Are you open your Bibles in Hebrews chapter 10? Have you ever had somebody that you were mad at, and you're going to let them know that you were mad at them, and you wait out in your mind. You played it in your mind. Exactly what you're going to say to them.
Does anybody else ever done that? I confess my faults to you. We confess them one to another. So all the rest of you are perfect in this area.
You've never done that. You're sitting in church, remember. Remember you're in church. What you're doing is you're considering what you're going to do.
You're thinking about what you're going to do. You're thinking about what you're going to say. You're going to see what it says in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24. And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works.
Let's say let us consider how we can tell each other off and rip end each other. That's not what it says. Let us consider. Think about this.
How can I stir my friends up to love and good works? How can I reach out to my friend and reach out to my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ? And how can I encourage them to love and good works? They're upset about something.
They're mad at somebody. They're not in ministry. They're not doing the right thing. How can I stir them?
The Bible says, consider how you're going to do that. Think about that. Think about how you can get that done. Not neglecting the meat together as is the habit of some.
But encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. This is what we're supposed to be doing as a people with one another. Father, I know what your word tonight stirred in us. But not only convict us, Father, tonight, let it encourage us tonight.
And Father, let it get down into the DNA of who we are that we would literally do what your word tells us to do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We begin to talk last week about how a church becomes a light in a community.
And we gave the picture that I saw in a prayer time one night of the church being this pulsating light that got brighter and bigger with each pulse until eventually lights were flowing out of it and touching other places and lights were being birthed there and pulsating and bringing the light of Christ to people. I encourage you as you read your Bible, look at how many times we're called to be the light where the Word of God is called the light where Jesus is called the light. This aspect that we live in darkness and we are to shine like stars in the darkness. And let's consider how do we do that.
How do we stir one another up to be there and to be that kind of people? Right now we're encouraging you to make sure you develop this habit of reading the Word, reading the Word with a hunger for righteousness, with a hunger to discover something new, knowing that the Word of God feeds us and strengthens us and builds faith in us and that we are weaker when we neglect it, we are stronger when we pursue it, we are healthier when we pursue the Word of God and when we read the Word of God. Reading the Word of God is unlike reading any other book. When you read another book, it's just a book.
But when you read the Word of God, it is a living Word. It is the Word of God to us as clearly as if he stood before you, manifest his presence before you and spoke to you. He's given us his Word. So we can know what his will is and know what his desires are and know how we should live our life and know how to be balanced in life.
And I would remind you the Bible is all about bringing balance in our understanding. So you can't just take one verse of the Bible and go build a doctrine off of it. You've got to take the entirety of Scripture and understand what the Scripture is saying about that issue. But as you read the Word, the revelation gets deeper every time you read it, as you read it and study it and it pours life into us.
And I'll guarantee you this is what happens to you. It's what happens in me anyway. There are times when somebody will say something, I'll ask me a question, I'll give them an answer and in the back of my head I'm wondering, where in the world would that come from? Well, Word becomes because God inspires it through his Word at the right moment.
He brings it to us at the right moment. So we're encouraging you, if you're not daily reading the Word to get signed up and make a commitment and starting next Monday, start reading the Word of God with us every day. Hearing preaching and teaching is not like any other speech. In teaching and speeches, you hear something that may inspire you a little bit.
But when a gifted teacher or preacher is sharing, the Word of God is sharing. It is flowing through that, through that, and in our ears, there's an anointing that comes, that penetrates darkness. When I'm open to the Word of God, it'll penetrate dark. It'll bring conviction where I need conviction.
It'll bring revelation where I need revelation. The person who's got that anointing, it'll bring anointing and power and strength into a life where they need strength. Some of you are sitting here tonight, born again, the first time you went to church, you had no intention of ever going back, you had no intention of ever becoming the Christian, ever becoming the follower of Christ in that sense. You heard the Word of God and it brought conviction.
It brought conviction. It began to do a work in you. Somebody shared a testimony with some of you and it began to do a work in you. That seed got in you, it began to do something.
It's the confidence we have when we speak the Word of God and when we preach and teach the Word of God that God is going to do His work in it and it's going to go for transformation. The best church isn't the one that entertains us the best. The best church is the one that brings conviction to us that we become transformed the best. Amen?
That we're hungry for that to become more like Christ. So there's this purpose of being in the house of God, being in God's house with believers is not like any other gathering. It's a deep purpose of fulfilling God's calling and discovering God's purpose in our life and we're supposed to build connection. That's what I'm going to talk about here in the next few moments and we have a purpose to join our giftings together.
The church is supposed to be a place where we join our giftings together for the common good of the people who come and for the common good of that community. It's not just a place where we're supposed to come and once a week hear a message and go on. You're here on a Wednesday night but there's a purpose in all of this. The gathering of believers is supposed to be an interactive experience and teaching and preaching is supposed to happen.
Yes, serving others is supposed to happen. Yes, but the church is supposed to be this place where we grow together. Now if we're going to be that pulsating light, let me share this with you. There becomes a very subtle change.
The person first comes to the church. They say, I'm visiting Calvary and what's your church about? What are you guys about if they're really looking for a church? They're not looking for a church.
What's this place about? They're just kind of curious maybe. The subtle transition moves and I listen to this one when people talk to me. I listen for these terms.
What are you guys doing? What's your church all about? When it moves to what's my church going to do about this? This is our church.
It's a very subtle change when you begin to see the church as your church, as your place. It's the difference between some ownership and lack of ownership. Jesus talks about some of this. We talked about the good shepherd and the higherling shepherd.
He wants to get paid. He wants to do the, he wants to get his job. But when the enemy comes and starts to devour the sheep, the higherling shepherd is off to the hills. He's going to find another church.
He's taking off someplace else because it's too dangerous. But the real shepherd, the one who really has ownership, fights for the sheep, fights for the work. At some point the church has to become your church. What happens then it has to become important to you and commitment to it to see the end of God's purpose happen has to become important to you.
And for God's will to be done, it has to be something that you're saying, I want to make sure God's will is done because I'm a part of this. This is where God has planted me and we're going to make a difference in people's lives together. Amen? Yeah, give the Lord a clap off of us.
So what can you do? I'm just going to give you a couple of practical things you can do. One, if somebody, if you notice Sunday, somebody's missing. Your friend of yours, they aren't here Sunday.
Give them a call. Hey, Jim, I just noticed, missed you today. Man, I love it when you're there. Why?
We're considering how to encourage one another to love and good works. Hey, are you okay? Is everything going all right? Oh, you're traveling?
Hope you're safe. Pray you'll be safe. Be back with us. I want you to know.
I miss you today. I want to think about this way. If you had a family reunion of some sort at your house and all the kids are supposed to be there and one of them doesn't show up that you thought were going to be there, do you ignore it? Or do you call them and say, hey, you okay?
What's happening? You ready? You're going to make it? It's an action of concern.
And when a church begins to function with each other in an action of concern. When life group members, life group leaders begin to pay attention on Sunday morning, they say, no, I didn't see Sally today. We want to call Sally and see what's going on. Encourager.
Sometimes in the middle that you stumble into a need that you have the opportunity to really minister to. It's when the church really becomes a healthy place. When we begin to say, we love each other and we care about each other and we're going to minister to each other and we're going to encourage each other and we're going to reach out to each other. Men, I would encourage you, come to the Forks meeting and invite young men to come with you.
Invite 20-somethings and 30-somethings. Young married men or young single men trying to get started in life and encourage them to come with you, build relationship with them so that you have the opportunity to become somebody who can speak into their life a little bit and tell them about the places where you wish you could go back and do things better. So they can do things better. Share your life with people.
Go around and say, what young guys are not coming to this? I should get them to come. I'm going to call and have them come sit with me and hang out. Ladies, do the same thing with young women.
Bridge the gaps of generations. Bridge those things. Look for young men and young women that you can reach out to. What if they say no?
What if they think I'm coming? Then go to the next one. Just keep talking. Keep encouraging.
And God's going to lead you into people's lives that you're going to make a big difference in. So get involved and invite. Here's the next thing I'll tell you. Be willing to challenge them.
Be willing to look at the people around you and encourage them to love and good works. Be willing to look at them and without saying, hey, I happened to peek over at you the other day and worship was going on. Wow, you were lost. Be willing to say, hey, what does worship mean to you?
Hey, what does giving mean to you? Hey, what does holiness mean to you? Be willing to talk to each other about the things that what does holiness mean to you? What does the scripture mean to you?
What does faithfulness to church mean to you? Be willing. You want our church to begin to pulsate with light? Then we've got to talk to each other and learn how to love and encourage each other to love and good works.
So when they come in and they're upset about what somebody said to them, how do we encourage them to love? And say, well, you did get treated wrong. That's terrible. We should go do something bad.
No. How can we encourage them to love and good works? How can we encourage them to that? How can we encourage them to talk the right way to be the right people?
How can we help them to have the right spirit about them? This becomes our church. This becomes our responsibility. If that people tell me over the years, hey, I was with this group, man, they were really gossiping.
What are you going to do about that? And my response was, what did you do about it? I wasn't there. Do you think they would have done that if I, oh, they wouldn't have done that if you were there?
You know why? They wouldn't have done that while I was there? No, what they would do that when my dad was there? No, they wouldn't do that with the elders there.
They wouldn't do that with those people there because somebody would say something. If you want to be a leader in moments when something is not going right, you've got to redirect it. You've got to look at the other people in the church as your family and if somebody was talking nasty about your family, what are you going to do? Hey, don't say that front of me.
That's my sister. That's my brother. That's my mom. That's my dad.
I'm not putting up with that. You've got to be troubled. You've got to be willing, if you want to be a leader, to push things in the kingdom, to push things the right way. The conversation gets off course, if it gets off color, if it gets off someplace, it's not.
Somebody's got to be willing to go time out. What are we talking about here? What's going on? You went and saw what?
You went where? You did what? Hey, how do you think Jesus feels about that? Oh, you're just getting super religious on me.
Shuram. Yes, sir. Why is that an insult? You're getting super spiritual on me.
Why is that an insult? Isn't that a compliment? I just want to encourage for a church to be healthy. At the core of that church has to be this group of people, this ever-increasing group of people who say and do the right things and encourage others to say and do the right things, that the evil things that the enemy would suck us into, it's just not allowed around them.
It's just not allowed to talk about leaders like that around me. You're not allowed to talk about my brothers and sisters like that around me. You're not allowed to come around me and talk about doing things you shouldn't be doing. I'm going to say something.
I'm going to love you. I'm not going to be mad at you. I'm going to say, time out, brother. I don't think that's a good idea.
I think that's a bad idea. Is this good? Now, the question is, are you willing to pick up that mantle as a leader, as a spiritually called person, and say, I'm going to protect what God's given me. I'm going to push things the right direction.
Now, let me encourage you in a couple of other things. I literally have 24 points tonight. I'm not kidding about that. That's really the truth.
Let me see how far I get and we'll come back next week. One of the most important things you can do is teach yourself learn to be friendly. Here's the tendency. The tendency is we get comfortable.
Comfort zones can suck us into places that are going to talk about a couple of them in the next few weeks, in a place where life doesn't happen. Here's what we do. We come in on Sunday morning and if we get there early, which I would tell you, you should come, church starting time isn't at 9 o'clock in 1030. It's really, you know, 20, 15, 20 minutes before that.
That's when the church is really starting because people are coming in and this is when you get a chance to talk. I talk to staff all the time about the fact that prime time for us is the 10 minutes right before church starts, 10 minutes right after it ends. That's when most people who are fairly new are coming and going. We don't need to be standing around talking to each other.
We don't need to be figuring out things for service. We need to be talking to people. That's what we need to be doing. We don't get another chance to do that.
We have all week to prepare stuff for service. We have 10 minutes before service starts to talk to people who are new to our church. Is that right? I want to create the comfort zone that we get into it as we come in and we have our three buddies, our four friends and we go over and we stand around and talk to them.
While we're standing around and talking to them, guess what's happened? New people, people are just coming to our church, are walking right past you. Is it wrong to talk to my three buddies? No, that's why you get there 20 minutes early.
At some point in time you guys say, hey guys, let's go look for somebody we don't know. Let's go talk to some other people. Let's reach out to some teenagers and try to break that barrier. Let's pick one or two and just be friendly with them every week until they stop freaking out that old people are talking to them.
Remember you're a teenager, don't you? Everybody that's 30 years old, older was old. That's just life. How do I break that barrier?
How do we get past that? How do we reach out to somebody? The call for us to be friendly to people. This is the first step for people to come in, get connected and really allow God to move in their life.
They come in and they find the people who are friendly. I just want to challenge you every week. When you come to church, come with this thought of I wonder who I can meet today. I wonder who I can talk to today.
I wonder if there's somebody coming in the door that I can be friend today. I was with Dale today. I'm going to tell you a story. Dale, I was telling you 33 years ago.
I got the number right. 33 years ago he got a job here in town. He got a job. He got a job.
He got to a women's event where they invite the men and set down with the men and they were just being friendly. The course of the conversation became up. I just closed down. I lost my job.
He said, we've got some jobs open. 33 years later, Dale's still working there. You never know what God's going to do in middle of the conversation. Amen?
That blessed me so much that we told me that story. You never know if you're friendly and meet people and you're kind. You never know what God's going to do in the middle of the conversation. How God's going to put you in the right place to be a blessing to somebody or somebody to be a blessing to you.
Here's the second part of this. One of the things we do as a staff is we meet before church and pray. One of the constant prayers I pray in that moment is God help us to be sensitive today to the leading of your spirit. I'm not talking about what's going to happen in church service.
We want to be sensitive to the leading spirit. But God, if there's somebody that needs encourage today, don't let us miss them when they come in the door. Don't let them come sit in our cafe and be smiling and talking to everybody or come and sit in the chair in a sanctuary. And let us not see it.
Let us be sensitive. I'll tell you, there have been times when I have been at church on a sunny morning and I'd see somebody and they're just that moment when God gets kind of out of the crowd that stand out for some reason. And there have been times when I didn't follow that leading the spirit and four or five days later I'd hear what was going on in their life and I'd think, spirit told me to go talk to them. I could have encouraged them Sunday.
I missed it. I missed it. There's been other times I've gone up to somebody and spoke to them and said, hey, how are you doing? I just want to come over and tell you.
It's good to see you. Hey, are you having a good weekend? Yeah, I'm having a good weekend. Okay, so once you know, we love you.
Are you doing all right? Yeah, yeah, I'm doing all right. And three months later they called me. They called me and said, hey, you know that day you came over and talked to me.
You remember that? It was three months or Sundays. And maybe you remember talking to them that particular time. Maybe you don't say, I'm sure it happened.
Hey, you don't know. I was going through hell on earth that day and you coming over and just telling me you love me. It made the difference. So sometimes people just pour their life story out to you the moment.
Listen to the worst weekend of my life. You know what? That's okay. So here's what I'm saying.
As you come and be friendly to new people and let the Lord come in with this thought, God, who do you want me to serve today? Be spirit led as you walk in. And if you see somebody for some reason, you just find yourself spotting them in the crowd. Let the Lord lead you.
Let the spirit say, you think the devil's telling you to go from be friendly to him? No. You don't have to go say, the Lord pointed you out. You must be going through something terrible.
No. Just go over and be friendly. Let God take care of it, right? If somebody does that to you, Sunday, just be thankful to try it.
Amen? Hey, good for you. Keep it up. Let us learn how to be spirit led people.
We make this big thing out of being spirit led people. I'm telling you, this is where it gets really practical. It's when God can whisper something in your ear and you go do it. And you don't even always know the outcome.
But that's part of making the church. That way when people come in. They come in. They can be encouraged.
That's why we say, come early. Stay late. Hang around. And let church be church.
Here's the next thing. Invite other people to your C2 group. Now we have the Hazel Dell campus and Jefferson Street campus and Jim and I are always talking about this. We don't want to grow that Jefferson Street campus by inviting people from the Hazel Dell campus to go there.
We don't want to grow the Hazel Dell campus by trying to get people out of there to come here. We want to go where they want to go, where they feel led to go. And we want to reach out to unturbs people. Amen?
And the same thing in C2 groups. This is one of these comfort zones. That's a dangerous comfort zone. When a C2 group gets so comfortable being together that they can't imagine splitting that group or bringing other people into the group.
That's when a C2 group becomes an ingrown toenail. That's when it becomes, instead of being the healthy thing we want it to be, it becomes unhealthy. Because why? It stagnates growing leadership.
It stagnates good leadership because other people can't join in and be under good leadership. It stagnates health of the church where people can't come and find a place to connection. The reason we stopped doing Sunday night church every Sunday night was to give time and room for people to get into small groups where they can find practical life ministry together in small groups. And so one of the important things to have happen is for group members to invite people to come to their small group.
So if you invite somebody to say, I'm already going to another small group, they say, great, I want to make sure you go in someplace. But they say, no, that's small group things. That's really the other one comfortable. Come to ours.
Come try ours out. I'll make sure you're comfortable. Because what you want that we want that connection to happen. We sit here on Sunday morning, Wednesday night, and you can sit here in the most.
They know about each other whether we're losing our hair in the back or not. You're getting a small group, you're going to talk, you're going to get comfortable. You can share crisis going on in your family. You can share prayer needs.
You're going through a time when people will naturally begin to take care of that need. You're going to talk about practical application of ministry. It's where the church really becomes alive. And so I want to encourage all of you.
Don't shut your small group off. You've been open door for new people to come in, fill your house up so much that the leader has to rise up and they have to take someplace else. I've had a few groups over the years. So we're going to do the church with the group getting so big.
I'm just about the point of saying, no, we're not going to do that anymore. Maybe for a special occasion or something. Why? Because we're not just looking for groups to get big.
We're looking for there to be many groups where everybody can participate. If the group gets too big, what happens? Participation stops. Just a few people do it.
But when the group is small and a little more intimate, there can be discussion. There can be a comfort of sharing life. And so I just want to encourage you. You want this church to really come alive.
Be in a small group and invite people to small groups and let small groups do what they're called to do. You'll meet great people in small groups. You'll build great friendships. And then you'll send them off to greet another group.
That's the goal, is to fill our community with small groups caring for each other and ministering each other. Is this good? All right. All right.
Invite others to your small group. F, and this goes all the way to Z. Be a giver. Everything is a right response to who we are in Christ.
Listen, we've talked about this the last few weeks. Everything we have, we have because of God. Everything we have, we are astured of before God. God blesses and loves the cheerful giver.
I'm going to close with this tonight. When I was a young kid, I had been reading my Bible a lot. Through some programs in the church, I got in the rest of my Bible. And I stand out in the entryway one day and there's a couple of people standing on adult, a couple of other kids.
And I never thought about this before. And I said, in our session, in this discussion, God loves everybody just the same. And without even thinking about it, I said, no, he doesn't. And I said, oh, you're wrong.
I said, no, I don't think he does. I think God loves everybody. God loves everybody. But he doesn't love everybody the same.
You can't say that. I said, well, I just did. I said, what makes you say? I said, well, David was a man after God's own heart.
God didn't say about everybody that they were a man after God's own heart. He said it about David. John was the blood disciple. He didn't say that about all the others.
He said it about John. It was about John's relationship with Jesus that really made John special Jesus. God loves what? That's a cheerful giver.
God said, well, I see people give it. I just love it when they're generous. That just lights God up. Why?
Because he knows we understand that he is the source of all things. He knows that we understand that we are a steward of all things. He knows that we understand that we are blessed to be a blessing. And when we do that rightly, that doesn't mean we take food off of our kids' table.
That means we use what God has given to us rightly. To feed our kids, to clothe our kids, to give house to our kids, but also to be generous with others. So that everything that we have belongs to him. Let me just tell you, this aspect of stewardship is really important to understand.
Why has God given you what he's given you? Why has he made you the way he's made you? Why has he put you where he's put you? Why has he given you the job he's given you?
Why has he blessed you in the neighborhood he's put you in? Why has he given you the resources he's given you? Why has he given you the talents that he's given you? Why has he given them to you?
I am absolutely convinced there's great singers that have just hit the top of the charts and made a lot of money and they're going to stand before God and God's going to look at him and say, I gave you that voice to glorify me and you glorified sex. You glorified yourself. You were not a steward of what I gave you. And there's going to be other people that could barely carry your tune, but thank for God's glory God's going to say, I didn't give you much.
The man, you generously shared it with everybody else. And they were blessed by it. My grandfather had his funeral. The guy got it.
My grandfather would sing. But he wasn't a great singer. And when the guy got it, I'm talking to my grandfather. He said, you know what?
He didn't have a voice, but he had a song. And we all loved to hear him sing. Why? Because it was a song within him.
It was living within him. So here's what I tell folks. Listen, if you've got a car that's too nice to pick people up and bring them to church, sell and get a bad car. If you're home so nice, you can't have people into it because you're afraid of what they're going to do.
They might bring kids into it and they might track something else. Sell and get a lesser house. Use the resources God's given you. If he's given you an ability, how are you using it for the kingdom?
How are you using it to advance the kingdom? You're sitting here, every one of your gift. And God's wanting to release those gifts. He wants to release those resources that he's poured into you into a dark world so that his light will shine.
Amen? And so the question is, God, why'd you give me the talents you've given me? Why'd you give me the relationships you've given me? Why'd you give me the resources you've given me?
Why is all this in my hands? Guarantee you. You're going to answer God for it someday. The things that's put in your hands, you're going to stand before him.
And I know about you, when I stand before him, I'm going to be all said, God, every way I knew how to use it. Every way I knew how to use it. I did and you dropped a few into my mind that I didn't know.