Seasoned Members Class (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:02

Those of you who have joined BBC in somewhat recent years not looking over here

00:12

I've been teaching the new members class now for actually I don't even know I was trying to figure out how long it's been

00:18

It's been I think at least five years now Ever since Pastor Harry Left I've been teaching the new members class and so those of you who've joined recently you you got to experience

00:33

You you you know what it's like going through my class. I teach this four session class on we go over the fine points of What makes a good church about the importance of things like a statement of faith about the importance of doctrine?

00:48

about church government church discipline and my My assertion every time

00:55

I say this at the in the first class every time when we start is I say look I'm gonna spend the first three sessions only telling you about what makes for a good church and I'm doing it kind of as a wager which

01:10

I know I probably shouldn't be wagering in church But I'm doing it as a wager and that My wager is that if I spend all that time explaining to you what

01:17

I think makes a good church when I finally get to Session four and I tell you about BBC specifically you will agree that this is a good church

01:27

Right and And the reason I do that is also because while I hope that anyone who comes and joins as a member here stays forever

01:37

I'm realistic. I realize that that's not going to be the case and I want to equip people to be ready

01:43

That if when God if goal if God calls them away to another Place another location that they have to find a new church that they're equipped for finding a good new church someday as well

01:55

All right, well my time this summer as the teacher of this class is gonna be spread out a bit

02:01

I'm gonna be sort of the interlude the palate cleanser between other teachers and So each time that I stand before you what

02:10

I'm going to do is be delivering a refresher course on being a member at BBC So for those of you who snuck in here before I started teaching well consider that to be a

02:21

You're getting a peek into what you missed out on And and while I call it just a refresher

02:28

There's there's really so much new material here that it's more like the advanced level course in membership

02:36

Okay, I wanted to call it the old members class, but Karen said that that might be kind of insulting

02:41

So we're gonna call it the seasoned members class alright, so congratulations welcome everyone to seasoned members class

02:48

Session one all right, so we're gonna turn today to Acts chapter 2.

02:54

We're gonna start in Acts chapter 2 Verses 42 to 47 we're gonna take a peek at the first Church the very first church

03:08

What happens at the beginning of Acts 2 anybody remember

03:15

Let's get those Interactivity juices flowing mark Pentecost right

03:20

Pentecost happens at the beginning of Acts 2 right we hear of the Holy Spirit coming and Indwelling in the

03:27

Apostles, and then Peter gives his very famous sermon and how many people are converted?

03:35

Does God use Peter's sermon to convert? 5 ,000 right and there it is boom the first church

03:46

Okay, there's the first New Testament Church, and we're gonna see I sorry 3 ,000 not 5 ,000

03:52

And we're gonna see here verses 42 to 47 What those 3 ,000 people start doing as soon as they become the first church?

04:01

Okay Who can read for me Acts 42 to 47 so there are six things happening here that this church is doing?

04:12

together All right six things. They're doing together number one. They are Studying together right they are devoting themselves to the

04:20

Apostles teaching they are studying the word together Another thing they are doing is they are

04:29

Sticking together, that's number two. They're sticking together right we see them. There's the fellowship.

04:36

There's the breaking of bread And the breaking of bread means they're literally having meals with one another

04:44

All right, and they're they're hanging out with each other. They're spending their free time with one another

04:50

There's having fellowship number three is they are praying Together they're praying together.

04:55

We see and the prayer right that they're together with the breaking of bread and the prayers Number four they're being shepherded.

05:04

They're being shepherded by leadership There's many signs and wonders being done through the Apostles. They're listening not just to any teaching, but to the

05:12

Apostles Teaching All right, so they're being shepherded by a leadership and Then number five and number six

05:20

They have concern for those number five inside the church and number six concern for those outside the church

05:29

All right, we see a number. We see that they have all the all who believed were together and had all things in common

05:35

They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need so they're taking care of each other

05:43

And at the end verse 47, it says that they praising God and they're having favor with all the people

05:51

Right their action their conduct as a local church as the first church was impressive

05:58

To those around them it was attractive to those around them They actually found favor with everyone in Jerusalem So, let's start for a moment, so there's the six studying together sticking together praying together shepherded together

06:18

Taking care of each other and take and and having a concern even for those outside of the church

06:23

So I'm going to start here with a moment of self -reflection. Let's ask ourselves How we Bethlehem Bible Church do these six things?

06:31

Okay, so I want to ask who can give me a positive example of a good example of a good example?

06:37

The first one how we study the word together, Michael And home group.

06:43

All right, great. Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah, true

06:58

Yeah home group probably touches a lot of the others, but we'll stick with the as an example of studying the word together

07:03

We get together. There's sort of a Structured, you know, most of the home groups are going through a book A book of the

07:09

Bible or maybe they're studying a Christian book together right like my home group. We've done both over the time and So we're studying the word together and learning it together

07:20

Okay, that's great. All right, how about sticking together? How do we stick together?

07:30

Fellowship and eating come on Andrew yep, right.

07:47

Yes Yeah We do all like to eat.

07:52

Yes There is I used to be part of a Baptist Church and there was a old joke that the the the lost

07:59

Baptist distinct Baptist distinctive was eating buffet eating

08:06

Right, so yes, so we get together on weekends, right we we socialize with those of the church of the church family

08:14

So that's a really great one. All right, number three. How do we? Praying together. What's a good example of praying together?

08:32

Yes Yes, that's a really excellent one, right? We have the prayer requests on BBC announced if you're not on BBC announced

08:38

Please get on it so that you can get those prayer requests right Yeah, Andrew.

08:54

Yep Every morning every Sunday morning at 830 in that back corner room 815 sorry

09:01

See, that's how good We have we have prayer we pray for the service in particular

09:08

That's about to come but also just we Take time to pray for all the various prayer requests that we can think of that have come out over the past Week or few weeks on our

09:17

BBC announced. Yeah, Gary Yes, and home group.

09:23

Also, of course is a great opportunity for Being able to share prayer requests with each other right and pray for each other.

09:30

Okay, uh Being shepherded. Can I get a positive example, please?

09:39

Right pastor Cooley Positive examples only yes Yeah that we definitely here at our church.

10:06

We put a special emphasis on training that the the the elders put a special emphasis on training the men of the church tend to also be

10:14

Leaders of their ministries their families, you know their wives, right? So there's a there's sort of that trickle down of good leadership all throughout

10:27

Okay, how about concern for those in the church? concern for those in the church

10:38

Andrew go ahead. Yep Seasoned members

11:04

Right. Exactly. We when new members join we have them stand up here and my read -off part of the covenant, right?

11:10

And what one of the main parts about that is that we talk about coming alongside one another

11:16

All right to care for one another. How about like a really concrete example of something we do? There's a great one the moving ministry.

11:25

Yep Yep. Yep and Anitra and Meals.

11:32

Yep. That's another big one. Yeah, Janet. I Completely agree with you.

11:42

Yes church discipline is caring for the body and when we do it We are taking care of one another and actually

11:48

I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later So that's a good one Nursery and preschool and why is that being such a blessing for others?

12:03

Yep, right and we're sharing that the Response about I want to call it a burden because it's really fun to take care of kids

12:11

The Responsibility right where so we're kind of rotating through of the parents and some parents are in the back and the other parents are able

12:18

To come out here and participate in the service, right? Yep. All right, and then the last one is concerned for those outside the church

12:31

Evangelizing right, of course, that's important Gary The nursing home ministry is a really great one yet we go and we try to be a blessing to them

12:41

Right, we we have the singing sometimes the kids go and I remember taking my kids when they were really little

12:47

We did like a little Christmas pageant at the nursing home one time. That was a lot of fun Yeah Yes, that's yes.

12:57

We went supporting our missionaries, right? there's both an indirect there in like we support the missionaries who then are

13:05

Ministering and being a blessing to people that will never even meet in person but also just being directly being a blessing and help to our missionaries right and sometimes we do things like organized care packages and Sending love notes to them and things like that right to encourage them.

13:20

All right, so that's great so that's there's there's a

13:26

Sort of marching orders right for the local church Studying the word together sticking together praying together being shepherded by a leadership

13:36

Having concern for those inside the church and having concern for those outside of the church So I tell you this morning about the three

13:45

P's that's gonna be the rest of our outline this morning the three P's of Church, okay of a local church of a good local church and they are philosophy people and program

13:59

Philosophy people and program and they are in that order and that's really important It's really important that they are in that order and I'll explain as I go

14:10

But first is philosophy Philosophy a philosophy

14:15

I'm going to define it as it's the core of values that govern our ministries

14:22

Okay, the core of values that govern our ministries. And so as such a church philosophy represents the church's

14:33

Priorities and shapes virtually all if not all of our ministry decisions

14:41

So if someone asked you what is BBC's philosophy, what would you answer?

14:49

Pastor Steve's not allowed to answer This isn't a test.

14:54

There isn't exactly a perfectly right answer here. But okay, this is Susan. You're holding up the bulletin why?

15:01

Him we proclaim right that's right. We've got it printed right there on the front of the bulletin, right? Kind of a good mission statement there, right of what we're about Anybody else

15:12

What would you say is BBC's philosophy mark, right?

15:23

Yep, our statement of faith, right our statement of faith kind of Encompasses it that it certainly lays out all the doctrine to which we you know

15:31

Ascribe and a statement of faith is very good in that it makes it very clear Not just it both what we believe and also what we do not

15:40

Believe right what we stand for and what we do not stand for. So in a way, it's a it separates

15:45

It's it provides clear boundary and definition for a local church a good statement of faith

15:53

Any other thoughts Someone just said to you like, you know, what is what's BBC about there?

16:00

You know, they're a visitor. They're Thinking about coming to church Okay. Yep Yep elder, that's sort of the the the church government how we organize the church government

16:22

The word is peach boldly in line ballet and what what makes that important? Why is that important? Why do we do it line by line?

16:28

It's good. But look What's the reason for that and we get the whole message right the whole message we don't shy away from The hard stuff in fact, usually when we get to the hard stuff we double down and dig deeper, right?

16:49

We end up on that passage for six months Yeah, Becky, yeah

17:03

Yeah Yes, I'm having a strong emphasis on building strong families, right?

17:18

each individual family is a core component of the church and a church is only going to be as strong as how strong its

17:24

Individual families are and so we're talking about building up strong families, right whether that's a family of one of two or ten

17:33

Is that the biggest one we've got? Okay Yes, Bev Yes, right the one about equipping the

17:44

Saints to do the work of ministry and I'm really glad you mentioned that one because if of all the Things we've said I think that one on this hang all the other things we just said

17:53

Right, we do all those things because we want to equip Everyone to be able to do the work of the ministry, right?

18:01

We're here to grow Disciples grow and mature disciples in Christ We're saying that if we if people are the more people are

18:11

Christ like Right, the more they're growing the more Christ like they are the more they'll be able to serve and to love one another and bring

18:20

Glory to God right which brings me to that which is our clear purpose our clear purpose

18:26

Sorry, our clear purpose is that's how clear it is Sola Deo Gloria right,

18:36

I Need three readers. Can I have three verse readers, please? Mark, could you read 1st

18:43

Corinthians 1031? Becky could you read Psalm 96 1 2 3 and And Jonathan, please read

18:51

Ecclesiastes 1213 this of course very famous comes at the end of a

19:06

Section in which Paul is specifically dealing with eating and drinking and the question of eating meat sacrifice with idols

19:13

So that's why it starts out with this business about eat or drink but really if you take the the point of that passage and you extend it into as you ought to into all things of life as He concludes all things right for the glory of God Becky, right

19:48

Proclamation and we bring glory to God when we proclaim to the whole world what he has done and How great he is when we tell about God and about what he has done

20:02

All right, and last Ecclesiastes 1213 There you go the whole duty of man to fear

20:19

God and to keep his commandments, that's how we bring glory to God And so that Segues into my next thing which is that we as a church part of our philosophy is to follow the greatest commandments

20:34

What are the greatest commandments not the ten? What's the greatest commandments

20:40

Gary? There you go, love

20:46

God with your whole heart mind soul and strength and love God love your neighbor as yourself

20:51

Right though on this are the two Hang all the law and the prophets Jesus said and if you if you think deeply about that, you'll realize that every other command in the

21:06

Bible Derives from those two Right.

21:11

We say when there's a command to Not worship idols, that's Loving God, right?

21:19

You should love God if you would just love God, right? I wouldn't have to tell you to not worship idols

21:24

It's almost like every other commandment not just derived, but it's almost like it's an exposition of those two commandments

21:32

Do not steal Well, if you were loving your neighbor, you would never want to steal from them

21:39

Right, you'd realize that I should not steal from them So stealing is just simply an extent or not stealing it's just simply an extension of loving your neighbor

21:50

Okay, and then lastly what I'll say about philosophy is that we

21:58

We have a function a primary function and we already said it it's to proclaim God's Word And we start with Proclaiming God's Word and the reason we start there

22:10

John MacArthur has a great quote He says we wouldn't know how to worship how to pray how to evangelize disciple shepherd train or serve

22:20

Unless we know what the Word of God says All right, we could we could make it up.

22:25

We could pretend like we know what we should do and just go off and do it But we should start with we need to start with what

22:34

God says about every one of those things So that we would know how to do it and how to do it rightly. All right, so that's

22:44

Philosophy Okay, so philosophy has to come first because it's the core.

22:51

It's the underpinning of everything else that we do But then next comes people

22:57

Number two is people and the reason people come next is because people are the fruit of the ministry

23:03

I just said the philosophy, you know as Bev put it wait, we're we're trying to equip the Saints so thus

23:10

Mature Disciples in Christ are the fruit of what we're trying to do here, right the fruit of our ministry and That brings us back to Acts chapter 2 verses 42 and 47 because this is all about what the people are doing with one another and for one another and how we are acting and behaving and conducting ourselves

23:32

Christ like if you're gonna pick some Adjectives if you saw a church that was doing all these things

23:44

What kind of what kind of adjectives would you say? Would you describe that church as? Obedient, that's a great one

23:54

Heavenly, oh, I like that. Anybody else about graceful

24:05

All right hospitable Blessed Right, they're doing what they're supposed to do and somebody said a minute ago that like when we

24:16

You know are the moving ministry right that that you certainly, you know when you were receiving

24:24

The help of the moving ministry you're getting a blessing But those of us who've done it also would say it's such a blessing to us to get to serve right

24:34

And I'd say that's true of any experience that we do here If you really allow yourself to think about it and reflect on it, you recognize that Getting to do the serving

24:46

Very often you are you find yourself feeling more blessed than you think you're actually blessing someone else

24:52

You almost start to feel guilty I'm getting more blessing out of this than they are above Yeah Yep It's Ridiculous correct.

25:14

Yes that from the outside. It looks it it does it looks ridiculous. It looks surpassing understanding right supernatural

25:23

How are you guys able to act like this? I can't believe that you do all that for each other

25:29

Right. Yeah, and that's great because I was going to mention it later

25:37

But John's 1335 Jesus said by this all people know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another

25:47

Right. That's how we're supposed to be known to the outside world. That's how the world's supposed to notice something different about us is

25:56

How much we love one another? How much we take care of one another I think another one to go back another adjective

26:06

I'll add is that they are Honest They're open with one another we're talking about needs here and fulfilling needs and they're gathering

26:16

Right, they're gathering and so the togetherness if I had to summon all up is that the togetherness of this healthy church

26:22

These six points of togetherness. They are they need to be physical emotional and spiritual

26:32

Right a lot of times people just sort of think of church wrongly as Spiritual togetherness and only spiritual togetherness, but that's not

26:42

God's intention God's design for the local church is for physical and emotional togetherness as well for unity at all levels

26:51

What relationship word does God use to describe his relationship to us?

26:58

What does he tell us to call him father? What does he tell us to call other people in the church?

27:07

Brother and sister Right why we're family?

27:16

Because we're family God doesn't use family terms in the

27:22

Bible lightly He wants us to go to when he says call me father.

27:27

He wants you to think of the best earth example of an earthly father you can possibly think of and then say and guess what

27:34

I'm even better and When he wants you to think of all your brothers and sisters in Christ and think of all the needs and all the ways that brothers and sisters

27:45

Family brothers and sisters are always there for each other and they and he says and you do likewise and do better Do deeper remember when

27:58

Jesus was teaching in a very crowded place and his mother and his brothers came to visit

28:05

Somebody knocks on the door like signals Jesus from the back Right and trying to get his attention and saying hey your mom and your brothers are here.

28:14

What does he say? yeah, and then he points to the whole crowd and he says these are my brothers and sisters right

28:27

And he's not really saying that to demean or or lower his relationship with his earthly family but to elevate the relationship he has with With the church

28:41

I think I stand on safe ground when

28:47

I say that God cares Very much about developing and deepening our relationship with him.

28:53

Everybody agree with me on that? Okay When he was creating the world and everything in it, he already had a plan for ultimate good

29:03

Yes, everybody's good. Keep head nodding good. You know when I read the Psalms for example

29:08

I I can't help but think that when sheep were created or when God designed and created sheep

29:14

I think the perhaps the primary purpose For them was to be ill an illustration to us

29:21

About what we are like as wayward sinners and about what he is like as our Shepherd Yes, they provide wool, but I kind of feel like that's like a happy secondary

29:34

Right, they're there so that God could then write about them in the Bible and call us sheep

29:41

Who are gone astray and we could look at real sheep and be like, wow. Yeah, that is us

29:49

Right, and so in the same way, I think I'm also standing on safe ground when I say that he designed marriage

29:55

To look like our relationship to Christ He designed the family to look like our relationship to fellow

30:04

Christians These were not afterthoughts of God he didn't like it didn't like suddenly occur to him like oh, hey

30:11

You know What's a good analogy for how you should behave in the local churches like be like you're how you are with your brothers and sisters

30:18

No, no Completely the other way around Like family turn to Romans 13

30:30

We'll park here I think for the rest of the time this morning Romans 13 verses 9 and 10

30:36

Sorry, actually 8 9 and 10 you can read Romans 13 8 9 and 10 Jerry go for it.

30:43

All right. So there Paul just explained far better than I was trying to do earlier About how all all these other commandments hang on the idea of loving your neighbor

30:57

All right now here obviously Paul's referring to the moral law Okay, and let me start by thinking let's think of the parable of the

31:05

Good Samaritan Okay, who can give me the cliffnotes version of a parable of parable of the

31:10

Good Samaritan? Walks by yep leaves him on the roadside Yep, right because it's all it's all prompted by a lawyer coming to Jesus and asking who's well

31:19

Who is my neighbor? The one thing that really when I was reading that again one thing that really struck me about that Not only does he leave money with the innkeeper.

31:26

He even tells the innkeeper and if He incurs more expenses than this

31:32

I'll come back and pay Right, like he's good willing to come I mean,

31:38

I don't know is he planning on traveling back that way or not, right? Like he's willing to come all those circle back and make sure

31:45

That you know, the innkeeper is made whole that the innkeeper doesn't incur any debt over this Right because of what he wants to do

31:51

He want he so wants to take care of this person, right? and as Mark was saying the reason it was the most surprising of the choices is because The Jews and the

32:01

Samaritans were like this with each other, right? They were kind of like rival countries at that time

32:09

They hated each other. They had conflicting ideas of who God was how to properly worship him right

32:20

Now from all that who are we to conclude our our neighbors? Right.

32:25

I mean, I don't expect to meet any Samaritans in my lifetime They do still exist by the way, you can look it up, but they but we'll move along quick But but you know,

32:34

I don't expect to meet any so who am I to conclude our my neighbor who God has in our path?

32:43

right, so literally anyone everyone Any and everyone?

32:50

right, so thus for sure we should recognize here that when

32:55

Paul obviously is referring to the moral law of Love your neighbor as yourself that he's talking about an obligation that we love really any and all people who come into our life that God brings into our life, but I'm also reminded as I already quoted of John 1335 where he said by this all people will know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another and I'm Thinking to myself we better really be loving our church family

33:23

Okay. Yes, we should love all But we really better be loving our church family and so if someone asks you now

33:33

New member comes along and says could you define love for me?

33:38

What does that mean? How am I supposed to love? My brothers and sisters in this church

33:45

What would you say? Putting others before ourselves

33:55

Pretty good. I don't know if we can improve on that Thanks, Becky Yeah, John Right caring for their physical spiritual emotional needs.

34:11

I mean, you're all smart. You knew not to say Oh, well to have you know, happy warm feelings towards them

34:18

Right because love biblical love is action It's a verb

34:24

Right, you got to do stuff in order to show love how

34:30

I Often have said my kind of favorite pithy saying here is that biblical love is when you are the least important person in your life

34:40

When you are the least important person in your life That's biblical love.

34:47

All right, and so it means that at any moment I don't want to say like any in all moments, but that when you have a choice between Serving yourself or serving others you choose serving others, right?

35:05

and the great promise the great truth The sort of counter cultural flipped on its head thing that no one would expect is that it turns out that serving others

35:20

Very much results in serving yourself right blessing yourself as well. Yes, Bev. Mm -hmm.

35:36

Oh Yeah, sure, yeah, well, but then you're not loving your family the way you ought to so yeah

36:09

Yeah Yeah, I love that yeah

36:20

Then we we ought to love we ought to like it's almost like a goal of our act love actions You know something we can be thinking about is how can we love them in a way that makes them more dependent on Christ Kind of points them make keeps them looking upwards right pushes them in the to grow more

36:40

Christlike. Yeah All right. I just want to very quickly mention or I'm almost running out of time

36:46

But Paul here lists four different commandments right adultery. Not a do not commit adultery.

36:51

Do not murder. Do not steal do not covet I just want to zoom in real quick on the fourth one about do not covet and the reason

36:57

I want to zoom in on Is because I think it's really important in church life Especially in our church life because you know

37:04

James Boyce. He puts it this way He says the biggest problem with covetousness is not the trouble.

37:10

It gets us into however bad that is It is rather that it makes us insensitive to the needs of other people and he

37:20

Rather that it makes us insensitive to the needs of other people He explains for instead of helping us to see who they are and what their needs are

37:30

Covetousness makes us jealous of others with the result that we only see what they have and We want it

37:40

You get that I mean we should be looking for what is missing in their lives

37:46

Where the gap is how we can help There but instead covetous puts the focus on what's present in their lives and makes us think about our own gaps instead and Covetousness is just it's a awful sin because it's so it just creeps in right.

38:09

It's insidious. I Always picture it sort of like nipping at my heels Just because I can

38:16

I don't know about you, but it's certainly true of me. I can just so easily slip into Thoughts of jealousy without even realizing.

38:24

I'm doing it. They don't even sound at first like a jealous thought But I realize

38:30

I say to myself like oh, you know so -and -so. It just looks like they've got their everything their family They just got it together

38:37

They show up every Sunday morning, and they're all dressed in matching outfits. I don't know Everything looks great.

38:46

I wish I could do something like that. I wish I could be like them right kind of It sounds kind of positive at first but if you really think about it is

38:59

Jealousy and it blinds our eyes to see the opportunities to help to serve and to support and how can we truly love others?

39:07

If we can't even see the opportunities in the first place, so I'm gonna leave you. I've only got a few more minutes left

39:12

So I'm gonna leave you with my prescription Okay, my prescription for in order for us to be able to spot these opportunities to put brotherly and sisterly love into action

39:22

Seasoned members of BBC here's the three things we need to do okay, and we need to resolve to do them continuously

39:31

Very consciously we need to keep these kind of things at the very forefront of our minds Especially when we come together here in this building

39:40

Okay, because this is the this is the time where we're really able to come together to see those opportunities if nothing else

39:47

Sunday morning Services is when we really need to put these into action, but hopefully all the time, but let's let's talk about it

39:54

Right three things one forgive Forgive and please forgive quickly

40:02

So that no bitter grudge gets in the way of any opportunity to love This is why

40:08

Paul admonishes the church right to to not Partake or hastily partake in communion if they've or fellowship meals with one another if they've got some kind of unresolved conflict

40:20

He's doing it because you know he talks about it because he wants those conflicts to be resolved quickly Janet very early on in the class today talked about church discipline.

40:28

What's the very first step in church discipline? Does anybody remember Matthew 18 15 the very first step to confront them and Jesus says and if they repent?

40:40

He says congratulations. You have won your brother, right? Here's the thing

40:46

Maybe you didn't realize this That ought to be happening every day in our church

40:53

Every day is Your husband or wife or best friend part of this church

41:01

Yes Do you need to confront them sometimes about sins in their lives? Yes Right that's happening every day all the time church discipline all the time

41:15

That's a healthy church for that to be happening if we're ignoring that if we're not doing that we're an unhealthy church

41:24

And I want you to gain your brother and sister for Christ Okay, so forgive number one number two listen

41:35

Listen and listen carefully. I knew someone in my old church in Pittsburgh She had the spiritual gift of sensitivity

41:47

I would sort of joke that she could be across the room for me and Ask me how

41:53

I'm doing and I would be like fine, and she would know Somehow that it was not fine today right and She would use that to just you know immediately reach out to those people and see how she could help them

42:11

Find out what was going on? Whenever we gather as a church community We need to treat someone sitting or standing alone as an emergency

42:22

Okay an emergency We cannot have Clicks happening in our church where we stand together in our little kind of clusters of three to five people

42:34

And then there's one person over there in the corner standing by themselves not talking to anybody our friends can wait sometimes

42:44

All right, let's not leave anyone standing by themselves, and let's talk and let's listen take notes if you have to Tony Merida I've been reading this book about how to love your church by Tony Merida, and he has this great suggestion

42:59

He talks about planning your week on Sunday evening Based at least on part in what you heard in church that morning

43:06

He says look for opportunities every week to do good to others Can you imagine what would happen in your church if everyone spent time planning ways to bless each other?

43:18

Okay, so that's number two is listen listen is how we're gonna Know what needs there are and how we can serve and then number three and this might be the hardest one is be vulnerable vulnerable

43:34

Because just like I said about my friend in Pittsburgh I answered fine

43:41

When I wasn't fine pride pride is another enemy of love because it puts you in the mindset in the position of Being unable to accept love gifts from your brothers and sisters

43:58

All right, and not everyone has that spiritual gift of sensitivity

44:06

There are brothers and sisters who want to help who want to love on you, but they just don't know how

44:13

They don't know what's going on in your life and so we've got to put away the pride that worries what others are gonna think of us because we're struggling with something and I don't even mean giant struggles.

44:27

We got to talk about small ones and big ones all at the same time right because You know whether we're struggling with something physical or emotional material

44:40

Monetarial whatever Right we got to be honest and open with our brothers and sisters I don't mean that we have to stand up here at the front of the room and announce it to the whole congregation

44:52

But you know this is another big plus for home groups right about what makes home groups so great

44:58

It's a smaller group a group that you can be more. I you know build a really close relationship with maybe

45:03

It'll be a little bit easier for you to share What's going on in your life with that group of people right or you just say it to one person here in the building at?

45:13

some point On a Sunday morning right if we can't even admit our faults and needs to the people who understand how?

45:23

They understand best how fallen and imperfect we all are Right and how gracious God is so if we can't even do that to those folks

45:33

Then there is no one we can open up to But listen hey brothers and sisters if I just got folks to be more vulnerable and open with you now.

45:42

It's really on you to actually respond When they do To really do the right thing and that goes back to number two listening

45:52

Because if someone opens up to you with a real need and you ignore it or joke it off because it feels awkward and do nothing

45:59

They're not gonna do that again, and here's what the

46:06

Apostle John has to say about that. I'll conclude with this first John chapter 3 16

46:17

John says by this we know love that he laid down his life for us And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers

46:23

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him

46:29

How does God's love abide in him little children let us not love in word or in talk?

46:35

But indeed and in truth All right So that's my challenge for all of you today as we go into this break now between Sunday school and service

46:44

As we greet one another in chat there, and then again after service when we're fellowshipping with another Let's at least do one or two or even all three of these things forgive

46:55

Listen in plan and be vulnerable and share Thanks, let's pray Heavenly Father Thank you so much for the people of this church

47:06

I Am continually struck by what an amazing church family you have put together here in West Boylston just the great diversity of backgrounds of talents of skills of Needs of how we can serve one another and serve those around us

47:29

Father may we bring gospel love to each other and to the people who you bring into our lives