← ArchiveSunday, February 2, 2014DateFebruary 2, 2014Speaker—TextRomans 12Passages in this sermonRomans 120:43Romans 81:44TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Guys, I want to thank y'all for how hard you work to bring us such a wonderful worship experience in light of Brother Rick's absence and illness, and I do want you to remember to pray for Brother Rick, and we need him to get well soon and to get back in the saddle0:28again. Amen? If you have your Bibles with you this morning, let's go back to where? Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12, we've talked about. Because of what was taught in the first 11 chapters, Paul writes this challenge to the believers at Rome in the 12th chapter, how they are to act.0:56What does God want from them because of his amazing grace, his justification by faith? How are we to respond to the sovereignty of God and the ability of God to make decisions according to who he is and not according to who we are? But that he has made a glorious decision because of who we are. It goes back. We're reminded in the first few chapters that all sin and come short of the glory of God.1:24We are reminded in the 8th chapter of the glorious presence of the Holy Spirit of God that loves us so much that according to John, when Jesus is talking to the disciples, he must leave, that the Holy Spirit must come. And then we find this beautiful person of the Holy Spirit in Romans chapter 8 that shares with us that he shares with us. And then we go on to find in chapters 9, 10, and 11, this sovereign God who has sovereign reign1:53and rule over his universe. And we respond to that sovereignty because of the work of his Holy Spirit. So what has Paul said? Paul has said, surrender. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God that you present, that you surrender. I want to tell you that means this. That's when the cowboys pull the 45 out and everybody raises their hands.2:23That's when we get rid of everything that we've got that's of any value and we lay it at the feet of Jesus, especially our wills, our intentions, our desires, our egos, and everything. We surrender. I want to tell you that's not an exciting word for a lot of people because that means to give up, to give up my will to his will, to give up my position in life to his desired position2:48for my life. We surrender. And then we see that he talks about a transformation. There's a sanctification that Paul talks about in those first few chapters, a change that gradually grows and takes place in our life. And that transformation occurs by the renewing of our mind, by the work of the Holy Spirit in chapter 8, and by the word of God that we read.3:18And so God begins to transform our lives. We are much like the caterpillar and the cocoon and the butterfly. It all doesn't happen exactly at one time. Salvation does. Don't get me wrong. Salvation happens at one time. But your spiritual growth and spiritual walk with God is a progression of maturity that he talks about in the transformation.3:47But for all this to occur last week, we talked about self-assessment. And that is that we need to take a look at who we are and not think more highly of ourselves than we should. Because if we think more highly of ourselves than we should, then we find out that we run into the problem of prideful attitudes. Or we may think that we're just not worthy of anything. And we've got to be this lowly individual that's just always beaten down, not realizing the glorious4:12grace and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so we think too lowly. We don't need to think too high. We don't need to think too lowly. What we need to do is take an examination, a self-assessment, and bring it to the Lord and say, God, put on my heart and mind those things that you would have me to be. And then that brings us to the reason for all of these first three things.4:38Why the surrender? Why the transformation? Why the self-assessment? Because as a body of believers, we are a community. We are a community of believers in Jesus Christ that have come together. We are neighbors. We are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. We are family. We are a community that God sought to establish right here in 1832.5:08And since then has been building on that community, been growing that community, been encouraging and blessing that community, this community, that we might be the community of Jesus Christ that reflects the light of God to the world around us. We're unique as a community. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning. If you turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 12, we'll look at verses 9 through 13.5:36Verses 9 through 13. First of all, he says, let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.6:03Preference. Give preference. Listen to this. Give preference to one another in honor. Not lagging behind in diligence. Fervent in the Spirit. Serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope. Persevering in tribulation. Devoted to prayer. Contributing to the needs of the saints. Practicing hospitality. So that's the guidelines for this community that God has brought together.6:33I wonder how many churches have in their bylaws and in their constitution these various guidelines. You know, in a lot of church covenants that I've read, there are a lot of things in church covenants that are not necessarily in Scripture. But it's things that people added. And in bylaws, it's things people add as though they need to have these things to protect the community. Let me tell you, the community won't need protecting if it's practicing God's Word.7:01Do you know that? The community will not need protecting if it's practicing God's Word. Because God is our defender. We don't defend ourselves. God defends us. I want to share with you. You know, sometimes you write things. And you read it and it sounds really good. And then when you read it to other people, you go, God, I really don't believe that I said it. And I've written this and I've read it a dozen times.7:31And I hope it sounds the same way to you that it did to me. Because if it didn't, you're going to go, oh my, did you really write that? But this is how I felt when I began studying this passage. And so I didn't want to lose the intensity of my thoughts. So I wrote them down. And in most of my sermons, I write down notes, but I don't necessarily read them. Or I go by them, but I don't necessarily read them.8:00If there's ever been a time that I have read a passage and been more convicted, it is now. As I read this passage and see what Paul is saying. I am convicted that as your pastor, I have not stood more firmly on such passages as this8:23and refuse to preach anything else until we as a church or body of believers were practicing and obeying God's instructions to the extent that you could see this in our lives here at Bethel. Do I need to read that again? If you didn't catch it, raise your hand.8:52I'll read it again. I'm that serious about what I just read in this passage. I believe that we preach and we just pick up and move on before anybody starts practicing. I think sometimes we just expect a good sermon on hell and a good sermon on heaven from time to time. And that's really all the church needs to get in line. Well, I'm going to tell you, I think we've heard plenty of sermons on hell and plenty of sermons on heaven.9:21And I think they're important. Don't get me wrong. I think we ought to preach them. But I'll tell you what. My Bible says teach the whole counsel of God. And sometimes the whole counsel of God invades on my privacy. It invades into my sphere of sovereignty over my own life. And when that invades in my sovereignty, I want to dismiss it and say that's not what I think it says or I don't believe that or that's not what God meant or this. When in reality, Paul is writing this letter to the church and he's saying this is how God says you ought to act.9:50And so if Paul is saying this to the church at Rome, this is how they ought to act. Then he's saying this to us. This is how we ought to act. And so where's the love without hypocrisy? Hypocrisy abounds in the church today. If nowhere but behind the mask we wear to hide our hurts, habits, and hangups. Do you know what the word hypocrisy in the Greek literally means and where it comes from?10:18It comes from the acting world. It comes from the world of Shakespeare. It means that when someone was a hypocrite in his way, he was play acting a part. So a good actor is a good what? Hello? What is a good actor? Yeah, he's a good one. That means that he's doing what he does so well that everybody believes he is who he is.10:46I mean, you know, Clark Gable, great hypocrite. Yeah, Robert Mitchum, great hypocrite. Amen there, ladies? Those of you that know who I'm talking about, the rest of them are going, who are you talking about? Listen, I'm talking about the best actors, not some of these floozies that are flying out there nowadays. There are all kinds.11:16But when they would get on the stage and they would put their mask on, and you know, they literally held their mask in their hands to hide themselves, and they played out emotions. And so that's what it was. Well, when hypocrisy is applied to the church, sometimes I think it's applied wrongly because I don't think people really know what it means to begin with. So they use the word and don't even know how they're using it. They say, oh, there's just a bunch of hypocrites up there at that church, and I don't want to go.11:46And I would say, yeah, there is. But how do you mean that? Do you mean there are a bunch of people up there that hide behind masks? Yep, there are. And the sad thing is a lot of people mean that to say, oh, there's people that practice one thing on Sunday and another thing on Monday, and that's the real tragedy of hypocrisy. What do we cling to in the church that is any different than the outside world? What are our lives devoted to? Is it Christ or is it something else in our lives?12:15Do we devote ourselves to our pride? Do we think more of our opinions than God's opinion? Is our ego greater within us than our desire to serve God and put our egos aside? What about our desires? Do our desires meet those of Scripture? Or do our desires simply mean that we're going to feed whatever's hungry that day,12:40whether it's watch a movie or watch a program on TV or read a book or get on the Internet or to fantasize or to desire or to lie or to eat or to steal or to rob or to go in debt or to buy, whatever? What do we love more than God's truth? You know, I don't doubt that anybody in this room, and I say this,13:10I stand, I believe I stand in this pulpit for 20 years because I preach truth. And it's easy to sit out there and amen truth. But when you leave here, do you live truth? See, that's what Paul's saying. That's what Paul is challenging the church. Let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be without that.13:39Church is not a worship service on a Sunday morning week after week. Church is not a Sunday night service week after week. Church is not a Wednesday night study or prayer meeting service week after week. The church of Christ doesn't have instruments because... Let me back up. I was afraid I'd do this. I'm talking about the church, church of Christ. Okay? And I thought I'd use this.14:09The church of Christ don't have instruments because they don't see them in Scripture or in the early church history. And so they don't bring them to bear where they are. Does that make them a church or not? Does it make them more of a church than we're a church? I truly don't know what they would say about that. But I do know that sometimes we look at this building and we look at the parameters that we're in and we say, oh, look at this church. My friend, this is not the church.14:39You are the church. This building is not the church. We call it multiple things. It's a worship center. It's a sanctuary. A sanctuary is somewhere where you can run and hide from the devil and he can't get there. And if you've ever read Bram Stokes' Dracula, it's a place where you go and he can't get in there. I know when I read that about 14 years, I was about 14 years old, I went to, my dad was out of town. I slept with my mother because that was a sanctuary.15:09You know, but no, this is a meeting house. This is a meeting house. This is a meeting place. You're the church. What we do in here is come together to receive instructions so that we can go out there and be the church. We come together, forsaking not the fellowship of one another, so that we can be strengthened, encouraged, be held accountable, have a time of corporate worship, sing songs, find love and care.15:36This is not a place to bring our gripes and our complaints and our whining and our wants and our desires. This is the place we come surrendered. We come surrendered and say, God, I want to see you. You know, it's not rare for me to come to the church and as I'm walking through the parking lot from across the street there,16:04to look at trash and nobody pick this up today and get it here and there's leaves and go, oh, and that distract me. And I said, God, you know, I don't care. No, let me tell you, I think we've gotten so worldly. This is a truth taught by church growers and people that are in the know.16:28And that is, is that people will determine whether they're going to come back to your church within the first, and I don't know exactly how many seconds or minutes they say, because of what they see. Well, let me tell you something. I would never choose a church over whether or not the paint on the walls was coming off. I would choose my church on whether or not there were believers there meeting sincerely seeking God16:55and the word of God was taught, preached, and practiced. I mean, friend, I want to tell you something. That's not what we always see. But what does the community of Christ need if we're going to move forward? The community of Christ should be made up of real people. When I say real people, let me define them as people who are not afraid to be real around others that they know and love.17:20Let love be without hypocrisy. That means that we've got to come to the place where as a body of believers, we're not afraid to hurt, we're not afraid to cry, we're not afraid to laugh, we're not afraid to smile, we're not afraid to lift one another up, we're not afraid to hug and care, we're not afraid to walk out on the outside when someone's broken and pray with them.17:47When someone comes to the altar and they bow a knee to pray and there's no other men down there praying with them, what does that say about, oh, I guess he's just down there because he needs to be. I don't want to bug him. I want to tell you, when you're in church, he needs to be bugged. She needs to be bugged. Well, I think, well, you know, I'm going to let somebody else do that. Why? Why do we let people hurt by themselves?18:17Why do we let people come? And you say, well, Brother Chris, I hear what you're saying, but I think everybody deserves their privacy. Privacy is for the house. Church is for the revelation of who we are before God because he's revealed who we are anyway. And we are nothing but no-down, low-good, scum-sucking, dog-sore-licking individuals. I didn't hear no amens.18:49What a real Christian. What is a real Christian? Well, it's someone who loves sincerely. A real Christian is not an actor on Sunday who lives differently on Monday. He loves with all of his heart. She loves with all of her heart. She loves all those. She doesn't go out here and say, well, I like the way you're dressed. I love you. I don't like the way you're dressed. I don't love you. Oh, y'all are all young and impetuous, and y'all are all indifferent, and you've got acne.19:18So I'm going to love over here. I don't love y'all because y'all are all old, and you smell like liniment and mothballs. But I'm going to love these guys over here because my grandson's one of them. Amen? And I've got special rights and privileges in this section because they're, no, that's the problem that exists in the church today is real people coming together with real issues that are not afraid to share and hurt and cry and weep and win and be victorious.19:43We're more than conquerors in Jesus Christ when we come together as a body, not when we linger out there. What happens when a sheep goes astray and hurts itself?20:09Coyotes, wolves, they're going to go after the other thousand. They're going to go after the other 99, aren't they? That's the ones they're going to go after, isn't it? Is it? No, it's not. What are the ones they're going to come after? They're going to come after that one by self that's hurting and that no one's hurting with, that's weeping and no one's weeping with.20:33They're going to come after that one that's struggling, that no one knows about their struggles because he's so or she's so prideful in her sin and in her struggles that she's not willing to pull a confidant alongside of her to hold her or him accountable and to lift them up and to pray for them and to call them on daily. We don't want that responsibility. My friend, until we accept that responsibility, we're nothing better than a glorified country club.21:00Real Christians suffer real problems. They're real. Real Christians get cancer. Real Christians have diabetes. Real Christians have miscarriages.21:29Real Christians have wayward sons and daughters. Real Christians lose their own lives, lose family members, but real Christians stand beside real Christians because that's who we are. Persecution brings out the best in real Christians.21:59That's what we find in the New Testament. When the early church was persecuted, and we know through history that when they would drag them out into the arena with the lions and the gladiators, and they did, they had arenas all over the, not just in Rome, but all over the Middle East. And they would drag these Christians out there. They would boil some of them in oil. They would crucify some of them. Some of them they would use as target practice. Some of them they would just persecute by throwing them to lions and watching them be devoured.22:25Whatever. Gail, tell me later. But real Christians weren't afraid. When they were in the arena of persecution, can I tell you, real Christians knew the peace of God that passes all understanding. Real Christians knew the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and the ultimate goal of eternity that was established for them.22:51And they saw what Abraham saw. I believe real Christians have had a glimpse of glory. I believe real Christians have the Holy Spirit of God living inside them to the extent that sometimes you just want to bust wide open with him. That's real Christians. Real Christians don't destroy each other with gossip, but build each other up in Christ with encouragement. If you're a gossiping Christian, then I challenge you to come to this altar, the invitation, and leave it here and go back encouraging those that you've been gossiping about.23:20Even though you may have a struggle with their personality, you may have a struggle with which side of the church they stand on. You may have a struggle with whoever they are. But do what real Christians do, and that is we encourage each other in the word of God.23:43Real Christians receive instruction instead of saying, I don't think there's anything you're going to tell me that I need to do. I've been going to church 20 years longer than you have. One day, not far off, that's not going to be true for me. The older I get, the less there are of people that have been in church longer than me. But you know what?24:15That didn't make me any better than the one I just baptized this morning. Real Christians receive instruction with openness and excitement so they can live for God. Real Christians are coming for the encouragement of God's word. You say, well, Brother Chris, encourage us. I'm trying to. I'm trying to tell you that the reason you're probably not encouraged is you're not real. You've got a mask on this morning. You've got a mask on, and that mask hides who you are to everybody around you.24:42That mask hides who you are to the people that you love the most. And that mask is concealing the very things that God wants to bless you and work through you, but you won't let him because you won't open up. What do real Christians do? They take off their mask. They are quick to listen, slow to judge. They recognize wrong, and they pursue righteousness.25:10How do real Christians live? They live in light. There is deep recognition of the evil in the world, and they step back from that evil. All too often, Christians are trying to see how close they can get to evil. They get as close as they can to the whole, and then they run back. Why can't we do what the second part of verse 9 says? Look at what he says there in verse 9, the second half. Abhor what is evil.25:41In other words, we're to go, Oh, I don't want to see how close I can get to the Internet and see how close I can get to that person that I want to see. I'll just stay. Let me tell you, there are some people you just need to cut it off, get rid of the Internet in your house, and rely on somebody else to tell you what's going on. If you can't handle it, don't have it. I talked to a preacher one time that shared with me.26:09He said, Chris, I want to tell you how bad lust got for me in my life. I wouldn't let my wife bring a catalog into our house. I thought, why are you telling me that? He's just being real. He's just being real. The community of Christ is made up of real people.26:37The community of Christ should be ready to meet real needs. You know, I'll take blame. Look what he says in verse 10. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor. It is said of an ostrich that they'll stick their head in the ground when danger approaches. I want to tell you what happens. Here's what happens in church. Somebody you know is walking towards you,27:04and you can hear that they're talking about one of their issues or some of their problems with this person. And as you get close, they make eye contact with you, and the first thing you do is go into a Sunday school classroom and stand until they pass by. Because you don't have time to hear what's going on in their life. Maybe you've got that stuff on your phone that I've got on my phone, and it tells you who's calling. I want to tell you, it aggravates a fool out of me when there is nobody's name on there,27:34and all there is a number that I don't recognize, and I'm going, I bet that's him. And I know what he's going on. I confess, but I answer, and I take the call, and I listen, because that's what God has said we have to do. We need to do. We need to be ready to meet real issues in life. Can I tell you, this past week, we have been, or this past month, we've been unindated.27:59I want to challenge you, church. If you are not tithing and not giving, start tithing and start giving. If you are, thank you. See if you can do a little extra. Because we've already just about run through the budget on benevolence. And it's people who have real needs. And we're just going to do our best to meet them until we run out of money. And if we have to, I'll come back to the church, and I'll say, can we increase the guideline? Buddy Lambert's back there.28:28We have that. And Stuart's the chairman of the stewardship committee. So I'll come to those guys and say, guys, we're going to have to increase because we've got so many people in need. But I want to tell you, we don't want to just throw money at problems. We don't want to just pay power bills. We don't want to just, we want to go out and meet real needs. Why are people in the struggles that they're in? Why are they having the issues that they're having? Let's get involved with one another to the extent that we can understand and actually bring help to the table.28:57Real Christians meet real needs because they know they serve a real God. Listen, God's not afraid to meet my need. God's not afraid to meet your need. Why should we be afraid to meet others' needs? I got tickled. I was listening to a preacher, and he was sharing along these lines. And he was in seminary. And Gil and I had some of these same things occur to us when we were in seminary,29:23but not quite like this. But they were in an apartment most of the time. We lived under the haven of the seminary. So all of our people that were struggling were just like us, all students. That's where we lived on campus. But some seminaries don't have on-campus apartments, or you can't get them. They fill up. So they live off-campus. This seminary student actually lived off-campus. And living off-campus, he had other students that lived close,29:49but also had a couple of drug pushers, and he had some really rough people. And then the floor underneath, he had a young lady and her husband and their eight-year-old son that was very similar to the age of his own son. And they got to be friends, and they got to know each other. And these people were not seminary people. Her husband worked out into the world. And one day, he comes home from school after having been to classes that day.30:18He's going to eat lunch. He's going to go off to work. And his wife meets him at the door and says, Come in, I've got to tell you something. He says, What is it? She said, Well, Joan downstairs, her husband left her today. He said, Oh, my. He said, Well, that's bad. He said, Yeah. He said, Well, we need to pray for her. He said, Well, she said, Wait a minute. Let me tell you something. This is a true story. She said, She found out today she's pregnant.30:48He goes, Man, we really need to pray for her. She's really, her husband left her. She found out she's pregnant. Wow. She went, No, you don't understand. Before he left, he cleaned out their bank account. And their rent is due in two days. And she doesn't have one dollar. And he says, Let's call the chair prayer chain. And she said, No, we're going to do better than that. We're going to pay their rent.31:17And he said, I just kind of froze, thinking, God, you didn't tell me that. And he said, I looked at my wife, and I said, Our rent's due in 10 days. If we pay her rent, we will be exactly. He said, Back then, he said, We had just enough money in a bank account that I could tell you to the exact penny how much was there if a certain amount was spent. I know what that's like. And he said, We'll have $10 left in our account on the day that our rent comes due.31:45And she said, I don't care. We're going to pay their rent. And I said, Okay. If that's what you believe. True story. If that's what you believe, that's what we'll do. He said, We paid her rent. He said, And I thought, Okay, God, now you're going to show out. I said, So four or five days went by?32:13Nothing. Six days went by? Nothing. The day before our rent, I said, Okay, God, today's the day. You're going to bring it on. You're going to give us that rent money. He said, Nothing happened. He said, The day our rent was due, I got home from school, and I looked at my wife, and she said, You all right? He said, Yeah, I'm fine. God say anything to you? God been talking to you.32:44He ain't been talking to me. She said, No, here's the mail. And he said, I, flipping through the mail, saw this letter, and I opened up the letter. True story. And he said, In the letter was a check for $1,000. And he said, I had no idea who it was from. So there was a note in there. And I want to tell you, if I've heard one testimony like this, I got my own personal testimonies I can share with you about people struggling and God doing these kind of things.33:09But he said, This young man, back several years earlier was at a rally, a lesson that he was teaching, and he said, When I got through teaching this particular lesson, he said, I went on my way. And that young man went on his way, and he said, He went off and he became an NFL football player.33:35He was drafted and he was drafted and he said, I didn't recognize his name, and it doesn't really matter. But he said that he got a bonus check. And he said, You know, I don't know why, and I can't tell you why it had never happened before. But God said to me, Send this to Chip. And he said, I wrote you this letter, I write you this check. Undoubtedly, God's got a reason for it.34:05Our God meets big needs when his people are willing to meet big needs. You know why so many people in the church don't understand that? It's so many in the church never participate themselves in that. Very few people give till it feels good. Way too many people keep instead of giving.34:33Real Christians do not serve out of pride, but they serve out of humility and obedience. What does service in the church mean? Can I just read it to you as Jesus saw it? Then he poured water into the basin and he began to wash the disciples' feet to wipe them with a towel with which he was girded. And so he came to Simon Peter and he said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? And Jesus said to him, what I do to you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.35:02And Peter said to him, never shall you wash my feet. And Jesus answered, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. And Simon Peter said to him, Lord, then wash not only my feet, but all my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him, he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but he is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you. And because he knew of Simon.35:32I want to tell you something, we may not practice it in the church today, and we may not need to practice it in the church today, but I believe there ought to be a willingness in the heart of every believer here to wash their brother's feet, whether they're sitting next to them in the pew right now or all the way across from the other side of the church. That's what real people meeting real needs is all about. Then there's real, the real community of Christ helps for the right reasons.35:58Look at verse 11. Not lagging behind in diligence, but fervent in prayer, serving the Lord. Not lagging behind. Notice that in one version, it says, do not be slothful in zeal. The study of that word is really interesting in that phrase, that terminology.36:29He says, don't be lazy to help. In other words, if there's a need that's there, you don't sit back and try to counter the need by waiting it out. You understand that what he, you know, it's kind of like the guy that's laying on the couch, and now you wiles will understand this real well, and you come by and you say, honey, the commode is running over, and he says, I'll be there just as soon as this plays over.36:57That's not what it's talking about. What it's talking about is she comes in and says, honey, the commode's running over, and he just ignores her all together. He's so laid up and slothful in his position on the couch that he doesn't even hear what's going on in the bathroom. My friend, when we hear about a need, and we're real, and we're real with God, and God has37:28given us real abilities to meet needs, and we don't meet those needs, Paul's saying, don't be slothful, but with zeal. Get off your behinds and take care of what God is placing before you. It's your privilege. It's not your burden. We always look at it as a burden to help someone when God sees it as a privilege to help someone.37:54The real community operates under the right motive. We're helping in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ because God has given us the ability to help. We're helping because God has placed us where we are so we can help as a community and as a part of love serves that we will do again this summer.38:23And there'll be some concerns and there'll be some questions, but I want to tell you something. I was driving down First Avenue yesterday, First Avenue North in the Woodlawn community, and we always, you know, we preachers get the heebie-jeebies when the Church of the Highlands is named because you can imagine, I mean, half of our church is there. At some point, they've come through here. And so we get the heebie-jeebies about this, and we get the heebie-jeebies about that.38:50But I noticed there, it was a bad building, run down. Do y'all know where the old Heist House is over on Division Avenue? It's run down now. Any of y'all know where that's at? It's in a bad area. There's a group of people out there with red T-shirts on, with Highlands on the back or something on it, and I'm assuming that's where they're from, and they were out there cleaning that place up, throwing it in the back of trucks, and I'm thinking to myself, that's being the39:14church. Say all you want to, but that's being the church. My friend, we need to be the church. We need to quit whining and complaining about what we're not doing or what's not being done for us, and we need to start being and doing what God has given us the opportunity and the privilege to do in sacrificial service to Him. Not lagging, in other words, not being lazy. We hear about a need, and we hear from God, but we wait knowing that God is speaking to39:44us about the matter, and we just put it off, and we put it off until somebody else picks up the blessing. But here's what he says, with diligence, in other words, with excellence. We do it with excitement. We do it with enthusiasm, but we do it with excellence. Do you know one of the things that I think that a good picture of that is? Do you get real nervous when you're moving your furniture? If you're moving, do you get real nervous when you pick up something and your wife says,40:16don't scratch this? Do you? But it's different when you're going to help somebody else move, isn't it? I'll come help you move your furniture because I don't care if I break it. Now, I hope that really sinks deep into your minds and hearts the next time somebody asks me to help them move something. But I'm just being real, being honest about it. I mean, you know, we'll move other people's stuff.40:44We won't care how we move it just so long we get it on down the road. But you take our stuff. Listen, I'll tell you, Gail and I have the same bedroom suit that we had the day of the year we got out of seminary and could afford a new bedroom suit. Now, that doesn't mean she hadn't wanted another one since then. And we've had a bunch of different ones come through the guest rooms from thrift stores41:09and other places. But that one we've had. So when we move that stuff around, sometimes I think she wants me to break it. But it's kind of uni-special now, you know? But that's what he's talking about when he says with diligence, with excellence.41:36We serve God with excellence. That's why I really hope that in our greeter ministry that we do it with excellence. That when somebody comes to our church, we go over and say, hey, how you doing? I'm Chris Burns. I don't just smile. I just smile like that. That just lets everybody know you really don't lean it, don't it? I got to smile. But what about just a smile? What about, hey, we are glad you guys are here. Did y'all come with Heather and watch her get baptized?42:06Well, we're glad to have you. Glad you got those boys. Those are good-looking guys. How you doing there, man? Well, are you embarrassed because I'm over here? Don't be. So glad to have you as well. But you know, we can do that. Or we can go in there and go, oh, God, here they come. Let's get the bulletins ready. Hey, how you doing? Hey, girl, good to see y'all. We're doing well. Y'all doing good? Yeah, thank you, thank you. Everybody fine?42:36Everybody fine? Let's go on. Get on down. Why can't we love? Why can't we speak? Why can't we care? Why can't we take time and listen? Why can't we be motivated to smile with the love of the Lord Jesus Christ? I told the Upwood group that I did a devotion for yesterday, Sunday morning is a time of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not going to the funeral of God.42:53No wonder they wrote God was dead back in the 60s. If you went to the majority of churches and sat in one of the worship services, you would have thought he was dead too. But we need real people to meet real problems with the help of a real God in a real way.43:15But we can't do that, and we won't do that, as long as we hide behind the mask.43:35And the only way you're going to come out from behind your mask is when you take it down. Man, I want to come up to some people sometimes. I want to snatch that mask off of them. I want to say, get it! That's the face I want to see. And then they'll stick it right back up again.44:05Let's pray. God, Paul tells us to be real, to not be hypocrites, to not love hypocritically, but to be urgent with our love and desire to meet the needs of others. God, you called us to be real.44:35But we've developed the church where real people are uncomfortable. And so we have to have all shoot ministries like CR and other places where they can be real because there's so many masks in the church. God, God, I pray today, through the work of your Holy Spirit, somebody, if it's just one person, would remove their mask.44:58Just one person would stop and meet a need. Just one person would do it for the right reason.45:20Because God, God, you loved us first. And then you sent us off on a journey to be a community of real people so that the light of life could reflect in the world that we live in. God, we've put a bushel over it.45:48We've put a quilt over it. Lord, we just don't want anybody to see us. Help us, God, break through the facade and the hypocrisy. We can live for you and honor you with our living. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. The first part of being real this morning is putting down the mask.46:15But the really first part of being real this morning is confessing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If the Holy Spirit of God has spoken to you and you feel like that God is speaking to you and you need to confess him as Lord and Savior of your life, why would you wait? Why would you put it off? If God's speaking, it's time. Real people hear that. And then they're changed by the work of God. And they become something they've never been before.46:45That's godly. And they don't become godly because they put on godliness. They become godly because God puts it on them. So I invite you to step out this morning. Maybe this is the church home that the Lord has led you to. You want to become a part of our fellowship. Some people don't know how to do that. You just simply come forward. I'll greet you. I'll pray with you. And then we'll send you and get some information from you, make a couple pictures of you so that we can present you next week to be a member of the church. And maybe you said, it's just time, Brother Chris, I put my mask down.47:17And no better place to put it down than right here. Now, we're going to go on with the service. If you stay up here till 2 o'clock, that's okay. We respect that. We respect that. But we may have to go on with the service. Respect that. Would you stand? Would you listen to God and what he's saying to you right now?47:43We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service. We're going to go on with the service.More sermons on Romans →
