Ladies Night Part 1

One of the greatest traditions that we have at InterVarsity at UNC-Chapel Hill has been around since before I got there: Ladies' and Men's Nights. These are evenings where the men or women of the chapter put together an evening of goofy skits, songs, videos, food and drink and generally tell the folks across gender that they care for them and honor them just for being them.

Last week was Ladies' Night, Men's Night is in a couple of weekends. I was given the opportunity to do a brief "opening statement" (shorter than a talk!) as a part of the night. As it got closer I was getting more and more info from students saying that there was a bit more of a divide between the genders than we would like. So I took the opportunity to call us to be more intentional in community in the context of the reality that Jesus has anchored us in himself so that we might be freed up to serve one another....even cross-gender:

Blast from the past: how many of you have seen the movie “Jerry McGuire?” on cable somewhere every weekend for like five years, hopefully at some point you caught it. Two very famous lines in that movie that got caught up in pop culture: the first was from Cuba Gooding Jr--what was it? “Show me the money!” And the second was actually signed in the movie by a deaf couple and then later repeated by Tom Cruise’s character what was it? “You complete me.”

My friends, here’s the good news: this is a myth. It is one of the myths that our culture circulate around about our romantic relationships and what we discover is that it is a big, fat, lie. No one can complete us. When we go into a relationship with the expectation that someone else can complete us, we put that person in the place of God and the only possible result is that we are always deeply, deeply disappointed.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have been taught by our Lord that there is only one who can complete us, and it is not anyone here on earth. We have been made for relationships, yes, and romantic relationships are a part of that. But our relationship with our Good Father in Heaven through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit is what brings the completeness that we are longing for.

What this does for us my friends is that it frees us to be in relationships across gender lines with one another in complete freedom—you’re not looking to use someone to complete you, God has already done that. And if God has completed you, then you are free to not use someone else to get your needs met but instead you are freed up to serve someone else, to consider their needs as more important than yours