[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: When I was growing up, we made the occasional trip to North Carolina, and there was a place in North Carolina that was on our bucket list named Mount Airy, North Carolina. Now you might think, why in the world would that place of all places be on any bucket list? Well, you got to know a little bit about my upbringing. Every single night we watched the Andy Griffith Show. And in fact, in my room I had this little black and white portable TV that was really made for like RVs and campers. That's what I had in there. And it got one channel. It was only black and white, which was good for the Andy Griffith show because most of them were that. And so every night, even before I went to bed, I watched the Andy Griffith Show. And with my family, either on TV Land or Nick at night, we watched it together. And so in Mount Airy, North Carolina is supposed to be like a modern day Mayberry, that the street looks similar to downtown Mayberry. You got Floyd's Barbershop, and you can even get in the sheriff's car that Barney and Andy drove around. And so we always wanted to see that place. So if you grew up watching the Andy Griffith show and you're going to a place that's supposed to be like Mayberry, you have an expectation. You have an expectation of hospitality, of fellowship. You have an expectation of where people are going to greet you. They're going to know you even by name or give you a seat at the table. But we go to Mayberry and we go to Mount Airy, North Carolina. And I'll just say this, it did not quite meet expectations.
You can buy a very overpriced souvenir or get a very tacky T shirt. But the one thing that I remember is there's a little restaurant down there. And you expect that even if this place is packed and even if it's full, that you're still going to be greeted with some hospitality. And you expect that? Yes. Even if Thelma Lou and Barney show up to the table uninvited, that, you know, Aunt Bee's going to put a chair up to the table for you and you can join the meal with everybody. But instead, we sit down at this meal and this is how we were greeted. What do you want? Again, not quite the Mayberry experience that we were expecting. And so this past week, I got sucked into a little bit of a rabbit hole on Mayberry and the Andy Griffith Show. But I learned something about this show that I thought was so neat that I never heard growing up. And some of you that might be Andy Griffiths show experts, you probably already know what I'm about to tell you. But here's what was interesting. When they wrote it, they purposefully picked characters, all but one, that were either widows, widowers or single.
And the reason why it was written and produced like that was to show that there was these people. And this is what the article said. He said, we wanted to show a community of people that had the freedom to do whatever they wanted, yet they chose to take care of each other.
When I heard that, there was a verse that popped in my mind, and it's Galatians 5. And to give you a little bit of context, Paul is writing to the church in Galatians. He says, listen, what you've kind of done with freedom and grace, you've taken the idea of freedom and grace to say, because we've got grace, I can do whatever I want, because I have freedom, I can do whatever I want. But what he says here is this, that my brothers and sisters, we are called. Yes, to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, but rather you use your freedom to. To serve one another in humble love.
Do you see? What he's saying is, yes, you have the freedom to do whatever you want. But what made Mayberry Mayberry is they used their freedom to do what they ought.
If you were with us a few weeks ago, our shepherds got up here and they shared with us their vision for the church here at Madison in 2025. As we look through scripture and we prayed together, the thing that came to the surface was the one area we wanna focus on as a church body in this year is to focus on fellowship and hospitality. And it was so interesting. Last week after the sermon, I had three different people come up to me and say, you know, when you share what you shared last week, it made me think of the Andy Griffith Show. And my mind immediately started going there and getting ready for today, because I know for me, the memory that I have of what made Mayberry Mayberry, a lot of it had to do with this, the table. In fact, you remember Andy's front door. Was there a lock? I don't know. But what I do know about that front door, it was basically a revolving door every single episode. You never knew who was gonna show up for a meal. You never knew when or how or how often Barney was going to bring himself or someone uninvited or invited to show up at that table. And what I loved so much about it was, no matter who showed up, there was always a seat at the table. And maybe some of you connect with the Andy Griffith show in Mayberry because you grew up in a home like that.
I know that there's a lot of things I know my parents did wrong. But one thing that I love that my mom did is every Thanksgiving growing up, I never knew who was gonna show up at that table. In fact, being on Faulkner's campus, you would have a lot of different people that didn't have a place to go to. And so every Thanksgiving, we never knew who was gonna be there. And I even remember there would be certain times, like, people would start showing up, and they would be like, hey, Andrew, if you get off the table, so we can make a seat for them. So, like, I'm standing in the corner, you know, eating my dressing while someone else has the seat. But, you know, maybe you grew up like that, and you remember those images of chairs being added, maybe even as your family's grown. You know, what started as, like, you know, 10 chairs, now 12 chairs and 15 chairs. That's part of what made Mayberry Mayberry.
But I read something in a book that I thought was interesting, and if you've been to another country, you've probably experienced is that one of the things that they pointed out is if you go sit around a table, especially at a restaurant in a foreign country, they don't check on you very much. They get your initial order, and they kind of are missing for a while. Then they show up more towards the end. And the reason is, is in their culture, if you show up at a table all the time, it's kind of the idea that it's rude because you're rushing them. You're trying to get them in and out, and can't blame them, maybe because you want to make more money, make more tips. But in their culture, the table is not something that is meant to be Rushed through the table is meant to be an experience. And I remember when we went to Peru a few months ago, that's what happened. Our waiter took our order, brought our food, and I was like, should we check on him? Like he's gone missing, you know. But again, in their culture, that's part of it. It's not to be rushed through. There's meant to be conversation. And so with that in mind, I want us to talk about today, specifically fellowship. But in order to do that, I think in the right way, we have to define the difference between hospitality biblically and fellowship biblically. And so today we're going to talk about fellowship and for the next two weeks, and then after that we're going to talk about hospitality. So I want to give a little bit of a difference.
Hospitality, as you can see in the Greek here, either means one of two things.
A Greek scholar I read said the best translation he said I could give would be this someone who is a friend of a stranger. But then there's this other one, the love of strangers. It involves generous and friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers. Now, I don't like this term outsider, but I do know that within the church, you know, we do have certain language, right? Certain things we know. Like I can say 201A and most of you, and by the way, I found out there's two 201s. So anyway. But I say that you know what I'm talking about. Someone on the outside may not know what I'm talking about. It's the idea of those on the outside that don't know the church lingo, that aren't a part of the body of Christ. The guest, the stranger. That's what hospitality centers around.
But then there's fellowship.
Fellowship is a word that you've probably heard in the Greek before. And if you haven't, it's kind of a similar one that connects to a lot of different aspects. The body of Christ, and it's koinonia. And koinonia means a communion, sharing or participation. But what I want us to notice about this is it's different than hospitality in the fact that fellowship is among believers. Hospitality is for the guest and the stranger. Now, while they're different, they actually build upon each other. And the connections they're in can actually build to even greater outreach. And what we might even say is inreach, too. But today we're going to focus on fellowship. And as we think about that definition, I want to give us a little bit of something to keep in Mind, before we dig into the text. Number one, fellowship is much more than friendship.
It's different in the fact that we have Jesus as the one that unites the background of our relationships. Now, this doesn't mean that every time you and I are together, that means we have to get together. And that when we do, we always open up the Bible and we read scripture together. Now, if that what happens, and that's where it leads, that's awesome. But the idea of our relationships in fellowship is basically like a rescue support group. We're all getting together with the understanding that we've all been rescued, that we remember a time in our life where we didn't have Christ.
And then we made that decision to put on Christ. The blood of Christ washed our sins away. We were given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so now with that in mind, we go into those relationships with each other. From the standpoint of rescue. It's like if a group of people got together to talk about how they had been rescued physically. We're getting together with the understanding we have been rescued by the blood of Christ. And what's interesting about this relationship, that's different.
Fellowship is not just there to chase away loneliness. Fellowship is also there for us to be reminded of the divine favor that we've all experienced because of the blood of Christ.
It's a sharing and a participation in the gospel. It's a sharing and participation in Christ. But that leads us into this, that I also want us to understand. It's not just a label. Fellowship is not just a title. Fellowship is something you experience. I remember hearing a lot over the years, we are a Christian fellowship. And that is true. But the word fellowship, if you look at what it means, it's a communion, a participation, a sharing in. It's something you're active in. It's not just a title, it's something you experience.
And so when we walk through these doors, it's not just information that we're exchanging. It's not just information we're taking in. We can't mistake the information we hear from scripture and the songs we sing for the intimacy we experience with the backdrop of Jesus Christ. That the way we operate and think is all right. Yes, we're coming together to sing songs together, but I'm also coming together to look out for my brother and to look out for my sister and sometimes ask, hey, how are you doing? Or hey, I heard about your good game this past. That is so awesome. And to celebrate with each other first, John says this. We proclaim to you, those things we've seen and heard.
So you can also have fellowship with us. He's basically saying the things you've seen, the things you've heard, we also want you to what to experience.
And I know this is kind of an odd word, play a little bit, and I'll give you a little reason why I picked it, that the times we spend together are also within the backdrop and the backstop of grace.
For those of you that have ever played baseball before, and especially if you've ever played catcher, there are certain backstops that are very graceful and others that are not. And here's what I mean. One of my kids was playing catcher. Same baseball field. Park. Excuse me, there's two fields. One of the fields where he was playing catcher at right behind him, there was like, five feet, and then there was the backstop. And so that meant whenever he missed a ball or maybe one of his friends pitched the ball wildly, the ball wouldn't go very far. He would just turn and grab it. And if the guy was running home, he'd just tag him. It was so easy. But then there was this other backstop, same part, but different field, y'all. It was like 25ft behind the catcher. And so then if there was a pass ball or he missed it, he's going running. And by the time he would get to the ball, if he was running to first, he would get all the way to third, because there was not much grace to that kind of backstop. And I give that as an illustration for every single one of us. We're going to make mistakes. Not everything's going to be on point. Not everything's going to be as it needs to be. And by the way, when I say this, I'm not saying this is giving us an excuse to hurt each other and to do what they were talking about in Galatians 5. But at the same time, when we deal with relationships, even with each other, those relationships should all come with a warning label that says, basically, at one time or another, this thing's going to go south. Here's why. Because I'm broken, and so are you. But what we have as we deal with that brokenness is this backstop that is so graceful that there are going to be moments of difficulty and challenge. But it's the backstop of grace that we approach it in. And I was thinking about Mayberry and how I loved how Andy dealt with Barney.
Just the graciousness of his awkwardness and the graciousness of his inconvenience and the graciousness of the difficulty and the pain sometimes he caused. That's kind of the mindset of at which we have fellowship with one another. And I was even thinking about this kind of this week, you know, a lot of us are going to be watching the super bowl together, and we're. But I want us to understand that a true representation of the church is not what we watch, but it's what we experience. We're more like the people that are actually on the field, you know, together giving out the plan, telling everybody where to go. We go do it, and we get back in the huddle again. It's the idea of being in the trenches together. That's what fellowship is about. And so with that understanding, here's what I want us to do. I want us to read this text together.
And I don't want to happen with you what's happened with me before in this text. And it's this. I've let the familiarity of it at times cause me to miss the power that's inside of it. And so let's read it together and let's reflect on what you see.
So those who received his word were baptized.
There were added that day about 3,000 souls.
They devoted themselves to these things, to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers. Awe came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and their belongings and the proceeds to all as any had a need. And day by day, they attended the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts. They were praising God and having favor with all people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved. Now, as you read that, I want to give you a little bit of a background on manuscripts and biblical writings. So today we have printing presses pretty frequent. And even we found out, by the way, it's even cheaper sometimes to buy a brand new printer that comes with ink than just to buy the ink itself. What I'm saying is that you can. It's actually, you know, not too expensive sometimes just to go and print, you know, compared to the difficulty of printing back in the day. And kind of an example of that, in the early manuscripts, a lot of times they didn't even include punctuation because they were trying to make the best use of the material that they had. And so I say all that to say whenever you hear or see something in scripture repeated A light bulb should go off. This is important because they had to make the most of that manuscript. They had to make the most of the page. And so when you read something repeated four times in five verses, that's kind of the light bulb going off, saying, hey, this was a pillar fellowship, the breaking of bread. All who believed were together breaking bread in their homes, receiving their food with glad, generous hearts. And so you see those themes repeated. And I want us to look at the background at which formed all of those things. Number one at this table, here's what I love about them. They were united.
Now, I want to explain a little bit of that unity. And to do so and to appreciate it, go back a few verses to Acts, chapter two. And if you go back to Acts two and look at verse five, I want you to read this with me. This is really incredible.
I want you to try to just take note of all the different types of people, all the different backgrounds of the people that made this fellowship, this sharing together. So look what it says beginning in verse 5. Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews. So he's basically saying, hey, there were Jews there.
But notice what mentions next. But there was also people from every nation under heaven. And at the sound of this multitude, they came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed. They were astonished, saying, are not all of these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each in his own native language? And here's who was there, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocious, Pontus and Asia, Perga and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome. There was both Jews and Proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.
We hear them telling our own tongues the mighty works of God, and notice what it says about this whole setting. All were amazed and perplexed. And they said to one another, what does this mean? But others were mocking, saying, they are just filled with new wine. I used to think that the reason why they were perplexed was just because they were speaking in different languages, speaking in tongues, the mighty works of God. But here's why they were amazed. They were amazed that all these different people from all these different backgrounds were sharing the same thing.
What united this group of people was Jesus Christ.
And I was trying to put into today's terms what this would have looked like. And this is probably a poor example because it still falls short.
But this would be like, you going to the DMV tomorrow, and you're like, all right, can I get everyone's attention?
Tomorrow we're gonna establish a church.
So the person that's applying to renew their Mercedes Benz license, and then you got a person over here that hasn't put on deodorant in a week. Like, we're all gonna get together and we're gonna start a church. But add to that, like, flaming swords and spears, okay? Like, that's what this was.
And so knowing that is pretty incredible. And we've said this before. Think about our own fellowship we experience here. Like, if we were to get a pen and paper and start to ask every person here about their views on every single little thing, do you think we would agree on everything yet? What did we get to do? This morning?
We broke bread and we shared a cup together.
There's a bunch of Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and all these other hard to name people and places all coming together because of who unites us. Jesus Christ. But here's the other thing we know that happened around the table is they were being formed around that table. Notice what preceded even that fellowship. There was apostles teaching. They saw the table as a place to learn. You know, one of my favorite things that Andy did around the table was using the table as a means to educate.
You know, I shared with you last week some very. That to me, was kind of like a gut punch of some statistics. And if you were here and read those, we talked about that. The Harvard medical study found that kids that sit around a table regularly with their parents are 72% less likely to be involved in a lot of awful things that could be experienced that we shared earlier.
And I think part of the reason why that is the case and why it was the case here for them is the formation that can happen. Because you think about around a table, you're kind of forced in a way to be there in the fact that you might have a conversation. You can't just always leave. You're there. And so when you look at each other in the eye, it kind of gives you an opportunity to address things, to bring some things up. That there is spiritual formation that if we give it the atmosphere to do so, that can happen around the table. But here's what then happened is as they were teaching together and they were being together, they were also serving each other. I love how the fact that it says that, you know, all the things that they had, they didn't really see them as their own Some people have falsely taken that to mean a pro socialistic mindset. That's not what that means because we know that throughout Scripture people had their own private homes. But it is the idea that understanding hey, this side of heaven, by the way, nothing is mine anyway.
What is mine is ours. And there really is no me and my in the kingdom mindset. It's ours.
And it's when you come in contact with the blood of Christ, you are also come in contact with a generous spirit. The two go hand in hand. And so what you notice that they were doing the table wasn't just something like that they shared a part of it was something that they shared out. I love this text when it says this in First John 3 if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
But the table is also an experience of the kingdom. I wish I could put all the verses up here, but it's so neat to read the prophecies of what we're going to experience one day. And I think it's so neat that the prophets keep coming back to the table as the picture and the unity around the table. But the differences I think about when David says, you know God, you prepare a table before me. But you notice what it says next, right in the presence of all that I see eye to eye with, right?
It says, you prepare a table for me even in the presence of my whole my enemies.
Even at the table, it's safe. But then I think about this one, Isaiah 25. It says that God is the Lord of hosts, and it describes him preparing a banquet. And it says, there's people from all the nations. Matthew 8 gives us another picture, says, the people of all the corners of the earth coming together around one table.
I don't know what goes through your mind when you read Acts 2, but I'll kind of tell you where my mind went. I for so long, even just recently, when I read through Acts 2, I used to say something like this, and maybe some of you can relate. Well, I wish we could have that. I wish we could just be like that church. I wish we could do something like that. And I view it more as nostalgia than a reality I shared with you last week. What scripture showed is that it's not something that just happens accidentally.
And we even have a song about Mayberry. By the way, this is not in the hymnal, so that's why Brandon didn't use it. I miss Mayberry. It's not a church song, but the idea of Mayberry, we've kind of chalked up to the idea of something that you just miss.
Well, what I want to encourage us and to challenge us as a church body to do is this. Don't make Mayberry something you just miss.
Let's make it something we make to be intentional about it. So how can we do this? So we're gonna go through Acts two, and I'm gonna give you three different points. I know these are kind of odd, but I learned by things being odd because I'm odd. And so here's the first one.
We need fellowship that has refrigerator rights.
When I went to Faulkner, I had a mini fridge. And I also had two roommates. And we're good friends now. We've all been open about this. Okay. That I didn't ask for. Okay. And I was on the soccer team, which is a lot of people from all different parts of the world. And I got put in a room with three guys. Okay? And I remember routinely going into my dorm and seeing the very food that was in my refrigerator. They walk in, they're like, what's up, Andrew?
And they're eating my food.
And then I would see them drinking my Gatorades. And what made it worse is they would just half drink the Gatorade and then leave it out. I'm like, okay, at least drink the thing, you know, if you're gonna take it. And so what I started to do, I got a Sharpie, and I started writing my initials on everything.
And that'll show them. I come in still popping those drinks and drinking, even when it says Andrew Itsyn on it. I put a chair against the mini fridge.
No thinking that that's gonna send the message. The chair was moved, right? That's the way it was. Because in my mind, I thought, you can't do that. We're not on that level. You don't have refrigerator rights. And I was even thinking about it today, like, if you came to my house and you said, hey, Andrew, I'm going in the kitchen real quick and get me a cup of water. Go ahead.
But if I saw you, like, without permission, just going up to the refrigerator, opening it and grabbing the deli meat and, andrew, where's the spicy mustard? And then you grab my spicy mustard. And I didn't tell you to get that. I'm thinking, maybe out loud, I'm acting like everything's okay, but inside, you know what I'm doing. What are you doing?
Because in my mind, you don't have refrigerator rights. When I read Acts 2, I love the mentality of them. It was friends that had those. And I want you to think about this. You and I, we will say we have friends. But I want to ask you this. Do you have friends that you would classify that have refrigerator rights?
All right, I'm going to give you another one. And if you were a part of my intergenerational connect group, you're going to remember this one. But I also want us to challenge, to make ourselves a little bit more authentic, to have some in our life what we'll call barefoot buddies. Okay, so here's the context of this one. We all have something about us that we don't like physically, spiritually, mentally, but especially physically. If we got a one on one with God, we might say, God, why did you give me that? And why couldn't I have had that?
Well, one of the many things that I've asked God that I wish he would have made different. And I'm about to be very vulnerable with y'all, okay?
And this stays in this room and Everybody watching on YouTube that the one thing I really, really do not like about myself is my second toe on both feet, okay? And I'm wearing shoes today, every day because I do not like my second toe. In fact, when I was younger, my second toe was so long, my sister used to joke on me, called me Eagle Talons, and she would drop her fork on the floor and be like, andrew, why don't you get it? No, just use your feet. You know, like, things like that. I heard a lot of that growing up. And so I was really excited that the style was socks with sandals. I'm glad it's back because, you know, I could wear the comfort of sandals, but people wouldn't see my toes. And so for so long, if you came over to my house unannounced, and our kids were like, hey, so and so's here. While a lot of y'all would go do your hair, I'm putting socks on because I don't want you to see my feet. But here's the thing I do know is, like, my family's there and some of my close friends.
Like, I've put my choco feet without sandals on. You know, Brandon Presnell's coffee table before, because he's seen my toes, and I'm not concerned about it anymore, that I feel like I can do that, right? That he can see my feet. By the way, Cruz told me a while back, he showed me a picture that just means that You're Greco Roman. So that made me feel a little bit better, but not a lot. But I say all that to say is that we all have something about us, physically or mentally, spiritually about us that we don't like. And we're going to look at a text in just a second of somebody that had some feet that they didn't like, but how they were welcomed and received. And that idea of welcome and received is incredibly important when it comes to authenticity and vulnerability. And next week, Brandon's gonna talk about how we can overcome those barriers to be more authentic with each other and to be more even. As scary as it is to say vulnerable with each other, this verse says this. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ welcomed you. That's the backstop of grace. I'm talking about that when we deal with the relationships with each other, what we're basically saying, I'm welcoming you because I've been welcomed. But notice what he says next when we do this. Welcoming, or as the Greek says, accepting of one another as we've been accepted, we're worshiping.
Think about that.
The way we accept each other and the way we worship each other. He says, you're bringing glory to God.
I'll give you an example of a barefoot buddy. It's found in 2 Samuel, and it's a guy named Mephibosheth.
And for some of you new moms that are looking for a name, here's an id. You can call him Shepher something for short. But Mephibosheth is really interesting because of the background. So if you remember, David had a really good buddy named Jonathan. In fact, he was more than a buddy. Jonathan was the rightful heir to the throne. But God said, no, I see something about David. I want him to inherit that throne. And so even though Jonathan was the rightful heir, because God's thumbprint was on David's life, Jonathan said, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make sure you are safe. His own father was trying to kill David. And the Bible says this, that Jonathan went 30 miles to help David find strength in God. That's an awesome friend.
And so they had that kind of relationship. Well, one of the things that David promised Jonathan a long time ago, he said, hey, I'm always going to show compassion to anybody in your household.
Fast forward.
There's a time when Jonathan's household was being under attack.
And Jonathan, one of his offspring, Mephibosheth, is being picked up by a nurse. The nurse is running and evidently trips and falls and he breaks his legs or is crippled. We don't really know that. The Hebrew just says that he is lame. And so during this time, keep in mind, this was a day when if something physically was wrong with you, they said, well, that must be God punishing you or you must have done something to deserve it. And so they would send you in what they call in the Hebrew lo debar, which is a desolate place. They would kind of kick you out of the city because of how broken you were, how messed up you were. And that's where Mephibosheth was. He was outside of the city, outside of the holy place, outside of Jerusalem, because of his broken feet.
Well, David remembers that promise he made, and he brings up to somebody. He said, hey, I made a promise a long time ago to Jonathan that I would show compassion to somebody in his house. Is there anybody left in Jonathan's household?
And you can even tell the way it was written in the text. They're kind of like, well, not really. Yes, but not really. He goes, what do you mean, is there? Well, yeah, there's this guy. He's living actually in this desolate place. You would not want to have anything to do with him. He's got broken feet.
But here's what's also interesting. If you look in the Hebrew, it also gives this word that he was also unclean, which is the idea that when they were at this desolate place, they weren't getting treatments like baths.
This guy hadn't showered or been cleaned in years, and he's got broken feet. And here's what David says.
So it says, so Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem and he ate at the king's table.
Now he was lame in both feet.
I think that's so amazing that this guy that had broken feet and is dirty and nasty is given a seat at the table.
And it's also kind of neat if you think about it from just like a mental image that this guy, his legs are under a table.
And so around the table, what's not highlighted really is his weakness, but what brought him to the table.
And I want you to think about that. For every single one of us, every person in the this room has broken ugly feet in one way or another.
We've all got something about us that we don't like, but yet it's around the table. You think about Acts. The text we just read is really just a continuation of Luke and Luke all throughout it. We see Jesus at the table with that guy, and Jesus around the table with that girl, and Jesus even Making disciples as Luke highlights from all the different types of backgrounds.
And yet that's who God picks to be the ones that get the kingdom of God going here on this earth.
And here's the final one is we need to find people that we can fight lions together with.
One of the things that I tell my kids a lot and anytime I get a chance to speak to young people, I make a point to always say how much Satan is after them. He's not reactive, he's very proactive. In fact, this is what the Bible says about Satan. You have to be sober minded, you have to be watchful. You have a adversary, the devil, that is prowling around like a lion. He's trying to devour people. So Satan's after you. So knowing that, look what it says. Hebrews 3. Take care, brothers, lest there be any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God.
Excuse me, but exhort one another. What does it say every day? I want to say that again. Exhort one another. When?
Every day.
As long as it's called today. And here's why. So none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
I wanted to point out that every day, yes, the day we'll call Sunday matters.
But he also mentions here that fellowship is not just the day today, it's every day. Why?
Well, how did your heart at one time or another become hardened by sin?
Most of the time it's not because of one just poor decision or one big moment.
A hardened heart oftentimes happens in small daily increments.
And so fellowship is one of the means to interrupt a hardened heart.
Yes, it's the day, but it's also every day.
And so that's why we as a church want to challenge all of us. This is not just some. Yes, we as the leaders, we're going to do this, but this is something that we want everybody to be involved in is we're going to have different weeks of either fellowship or hospitality. We have six in total, but we're putting four up here now just to get us through the summer.
We'll give an example coming up in February, February 16th through the 22nd, we're going to have a week of fellowship where. Here's our challenge. We want every single one of the members here at Madison to have somebody in their home or you be creative with it. If you don't want it to be your home, if you want it to be whatever setting you need to pick, you choose however you want. This to happen. But February 16th through the 22nd, we want you to find somebody that has never been in your home and have them over for a meal.
Now, when you hear that, you might think, well, I hope someone asks me. That's not what we're saying. This is not. Well, no one invited me. No, we're saying you do the inviting.
Okay, you do the inviting. And so we're gonna have weeks of fellowship where you ask people to come over to your house for a meal that are a part of the body of Christ here. But then we're have hospitality weeks where, you know, you have somebody that's never been in your home, that's not a member of the church in your home for a meal. And keep in mind, these aren't like some strict rules. If you have somebody like that, you know, here that would connect with your neighbor, bring them over. We're trying to just give the idea and get the idea going of creating that idea of not just missing Mayberry, but making Mayberry. So go ahead and start thinking about who you want to have over from the body of Christ here at Madison that you've never had in your home February 16th through the 22nd. And so with all of that in mind, I want to ask you this. As you look at this list, I know there's two different kind of approaches. We can either look at us as the body of Christ and say, all right, I maybe have that one, but I don't have these.
And again, as the book of Proverbs says, it's not, you know, the people who show themselves friendly are also the ones that have friends. It's a two way street, okay? So the thing you want, you also have to create. And so if you see something on here that you need to do better at it, maybe today's the day you need to admit, you know, right now I've been dealing with something that I've been keeping hidden. And here's the challenge of things hidden. Proverbs 28:13 says this. Whoever conceals their sins will not prosper.
David Polison said this, that things that grow in a secret garden, they always grow mutant. So maybe you're here today and you need the Barefoot Buddies.
You need to say, right now, these are my broken feet. This is what I'm struggling with.
Maybe you've been a little bit closed off in certain things. You want the Acts2 community, but maybe you haven't done the Acts2 contribution.
Maybe you're here today and you say, listen, I'm struggling with a certain sin that I've been struggling with for a long time. I need to fight lions together with the people here. You can walk to one of the exits and find one of the shepherds, or you can walk down here and we can pray for you. But I also know there's another group of people that look at this list.
You might look at that and you might read Acts 2. As a person that's never made the decision to put on Christ, and you read that and you're like, man, that sounds like way too good to be true. What I want to tell you is it's way too good not to be true. And if you look at that list, here's what I want you to know. That what preceded this type of community was Parthians, Medes, Edomites, and all these other hard to name places. That as the Bible says in Acts 2:37, that they were guilty of killing God's only son.
And if you'll notice, it says this, when they heard this, that they had killed God's only son, they said, what should we do?
And isn't it interesting that the one that experienced so much welcome and acceptance from Jesus in his own rescue story, Peter, is now the one that probably years before would have said, well, there's nothing you can do.
You kill God's only son.
But yet the one that experienced grace is now giving grace. And here's what he says.
Repent.
Be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
You want people to fight lions together with you Want some barefoot buddies? You want to be a part of a family that has refrigerator rights? And you've not made that decision to put on Christ in baptism, Please do so today while we stand and we sing this song together.
