Pastor John Nixon II | "Understanding the Unaffiliated Pt 1"

[Music] a lot of hard work every week putting our services together um he was doing it only in person at first and then he was doing it almost only virtually online but now he has to do both things and to get that thing seamless is not as easy as it looks but he makes it look easy so thank you pastor oddly for what you do and for all the music that you choose every week and the way things flow we are blessed to be a part of this church congregation together i'm so happy to see you here again i'm seeing faces i haven't seen in a few weeks now some who came last week and came back again this week good to see you visiting friends thank you for being here too we're always happy to be in the house of god and even though things aren't exactly the way they used to be you know we're kind of massed up and all that we're getting back a little bit more of the things that we love about in-person worship we get to sing together again in the sanctuary amen that's a big deal it was weird the first sabbath that i heard singing in the sanctuary again i hadn't heard it for like 16 17 months anyway the lord is good and we're just glad to be in the house of god again together i want to reiterate something that some of you may have never heard before others of you probably know we have a theme for our year it's called stay focused 2021. that's our theme and it's based on 2020's theme which was focus 2020. we had an acronym and each one of those letters meant something and we decided to keep that going this year because we kind of had some unfinished business in that regard because of what happened in 2020 that we weren't expecting and so we're trying to stay focused in 2021 so just so you remember what that means f is for family uh o is for outreach c collaboration u is for unity s is for sanctuary renovation that's what we did in 2020 and we decided let's keep that up because we had unfinished business but let's add two things so stay focused two more letters e and d e is for education and as pastor shisto already mentioned in his offertory prayer earlier and his setup for that he talked about the fact that we have a church school just in case you don't know tacoma academy preparatory school we call it taps and we're excited about the new year that is about to start in fact open enrollment is going right now if you have kids or grandkids that need to be in school ages k to eight you need to consider taps it's an excellent school and we have a new principal as pastor shisto mentioned her first year with us was last year so she came in on a weird year with all of that quarantine and everything happening i think her entire school year was virtual so this would be her first school year with in-person instruction and we're expecting great things we even have two new uh teachers that have joined our middle school one is named lakeisha williams she moved here from the south and we know her very well she was actually a math teacher for us when we pastored in atlanta we had a church school there we hired her and she was amazing they took her to oakwood academy and now she's coming here and we're excited about her lakeisha has a way about her she can take a complex thing like math and make it easy to understand so that your kids will understand the concepts and be ready for high school and college and all of that so you want to make sure that you at least think about it we also have a new english language arts teacher her name is april nixon i know her a little bit too um she's also an amazing teacher she loves children uh her her motto is really uh relationship is the beginning for effective teaching i've seen her take kids that no one else does well with and learns how to be able to get those kids to learn and the thing that she has that the other teachers might not have is a commitment to loving every kid by the way you know i don't think you understand how impactful that is if you have a school where the teachers don't care about your kids your kids can feel that and it can be a barrier to learning so send your kids to a school where the teachers will love your children like tacoma academy prep who says they meant to that today so education education is a big part of what we do here at tacoma park so that's the e then the d the d is for discipleship everybody say discipleship discipleship that's a big one because last sabbath if you were here if you watched online you'll notice we welcomed our new pastor for discipleship and congregational care uh pastor fred warfield i said new but he's actually a old pastor he's young but it's kind of old at heart if you were to try to figure out who's the oldest on the team you might say it's fred even though i don't i don't know how old you are fred actually now i think about it you may be one of the youngest on the staff are you younger than anwar okay no okay so you're not the youngest okay you're almost the youngest but anyway we're glad to have him with us and we're excited about what's going to be happening here at takoma park we actually think it's going to usher in a whole new era for us as it comes to this idea of discipleship and if you don't know what discipleship is it's basically winning people to christ and then showing them how to follow him that's what discipleship is all about that's what we're going to be focusing on even more so now that we have a pastor specifically who is titled to do that here and we know that god is going to do some great things he and i met earlier this week and he just shared some of his ideas and even sure all of them just a few ideas that he had and i'm amped now about what's going to be happening here and i hope you're excited too about what god's going to do for us here at tacoma park church if you're excited i want to hear you say amen amen i am too i know god's gonna do something great so i am starting a two-part sermon series starting today i'll do it this week and next week that falls under this d discipleship that we have for our stay focused 2021 as we try to win as many souls to christ as possible and i just want to begin like this before we pray i want to begin like this there's a group that has been on the religious scene for quite some time now several years and they have actually become the largest group in the united states the largest religious group in the u.s researchers refer to them as nuns n-o-n-e-s nuns they are the people who when you ask about their religious affiliation will answer none none of the above none of that stuff you just listed nothing so if given the chance to place a check mark beside christian or jewish catholic atheist agnostic they'll select none of the above and with that the mission of the church just took a much better focus what it is that god is calling us to do just became even clearer for if people are that flippant about church our question automatically is what hope do we have to win them well i want to tell you now there actually is hope i want you to listen to an excerpt here's an excerpt from an article that i read from the pew pew research center written by a man named mike lipka here's what he says this is back in 2014 actually this is actually old information a closer look at america's rapidly growing religious nuns says religiously unaffiliated people have been growing as a share of all of americans for some time pew research center's massive 2014 religious landscape study makes clear just how quickly this is happening and also shows that the trend is occurring within a variety of demographic groups across genders generations and racial and ethnic groups to name a few he continues religious nuns a shorthand we use to refer to people who self-identify as atheist agnostics as well as those who say their religion is nothing in particular now make up roughly 23 percent of the us adult population he continues this is a stark increase from 2007 the last time a similar pew research study was conducted when 16 of americans were nuns during the same time period christians have fallen from 78 percent to 71 percent overall religiously unaffiliated people are more concentrated among young adults other than other age groups 35 percent of millennials call themselves nuns in addition the affiliate the unaffiliated as a whole are getting even younger the median age of unaffiliated adults is now 36 down from 38 in 2007 and significantly younger than the overall median age of u.s adults in 2014. okay so what is he saying he's saying that the amount of people who say they're nothing in particular when it comes to religious things is growing rapidly i read a statistic that in 2019 the religiously unaffiliated was the same amount the same percentage as catholics and evangelicals so that means very soon people will say they're unaffiliated religiously and that will be the largest group even more so than any of the other religious groups so what hope would we have if we're trying to win people to christ if they're not even open to the idea of religion is the church doomed is this the end for us i think not actually i think we are more poised than we've ever been to be able to deliver the gospel to people in a way that is impactful and meaningful than we've ever been before but we have to be open to some new ideas that's what we're going to be talking about this week and next week today i want to begin part one and i want to talk really about three essential ingredients for reaching religiously unaffiliated people reaching the nuns three ingredients that we have to have and i want to look back at the miracle at pentecost because i believe that's instructive for us in this message entitled understanding the unaffiliated part one let's pray father thank you so much thank you for your word thank you for giving us the answer to every question of life in your word if we look closely enough if we open our hearts to your spirit the answers are all there so god we're asking now that you would send your spirit send him in his fullness let him be our teacher let us be able to understand this word today so that we can leave here changed for the better in the name of jesus we pray amen acts chapter two what book did i say acts that's right acts chapter two starting in verse one reading to verse 13. i've got it on the screen for you it's in the niv to start and as we go to our points for today we're going to be going to the new living translation i'd like to start in the niv and then i'd like to do the points from the new living translation just to give us a little bit of a different feel as we listen to it and so that's what we're going to do today i'm going to begin reading in your hearing starting with verse 1 and reading to verse 13 of acts chapter 2. this is a familiar story this is the day of pentecost and the bible says this when the day of pentecost came they were all together in one place suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them all of them were filled with the holy spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them now there were staying in jerusalem god fearing jews from every nation under heaven when they heard this sound a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard their own language being spoken utterly amazed they asked aren't all these men who are speaking galileans then how is it that each of us hears in our native language parthians medes elamites residents from mesopotamia judea and cappadocia pontus and asia phrygia and pamphilia egypt and parts of light of libya near cyrene visitors from rome both jews and converts to judaism cretans and arabs we hear them declaring the wonders of god in our own tongues amazed and perplexed they asked one another what does this mean some however made fun of them and said they have too much wine who believes god's word today understanding the unaffiliated it has been an emotional rollercoaster for the disciples to this point surprise sadness fear loss despair hopelessness disbelief doubt joy amazement and hope the disciples felt all of these things as they witnessed the arrest and crucifixion the burial resurrection transfiguration and ascension of their lord and savior jesus christ but before he leaves them for heaven he gives them a command which is at the same time a promise one that will be their source of hope jesus says do not leave jerusalem but wait for the gift my father promised which you have heard me speak about for john baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the holy spirit what a command and what a promise they are filled with eager anticipation and they are fueled to obey as the disciples return from the mount of olives to jerusalem the people look on them expecting to see on their faces expressions of sorrow and confusion and defeat but instead they see gladness and triumph in their eyes they have been they have seen the risen savior and and the words of his parting promise now echo constantly in their ears and in obedience to jesus they wait in jerusalem for the promise of the father the outpouring of the holy spirit this will be no ordinary day now i'd like us to see to see the three essential ingredients that are here on this particular day and i want to start by looking back at acts 2 verses 1 to 4. this time in the new living translation listen to what the bible says here on the day of pentecost all believers were meeting together in one place suddenly there was a sound from heaven like a roaring of a mighty windstorm and it filled the house where they were sitting then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them and everyone present how many people present everyone present was filled with the holy spirit and began speaking in other language languages as the spirit gave them the ability who says amen to god's word today here's the first essential ingredient for reaching the religiously unaffiliated you ready for it here it is we must have the holy spirit we will not be able to reach anybody especially not the religiously unaffiliated if we don't have the spirit of god so repeat after me in the sanctuary today and online at home say this the holy spirit is essential in fact we should change that the holy spirit is indispensable you believe that say amen we're doomed without them but we literally cannot be defeated if we have him need the holy spirit before the holy spirit came to the disciples the bible mentions that they were all together in one place this is important and we don't often catch this now this fact is very a big deal because obviously they had to be in the same proximity but according to the greek there was more to this than just how close they were to each other there was something else going on here remember the last time the disciples were together with jesus before this time they had this big dispute a huge argument argument happened just before they were about to wash each other's feet an argument over which one was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven so they were all together in one place there but they were divided in their hearts a large division and the bible when it says here they were together in one place what it's really talking about is they were actually on one accord for the first time in a long time they finally get it they learned from their mistake now they're ready to receive the holy spirit by the way when we're together in one place it means one thing but we can all be here in the same sanctuary and be divided in our hearts and do you know that when we do that we are keeping the holy spirit from falling on us you know that we've got to find a way to come together in our hearts we are the same no matter where we come from no matter what we look like no matter what our economic standing or level of education we are all united by the fact that we need a savior and he has given his blood for us part of the same family i'm closer to you than i am to my unbelieving actual family member blood of christ brings us together in that way the moment we recognize that we open ourselves up to the spirit falling on us before then we almost disqualify ourselves when things are going well sometimes we can't see god and it turns out the disciples were in a place to see something they couldn't see before because now jesus had left them and gone back to heaven they went through sort of a a struggle in their feelings and it put them in a position to really hear the word of god for the first time jesus kept telling them over and over again when he was here on earth what it was that he meant for them they always wanted him to return them to their former glory jesus that's not why i came it wasn't until he left they were able to hear the echo of his words and really understand then they got it then they could be on one accord that's when the holy spirit fell on them so the crisis the disciples faced enabled them to take seriously what jesus had been saying for the last three years he wasn't concerned about himself he was here to save us who says amen to that today so when they finally let go of their grudges did you hear what i said when they finally let go of their grudges and they dropped their petty fights and decided that unity was important more important than being first or being best then they were on one accord i'm not saying anything to you specifically but i am is there something you're still holding in your heart against somebody else something you don't even remember you're not even sure what it is you are mad at that other person about all you know is they did something to you and you didn't like it drop that and then you can receive the spirit of god by the way wouldn't it be nice that when we bring new people in to this family that they come into a safe place where people actually love each other where we can forgive each other easily and we don't hold grudges isn't that the kind of church everybody would want to be a part of got to work on that got to take it seriously holy spirit is indispensable we have so much power for on one accord i may have told you this before but my brother and i grew up playing basketball we love it and my father is the one who taught us how to play you know he had brothers and he used to play back in the day too and he was very good well we when we got to a certain age maybe about i don't know uh nine and eight or eight and seven something like that my father would sometimes challenge us to one on two paul and i playing against dad and we would always how many times did i say we would always lose always it wasn't because we weren't good at basketball it was because we didn't know how to play together when we would play i would get mad if i was open and paul took the shot instead of passing it to me i would bicker and complain about that same if i did the same thing to him we spent almost the whole time fighting with each other and while we're arguing complaining dad's making layups and hook shots and and we'd never win one day after beating us handily several days in a row dad said you know what your problem is you guys don't play together he said if you guys were to play together there'd be no way i could beat you i can't guard both of you especially if one of these way over here in one's way over there so we decided let's try it let's try playing together instead of arguing the whole time and guess what happened he was right we won how do you beat somebody one on two i don't care how good you are well that's not true we probably couldn't beat michael jordan but anyway you know what i'm saying you're not gonna win if it's one person against two especially if the people have a little bit of skill don't you realize beloved that we are actually hamstring in ourselves we're messing ourselves up god has gifted us with so many possibilities there's so many things we could do as a congregation together as the body of christ but we spend so much time arguing and fighting and complaining and and grumbling sometimes it's not even fighting or complaining that's the problem we never put our talents together sometimes we're competing against each other and the real fight is out there in the world with this terrible devil and his angels who are very organized who know exactly what they're doing tripping us up all the time we could be so much more effective if we could learn to just play together who says amen to that today so that's the first ingredient the holy spirit is the first ingredient to our reaching those who have no religious affiliation here's the second thing acts chapter 2 verses 5 through 8 still new living translation 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 all from galilee and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages here's the second thing second essential ingredient for reaching souls for christ is this we must become multi-lingual we must become multilingual repeat after me you ready we can reach them but we must speak their language okay say it again like you believe it we can reach them but we must speak their language you believe that say amen today this is important i need you to see something there's something very interesting about this miracle that we often miss we've all heard this miracle a bunch of times but i want you to consider something it's pretty amazing what god does in this situation he makes men who speak a certain language takes men excuse me who speak a certain language and while they are speaking he transforms it so that the hearers hear it in their own language i'm not even sure if you realize what i just said let me put it this way it would have been much easier in my opinion to simply tune the ears of the hearers to be able to understand the one language wouldn't that seem like it would make more sense but god doesn't do that in fact in fact based on how we have all these languages in the first place it would suggest a course of action for reversing that think about this with me we have the amount of languages we have because of the tower of babel in genesis 11 the bible says that a bunch of people came together and they decided they were going to build a tower and it was going to reach all the way to heaven and the bible basically says go and read it at some point the bible basically says genesis 11 6 that that these people could pretty much do anything they put their minds to do in fact the suggestion is that they came together and because they were on one accord about building this tower nothing could stop them these were godless people imagine that for a second imagine godless people if they come together being able to be effective and then imagine the people of god coming together and how much more effective we would be when it's us plus an almighty god unstoppable okay so they come together god recognizes there's nothing they can't do so he says you know what i'm going to do i'm going to confound or confuse their languages so all of a sudden in the middle of building somebody who's speaking and talking to somebody that they know all of a sudden starts speaking a different language he says i need a hammer but he's like speaking coptic all of a sudden and the guy's like wait what did you say i don't and now he can't hand him the hammer because he doesn't know what he just said somebody else over here speaking whatever he was speaking originally i don't know what the original language was they probably didn't even have a name for it everybody spoke the same thing all of a sudden he's speaking mandarin he says hey help me down off this ladder and the guy said i don't know what you just said in an instant god confused the language and now he thwarted their efforts so that's how we got all the languages we have in the first place right we had one and then we had a million well it seems like on the day of pentecost what god would have done is just reversed the way that we got the languages in the first place we got a million now we'll just make it one everybody can understand this one person but that's not what he does and the method that god uses to help them to understand shows something about what god thinks about his message here it is god chose his method to demonstrate the lengths he's willing to go to to meet people where they are he doesn't make you come to him he said i'll come to you by the way everybody that's here that's a christian right now you gave yourself credit for joining the family of god god had been chasing you for years before then before you even knew he was coming he was coming to you that whole time stop giving yourself so much credit that was god [Laughter] he didn't say come to me i'll come to you this is a fundamental principle of god's kingdom but it usually doesn't cross our minds when we meet people to meet them where they are that's not our normal way of doing things in fact we make ourselves feel better about not reaching people by saying they're not interested in this kind of thing anyway when they reject us that's what we say oh they're not interested in this and then we stop in our tracks when in fact we are just unwilling to really meet them we hear these stats about the nuns and we say see they really don't want to be saved but then someone in our family leaves the church or decides they don't want to be baptized or says i'm not interested in this at all and then all of a sudden we start saying man we got to reach the nuns because my daughter's one my son is one sometimes we can be so judgmental and we say we'll accept them when they get their act together and start coming to church what if god did that to us meeting people where they are it's often a foreign concept to us we can check off our list and yet another way that we are not like jesus jesus always how often did i say he always meets people where they are so it begins by getting out of these four walls go ye therefore the bible says go not make them come so learning to speak someone else's language is figurative in that we're trying to meet people where they are in any way possible but but it's also literal in this way i want to share this example with you i've got more examples to share with you in next week's sermon by the way we're going to be talking specifically about things that we can do to actually reach religious nuns those who don't care anything about uh religion but but today i'm just giving you the fundamentals but there is something literal that we can pay attention to that has to do with the way that we talk because language unless you understand this you should language has a way of both including and excluding people you ever been somewhere with a group of people and there are two people at the table who speak another language that you don't know and they all of a sudden start speaking to each other how does that make you feel when that happens do you feel included or excluded or left out yeah and now they don't mean any harm in fact in fact they may be talking to each other about something that they can't express well in english and the only way to really express it is in their native language because something is lost in translation but in that moment they didn't mean any harm they excluded you or at least it should say you felt excluded right well this happens all the time if you have teenage children or if you have teenage grands you ever have them talk and they speak their slang in front of you you have no idea what they're saying my kids will say stuff like uh he's goatified and what does that mean or they'll say no cap have you ever heard that before y'all know what that means okay if you even know but the ones that are shaking their head are all young if your grands or your children start speaking slang in front of you sometimes it reminds you you know what i used to be young but i'm not part of that group anymore language has a way of including and excluding whether we know it or not something simple something little so here's my advice if you are trying to get someone who doesn't go to your church to do something that is church related you know you guys are throwing some kind of picnic somewhere and you want to invite them or maybe you want to ask them to come to church or maybe you're just saying hey why don't you tune in to youtube find tacoma park church and our pastor is doing a series this week whatever it is try not to use words that are sort of christian lingo you may not even realize what those things are i'll give you an example if you say to your neighbor why don't you come to church with me next week we would love to fellowship with you everybody here knows what the word fellowship is but fellowship is kind of a christian word all you had to do was say we'd love to hang out with you or we'd love to spend time with you we'd love to just get together with you now you didn't mean any harm you were actually being nice in the way that you invited them but i'm saying we've got to be a little bit more deliberate about our language when we go and we decide we're trying to interact with and encounter and do something with somebody that may be originally unaffiliated we can't go to them with all of our you know maybe maybe explain your acronyms sda and ays you know what i'm saying you can you can tell them about haystacks but you got to probably break down what a haystack actually is you know what i'm saying it's a very adventist food there's some similarities out there but like some of y'all right now probably don't know what it is a haystack is basically just a taco salad except you know with more stuff on it adventists love it i'm saying let's be more aware that we're trying to speak their language literally and figuratively you understand what i'm saying we need that and if we learn to do that i believe that god will have much more effectiveness when he uses us who says amen to that today so that's the second thing he wants us to be willing vessels we need to become multilingual through the power of the holy spirit all right last one last one i've got four three verses let's see three verses and then another four so acts 2 21-23 and then i'm going to jump to 37-41 we haven't read these yet so listen carefully but everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved this is now peter actually preaching to the people all right verse 22 people of israel listen god publicly endorsed jesus the nazarene by doing powerful miracles wonders and signs through him as you well know but god knew what would happen and his pre-arranged plan was carried out when jesus was betrayed with the help of the lawless gentiles here's the part right here you nailed him to a cross and killed him this is peter now talking to the people in the crowd blaming them for the death of jesus christ all right now verse 37 peter's words pierced their hearts and they said to him and to the other apostles brothers what should we do peter replied brothers um uh brothers what should we say peter replied each of you must repent of your sins and turn to god and be baptized in the name of jesus christ for the forgiveness of your sins then you'll receive the gift of the holy spirit this promises to you and to your children and for those are far way off and you have been called by the lord our god then verse 40. then peter continued preaching for a long time strongly urging all his listeners save yourselves from this crooked generation and those who believed what peter said were baptized and added to the church that day about 3 000 in all wow who says amen to god's word today okay here's the third essential ingredient for effective evangelism ready for it here it is we must have an unchanged message we must have an unchanged message all right repeat after me god's word still has not changed you believe that say amen this is huge and this is one of the more important points of the three because i think there's a temptation to water down the word of god when you're trying to give it to someone who you think is already against the church that's the temptation but look what happened when peter preached he did not change the message nor did he water it down he didn't tell the people something they wanted to hear he didn't cajole them or or pride them in this case he didn't even try to convince them very much bible says he just gave the people the straight unadulterated word of god with no apology straight up pointed them even pointed out that they themselves are the ones that killed the son of god and look how they responded they didn't get mad at him they didn't leave they were stabbed in the heart according to the modern king james version and and they responded with repentance repentance beloved this is always the response to true transformation and conversion and this cannot be achieved when god's word has been changed to take away the offense i know that's not popular you probably don't even want to amend that but you know i'm telling the truth we must learn to keep god's word in its original state for that's where the power is don't take anything away don't anything to it just give the word the way that it is at the end you can say i didn't say it god said it instead of caring about being liked we should be concerned with people being saved once we're committed to the salvation of all people how many people we will then be able to keep his word as it is so something does need to change it's just not his word the thing that should change is the delivery system the delivery system so up until the quarantine i hated grocery delivery services don't know if anybody else is like me i hated it now maybe it's the service i used the first time about two years ago we tried this maybe i shouldn't say which one i used i think i have to i used instacart i didn't like it and specifically i didn't like the way that they chose or maybe i should say didn't choose my produce they clearly just pick whatever didn't seem like they were you know trying to get the best grapes or the best oranges they just kind of threw whatever was in there and then and then when the groceries came to my house it was obvious that the bag had been left open because all the smells and everything from the delivery guy's car was in my produce who wants to eat grapes that smell like smoke anyway so i i hated it hated it you tell you asked me what it's terrible don't ever use it then something happened that i wasn't expecting a thing called quarantine it made it necessary now to get my groceries delivered at least most of the time because i was trying to limit my outdoor exposure with other people so i tried a different delivery system i tried whole foods and man i'm telling you right now after i tell you what i'm about to tell you hopefully it's going to give me a job i'm talking about they might they might offer me stock i love them so much i could be a whole foods evangelist it is amazing first of all everything comes to your house it is completely sealed it's got the name of the guy who or girl who picked a man or woman who who picked your groceries their name is like on the bag and there's like a big piece of white tape that that closes it and you know it's really so so there's no weird smells in your groceries that then when you look at your produce it looks like i don't know if this is actually what happens but it looks like it was it was carefully picked and and maybe even they took some of the bad grapes off and every time it's good i i don't know how they're able to do it but every single time let me tell you something i off we ordered some yesterday i order these groceries all the time i can go to the grocery store myself now but i use the grocery delivery system because it's so great whenever you get frozen stuff they put in a special freezer bag so that if your stuff is outside for too long on the porch it doesn't just melt on the porch it's amazing i love it i don't know how i went from hating it so much to loving it so much okay so here's what's crazy a person would never assume that i hate groceries would they the fact that i rejected the delivery system doesn't mean i hate the groceries i need the groceries i gotta eat every week i gotta eat groceries but that's not the problem the problem was how they got it to me the moment you change the way you deliver it to me now i can't wait i'm getting more groceries than i need you should see how much stuff we have in the outside freezer too much stuff all the time beloved i'm telling you now there are so many people out there right now we automatically write them off and the problem has been us the whole time they don't have a problem with the gospel even when you give it to them between the eyes they repent peter just said y'all killed him i said we need to get baptized what is that we got to find a way to change our delivery system it's not the gospel that's the problem give them the same gospel exactly as the bible gave it but find a way to change the way you deliver it now here's the thing you're amending me now but here's the thing you're only amending because you understand the grocery illustration when it really comes down to it if i were to suggest right now that we should change our time of doing worship on sabbath to accommodate more people coming no one's going to amend that because somehow you got in your mind that the time of service is sacred no it's not we call the sacred hour but 11 is not i don't know that we're going to be necessarily worshiping jesus in heaven at 11. i don't know that maybe we will i don't think there's gonna be time though it says it'll be eternity well i don't even know when eleven is you understand what i'm saying so so when it really comes down to it some of us have actually found a way to make the grocery delivery system holy but it never was it's the gospel that's all it's because of what we're taking is so holy we make everything that's affiliated with it holy but the reality is the delivery system is not holy we can change that any way we want as long as we don't change the gospel i'm so glad you're admitting this because i'm telling you now some changes are going to come i hope you amend those too here's the reality our job god has created the church so that we can reach people for his kingdom that's why we're here it's not a club to make us feel better i mean it does make you feel better but that's not the reason why we do it or maybe that is the reason why it shouldn't be the reason it's not why god created it god created the church for us to reach the souls that are lost even those who don't know they're lost the gospel has something in it that is literally um uh what's the word you you you can't deny it you you can't reject it when it where you can reject it people have done it but there's something that happens that just pricks your heart it's in there the problem is how do we ever get the gospel to them if they reject the delivery system we got to find a better way all you got to do is close the bag put a name on it make it look like it was packaged specifically for them makes that the the grapes taste good and don't smell like smoke i'm telling you it doesn't take that much we got to be willing to do it the delivery system is not sacred the gospel is who says amen to that today so those are the three things thank you for letting me take the time today here are the three things uh hold on hold on here it is we must have the holy spirit number one number two we must become multilingual and then number three we must not change god's word who says amen did that say you you believe god's word raise your hand right now if you want to get better at reaching unaffiliated people raise your other hand now look up and say i surrender praise the lord i i'm so glad that we're able to have this time together today because i do think it's important that we're challenged by the word of god every single week and there are times when the word may prick your heart in a slightly different way it may actually hurt sometimes but i think god is doing that for our good so so next sabbath we're going to get even deeper into this we're going to find out some ways i'm going to be able to come down here i can't come down that far can i can i okay next sabbath i want to look at some ways that we can actually practically do this stuff and here's the reason why we're doing this now we're doing it because i think there is some momentum right now in our church around the idea that we become deliberate about discipleship and congregational care by hiring a new pastor for that and here's what i'm hoping i'm hoping that that new slash old pastor fred warfield does not get discouraged because when he goes out to try to engage members in reaching the lost they don't want to do it trying to set things up priming the pump getting it ready so that when he comes with his big ask his ask is gonna be would you join us as we start to get deliberate about reaching souls when he asks he's gonna have some specific things he wants you to do i'm hoping you'll be willing to do it based on what we're hearing from the word of god this is why our church exists this is it they say that everything worth doing is going to be hard have you ever heard that before if it's worth it it's probably going to be hard but people do hard things all the time because they think it's worth doing this is one of those things this is not easy the easiest thing to do is just to talk to a person who already understands how the church works that's the easiest thing to do the easiest thing to do is to speak to somebody who already speaks your language you have to do anything different this thing that we're talking about here is going to require for us to come out of ourselves to be a little bit uncomfortable but let me tell you something you don't know it now you're not thinking about it but somebody got uncomfortable so that you could be saved that's why you're here somebody made themselves uncomfortable to speak your language to come to your level and let me tell you something we could line you up right now and have you tell your testimony some of y'all were out there way out there you tell us your story and we're gonna find out that somebody inconvenienced themselves to make the gospel real to you and you said i want to be part of that family so maybe there's somebody here today who wants to join the family of god maybe you're online maybe you're in the house i don't know who you are but i want to give you a chance right now to make a decision for jesus if you're online all you have to do is type give me jesus into the chat or we actually have a link that you can follow um i think it's uh our www.tpchurch.org appeal if you go there thetpchurch.org appeal there's a card you can fill out it'll go right to fred warfield somebody will contact you and we'll be able to get you in the proper process to make it so that you can join our family i don't know who you are but you may be online you want to do that give me jesus the tpchurch.org appeal follow that today or somebody here you're in the house of god you want to raise your hand right now i'll pray a special prayer for you today whoever you are i see you max i see you god bless kyle good to see you recognize richard masko man ah a lot of hands yes praise the lord let's pray right now father in the name of jesus i want to thank you i want to thank you for the call that goes out every week that allows us to either join you for the first time or to rededicate our lives to you it's a call that's only possible because of what jesus christ has already done so i thank you for his sacrifice thank you for his blood thank you for the biggest inconvenience of all time that jesus did he came down from heaven became one of us went to the cross and even now is pleading his blood on our behalf as he raised back and went to heaven and took his rightful place beside god the father thank you for that sacrifice and for the call that is possible because of it i'm asking god that for every person online for everyone that raised their hand here that you would send them an extra set of angels to guide and guard them make them into what you want them to be give them victory over sin and over bad habits may they walk in the newness of life from this day forward and then when jesus christ returns may they along with the rest of us be saved into your kingdom for we ask you in jesus name everyone who loves god say together amen and amen god bless you we'll have a closing hymn now and then i'll come back to do our benediction [Music] if you could stand up and sing along with me to him all the way number 516. all the way my savior leads me what have i do as beside can i doubt he send her mercy who through life has been my guide heavily peace the finest comfort hereby faith in him to dwell for i know water before me jesus do with all things well for i know water before me jesus do with all things well all the way my savior leads me jersey training path i trapped gives me grace from every trial feeds me with the living bread though my weary steps may falter and my soul a thirst may be gushing from the rock before me lois bring of joy i see gushing from the rock before me lois bring of joy i see [Applause] [Music] all the way my savior leads above when i wake to life immortal bring my fly to realms of day this is my song through endless ages jesus led me endless ages jesus amen thank you enrique enrique is actually one of my students from wa you took a class from me last semester very good student and i thank him for coming and being a part of this service today let's pray father we thank you again for all that you have done for us today through your word and now we're asking that you would make these words effectual in our lives that we might reach those who we think are unreachable no one is beyond your reach and you want to use us for that so thank you now may the very god of peace sanctify you through and through and i pray god your whole spirit soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our lord jesus christ he which testified these things saith surely i come quickly even so come lord jesus amen you may be seated for a moment of silent meditation and then our ushers will dismiss you from this place we thank you for joining us today online and if you haven't had a chance to already we would love it if you would partner with us by giving and that helps our ministry tremendously all you have to do is go to www.thetpchurch.org give and you'll find all the ways that you can donate to takoma park thank you for partnering with us thank you for your generosity and we'll see you again right here next week at 11 30. until then remember the happiest place in the world is in the will of god god bless you [Music] amen

Channel: Takoma Park SDA Church

Views: 677

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Sabbath Worship, TPC, Takoma Park SDA Church Live Stream, TPC Live Stream, SDA, Seventh Day Adventist, Seventh-Day Advenist, Sabbath, #TPC, Pastor Henry Wright, Pastor Chris Cheatham, Pastor Wesley Knight, Pastor Anwar Ottley, Pastor Daniel Xisto, Pastor John Nixon II, Takoma Park, Takoma Park Church, Takoma Park SDA, Pastor Michael Kelly, Pastor John Nixon, Pastor Griselda Jobe, Pastor John Nixon Sr, Pastor Trevor Kinlock

Id: JbqBTyeSp4c

Length: 55min 34sec (3334 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021