe because they wanted to look more generous. Maybe because they wanted to earn respect or prove their worth. And it sounds and reads a lot like performance.

12:24 But there was a truth that Ananias and Zephira were failing to believe and and a truth that I think we fail to believe every time we lean into our culture of performance. And it’s the truth of grace of God’s grace for his people. The more we understand the depth of God’s grace, the more we will release performance because grace is something is is something that you do not earn.

12:53 You do not need to work for or perform for. The more we understand the depths of God’s grace, the more we will release performance. God’s grace looks like God calling to Adam and Eve who felt shame in their nakedness.

13:17 Where are you? And he knows where they are, and he knows what they’ve done. And it looks like God killing an animal He loves to clothe those who have stabbed him in the back. Grace looks like God pursuing a community of people through the wilderness who turn their backs on Him time and time again, but He still provides a way to be with them.

13:40 God’s grace looks like His self giving love being poured out for the sake of us mere humans who are prone to perform. God’s grace looks like not judging us through our performance. God’s grace looks like His love being poured out of himself in the form of a human among the mess of humanity so that he can reach into the mess and clean it up.

14:03 His grace looks like giving himself fully lowering and serving and dying so that we can be freed from the need to perform in any way, shape or form. His grace looks away from performance and toward our new selves in love because of his grace in Jesus work.

14:24 And his grace leads to freedom. Freedom from all the masks I want to wear, to look a certain way, all the things I want to do, to be like those around me that are thriving. But it has to be grace that leads to that. And the more the more we realise that our salvation and our life with God is wholly dependent on Him.

14:49 Not on me, not on anything I’ve ever done, not on anything you will ever do, just completely and wholly by His grace. Then the more we get the depths of the riches of grace and the less we will feel like we need to perform. Because it’s not about how I look or what I do or what I hide.

15:09 Because He’s made me a new creation. Behold, we are a new creation, wholly and completely by His grace. So imagine, imagine if Ananias and Zafira understood God’s grace, if they realise that they’re enough by grace that they’re not like those people next to them giving everything, but that’s OK, they’re still loved because of Jesus grace.

15:44 And maybe one day that grace will lead them to give generously from a heart of thankfulness. But it’s not dependent on that. Understanding grace helps us to know that we do not need to perform. Understanding grace is the foundation then of loving relationships because we don’t need to perform to be any more than we are.

16:09 There is no need to hide. We can step into the inner circle as we are with God in the centre, with trusted friends, with people who will point you to this grace. That’s understanding grace.

16:26 The the second point is then receiving grace. I have a friend who many years ago she battled, she, she genuinely battled with the desire to run away, to just up and leave.

16:44 And she, she made some mistakes in her life and she got caught out and she decided to up and leave, just run away from it all. But she had a friend who found out and went and found her and told her you have to come back because this is the only way you will receive grace.

17:12 Let’s go to John 21 that Mel read John. John 21 comes after like Jesus’s agonising betrayal and death and Peter’s triad of denial of Jesus in the courtyard. This is after all of that.

17:28 And in John 21 it seems like it seems like Peter is still feeling the shame and regret of his denial. What’s amazing though is, is he’s not alone. He’s got people with him and he says I’m going out to fish.

17:49 And I reckon he says it like this. I’m going out to fish like Eeyore a little bit. And, and his friends say, well, we’ll go with you. We’re not going to leave you to go on a boat by yourself when you’re downcast like this.

18:06 So they get in the boats and they stay out on the water all night. I I wonder what they talked about. I wonder if they tried to console Peter. I wonder if if if they just shared memories of the last three years of Peter walking on water or of of the miraculous catch of fish.

18:36 Or did they just sit in silence the whole night until a voice calls out to them in the morning in verse 4, Friends, haven’t you any fish? Try throwing your net on the right side of the boat and you’ll find some.

18:53 And so they did it and it was like living that memory. And they realised that it was the risen Jesus standing there on the beach. And I, I love, I love what happens next in verse 7, the disciple whom Jesus loved, which is John, nudges Peter on the shoulder and points him towards Jesus, points this downcast Peter toward his source of grace, points the one feeling the weight of shame to the risen Jesus who hasn’t come to judge Peter for his performance, but has come to redeem the shame that Peter might be trying to mask.

19:35 Peter. It’s the Lord and and what I love is that John knew now, surely all of the disciples wanted at that moment to jump out the boat and run to the risen Jesus on the shore. Surely.

19:52 But it seems like John knew Peter needed it. John, John was in this. Well, how did, how, how might John have known this? I think.

20:09 Peter probably was pretty sulky so that that might have been one way, but also John was John was in this intimate relationship with Peter, James and John. The three of them were Jesus. You always see it’s it’s them that are doing things together.

20:27 They had loving relationship in that inner circle. Dunbar’s intimates. So John might have known that it was Peter that needed this beyond the performance, under the hiding below the shame. He needed to understand but then also receive God’s grace.

20:49 We can understand God’s grace as we delve into the depths of all that He’s done for us, but it’s in those loving relationships with people who know us, with people who we can be real with, with people we don’t need to perform around. With. People who point us to God’s grace in the exact areas that we need them, that we begin to receive God’s grace.

21:12 Peter, it’s the Lord. Go and experience what you know of His grace. So Peter weirdly puts clothes on to jump in the water. Anyone else think that’s weird?

21:34 And then and then he jumps in, he swims to shore and and the other boys are left to bring in the hall. And it’s like my friend being told you have to come back because this is the only way you’ll receive grace. It’s John nudging Peter on the shoulder, being pointed toward the God of grace.

21:53 Now, just to be really real for a second, sometimes as good as grace is, sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it doesn’t feel good.

22:13 Because sometimes grace requires you to be exposed. When performance is linked to identity, and our most shameful parts are hidden behind how we choose to perform, God’s grace is calling us out of that type of hiding.

22:35 And sometimes God’s grace feels like a ripping off of facades to get to what’s underneath. It’s it’s God calling. It’s God calling to Adam and Eve to step out from behind the tree but so that he can clothe them.

22:52 It’s calling Peter to swim ashore and face the one that he denied, but it’s so that he can be reinstated. It’s my friend stepping out of her hiding, not running away, and learning to live many years in the place where she was exposed because she experienced God’s grace.

23:12 Grace doesn’t merely forgive the person who’s hiding. Grace is more than forgiveness. Grace calls the person out of hiding. So in our culture of performance, we choose our own identities and we taught them to perform them and to hide the bad parts of ourselves, the messy bits, the ugly bits.

23:44 But like God calls to Adam and Eve, where are you hiding? What? What are you hiding? What aspects of yourself are you hiding behind performing in a certain way?

24:08 Maybe God is calling you out of hiding, and if he is, it is so that you can receive grace. And maybe all you need is a nudge on the shoulder within a loving relationship so you can be pointed to the risen Jesus who wants to redeem your shame.

24:41 Let’s let’s go on to thinking about DNA groups. The structure we have within our church model for these inner circle relationships, these loving relationships is a is a DNA group. Usually this is kind of three to five people, but sometimes it’s more as we just heard, people who understand grace and who can together help one another to receive grace into areas of lives that we haven’t yet.

25:09 DNA stands for discover, nurture, act. It’s discovering things about ourselves or one another and about God and then nurturing that truth into the heart and then acting on that discover, nurture, act. It follows the same pattern as as head, heart, hands.

25:29 And just like a gospel community, Dnas are a structure. They are not an end in themselves. They they do not promise any more salvation than what you have in Christ. They are a tool to allow you to make loving relationships a rhythm.

25:46 We’re talking about a rhythm of loving relationships. So here are some DNA realities. 6 of them. Firstly, meet regularly. Most DNA groups meet fortnightly because the men meet one week, the women meet the other week on the same night and that makes it easier for couples and just logistically.

26:10 So some meet weekly though I love Maz Brooking is like no they have to meet weekly. I love that Dnas almost always work better than when they’re with people in the same gospel community because that gives multiple touch points. It means more instances to know and less instances to hide. That doesn’t always work out, but which is fine.

26:26 Secondly, give permission. I’ve been a part of a of Dnas before where I’ve wondered if I’m allowed to nudge someone on the shoulder and, and because of a certain area in their life and point them to Jesus. And I’ve, and I’ve found it really hard because I realised that we’ve never actually given each other permission to do that.

26:52 So if we give actual permission for our intimate friends to call us out to speak the truth in order to point us to Jesus, then that makes it so much easier and so much more likely to actually happen. And when I say give permission, I actually mean verbal permission. Like I give you permission to speak Jesus into any area of my life.

27:11 Thirdly, risk vulnerability from a place of grace. We can begin to be vulnerable with the right people with hear me say that with the right people established trust. This smaller group, this intimate circle in Dunbar’s numbers is where that can take place in safe loving relationship.

27:33 Vulnerability allows others to see the areas of our lives that need the gospel and then we can begin to be healed by the grace of Jesus. So risk vulnerability forth route yourself to stay loving relationships take time stick them out.

27:51 Fifthly, the fine line of benefit and dependence. Having these close loving relationships is really important. Like we need each other. We need people who will point us to Jesus, who will pray for us, who will speak truth to us.

28:10 But a very human response is to begin to depend on these relationships for our formation in our life with Jesus. So somehow we need to be learning to come into relationships and friendships and groups with the perspective that we are Jesus’s disciples. We are are members of the same body in Christ.

28:36 None of us are Jesus to each other. We nudge and point, honouring, honouring the friendship and valuing the togetherness, but not depending on one another for the sake of our life with Christ. And then sixthly, don’t just keep it deep. Have fun.

28:55 Sometimes Dnas have a tendency just to, to only be deep, and that’s kind of exhausting. Sometimes they get reduced to just accountability groups, which are great and and really, really important and and and accountability should take place within DNA groups. But accountability groups can only have as much power as the strength of the established trust within that group.

29:22 Like if they’re merely accountability groups, then they could lose their relational value. They could be exhausting thing to attend and make might make people not want to attend them at all. They can be very exhausting thing to run.

29:40 So whilst I think accountability is really important within ADNA setting, I also think that Dnas need a wider vision, one of of deep friendship that comes from a place of not having to perform, that gives structure to be with friends who will .1 another to Jesus. And nothing grows friendship like fun, laugh, go to the pub, watch a movie together, play games, go on holiday together, share communion with each other, have fun together.

30:19 My DNA has just started a rhythm of every holiday. We’ll meet on a Saturday and we’ll have a Koffski night, which we’ll meet in the afternoon and we’ll try a range of coffees and we have Geordie in our group, which is great. And then, and then, and then as we get to the night, we’ll, we’ll work our way through some whiskeys and we have Geordie in our group, which is great.

30:45 And, and that’s all whilst eating some smoked meat, which Geordie smoked for us. I’m, I’m actually only just realising this, that it’s all thanks Geordie. And we play cards and it’s wonderful because DNA is about loving relationships where we can release the culture of performance that says perform your identity and hide the messy parts.

31:14 And we know that it’s by his grace that I’m saved by God’s grace that I’m free, by God’s grace that I am who I am, a new creation in Christ. Adna Group is not an end in itself. It’s a structure that allows you to have a rhythm of loving relationship.

31:39 And we need loving relationships where we can be known, where we can tell the truth, where we can nudge someone on the shoulder and say, Peter, it’s the Lord. And where things we’ve hidden can come into the light, not so that they can be condemned, but so that they can receive grace. So this is how a rhythm of loving relationship forms us in light of the Kingdom of God.

31:39 By understanding grace we stop performing, through receiving grace we stop hiding and this happens in loving relationship and This is why a rhythm of loving relationship will form us in the light of the Kingdom of God whilst we still live in a culture of performance.