Why We Need a Congregation

I've had many conversations with people over the years who are Sabbath keepers, but they don't go to any congregation. They don't attend any church. Many times they went to a church someplace along the way and something bad happened or there was no Sabbath church where they were, so they just got used to not going to church on the Sabbath.

And so they're just very comfortable with sort of not going to church on the Sabbath. And still they observe the Sabbath. It's interesting that that idea of going to church but not going to church or being part of a church but not going to church is becoming very common in a society that we live in.

I mean, now there's obvious times that we can't go to church. There's obvious times when you wouldn't go to church. There's times where distance doesn't allow you to come very often. There's health reasons. Sometimes you're traveling. I mean, there's lots of reasons you may not be at a Sabbath service on any given Sabbath. But we're talking about here a lifestyle. And there are actually people who have tied into that.

It was interesting that I was looking up on the Internet and found an Internet church. And this gentleman preaches a sermon every Sunday morning. He has hundreds of people involved, many of them sending money. And these people all over the United States, most of them don't know each other. And so he gives a sermon. He has music. He does pretty top-notch presentation. You know, he's got a music playing. He gives a sermon. He's very energetic. He has some congregational hymns where they're all singing, you know, disconnected all over the place.

And then they enter into a chat room after services. And they stay in the chat room and they talk with each other. Now, it's good to use the Internet to reach people you can't. Now, on any given Sabbath here in this congregation, we'll have, what, 40, maybe? More than that, 40, 50 connections. Where people, some of them are here, you know, we'll have probably six or eight of those, will be people that are members of our congregation that are homebound. They just can't come.

Where they're sick that week. Or up in Kerrville, where we can have anywhere from, you know, 10 to 20 people on a hookup up there because they're people that live up in the Hill Country and they're actually having services with us today. They're together. So the technology really is good. And so I know there's many people out there that are listening to these sermons.

There's little groups out there that listen to the services that we have here, and we welcome them. And that's good that we have this technology. But at the same time, we have to ask ourselves, why would then I even go eventually to a congregation? So we're not talking about people who can't or that are cut off or don't know where to go. I mean, there's a lot of reasons someone may not be part of a congregation, but may be tying in electronically. But then this doesn't bring up an interesting question. What does it even mean to be a member of a congregation? What does it mean? Would it be okay if we all just sort of not meet, but we all just stay in our homes during the Sabbath and get on the Internet and have a chat room?

Would that be fulfilling the intent of the Sabbath? So, once again, I'm not discouraging the use of this technology when it's good. And for many people, it's good. Many people, they need it. I had, I think, an email from someone this week in Canada. So they just can't get out sometimes in the winter, you know? So they need a place to connect to, and that's wonderful. And we appreciate being able to do that service. Somehow, I'm talking today to the people sitting right here in the room. Why should we come here?

Why don't we all do that, too? You know, I could just walk into my office, set up my camera. It would be pretty easy. Do a nice little service. Don't have much.

Is that what we're supposed to do? Well, here we have a congregation, and it's nice to have a congregation. And we have all kinds of activities. I mean, we have Sabbath school. We have a choir. We have socials. We have an outreach committee.

We do all these things. We help other congregations. We're going to buy a new computer for the Waco congregation. They need one. So we have enough money. We can help them. We're able to do all these things. But, you know, just having a well-organized and well-run congregation doesn't mean it's doing what God wants it to do either.

You can have a well-organized functioning machine, but what's it supposed to do? Years ago, I read this, and I pulled it off. I kept it and used it every once in a while to make a point. It was from the Montgomery Advertiser, and it was about a man on the West Coast to build a marvelous machine in his garage. Using surplus parts, he produced a machine that contained just about every mechanical and electronic device known to modern technology at the time. On the builder's command, the huge machine was thousands of parts, gears, motors, relays, actuators, servo mechanisms, and so forth would begin their complex operation. So this isn't like a computer. This is mechanical. I don't know what to use. Maybe plug it in, or maybe just start some gas motor, but all of a sudden everything started to work. This thing was huge, a whole room of a machine. When it was working, it was amazing to watch. The humming, the moving. From the control panel in the middle of the machine, the operator watched with satisfaction as lights blinked on and off to indicate all was going well. Or occasionally, that subsection was in trouble. Technicians raided the machine of marble. There was just one sad note. The machine was designed and built to do nothing.

He got his kicks just sitting there, pulling switches, and watching all those beautiful parts busy, busying themselves, functioning perfectly, but accomplishing nothing. Well, we don't want to be a congregation that accomplishes nothing either, that does things because we're busy.

So, what are we supposed to be? What are we supposed to be as we come together?

Really, a spiritually healthy congregation is very important in aiding your personal relationship with God, in your personal Christian growth, and in your understanding of what it means to be a child in God's family. In fact, God gave us congregations to teach us what we need to learn. This is a training ground, and being here is very, very important, even though sometimes it's very dysfunctional, and sometimes it gets messy.

And sometimes there's misunderstandings, and sometimes they're hurt, and sometimes there's all kinds of things. We see each other's sins. And we've talked something about this, especially in this last two years, within last year, but I want to take a lot of things we've talked about the last year. Everyone says, I'll do this. I'll give three or four different sermons on things, and then I'll take a sermon and sort of take all those things and try to bring them into a focal point. That's what I want to do today. I'm going to take some sermons I've given probably over the last, I'll clear back to that last summer, and about two or three sermons, and I'm going to bring them now into a focal point, all these different parts. I want to talk about why you were called by God to be an active participant in a congregation. You were called by God to be an active participant in a congregation. Why? Well, the first one is rather obvious, but it's something we forget, ties in with the sermon ad, but the Sabbath thing is a holy convocation, which means assembly. It is a sacred assembly called by God. You and I are here by invitation only.

God gave us an invitation to come here.

Leviticus 23. Let's go back and let's look at it. Leviticus, I've heard people say, well, you know, there's me and my wife. We're two or three are gathered together, I'm there. Well, it's interesting because the Scripture that says we're two or three together, together, I'm there. It's not about the Sabbath. That's not the context of the passage. It is the context of how God interacts with us and decisions we make and the relationships we're supposed to have. And that's another subject. It is not about the sacred assembly. Leviticus 23, verse 1, this is, of course, the chapter that outlines all the holy days. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, the Feast of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts. You know, why do we keep the holy days? I've had people ask me that. Who are Sabbath keepers? Because they keep the Ten Commandments. They say, well, the Sabbath is in the Ten Commandments, but the holy days aren't. The annual holy days. That's true. But when we go to here, what we have is a list of the annual Sabbaths ordained by God. And what's the first one? I say the annual ones. There's more than the annual Sabbaths here. These are all connected together. Six days, verse 3, shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.

It is a holy convocation. It is a holy assembling of people called by God. It's where the whole word synagogue comes from. It's the word church. You know, the word church doesn't mean a building. It means a group of people called to come. Now, the Ecclesia, back in ancient Greece, was when all the men were called together to govern the town. They were all, it was a special assembly called to govern the town. Here we have a special assembly called by God. Of course, we know in Hebrews 10, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23.

Paul says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. He who promised is faithful, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Now, that's very important there, and you're going to find through some of the passages, all the passages I go through today. These are instructions. Sometimes they're actually given as a command in the New Testament that you cannot do unless you are spending your life with somebody else. You cannot stir up to love and good work someone that you do not know or only know in a chat room. You can't do that. Well, I suppose you could in a limited case, but you don't even know who you're talking to. It might be some wild-eyed crazy guy in a mental institution, right? You don't know who's real. I mean, chat rooms are filled with people pretending to be somebody else. They just are. They're filled with people pretending to be somebody else, or people with other agendas. I guess it's said to be in a chat room, but I've heard a lot of stories, okay? I said I just don't have time. But, you know, there's just a lot of bad things that happen. And, of course, there are people that like to have a persona that they like, that they get on the internet. You'll be somebody who's the most mild-mannered person who would never be in conflict at all, that read one of their emails. You would think that they are, you know, some kind of maybe seal or something. I mean, it's just amazing what this does to them. They type out, and it's like they take on a different persona. We see people do all kinds of things, but to stir up love and good works means we have to know each other. He says, verse 25, Do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the matter of some, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. The day is approaching. We're a lot closer to the day than they were, the day of the Lord. We're a lot closer. He says, and as times get hard, he says that we must exhort one another. You cannot do that unless you're with somebody. Now, it is true that technology gives us a chance to do that. You can tweet somebody, you can call somebody, you can text somebody that you couldn't do before. So those can be good things.

And sometimes it's the only way to connect to certain people. If somebody lives 50 miles away, there's a widow or something 50 miles away, the only way you may be able to connect is give a call. You can't visit every day.

But there is nothing like the human interaction of seeing each other, talking each other, looking at body language, understanding voice inflection, touching each other. This is human interaction. That's what we're designed to do. That is what we are designed to do. And talk to someone who can't go to the Feast of Tabernacles and they're stuck at home, and they got services every day, and they got some cards every day, and a few people called them. And then they'll say, I miss so much being able to go to the Feast of Tabernacles.

Where you meet new people, you touch people, you interact with people. This is the human interaction that we must have. And it is part of the reason for our congregation.

The assembling of ourselves together, of course, has to do with God calling us here. And so we do this with the Sabbath. There are some people, of course, who see that as not a necessary part of their Christian life. And I want you to think about this for a moment. I want you to think about standing before God some day and Him saying, I invited you to a weekly sacred assembly. Because that's what's happened to every one of us. God invited you to a weekly sacred assembly. And then you look God in the eye and say, well, I know, but you know, I had a rough job and I was just too tired. Or I know, but you know, there was about five or six people in that church that just got on my nerves. And so, oh, I invited you to a sacred assembly. Yeah, but you didn't have to put up with filling the blank.

But God's response will be to that. See, we have to think through how bizarre our reasoning is sometimes and how small it is, how small our reasoning is. Well, I didn't go because, you know, there were people there who didn't eat very healthy and I had very high standards of health. And there were some people there that didn't, you know, they weren't as strict about the Sabbath as I was. So I just couldn't go there. I'm not talking about people who don't keep the Sabbath, but you know what I'm talking about. There were some people there that just, I don't know, I thought the man's hair was a little too long.

Now, I'm not making this up. I mean, I've heard it all. Well, I think I've heard it all. And every once in a while something comes along and I think, well, I haven't heard that before.

How is God going to respond to that? That's what we're talking about today. Not only the assembling of ourselves together, but the relationship we should try to have with each other, even though we're scattered, it was so much easier to live in Ephesus in the first century. Because everybody basically walked or rode a horse, you didn't live more than a few hours away from the church or a few miles. You couldn't get there. So everybody lived where they were able to at least have some community interaction. Although they didn't have telephones, so if you were one end of Ephesus and someone lived on the other, it was hard to connect to them. But it's obvious that when we look through the New Testament that the church, the group of called out ones, first of all, meets together on the sacred assembly. And second of all, they become a family. So this is what we do. We're told to be here by God, to hear instructions, to sing praises to Him. This is tying in a little bit what I gave three weeks ago about praising God and music. That's part of why we're here. He wants to hear all of us singing together, praising Him. He wants to hear the piano, the musicians. He wants us to praise Him and to worship Him. So we are here because of this. And so this is the first of four points of why you should be an active participant in a congregation. The second reason is found in John 13. And we have a long ways to go on this one.

This, I want you to notice, is a commandment. This is a commandment. Okay? So we like commands. I'm a firstborn. I like wall. It frustrates me that there isn't like 5,000 of them in the Bible to cover everything in life. Oh, you bring me a problem? No problem. This is 3,257 says, do this. But that's not the way it is. And it's not that way on purpose. It's not that way on purpose. God sometimes gives us direct law. Sometimes He gives us two guidelines. You go past here, it's wrong. You go past here, it's wrong. You say, well, wait a minute. There's this little area in the middle. He says, yeah, they're going to live with each other. Sometimes that's the hardest part of Christianity. It's between this is wrong and this is wrong. And in this middle ground, you learn to live with each other. There's a reason for that.

There's a reason for that. So He doesn't fill in all the blanks. People are shocked when they find that out. He gives us everything we need to know. Actually, He does fill in the blanks, but they're not the answers at least I want sometimes. I want the blanks filled in with, thou shalt and thou shalt not. And the blanks are filled in with, stir your neighbor and encourage him. No, just tell it not to. Stir your neighbor and encourage him.

We just read that, right? In accordance with assembling of yourselves together. Verse 34, Jesus says, a new commandment I give you that you love one another. Now, that's not a new commandment.

Love your neighbor as yourself is in the Old Testament. It's the rest of what He says that's a new commandment. As I have loved you so that you also want to love one another, He said, the commandment is love your neighbor. And of course, you say, how do you do that? Well, we'll just make up more walls. I mean, that's what the Pharisees did. I know how to love my neighbor. I have five thousand walls that tell me how to love my neighbor. And Jesus said, you want to know how to love your neighbor? Do it the way I do it. Oh, but that means I have to pray for those who despitefully use me. That's what it means. We now have to do it the way He did it. He shows us the Messiah would come and magnify the law. That's exactly what He did.

Then verse 35, by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another. Now, I want you to think about this. He gives him a command and then says, you know how the world will really, really know you're my disciples? They will see a relationship that you have between each other and say, wow, that's special. That's special.

I have to tell you, verse 35, every once in a while I'll tell you there's a verse in the Bible that hunts me. John 13.35 hunts me. It bothers me a lot.

Because sometimes I say, well, people know I'm God's disciple. But I just got on television and told them that they don't repent. They're going to get fried.

I just did a program on the Day of the Lord. It was like fire and hell. When I was done, Darius looked at me and said, man, that was dark. I've never seen you do anything like that before. It was just blast away. Now, God will know I'm God's disciple. Now they'll know about the Day of the Lord. That doesn't prove I'm His disciple. That just proves I know something about the Day of the Lord. Because you love one another. I wonder as I look through back our 80-year history, there's been times I've been in congregations. Because every congregation is different. There's times I've been with people that really loved each other. There's been times I've been in congregations when they didn't. There's times I've been in congregations where everybody came together on Sabbath, and they knew each other as Sabbath keepers. They known each other for 40 years as Sabbath keepers, but they didn't know anything about each other outside of that.

And He says, some will know. Some will discover the Sabbath, the Holy Days. They'll discover that God is not a trinity. They'll discover that you shouldn't eat pork. They're going to discover that you don't have an immortal soul. They're going to discover all these things, and then they should be able to say, not just because we believe those things, they should say, yes, these people believe these things, and they are the real disciples of Jesus Christ. It'd be easy if He just said, they don't know by all your doctrines. Well, of course there has to be core doctrines to be the people of God. You can't worship Buddha and be a Christian. I don't care what Billy Graham says. It's not possible.

But they'll really know when they say, wow, these people have a special relationship with each other. I hope that verse bothers you a little bit.

It bothers me. But some will walk into my life and say, I know that then, because look at the relationship He has. I know He's a disciple. I know He can teach the truth, but I know He's a disciple because of the relationship He has with other Christians. You see, the reason we should be active members and participants in the congregation is it is to promote and encourage each member to learn and apply the law of love. And I say, law, it is a command. We are into commandments here, folks. This is commandment time. I command you, Jesus said. It's a commandment. The relationship with other Christians outside the congregation. We can't become so myopic that we think this is Christianity all there is. You know, 150 of us, this is it. No, we're part of something a lot bigger than that. The United Church of God, this is, oh, yeah, God's a little bigger than that. God's a little bigger than what we try to make Him, the what He does and the work that He does. But this is where we are. This is where God put us.

So, God put us here, but we determine a lot of what happens in our own lives and in our collective lives. We determine it. We determine how much we submit to God. We determine how much we obey God.

And the relationships with any congregation is the trading ground for how Christ can use us to change the world when He returns.

I want you to think about that. You have two great trading grounds or three great trading grounds in life. Your family, you learn God's way by the way you live within your family. Two, the way you interact with the world as a Christian. And three, the church itself. You become part of a group of called out ones. And you're part of a group of called out ones, and this is the trading ground. This is where we learn some day to sit down with people who are repenting because they're homosexuals or because they're alcoholics or because they were atheists or because they're Jews and Palestinians and hate each other. That we're the ones Christ is going to use to sit down and make those people part of a family. How can we do that if we can't do it among ourselves? This is not easy. I'm not saying, oh, we all should go home and feel bad now, because, well, I have problems with this person in the congregation or I am this problem or that or whatever. No, no, what I'm telling you is this is the way it's going to be. We work it out.

Oh. God's going to put us with people that are very difficult to get along with. Well, why would He do that? Well, we're going to have to teach Republicans and Democrats to get along.

First thing we'll do is dissolve the Democratic Party and dissolve the Republican Party. That'll be good health right there. When Christ dissolves both parties, that'll be a little easier.

Then we've got to sit down and help them get along, teach them a simple way.

And they're both going to say, well, that's not what I think Christianity is.

How are we going to do that? Did we forget this is so much bigger than the immediate problems you and I go through every day? This is God teaching us for eternity. And we have specific jobs with Jesus Christ. You have a job. I don't know what it is. Christ is preparing you for something specific He's going to want you to do when He comes back. And whatever it is, you're learning it now. This difficulty, this hard time, this pain that you go through is to learn because you're going to be dealing with a world that's going through that. And this is our training ground. Welcome to school! And you can say, well, I'm going to leave school. School's too hard. But you know what? How else are you going to learn it? How else are we going to learn it?

It's like, it's amazing how much you learn by getting married and having children. And then you become part of another family, an extended family, right? How much you learn through that process? Welcome to Galatians 5. Galatians 5. This is why this is so important, and this is why we shouldn't be discouraged by hard times and difficult times. And you ever get up some day and you just don't even want to go to church or just discourage? You don't have anything. You just don't want to go. I remember getting up, not wanting to go to school. Oh, no, I gotta go to school. Worst time of the week was Sunday night.

Because you realize when you got up the next day, you had a week of school. And when you're 12 years old, a week of school is a hundred years in some kind of inhumane torture. As like Sunday night, please don't let Sunday night. You know, we'd watch the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday night, and you would hope that one-hour show would last like three hours, four hours. Oh, no! Oh, no! We gotta go to bed! It's only ten minutes! You would hope it somehow just keep going on and on, because tomorrow you had to go back to school. If we're not careful, sometimes we feel that way about the church. But did we get... You ever notice that when you get here, something changes? Oh, you don't want to go to a social. Then you go and it changes. Ah, you don't want to do that. You want to... Ah, it's another outreach committee meeting. Ah, those meetings are so boring. It's like we always have people have a hard time getting them to go to finance committee meetings. It's so exciting! Wow! We're gonna make all these decisions about money. These are the most boring meetings, you know. And non-profits are always inefficient. They're never like a business or quite like this. So it's an interesting experience.

Galatians 5.14.

For all the law... See, we want to keep the law. We are a law-oriented people, and we should be a law-oriented people. So I want to talk about the law today in the way the New Testament uses this in terms of the Church. For all the laws fulfilled in one word, even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. It's a quote, of course, from Leviticus. But if you bite and devour one another, beware, lest you be consumed by one another. I find it interesting. Galatians, like almost all the letters written in the New Testament, at least part of the letter is about problems they were having internally in the congregation.

So why should we be any different? Although, I mean, I have to honestly say, folks, we don't have any problems compared to Galatia or Corinthians. And this congregation isn't rife with all kinds of problems about saying that. I'm saying, though, we need to remember why it is important to participate in a congregation. Why it is important to understand being there, being involved with each other is so important. Because in the end, that's what it's about. God and us, together, is His family. He says, you know, Paul, with these typical hyperbole, you keep biting each other so much, you're just going to eat each other up. Now, I'm going to go to church one day, and there's just going to be nothing but bones laying around because you all ate each other up. We miss graphic hyperbole at times.

Verse 26 says, let us not be conceited, provoking one another, emptying one another. Then, verse 2 of chapter 6 is very important. He says, bear one another's burdens, and why? What do you mean? I've got to carry this guy's burden. I've got to help this person. I've got to listen to this person's complaints one more time. I have to do this. I have to... Why? I mean, the thing is, it says, burden. It doesn't say, oh, just every time you do something with somebody in the church, it's going to be wonderful. He said, sometimes you're going to feel like you're carrying a 50-pound rock with you with that person. So why do you do it? Why not go into it? I'm just going to keep the Sabbath moment myself from now on. Or, I know this person's sins. And, you know, I know this person has a drinking problem, and they're hiding it from the minister, and I'm just not going back to church. But notice what he says. Bear one another's burdens and do what? Fulfill the law of Christ. You want to be a lawkeeper? You've got to do this. If we want to be lawkeepers, we have to do this. I give you this commandment. Do this because it's the law. These are New Testament applications of the Torah. New Testament applications of the Torah.

It's the law.

Romans 15.

And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's hard because you ever, you know, your kids will say, how come this family allows their kids to do this, and you won't allow us to do this? How come, you know, we'll see that with other people? I would never do that. Well, that person is doing that. You ever have a group of children? This is always fun at camp or any church event. You have a group of little kids that say, do not go swimming in the swimming pool. And you have a certain group that won't go within 20 feet of that pool. And you have another group that will walk up and look down at the pool, or run along the edge of the pool. And then you always have somebody go sit down and put their feet in the pool because you told them they couldn't swim and I'm not swimming. I'm just kicking. And adults do the same thing. So God says, don't go swimming in the pool, and some of us are standing 20 feet away, which is, you know, that's my wife. If you say, don't go swimming in the pool, she would build a fence around it, put a padlock on it, and armed guards to keep nobody from going into that pool. She's Germanic, okay? Nobody goes in that pool.

I would go to fence around it, but leave the door open so people could learn to make their own decisions. But I would stand up there and yell, don't go in the pool, don't go in the pool, and I'd think, okay, some people would have no fence. Nobody telling what to do. They have to make their own decisions. Some people would be running up and down the pool, not paying attention to anything else, right? Playing tag. And then there's the door, and they'd go sit in the pool, got to feed the pool, and say, hey, you didn't tell me I couldn't put my feet in the pool. And then every once in a while, you get somebody who just jumps in and swims anyways, right? Then we all stop and just a gasp. But we were told not to swim. Well, welcome to adulthood in the church. That's what it is! And we can say, unless, you know, the people who are running against the pool, look at the people who are standing 10-20 feet off and say, boy, what a bunch of Pharisees they are!

Look what good time we're having! Until someone falls in the pool and cracks their head open, and then all the people are standing 20 feet off, all us firstborns say, told you so!

I love it when I get out, told you so!

But the truth is, if you get more than about five people, you're going to end up doing different things. But God said, don't go swimming! That's right. But He didn't give us the rest of it. He said, now you've got to learn to do this. You're going to learn to do this.

And so there are people that are supposed to go correct others who go swimming. In fact, we all should run over, pull the person who went swimming. What are we going to do? Here's what we do so that while we go drown the person who swimmed. Then, good night, this is all together. We're going to drown that person. They're swimming. God said, don't go swimming. It's time to drown him. Now, we're supposed to pull the guy out, and we're supposed to all stand around and say, you can't go swimming. And if you're going to go swimming, you can't be part of us until you stop swimming. That's what we're supposed to do. Well, the person says, well, I didn't know that. Okay, I'll stop. I don't. Then, what do we have? Well, we have a fellow brother, a fellow sister, right?

Now, if they refuse and they're going to swim, we don't let them swim. That's what sin is. Now, whether you're running along the pool or got your feet in the water or standing 20 feet off, or you're the one who just goes around and corrects everybody, or the one who goes around and tells everybody, it's okay, that's just my feet. That's the areas that we, well, this is where we learn to get along. And we're not very good at this. And in our culture, we've never been very good at this. But it is the reality. It is the reality.

He didn't say condone sin, but he said, this is how you fulfill the law.

He says basically the same thing in Romans 15. Romans chapter 15.

Verse 1, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Sometimes we bear with somebody who doesn't get it the way we get it. You know, the thing is, any congregation of people have people with all different levels of conversion. Sometimes we want somebody to walk through that door as a new person and have the same level of conversion we have at 30 years of doing it. Well, of course they're not. Remember where you were 30 years ago? Remember? And so we deal with certain things. So, you know, sometimes I'll be talking to a new person and I finally explained tithing and I finally explained the holy days and the person just lost their job over the Sabbath. And they're just devastated, but they're tithing, they lost their job, they don't have a job, they don't know what they're going to do, and the guy says, I mean, I don't know what to do. We had our, you know, pork chops for supper last night and that's all the meat we have in the house. That's probably not a good time to explain clean and unclean meats. It probably could wait a little longer, right? Now, will he eventually have to learn clean and unclean meats? Yes. But is that the time to say it? Well, yeah, we are. Well, boy, there's the problem. You got fired because you're a pork chop last night.

He said, sometimes we have to bear with the conscience of weak people. And all of us have weaknesses.

You know, you've got to be with each other before you can have this problem. Here, every scripture I'm reading describes a problem that you can only have if you're being with each other. You don't have this problem every, we just all go home and hook up on the internet. We won't have this problem. He says that you may be made with one mind and one mouth glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the end, what is it that happens from all this? We all glorify God and Jesus Christ because we all look at God and say, what you're doing is absolutely amazing. We all look at Christ and say, what you've done for me and the person next to me is absolutely amazing. And we glorify God. If we're not careful, we get trapped in the relationships, the problems of the relationships between husband and wife, between us and someone else in the church. And what we do is we're not glorifying God. This is what's so horrible about divorce of the church. By this all men will know that you are by disciples, you love one another, except of course the husband and wives who get divorced.

Now, there are legitimate reasons for divorce. I'm not saying that. There are biblical reasons. But sometimes I've seen people follow through with divorces simply because they weren't going to practice the Christianity needed to have the family.

So we bring reproach on the name of Jesus Christ.

This is important. This is about law, commandments.

The third reason we should be full participants of the congregation is that each of us have spiritual gifts and we are required to use those spiritual gifts to help each other. You have a spiritual gift from God and you are required. You are told, you are commanded to use that gift, whatever it is. Some people have lots of gifts, some people have a few gifts, doesn't matter. You are commanded to use that gift. Your gift may be listening. Your gift may be teaching. Your gift may be that you're the best floor sweeper in the church. Then that may be why you're here. You say, well, how is that going to help me in the kingdom? Am I going to have to sweep floors forever? What you learn by assisting and helping others is what you'll do in the kingdom.

God will use that. He won't hand you a broom. He'll hand you a lot bigger problem than sweeping the floors and say, your floor sweeping taught you to do this. Oh, I hate to use this example because it was such a corny movie. Remember the karate kid? Wax on, wax off. Then he throws a punch and he blocks it. What was he doing? What is God doing with you? Wax on, wax off. Paint up, paint down. That's what he's doing with everyone. And we're saying, well, this is stupid.

Paid up, paid down. That's what he's doing with everyone of us.

Because there's a time when all that means something in a much greater concept and context. You have gifts to give. 1 Corinthians 12, the famous chapter on this.

1 Corinthians 12.

Verse 4.

There are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. There are differences of ministries but the same Lord. There are diversities of activities but it is the same God who works all in all. It was real comforting, but I've realized as a pastor years and years ago I didn't have to do it all. I had to find all the people who could do it. That's what I was supposed to do. My job is to find, to take everybody and get them to do what they're supposed to do. I suppose I know I finally become the perfect pastor when I'm not needed anymore. I have finally achieved what I was supposed to achieve. But it would be great. Oh, honey, I don't know what we're going to do today.

Oh, well, want to go out to lunch? You know? I finally obtained the accomplishment of my job when I don't have it anymore. I don't need it anymore. Everybody's doing what they're supposed to do. I wish you'd all do that, so I wouldn't have been working about anything.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each for the profit of all. You notice that? How can't you profit all if you see yourself as an island? We're not islands. We're members of each other. This is who we are. You look all the way across the room. You look at each other, and you are of each other. We are of each other. We are spiritually connected. We either decide to keep that connection or not keep that connection, but we already are connected through God's Spirit. To what is given the word of wisdom? Through the Spirit. I always find somebody. There's always a couple people in a congregation that have unusual wisdom. I would ask for a show of hands. How many of you, though, have I sent to Roger Foster over the years? Probably three-quarters of the people in this room. Why? You have to get the wisdom. Why don't you talk to Mr. Foster about that?

He says, Sue the Spirit, another word of knowledge in the same Spirit. Another faith by the same Spirit. I've just seen people in the Church. They have remarkable faith. There are people in the Church that inspire me every time I talk to them, because there are people I like to talk to at the Church when I have a lack of faith every once in a while, because I know they're going to help me have more faith. Just by talking to them, they encourage my faith. So I try to find those people in congregation. I ask them to pray for things. I usually go talk to them when I'm feeling like I have a crisis of personal faith somewhere along the way. Find those people.

To another the gifts of healings by the same Spirit. To another the working of miracles. To another prophecy. To another discerning of spirits. To another different kinds of tongues. To another the interpretation of tongues. But one of the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. Now the thing is, it's for the profit of all. There are some times when you actually have to restrain a gift. There's other times when you think you have a gift and you don't. There's times when your gift comes in competition with others. And you have to learn how to deal with that.

One of the problems in the Corinthian church was there were so many gifts. This church ripped itself to shreds over gifts. That's why at the end of this chapter, remember He ends chapter 12, I say, now I've talked to you all about gifts. Now let me tell you something a whole lot better than gifts. He calls it a more excellent way. Let me tell you about Agape.

Let me take you into the character of God and all of a sudden all this battle and fighting over gifts doesn't mean anything. You know, Jesus Christ had all kinds of gifts. You noticed He didn't always use them all at all the time? Jesus Christ set His gifts aside every once in a while for the benefit of something greater. Why would He do that? For the benefit of all. The more gifts you have, the more responsibility that comes with it. And I guarantee you the more gifts you have, the more trouble you have. I've watched very gifted people because they have to learn to use those gifts in a proper way. It's not always easy with the confines of a church. This isn't just some kind of corporation where, okay, we all get together and everybody that's in charge gives everybody else orders and everybody else does it because they're afraid if they don't, they'll get fired. That's not what the church is. It's a family. You know, some families, everybody's talking at the same time, and some families. We were looking at pictures last night. It was my son's birthday yesterday. We were looking at some albums, and we were all laughing about my daughter, Jennifer, because as the middle one, especially when he came along, she always felt left out. So, every picture, she's got her face. I mean, it's just like she appears out of nowhere. You'll be looking at a picture like, who's that? You'll see Jennifer in the back. Or you take a picture of Chris when he was a baby, and she's straggling him, you know, so she can get into the picture. And we were laughing because he kept saying, you know, she was always beating me up, and now that we're looking at the pictures, it's like, you know, she was.

You know, there's always someone who feels left out. There's always someone who's mad. There's always someone who's sad. There's always someone who's happy, and the sad people's mad at the people that's happy, right? There's always someone saying something stupid. There's always someone discommitting some sin. Welcome to the family.

That's what it's like. Tell you what, though, it's a great way to live life. I would hate to think about being part of a congregation. I mean, I've mentioned that before, but hey, who else would you rather spend life with? You think it's, well, it'd be less messy if I wasn't at the church. Really? It'd be less messy if I was a Baptist. Really?

There's no better way to spend your life. But this is the reality of what it is. Once you accept that, it gets a whole lot easier. Paul goes on, friends, the body is one, and it has many members, but all the members of that one body being many are one body. So is Christ. For by one spirit, we're all baptized into one body, where the Jews are Greeks, where the slaves are free. We have all been made to drink into one spirit. For in fact, the body is not one member but many. He goes on, he says, if the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I am not of the body. And therefore, not of the body? If the ears should say, because I am not an eye, I am not of the body. Is it therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? The whole hearing, where would the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He pleased. He goes on and on and on. I won't read all of it. It just keeps going on and on. Can't you see this? There's got to be different personalities, different gifts, different strengths, different weaknesses. We have to carry each other's burdens. The strong have to be able to help the weak. All through Paul's writings, these congregations, it's like the diversity of the congregations were enormous. I think much more than like we have here.

We have a uniformity in some ways. Although this is an interesting conversation, congregations, there's people from different backgrounds, people from Peru and people from Chile, not Peru, but people from Chile and people from Mexico and people from different parts of the United States. Someone from England. We even have people from Australia. There's the great problem. We have people from Texas, which is the whole mindset in itself. People do tell me all the time, you have a very diverse congregation. I say, no, it's like herding cats. It is great. Because that's what it's supposed to be. We can say, anybody here that's not a true Texan, get out. Right? Put on a cowboy hat. I knew a minister who came from Texas. He was in Texas for a while. He went up to New York City, got up on the stage, took a, it wasn't loaded, but an actual 45, and he had a cowboy hat. Put it down on the podium and said, I'm the new law in town.

I said, how'd it go? Well, he said, that was a long time ago. He says, this, an older pastor now, I realized that that wouldn't work almost any place in the world. In New York, everybody just burst out laughing. He said, and it didn't offend anybody. He says, I did that any place out in the country. They'd have probably been calling, you know, saying, please get rid of this pastor. He's a crazy man. He goes on here in verse, of course, he talks about the weak parts have importance. In fact, verse 22 is very interesting. He says, no, much rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. Those of us who struggle all the time with those things and don't seem to go away, that the rest of us have to help that person through.

Why God even had that person in the church? Because God loves that person and they are necessary. You understand that? They are necessary. By whose standards? Gods. The person with the chronic health problems, the person that can't ever seem to deal with this issue or that issue. The couple with the chronic marriage issues, they are necessary and they are to overcome those things. They'll grow through those things and we're to help each other do that. This is what a congregation is supposed to be. See, it doesn't matter whether there's 10 people in it or 500 people in it. In fact, to tell you the truth, a 500 person congregation is a very hard time living by these. Very hard time. Any time a congregation gets over between 150 and 200, it gets real difficult for this to happen because once you get to a certain size, everybody starts to break off into groups you just do naturally. It is hard to break that up. It's not people doing it on purpose. You can't talk to 200 people, so you talk to 25. I mean, there's some of you here that really don't know each other. There's only 150. Right? But you have to break those barriers down. You have to make sure you get to know each other. You have to. Why? Because it says to. We have to carry each other's burdens.

That's why he says in verse 25 that there should be no schism. There should be no division in the church. Every time there's a division in the church, it means that we do not understand what the church is. And it means we're not following the fruits of the Spirit. Doesn't mean we're not converted. It means we're not doing what we're supposed to do. He said there shouldn't be any schisms in the church. That's the ideal. That's what God wants.

But that the members should have the same care for one another. I can't do that. You can't do that unless you know each other. It's always frustrating to me because with three churches, I can't keep up with everything. And it's frustrating because I know people are suffering or people are sick or this is happening and I can't be there. But I always know somebody will be there. Somebody will be there. Every once in a while, I have someone tell me, well, I was sick for a month and nobody called. Every once in a while that happens. I think, why didn't somebody go? Why didn't somebody call?

Verse 26, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

The you are the body of Christ and each member individually.

So, there's going to be different ways of doing things. Some of you here have had so many different pastors and each one was so different. Each one is so different.

Some are better at different things. You might get a pastor who's a great teacher of a terrible administrator. You get one that's a great administrator but has no counseling skills. You say, well, boy, that's not a good pastor. No, that's his gifts.

But a good pastor does and says, well, I'm not good at counseling, so I'll get somebody else. You know, I hate detailed administration.

That's why I run as fast as I can so I don't have to be camp directors and festival directors and it keeps catching up to me. So, I'm going to be a festival coordinator this year, which means many of you are going to use your talents.

Somebody has to do it, right? So, you do it. I've read many fee sites and many camps. They used to say, why didn't you like to run camps? I said, because I like to play with the kids. If I run, if I'm the camp director, I can't play with the kids. So, let me play with the kids.

And it, but we will pull, people will pull together and we'll run a fee site.

So, this is part of what we have to understand. The third reason is each member is given spiritual gifts and you develop those gifts in the context of the congregation. You know what that means? Sometimes there's going to be disagreements. We used to pretend that there could never be disagreements. Well, there has to be. If we're honest at all, but there's going to be disagreements sometimes. We have to understand that sometimes people's gifts are going to come in conflict with each other. That's going to happen, too. So, we work those out. That's part of what leadership is supposed to do. We work those things out. So that everybody realizes, I don't always get my way. Or I don't, my gift doesn't get used this time. But it will be used. It will be used.

Because you're necessary. The fourth point, the last one. I think this is so important. A congregation is a place of generational relationships. I won't read it, but go to Titus chapter 2, verses 1 through 6, and read Titus 2, verses 1 through 6. What you have there is a description of generational relationships. Here's what you do if you're an older man. We went through that. It took us a whole year. We went through those first couple verses of Titus in the men's club. Then there's okay women. Here's what you do. You are to train the younger women. You are to teach them about modesty. You are to teach them how to love their husbands. Of course, how do you do that if you're sitting around running down your husband?

You are to teach them. In other words, it's all relationships. All of Titus's that passage is all about how people are to relate to each other within the congregation.

How young men are supposed to relate. It's an interesting passage because you can't do that if you're not spending time together. You can't understand people older than you unless you're spending time with them. And you can't understand people younger than you unless you're spending time with them. You can't do it.

We can't fulfill these entire passages unless we have relationships. Even with the members of the congregation, there are the unseemly parts, as Paul calls them. We have to. It's a command. It's part of the law. How important is it for you to be an active member of the congregation? Well, God commands the sacred Sabbath and holy day assemblies. He commands it. Secondly, it's our daily relationships with other Christians that we learn to obey and practice the law of love. It's a command. It's our training ground for Christ's Second Coming. It is in our third, and it is our service to others in the congregation, that we follow the command and develop our individual gifts so that we contribute to the congregation and to the work of God. And then fourth, by participating in a congregation, we develop generational relationships. Generational relationships. I was up this morning just cutting out of the sermon. I still didn't cover two pages of notes. That's okay. At one point, I had like 15 pages of notes. We have to develop generational relationships.

It's a gift of God to be a part of a congregation. We just did a Beyond Today program about Sabbath keepers in the 1600s in Europe, Eastern Europe, who lost their congregations and were killed by the thousands. What it was like to try to live as a Christian without a congregation. There's lots of people doing that. Fortunately, we do have technology that we can connect to those people. They didn't. Some of those people were Sabbath keepers by themselves for their whole lives. Some of the things they went through were horrible. We have a blessing. There may come a time when God takes that blessing away. There may come a time when our society gets so bad we can't be.

That may come. I don't know. I hope it doesn't. You have a blessing right now. The work that God has given to Jesus Christ is to preach the gospel to the world and build His church. So come share in the gospel and the work of Jesus Christ. Preach the gospel and help build His church.