Being the Church
What should a Christian Church based in the Word look like?
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good morning excited to be in the house of god today yes as you can tell i am not pastor jean for those that already knew i not carely either that's what it says under my name yeah so sorry i had to point that out it was funny um my name is tony johnson i'm just a volunteer here at c3 church but pastor gene is out on vacation and he is getting some much needed rest which by the way a senior pastor a lead pastor does need rest i can promise you that this job is difficult i used to be a pastor i'm now a deputy i carry a gun to work and that job is much easier than being doing this i can promise you that all right so i'm glad that you're in church today and that's the topic we're going to talk about today we are going to talk about church we're going to talk about what church is why do we do church why is it important to us why are you here when you got up this morning did we say i'm excited to be in the house of god today i'm excited to fellowship with these people i'm excited to hear god's word or did we get up this morning and do a routine it's a sunday morning routine it's part of it it's just i get up sunday morning my alarm goes off i get up i put on the nicest clothes that are wrinkle free and i go to church and i put on this great face for about an hour an hour and a half and then i leave church and i have fulfilled my christian routine unfortunately in some of christianity a lot of christianity this is what church is it's become a routine today we're going to talk about what it should be what the bible says church is we should be excited to be here it should be great to be around believers people that have a like-minded faith should excite us it should spur a fire inside of us and so today we're going to look at that but first just a couple of background information on me i preached one other time but i didn't give you guys a whole lot of information i was actually a next-gen pastor which is a big mega church fancy word for i was a student pastor children's pastor and i did a little bit of the men's ministry so i had a lot of titles my wife who is back volunteering now was actually my children's pastor who ran my children's ministry she ran a children's ministry of about 325 kids on a sunday with about 110 volunteers our student ministry between sunday and wednesday was like 250 students with about 20 volunteers so we both ran rather large ministries we talked about it on easter sunday how easter sunday was when i was in ministry easter sunday was not a celebration easter sunday was stressful easter sunday was our big it was like super bowl sunday right it had everything had to be perfect because you have you have two types of christians sometimes you have the ones that attend christmas service you have the one that attends easter you used to call them creasers back in the day so they attended twice a year so you only had two times to make an influence so easter was intense as a matter of fact one of the last c-series services we did in tampa we did an egg hunt a glow-in-the-dark egg hunt for our student and children's ministry and we had 2500 people show up to this service it was the most stress i've ever had in my life uh the senior pastor was extremely excited because he got to preach and be done and i was like how we sent we planned for 900 kids we ended up over that we gave people church credit cards and said we need you to go buy all the hot dog buns you can all the hot dogs clear out we need more candy to put in these eggs it was insanely stressful and here's the thing all of those things were great but did they amount to anything did they amount to anything see flash and show are great when it leads to something but when it doesn't lead to return when it doesn't lead to truth that's all it is it's like when you go to a movie you spend two hours it's a great movie but then after the movie it's just kind of over that's it that's not what church should be so when we look at some of the stats among church today it is a crazy thing first of all between the ages of 23 to 30 we have a 66 attrition rate 66 percent people leave church over half over half the people will leave church between the age of 23 and 30. who are the people between the age of 23 and 30 they're the people who have children they're the people that are fresh brand new families when they need church the most is when they tend to leave another crazy stat is that between 30 to 40 percent of church staff will leave church and never return we are talking about church staff what is going on in our churches today in my job that i do today i see the other side of it see i used to be a pastor i used to see everything in front and it all was like man they left church i wonder what happened to him well now in the job that i possess now as a deputy i see the other side of what happens when we don't have a church in our life when we don't have a christ to follow when we don't have people of like-minded faith to be excited with to live life with i see what that looks like so let's look at it today what should a biblical church look like are we a biblical church am i a biblical church member these are all questions that are valid questions to ask herself so let's go ahead and look in acts chapter 2 42-47 now if you were here last week or if you caught up online or if you're going to catch up online later i was not here last week i had to work but i was watching the service online actually in my cruiser tuesday night um while i was pouring down rain which by the way we usually don't pull you over in the rain because i don't want to get wet if i have to pull you over in the rain it's a problem like we got some bad driving back if you're making me get out of the car and i i'm getting wet we're gonna have some issues we're gonna have a conversation so in the rain i'm watching the service and i'm watching pastor gene go to acts chapter two and i'm like okay what's going on that's what i'm preaching on he knows this and then when he's preaching on acts chapter 2 and he's like i'm like please please stop and then he goes to another scripture i'm going to use later and i'm like man he's all over my message but luckily uh he didn't touch it so we're good um so this is directly after peter's message of pentecost which is what pastor gene talked about last week interesting enough the foundation for which the church formula is laid is on the very truth of god's word directly after peter gets done delivering this amazing fantastic message the church is founded it's it's it's formed it's given us life right here it's founded directly after truth so foundation of church is the true word of god it's not based on peter being an influence with cool hair and skinny jeans and millions of tik tok followers which some of it is today peter taught the truth the word of god and believe it or not that is why my wife and i attend this church because pastor gene teaches the very true word of god so we are that is why we're here thank you for that uh no i want to i want to make this clear because i always do this is the same peter that denied christ three times this is not far removed from the most embarrassing moment any disciple could have right can you think about a more embarrassing moment than the fact that the the the god man that you followed that you've claimed loyalty to that you at one point in time just cut a guy's ear off to defend now you deny him three times and it's going in the very word of god to never be forgotten but peter recovers from that god forgives him for that mistake and then god uses him to do his mighty work why do i say that because if you're in this room today and something has happened in your past you are still usable by god god can still use you today just as he used peter all the way back then at pentecost so never let your past define what god can do with your future so here we go acts chapter 2 42-47 not a lot of scripture but we're going to get into it all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals including the lord's supper and to prayer a deep sense of awe came over them all and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders and all the believers met in one place and shared everything they had they sold property and possessions and shared the money with those in need they worshiped together at the temple each day met in homes for the lord's supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity all while praising god and enjoying the goodwill of all people and each day the lord added to the fellowship those who were being saved what do we need to know about this scripture right off the bat the first thing we need to know is that the church and its believers in it must be devoted to god's word notice they were devoted to the apostles teaching they trusted in god now they wanted more they came to know christ and they wanted more so they devoted themselves to god's word can you think about the word devotion and what that means it doesn't just mean that they walked in and listened to a message no they devoted themselves to god's teachings they wanted to know more do you remember that first moment when you accepted christ and you were excited to get to know more about the christ that died for you he died on the cross for my sins i want to know more i want to read his word i want to accomplish his will and it kind of fades as we grow older in christianity that excitement that light dims just a little bit right until god reignites it well these were devoted christians they wanted to know more about this jesus and what he's done for them it implies devotion implies a steadfast commitment to listening and applying so not just listening but applying it to their lives what else we need to see here church and its believers were devoted to fellowship true fellowship more than friendship born out of a deep love for christ this was true fellowship true fellowship desires three things it desires accountability it desires growth and it desires shared burdens when we talk about true fellowship it's more than just a high and goodbye it's more than just how are you doing doing great great me too it's more than that see in today's church we've limited church to the time frame that we're here we walk in the doors that's church that's our time to fellowship we go up to the cafe that's our time to fellowship and then when we leave i would venture to say we probably don't talk to each other that much right we all have and we all have our own lives we're all very busy we all work a lot we all have our own families and things like that but the first church established true fellowship they held each other accountable for what they believed and what they professed on that day they desired each other to grow not just themselves they didn't want to see themselves grow they wanted to see their other believers with them grow as well and then they desire to share burdens now that is hard today because you i am a guy that does not like to admit when things are going on my wife will tell you the most things she can do is have you ever been in a public flight as a married couple listen we can be adults here all right i've been in a public fight as a married couple you've been in the store and you've been in a fight and you're like you give them a look we are not having this discussion here right now we are in public we're not doing this that's the worst thing i'm like oh man i don't like other people to know it's tough i don't like other people to know i'm having a hard time that's hard for me to admit i don't like that to be seen publicly but true fellowship says i can share your burdens i'm not only willing to take on your burdens i'm willing to tell you about mine i'm willing to tell you what's going on and i'm willing to prioritize sharing those what else did this church did we see that it was devoted to remembrance of the sacrifice of christ we see that they met for the lord's supper man there are so many sacred monuments in this country that we treat with an awe-inspiring remembrance just a couple the statue of liberty the 911 the 911 memorial the arlington national cemetery we walk on these things and it's sacred ground you're in awe when you see it i see people post pictures in front of these great monuments and they talk about what it means to them and in christianity we have one that we should treat with more awe and more inspiration and more remembrance we have the lord's supper and yet sometimes it's just a little juice and a little cracker listen i've been there i was in ministry and we gave out the little cups with a little cracker inside you had to peel back the plastic and then you had to you got the little wafer cracker and then you drank the juice and sometimes it was just something we had to do like i'm on staff i have to take the lord's supper i have to do this and you approach it with just a all right we're doing this today and it wasn't really the memorial it should be when you take this cup this is my blood when you take this bread this is my body the first believing church believed in that memorial they believed in what that was listen as a church we should be devoted to prayer do we pray for our church do we pray for our pastor that man needs prayer he has to deal with us like all of us like you don't it's not just one all of us so like you can think he has to deal with me a lot and then he has to you have to look at yourself in there and be like it has to do with me too do we pray for each other do we pray for our families is prayer something that's a priority the next thing is we see that they were these believers were generous they're so devoted to god and each other that they sacrificed gave so this goes beyond just your tithe just the offering they gave sacrificially listen here's the thing and i'm going to get into it in a minute and i'll save that we'll talk about that in a minute so why do we need to know these things well the first thing is we must know the biblical church model in order to identify what's true church and what's not really church right that's what we've got to do in order to know what's true you got to know what's not and so we're going to look at a couple things so based on the word of god we see that a church is based on god's truth and principles and not based on the pastor it is not based on the speaker hey that's something we get into a lot right and and today's world online church has made it very easy to do the year 2020 changed everything right march 2020 is when covet happened and it's when things shut down and church went online and for people that didn't know they're like you mean i can go to any church i want to i can stay home and watch any speaker i want online and so we became obsessed even a little more than we were before with i listen to that guy he's a great speaker i don't know what his message is but he yells a lot or he's very emotional or he has the greatest demonstrations but i'm not really sure about the message the speaker gets worshipped over the message we decide how we go to church where we go to church based on does this speaker really get me going does he charge me up for christ he shouldn't have to he should read you the very word of god you know in most instances paul wasn't there reading these letters that he wrote can you imagine so paul's sitting there either he's writing or he's dictating these letters and he's probably getting them emphatically he's like ah this this and this and he's like he's given emphatically he didn't do that to the churches somebody took that letter and read it so somebody probably went before the church and said paul says this there was no dynamic speaker it was just the word of god and yet they were devoted to it first corinthians 1 12-16 another one that gene touched on last week now this i say that every one of you saith i am of paul i am apollos i am of cephas and i am christ is christ divided was paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of paul i thank god that i baptized none of you but christmas and gaius lest i should say that i had baptized in my own name and i baptized also the house of stephanus besides i know not whether i baptize anybody else he gets a little sarcastic there at the end he's like you know i'm glad i didn't baptize you except for these three people he's like i'm glad i didn't baptize any of you because are we divided oh no no i listen to this speaker i go to this church because he's a great speaker i go to this church because he just he just motivates me he pulls up my heartstrings that is not what church is about dynamic speaking doesn't define a great pastor it never should it's is he telling you the true word of god is he telling you what the truth is are we being led by the word of god are we being led by the speaker of the word of god what else do we need to see here based it's based on true fellowship not giving amount small group members or political views i want to look at a scripture here first corinthians 1 10 and then i want to break it down it says now i beseech you brethren by the name of the lord jesus christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment i want to break this down this is paul paul the apostle of christ paul the guy who gets stoned and lives through it paul the guy that gets bit by the poisonous stick falls out of the fire he has all the authority in the world paul can tell you what to do if you wanted to he's got that kind of authority he could say listen you guys need to get along but he doesn't he says i beseech you brethren he's pleading paul pleads with a loving heart placing aside his authority to command he knows how this issue can impact a church he knows how this issue can divide a church true fellowship think about the quickest way to divide a church is a split because of different views now listen pastor gene and i we agree on a lot of things we disagree on a lot of things i can think of the number one thing that we could disagree on right now pizza
do you know why because you can bring a pineapple and ham pizza to my house and i will eat that pizza i will enjoy that pizza i will love that pizza pastor gene would look at you and be like that's not even pizza to which he is wrong all right it's pizza it fits but we would disagree on that but you know what that's not a reason to divide fellowship we may split the pie where half of it's something and half of something else but we're not going to divide fellowship over that unless it's the gospel we're not going to divide fellowship and here's the deal in today's world the world wants you to be divided the world wants you to take a staunch view on what you believe outside of the gospel and then separate you from everybody else that doesn't believe that there used to be a time when we could disagree and still get along that time is fading and let me tell you if you do not think it's impacting the church today look around there are seats empty because certain things weren't said from the pulpit that they felt should have been said there are seats empty because political views didn't line up there are seats emptied because you voted for this person not this person none of those things define true fellowship our true fellowship is based on the gospel it's based on the shared word of god the immutable word of god and we put things so trivial as politics above that and let me explain think about the fact when you have something in common like christ as your savior when you talk to have you ever had lunch we've all had lunch with believers right i happen to have the honor and privilege of doing that yesterday and you just get to talking and you lose track of time you know why because you have something somebody else doesn't have and you have this common bond as jesus christ as your savior and you can have deep conversations and you can have funny conversations and you can just enjoy each other's company whereas if you're looking to solidify for a temporary reason like politics they change daily and so one day somebody's your friend the next day they're not we are supposed to have true fellowship we are to have true fellowship the church also should be based on the remembrance of what gave us freedom from the eternal death sentence we deserve not special holidays not church moments not pastoral accomplishments and not worship album releases we are to be based on the remembrance of christ's death see some of us like we choose listen i i love worship music i do i would not choose a church on worship music we use when you get in ministry and you get behind the scenes on some of that stuff you're like wow they really don't believe what they're singing but that that's that's okay god's still gonna use them how he's gonna use them right so we could sit here and you can listen to whatever type of music you want to that shouldn't divide fellowship but it also shouldn't be based on what our church is it shouldn't be like man this church just released this amazing worship album i got to be a member of that church i got to go to that church because have you heard their worship their worship's amazing
we base things on that when really church should be based on christ and christ's death look at first corinthians 11 23-26 it says and again paul for i pass on to you what i received from the lord himself on the night when he was betrayed the lord jesus took some bread and gave thanks to god in it then he broke it into pieces and said this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way he took a cup of wine after supper saying this is the cup is the new covenant between god and his people in agreement confirmed with my blood do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it for every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are announcing the lord's death until he comes could there be anything greater to remember to celebrate to put a slide up for to do a facebook or social media post could there be anything greater than this does a worship album really matter does the fact that the church has been around for 25 years matter no this is what matters this is what it's all based on we should be a part of a church we should be a member of a church that celebrates the death of christ the burial of christ the resurrection of christ over celebrating anything else now here's the deal celebrating things is not bad we could celebrate things we should celebrate things i still celebrate birthdays i'm about not to next year i turn 40. it's done my wife is like we're playing a huge party nope we're not i'm working i'm done celebrating birthdays but we celebrate big accomplishments we celebrate anniversaries we celebrate birthdays we celebrate holidays and nothing's wrong with those things they're enjoyable times my favorite holiday to celebrate is thanksgiving you know why because you get to eat whatever you want to i get to eat my mom's cooking which is amazing by the way i'm going to plug that in she's watching right now so she's going to set me up with some enchiladas in july that's off topic so anyways so listen we can celebrate these together we should celebrate things together we're going up to tennessee in july to celebrate the 4th of july with my parents we celebrate things but it shouldn't be celebrated over the death burial and resurrection of christ it should never be the priority what else do we look at here we should be devoted to the power of prayer not programs not prizes and certainly not promises after solomon finishes the temple the lord makes him a promise in second corinth second chronicles 7 14 then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways i will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their lands that is how important the power of prayer is listen here's the thing let me talk about programs for men and a couple different things because the power of prayer does come over programs now i was a student pastor so i dealt with students so programs in themselves are not inherently evil now we designed and did our own program we didn't purchase it or anything like that i didn't have that kind of budget but we did programs and we did crazy things in our program we would throw out pizza from the stage and that's that's just what student ministry does i would literally can you imagine pastor gene doing this i would literally bring a stack of pizzas and i would grab a slice and throw it out and some kid would inevitably catch that eat it now what was great is when they catch in their mouth and you're like that is fantastic you get a prize you so we would do all kinds of stuff we would throw candy from the stage we would have worship we would do big water days that was things we did there's nothing inherently wrong with programs it's just a problem when they become over the power of prayer i'm not going to pray for people to come to my church i'm not going to pray for the people in my church i'm going to provide programs that they can relate to i'm going to provide programs that provide entertainment i'm going to provide programs that are like oh man that church is exciting because they give out free sandwiches on sunday that's when it becomes a problem programs themselves are not inherently evil just like celebrations or not it's when it overrides the power of prayer let me tell you one today that i just mentioned promises let me explain a promise from this stage
is a difficult thing when you sit here and you promise people that if they give enough if they pray enough if they have enough faith they're going to be healed when you make those promises from this stage that is incredibly powerful because if it doesn't happen because it's not part of god's will for their life they're part of the sixty percent that go god doesn't love me enough to heal me that's not it it just wasn't in god's will for your life see god does heal people it happens all the time you hear about it all the time but it's not guaranteed you can't do enough to earn a healing you can't say the right things to earn a healing that's not what it's based on it's based on god's will for our life and so we'll make promises from this stage and we take them over the power of prayer because we're not really praying we're like hey if you are a good enough person if you give enough if you say the right things if you pray this is you're gonna be healed that's just not true because this guy doesn't know let me end on any secret this guy doesn't know i don't know i don't know if god's gonna heal you i don't know if that's his will for your life i will pray for you to be healed i will walk through you i will share the burden i will walk through life with you in this burden but i can't guarantee you're going to be healed but when we make promises like that from this stage and it doesn't happen they become part of that 60 percent so we should be looking at the power of prayer over everything else last one we should be devoted to generosity and not to selfish desires this is tough right generosity is hard acts 4 34-37 which is a great reiteration of the scripture that we're in there were no greedy people among them because those who own land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need can you imagine right now if people were selling their houses i mean it's the market to sell but they were selling their houses and like giving the money to the church if they walked up they sold their house and like pastor gene here's all this money can you pastor gene would fall over that man would fall out i i would too so let's they give us a great instance for instance there was joseph the one the one the apostles nickname barnabas which means son of encouragement he was from the tribe of levi and came from the island of cyprus he sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles they gave sacrificially let me touch on this because i'm going to say something controversial right now pastor gene is going to have to spend all next week apologizing he's like listen i'm sorry you know tony said that we'll we'll deal with him later he's probably going to put out a message tomorrow so here's the deal listen i love david ramsey he brings up great points but your budget should not dictate what you give to god let me step out and say that controversially your budget should not dictate what you give to god it shouldn't decide how much you give to god god should decide how much you're going to give to god what god lays on your heart that's what you give not what i mean i can give my 10 i got that budgeted out but the rest is uh it's kind of spoken for god you know that that car payment the house payment i got kids they're expensive i have three so it's really expensive that's not what it's based on we are to give sacrificially so this is what a church should look like so what do we do right let's reiterate some of this stuff and let's bring it down to a personal level because here's the thing shouldn't come to church i love it man i love it i loved it when i was a pastor people come church back this church doesn't give do you give this church doesn't pray do you pray because the church is in the building it's the people inside of it and if you're inside of it you're part of the people right so it's not just we should be looking at churches that do this we should be doing it ourselves that's the tough part right because it's easy to judge from the outside it's easy to go yeah we shouldn't be doing that listen let me let you in on a secret and if there's any deputies watching this they're gonna be mad at me we pull people over for speeding
happens i tell people when they're like i like to drive fast i'm like you should be a cop that's about the only way you're going to get away with it if i told you some of the stories i mean most of time most of the time we are running code and emergency and so we are we're doing it for a purpose other times we're doing it because we can it's just it's just human nature i'm telling you you're like at first when like when i first got i'm gonna venture here when i first got on the road i drove just the speed limit because i'm like i don't want anybody saying anything like i'm a cop i'm not supposed to speed and then as i've gotten longer i'm like like yeah nobody's gonna pull me over i'm in a cop car my wife the other day bless her heart i'm in district i get to park outside my house and i get to eat dinner and i just park outside my house parallel i turn my lights on my little cruise lights and i walk into my house and i grab dinner and she's like are you just in a park like that i'm like i'm a cop terrible it's terrible right but that's the attitude we take towards church sometimes you're laughing because i did it the other day in my personal car i just pull up park anywhere now but we do that with church we get ex we're like we condone the church and we don't hold ourselves accountable
listen we judge the pastor every sunday whether we want to or not when you get in the car you're like well that sermon's pretty good you know he said this isn't are we reading the bible are we preaching to ourselves we have this instance we are accountable these responsibilities don't just fall on the pastor or the church staff or the volunteers if you look at verse 42 it says all believers we must devote ourselves to hearing and applying the word of god psalms 119 1-8 joyful are the people of integrity who follow the instructions of the lord joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts joyful those words are amazing they do not compromise with evil and they walk only in his paths you have charged us to keep your commandments carefully oh that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees then i will not be ashamed when i compare my life with your commands as i learn your righteous regulations i will thank you by living as i should i will obey your decrees please don't give up on me can you read those scriptures and not be convicted as i was writing them down i was convicted i'm like lord you sure you want me to say this because i'm convicted about this myself
if we're not joyful there's a couple questions here if you're not finding joy in life let me ask you are you obeying his laws are you a people of integrity led by his instructions because those people are joyful we should be devoting ourselves to hearing and applying the word of god james 1 22 says but don't just listen to god's word you must do what it says otherwise you're only fooling yourselves is this the only time we get god's word is when we sit down in these seats and even then are we looking at our watch and be like he's got like 12 minutes he's got he better land this plane 12 minutes ah he's only on point four are we is that what we've devoted our hearing and applying god's word to the strict box of sunday morning church do we read god's word any other time we pick up the bible well do we pick up our phone and read god's word on it that's a good question right what else must we do the tough one we must love each other this is true fellowship
there are some people that are unlovable right that's just the way it is can you imagine doing marriage like we do church fellowship let's just let me just play this out i'm about to get in trouble with my wife but let me just play this out we walk into church and our idea of fellowship is hey man how's it going how are you doing we tell a couple stories oh you're doing great you're doing great we see each other for an hour and 15 minutes and then we leave for the week maybe we see each other on wednesday maybe not and then we fellowship again next sunday can you imagine if your marriage consisted of an hour and 15 minutes of each other time a marriage you would be like there's no love in that marriage he only sees it i mean absence does make the heart grow fonder right but that's the way we treat fellowship in church we see each other for an hour and 15 minutes and that's our fellowship that's it i'll see you next sunday that's not true fellowship these believers were together all the time they fellowshipped with each other they were there for each other they held each other accountable they shared their burdens and they wanted to see growth all the time and here's the crazy thing about it right they didn't have cell phones can you imagine not having a cell phone and fellowshipping with somebody i like sometimes fellowship is only like click click click how's it going it's going good and now here's i'm terrible with text message you should probably come visit me i would answer quicker like i get a text message and i look at i'm like oh i'm going to answer that and then i get distracted if you can't tell i get distracted easily and i get distracted and i'm like i thought i answered that text message and then i looked three days later i'm like what lie do i tell i dropped my phone in some water no i don't know but that's the way we fellowship with each other we have an hour and 15 minutes what is true fellowship first of all fellowship identifies us john 13 34-35 says so now i'm giving you a new commandment love each other just as i have loved you you should love each other christ loved us so much he died for us your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples there can be no greater impact in today's world than a church who has true fellowship because there is not much the world can look to today to say that group of people loves each other that group of people loves each other they fellowship all the time they're always together they're always sharing each other's burdens they may not agree on things everything but by the power of the gospel they have that agreement in christ and that bonds them together today's time to identify as a group of people that love each other that would change things it allows us to correct each other this is a tough one i'm a cop don't correct a police officer it's a terrible idea i didn't do it when i was not a police officer and it really doesn't work when i'm a police officer now right like you try to correct me i'll be like you're getting a citation that's the way it works right like oh you want to tell me the law i didn't go to school for this i don't know this that's what it is listen marriage probably should avoid this if you're going to correct your wife it better be out of love like it can't be the fight you've got some some of you know that lesson your significant other whoever you're dating let me give you some advice if you're dating you're about to be married you're newly married you should only correct your wife out of love it should never be out of anything else first of all that's biblical second of all it will save your marriage when you correct your wife it better be out of love and it better be worded correctly like it can't just be like honey no that's not right that's not the way that works i like to massage it i like the sandwich you know you did this great you could do this better but you did this great you know the sandwich the love sandwich so here's the deal we can correct each other by galatians 6 1 6 1-3 says dear brothers and sisters if another believer is overcome by sin you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path and be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself share each other's burdens in this way obey the law of christ it's actually considered a law of christ to share each other's burdens to love each other to be able to humbly and gently correct each other for a long time christianity became known as a bunch of hypocrites because you had a bunch of people that wanted to judgmentally correct each other and then do exactly what they were correcting the other person when they when they were on their own and we got this reputation as a bunch of judgmental hypocrites i was going through bible college right about that time that that started to really become a big deal we do it humbly and gently but true fellowship not only allows you to gently and humbly correct somebody it allows you to receive that correction it allows you to say what you know what you're right you're right i'm outside of the word of god on that one i'm glad you brought that to my attention how can i get through it see it's two-sided we should be able to gently and humbly correct and we should be able to receive that correction because we love each other as i get older i realize how much wiser my mom and dad were and i realized how right they were and i realized that they tried to do it the most gentle and humble way possible now for some of us me gently and humbly sometimes means a two by four because it doesn't get through other ways are you feeling bad for my wife at this point by the way she's back there doing the slide she's actually switching so she's volunteering right now so i'm saying all this right in front of her but at this point in time some of us need to be gently and humbly corrected more less humbly less gently need to be hit with a two by four god didn't mold you out of clay it was more like steel but we should be able to do that because we have true fellowship and love which is exactly the opposite of what is happening today i dare you to try to correct somebody online i wouldn't do it but i dare you to see what happens when you do not good it starts an argument it starts things that shouldn't be said in public things that should not be said online where it can be recorded and used against you later we don't allow correction because we don't have true fellowship what else must we do we must always be in remembrance of what christ did for us in in first corinthians 11 paul says come together five times showing us that by participating together in the lord's supper we give a visible expression of our unity in five times when he's discussing the lord's supper he says come together five times he wants to emphasize that we should come together to do lord's supper because it should be a unified expression that christ died for our sins and we take joy in our savior and we understand his sacrifice it's a unified expression we should do that the lord's supper should not be uh it's the fourth wednesday of the month i guess we should go and take the lord's supper it should be taken seriously it should be taken for what it is a memorial and it should be taken humbly as what it is what else we must do we must be devoted in prayer romans 12 12 says rejoice in our confident hope be patient and trouble and keep on praying remember the bumper slipper keep on trucking you just keep on praying listen i'm not guarantee that what you're praying for is gonna happen i've been praying for a 1999 dodge viper since 1999. and miraculously it hasn't happened some of you guys like 99 i wasn't even born in 99 i was i was born in it never mind so i've been praying for that still hasn't magically popped up in my driveway nobody's given me one i can't wait for the day that somebody walks i'll be like surprise tony here's the keys and i'll be like yes no i can't guarantee you that that prayer is going to happen because that may not be god's will for your life god's not giving me a dodge viper because i speed can you imagine if i was driving that thing not good he's like that's not my will for your life i don't want you to go that way tony so here's the deal we've got to pray romans colossians 4 2 says devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart pray for us too that god will give us the opportunity to speak about his mysterious plan concerning christ that is why i'm here in chains pray that i will proclaim this message as i clearly should first thessalonians 5 17 never stop praying who are you praying for when are you praying why are you praying never stop praying we should be devoted to prayer lastly we should be generous second corinthians two one through five now i want you to know dear brothers and sisters what god in his kindness has done through the churches in macedonia they are being tested by many troubles and they are very poor but they also are filled with abundant joy which is overflowed in rich generosity for i can testify that they gave not only what they could afford but far more and they did it on their own free will they begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in jerusalem they even did more than what we'd hoped for for their first action was to give themselves to lord and to us just as god wanted them to can you imagine if we gave this way because we wanted to we want to impact believers we want to make a difference listen we received christ somebody gave a tithe that caused the church to grow and we receive christ i want to impact somebody that same way listen if we gave this way you would never see any problems in the church right because everything would be there wouldn't be any problems like i remember multiple sundays walking in and an air conditioning unit not working oh terrible especially when it was the infant room man people are dropping off their babies and undoubtedly the infant room the air conditioner would go down and i'm on the phone with air conditioning people that are associated 24 7. i'm like you need to get here like five minutes ago i got people dropping off babies the babies are sweating babies should not sweat that doesn't happen right but if we gave generously that's not a problem we've got that stuff solved it's in the bag it's okay it's gonna be taken care of it's not a distraction we give not to prove anything not to try to out give god we give because we want to see others impacted for christ just as we were impacted and notice what they gave out of they gave out of an abundance of joy they were happy about it i don't know about you but giving out money is not necessarily the most happy thing i do if you have kids in here and they're young when they get older they ask for money and you're like how does this work man i don't remember asking my mom and dad for this much money to which i was told by my mom i did but it's like man and it's expensive we go to chick-fil-a 50 bucks for chick-fil-a no no i can buy chicken from walmart i'm sure i can make it taste the same
but we do it joyfully right because they're our children we love to spend money on our children we love to do great things with our children we love to have fun we should do the same thing some of us are gift givers that's our gift we love to give things and when we give things to people it makes us feel joy that's the way we should feel whenever we give to god we should feel joy because we're impacting the kingdom we're impacting the kingdom of christ through giving it's not about out giving god it's about impacting the others to where they can receive christ that should bring us joy i'm gonna close with this why do we do all this right why does all this matter i don't think i can sum it up any better like i was thinking of how to in this message i'm like how do i close out this message and then i read verse 46 and 47 again because we just talked about the 60 attrition rate we just talked about it 46 and 47 answered the across the question of the attrition rate in 46-47 it says they worship together at the church each day they met in homes for the lord's supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity all while praising god and enjoying the good will of the people and each day the lord added to their fellowship those who are being saved if we are devoted to the things they are devoted to and were devoted to them for the right reasons that answers the 60 percent attrition rate because god's going to take care of it if we're doing what we should be doing our church is going to be doing what it should be doing and god's going to handle the rest but the question that i want you to leave here today is why am i here why does church matter am i a good church member what can i do differently to impact the kingdom of christ let's pray dear god thank you for today god we just thank you for allowing us to come into your house god i thank you for all those who came out today i thank you for all those who put all the excuses away that they could and they showed up in your house today god i'd ask that you bless them for it god i ask that we as we leave this place we not stop fellowshipping with each other we not stop praying we not stop giving we not stop remembering what you are doing for us god i'd ask that church doesn't end when we get out i ask that it's just a great part of our week to come together but it's not the only part of our week god i'd ask today that you be with this nation and the time it's going through the divisions it's going through i'd ask that our fellowship and our love for each other reflect you and identify your church god god for all these things we ask in your name honor and glory amen
you
do you know why because you can bring a pineapple and ham pizza to my house and i will eat that pizza i will enjoy that pizza i will love that pizza pastor gene would look at you and be like that's not even pizza to which he is wrong all right it's pizza it fits but we would disagree on that but you know what that's not a reason to divide fellowship we may split the pie where half of it's something and half of something else but we're not going to divide fellowship over that unless it's the gospel we're not going to divide fellowship and here's the deal in today's world the world wants you to be divided the world wants you to take a staunch view on what you believe outside of the gospel and then separate you from everybody else that doesn't believe that there used to be a time when we could disagree and still get along that time is fading and let me tell you if you do not think it's impacting the church today look around there are seats empty because certain things weren't said from the pulpit that they felt should have been said there are seats empty because political views didn't line up there are seats emptied because you voted for this person not this person none of those things define true fellowship our true fellowship is based on the gospel it's based on the shared word of god the immutable word of god and we put things so trivial as politics above that and let me explain think about the fact when you have something in common like christ as your savior when you talk to have you ever had lunch we've all had lunch with believers right i happen to have the honor and privilege of doing that yesterday and you just get to talking and you lose track of time you know why because you have something somebody else doesn't have and you have this common bond as jesus christ as your savior and you can have deep conversations and you can have funny conversations and you can just enjoy each other's company whereas if you're looking to solidify for a temporary reason like politics they change daily and so one day somebody's your friend the next day they're not we are supposed to have true fellowship we are to have true fellowship the church also should be based on the remembrance of what gave us freedom from the eternal death sentence we deserve not special holidays not church moments not pastoral accomplishments and not worship album releases we are to be based on the remembrance of christ's death see some of us like we choose listen i i love worship music i do i would not choose a church on worship music we use when you get in ministry and you get behind the scenes on some of that stuff you're like wow they really don't believe what they're singing but that that's that's okay god's still gonna use them how he's gonna use them right so we could sit here and you can listen to whatever type of music you want to that shouldn't divide fellowship but it also shouldn't be based on what our church is it shouldn't be like man this church just released this amazing worship album i got to be a member of that church i got to go to that church because have you heard their worship their worship's amazing
we base things on that when really church should be based on christ and christ's death look at first corinthians 11 23-26 it says and again paul for i pass on to you what i received from the lord himself on the night when he was betrayed the lord jesus took some bread and gave thanks to god in it then he broke it into pieces and said this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way he took a cup of wine after supper saying this is the cup is the new covenant between god and his people in agreement confirmed with my blood do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it for every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are announcing the lord's death until he comes could there be anything greater to remember to celebrate to put a slide up for to do a facebook or social media post could there be anything greater than this does a worship album really matter does the fact that the church has been around for 25 years matter no this is what matters this is what it's all based on we should be a part of a church we should be a member of a church that celebrates the death of christ the burial of christ the resurrection of christ over celebrating anything else now here's the deal celebrating things is not bad we could celebrate things we should celebrate things i still celebrate birthdays i'm about not to next year i turn 40. it's done my wife is like we're playing a huge party nope we're not i'm working i'm done celebrating birthdays but we celebrate big accomplishments we celebrate anniversaries we celebrate birthdays we celebrate holidays and nothing's wrong with those things they're enjoyable times my favorite holiday to celebrate is thanksgiving you know why because you get to eat whatever you want to i get to eat my mom's cooking which is amazing by the way i'm going to plug that in she's watching right now so she's going to set me up with some enchiladas in july that's off topic so anyways so listen we can celebrate these together we should celebrate things together we're going up to tennessee in july to celebrate the 4th of july with my parents we celebrate things but it shouldn't be celebrated over the death burial and resurrection of christ it should never be the priority what else do we look at here we should be devoted to the power of prayer not programs not prizes and certainly not promises after solomon finishes the temple the lord makes him a promise in second corinth second chronicles 7 14 then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways i will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their lands that is how important the power of prayer is listen here's the thing let me talk about programs for men and a couple different things because the power of prayer does come over programs now i was a student pastor so i dealt with students so programs in themselves are not inherently evil now we designed and did our own program we didn't purchase it or anything like that i didn't have that kind of budget but we did programs and we did crazy things in our program we would throw out pizza from the stage and that's that's just what student ministry does i would literally can you imagine pastor gene doing this i would literally bring a stack of pizzas and i would grab a slice and throw it out and some kid would inevitably catch that eat it now what was great is when they catch in their mouth and you're like that is fantastic you get a prize you so we would do all kinds of stuff we would throw candy from the stage we would have worship we would do big water days that was things we did there's nothing inherently wrong with programs it's just a problem when they become over the power of prayer i'm not going to pray for people to come to my church i'm not going to pray for the people in my church i'm going to provide programs that they can relate to i'm going to provide programs that provide entertainment i'm going to provide programs that are like oh man that church is exciting because they give out free sandwiches on sunday that's when it becomes a problem programs themselves are not inherently evil just like celebrations or not it's when it overrides the power of prayer let me tell you one today that i just mentioned promises let me explain a promise from this stage
is a difficult thing when you sit here and you promise people that if they give enough if they pray enough if they have enough faith they're going to be healed when you make those promises from this stage that is incredibly powerful because if it doesn't happen because it's not part of god's will for their life they're part of the sixty percent that go god doesn't love me enough to heal me that's not it it just wasn't in god's will for your life see god does heal people it happens all the time you hear about it all the time but it's not guaranteed you can't do enough to earn a healing you can't say the right things to earn a healing that's not what it's based on it's based on god's will for our life and so we'll make promises from this stage and we take them over the power of prayer because we're not really praying we're like hey if you are a good enough person if you give enough if you say the right things if you pray this is you're gonna be healed that's just not true because this guy doesn't know let me end on any secret this guy doesn't know i don't know i don't know if god's gonna heal you i don't know if that's his will for your life i will pray for you to be healed i will walk through you i will share the burden i will walk through life with you in this burden but i can't guarantee you're going to be healed but when we make promises like that from this stage and it doesn't happen they become part of that 60 percent so we should be looking at the power of prayer over everything else last one we should be devoted to generosity and not to selfish desires this is tough right generosity is hard acts 4 34-37 which is a great reiteration of the scripture that we're in there were no greedy people among them because those who own land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need can you imagine right now if people were selling their houses i mean it's the market to sell but they were selling their houses and like giving the money to the church if they walked up they sold their house and like pastor gene here's all this money can you pastor gene would fall over that man would fall out i i would too so let's they give us a great instance for instance there was joseph the one the one the apostles nickname barnabas which means son of encouragement he was from the tribe of levi and came from the island of cyprus he sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles they gave sacrificially let me touch on this because i'm going to say something controversial right now pastor gene is going to have to spend all next week apologizing he's like listen i'm sorry you know tony said that we'll we'll deal with him later he's probably going to put out a message tomorrow so here's the deal listen i love david ramsey he brings up great points but your budget should not dictate what you give to god let me step out and say that controversially your budget should not dictate what you give to god it shouldn't decide how much you give to god god should decide how much you're going to give to god what god lays on your heart that's what you give not what i mean i can give my 10 i got that budgeted out but the rest is uh it's kind of spoken for god you know that that car payment the house payment i got kids they're expensive i have three so it's really expensive that's not what it's based on we are to give sacrificially so this is what a church should look like so what do we do right let's reiterate some of this stuff and let's bring it down to a personal level because here's the thing shouldn't come to church i love it man i love it i loved it when i was a pastor people come church back this church doesn't give do you give this church doesn't pray do you pray because the church is in the building it's the people inside of it and if you're inside of it you're part of the people right so it's not just we should be looking at churches that do this we should be doing it ourselves that's the tough part right because it's easy to judge from the outside it's easy to go yeah we shouldn't be doing that listen let me let you in on a secret and if there's any deputies watching this they're gonna be mad at me we pull people over for speeding
happens i tell people when they're like i like to drive fast i'm like you should be a cop that's about the only way you're going to get away with it if i told you some of the stories i mean most of time most of the time we are running code and emergency and so we are we're doing it for a purpose other times we're doing it because we can it's just it's just human nature i'm telling you you're like at first when like when i first got i'm gonna venture here when i first got on the road i drove just the speed limit because i'm like i don't want anybody saying anything like i'm a cop i'm not supposed to speed and then as i've gotten longer i'm like like yeah nobody's gonna pull me over i'm in a cop car my wife the other day bless her heart i'm in district i get to park outside my house and i get to eat dinner and i just park outside my house parallel i turn my lights on my little cruise lights and i walk into my house and i grab dinner and she's like are you just in a park like that i'm like i'm a cop terrible it's terrible right but that's the attitude we take towards church sometimes you're laughing because i did it the other day in my personal car i just pull up park anywhere now but we do that with church we get ex we're like we condone the church and we don't hold ourselves accountable
listen we judge the pastor every sunday whether we want to or not when you get in the car you're like well that sermon's pretty good you know he said this isn't are we reading the bible are we preaching to ourselves we have this instance we are accountable these responsibilities don't just fall on the pastor or the church staff or the volunteers if you look at verse 42 it says all believers we must devote ourselves to hearing and applying the word of god psalms 119 1-8 joyful are the people of integrity who follow the instructions of the lord joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts joyful those words are amazing they do not compromise with evil and they walk only in his paths you have charged us to keep your commandments carefully oh that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees then i will not be ashamed when i compare my life with your commands as i learn your righteous regulations i will thank you by living as i should i will obey your decrees please don't give up on me can you read those scriptures and not be convicted as i was writing them down i was convicted i'm like lord you sure you want me to say this because i'm convicted about this myself
if we're not joyful there's a couple questions here if you're not finding joy in life let me ask you are you obeying his laws are you a people of integrity led by his instructions because those people are joyful we should be devoting ourselves to hearing and applying the word of god james 1 22 says but don't just listen to god's word you must do what it says otherwise you're only fooling yourselves is this the only time we get god's word is when we sit down in these seats and even then are we looking at our watch and be like he's got like 12 minutes he's got he better land this plane 12 minutes ah he's only on point four are we is that what we've devoted our hearing and applying god's word to the strict box of sunday morning church do we read god's word any other time we pick up the bible well do we pick up our phone and read god's word on it that's a good question right what else must we do the tough one we must love each other this is true fellowship
there are some people that are unlovable right that's just the way it is can you imagine doing marriage like we do church fellowship let's just let me just play this out i'm about to get in trouble with my wife but let me just play this out we walk into church and our idea of fellowship is hey man how's it going how are you doing we tell a couple stories oh you're doing great you're doing great we see each other for an hour and 15 minutes and then we leave for the week maybe we see each other on wednesday maybe not and then we fellowship again next sunday can you imagine if your marriage consisted of an hour and 15 minutes of each other time a marriage you would be like there's no love in that marriage he only sees it i mean absence does make the heart grow fonder right but that's the way we treat fellowship in church we see each other for an hour and 15 minutes and that's our fellowship that's it i'll see you next sunday that's not true fellowship these believers were together all the time they fellowshipped with each other they were there for each other they held each other accountable they shared their burdens and they wanted to see growth all the time and here's the crazy thing about it right they didn't have cell phones can you imagine not having a cell phone and fellowshipping with somebody i like sometimes fellowship is only like click click click how's it going it's going good and now here's i'm terrible with text message you should probably come visit me i would answer quicker like i get a text message and i look at i'm like oh i'm going to answer that and then i get distracted if you can't tell i get distracted easily and i get distracted and i'm like i thought i answered that text message and then i looked three days later i'm like what lie do i tell i dropped my phone in some water no i don't know but that's the way we fellowship with each other we have an hour and 15 minutes what is true fellowship first of all fellowship identifies us john 13 34-35 says so now i'm giving you a new commandment love each other just as i have loved you you should love each other christ loved us so much he died for us your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples there can be no greater impact in today's world than a church who has true fellowship because there is not much the world can look to today to say that group of people loves each other that group of people loves each other they fellowship all the time they're always together they're always sharing each other's burdens they may not agree on things everything but by the power of the gospel they have that agreement in christ and that bonds them together today's time to identify as a group of people that love each other that would change things it allows us to correct each other this is a tough one i'm a cop don't correct a police officer it's a terrible idea i didn't do it when i was not a police officer and it really doesn't work when i'm a police officer now right like you try to correct me i'll be like you're getting a citation that's the way it works right like oh you want to tell me the law i didn't go to school for this i don't know this that's what it is listen marriage probably should avoid this if you're going to correct your wife it better be out of love like it can't be the fight you've got some some of you know that lesson your significant other whoever you're dating let me give you some advice if you're dating you're about to be married you're newly married you should only correct your wife out of love it should never be out of anything else first of all that's biblical second of all it will save your marriage when you correct your wife it better be out of love and it better be worded correctly like it can't just be like honey no that's not right that's not the way that works i like to massage it i like the sandwich you know you did this great you could do this better but you did this great you know the sandwich the love sandwich so here's the deal we can correct each other by galatians 6 1 6 1-3 says dear brothers and sisters if another believer is overcome by sin you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path and be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself share each other's burdens in this way obey the law of christ it's actually considered a law of christ to share each other's burdens to love each other to be able to humbly and gently correct each other for a long time christianity became known as a bunch of hypocrites because you had a bunch of people that wanted to judgmentally correct each other and then do exactly what they were correcting the other person when they when they were on their own and we got this reputation as a bunch of judgmental hypocrites i was going through bible college right about that time that that started to really become a big deal we do it humbly and gently but true fellowship not only allows you to gently and humbly correct somebody it allows you to receive that correction it allows you to say what you know what you're right you're right i'm outside of the word of god on that one i'm glad you brought that to my attention how can i get through it see it's two-sided we should be able to gently and humbly correct and we should be able to receive that correction because we love each other as i get older i realize how much wiser my mom and dad were and i realized how right they were and i realized that they tried to do it the most gentle and humble way possible now for some of us me gently and humbly sometimes means a two by four because it doesn't get through other ways are you feeling bad for my wife at this point by the way she's back there doing the slide she's actually switching so she's volunteering right now so i'm saying all this right in front of her but at this point in time some of us need to be gently and humbly corrected more less humbly less gently need to be hit with a two by four god didn't mold you out of clay it was more like steel but we should be able to do that because we have true fellowship and love which is exactly the opposite of what is happening today i dare you to try to correct somebody online i wouldn't do it but i dare you to see what happens when you do not good it starts an argument it starts things that shouldn't be said in public things that should not be said online where it can be recorded and used against you later we don't allow correction because we don't have true fellowship what else must we do we must always be in remembrance of what christ did for us in in first corinthians 11 paul says come together five times showing us that by participating together in the lord's supper we give a visible expression of our unity in five times when he's discussing the lord's supper he says come together five times he wants to emphasize that we should come together to do lord's supper because it should be a unified expression that christ died for our sins and we take joy in our savior and we understand his sacrifice it's a unified expression we should do that the lord's supper should not be uh it's the fourth wednesday of the month i guess we should go and take the lord's supper it should be taken seriously it should be taken for what it is a memorial and it should be taken humbly as what it is what else we must do we must be devoted in prayer romans 12 12 says rejoice in our confident hope be patient and trouble and keep on praying remember the bumper slipper keep on trucking you just keep on praying listen i'm not guarantee that what you're praying for is gonna happen i've been praying for a 1999 dodge viper since 1999. and miraculously it hasn't happened some of you guys like 99 i wasn't even born in 99 i was i was born in it never mind so i've been praying for that still hasn't magically popped up in my driveway nobody's given me one i can't wait for the day that somebody walks i'll be like surprise tony here's the keys and i'll be like yes no i can't guarantee you that that prayer is going to happen because that may not be god's will for your life god's not giving me a dodge viper because i speed can you imagine if i was driving that thing not good he's like that's not my will for your life i don't want you to go that way tony so here's the deal we've got to pray romans colossians 4 2 says devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart pray for us too that god will give us the opportunity to speak about his mysterious plan concerning christ that is why i'm here in chains pray that i will proclaim this message as i clearly should first thessalonians 5 17 never stop praying who are you praying for when are you praying why are you praying never stop praying we should be devoted to prayer lastly we should be generous second corinthians two one through five now i want you to know dear brothers and sisters what god in his kindness has done through the churches in macedonia they are being tested by many troubles and they are very poor but they also are filled with abundant joy which is overflowed in rich generosity for i can testify that they gave not only what they could afford but far more and they did it on their own free will they begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in jerusalem they even did more than what we'd hoped for for their first action was to give themselves to lord and to us just as god wanted them to can you imagine if we gave this way because we wanted to we want to impact believers we want to make a difference listen we received christ somebody gave a tithe that caused the church to grow and we receive christ i want to impact somebody that same way listen if we gave this way you would never see any problems in the church right because everything would be there wouldn't be any problems like i remember multiple sundays walking in and an air conditioning unit not working oh terrible especially when it was the infant room man people are dropping off their babies and undoubtedly the infant room the air conditioner would go down and i'm on the phone with air conditioning people that are associated 24 7. i'm like you need to get here like five minutes ago i got people dropping off babies the babies are sweating babies should not sweat that doesn't happen right but if we gave generously that's not a problem we've got that stuff solved it's in the bag it's okay it's gonna be taken care of it's not a distraction we give not to prove anything not to try to out give god we give because we want to see others impacted for christ just as we were impacted and notice what they gave out of they gave out of an abundance of joy they were happy about it i don't know about you but giving out money is not necessarily the most happy thing i do if you have kids in here and they're young when they get older they ask for money and you're like how does this work man i don't remember asking my mom and dad for this much money to which i was told by my mom i did but it's like man and it's expensive we go to chick-fil-a 50 bucks for chick-fil-a no no i can buy chicken from walmart i'm sure i can make it taste the same
but we do it joyfully right because they're our children we love to spend money on our children we love to do great things with our children we love to have fun we should do the same thing some of us are gift givers that's our gift we love to give things and when we give things to people it makes us feel joy that's the way we should feel whenever we give to god we should feel joy because we're impacting the kingdom we're impacting the kingdom of christ through giving it's not about out giving god it's about impacting the others to where they can receive christ that should bring us joy i'm gonna close with this why do we do all this right why does all this matter i don't think i can sum it up any better like i was thinking of how to in this message i'm like how do i close out this message and then i read verse 46 and 47 again because we just talked about the 60 attrition rate we just talked about it 46 and 47 answered the across the question of the attrition rate in 46-47 it says they worship together at the church each day they met in homes for the lord's supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity all while praising god and enjoying the good will of the people and each day the lord added to their fellowship those who are being saved if we are devoted to the things they are devoted to and were devoted to them for the right reasons that answers the 60 percent attrition rate because god's going to take care of it if we're doing what we should be doing our church is going to be doing what it should be doing and god's going to handle the rest but the question that i want you to leave here today is why am i here why does church matter am i a good church member what can i do differently to impact the kingdom of christ let's pray dear god thank you for today god we just thank you for allowing us to come into your house god i thank you for all those who came out today i thank you for all those who put all the excuses away that they could and they showed up in your house today god i'd ask that you bless them for it god i ask that we as we leave this place we not stop fellowshipping with each other we not stop praying we not stop giving we not stop remembering what you are doing for us god i'd ask that church doesn't end when we get out i ask that it's just a great part of our week to come together but it's not the only part of our week god i'd ask today that you be with this nation and the time it's going through the divisions it's going through i'd ask that our fellowship and our love for each other reflect you and identify your church god god for all these things we ask in your name honor and glory amen
you