I've Been Thinking (Church: Why Bother?)

i want to continue today the uh series we've been in uh called i've been thinking and i've been thinking a lot the last six weeks we had a chance to get two weeks of vacation in colorado then the other weeks were getting things done studying doing things i don't typically get to do in a routine week when i'm speaking on the weekends so it's been a great time to get a lot accomplished as well as get some time just to breathe and think and that's it's been a real blessing the first week uh that i got uh the first week that i was off that first week of july our church our annual church convention of all of our churches we're a part of a group of 2500 churches in the united states and another 2 000 overseas and it's a group called the church of god now i want and we we always preface it with the church of god of anderson indiana and why do we say anderson indiana what's so big about anderson indiana well that's where the church started and our headquarters are still there we're not a denomination we are locally governed right here but we have this affiliation with these like-minded churches 4 500 in all and we're doing some great ministry in the country and around the globe most of our churches are smaller churches we have a chance because what's happened here to bless a lot of those small churches and especially i get to have a lot of impact with and have a lot of fellowship with our african-american churches we have 400 of those churches and they gather also in pennsylvania every year and so this has been a time for me to do that so we this year our convention was in denver so i traveled to denver and i met up with some of my i'm serious these are these are guys that if if anything happened to them or to me we'd be calling each other these are probably some of my closest pastor friends in the country in fact i got a picture i want you to see them want you to meet them where they go there they are so i want to tell you who they are down on the right end here in the ball the left side of your photo is the ball cap on that's john bailey pastor's a fabulous church in atlanta georgia next to him is me i think i've even got the same shirt on i've i've i haven't changed shirts since june so and and only thing different now is i did gain some weight and it's all in my hair the last six weeks so that's me and then at the end there is dr ron fowler dr fowler i i need to preach a whole sermon on him because he is literally what i call the bishop of the state of ohio he's a rock star in ohio led a great church in akron ohio and then next to him is his son ron jr who serves that church in akron as well even now and then on the very end there is calvin waddy calvin and kim are just great friends of ours calvin serves the church in jackson mississippi and so we have a chance as just as friends in our church and our board and you all in your giving we we really have a great time when they have when i i'll call them and i ask them hey what do you need how's everything going well we had a camera go down well they ca some of the some of those cases they they can't replace that camera but we can and so they can be online during covet and so we've had some great times together and i was i pretended that i was their handler i was their bodyguard and we i had some fun with that in downtown denver going to the restaurant when i walked in i know the lady behind the stand looked at me like what and so i was being the guy that was their front guy you know and so we laughed till we hurt had a lot of fun and ate a cheesecake factory in downtown denver so as i as i've been thinking i came back to something that is important about our church family and so this church that we're a part of this church of god the reason we say anderson is because there's 13 other groups that use that name and no disrespect meant but some of those other 13 groups are really kind of out there okay and in the the best example i can give you and it will ha i'm sure it'll happen again because the culture loves to make us all look stupid but there there's a church out a group of churches under the church of god name not us a different one and you and you'll see them on prime time or one of these 20 20 news shows occasionally they'll take cameras out there they're in these little churches in the mountains of west virginia and they've got rattlesnakes around their necks as they lead worship and it's a sign of faith that the snake won't bite you and then it'll say they're members of a group called the church of god and i sit there go oh no i mean the i mean my phone's going to go crazy here that you know hey do you all have snakes does crossings have snakes go yes we keep them in the pond out back so so no that's not us we don't believe that's a sign of faith that's a different group lord bless them i don't get it but you know that's not us so that's why we say anderson and the the whole thing about our church is the best way the quickest way i can explain it is picture a group of pastors men and women who gathered at a restaurant in 1889 and they were all from all the leaders in these different churches in town and they're presbyterians and lutherans and methodists and baptists and charismatics and you name it they they go and say hey why don't we let's build a church that will keep the focus only on jesus and not our doctrinal differences that we can have a lot of disagreement on we're not all going to see eye to eye on some of the doctrinal things out of scripture people take them a lot of different places why don't we just focus on jesus and that's how it started and now we have the 2500 in the united states about 2000 overseas and that's the nature of who we are so we're not a denomination at all and we're very much locally governed that's why we just ask you to do what you did and then but we have an affiliation of family connection and it's worked for a hundred some years and it's it people think that how does that work it works really well so i've been thinking a lot about our church about how we got here about how my life how i got here uh and all that god has done and i started putting the pieces together so i want to take you through some of that and and kind of show you what's happened in my life that brings me to this deep love i have for god's church and how important it is that we stay healthy and strong and focused on jesus and nothing else and there's something to be said for that now in acts chapter 1 i want to read to you verses one through six it's a very important part of the story of christianity and this is a promise jesus made to us that is now being fulfilled so let me start a book of acts this is luke they who's assumed to be the writer of acts he says in my first book i told my first book i told you theophilus about everything jesus began to do and teach now what's interesting here is theophilus also means the lover of god so if you have an esv study bible you'll see a footnote in there that will indicate that we don't know if luke was saying to all of you lovers of god or if he was actually talking to a person with that name it doesn't matter but i thought it's an interesting note to make i i about i want to i told you about everything jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his apostles further instructions through the holy spirit during the 40 days after his crucifixion he appeared to the apostles proving that he had was actually alive and he talked to them about the kingdom of god once when he was eating with them he commanded them he said this do not leave jerusalem until the father sends you the gift he promised as i told you before john baptized with water but in just a few days i mean this is the watershed moment in christian history in just a few days you'll be baptized with the holy spirit so in the verse six so when the apostles were there with jesus they kept asking him lord has the time come for you to free israel and restore our kingdom a couple of things just a note in that text notice verse 6 lord is it time for you to restore the kingdom to israel and so here's what's happening and you you know jesus said many many times my kingdom is not of this world everybody keeps wanting to park him on the planet no no he says my kingdom is not of this world he did not come to be a ruler on this earth a king on this earth he's the king of kings the lord of lords and so when jesus arrived they as he began to teach people some of the followers of jesus would say when will you free us from the oppression of rome it was a political thing we're tired of being under the oppression of another government of rome we want you to free us from that they wanted them to set up a kingdom on the earth a kingdom over in the middle east and free them from the oppression of a government that was not very kind now here's what i need you to understand jesus was real clear that is not what i've come to do that is not what this is about this is not why jesus died on a cross now let me i'll just be honest with you the last probably a couple of years two years in particular i know that there are there have been times i wanted i could have said so much that what's going on in our political world in our government and i've got some concerns just like you do i've got a lot of friendships with people and i know there are many people that kept wanting me to say more and i intentionally did not and i don't plan to because here's what our role is as a church we've got to keep the focus on jesus and there's not a political party in the world that's going to fix things but what we can do is if we do what jesus called us to do and love like he's loved us love others like we've been loved forgive others like we've been forgiven serve others like we've been served if people can just see jesus that'll make a lot of difference in this country and sometimes as believers we need to get out of our holy huddles and get into our communities and just be the hands and feet and face and love of jesus and that will that will that's exactly why we're here that's why we are a church that's what we do as a church and that's why jesus came and that's very important that we keep that focus yes we'd all love our own kingdom on earth just like the disciples they wanted the same thing many of us would have been wanting the last couple years we're kind of nervous and worried about how things are changing well it's not going to be solved in the pulpits in the country it'll be soft when people who claim to follow jesus will be that in the community where we work to the neighbor that's what's going to take place that's what needs to happen now let's keep going in the book of acts let's go down to chapter 2. if you look over at chapter two and we'll read it verses one through seven so the the holy spirit has been promised so here we go chapter two on the day of pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty wind storm and it filled the house where they were sitting then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each other each one of them and everyone present was filled with the holy spirit and began speaking in other languages as the holy spirit gave them this ability at that time there were devout jews from every nation living in jerusalem when they heard the loud noise everyone came running and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers they were completely amazed how can this be they exclaimed these people are from all parts of the country all parts of galilee and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages how's that possible well the holy spirit had come as promised so when you think about it let's think about god the creator god the creator shows up in in dramatic ways makes the sky and makes the earth and makes the water and the rivers and the mountains and the plains god in flesh shows up jesus shows up in a star in the sky a virgin has given birth to a child and then the angels invite the lowest of the low to come to a party they've never been invited to before that god would allow them and their filth to come thus begin the message of jesus so many people stay away from our churches because they feel too filthy and they just don't care or they try to anesthetize themselves to the pain that they feel so god in the creator very dramatic thing that happens in when he creates very dramatic thing he happens when god in flesh appears a very dramatic thing happens when the spirit shows up and then because of this let's go down to chapter in chapter 2 down to verse 41 because of this here's what happened and this is exactly what god's plan was here's what happened all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship and the sharing in meals including the lord's supper communion and they devoted themselves to prayer a deep sense of awe came over them all and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders and all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had they met in one place they would meet in temples until the temples ran out of room they'd meet in homes until they ran out of room with their homes so they said they sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need they worship together at the temple get this every day every day even even the most loyal christ followers are barely making it to church twice a month they met every day in the temple met in their homes for the lord's supper shared their meals with great joy and generosity all the while praising god enjoying the favor of all the people and each day the lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved no evangelism plan no strategy just talking about jesus like to me it's like one beggar helping another beggar find bread that's what we do we just simply share god's love with other people and they find out how we've been able to live in spite of the fact that we're flawed we've made mistakes we've got things we're ashamed of there's stuff in the past and yet we serve a savior who said i got it covered it's forgotten and you need to quit remembering it because i've got this covered he says it's a powerful experience that they describe in this in this text in acts chapter 2. so i've been thinking a lot about the church i've been thinking about how i came to love it so much the church all through my life and i started really getting an interesting timeline put together of how this happened for me and i want to share that with you the uh there's a book written called church why bother and that's my title today and that's what i've been thinking about is this is this as i watched all these churches going through these difficult times i'm thinking is this just a failed manipulative experience and at the end of the day our human nature kicks in and we destroy what god has given us i don't think so i don't think so this is deeply rooted passion in my life that when the church is doing what we've been called to do there's nothing like it and that happened for me in my life because of my parents i was they were my dad was a pastor so i was raised in a in a home going to church and i'm i'm a lucky guy as a pk we only moved once i was born in tennessee at nine years of age we moved to ohio just once third time i moved i guess i went 90 miles away to college and then i came to oklahoma in 1981 to do something i did not plan to do i did not study it in college i did not prepare for it but god has a sense of humor and he's still laughing so i think that's great i grew up in i think what i call my brother and i both and we grew up in kim i could say the same for kim we grew up in what i believe is a magical time for the church in america as kids my brother and i and we're very fortunate having our dad as a pastor and we were in those two churches and we were loved in both places we did not have a bad church experience and so many of you have had a lady come up to me in the last service and she just said i just i'm so glad you at least mentioned it because i'm one of those that was mortally wounded in church and it's been so hard for me to even come back again but i'm here and i'm thankful for this church and the ways are some of the things we have that help people like her and like us navigate a new approach to church and and find jesus and serve him so i was very fortunate with that and i grew up in a home my dad had some of his closest friends and i i'm i'm not making this up because it's a popular subject some of my dad's closest pastor friends and it didn't dawn on me growing up were african-american pastors and leaders men and women alike and they were coming to our home all the time and in fact it probably is a big reason why honestly i've had to admit to my black friends that i didn't know how bad things were for them in the 60s and 50s and frankly we're still chipping away at trying to get this right if the church can't we're in deep trouble so i hope we're getting this right we're making headway there but i thought this was the norm these fabulous pastors who came from big cities in the country and pastored large churches and they wrote books and they were in my eyes as a kid they were very successful and they'd come to our dinner table and i was i mean my brother had been threatened with our life if we didn't have good manners you know and all those kinds of things but i i got to sit at a table with some phenomenal leaders around the country black and white that was my grown-up years my dad pastored a small church at first my my grandfather was a pastor it was i tell a funny story on tyler that uh one day we were in a car head i think we're heading to promise keepers and and my grandfather had just passed away and so tyler's asking about my grandpa dying and and he said now let me get this right so your grandfather was a pastor right yep and then your dad or my grand tyler's grandfather grubs my dad was a pastor yep and then you see his wheels turning he's probably 12 13. he said and you're a pastor yeah and he got real quiet and he said well that's the end of that dynasty and thank god he's in the in business he's making sure i can retire well you know so god is using his gifts in great ways here in this church and certainly in our family so kim and i we we grew up in this what we call a magical moment in the country in the church kim grew up she's been a part of this church all of her life this church started in 1959 she came along a few years later and this is still church home for her it's a very special place for her and of course for us god used this church to bring us together and that's the best thing that ever happened to me second only to getting to know jesus christ my grandfather started all this he pastored these small churches pretty much in the south north carolina south carolina south africa georgia florida in particular and so i had an interesting thing that happened to me a few years ago some of you have heard the story and it began to explain to me and helped me understand kind of what had happened in my in my life and how i got where i got this lady comes walking i spoke at the african-american convention over 400 churches they invited me to speak but that's intimidating there's a thousand people there and i'm the only white guy in the room like what were you all thinking why did you do this you know i'll do my best but i mean i'm going to put you to sleep you know so anyway we had a great time and i love that and i go up every year whether i speak or not so i'm in the dining room after i spoke and i'm sitting with my buddy chuck we've grown up together and he's the head of that group of 400 churches and he says oh brother sister davis is headed our way and she usually corrects the speaker and i frankly said well i'm used to that white people do that too you know so sister davis walks here very stately i mean she is a beautiful elderly fashionable stately woman and she leans over to me and she says was your grandfather jd grubbs i said yes ma'am she said well my mother and i cleaned their house and i said then that's not the right jd grubs my grandparents were poor they could never ever afford to have somebody clean their house she said no no no you don't understand we wanted to do that for them so your grandpa jd grubbs he made sure that us black folks had our own church building in timminsville south carolina he's the one that made sure we had us a building i've got a picture of it i want you to see that building it's still there today still sitting there in timmonsville south carolina and it's still a church that's having an impact in that little town and i'm so thankful for that i'd never heard that story until that day talked to my dad later when he was still here with us and uh found out what that meant and how much that meant to their family and to me and it was an incredible moment for me so that that kind of where this all started it started my grandfather it was handed down to my dad and i handed them to me and i've handed to my own kids and i'm handing it to you and then my grandfather he had his church also of a little another little small town and there's a picture of that one it's over in lamar now you can tell they used the same builder and architect it looks like it was red brick and white wood you know but that's the photo and uh of my grandfather's church so my dad would grow up in this household in the 30s and 40s not a great time in our country for frankly a white preacher to charge the steps of city hall in timminsville south carolina and fight for the right for black folks to have their own church but he did at great risk he did and it happened and what an impact this has made on my dad on me ultimately on my family and on you and i've enjoyed some great friendships through the years still do some of the kids whose parents were in that church or who became pastors themselves my dad would head to anderson where he went to school where i went to school he felt called to serve elite a local church so after he graduated he received an invitation to be the pastor of a small church in kingsport tennessee and this is the church where he started i want you to see this that's in kingsport i remember that building i must have been one or two years old because i remember it flooded when the creek would overflow it would flood the basement of that church and i just remember sitting on the steps watching all the guys you know get the water out with buckets of the basement my brother wasn't around yet so that that was the church and it's still there in fact it's a methodist church now and they've taken great care of that old building it's been around a long long time but it's still a church and it's still a good church and i'm thankful for that well dad was quite a great communicator and this little church they took there on the the creek uh had to move to a larger in a building and they built a new congregation out on memorial boulevard in kingsport tennessee and this is that building notice the difference that's the building they built and it would seat a lot more people and i didn't realize what i was experiencing with my dad as a pastor but that church started filling up too and so about the time we move out there my brother comes along and so we're like uh two he's an infant i'm two two years old so we were there till we were eight or nine years old in fact i found a picture of me and joy just so you know how we've always been really good looking and cute that's me and my brother and the one on the left is my brother he's a physician and i'm the one on the right that studied one thing in college and became something else after college so that's my brother and we grew up in all this so i remember all those things in 1968 we moved to dayton ohio and here was the church in dayton that we went to neat church bigger city and it was a great time what a great place for us to grow up and we loved dayton and we were there till we went on to college and then ultimately i moved out here that church would outgrow that building and they would move in 1981 to a brand new building on i-70 and here's a picture of that church and that church sits there today on i-70 still doing some incredible things in that community making a difference in the name of jesus so along the way i learned the value of a church because i was never hurt in one that was loved when people wanted to just take me out back and beat the tar out of me you know i deserved it and they loved us through as we were little kids and through through as students and student ministries and and on beyond it's been a constant in my life a great church that's why i think i was so just disappointed earlier in the last couple of years watching these great churches disintegrate now they're coming back it's going to be slow but they're coming back and i'm thankful for that along the way kim and i and my brother we had a front row seat to what you now know as contemporary christian music there wasn't okay love never heard of it there was no christian music much to speak of on the radio until some friends came along and these songwriting friends of mine their names are bill and gloria gaither they started writing songs and we started singing them in church because he lives is one of them that's pretty familiar to most of you we started singing these songs because see i thought and we thought that the only songs you could sing in church were in this book called a hymnal and it had to be at least 200 years old to be sung in church and we found out that there we could sing other songs and praise jesus in more of our own language that we were speaking instead of the these and vows and all that still great i still love those old hymns but i'm glad the new music came along and i'm glad the things we the way we worship in this church is wonderful and i love it and i'm thankful for it so here we are today in august of 2021 and the world has changed significantly we're in constant conflict and upheaval about so many things i mean we've had people get mad and even leave the church over mask or no mask vaccine or no vaccine immigration sexuality religion i mean it's been a very divisive moment in the culture and unfortunately some of that has can seep into the church and it's just human nature and it's okay but i come back to a simple statement very simple and it's so easy i want you to remember this if you remember nothing else in hebrews 13 8 it says this jesus christ the same yesterday today and forever is the same never changes constant he loves all of us he knows the worst about us he knows the things that trouble us and again as i said a minute ago he knows the things we're ashamed of but he promises to remember them no more when he forgives us and i love the church so when you hear the thing church why bother i said well here's why because when it is doing what it's supposed to be doing when it is shining the light of christ brightly in a community there is no other force like it we don't have the power but he does when people find jesus i pro you know this many of you are there you found him recently when people find jesus they find hope something happens inside they can't explain something happens sometimes in our own minds everything kind of changes it doesn't have to be dramatic thing but it's a very moving thing when jesus is given first place in a life philippians he wrote the book church why bother let me use his words as i close here's what he says as i let my mind roam over various metaphors to describe the church today i find many other possibilities he says the church is like god's welfare office an institution set up to heal the blind set the set free the captive feed the hungry bring good news to the poor the original mandate that jesus proclaimed we're still doing that as a church we always will and if we ever stop we'll have no reason to exist the church he says can be like a neighborhood bar a hangout i know some of you can't believe i'd even refer to that i'm just reading what the church can be like a neighborhood bar a hangout for people who know all about your lousy boss and your mother with heart trouble and the teenagers who won't do what you tell them a place where you can unwind spill your life's story get a sympathetic look that's what the church ought to be and he says after trying out these and other descriptions of the church i find myself returning time after time to the one that paul settled on as the most accurate and appropriate and paul said the church is christ's body first corinthians 12 13 and 14 the church is christ's body and he says the body is a unit we're different we're made up of different parts but we find unity because we value each other an eye a hand cannot say to the other that i'm more important than you we're a body just like the human body that's what yancey says he continues i love this part it says as i look around on sunday mornings as i look around on sunday mornings at the people populating the pews i see the risk in this good i see the risk that god has assumed the risk he takes on all of us i see the risk that god has assumed for whatever reason god now reveals himself in the world not through a pillar of smoke and fire not even through the physical body of his son in galilee but through the mongrel collection of that comprises my local church and every other such gathering in god's name i don't say we're mon girls i don't want to say that about us but every one of us we're all different we come from different places we have different stories we have different issues but we're all one according to god that's what he wants that's what he expects the apostle paul never seemed to get over the shock of that truth in this confusing world we're called to share in the representation of what god is like to give god form in this world that's what we do we give god form in this world martin luther called us god's masks because the world cannot withstand the direct force of god's glory so he uses human beings like us as the prime expression of himself paul took the mundane issues at corinth so seriously because he believed they reflected not only on corinth but on god so for the watching world we ourselves offer up proof that god is alive did you hear that for the watching world out there we who claim to follow jesus we offer ourselves up as proof that god is a life we form the visible shape of what god is like and that's why i love the church stand with me as we close in prayer one of our prayer teams here at the front of the room if you'll make your way this way now prayer team that would be great and if there's anything on your mind you walked in here today with something just gnawing at you or something that's heavy on your mind or heart right now let us pray for you that's our privilege so the prayer teams will be across the front here you make your way this way everybody goes that way and we'll be here to pray for you okay father god thank you so much for the privilege we have today to gather thank you for the freedom we have together sometimes all we can see is what's going wrong in this world and there's a lot going wrong but father we also know that our hope is in you our hope is in your kingdom father thank you so much for the privilege we have together thank you so much for the privilege we have to do life together as people and even though it's a large church father thank you that we all embrace and enjoy the cumulative effect of everyone sharing their gift and praying father we thank you for these things so as we go i pray we might be reminded of just how special it is this great gift you gave us called the body of christ and how powerful it is when we get together and worship together we thank you in jesus name amen

Channel: Crossings Community Church

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Id: 16uctLf3atI

Length: 34min 40sec (2080 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021