Meeting Our Individual Responsibilities Without Practicing a Social Gospel

Introduction

When you walked into the building this morning, you probably met some people that were friendly, that greeted you, that said hello, that talked to you, that visited with you. You probably met some people from different walks of life. Some that are nurses, some that are teachers, some that are doctors, some that are retirees, some that are parents, some that are people just like you and from different walks of life. You probably noticed when you walked into the church building this morning that there was an air conditioner and there were lights and there were restrooms, things keeping in harmony with building codes that you had seen when you came in.

But you probably also noticed if you had walked around for a while that there are plenty of classrooms for the for all ages of kids, but you’re not going to find a gymnasium. You’re not going to find a church kitchen. You’re not going to find a uh some sort of uh physical entertainment center. You’re not going to find a family life center. You’re not going to find those things. And that might intrigue you just as it intrigues many people in the community in which we live to say, “What kind of church is this?

This seems to be such a peculiar church, a strange church, a church that believes in uh the Bible, believes in uh spiritual things, but yet for some reason seems to not do so many things that the world roundabout in various denominations does. And you might be asking yourself the question, why is that? Why do we choose to do that? Do we choose to be deliberately different? I would honor the Bible and say, “No, we choose to be deliberately biblical.”

There are many people that have a lot of different opinions on what we should do with our church funds and what the elders should do as they attribute the funds that they raise by giving. Uh the men were cheerfully giving just like we talked about in our giving. Uh a and we ask what are those funds used for? The church here at the Church of Christ at South Bumby has elders that use the funds for evangelism. They support brother Sean Jeff and I locally and then a number of other preachers the world over.

We could call them missionaries or those in foreign soils and some local in the country to help spread the gospel message. They send funds directly to them so that they can share uh the gospel story wherever they are. the truth story that is from the gospel and the master’s pages. They also use the funds to buy class material and evangelistic things. Tons of evangelistic effort has been put in uh to spreading the gospel here locally. And they do that and then of course things to edify us, to build us up uh and to encourage us to hear.

But then someone would ask, well, what about those other things? What about those things such as uh going out with people and having a meal together and socializing and and being friendly with people outside of services? Isn’t there some way we have to meet those other commands such as hospitality and meet those other commands such as friendliness and meet those other commands such as uh being with one another. And I would say yes and that is what this lesson is for this morning.

This morning I want to talk about meeting our individual responsibilities without practicing a social gospel. A social gospel. What’s he talking about? Lots of churches use that in a lot of different ways and they mean lots of different things in different denominations. One denomination says this is a social gospel. Someone else says this or that or this. So what does he mean? I basically am basically saying this. We have certain things that God has commanded we, me, I as an individual to do that is different than what he’s commanded the church to do.

And often what will happen is people will uh have a work that is given to the individual to do and it’s guised under the opaces of a mission program that they say the church will do that and they say the church is basically going to do what I’m really supposed to do. There’s a lot of things as a responsible Christian I’m supposed to do and so I want to make sure I do that. Here in the passage of scripture of John chapter 6, we have a unique passage of scripture that’s important.

Jesus saw a need for his followers at that time to have a meal and he provided that for them. However, the next day these starving people came back not to see the miracle. They didn’t care about the miracle. They came because they wanted to be filled in their bellies. And Jesus called him out on it. It says, “On the following day, the people were standing on the other side chasing Jesus. They found him and they chased him down. And Jesus answered them in verse 26.

He he said, “You’re not seeking me because of a miracle. You’re seeking me because you saw a sign not, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” Then he says, “Don’t labor for the food which perishes, but labor for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him.” He then says in verse 63, he says, “It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profitth nothing. The words that I give you or speak to you, the words are spirit and they are life.

Jesus of course cares about people but he also cares about our understanding of what is my responsibility and what is the church’s responsibility. My responsibility is very important and the church’s responsibility is very important but we don’t believe as the church of Christ here locally as far as I understand from what the elders have told me we don’t believe that we should uh take the church’s role to save souls the church’s role to have a spiritual guidance for giving people spiritual things that is the spiritual bread of life and then smother that with physical stuff.

I mean, it’d be nice to have a meal and enjoy a meal and visit with one another, but the church’s noble purpose is to save souls. The church’s noble purpose is to do things of a spiritual nature, not a physical nature. Now, I have a responsibility. I have a responsibility as an individual to do many things. And we must ask, what is my responsibility as you’re writing notes? And what is the church’s responsibility? My responsibility is to be all I can be for the Lord and help others see Christ.

1. View Hospitality as Non-Negotiable

To live for the Lord and help others. And the church’s responsibility is is to save souls as well. But can both of these be met scripturally and independently? Let’s look at hospitality. When it comes to hospitality, turn in your scriptures to Romans 12 9-13. In Romans 12 9-13, the scriptures read this. Let this is behavior like a Christian, behaving like a Christian. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhore what is evil or hate what is evil and cling to what is good.

Be kindly to a affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, and given given verse 13 to hospitality. Someone might say, well, what is hospitality? Is that just feeding people? No, that’s certainly not what it just means is feeding people.

We have in the United States of America something called the hospitality industry. It’s the idea of food and shelter and uh resort motel and fancy restaurants, basic restaurants, things that meet the needs of people that come to Orlando from all over the world. And the the original word hospitality is the idea of welcoming to strangers or welcoming to people that are from various walks of life. The original word comes from the word felosenos. Felos is one of the word for love. In the Bible we have the word felia, the city of brotherly love.

And we are to love xenos those from other countries just like we love those of our own. Felosenos in its original word means love of the stranger or love of the one that’s visiting to us. And so as a individual Christian, I have the responsibility that when a when someone from the community comes in who’s from some other place, uh maybe they’re from another town, maybe they’re from another country, maybe they speak a different language, I have the responsibility as an individual to view my hospitality with them as non-negotiable.

I see them, I think, hey, would you like to go out to eat? Can I take you out to a restaurant? Would you like to come into my home and have a meal? uh would you like to uh go over here and socialize and uh have have uh communication here? We can uh get together. The idea there is you’re viewing your care for them as non-negotiable. When you see someone who is not like you because they’re like, well, what what’s the church about here? What what are these Christians like here? What do they stand for? What do they believe in? And you say, I’ll tell you about that. Let’s go out for a meal. You’re viewing your hospitality as non-negotiable.

If you were to look at chapter 6 and verse 22 in Romans, turning back a couple of pages, Romans chapter 6, verse 22 through uh 26, it says, “Now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and to the end everlasting life.” This is Romans chapter 6 verses 22- 23. There’s a error on the board. 22- 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We need to be the type of people that show people that we are no longer of the world, but of God.

We’re no longer slaves of sin, but servants of God. And part of our service, note the uh on the board, that’s 22- 23. And look at that passage of scripture. We see that is important. Okay. When we turn to John chapter 6 verse 51 and John ⁠6:33-35 John chapter 6 33-35 scripture reading It says in John ⁠6:33-35, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” That’s John ⁠6:33-35. They said to him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.”

One of the most significant things we have about the scriptures before us is a God who finds a way to make sure we will not go spiritually hungry. We will not go spiritually lacking in the faith. We will not go spiritually uh without the spiritual blessings that he has given us. His spiritual bread is there for us and he gives us a way to find the bread of life. And in verse 51 it says, “Jesus said,”I am the living bread which came from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, that’s spiritual.

He will live forever and the bread that I shall give is my flesh which I shall give for the life of the world.” Clearly, that’s not talking about physical bread. And we need to remember that. And then in verse 63, it says, “It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profitth nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.” But for a moment, I want to talk about hospitality for a second. I want to talk about that welcoming attitude that we have in our culture.

That’s not normal. Okay? In our culture, it’s not normal for someone you’ve never met before to all of a sudden be someone you just befriended. That’s different. That’s unique. But it’s Christian. If you remember in Acts chapter 2, when the disciples were just new, you might say they were fledgling in the faith, they were little, they were early on Christians. We sometimes talk about Acts 2 as the early church. It says, “For they continued steadfastly in the apostles’s doctrine and in the breaking of bread and in prayers.”

And then in the next verse it says, “And they met house to house, helping one another, distributing as people had needs, meeting with one another, going and visiting one another and being together with one another.” In Acts chapter 2, they use the phrase breaking of bread in two different senses. One, the passage uses the idea of the term breaking of bread in the sense of spiritual eating of the Lord’s supper. That’s what they did when they came together as a church.

And then it shows a distinction as to how they broke bread as an individual house to house. Just like Jesus did the same thing during the Passover. During the Passover meal, he broke bread and had a meal with them. But then after supper, saying he instituted the Lord’s supper, and every time after that, they had a distinction between that. They had a distinction between that. Some would say, “Well, what about that meal?” They had them both at the same time at the same place.

Yes, but that’s not how the early church continued steadfastly doing it once they established the church. That was in the establishment of the Lord’s supper, not in the establishment of the church. That was in the beginning phases of Jesus making the distinction. And he uses the phrase after supper saying at the beginning of it, he had to show them this is different. This is not the Passover meal. We’re not celebrating the Lord’s supper at the time of the Passover.

We’re celebrating the Lord’s supper. Acts ⁠20:7 on the first day of the week when the disciples gathered together to break bread those two breaking of breads were for the Lord’s supper. And so that was one of the reasons they came together. We also need to recognize that if we are going to meet our individual responsibilities without practicing a social gospel, saying, “Well, I’m going to do what I can to serve the Lord, uh, be biblical in my teaching, be biblical in my activities.

2. Offer Scriptural Solutions Rather Than Complaining

Well, what else should I tell the church or how else should I relate to the people in the church where I worship?” One is this. We need to make sure we offer spiritual and scriptural solutions rather than complaining. Um, someone says, “Well, what do you mean by this?” I have a lot of scriptures for this, but before we do that, I want to say a few things. We need to be the type of people that have a solution rather than a complaint. Some people I remember in the gospel meeting that we just had with Roger Sha, he did a good job.

Amen. Amen. And in his sermon, he said there was some people that were that were saying, “Praise God. Praise God. Praise God.” After everything he after everything the guy said in the sermon, and someone said, “Well, this is a quiet church and we don’t praise God here.” I thought that was so funny because some people, they don’t like amens or they don’t like that uh endorsement of scripture thing. They’re used to things a certain way and they’re not willing to change.

But some people will say things like this. Well, why don’t we have quote unquote things for the kids? We see them running around here. Why don’t we just build them a gymnasium? Or better yet, if we don’t want to spend the money to build a gymnasium, why don’t we just put a basketball hoop up and just let them play basketball right in the yard because that’ll give them energy. They can run off and they can go play basketball. I’ll tell you why. We don’t have scriptural authority for it.

But we do have scriptural authority to have a solution rather than complain. We can say, “Hey, I like to play basketball. Why don’t you guys come over to my house and we’ll shoot some hoops?” For those of you who know the Jeffre, are they here right now? Any of the Jeffre? There’s one over here. He can play basketball. That guy’s play hoops better than me. He’s a good basketball player. How do I know that? Well, I I play basketball with him. Uh football. Yurus.

He can play some football. I play football with Yurus. Why? How do I know that? We got together outside of services at a picnic at a park and we played football. I think Cody was there. There were different ones that were there and we got together and we played a sport outside of services. Why? Because that’s outside of services. And so rather than complaining saying, “I don’t have anything for the kids.” Do stuff for the kids. Make a commitment to say well I can do that.

There’s a signup sheet on the board on the in the hallway and it has nothing to do with the works of the church in the sense of what we do as a church, but individual members say this on the board. Hey, I’d like to take uh a time where they can where young people can come into our home and we can have a Bible study and have something in our home, something to do in our home. There’s another thing in the board. It says a togetherness activity just to get them together to have fun.

There’s another activity on the board that it says uh to do outreach types of things to look in the community and see what’s there and see what can they do. That’s an individual thing. Let’s offer solutions. Don’t say why don’t we put up a basketball goal in the church parking lot, but say, “Hey, this weekend we’re inviting all the guys to play basketball to the park. You bring your favorite basketball, we’ll supply the power aids and the sandwiches.” No church is going to pay for it. It’s just going to be an activity that is a scriptural individual activity just done the right way.

Someone says, “What’s this right way?” Churches all over the world are paying and providing uh recreational activities. What do you mean the right way? 1 Corinthians ⁠16:1-2, the funds were used for the saints. 2 Corinthians ⁠8:4 and ⁠9:1, they were used to the saints. In 2 Corinthians ⁠8:14 and ⁠9:12 for the ones of the saints in Romans 15 and and verse 26 the usage of church funds was used for the poor among the saints in Acts chapter 6:es 1 and two it was used for the widows or their widows of the saints the funds were used in that way in 1 Timothy 6 1-16 it doesn’t just say any widow it was given to but to widows indeed And if you look at that passage that’s on the board as well, it gives a specific explanation of some of the ways the widow’s character was vouched for that showed why they helped that widow.

Oh, that’s pretty specific. In 2 Corinthians ⁠8:13-14, it talks about the way it was given to the saints there once again. And some people say, “Well, why not just have a charity? Why not just uh have someone calls you up on the phone and says, “Um, hey, uh, Mr. Preacher, uh, I have a need. I I’m I’m out. My electric bill, I can’t pay it. And is there a charitable organization connected with your church who can pay it?” I’ll say, “No, there’s not.

We make no apology for that either. There are plenty of men and women in the church that care about you, but we’re not going to use the church’s funds for something we don’t have authorization for. If you need help with your bill, I might be able to help you. As an individual, I might be able to. And if I’m not, somebody else might be able for you to to have that taken care of. But church funds are used in a very limited sense in the Bible. And the scriptures that we use to determine that are used to determine that from the Bible, not from my drawing forth of the scriptures.

Uh also Philippians chapter ⁠4:15-16 talks about how they support preaching or giving to a preacher. 2 Corinthians ⁠11:7 does as well. 2 Corinthians 11:es 8-9. That’s a passage of scripture that talks about wages being given to a preacher in 2 Corinthians 11 8-9. And then 1 Timothy 5 17 and following talks about wages being given to an elder where it says, “For you shall not muzzle the ox while it treads forth the grain.” And then makes the recognition that that passage of scripture is talking in regards to elders that are sometimes supported by the flock.

And then in that context, in that same context, he’s sometimes talking about the idea of those that are an elder and a preacher at the same time are worthy of double honor and are worthy of their wages. We’ve had preachers from time to time that also sometimes meet the qualifications of elder. Not all the time that happens, but sometimes they do. I think of brother Hart Rider who was an elder here for a very long time and also a very able and capable gospel preacher. And so in that context, he would be supported from the scriptures.

He is scripturally supported from the giving of the saints. What I’m trying to say here is when you look at these scriptures, the ways church funds were distributed were utilized in a very limited sense. Someone says, “Why is that?” You ever had a famine? You ever had a hurricane? You ever had a uh story where somebody calls you? I know Sean’s got one of these calls. Our roof just collapsed or something drastic happened to a church building overseas, right?

uh or we don’t h I mean just some famine something happened. What do you do in those circumstances? There actually are plenty of scriptures that talk about that in the New Testament as well. There are passages of scriptures that mention that. And those passages of scriptures we’re going to talk about for just a moment are in regards to uh Acts ⁠11:27-30 and Romans ⁠15:25-26. In benevolence, churches used God’s funds in benevolence in a very specific way.

Either from the church directly to the local preacher or from the church directly to an individual church and directly to another individual church to help saints in need from among themselves in Acts 6 1-6 and Acts ⁠11:27-30. In Romans ⁠15:25 and 26, there was a church and then another church and another church that gave directly to a church in time of famine relief. But there was never, hear this, there was never a sponsoring church or in between church that all these little churches says, “Well, we’re just going to go give our monies to this one church and they’ll figure out how to distribute our funds to others.”

That would be like saying, “Well, the Jerusalem church is the mother church. We’ll just send it all to Jerusalem and have them distribute the funds.” It wasn’t done that way. You might say, why get so technical? Why get so bogged down in that? Because we’re trying to make sure whatever we do is due diligence with that which we’ve been given and blessed with and giving and sharing in the right way. And so a scriptural solution rather than complaining about this is to say we are very grateful and thankful for our elders that have studied this that have taken pains that have been very cognizant of the the ways church funds were used in the Bible and then have a solution for this.

If there is something that an individual can do to alleviate another individual in the world, well, by all means do it. If they’re a member of the church and they need help from time to time, well, by all means, we might be able to help a poor individual or a widow indeed from time to time. And if there’s a situation where uh preachers need supported, there’s a biblical way to do that because if it’s not done the scriptural way, the funds get diminished and they’re not used in the appropriate times when certain things arise in the world in which we live in in which a big issue arises.

3. Don’t Cling to the Comforts of Current Maturity

It also helps simply to know that we’re just following God’s way. If you just wanted to look at it in that way, someone says, “Well, I don’t know about that. It sounds good. Can it be followed?” It can be followed and it should be followed and it should be kept. Someone says, “Well, I’m I’ve not really been all that hospitable. I’m not one to really have a lot of people into my home or invite others out and about.” Well, here’s a third thing we can do uh to meet our individual responsibilities without practicing a social gospel, and that’s don’t cling to the comforts of the current level of maturity.

Look at Hebrews chapter 5, ⁠8:9. Hebrews chapter 5. And if you’d like my PowerPoint slides, I’ll be happy to give them. Uh, remember though if I’m going to go back to one slide, this Romans ⁠12:9-13, it should have the word John after that slash up there. So, I can write that in there if you need that in your notes. John ⁠6:22-26, 333-35, verse 51 and 63. I can get you that uh corrected on the notes to make sure it’s proper if you’d like that. But also in Hebrews chapter 58,9 the scriptures say this.

It says the as Jesus was obedient as a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered and having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him, called by God as high priest. And then Hebrews chapter 5:es 12 uh through 63 says this. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. Yeah. And you’ve come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes solely or only of milk is a baby, unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food belongs to those who are full age, mature, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to maturity. Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works of faith towards God. He’s saying, I’m not just going to talk about faith. Part two, verse two, the doctrine of baptisms.

I’m not going to talk about baptism, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. He makes the case for us that we’ve got to grow. We’ve got to become wiser and do a little more. We’ve got to realize with our faith, we can do a little more. You know, I know there are a lot of people that are visiting here that are hearing this message and have come from various backgrounds. Some have come from backgrounds where people have eaten in the church building in a uh fellowship hall. Some have come from the background where people have played basketball at a church uh gymnasium.

Some of us here who are here together have been in congregations where they’ve done that in the congregation where it was, saw that it was unscriptural, and then stopped doing it. And then some of us have been in congregations where they were seemingly following what I’m saying in this sermon, but somebody said, “Well, we don’t like that, so we’re going to change it.” and then you left that congregation and came to somewhere where they weren’t having ball teams and basketball and hamburger church socials and all that.

A and the question that always arises in my heart and in my mind is if that’s the case that we’ve come from so many different backgrounds, why not just do what we know we have authorization to do? We often talk about like the instrument. We say, “Well, we shouldn’t add the instrument because it doesn’t say that we have authorization to, so we don’t do that.” But yet on these other issues, we say, “Well, it doesn’t say one way or the other, so we just go ahead and assume we can do that.”

Why don’t we just say it doesn’t say that we can do those things, so let’s just not do that. And the way I like to explain it super simply is this. Where did God amen the choice? If we find in scripture a place where God said, “Amen, uh, give to the needy saints.” Well, he amen the choice. Well, do it. If you can do it, but did he amen the choice of uh use church funds to be distributed as a charitable organization or to a hospital or to a church college or to uh something like that?

4. Do Not Conflate Missions, Outreach, or Ministry With Social Activities

No. Well, God didn’t amen the choice. He didn’t amen it. He didn’t give his endorsement for it. He didn’t say, “Yes, go ahead and do it.” And if he didn’t, we shouldn’t either. We should only amen those things which God amens. And so this next slide is important too. We need to not conflate the words missions or outreach or ministry with social activities. I was visiting a congregation once and on their article, their like bulletin article, it had all the missions they were involved in and their outreach that they were involved in.

And I thought to myself, this isn’t the way it should be. I didn’t know as a young person exactly the scriptures it should be, but later came to realize Ephesians ⁠4:12 and 2 Timothy 4 offer a really good solution to this. If you look at Ephesians ⁠4:12 and look particularly at what he says and not just gloss over it, but pay close attention to it, the whole context is the chapter 4. But I’ve I’ve given the scriptures in in a certain order. verse 12 first, then back to verse 11, and then verse 13- 16.

I was studying with someone uh just this week who said, “I’ve noticed that when studying in the auditorium class with Sean Jeff that he will not just quote one verse, but we’ll say, let’s look at the scriptures before and after it. Let’s look at what’s called the context. What is surrounding the verse in question? What is surrounding the verse?” And often that will solve a lot of problems simply by reading the whole point of what Paul is trying to say or the other gospel writers says in Ephesians ⁠4:12.

I hope you’re there by now that he says that the purpose of having prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers. The purpose for that is for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. Ministry is a biblical word guys. When we look at the word ministry, that is a biblical word. It means service or activity of a thing. We have in the ministry of uh service in our nation in certain areas where they’ll use the word ministry of a certain organization.

Here in this context, he says back in verse 11 that that ministry is in regards to apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. The equipping of the saints for the work of ministry is not in puppet shows or not in uh programs by which uh people will uh grow in their strength physically or like weightlifting programs. It’s not in the ministry of uh various breaking up of demographics. When you look at verse 11, he’s saying he gave some apostles.

There was a time when that was the way God’s word was spread. Other times prophets, that was the way God’s word was spread. And then later the evangelist, pastors, and teachers. And we are under the era of evangelist, pastors, and teachers. And the reason we’re under that era is that is the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Those other things edify or strengthen, but they don’t stren strengthen the spiritual body of Christ.

While some things strengthen the person of man, they don’t necessarily strengthen the inner man. And so when you look at this verse, now look to verse 13. till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a complete or perfect or mature one, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cutting craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking of the truth and love, might grow up in all things into him who is the head, the Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

The context of the growth and development of the church is internal not external. I don’t know any other verse that makes ministry so clarified as to that than that one. But if you want another one I’ll give you another one. 2 Timothy 4 1-5. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, we learn of the ministry of an individual preacher. And in 2 Timothy 4, we learn of him. Let’s turn there carefully. 2 Timothy 4 1-5. He uses the word charge, which means you have a noble, very bold point that you must follow.

He doesn’t say, “Hey, I think this is a good idea, Timothy.” He doesn’t say, “Hey, you’re a preacher, so you know, sometimes you say what they want to hear. Sometimes you say what you think they want to hear.” No, he says, “I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.” And there’s an exclamation point. He doesn’t say, “Preach part of it.” He says, “Preach the word.” And what we just studied from Ephesians ⁠4:12, 111 and 13-16 is important.

It’s telling us what the ministry is internal, not external. He says, “Be ready in season, out of season, convinced.” Hopefully, these scriptures will help convince you. you’ve not studied before. Rebuke, I can say wholeheartedly that rebuke is not something that’s often done loudly and screaming and boisterous to be an effective rebuke. I remember the guy and where’s Rachel? There’s Rachel who came into a church building where we were once. He walked in and I think he told Rachel or somebody else, he said, “Finally, I can walk into a place that’s called the house of God and I don’t smell coffee.

It’s a place where they’re actually here to study the word of God, not just socialize and drink coffee. I think this is the place I need to be. I I don’t know how else to say it any clearer than that. It it’s the idea here of understanding that his rebuke was not a rebuke of us. It was a rebuke of what he had been through where he thought that some people all they gather together to do is to focus on the wrong focus. Now listen carefully. I know there are people like him that hadn’t seen anything different.

He didn’t know there was anything different. He just figured that was the common trend and that was the common denominator. As one person said in Latin, that’s the status quo. It is what it is and that’s what’s going to be in the religious world. It doesn’t have to be that way. People don’t do that in Africa under a tree. They come together to worship the Lord and to sing songs of praises and to do the same thing we’re doing now. And physical things are not spiritual things.

Neither is ministry social. Ministry or service is being a minister or it’s always religious. If you’ve ever some in the audience have preached or are preachers and some listening for sure are preachers and someone will be talking to you and they will be using the most wildly bad flagrances of verbal particular choices of their words. And they’ll say, “And what do you do for a living?” You go, “I’m a preacher.” They go, “Oh, sorry about my language.

Excuse my language. I didn’t mean anything I said.” And I’m like, “Didn’t have any problem doing it before God. He’s everywhere. He sees what you’re doing. You had a problem doing it before me. I’m a whole lot less than God. You need to watch your language, sir. I mean, when you when you hear that type of that type of usage of the phrases, you should recognize that the usage of words is is important. Physical things are not spiritual and spiritual things are not not physical.

It’s important that we recognize this. It’s a sad thing though. Let me show this next picture. I’m getting choked up. I’ve actually I’ve actually wondered, should I even show these pictures here, but I’m going to I know no other way to explain this and express this. I got a little tongue tied as I was thinking about what people tell me because this isn’t my gospel. This isn’t my my design. It’s not something I came up with. We’re supposed to meet our individual responsibilities without practicing a social gospel.

logically how church worship is interpreted to those who see socializing is the main focus. This is how it’s interpreted. Look at these pictures. I don’t know if this one has a laser pointer, but I’m going to try to see if it does. There a laser pointer on there. No. Okay. So, there’s not, but just look at this picture up above. There’s a church building in the top left corner and in front of it are one, two, maybe 10 tents that are full of just worldly activity and they’re larger than even the building itself.

Then down below you have another picture. It’s really happy scene, joyous scene, almost looks like a wedding. You have people dancing. You have people with drums. You have people eating. You have tents. And then there in the background’s the church building. Then on this other side, you have one that says, “You’re invited to a free community meal.” And then in little letters, I got to zoom in to find it. It says prayer time and community needs assessment.

But in larger letters, on July 20th, they’re having a community block party with food, inflatables, and music at the Legacy Church, to which I cut off the uh uh the location of where that is. You can look at it later if you want. I’m not trying to single anybody out. The sad thing is people go into the world looking for a way out of the world only to go back into the world. I said that people go out of the world trying to go to church services trying to figure out how to get out of the world only to get back into the world when they get into the church building and around the church building.

Conclusion

No, the church building quote unquote is not quote unquote holy ground or holy territory, but it is a place where in righteousness should be preached and taught. What if you’re not a Christian? Is there a way for you to become one? Is there a way for you to become a child of God? There certainly is. We did talk mostly about things to those that are older and wiser, to those that know that we need to view hospitality as non-negotiable, that we need to offer scriptural solutions rather than complaining about the situation, that we need to not cling to the comfort of the current level of maturity and to not conflate the words mission and outreach and ministry.

But there’s also you. You may be here for the first time or for uh a time or two before and you may say, “Well, that’s for the older mature. What do I need to do to even just become a Christian?” Those may be the truths of God’s word in regards to more heavy matters, but what do I do in order to be saved? What must I do to be saved? Is that answerable through the scriptures? And to that, I would say yes, it is. For faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Romans ⁠10:17. First thing you need to do is hear the word of God. Not something someone says about the word of God, but the word of God itself. Hear it. Believe Jesus Christ is the son of God. John ⁠3:16, probably the world’s most familiar verse. Repent of your sins. Acts ⁠2:38. Confess the name of Christ. Acts ⁠8:37. Be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Acts ⁠2:38 and then remain faithful to the Lord. If we can help you become a Christian this morning, we’re going to give you that opportunity even now while we stand and sing.