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Weimar University

The Church in Your House

Don Mackintosh

Church in Your House Part 1

Over the last several weeks, since GYC, really, we've been looking at a couple things.

And that's because a few of you came to me from GYC or texted me all excited about a sermon you heard.

So I listened to it, and I got excited too.

And then I began to follow through on that sermon.

And the sermon was a strategy to revive Western Adventism, or you might say Christianity in Western countries.

And the pastor who gave the sermon said there were 6 elements.

I think this campus is serious about that.

The former and the latter reign of the Holy Spirit.

How many think that we're serious about that?

A refocusing on the Christ-centered preaching of the 3 angels' messages of Revelation 14.

If you even look at the front of our bulletin, it says that.

And we spent quite some time last year actually going through those.

And then a return to regular strategic church planting.

But the social meeting for discipleship and outreach, and that's what we've been experiencing or experimenting with the last few weeks, a social meeting.

And that text read then verse 16 Malachi 3 16, then those who feared the Lord spoke to 1 another And the Lord listened and heard them.

So they didn't just listen to 1 person speaking, they spoke to 1 another.

And as a result of them speaking to 1 another, maybe in prayer or in testimony, the Lord heard them and wrote a book of remembrance for those who fear the Lord and meditate on his name.

And this was part of making up his jewels, verse 17, and verse 18, being able to discern between the righteous and the wicked.

So there sometimes is error in the church that we have to deal with and that happens in community where as we are talking 1 with another We can correct 1 another.

So we looked at that social media in the last few weeks, and that's why our service has kind of switched around.

We put them up on the screen or in the bulletin, because we want to spend time actually doing what we need to do at church, which is to talk to 1 another, to listen to God's Word.

Now, in his message, he quoted this when he got to this idea of church planting.

And by the way, the purpose of the church is to plant other churches.

In no way can a preacher so well prove himself as in entering new fields, as in entering new fields.

How many people here are thinking of being a pastor, a minister, someone that actually leads a congregation.

If you are, stand up, let me see who you are here.

How many think there should be actually more people standing now?

In no way can these folks that stood up so well prove themselves as in entering new fields.

There he sees the fruits of his own labors, and if he be successful in raising up churches and establishing them so that they bear good fruits, he gives to his brethren the best proof that he has sent of the Lord.

He went to the master's program at Weimar.

He went to another church that already existed to bring revival in that church over the summer.

Wait, he preached a few times at the Haskell Church.

Best way to know is if he starts something in a new area.

Some who join the Seventh-day Adventists commence at once to preach to the brethren, many of whom are far in advance of them.

So this is young people preaching to old people, right?

And our brethren often err in urging such to spend their time in preaching to them.

Let such ministers first be suitably instructed by those of experience in the message, then let them go out into what?

New fields, trusting in God for help and success.

Well, the younger ministers are not to think, because they are not called to speak to a large congregation, that there is nothing for them to do.

Let the occupants of several tents meet in 1 tent for prayer and a...

So where are they supposed to be learning?

How many think that what we've been learning the last 3 weeks might be useful?

So how to lead a social meeting, how to be involved in a social meeting, that's where they learn.

In such meetings as these, the younger ministers can do good service.

Let them speak a few words right to the point.

Then let them present, give those present an opportunity to speak.

So not only they learn how to speak, but they need to also learn how to?

Few words right to the point, then give those present an opportunity to what?

All our people should learn to bear witness for God in what?

So where is it that people should learn in a...

You guys are making me nervous because you're not really all answering, so I can't really socialize if everyone's not.

So actually, it's in these social meetings where you have these small assignments and they do well at small assignments like reading the Bible so people can understand you with their voices not trailing off and different things.

The Church in Your House Part 2

Father in heaven, we have come to worship the King, and we ask that you'd speak to us individually and collectively.

We've switched our order of service to start first with the message today, and I want to talk today about that issue of worship that we just sang about.

And the church in your house, a little series about the church in your house.

Last week we looked at the first installation of that and we discovered what?

Wow that was amazing success that sermon last week.

Everybody seems to be totally on board with that message.

Where was the church according to last week's message?

We looked at all the texts that, Most of the texts in the New Testament talk about the church being where?

Scripture reading in the house, preaching in the house, prayer in the house, offering in the house, and even eating.

But every day they met in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching Christ to Jesus.

And so every single home was also the church in the hood, the neighborhood.

And people knew everybody in their neighborhood, and they would invite them to the church in their house.

When Jesus came, Of course, Christianity was rejected.

There were executive orders against Christianity.

The Romans were against the Christians, and they eventually, so were the Jews.

The Christians, well the Jews were against the Christians and the government was against the Christians, so everybody was against the Christians, right?

But they still flourished, even without executive orders.

So, and in that scope of ministry where Jesus was living, it was very small area, only 40 miles wide by 70 miles long.

And he would walk an average of 12 to 24 miles a day.

This is actually the way Jesus would do it.

And so they would walk from place to place.

In fact, most of his time was spent in that evangelical triangle to the north of the Sea of Galilee or the Kinneret or Tiberias, all called different names of the same sea.

And it was only 7 miles wide by 14 miles long where he lived most of his life, and most of his miracles happened.

So he would walk from place to place and from house to house.

Would you like to have a a powerful house?

Would you like to have a church in your house?

Those who are calling out for God, Echkaleo, that's the word for church, the church in your house.

Well, they did a study, first of all, before we get into this a little bit more.

And then I'm going to have, hopefully, a microphone on this side and this side, because I want some people to read some texts.

So I don't know who's going to be in charge of the microphones, but you can do that.

They did a study of the Southern Baptists or the Southern Baptists they studied themselves.

Do CPR on that person next to you and then ask, are you awake?

Because they're obviously not quite awake yet.

I thought for sure people would be saying, wow, but maybe we have a problem called latency, I'm not sure.

So, 88% of their children leave the church.

So they did a study of 15, 000 Adventists and found the most important factor in having children stay loyal to Jesus in the church was interesting family worships.

That does not mean that boring family worships are still not effective, and I'll tell you a story about that later.

But just having family worship, now if you have a home, Should people be coming to family worship?

When you sit up, when you rise up, when you lay down, when you walk, when you talk.

But certainly maybe some specific times, but you should always be talking about things as you're there.

The average person touches their iPhone 2, 000 times a day.

The average American spends 5 hours a day on their iPhone.

But some that I see in depression recovery, the more depressed they are, the more time they spend on their phone.

Some of them are spending 16 hours a day on their phone.

The more depressed you are, the more time you're spending on your phone.

If you wanna know how depressed you are, just look at your phone right now, you can tell how much time.

If you don't know how to, I'll show you how to do it.

And I can tell you right away whether or not you're having a devotional life.

We all have something that's maybe worth our attention and that's what worship means, right?

The Church in Your House: The Limits of Hospitality

Over the last few weeks we've been looking at the church in your house and the whole point of the series has been looking at how really in the New Testament time period the churches, most of the churches, or the church as we understand it, was in the house.

It wasn't necessarily going to a building.

And so both were included, both the house and the church, you might say, or the larger buildings.

But what I wanted to talk about today, We talked about several areas of hospitality.

We talked about how if people are coming to your house and the church was in the house, then how are you going to share the gospel?

And we talked about how the gospel then was to be shared through family worship.

And so the first 1 was the whole idea that the church is in homes.

The second 1 was if they come to your house and you're not having family worship, then you're not going to be reaching people.

So we talked about family worship and someone came to me and said, you really stepped on my toes with that message.

But in a good way, they said, you know, after they beat me up.

No, they didn't beat me up, but in a good way.

And then We talked also about how it was that another aspect when people come to your house, not just family worship, would also be hospitality in terms of food.

How many of you enjoy going to people's house for the food?

It's like the Baptist used to say, if there ain't no eating, there ain't no meeting.

And so you go to the house and you say, wow, you know I really like the food there.

And, but you know, my mother always, she liked to quote Benjamin Franklin and other people at times, mostly the Bible, but 1 of the sayings she said was, fools make feasts and wise men eat them.

Fools make feasts and wise men eat them, right?

So she was saying, she was trying to say there are sometimes limits to your Hospitality and and you can be you know, you can be a fool for Christ's sake and you might run out of resources So she kind of would plant that seed and that's what I want to talk about today.

We've talked about radical hospitality last week, we talked about how you know in the New Testament Church they actually had people over to eat every day, not just on the weekend, and everybody's house was to be open and was open, according to Acts chapter 2, every day.

You know, my wife kind of looked at me like, yeah, that was too far, Even my own wife.

Well, you just, you take notice because you want to be able to, you know, have a place to go home to.

And then someone was, I can't remember who it was.

They told me, they said, well, this person that doesn't come to the church that much, he just listened to the service.

I think it was, yeah, I think it was Tom.

And he said, you know, I think that could go too far, that hospitality.

And then someone else said to me, maybe you should move on to another theme.

I thought that meant don't talk about that anymore.

So I began to think about what should I say today.

And I said, well, let me think about the limits of hospitality.

It's really like the same root word as hospital.

And right, and a hospital focuses on what?

And the church is kind of supposed to be a what?

And in a hospital, you know, There's order in a hospital if it's a good hospital.

And there are certain rules, there are certain regulations, there are certain procedures, there are certain medications, there are certain departments, And they're all focused in bringing people under, well, in the church, God's spell, the gospel.

There's an association for the purpose of salvation.

And hospitality, when it loses that focus, is actually a curse, not a blessing.

If you go to the hospital, you know, hospitals these days are quite focused.

Because they're trying to make money, right?

Healthy hospitality has focus, it has boundaries.

And those boundaries are really the blessings of hospitality.

How many of you following what I'm saying?

Whatever you eat, Whatever you drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

And when you bring someone to your house, if whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do, is all done to the glory of God, then what has happened?

I mean, I've seen sometimes hospitality gone wrong where a church decides, I remember 1 church decided they would invite all the prisoners who just got out of jail to their church because you know they need to be integrated back in, but they didn't watch it closely.

And some of the people had got out of jail, but the jail had not got out of them.

And some people were really hurt badly as a result.

Because the hospitality didn't have a dose of rationality.

And so, you know, Paul talked about this.

He said, you know, we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus, that you withdraw every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition that he has received from us.

If you don't follow what we're saying, get out!

For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you, nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil day and night that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us." What's he saying there?

How many of you ever had someone come to a fellowship meal and everything else and they get the food, they're not paying anything maybe, and then they don't help, they don't pick up the dishes, they don't do anything.

Is that really helping this person learn anything?

Now I'm getting in trouble with somebody else, I suppose.

So this whole idea of the limits of hospitality is coming out here with the Apostle Paul.

Not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example that you should follow us.

So the whole idea of hospitality is what?

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.

For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are what?

Get busy and Use your bodies to talk to someone next to you.

They're not working, they're not providing, but they're slandering, they're gossiping.

And he says, don't have those people around.

Now those who are such, we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.

All right, if you're doing that kind of stuff and we can't get a handle on it and we can't turn you around it might be better for you to do what?

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Series

The Church in Your House

The Church in Your House: The Limits of Hospitality

Transcript

Parent Series

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Recorded

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17 The Judgment and 1844

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God's Love Stories (Noon Meetings)

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