It's time for defending the faith with Pastor Kenny Word of Gospel Lighthouse Church in Mosher City. Defending the faith uses foundational principles, fundamental teachings, and faithful preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to influence the world and strengthen believers in their daily walk. And now, here's Pastor Kenny Word. Praise the Lord.
Welcome to Defending the Faith. Hey, I'm Pastor Kenny Word. I'm your host here at Defending the Faith. I want to thank you for joining us on this morning's program.
We're so excited and encouraged to be able to bring these broadcasts to you right here on the Promise 90.7 FM. We're so encouraged about the response that we've been getting and so encouraged about the feedback that we've been getting from you. And hey, if this program has been a blessing to you, send us an email or go visit our website and let us know. You can email me at kjcword at gmail.com.
Now if you have any questions or comments or suggestions, you can always reach out to me there at my email address. That's kjcword at gmail.com. Now this morning's program, I do want to, before we get into it, just let you know, this weekend, we are gearing up for an awesome service this weekend. We are having what we call, film book Sunday, this weekend.
What we do is we sing hymns out of the old hymn books and then on Sunday night service, we just do, let the congregation choose the songs that they want to sing. So we just have a good time with it. I often tell people at our church, I believe those old hymns, if you'll get in that, I don't know if you have one at home, you could probably find an app on your phone. But if you get in that old hymn book and look at the words of those songs, I'd tell our church all the time.
Those hymns, they preach better than most people preach today. Those old hymns just have so many truths just packed into them. And it is just such a beautiful expression to sing those doctrinally sound things. Just a far different thing than a lot of the music that is out there today.
Now, I'm not going to knock all of that that out there today. Some of it is pretty good. But the majority of it is just emotional mumbo jumbo. And so I love going and looking at those old hymns and there sounds in my life whenever you kind of get into a dry place, there sounds in my life whenever I would go and look through the hymn book and it would just inspire me.
It's kind of, it's not like songs, but it's kind of like that. It's just, it's an inspiring words, doctrinally sound, set to music, just powerful stuff. But this weekend we were having hymn books on day at our church. Now, if you don't have a church home, come visit us.
We're at 4350 Panther Drive in Bozer City, Louisiana. So we're down there in South Bozer. If you're kind of familiar with the area, we're down there kind of about the Century Link Center. And over there on Panther Drive, we are a little brown building with a white steeple on top and it has a cross on the top of it.
So look for us. If you want to look us up on the internet, you can, it has the directions on there. Our website is churchlighthouse.com. So that's www.churchlighthouse.com.
And you know, the reason that I'm telling you this is because this weekend you need to be in a church somewhere, you know, if possible. One of the things that I believe that, you know, one of the problems that we have in the church world today is people absencing themselves from their local churches, people absencing themselves from the body of Christ. You know, if the enemy can get you isolated, he's got you. If the enemy can get you to a place where you will stay tucked away from other people, he will keep you inundated with lies and he will keep you pressed down.
The body of Christ, you know, it's not about just numbers for church attendance. You know, that's not why the Lord tells us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. It's not so that we can have, you know, a better church number. You can go from, you know, 40 to 60 or 70 to 80 or 200 to 300.
It's not so that you can have an increase in numbers. It's because we need one another over and over throughout the New Testament, especially through the writings of Paul. I see he's preaching to the Gentile church. You see these expressions over and over and over and over, pray for one another, love one another, encourage one another, ed up a one another.
You know, show mercy on one another, rebuke one another. You know, there are so many, there are so many scriptures that relate to the church and how we as a family just bring ourselves together. It's this fabric that we're connected by our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the body of Christ is supposed to encourage one another and keep one another lifted up in prayer. Keep one another just, you know, at a place where we don't fall back, where we don't listen to the lies of the enemy.
And you know, one of my pastors told me a long time ago, he said, you know, Kenny, there is no such thing as a lone ranger Christian. And at the time, I really didn't know what he was talking about. But you know, now that I'm pastoring, I know exactly what he's talking about. The people who isolate themselves from the body of Christ and I'm not in, look, I'm talking about anybody.
It doesn't matter if it's Baptist or Methodist or assembly of God or, you know, whatever, body. When you begin to remove yourself from the people of God, you will begin justifying your actions or you'll begin justifying why you're not doing what you're supposed to do anymore. It keeps you at a place where you're constantly having to justify yourselves and, you know, bring things out. Whereas when you're connected into a vibrant body of believers, instead of justifying why you're not doing what you're supposed to do, it keeps you in a place where you're encouraged to do what you're doing and to do more.
You know, one of the things, and look, all churches are a little bit different, but you know, one of the things that our church, we really encourage people to get involved in ministries outside of our own building. I think it is essential for the believers to not be so focused on what happens inside the four walls of the church, but going out into the community and getting involved in church work outside the walls of the church. You know, we have members of our church that volunteer at different places in the community in different ministries as a way to influence the world. And that's exactly what we're called to do.
We're supposed to let our light shine. We're supposed to take what we have out into the world. And I believe, you know, the day and hour that we live in, it's going to take us as believers walking by faith and going out, being diligent about it. You know, and what I'm talking about this morning is, you know, if we forsake the assembling of ourselves together, we are far less likely to do that.
We're far less likely to go out into the community and get planted in these different places and make an impact for Christ. You know, and I know, I've seen it happen. I've seen people withdraw from a church. I've seen them say, well, this will free me up so that I can do this, this and this.
And you know how long that lasts? Not long. It doesn't last long at all. They may have good intentions, but that's not the way that God designed the church.
It's just not the way He designed it. So, you know, even if you have the most sincere and best intentions possible, if you're not doing it, God's way, it's going to lead to frustration and failure. And what's going to happen is that person who began to do something and justify their actions and they had good intentions, they're going to burn out. They're going to falter and they're going to go backwards.
And so, you know, as you're connected into a body of Christ, what that body does, if the body is functioning the way it's supposed to, the way that God prescribed us to function and look, in today's culture, it is antithetical to today's culture, the way that God has prescribed the church to live. It is antithetical to it. And so, sometimes as the church begins to operate as it's supposed to, it goes against the culture of the world. We, you know, there are things that the church does that the world considers backwards and does not understand.
You know, whenever we talk about the subjection of a wife to her husband and different things like this and children to their parents and how, you know, the husband should love the wife, you know, that's, these things are antithetical to a lot of the culture of the world. And you know, and I think about in Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 10, when the Bible says that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much no more as you see the day approaching. And see, even back then, in the day and time that the writer of the book of Hebrews was pinning this letter, even back then, people were beginning to say, you know what, I'm just going to say home, I can do this on my own at home. I can do this, you know, I can study the Bible myself and, you know, this and that.
But even back then, you had that stuff going on, but notice the key part to me, the key part of forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, the end of that verse, that portion that says, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. You see, the, as the day of Christ is approaching, as that day is approaching, we're going to need one another and we're going to need to encourage one another more and more. The closer that we get to that day, we're going to need one another and we're going to need to help one another out and say, look, hey, I know that you messed up, but look, take it to the Lord in prayer, ask the Lord for forgiveness and get it back up on your feet. Get back in the game, you know, it's kind of like, you know, we never, I don't know if you've seen children, you know, riding a bike, trying to learn how to ride a bike and you fall over.
You know, what does the father said? Tell the child, get back up, try again, because if you don't get back on, you're never going to get it. And that's, you know, what you need, the body of Christ in your life for is to tell you to get back up and get back involved in the things of God and to encourage you to be who you're supposed to be. You know, one of the things that people most often don't understand is that even believers are going to face judgment whenever we die.
And you know, you guys that are habitual listeners of the program, you know, we've, we've dealt with this before a few months ago, but believers will face the judgment seat of Christ or the bema seat of Christ. That is where Jesus is going to judge us according to what we've done with what God's given us. And you know, if you want to look up the reverence to that, look at the passage whenever Jesus gave and passed out the talents to the disciples. And he said, you know, and it was a parable, he said, he went away.
And when he came back, I don't know if you remember the story, but you know, the one, two of them that he gave talents to produced one a whole lot and one a little bit, but they produced, they brought back more than what they had been given. So they went out and used their talents or their gifts for the kingdom of God. And then there was another person who just buried it. And I don't know if you remember how the parable goes, but the Lord dealt very harshly with the person who took his talent and buried it.
Why? Because he wasn't doing what he was supposed to do. So, you know, there is precedent in the Word of God for this. And I just want to encourage you know, if you don't have a church home, find one.
And if you're having a hard time finding one, come check us out. But get involved in a church home somewhere. And I can almost hear, you know, to a tee, somebody saying, I don't need a church home. I can do church at my house by myself or with a couple of friends coming over.
Hey, you know what? I'll tell you this about people doing home churches. It is getting more popular to do home churches. I agree.
It's getting more popular. There's probably going to be a day in time whenever all of the church is going to have to meet in homes. That day is probably not too far away. But I'll tell you this though, if a church or people meet in a home and call it church, it better operate the way that God has intended for it to operate.
And if you're not sure how a church is supposed to have order, you have first and second Corinthians. And then for the qualifications of the people who are pastoring this home church, they need to follow the qualifications laid out in first, Timothy, second Timothy and then Titus. So you know, just because a couple of people, you know, they don't want to go to church anymore and they don't like getting dressed up. They don't like doing this.
They want to do it at home. Hey, that's fine. But do it according to the book, do it according to the Bible. Don't play house church according to what, how you think it should be because you didn't like how brother so and so did it, such as a church.
You see, God called you to a better existence than that. And if you're going to do something, do it according to what the Bible says. So here, you know, in this passage, this is Hebrews 1025, we're told, you know, in the previous verse to this, which is verse 24, this is Hebrews 10 verse 24, we're told to consider one another to provoke under love and to good works. You see, this is the call that we have as believers in one another's lives, which is to encourage one another to love and to good works.
So you know, one of the main qualities that we need in the church today is this loving one another overlooking one another's faults and failures. And when you see someone walk through the doors of your church or your home, wherever your church is, when you see somebody walk through those doors, you're called, you are called to bless them and provoke them unto love. So how do you provoke someone under love? You start out by loving them, by having compassion on them.
You start out by genuinely caring about the person. You know, this is one of the more eye-opening things that I got involved in, whatever I was getting into ministry is how people, some people just genuinely don't care. And then you can get around other people and they honestly, honestly care about you. Have you ever noticed that when somebody actually cares about you, what it does is it provokes your heart to love.
If somebody sits down with you and says, hey, tell me all about it. Tell me all about it. I want to know everything that happened. And as you're telling this person, if they're engaged in it and genuinely listening to you, what they are doing is they are provoking your heart to love.
It is how God's people interact with one another. And so we're called to do this. We're called to provoke one another love and we're called to provoke one another to good works. And you know, that's where the body of Christ really comes in.
You know, when we can tell one another, look, hey, you did a good job on making this decoration or you did a really good job on singing that song or you did a really good job on your visitation. You wouldn't visit it somebody. You did a really good job. And when you can get in that place where you're around people who say, that was great.
You know, I believe God's really using you in that area. Keep going. What it does is it encourages you to do more. You know, if you're around people who never bring encouragement and you're around people who are always critical and always criticizing, what it does is it brings discouragement.
So there's a very fine line. There's a very fine line there and you know, you need to be in a place where, and look, I know we live in a selfish world and probably everybody's saying, yeah, I need somebody to encourage me. You know, I need somebody to do this for me. That's exactly right, Brother Keating.
Well, you know, it starts out whenever you're willing to do this for others. It starts out when you're willing to do this and you may not get it in return. It may be a long time before you get it in return. But you know, you're supposed to do what you're supposed to do, which is Hebrews 1024.
You're supposed to provoke others to love. And you're supposed to provoke others to good works. You know, it doesn't say, I mean, they will, but it doesn't say they have to do this for you. You know, get that out of your mind.
Just look at what the verse tells you in Hebrews 1024 and 25 and do what it says. It tells you to love one another, pray for one another, have compassion on one another, encourage one another. And here in this passage tells us to provoke one another to love and to provoke one another to good works. And so, you know, I can't do somebody else's part on this equation.
I can't go over there and, you know, get in their bones and do what they're supposed to do. I can't, I can't, I can't make them stop and I can't make them start, you know, but what I can do is I can, I'm accountable for me. I'm accountable for myself and you're accountable for you. And so what we need to do is we need to take the initiative on ourselves to say, you know what, other people may not be doing this, but I'm going to.
Other people may be preoccupied talking about the ball game. Other people may be preoccupied talking about, you know, what so and so is wearing or, you know, somebody may be preoccupied with, I wish the pastor would be quiet so we could get out of church. Other people may be preoccupied with, you know, having a pity party. What was me?
Why didn't I get selected for that committee? And, you know, this and that, but there's, there has to come a point where me and you just say, you know what, I can't, I cannot, you know, be held accountable for what other people do, but I will be held accountable for what I do. And I choose to obey God. I choose to believe what he says and to do what he tells me to do.
And so I'm going to begin considering one another. I'm going to begin looking at people not with eyes of, of looking them up and down and seeing if they're wearing the right clothes or not. I'm not going to begin to look them up and down like that. I'm going to begin to consider them and just to consider what they've gone through, just to consider, you know, their life and how they're trying and how things are hard and looking on them with eyes of compassion.
I'm going to begin to consider them. And then, you know, as I said, the verse goes on and tells us, you know, to consider one another and to provoke one another to love and to good work. So, you know, that's something that me and you could do as believers is when you're around other people, just listen to your conversation. I pray this, what I'm teaching this morning, I pray that the next time you're at church and you're having a conversation with somebody, I pray that this comes back to your mind, that the Lord uses this because what we need to do is take inventory as we're having conversations with other brothers and sisters in the Lord as we're having conversations with them.
We need to be taken inventory and truly asking ourselves, you know what is what I'm doing? Is this provoking them to love and to good works or am I encouraging bad behavior? You know, one of the things about gossiping and murmuring and complaining is, you know, if there's only one gossip in a church, the gossip will die down. It's like a fire.
If a fire doesn't have oxygen, it's going to die down. It's going to go out if there's no oxygen to it. Well, in the same way, if there's a gossip or a murmur, murmur, a murmur, let me say that rightly there, if there's a gossip or a murmur or a complainer, then that person needs by the necessity of the life of that gossip and that vile, murmuring and complaining. It needs a second person.
If there's only one person who is like that in a church, it will die out. The bubble will burst, okay? But it needs a second person. And so, you know, I've seen this happen where, you know, somebody may not be the person gossiping, but you may be the one providing oxygen to it.
And so what you want to do is in your conversations that you have with other people, take inventory of the conversation and look at where the conversation is headed. Are you talking about the ball game? Because that really doesn't help anybody out. Or are you encouraging them?
Are you lifting them up? Are you really listening to them and having compassion on them and trying to understand what they're going through? Or are you just trying to one up them on, you know, your fish was this big, mine was bigger and that kind of thing. So we all have to get to that place where, you know, we take inventory of what we're doing and we're mindful that our conversations lift one another up and we're mindful of our conversations that our conversations will encourage each other to do more for God, to do more for the kingdom of God.
You know, that's when you have a true brother or sister in the Lord. That's when you have someone that'll have your back through thick and thin. That's what the body of Christ is called to do is to stand for one another, pray for one another, love one another, encourage one another. You know, this is what we're supposed to do.
And we're also supposed to, what I'm telling you here in this verse, this is Hebrews 1024. We're supposed to consider one another, provoke each other to love in the good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, that means encouraging one another, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. See, we've been called to it be each other's encourager, be each other's encourager. And if you don't have someone to encourage you, what my advice is, go out and begin encouraging other people.
The Bible tells us that the liberal soul shall be made fat. And what that means is if you pour out into other people's lives, God will make sure that you get poured into, but you've got to pour out into other people's lives and encourage them. That's what this is telling us. And I just pray that this blesses you as it is.
Now guys, this weekend is a great opportunity to do this. If you find a church close to you, there are so many great and wonderful churches in tree, port and boge your city that need you to be a part of them. And if you don't, if you can't find a church home, come see us. We're at gospel Lighthouse Church, 4350 Panther Drive.
You can look us up on the internet at churchlighthouse.com. Now our service this weekend, we have a nursing home service that we do at 9am on Sundays. And then back over there at the church, they start Sunday school at 945. Then those of us that are at the nursing home service, we usually get in a little bit later than that.
Our main service is going to start at 1045 this Sunday morning. And then we have Sunday night church at six o'clock. I pray you can be a part of it or be a part of the church where you're at, be a part of the church somewhere. And I pray that God would bless you as you take those steps of faith and reach out and encourage another believer this weekend.
God bless you. You have been listening to Defending the Faith with Pastor Kenny Word of Gospel Lighthouse Church in Bozier City. Defending the Faith uses foundational principles, fundamental teachings and faithful preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who influenced the world and strengthened the believers in their daily walk. Gospel Lighthouse Church is located at 4350 Panther Drive in Bozier City.
Go to churchlighthouse.com for more information. And please tune in again next time for Defending the Faith.