Tim Bunting

Introduction

As I mentioned at the beginning of our service, we have a guest speaker, Brother Tim Bunting comes to us from the New Jersey, New York area. We’re excited to have him here. He is one of the men that we support through your generosity of your contributions each and every Lord’s Day. We’ve been supporting him for I think close to 15 years now. Prior to that, his father Don Bunting is another preacher that we support in the New York area. And uh Tim went to college and on to New York City. He may tell you some about this during his talk and eventually made the decision to devote uh full-time work to preaching the gospel, at which time we picked up his support as well. Um so his wife Michelle and their um one and a half-year-old Sammy is here with him.

We ask uh many of the men that we support to come and preach for us and give us an opportunity as members to get to know them. We encourage you to avail yourselves of that, uh, not just when they’re here preaching for us, but also uh throughout the the year. Find opportunities to write to them and uh email, Facebook, whatever communication you can um come up with them. Uh if you’re ever traveling in that in the area where the men that we support are living and working, it would be a big encouragement for you to go and worship with them. So at this time, please give your attention to Brother Tim Bunting. I think this podium is uh for taller people, actually. We’ll see what we can do.

Glad you looked up. Uh it is a great, great privilege uh for us to be with you this morning. Um doesn’t hurt that it’s in February. It’s uh it’s beautiful weather, it’s uh beautiful state, and uh most beautiful are the brethren uh that we have here. I’ve been here three or four times before, but not in the last 10 years, and so it’s been quite a quite a while since I’ve been here, and uh as was mentioned, I come under better circumstances. I don’t come alone. I have my my beautiful wife and my son with me, and I’m uh grateful to to share um them with you, and we can share in this work together. Um I think it’s been 17 years. Uh 2007 is when I decided to uh pursue teaching or and preaching full time, and I’m not very good at math, but my calculator told me that was 17 years.

Um in South Bumbi, that you, the brethren here, you have supported me since the very beginning. And that’s a pretty remarkable thing. Uh it’s nearly two decades. There’s only uh one other congregation that’s done that as well. That’s uh our brethren in Bethel or in Bell, Florida, the Bethel Church of Christ. And of course, I you know completely understand reasons why churches begin to support and have to uh withdraw support and make financial decisions. Um that it’s that’s not troublesome at all. But it’s still special uh to have such an ongoing relationship uh and support from brethren. Just to know there’s so much trust and confidence. Um, but it it’s not just trust and and confidence in me. It’s it’s in the Lord and the importance of the work in New York and in New Jersey, and uh I’m happy to to report to you again.

A lot of good things are happening. There is such a great need in the Northeast. There’s such a great need in New York. And of course, it comes with its challenges, and there are challenges in the in every part of the kingdom. But one of the great blessings of working in the Northeast, working in New York, is there is never a shortage of opportunity. There are always people who are seeking, who are looking, and we always have opportunities to share the gospel. And you have a lot more brethren in New York now than you did before. And so I’m grateful to share that with you. So we’ll I’ll share a brief report and then also a lesson. They asked me to do a report and a lesson.

So I won’t do a 45-minute report and then a 45 minute lesson. We’ll kind of combine the two and try to respect the time a bit. But my early years working in New York, again, it was in 2007, I was supported full-time, but really since I moved there, I went to FC to study to study music, moved up to New York to live with my parents.

But Brother Gardner Hall, you might know, uh Sewell Hall’s son, he invited me to teach the young people in a Spanish church uptown, uh Sherman Avenue, uh Church of Christ, uh is how we refer to it. It’s in northern Manhattan. And so I started doing that, and I did that for a couple of years, and the opportunity there was just was huge. I mean, you can see here’s a room full of a bunch of kids. Uh many of these uh young people here are now members of the congregation I’m currently with. Some of these guys, uh, well, one of these individuals is actually preaching full-time at Embry Hills. Uh other individuals are are still still here with us at West Harlem and our teaching and preaching as well.

Um, and so I just really invested in working with the young people until I realized it was a full-time opportunity, uh, wrote some letters and began to receive support to do that. Um, and so that so the majority of my work in the beginning was just working with young people in all the boroughs, except for Staten Island. We don’t really count Staten Island, uh, but all the boroughs, and then also in New Jersey. Um, but it was in uh the winter of 2013 that we began a bilingual work, a new congregation. Uh we meet in uh in in West Harlem, which is also in Manhattan, and this group was started by uh some of the leaders from the Sherman Avenue Church, Gardner, Caleb Roger, and myself, and a number of the members there.

And in the beginning, we were really uh a lot of young people and then older ladies. We had about 30 in attendance to start off with, which that’s a pretty comfortable way to begin a congregation, 30 uh members. Um, but like I said, a lot of young people, and then some older ladies. Um, I was actually the third oldest male in the church. Uh I was 29 at the time. There was another young man who was 33, and then there was Gardner Hall, uh, and all the other men were were younger. So it was a very young group, young leadership. Um, but it was a great opportunity. And the the reason we started the congregation is because the community is just very much bilingual. When you hit 125th Street and north and up into the Bronx, uh it is uh very heavy uh Hispanic population, and so what you find is a Hispanic uh parents who speak Spanish, and then there are children who grow up speaking English in schools.

You even find families where the young with the children don’t really speak Spanish, and the parents only speak Spanish, so it’s kind of a unique situation there. So the point is we didn’t want to, you know, we were a part of Sherman Ave, and we had a lot of young people who spoke English, but we didn’t want to start another English church. We wanted to start a bilingual church, and so that all peoples could really worship and be edified together. And so that’s really suited the community there to work like that. Um so this is uh a more recent picture. Oh, actually, well, this is our building. Uh you can see it’s a little basement storefront here, and then in the top picture, that’s how we’ve kind of organized our uh auditorium space.

We are exceptionally blessed to actually have our own location. We rent this and we have 24-7 access to it, and that’s really an impossibility. Uh to have your own space in Manhattan, uh, the amount of money that would take is is impractical. It’s not really a possibility, but God providentially uh gave us this space. It was actually, it was uh used to be a bodega, it’s a little store, uh little convenience store that was closed down uh because they were using it for drug trafficking, and so it was vacant for a while, and some of our members actually live in this building, were um uh you know leaders in the in the co-op, and you know, basically the building offered that we could have the space at a very cheap price, very cheap, if we renovated it, and so that’s what we did, and so we’ve been there uh since 2013.

The rents increased uh a lot, but it’s still very, very, very far under market, something that we can manage, and uh it’s just been extremely useful. One of the biggest problems in New York is space. If you’ve ever been there, you don’t have enough space to do this, right? You’re gonna hit somebody. And so finding space, finding room is exceedingly challenged. This has been an immensely useful resource. Uh, we’ve been able to do weekend series, and uh when Roger and I do Bible classes, we often meet people here. So that’s been very useful. That’s our auditorium. Uh and we actually recently uh rearranged it. So the the way it’s situated is we uh you know, I’m preaching this direction. The majority of the auditorium is over here, and then there’s a little pocket of people over there.

So it’s kind of an awkward uh setup, but that’s the way that we’ve been able to fit uh more people, and we can fit about 80 people, which is pretty nice. And we’ve had about uh we’ve had some attendance in the 80s on occasion. Um so that that’s our uh worship space right there. Here’s a more recent picture of the group, and you we’ve grown from 30s to about 60s uh in membership, and it’s uh it’s a nice happy bunch you can see there. Um the as far as the you know who makes up the group, it’s become much more diverse in these last years. Um Hispanics from different countries, uh it’s predominantly Dominican, but now there’s a lot more representation of other countries as well, but uh also um uh non-Hispanic countries as well.

As far as language, you know, to me, it seems like we’ve got about 33 percent that are Spanish only, 33 percent that are English only, and 33 percent that are pretty bilingual. And so uh the language is really pretty even, uh, and so that makes things a bit easier for us to function bilingual because, again, there’s just such a natural need for it. As far as our services, we do bilingual services. Everything is translated side by side. So the speaker would say something, and that would be then translated. If the speaker is English, then the translator would translate in Spanish, and vice versa. We have a number of individual individuals who can translate in both languages. So all the scripture reading, all the prayers, the Lord’s Supper, the sermon, all of it is word for word, translated.

Our songs is interesting. It’s kind of hard to sing in two languages at once. But we’ve worked pretty hard to make our own bilingual hymn books. And so we’ve taken other resources and compiled songs. We’ve actually written some of our own, or some songs that are only English or only Spanish. We have then written an alternate version so we can have both uh songs, uh, the song in both languages. Um we’ll sing an English song, then we’ll sing a Spanish song. With for the Lord’s Supper, we’ll do like two verses English, two verses Spanish, and so forth. And so we really do represent the uh both languages equally through our services. And again, because it’s such an obvious need, uh it’s not very cumbersome. Uh in the beginning it seems a little bit clunky, but then you get used to it, and it’s it becomes very natural and it works well for us.

As far as our Bible classes, we uh split up for classes. We’ll have an English class and then a Spanish class. We don’t translate our regular Bible classes, we’ll have English class and Spanish class. Uh, there’s also a kids’ class, and my wife has recently started the baby class for the little little kids. Um, and Sunday mornings, we will dedicate our classes to the theme. Our last year’s theme was family, which I guess you guys are doing something similar to that right now. This year we’re looking at doctrinal unity, the idea of being in agreement and coming, how can we come to know what is truth and accept and teach and preach that truth? And so our Sunday morning classes, the English and Spanish will be on the same theme.

We set up the entire curriculum ahead of time, all the lessons are planned out ahead of time. So we’ll be teaching the same things in both classes on Sundays, but then Wednesdays, it’s really up to the designated teacher what theme he’ll be looking through through the quarter. And just speaking about Spanish in general, so my my years at Sherman Avenue, when I first moved there, you know, I didn’t know a word. You know, I knew the typical food-related words, you know, like taco and enchalada and stuff, right? Uh, but then I learned more food words. I learned Sancocho and Mangu and a whole lot more food. Those the food words are the most important to start off with. Um, but my I was very much exposed to Spanish attending there.

Interestingly, uh singing hymns was one of the ways that I really got familiar with the language because I would see the words in the book and I wouldn’t know what any of them meant, but I would hear everybody singing around me, and that’s how I learned to read and pronounce. And if you’re ever interested in learning Spanish, uh my observation is that Spanish is exceedingly easier than English, because in Spanish, the phonetics they play by the rules. So if you learn, you know, the vowels and the pronunciations, if you see it, that’s how you say it. So I would hear the pronunciations and learn to sing along, and I would develop my accent that way. Now in English, you know, what the letters doing and how it sounds, you know, it’s it uh it’s it’s anyone’s guess.

But Spanish is much much more predictable. So that really helped a lot. So I became exposed to it. I took a few classes here and there, but after we started the bilingual group, um, I became much more interested in trying to better learn Spanish to get a good get a greater capacity to teach and preach in Spanish. Um I didn’t want to sort of try and spend a good bit of time but not really get there. Uh if I was gonna make the decision, I wanted to really commit to it and get to a capacity that would be very useful. So I think in 2015 and 2016, I spent the month of October in Guatemala and did about uh 30 hours a week of private tutoring, and so there really learned the grammar and a lot of the rules.

I had a really good uh teacher who helped me, and so those two uh two months, those two years uh really gave me a great foundation and understanding of what I’ve been exposed to, and it made sense in my head. So since then I’ve been able to develop and grow what I learned then, and uh I I got to the point where I could preach in Spanish, so I started making some trips to different countries, uh, teaching and preaching there. It didn’t make sense for me to do that at West Harlem because we had other teachers who were more capable and it wasn’t worth the clunkiness of my language and sacrificing edification for me to practice. Uh but I developed uh my preaching in other countries, and then pretty soon it got to the level where I was able to start uh teaching the Spanish class, uh uh uh first started off with one quarter, then two quarters.

So now I’m teaching in Spanish at West Harlem nine months of the year. Um at least one Spanish class a week, nine months of the year. So now I’m able to really uh lead in Spanish teaching there, which is useful. I still preach in English uh because it works better that way with translation. But I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful the Lord’s helped me to um uh to be able to do that. Um it’s been very useful, of course. And you know, my my belief before was you know, I need to learn Spanish so I can go to a Spanish speaking country and teach and preach there, and that would be good, and that would be helpful. But what I realized when visiting these countries is they have good Spanish speaking teachers and preachers in a lot of these countries, but we don’t have as many here.

Uh this the Hispanic population has grown so much in this country as uh uh as you’re well aware of. It’s been a major blessing, but it’s also a huge opportunity. But I I found in a lot of areas uh where there’s this growing Hispanic population, there aren’t Spanish-speaking Bible teachers to start congregations or to help uh make bilingual services. And so if if if you’re interested in working in the kingdom and contributing to the kingdom, especially if you’re a young person at this time, man, really consider uh the importance of learning Spanish. Uh because uh, I mean, we’re blessed to to have this growing population in our country and to be blessed uh by the culture that they bring. Uh but we want to make sure that we can play our part and supporting and welcoming uh Spanish speaking brethren, but also uh trying to reach the uh reach the Spanish-speaking lost in this country.

Um, every state now, I hear more and more uh that they’re looking for Spanish-speaking teachers. And you don’t have to do a full-time. Uh, if you can translate, you don’t have to be a full-time preacher. If you’re able to translate, you’ll be able to plug into your congregation and begin helping there. Or if you do want to uh teach from the pulpit as well, then pursue that. But that’s an important need that we have in this country right now. Uh, as far as the congregation in general, um, over these last 10 or so years, uh I think we’ve been greatly blessed for the most part. Um, I think things have gone well. We have not had to deal with any church-wide controversy, uh, no major doctrinal disputes.

Um, brethren in general are uh get along and are happy with one another. Uh there is a great respect for the leaders. Um, Roger and myself, Gardner, we are very trusted by our brethren and very respected in the work that we do. Um, even though our leadership is young, uh, because of how people look to us and respect us, we have a great influence, and we’ve been able to uh lead uh the congregation in a good direction, God willing. Um we I think we’ve seen a growth uh in maturity amongst our brethren. I think there’s a number of brethren, uh I’ll mention two sisters in general, uh and Siomi. And they grew up in Christian homes, but through their young adulthood, they kind of went their own way and maybe squandered some of their years.

But as they grew older, they started to attend again and be active in the church. But when I first knew them at sermon, they were they were nice sisters, they were good sisters, sweet and you know, lovely and all that, but still a good deal of instability and immaturity. Well, when we started the bilingual church, that’s all we had was immaturity and instability. Uh, but these two sisters really grew up uh really quickly, and they were already, you know, in their 50s, but they had an opportunity to be important leaders amongst their brethren there. And that’s what happened. And these sisters, who were always sweet but not necessarily dependable, have become some of the best evangelists and supporters and encouragers in the congregation. And so we’ve just been very encouraged and blessed to have them in our group.

There’s been an increase in Bible knowledge. A lot of these young people I showed you in that previous picture, so many of them now know so much scripture. They really know the Bible from beginning to end in general. And a lot of those young men are now stepping into teaching and preaching roles, which we need.

So we’ve been blessed by that. So special challenges we face, though, as mentioned before, is the limited wisdom and maturity. We don’t have older men. In New York, it’s hard to find good older men, you know, outside of Christianity. Faithful, dependable older men and fathers. It’s very much lacking in the system in the city, but certainly in the church. And it’s in a lot of ways we feel like a young group, and we’re kind of finding our own way. And the Lord’s helping us. Of course, the Lord and His scriptures are what we need, and that’s sufficient. But it’s a struggle to not have older men, older couples. We don’t have older families. We now have a lot more young kids and babies. But a lot of the young couples, again, we’re we’re figuring things out as we go.

And so that’s a struggle to not have this rock solid foundation of age and wisdom and maturity to keep the rest of us a little bit more in line. And so we’ve struggled with that some. That’s a problem with the Northeast in general. You guys know that because where do all Northeasterners go when they get old? Well, they come down to Florida. And this is going to be a permanent problem, especially in the city. It’s just not a good place to just keep living. I mean, a lot of our young people, and they they they grow older, they get married, they have kids, and they’re like, man, we gotta get out of here and live a more normal and more manageable life. And to try to retire in in New York or New Jersey, where your property taxes are, well, they are what they are.

Uh it’s it’s it’s not super practical. And so it’s only gonna happen by Christians making deliberate choices to stay there for that reason. So preachers or or or paid evangelists can do that because they come to be supported to stay there. Uh but we struggle to have elders because again, it’s it’s just hard to stay in the area as long as they do. So if you guys are looking for to change things up, and you want to have a major life change and you don’t mind paying property taxes, then you’re very welcome to come up to the Northeast. So we encourage you to do that. Um we have a limited number of examples of just purity, uh, living by the word. You know, so many of us are first generation, we’re straight out of the world, which is beautiful.

I mean, we have beautiful stories of conversions and transformations and and excited, enthusiastic hearts who, I mean, they didn’t grow up with this, and so the gospel to them means so much and it’s so real in their life. There’s nothing ritualistic about it. But we’re coming right out of the world and we’re surrounded by the world, and so many of our brethren were still very much contaminated by the world. If you have a congregation, you’ve got again these 20, 30, 40, whatever brethren who are faithful, who are conservative, who are who are pure, and really showing their light, it gives guidance for people on the outside to know what they’re trying to get to in terms of lifestyle. But when so many of us are still trying to get out of it, it’s it’s hard to see what is true, faithful, pure living really look like.

Many of the brethren here are very much spread out around the city, and that makes it harder to get together. But also hospitality. A few of our brethren have a space big enough to host many people. We work too much in New York, and that’s its own challenge. And in the last couple of years or so, many have continued to express this sense of isolation and feeling alone and needing more support. But the good news is as we’ve communicated that more, we kind of realize while we’re all feeling this way. We have seen a lot of deliberate efforts made to bring the group closer together to share our lives as well as our faith. And I’ve been able to experience some of that here with the group meetings and meeting with different groups of the congregation here.

I appreciate the efforts that you guys have been making. So that’s a brief rundown of the congregation in West Harlem where we are working. And so there’s a lot more that could be said, but I’m running out of time already. We’ll speak really quickly about the Hudson Heights Church. So in 2020, my wife and I we were trying to figure out what to do with our living situation. We were currently renting in Manhattan, which is you know, you know, quite costly. So we were figuring out what we can do to be more permanent and be able to stay more long term. And so we ended up uh finding uh a place in Union City, New Jersey. So if you go through the Lincoln Tunnel, we’re about a mile through the tunnel, so we’re about 25-minute drive from the congregation, 40 minutes public transportation.

So we were able to move to New Jersey, and uh and that serves to be a more long-term solution for us to stay in the area. Well, my dad, who used to work with the upper West Manhattan Church, he was currently worshiping with us at West Harlem, but he was uh deciding to move on to the next work and didn’t know what to do or where to go. They wanted to stay in the Northeast, but when we were moving to New Jersey, we said, Hey, you guys should come too, and so they did. So we’re now neighbors, and his plan was to move to Union City, which is in Hudson County, and start a new congregation in Hudson County, which was a great idea. He’s always wanted to be to start a work at some point.

But Hudson County is extremely populated. And we did not know of any conservative congregation in the area. Some funny statistics. So Hudson County is the sixth highest population density county in the country. So that’s significant. If you look at the highest population density cities in America, the top four are all in Hudson County. You’ve got Guttenburg, West New York, Union City where we live, and Hoboken, and that’s not even counting Jersey City. So it’s an immense population in a small area and a great place for the work. So we joined the Hudson group Thursdays for their midweek. Dad and I, we share with the teaching there. And our our goal is to try to be with them once a month on Saturday, uh once a month on Sundays.

I’ll do the I’ll try to preach once a month, but when we travel or we miss a Sunday at Harlem, it’s um I try not to miss too many Sundays from Harlem, so that makes it a little bit challenging. But this group has grown as well. Uh, this is not a great picture. This is actually a special event we have, and so the attendance is a lot more there than is usual. But they began with uh fewer than 10 in attendance, and now it’s regular for them to have over 20, uh, and that includes consistent visitors they’ve had. There have been three conversions since the group started. Uh, not just growth from brethren in other in other areas, but reaching out, finding people, teaching them the gospel, and then coming to Christ.

Uh so that’s a great opportunity. It’s exciting for us to be part of that as well. And um, we’re starting to talk a little bit about beginning a Spanish work in that area also, which Union City where we live is all Hispanic. And so in a great need for Spanish work in that area. So that’s the report.

1. The Kingdom Is All About People

But I’d still like to share a couple of thoughts with you. And my lessons are typically more thematic and more consistent flow through the whole lesson. I wanted to speak a bit more open and honest and candid and just share some general thoughts and some general lessons about working in the kingdom. You guys are here, you’re working in the kingdom here in Orlando. We’re doing the same work up in New York. But we all essentially are doing the same things, facing the same challenges, having the same successes, suffering the same losses. There’s just a few things I want to share with you about working in the kingdom in general. First point I want to make is just reminding us that the kingdom is really just all about people.

It’s a basic point. It’s very simple, but we cannot forget that when it comes to the kingdom, it really is about people. The first time the gospel was preached, it was preached to Abraham. In you, all families of the earth will be blessed. What’s the gospel about? It’s about God blessing people. What does God want the most? God desires for all men to be saved, come to a knowledge of the truth. People are the most important thing in this creation to God. And the reason he made this creation is for his glory. And Ephesians 1 makes it clear to us nothing brings more glory to God than his redeemed people. The existence of his redeemed is a living praise to the glory of his grace, testifying just how graceful and forgiving he is, showing his power to transform and change.

And so, if people are God’s purpose, then what should the purpose of God’s people be? It’s just people. That’s what we’re here for. People is the purpose of the kingdom. The kingdom is people. Each individual is joined to the collective body of Christ. And the body of Christ that’s submissive to the king, that is the kingdom. It’s not unrelated individuals who have the same ideas. It’s a united group of individuals. Jesus didn’t make a persons, he made a people. That’s what the kingdom is. And so the work of the kingdom, it’s all about things that we’re doing for other people. What does it mean to be the member of a church? Well, we need to be devoted to one another. We need to pursue things that make peace and build up one another.

We need to love and serve one another. We need to be kind and forgiving towards one another. We need to sing hymns and encourage and edify one another. How many other one another passages and commands are there in the New Testament? I didn’t count. There were too many. That’s what it means to be a part of the church. Is our interaction with each other, with God’s people. And so, what is the prime mission of the body of Christ? This was spoken to the apostles, but this is true for us to go into all the world and to make disciples and to baptize and to teach people to follow the teachings of Christ. Our goal is to become redeemed people who seek to help more people be redeemed.

And really, in the kingdom, we can kind of look at two types of Christians. There are Christians who are here just trying to get to heaven. And then there are other Christians who are trying to get other people to heaven. And we need to have that people focus, that work focus understanding of the kingdom. People need to be our priority. It’s what matters most to God, so it needs to be what matters most to us, and not just in the church, in our life in general. Our purpose here on the planet is about helping other people as well as ourselves glorify God more. In which people are priority. Well, Luke 15 tells us that the lost. That’s his priority. The saved, what are they? Well, they’re exactly that.

They’re safe. But it is the lost. Whether it’s someone who’s never come to Christ, or it’s a brother who is weak and falling away from or has fallen away from Christ, that’s the priority. These people are the priority for the redeemed.

These are parts that go alongside of our faith, but that’s not the goal of our faith. Think about me as a preacher. What’s my goal as a preacher? It’s easy for me to get sidetracked and think, well, my goal is to preach a good sermon. And obviously, I want to preach good sermons. I want them to be edifying. But again, what constitutes a good sermon? You know, one that is engaging and entertaining. Well, it’s good to be engaging. Entertaining maybe can help with that a little bit. But sometimes at what cost? How much time can I spend developing a lesson to make sure that one sermon is so good, but then I’m failing to have time to focus on people. Let’s preach good sermons. But again, the point of teaching and preaching is about people.

It’s not about me. It’s not about me being respected. It’s about making sure that people are helped. People in the assembly when it’s being preached. But I cannot forget the people outside of that assembly who need the help. Or even when we start the West Harlem Church. You know, we’re thinking long term, we’re thinking how can this be a good church and faithful for years? And again, that’s important. That’s part of what we’re doing. That’s part of how we help people. But at the end of the day, the West Harlem Church, it’s just the people. It’s the people who are there. We’re not trying to create a company or a brand or an industry or some establishment that looks and functions and works the way we want it to.

We’re looking to be a group of people that are helping one another and helping other people. So Christianity, it’s about evangelism. It’s about counsel and encouragement, it’s about correction and rebuke. It’s about financial and physical aid. And so what does it take for us to be able to help in these ways? Well, it takes time, it takes sacrifice, patience, devotion, courage, time, love, and more time. And that’s what we’re here for.

And as you know, modern spirituality is kind of taking a new approach. I think a generation or two ago, when it came to being a Christian, the whole of Christianity was go to church. And if you go to church, you’re a Christian, and then we’re good. Don’t worry about the rest of it, just go to church. Well, I think we’re going away from that, which I think is good. But in the world around us, it’s so much to the point that we don’t even think church is even important anymore. You know, going to church or being a part of a church, that’s bonus. We say this, you know, I don’t want to be religious, I just want to be spiritual. And I think it could start from we see so much false religion, people reject false religion, and they’re tired of all the corruption of people.

They just want just me and God. I’m gonna read the Bible, I’m gonna read the Psalms, me and God, we’re gonna have our spiritual relationship, and that’s all that I want. That’s all that I need. We can relate to that, but it’s not biblical. And I’m beginning to think more and more, it’s not really that people just want to get away from false religion and just stick to them and God. I think a big part of it is too many of us, too many of the world around us, we don’t want to do the work of the church. We don’t want to deal with the people. You know, I want it to be just me and God because that’s less headache than me and everybody else at church.

I think sometimes we forget one of the greatest challenges we face as Christians is the work that we share as Christians with each other and evangelizing and teaching and preaching it. And if we just don’t want to do that, then we’ll say, well, I’ll just be spiritual, I’ll be close to God, me and him, it’s all that matters. That’s not what the kingdom is. And you’re not a part of the kingdom if that’s how you’re living your life. Of course, God is priority. Of course, everything is for him, and God is first in your life. I’m not undermining that at all. But what does God want from you? He wants you to be there to help and to love his people. That’s what it means to be a member of the kingdom.

2. Welcome the Mess of Working in the Kingdom

And with that, we need to be ready to welcome some of the mess that comes when working in the kingdom. A proverb that speaks deep to my soul. Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, but much revenue, but much revenue comes by the strength of an ox. Meaning, you can have a nice clean barn if you don’t have any animals in it. But you’re not going to have a lot of productivity if you don’t have those messy animals. Or maybe you can have a clean kitchen, or you can have a good home cooked meal. And which one do we prefer? We might want to have our churches nice and clean and simple and streamlined. You know, we we want to keep our teaching friendly and not controversial.

We don’t want to bring in different kinds of peoples that we don’t relate to as much. Some churches have gone so far as to really kind of refrain from evangelism because the group here, okay, we’re good. Let’s just keep it like this. We try to keep things superficial enough that we can continue as is with no apparent problems. And so we treat any potential problem by not allowing problems to have an opportunity to arise. But is that biblical? Having these nice clean personal lives, these nice clean churches, because we just avoid doing the work of the kingdom. Christ describes the work of the kingdom. You go out into the fields, people don’t want to come. Well, you go find people, you go to the highways, and you ask random people to come.

And it’s funny that this parable is nearly literal. Where what were we doing in New York? We were going to the streets and we were inviting anybody and everybody to come and know Christ. And what kind of people do you meet when you go and interact with anybody and everybody on the street? You meet some characters. And these are the people that we’re trying to get to become a part of our group, a part of the body of Christ. And when they come, how do they come? The story continues that one of the individuals who came to the wedding feast did not have proper wedding clothing. And that was awkward for everybody. You know, there’s this whole big scene where he was rebuked and cast out and made everybody uncomfortable.

Well, we want to avoid those kinds of situations. But we can’t do so at the cost of doing the work of the kingdom because the work of the kingdom is messy. Ephesians 4, we’re all called to become unified in faith and to the maturity of Christ, and we should be doing that. And how many here are doing exactly that? How many of you are becoming more like and more adjoined to your head Christ? Many of you, and God bless you for that. But as you grow closer to Christ and become more unified with him and your brethren, you’re inviting your friends who are going to be starting from scratch. So there will be a constant supply of young babes in Christ, doing what literal babies do, crying and making some noise and making things awkward.

That’s the way the kingdom is going to be. Look at Acts 6, where there was a conflict in the church where some widows were being neglected, not receiving the support and the food that they needed. Why did that problem arise? One, because there were so many people in that church in Jerusalem. Two, because they were being generous and helping widows in the first place. That problem came because they were doing the work of the kingdom. But what happened? They resolved the problem by continuing to do the work of the kingdom. Think about in Acts 8. When Philip preaches the gospel to Simon the sorcerer, a liar and manipulator who was using religion for personal gain. Now he’s a part of your church. That could make things awkward.

3. Not Deterred by Obstacles

What does he do? He tries to buy the authority of the Holy Spirit. He’s bringing his false beliefs into the assembly. It’s awkward. He was rebuked pretty severely by Peter. That was uncomfortable. But guess what? Simon and Peter were both doing the work of the kingdom. And I feel confident. Simon, he learned the ropes. And he became joined to his true head, which is Christ. And the kingdom was better off for that. So maybe rather than trying to avoid potential problems to feel like we’re doing a good job, maybe we should accept that doing a good job will result in more problems. We cannot let our fear hold us back. And finally, let’s try to make sure that we are not deterred by obstacles. If you come to a locked door, how hard are you going to try to open that locked door until you get the key?

It’s locked. Well, you leave it as is because you can’t open it. Well, when you get the key, then you’ll open it. When something is impossible, we don’t put much effort in doing it because, well, that effort is fruitless. It’s not, it’s not going to work. It’s impossible. Well, in the kingdom, we look at things that are perceived impossibilities. My own personal transformation from what I am to what God wants me to be. It’s not going to happen. You know, how can I how can I change the mind of this avid atheist and bring them to Christ? It’s not going to happen. I can’t do it. And so, because of what we perceive to be impossible, we limit our efforts and we fail to fulfill our responsibilities.

But that’s because we’re using the wrong scale. We’re looking at what should be done and determining what can be done by what I’m able to do. And your abilities are very, very, very limited. My abilities are extremely limited. But is the power of the kingdom limited to my ability? Jesus says, with people, it’s not possible, but with God, it is possible. So let’s continue to use God’s scale to determine what is possible. I think of the story of the Ethiopian eunuch. And it kind of stresses me out when I think about it because here’s Philip. He meets this guy, preaches the gospel, he gets baptized. Philip disappears, he goes off on his way, carried away by the Spirit, and the Ethiopian, he’s on his own. Well, where’s that guy gonna go to church?

He’s gonna be the only Christian in Ethiopia. How is he gonna survive by himself? How do we know he’s gonna teach other people the truth accurately when he just heard the gospel the one time? What are we gonna do? You know, when you’re sitting next to somebody on an airplane, you think, what can I do for this person? Can I convince them and change them and get them to go to church and make sure they stay faithful for a lifetime? I can’t do that. So we don’t try. But is that the way we’re supposed to look at the kingdom? Philip did what God called Philip to do in that moment, and then God said, Philip, go do something else. Because who’s in charge of the Ethiopian eunuch?

Whose business is that? That’s the Lord’s business. It is not your business to only do what you can see from beginning to end and understand and do all of that. Your business is to only do what you’re able to do and with whatever opportunity or moment arises. We’re not here to change minds. We’re not here to transform lives. We’re here to courage, we’re here to teach, we’re here to love. And we play a small role in a bigger picture. God sees it from beginning to end, and he’s got 50 people that he’s gonna bring into the equation to get his will to be done. So stop trying to do all 50 people’s work and do whatever part God has provided you with the opportunity to do.

Conclusion

If we think in those terms, uh, we’ll be more willing to take advantage of the opportunities that we have. I feel like I’ve gone over time. My apologies for that. Uh, I encourage greatly uh appreciate your kind attention uh for caring about the work in New York for supporting it for so many years, for trusting in me and my wife uh to do the work there. Um and speaking with you, there’s not a lot of the same things you have going on here. We have there’s a lot of similarities. One difference is I don’t know if we could ever get our church to sit in silent meditation for five minutes. We’ll work on that. But besides that, I feel like there’s a great number of similarities because we’re all in the same kingdom and we’re all doing the same work.

But thank God that we have our King Jesus Christ who’s provided everything, everything, everything that we need. We’re just tools being a part of the part of the process. If you have not yet come to Christ, you’re not in the kingdom. But you should be and you can join the kingdom today and with whatever limited knowledge you have, whatever your background is, God has work for you to do today. And we call you to step into that role to do that work today. Be baptized today. Receive the blood of Christ by faith through baptism and be joined to his body. If you’re willing to do so please come forward as we stand together.