[00:00:01] 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] Good morning.
[00:00:39] We're continuing our study on the home and specifically we're talking about fellowship. And as I was thinking about Andrew's message from last week, one of the things that jumped out to me was he used in Acts Chapter two, as the church was coming together, that one of the things that they did is they spent daily time in the temple together, but they also were in each other's homes. They were breaking bread together. They were enjoying these meals together. And one of the things that it says about that is that they were enjoying the blessing of that with generosity, with singleness of heart, and they were in love with one another in that way. It made it very special. It wasn't just a thing where they came together to get meal. It was something that was very intentional, very spiritual in nature, and they had something very special in their relationship with Christ that brought them together, that kept them a little bit deeper even than just the typical relationships. You know, it's great to meet with people that we love and that we enjoy being around and having those meals with them. But there was something specific about this that brought them to a level of closeness. And as I was thinking about that and I was preparing for the message this week, and as we're preparing ourselves for being in each other's homes, eating together and enjoying some fellowship and getting to know each other better. There were a couple of shows on television that came to my mind that you're probably familiar with as well. One of them was called Blue Bloods, and it's a show about this family of, I would just say, law enforcement. I mean, you got the police chief, you've got a detective, you've got like a precinct leader, and then you've got like a, you know, officer that's on the street. And then on top of that, you have an assistant district attorney. And all in one family. And they come together, they work really Almost apart from each other through the week, Although there's a lot of chatter back and forth about how things should be done. You know, each of them trying to fulfill law enforcement and justice from their own particular angle. And sometimes those things don't marry up. And so they would come together every. Every Sunday, and they would have this meal together, and over that meal, that would be this great conversation. And sometimes it was a little animated, sometimes it was, you know, arguing back and forth. But it was a place of acceptance, a place where you could say whatever it is you wanted to say to each other, and it didn't affect the relationship. They were that vulnerable with each other, that transparent, that close. But then I also think about this show, and a lot of you have probably seen this. This is Duck Dynasty, and this is the Robertson family. They all work together for one common goal, and that's to make a good duck call. And they're very successful at that. And it's a lot of crazy folks, just to be honest with you. If you watch that show, you're gonna see all kinds of weird, crazy antics. And sometimes they're at each other's throats a little bit, sometimes they're laughing at each other, they're making fun of each other. But what happens is, every episode at the end of that show, they come together as a family and as co workers, and they hold hands and they pray together. And it's obvious that they have something more in common than just the fact that they use a duck call. You know, there's family, there's friendship, but there's also this intimacy of faith that binds them together and brings them closer. I remember during COVID I don't remember who it was that started it, but because everybody was kind of scattered and was really hard for us to be able to see family, I think it was my dad who said, well, hey, everybody, who wants to come on Friday mornings, we're going to have what we're calling Breakfast Club. Okay? And, you know, my sister, who lives in Birmingham, would come on Friday mornings, and I wasn't able to get there as much as I would have liked to. But they would come together, and we would sit and we would have fellowship together. Good family fun and good conversations. And typically, my brother Chris would find the need to stand up and reenact something from our childhood. I mean, you know, like, crazy stuff. It was always animated, always fun. We laughed, we cried together. But almost always as a part of that conversation was, well, hey, how's so and so doing at your church? We've been praying for them, and we would kind of share these things back and forth. And there was, like, an intimacy, a closeness that went beyond the fact that we're blood relatives. It's that we're a part of something bigger, a part of a church family that draws strength from each other and is concerned and cares for each other. And that makes it very special. And so, as I think about what we saw in Acts chapter two, them being together brought them closer for various reasons. Let's move to this concept of this heart of fellowship and dig a little bit deeper. How did it progress in the church? And if you go to Acts chapter four, still infancy of the church, and they're still together. But it tells us a few things that we probably need to emulate today as we think about how they carried themselves. Acts 4:32 says, now the full number of those who believed catches were of one heart and soul. No one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. Can you just for a moment, like, imagine if all of us were one heart, one soul? What does that look like? What is it like when all of us find ourselves moving in the same direction, that there is this intimacy and the closeness that brings us into that one voice? Man, that would be such a beautiful thing. Well, what was it in those days, in the early part of the church that brought about that? Well, the text tells us a little bit what brings this kind of unity. The first thing is selflessness. You know, when it says, no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own.
[00:06:02] I want you to be clear. And Andrew even said this last week that, you know, they had their own possessions. It wasn't like they brought it all out and tabulated it up and equaled it out to everybody. But the whole idea was there was an attitude that they exhibited that said, hey, if all that I have is a gift from God, everything that I've been blessed with is because of God's provisions for me. It's not mine. It's actually meant to be of help to other people. And so they kind of caught that. And because they were going through these things together in the early church and struggling and suffering and suffering persecution, it was great to have people who would also share in that load with you. So there was something beautiful about that selfless, you know, disposition that said, I'm looking out for everyone else. The second thing was this awareness says they had all things in common, right? Or all. Or had everything in common. What does that mean? It means that they were so close that they didn't have to ask for something.
[00:06:58] They didn't have to say, hey, I'm in need. Could you guys take this? The idea, at least as I read it, is they were so in tune with one another, when they saw a need, they proactively took care of that. It's pretty amazing, right? And what would happen if all of us here at Madison began to look around and see needs and just fulfill those needs with the surplus, with the things that we have, the way that we are blessed, our time, our love, those kinds of things. Lots of ways for us to support each other. But those two things were very important.
[00:07:30] So it created this fellowship. And when I say fellowship, I just don't mean friendship. I mean there was something significant about pulling them together. Well, what was it that brought that? Well, the next verse says this, that with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon all of them. So, first of all, let's tackle that for just a second. The first thing that made it special was the certainty of the resurrection. Just for a moment. Put yourself in their shoes. Go back to Jesus is in his ministry, and for three years, you follow him day and night. You work from one place to the next. You don't know when you're going to have food. Jesus does these miraculous things, provides for not just you, but 5,000 people. People come to him and they're in need of healing. And he. He heals them on the spot. His heart of compassion looks at a group of people who really don't want to know anything about Him. And he still has care and concern for them. He still wants to teach them. And you watch this pattern for three years as he is going about doing good things. And you see him teach, you see him love, you see him heal and all of that. And then he tells you here and there that there are some things that you need to understand, that my life is going to be taken from me. There's going to be a time where I. I'm no longer here with you. You hear those things. But it's almost like, well, he's the Son of God. He's doing all these miraculous things. He's taking care of all these things. Surely he's above all of those kinds of things. If he's in fact God, he'll live forever. And then they arrest him, they beat him, torture him and put him on a cross. And you watch life expire from his body.
[00:09:02] And with that all the promises he gave, all the teaching he put in your heart, all the things that made you follow him because of your conviction that he was the Son of God. I mean, who among us wouldn't have a moment of faltering, maybe just losing a little bit of that hope?
[00:09:21] Put yourself in their shoes.
[00:09:23] But then three days later, Jesus is raised from the dead. And not only does he appear to some people, he comes into the apostles, right? And he goes into that room and. And you know, there are a lot of people who have doubts. I don't believe it. You know, they came back a second time. You know, Thomas was saying, I don't. Unless I see his hands and his feet, I will not believe. And Jesus, knowing that, doesn't even wait for him to ask. He just walks up and says, hey, here are my hands, here are my feet.
[00:09:47] Here's the side. You can put your hands in here, Thomas. And Thomas falls and says, my Lord and my God. Can you imagine the excitement they would have felt that all of those things that they feared were gone are now back? And the reality is that what Jesus promised is real, that he's the resurrected Messiah. And can you imagine how exciting that was? In First Corinthians, chapter 15, it says that over 500 people saw the resurrected Messiah there. He was raised from the dead.
[00:10:17] And that had to have been a powerful thing. And that's the thing that united them together is like we have this knowledge of something that's so amazing it's earth shattering. And that's why it was the kind of thing that would turn the world upside down. Because the promises that he made were outside of our comprehension and outside of our ability to even think that that could happen. And yet it does happen. And you can imagine how much faith they drew from that and how important it was in the middle of that suffering to find each other. For these house to house conversations over a meal, over prayer. If you look back into history, even when they partook of the Lord's Supper, one of the things it says is that they would have this meal together. And in that meal, part of the process was for them to acknowledge their shortcomings and their sins, the things that they're struggling with. And they would look across the table at a brother or a sister in Christ and they would share these things, and they would share back and forth, and they would pray for each other, that they would be strong enough to fight that temptation the next time, that they would do the right thing, that they would stay strong in their faith. And then having Concluded all that they would wrap it up with an observance of the Lord's Supper, having their minds already purified and clean, you know, and then we go and have this special communion that would bind them together in even more powerful ways. It had to have been exhilarating for them to escape the hostility outside, to come together for that beauty of the fellowship that they enjoyed as Christians. Man, just put yourselves in their shoes. But also the mutual recognition of God's grace. It says grace was upon all of them. They recognized that not only has God been raised from the dead or Jesus been raised from the dead, but also he is pouring out his blessings on us. And we can look around and we can see his provisions, his protection for us. His mercies are being poured out on us. Even in the midst of all this hostility, they could see it. And there was something very empowering about them experiencing that together. The resurrection coupled with the grace of God among all of them, and they experienced that together.
[00:12:18] That's fellowship. It goes beyond the meal. It goes beyond us breaking bread together.
[00:12:25] It's the connection that we feel, the tying together that it's beyond even blood relatives. It's a connection that is so deep.
[00:12:34] So let's fast forward a little bit. If you were to continue reading, in the Book of Acts, you're going to see all these different mission trips, and they're going out and they're establishing congregations in all these different locations. All. All of them are not necessarily raised the same way they were. They got all kinds of pagan places out there and they're establishing congregations. And all of a sudden, the church is very diverse because of all of the backgrounds and all the things that came together as they bound them together in the church. And so how do we maintain that kind of unity? How is it that we even see it that way? Right. Well, that's tough for us because we imagine the diversity. Well, in First Corinthians, Paul sort of addresses some of this because he talks to them about the manifestations of the Spirit. Hey, they had different spiritual gifts. Some were able to prophesy, Some were able to speak in tongues. Some were able to interpret those tongues. Some were able to do healings. Some were just different things. And in the body, as they came in the assembly, sometimes their love for their own gifts became a little bit of a distraction, maybe a little bit chaos. So there was a need for some kind of order to come to all that. And so Paul is trying to say to them, hey, you're all blessed in different ways. You all have different gifts and talents and abilities, these spiritual manifestations that are interesting and great, but all of this has to work together for a common good. And in fact, if you were to read all the way down to 1 Corinthians 14, you're gonna find out that the key word in that chapter is edification, means all these spiritual gifts are great, but if it doesn't lead to mutual building up of the church, they're no good. We're worthless on some level. And so he's talking to them a little bit about how there's diversity, but there's still unity. And so he talks to them about this and moves on to First Corinthians 12, 12 and 13. And he says, for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.
[00:14:33] So he's saying, you got all these different people with all they have, that makes them individuals, but all of them collectively come together for the greater good, and that is to be a part of the body of Christ. And he says, for in one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews are Greek, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. Do you see what's happened? What's powerful about this is all of those different backgrounds, all of those different things don't matter at all. In fact, Galatians chapter three says that there's neither, you know, Jew or Greek, there's neither bond or free. There's neither male or female. He's not saying that there's not a male and a female. What he's saying is that all those distinctions go away under the umbrella of unity in Christ Jesus. And so Jesus tore down all of those things that would have divided us, whether it be culture, whether it be ethnicity, nationality, different backgrounds and folks. That's us today.
[00:15:30] That's all of us with our complex backgrounds and the things that we've gone through. God says we're all individuals, we've all got our own experience. But coming together brings us into a sweet, sweet fellowship that we call the church. And Jesus broke down all those barriers. So what we find is that there's commonality, and that commonality is only found in Christ Jesus.
[00:15:53] And that is what the early church was experiencing. But he continues on with this analogy. In fact, if you want to turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, I'm going to read just a little bit.
[00:16:06] There's diversity. And he illustrates that diversity and at the same time, one body by using the Physical body, He says in verse 14. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. And if the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body, well, that would not make it any less a part of the body, would it? No. And if the ear should say, well, because I'm not an eye, you know, I don't belong to the body, well, that would not make it any less part of the body. He's kind of drawing us to a ridiculousness, right? If the whole body were an eye, then where would the sense of hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God has arranged members in the body, each one of them as he chose. And if we're all one single member, there would be. Where would the body be? And as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. He uses our physical bodies as a way to help us understand this, right? Each part of our body has a different role, a different function, and all of those different parts and pieces work together for us to be able to be productive and active and. And successful and being thoughtful in the things that we do. And with our bodies, we're able to do some things that allow us to be a blessing to other people, to strengthen ourselves. There's all kinds of things that give us this efficiency. But all of these body parts working together are what bring that about. Well, let's continue on in verse 21, because he gets a little bit deeper about this relationship and how we need to really understand it from a church perspective.
[00:17:37] He says, the eye cannot say a of the hand, I have no need of you. For just a second, take that in.
[00:17:45] I can't say to the hand, I have no need of you.
[00:17:48] I can't look at my hand and say, you're really useless, you know, because we know how useful it can be, right?
[00:17:57] He says. Nor can the head say to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.
[00:18:20] But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Real quickly, let me see if I can help illustrate this. And the idea that this body works together and the body reacts to everything that we do. Someone throws a ball at us, we reach our hand up to catch it or to block our face. Like, everything that comes at this body, something happens to protect itself. Well, I'm going to tell you what happened to me this morning. This is no joke.
[00:19:00] This happened this morning. And I haven't even talked to Cindy about it yet. I'm working on my heart about it, okay? Right now, this morning, I got up early. On Sundays when I preach, I get here really early. I pray a lot, sweat a lot. You know, I gotta work through my message a little bit, but I try to get here really early. Well, everybody else is asleep in my house, right? And so I'm up in the 4:00, 4:30 range, something like that.
[00:19:26] Nobody's awake. But as I'm finishing getting ready, I notice, like, I hear a little bit of commotion in the restroom on the other side of the wall. So I know she's trying to avoid the bright lights of the bathroom, but she's over there, whatever. Okay? So she.
[00:19:42] I hear that she leaves that room. And I'm wrapping up, I'm finishing up. I'm like, wow, she's up early this morning, you know? And so thinking that I may see her before I leave, I walk out from the bright lights of the bathroom into an absolutely completely dark bedroom. And she's over there laying down. Okay. But I noticed that our bedroom door was open. Okay? And the only reason I noticed this is because light comes from the street lights through the front door, and it kind of gives just a little illumination. It's kind of the way I know where to step or whatever. And so I walk out of our bed, our bathroom. I can't see anything in there, but I detect that light. And I kind of spin around like this piece of furniture and I go to the door and bam. I mean, the door wasn't open, the door wasn't closed. Thank you very much, Cindy. And I centered my face on that door. I'm talking like, bang. Now, in fairness, I'm not real sure it was my forehead, my nose, my chin, or my belly that hit it first. I don't know. But what I do know is the reaction that took place is when I hit that door, everything inside of me went, you know, and so, like, everything in my body came out. All the air, everything. And I listen, there's a full investigation underway. I don't know. I can't prove it for a second, but I'm pretty sure she was over there laughing quietly, but not enough for me to wake her. Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I'm almost positive that's the case. Well, what am I saying? Like, I felt a trauma in my body, okay? And immediately what happened is I'm stumbling in the hallway. The dog is like, you know, like, what's going on? And I have to find a way to look at my head to make sure I didn't gash anything, make sure I still had all my teeth, like, all this. Cause it did not move left or right. It just, you know. And I'm telling you this because the rest of my body responded to that trauma.
[00:21:35] Everything in my body. My feet were quick to run to the mirror. My hands were detecting, checking everything. I was trying to find, you know, where I could get relief. I was catching my breath. Everything in my body was trying to find relaxation. All those kinds of things were happening. That's a picture of what's being said here in First Corinthians about the body of Christ.
[00:21:58] Not just our physical bodies, but when someone suffers, everyone comes. There's another example of this. This morning, right before worship, I'm down here and I play a little game with some of these kids. They try to tag my elbow. We try to tag it. Well, one of them tried to tag my elbow and I flung my arm up to avoid it. And I smacked sweet Eileen right in the face with my hand. And literally. Okay, and this is to your credit, church, I love all of you, but I got darts from all of you. Okay? Those of you who saw it, you were firing darts at me. But what happened is everyone came to her rescue. Everyone came over to check on her. In fact, our residential mp, John Brome, came up and said, ma'am, I saw the whole thing. I'll be glad to file a report, all that like. So if she responds this morning, I want security detail on her when she comes forward this morning. But seriously, I'm sorry that that happened, but what was beautiful about it was everybody around came and checked. In fact, Ms. Joanne said, he hit my daughter in law. And then my mother walked up, who's with us today? And my mother said, did you do that on purpose? No, Mom, I didn't do that on purpose. But all of the church in that area was responding to what was happening there.
[00:23:11] That's how it's supposed to be. All right? When we have a struggle, we are supposed to know each other so well that while they're going through that difficulty we step in and we offer support and encouragement and love and help. You know, that's how we do it. How many of us have seen someone that has gone through a loss in their life, and all of a sudden they're surrounded by these beautiful people in the church who are ready to love them and to just sit, to just pray. Greta Wagner has gone through a tough time, and she was able to come home. She was out in Nashville and came home, and I was excited that she was coming home. And I thought, well, I'll go over there and I'll have prayer with her. And I got there, and sweet Kathy Bazell was already on the scene there to be an encouragement. That's the body of Christ. That's fellowship. We're closer than just, hey, we know each other and we're friends and those kind of things. No, I'm here for your needs. But in the same way, when people celebrate, you know, and I want you to understand that this is an expectation that God is putting out. It's not something that he is. It's a good suggestion for us. It's something that he expects of us. And what is that expectation? It's this. Everyone is valued. Go back and read it again. There's not anyone who is discounted.
[00:24:30] There's no one that is more important than anyone else. There's no divisions that exist between us. God has taken all those things away. We're supposed to have the same care for one another. We're supposed to sorrow together. We're supposed to celebrate together. That's the whole idea. That's why pictures like this are so beautiful to me. You know, this young man probably wanted to have a more private baptism after Bible class one Sunday night. Oh, no, you don't. Because I looked up and all of these people are descending upon this room to provide support and encouragement to a person when they gave their life to Jesus Christ, the most important thing they will ever do.
[00:25:05] And this body of believers, those who knew about it were on the scene to be there to support them. That is the body of Christ.
[00:25:14] So Andrew and I want to be careful not to just make this about the table, about us sitting across on the table and that being that fullness of the picture of. Of fellowship. But what we recognize that there's something very significant about the ability to have people in our homes where we kind of loosen up a little bit and we get to know each other and we invite people into our world and we find out a little bit more about them.
[00:25:38] It's those kind of moments that help us find that value in someone else. So we're encouraging all of you to think about this. February 16th through the 21st. So that starts next Sunday.
[00:25:48] Next Sunday, that week. We want you to find someone in this room. Not just that you. That you know and you're already close with. That makes it easy. No, we want you to find somebody that you don't know quite as well. You've seen them from afar, you appreciate them, you say hi to each other in the hallways, but you need to take that next step of relationship with them. We're encouraging people to have them in their home. You see all these dates that we've got prepared moving forward, but for right now, just focus on next week. What we want to happen is that you go up to someone and say, oh, I've already been asked. Or you go up to someone and say, hey, can you. And some. Nope, nope. We've already been signed up to be with someone else. That's what we want. That kind of thing. That we are that active in being in each other's lives.
[00:26:30] So with that, I know probably comes some hesitations. In fact, I'm sure there are people out there going, now wait a minute. Why would you guys make it so weird for us to have to get people together in our homes and those kinds of things? Why would you make us go and find someone that we don't know very well? That just seems like it's going to be difficult. And I know you may have some hesitations, you may have some fears. I tried to jot a few of those things down for us to deal with. The first one is fear of judgment and cleanliness. Okay, can we all acknowledge that we don't all have the most clean house? Can every one of us just look past it? Don't let the devil get involved here. What I would suggest to all of you, make a good, clean surface for the food. And that's it. Let's just don't worry about the other stuff. It's not that important. Okay? That's not significant. And if. If we allow that to be the significant thing, it causes us to let the devil win to keep us from doing something that we know is really important. What about pressure to entertain or host? Maybe you think, oh, I gotta make sure I got the right game that works with their personalities. And, you know, I gotta have all these cute little things in place. We're gonna do a theme, and, you know, you don't have to do that. Let's take that pressure off the table. Don't do it, don't do it. Just invite people into your home. What about preparing the perfect meal? You know, these days, a lot of people have allergies and different things that caused him to be a little bit hesitant to jump in and say, oh, I'll cook for you. I want to know all. Do you have any allergies? Do you have. Hey, if it's that kind of an issue, then do this. Just say, hey, we're going to provide meal for our family. We're going to host you in our home. Why don't you guys go grab a brown bag somewhere and come bring it? We're just here to enjoy a meal together. That's it. Take the pressure off for those kinds of things. What about this one? Fear of potential awkwardness? Well, that's going to happen. And in fact, if you're Andrew, it's. And that's your favorite thing in all the world is for someone to have. That's an awkward incident or whatever. But speaking of awkward, I want to share with you one thing that happened to us one time. You know, we sold our house about eight years ago, and I felt like one big fat loser because I did not have a house for us to move into. We couldn't find what we were looking for in our price range. We couldn't find the things that we were looking for for the house. And, you know, it just felt like we were going to either waste money on something that would have a lot of work later, or anyway, that doesn't matter. I had nowhere for us to go. Well, real quietly, we could have probably asked 100 people in here, could we stay with you guys for a little bit? But in that moment, I didn't want to bother anybody. We had something kind of in the works, and so we stayed in the hotel for a week. And the hotel had a great breakfast bar, so that was good.
[00:28:57] But, you know, living in a hotel with all of us was not necessarily the best thing in the world, Right? And while we made the best of it, someone heard that we had sold our house. And so Barton, Julie Graham came to me and said, hey, I heard you sold your house. I'm like, yeah, we did. They're all, where are you staying? Like, where did y'all move to? What's the new location? And I'm like, well, it's funny that you asked. We're at the hotel. It's a good breakfast, you know, and so we're telling them that. And Bart and Julie did what Bart and Julie Graham do. They said, why are you Doing that. Just come and stay with us. Our kids are out of the house. There's. There's a top floor that has three bedrooms, two baths. I mean, you guys can just live up there and you can live with us until the next house is ready. No pressure at all. Just bring all your stuff, put it in our garage. And so, you know, we were like, wow, that's unbelievably kind. And so we go over there and we unload all of our junk. And I'm talking. It was way more than we anticipated. Okay? You know how that is when you move. And we filled their garage up. I mean, it was obnoxious how much stuff we brought over there, moved ourselves up to the upstairs area. And they could see the stress, and they had already worked it out in advance. Hey, we're feeding you guys this first night, you know, we want you to just come in, relax. We don't you have to think about food tonight. We're just going to take care of you and it'll be great. And so we're just like, you know, at their mercy and just like, so incredibly thankful. And we get to the, you know, everybody, we have a prayer together as a group. And then, you know, we're all supposed to get our plates and go to our seats. And there's really no couth way to say this, what I'm about to tell you, but my son Nick, he's about eight years old at that time, I guess eight, something like that.
[00:30:37] Well, Nick did something.
[00:30:42] He passed gas.
[00:30:44] And it was loud and obnoxious and the kind of thing that we don't allow in our home.
[00:30:52] And so, as you can imagine, this happens. It's loud. And me and Cindy are like.
[00:30:59] And I'm like, Nick. And without a hesitation, Bart said, well, hey, buddy, muck yourself at home. You know.
[00:31:10] And you know what? I didn't cry in the moment because it was so funny. But I think about it, and I do, because we were without a place, and they offered us something so beautiful and so kind.
[00:31:23] And in the middle of that most awkward moment, you know, what I realized is Nick was very comfortable in his environment. Okay, maybe he shouldn't have been that comfortable, but they provided a place for us and a home for us and fellowship and, you know, what's happened out of that awkward moment?
[00:31:46] It actually makes us laugh and cry together. It makes us appreciative. Like, that awkwardness disappeared. Why?
[00:31:55] Because we're brothers and sisters in Christ. My relationship with Barton and Julie has nothing to do with that circumstance. It has everything to do with my appreciation for what they provided for us. You understand, it may be awkward. Let's get over it. Let's learn to laugh at ourselves, and let's have a great time getting to know one another.
[00:32:13] So here's a few things I want you to think about as you begin to invite people over to kind of lower the pressure, to lower the expectations and just say this. Relax and smile. There's nothing so beautiful than an open door, a smile, and a warmth of saying, hey, come in and join our family. That's simple. We don't have to make that complex. We don't have to have everything in perfect order. We just have to be warm and encouraging. Next part of this is listen. Ask good questions of each other. Ask about your background, where you came from. You know, ask about family. Ask about, you know, what you think about the church and how it's been a blessing to you, like, share those kinds of things. But most importantly, listen and encourage each other and then finally reflect on God's goodness. That's what the early church did. That's what brought them to that level of closeness. That intense fellowship that we're looking for is they focused on things that were spiritual. Jesus is raised, and look how good God has been to us in our life, man. That's a recipe for a great conversation. And when that conversation ends, you can go and leave and go back home. But thank God for the connection that you just made with a brother or a sister in Christ.
[00:33:28] This morning. You may be thinking, ooh, this is maybe outside my comfort zone, but we want to encourage you. We believe this is a next step in our closeness with this number. It's so hard to know everybody, but we can know a few people intimately and by proxy. All of us knowing each other together can grow into the body of Christ as it should be. Now, Johnny didn't know this. He had no concept, no idea that I was going to do this.
[00:33:54] But this is the passage that Joni read earlier.
[00:33:58] And that passage is so beautiful because it reminds us that love is of God. And we either do love and we love each other because of what God has done for us, or we're not being what he's called us to be. It's all about our love for one another and our desire to look past all the things that maybe separate us or are different about us so we can accept one another, love each other, and be what the church called us to be, what God has called us to be within the church. I love this pass, this last Scripture, no one has ever seen God. If we love one another, catch us. God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
[00:34:36] This morning, if you have a need, if you just need the support of this body and you fail to receive it, I want you to know, first of all, we need to be careful that in that moment where we feel like maybe I need something and the church has not provided that for me, maybe we haven't been giving the right care to you, I would ask all of us to ask ourselves the question, what care have I provided for someone else? Because I found that in my life that whenever you treat someone kindly, that kindness is returned to you. And so if we feel like maybe we haven't connected yet, maybe it's the fact that we haven't stepped out there in faith to get to know one another. This morning, maybe there's someone who's saying, hey, I'm tired of waiting. I want to become a Christian. I want to give my life to Christ. I want to experience this unity and this joy of fellowship, and I want to make it right. This morning, you want to be baptized into Christ. We hope you'll come forward this morning. And if you just are in need of encouragement, you're battling Satan and you need the support of your brothers and sisters in Christ. That's why we're here, to encourage each other to love and good works and to walk alongside each other through our life together. If you have a need this morning, please don't wait. Come while we stand and sing.
