Sermon Transcript
Well, good morning everyone. It’s sure good to be together, all together as a church. Special Sunday, and we thank you for coming to be a part of this event. And not only the service, but we hope you’re going to be able to stay for our barbecue potluck after this out on the new patio. So we’re really excited about that, looking forward to that time as well.
But today’s Summer Kickoff, it actually is one of my favorite Sundays of the year. It kind of feels like a Gudgel family reunion. I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way to you, but it does to me because when I was a kid, our Gudgel family, yearly we would get together and we would have reunions in Chowchilla, California. That’s where we landed, you know, when we came from Oklahoma, if you trace my roots. And so every year we’d get together and there would just be so many good times, a lot of fun, great food, a lot of laughter, hanging out together.
We’d be with our grandparents, you know, and aunts and uncles and a bunch of cousins and Moms and dads and all of that. And there were a lot of Gudgels, so, you know, it just was this big old deal every year. And for the most part, we got along with each other, but there were times where we did not get along because we were Gudgels. And Gudgels, we’re not a perfect family by far. And so there were times when Gudgels would get together and some Gudgels wouldn’t have an affinity on these occasions for other Gudgels.
They were at odds with other Gudgels, and I’m sure you’ve probably seen that. Maybe you’ve seen it in your own family, you’ve seen it in some friendships, maybe you’ve even seen it in the church. Even the church family can be at odds with each other from time to time. And really, how you handle those kind of conflicts when they come up with other family members, it could be to the detriment of our relationships, or it could be to the betterment of our relationships. Wouldn’t you agree?
So how we handle is gonna make a difference in the relationships that we continue to have with each other. And hopefully we’re able to, when we have disagreements or we have problems with the family in some way, we’re able to handle those problems in healthy ways so that when we get together for family reunions and picnics and summer kickoffs and weddings and graduations and maybe just Sunday lunches or Sunday dinners or whatever it is, That those times, they’re filled with laughter and they’re filled with good times and encouraging conversations rather than, oh, there’s the elephant in the room again, or those awkward moments or those hurtful arguments or quarrels that can kind of push us away from other family members that we’re connected to. Now, the reason why I bring all that up this morning is because we’re coming to a little section of scripture in 2 Timothy. In fact, 2 Timothy chapter 2, and if you have your Bible, you might want to open there or pull out the message note sheet. But 2 Timothy 2:23-26 focuses on how important it is to build healthy relationships among members of God’s family, both in the church and outside of the church.
He wants these relationships to be healthy. And the passage that we come to today focuses on a few matters that if we really take these matters to heart, it could make a significant difference in our family relationships. Especially when we might be at odds with one another. Now, if you’re with us today for the first time that we’ve been in this series in 2 Timothy, we are grateful you’re here today. We think you’re going to get something out of what we’re going to talk about this morning.
But 2 Timothy is a book that was written by the Apostle Paul to a pastor, a young pastor. His name was Timothy. Timothy was trying to be the best pastor he could be. And the first church at Ephesus. The first church at Ephesus was a prominent, incredible church that was doing a lot of good.
But guess what? It also faced problems just like any church would face problems, and some of those problems were relational challenges. And so that’s why Paul wrote these words. You can find them on your message note sheet. Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce quarrels.
And the Lord’s bondservant must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him, he must gently instruct in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will. That’s a little section of Scripture. We just want to talk about that just for a few minutes.
I think you’re going to find this to be valuable and something that you can take with you and it can help you in your relationships with other members of God’s family, or for that matter, with just family or friendships. And I want you just to notice at the outset that there was some stuff that was happening in this church that wasn’t good. In fact, you might take your pen out or your highlighter, you might want to just note the words quarrels in verse 23. The word quarrels in verse 23, also the word quarrel in verse 24, and also the word oppose, oppose in verse 25. So what you’ve got is you’ve got a church that’s having a quarreling problem, an opposition problem with each other.
You ever been in a church or been in a family that you saw people fighting with one another, quarreling or opposed to each other? In this particular case, it was bad enough that the Apostle Paul would write Timothy and say the church can’t get caught up and you can’t get caught up And notice these words in verse 23, you can’t get caught up in foolish and stupid arguments. Now that’s pretty strong language, isn’t it? I’ve actually seen that. I’m probably sure you’ve seen that in the church, as a matter of fact.
Foolish and stupid arguments. I’ve been a part of foolish and stupid arguments. That’s why I was thinking about calling today’s message, When Stupid Comes to Church.
But I didn’t decide to call it that because Bernice said to me, if you use that title, it’s not going to be a good idea because some people will be offended by that title, and that could lead to some foolish and stupid arguments which could defeat the purpose of the message. And do you really want to do that? Because isn’t this a message about, you know, like creating a healthier environment in the church for the gospel to be heard and and lives to be changed. I said, okay, I won’t call it that, but it is about that in some ways because basically Timothy’s got some people in the church, and you notice this in verse 25, who are in opposition to him as a pastor. I mean, that happens in churches where people are in opposition to pastors, and in this particular church at Ephesus, some stood in opposition to what Timothy taught or what he practiced.
And Pastor Timothy, however, needed to be told that in spite of what maybe he was into, he needed to stay out of stupid and foolish arguments. Now, we used to tell our kids not to use the word stupid because it’s not nice. You know, it’s just a word that we didn’t want to be using around the house and in our family. But, you know, there are exceptions. For when to use that word.
And this would be one of those exceptions where Paul used a stupid word because there were some argumentative people in the church and they were just into that sort of thing. They were into quarreling about beliefs and practices and preferences and opinions and interpretations. Does that kind of sound like the church? Into arguing about beliefs and preferences and opinions and interpretations and beliefs? And in this particular case, what they were into arguing about really didn’t matter.
Does that surprise you? Do you ever hear about the church arguing about things that really don’t matter? I remember the first time I was surprised by the church arguing about things that really don’t matter was in the church that Bernice and I grew up in, a church in Fresno, California, where they were arguing about drums in the church. They were arguing about drums in the church. Now I know we’re way beyond this, but just in case, they were arguing about drums in the church.
In our church in Fresno, kettle drums were okay. Kettle— you know what a kettle drum is? Those big old things, right? A kettle drum was okay, but not a set of drums, not a plural set of drums. A tambourine was okay in our church, one drum, this little drum, very small drum, with a bunch of jingles around it or cymbals or something like that.
That was okay, but not a set of drums with 2 cymbals. That wasn’t okay. And so our church was into these foolish and stupid arguments about whether or not it was appropriate or not to have drums on the platform. And notice that I did not now say on the stage, because had we used the stage word at that church, we would have been arguing about that too. Just as much as we couldn’t use the word lobby because it wasn’t the lobby, it was the foyer or the vestibule.
In Timothy and Paul’s day, people in the church were getting into stupid and foolish arguments over matters like circumcision and diet. Like, hey, can you have bacon? I don’t think so. I don’t think you can have bacon. Can you have meat?
I don’t think so. I don’t think you can have meat. They argued over the right day of worship. They argued over even the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can you believe that?
For the most part, we don’t argue about those kinds of topics. When we get into foolish and stupid arguments, we talk about things like worship styles. Well, I don’t know, they turned off the lights a little bit today in the service. We could get into worship styles, or we can get into forms of baptism, or forms of church government, or We might even have an argument about communion, about the frequency of communion or the protocol of how communion is served. Before I actually became a pastor over in Phoenix, Arizona, the staff came to me and they said, could you please help us with the communion thing?
It’s driving us crazy. I said, what are you talking about? They said they got this protocol and it’s been a part of the church for like 30 years and they won’t change the protocol. And basically what it’s all about is the people marching in And they march in and then they all line up across the front and then they go through this ritual, this thing that they do, and basically the focus is taken off of communion and it’s on the marchers. That’s where the focus is.
So I went to the person who was in charge of the communion and I said, hey, would it be okay if we just did a little experiment next month? If we tried the communion just a different way? I think that maybe it would help us get more attention onto the communion. Would that be okay with you? He said, well, I don’t know how to feel about that.
Just one month. Let’s just give it a try. He said, well, okay. Well, it really, really went well. It really did.
And everybody’s like, yeah, we gotta do this again. We gotta do it again. So I went back to him and I said, you know what? There’s this sense that we want to continue to try this and see how this works out. He says, well, I’m leaving the church.
I said, are you kidding me? Over protocol? Come on.
Churches argue about the role of women in the church. They argue about Jesus coming. Like, when is He going to come? Is it going to be pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, rapture, post-trib? There are all kinds of tribes that Jesus could come in, I guess.
We argue about spiritual gifts. Are the gifts meant to be permanent, or are some of the gifts temporary? We argue about days or years of creation. Which is correct? Even the color of the carpet we can argue about.
In fact, we could go out on the new patio today and you could hate the pavers and we could start arguing about that.
Is it no wonder that the Lord’s servant, verse 24, Timothy, this pastor who’s just trying to get this church to a healthy place and help them, is it no wonder that he’s dealing with controversial, divisive, polarizing theological matters and personal preferences that that come into focus that Paul has to write to Timothy and say, Timothy, listen, you just gotta remember stupid and foolish arguments is not something you want to get into in the church. It’s not something that God wants in his family.
I was reminded of that recently when I asked a friend of mine what he believed about something. That’s always a dangerous question to ask somebody, isn’t it? And he shared with me, and I was shocked. I was really shocked at his belief. We could have easily got into it right there, but we didn’t, thank God.
It would have been stupid and foolish to begin an argument and to continue this argument and divide company over a matter that it’s okay to have differences on. And as far as Timothy, his situation was concerned, Paul basically advised Timothy to keep stupidity out of the church by doing 3 things. Number 1, to put an end to quarreling. You see that in verse 23? Put an end to quarreling.
Now, what’s quarreling? Quarreling is contentious disputes or fights or battles or arguments. Now let me tell you something. If I just described you, you better be paying attention right now. Please, everybody in here is praying that you will pay attention, okay?
If you’re into contentions, disputes, fights, battles, or arguments, the best way to put an end to quarreling is Don’t even let them start. Don’t allow yourself to be pulled into a foolish and stupid argument. Don’t jump into foolish and stupid arguments. So when you go to a Bible study and somebody starts down the road of a foolish and stupid argument, don’t you be the one to add fuel to that by jumping into it. No, don’t.
And don’t you start foolish and stupid arguments. And if we’ve got Bible studies going like that around here, somebody needs to pay attention to what Timothy’s saying right here. What’s a foolish and stupid argument? Well, it’s a matter of speculation or opinion that doesn’t have a clear answer in the Scripture, that oftentimes is outside of the clear teaching of Scripture. So, if you go back into this text in chapter 2, you can see in verse 14 that there were uncertain words that were being argued over.
There was godless chatter in verse 16 that was being argued over. And verse 18, truth that’s not based on truth, God’s truth. So words that weren’t based on God’s truth, they were into preferences, beliefs, opinions, the kind of things that oftentimes we in churches get into. We could get into stupid things like that and divide company from one another because we gotta have it our way. And what Paul says to Timothy is, listen, The Lord’s servant— look at this, verse 24— must not quarrel.
That’s as specific as you can get it, right? He must not quarrel. The church must put an end to quarreling. The church must be a quarrel-free zone. Don’t you like the sound of that?
I do. I’d be a real happy camper if we were all done with quarreling forever. In the church, outside the church. The book of Wisdom tells us this, Proverbs 23: It’s to a man’s honor to avoid, to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel. So if you’re quick to jump into arguments, you’re a fool.
That’s what it’s saying. That’s descriptive of foolish behavior. Avoid quarrels and arguments. People who are quick to correl are destroying themselves and they’re destroying others. God doesn’t want that for his family.
Proverbs 21:19, better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
Now you can take my word on that fact that the desert isn’t a great place to live, okay? But a desert is a better place to live than with an argumentative correlsome spouse. That’s what he’s saying. It would be better to be in the desert than to live with a spouse that just won’t let it go. Put an end to quarreling for good, for your good and for others’ good.
In fact, emotionally, just think about it emotionally. If you’re into quarreling, it’s emotionally wearing you out. It will make you and your soul and your heart weary mentally. Quarreling will pull your attention away from more important matters. In the church, what happens often is when the church gets quarreling or arguing with each other, the focus is no longer turned outward on reaching people around us.
It’s focused on inward stuff, and we begin to get our attention there. We forget that we are here to be an outward-focused ministry to other people. And relationally, quarreling will hurt or destroy relationships with those that perhaps you already have relationships with, or with those who maybe someday you could have a relationship with. But these people you could have a relationship with see you as a person who is argumentative, or somebody who loves quarreling, and they see that and they say, you know what, I don’t want any relationship with you, no thanks. And if the church is filled with a bunch of people like that, guess what, I want nothing to do with it.
Have you ever been around family members who are into quarreling? Some of you have seen this. Some of you have grown up in homes where there’s just constant fighting, constant sparring, constant boxing. You ever seen this in relationships with brothers and sisters? Drives you crazy.
You ever seen this in relationships in the family of God where brothers and sisters in Christ are going at it with each other. They just can’t let it go, and you just want to say, enough already! Just like you would say to those kids when they just won’t leave each other alone. Just learn to get along. That’s what you say.
Would you learn to get along? Do you know how privileged you are to be in this family? I mean, think about it. We are in God’s family. This is a family that we share together, and God wants us to learn to build each other up, not to tear each other down.
He wants us for everyone’s sake to experience peace a little bit more. Shalom. Shalom. Say that with me. Shalom.
Doesn’t it just feel good to say it?
Absolutely. That’s what he’s going after here.
Put an end to quarreling, he says. Well, does that mean we should just ignore something that’s wrong in the family? Should we just let it go? And the answer is no. Paul adds this then at the end of verse 24, the beginning of verse 25.
Instead, he says, instead of quarreling, he, the Lord’s servant, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him, he must gently instruct. Putting an end to quarreling, he’s saying, doesn’t mean ignoring or excusing or minimizing wrongdoing or wrong thinking. Not at all. But instead— you might circle that— instead it means that we aim for loving correction.
And what is loving correction? Well, to me, the correction he’s talking about here is something we see in other places of the Bible where it talks about speaking the truth in love. That kind of correction. Speaking the truth in love kind of correction. So what’s loving correction?
Well, it’s correction that takes into account The 2 sides of good, strong communication. There is the verbal, and then there is the nonverbal. So there’s what we say, and then there is how we say what we say. And he’s saying here, you gotta pay attention, Timothy, to both of those. The nonverbal concerns our tone and our attitude and our expressions.
And so you need to learn to be kind. So when people are in arguments and they’re quarreling and all that sort of thing, you’ve got to find a way to step into those circumstances with a kind heart. Not rude, not harsh. How about this? Does the word civility mean anything to you?
Especially in our culture today, there’s just a need for civility. That’s kindness. Be nice. That’s what he’s saying. And not resentful, verse 24.
The Greek word here calls into focus the word patience. That’s why the English Standard Version translates not resentful as patiently enduring evil. So even if there’s evil, learning to be patient in that circumstance, tolerant if necessary. When wronged. Patient in that sense.
And gentle, he says, verse 25. Gentle like you would be gentle if you’re putting a contact lens in. I don’t know if you wear contact lenses, but I did for years. And, you know, every time I put it in my eye, it was my eye, you know. I’m not going to like, you know, just poke it there, jam it in there as fast as you can.
That’s not good. That will get you right back to the eye doctor. Gentle. Or you know how you want somebody to pull a splinter out of your thumb? Ah, you want to like dig away at it.
You’re being too harsh. No, I’m not. Yes, you are. Yeah, gentle. So we pay attention to the nonverbal and the verbal.
What we say is important too. The words we use, the words of instruction and correction. So This person has to be able to teach, verse 24, which means the person bringing the correction must know the truth. You must know the truth for yourself and then be ready to teach the truth to somebody who’s in the wrong. What this person needs, by the way, is truth.
They need to hear the truth, not your truth.
They need to hear God’s truth, and they need to be gently instructed, verse 25, so help them learn. The word literally means cause to learn.
Cause them to learn. The English Standard Version says, correct them if necessary. See, the point is both sides of communication are essential when correction is needed, the verbal and the nonverbal. One without the other is not enough. We got to pay attention to both.
Both matter. We need to speak the truth, but yes, the truth must be spoken in love. So think of it this way: when correction is needed, do not take the role of a boxer or a fighter. You don’t want to go down that road. Regardless of any desire that you may have to, figuratively speaking, punch the stupid out of someone who is saying and doing foolish things, regardless of that, there’s a better approach than taking the boxer or fighter approach.
The proper approach here is a loving parent approach. A loving parent. So that when children are doing stupid, When they’re doing wrong, maybe something even potentially dangerous— oftentimes kids do things that are potentially dangerous. In fact, we as adults often do things that are potentially stupid and dangerous. But when that happens, don’t react as a parent with harsh, demeaning, condescending words, with this angry expression on your face and this tone of voice and language that’s just saying, I am going to get you!
If you want your kids to learn not to do stupid, foolish, and dangerous sinful things, then quite frankly, you gotta pay attention to your approach. Don’t take a stupid and foolish approach. Kids aren’t gonna get it that way. A wise parent confronts the problem head-on, but with love and a calm and a gentle spirit, speaking the truth, holding the child accountable for what they’ve done, but teaching them and teaching them in love. I saw that modeled this week when a mom needed to correct her 4-year-old, and she modeled this very gentle approach.
And I just— I said, that’s just— that’s the way it should be. That’s what God wants in relationships in this family, and he wants that for all families. We pay attention to how we correct one another. So when there is wrongdoing, and there will be wrongdoing in God’s family, don’t take the role of a boxer. Don’t take the role of a fighter.
Take the role of a caring parent who gives special attention to what you’re saying and how you’re communicating what it is that you need to say. You’ve probably heard it said before, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And our kids need to know that you care and you express that. Through your tone and your voice and your body language and yes, your words. And why would we do that?
Because we want the best possible outcome, don’t we?
Fact of the matter is, probably what we just talked about right there is something that every one of us could do well to hear somebody talk to us about every day. Because this is a tough one. But sometimes the best motivation is knowing what the potential outcome could be. And the best possible outcome is what Paul brings into focus in the last part of verse 25 and 26. And he says, in the hope.
So why do we not get into quarreling? And why do we aim for loving correction? Well, with the hope. In the hope that God will grant them repentance. Who’s the them?
Those who are into quarreling and they’re argumentative, those who are opposing what’s going on in the church, them, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and that they will come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will. I mean, we better be hoping for change if the devil has taken certain people in the church captive. To doing His will.
What kind of change should we be hoping for? Well, first of all, God-given change, but God-given repentance. Verse 25, in the hope that God will grant them repentance. What’s repentance? Well, repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of action or a change of direction.
In this particular situation, the hope is that there would be true repentance to the point where people in the church would stop quarreling and they would stop bickering and they would stop working in opposition to all that God wants to do in this family, and a better environment would be created in these relationships that they share with one another. And boy, when things change like that because God is doing a brand new work in his people, a work of repentance where his people, instead of pushing back from that work, push into the work that God is doing and say, Lord, change me.
I’ve been doing that which is contrary to what it is that you want. Change me, Lord. And when that happens, the environment changes. The environment in my home, the home I grew up in, where I saw my parents many times quarreling and arguing, it was, it was so detrimental. They knew it to one another.
God began to get a hold of their hearts. They began to change, and the quarreling and the arguing Lessened, if not went away. And I’ll tell you what, it completely changed our environment in the home. It was so much better. That’s what he’s calling for here in the church.
And that not only would there be God-given repentance, but also God-given truth leading them, verse 25, leading them to a knowledge of the truth. Notice that, not just any truth, but God’s truth. Timeless truth. What the Bible teaches. What the Bible says.
Boy, do we need to hear more and more of that in the church today. It would seem to me that many people in the church today are getting more and more stupid and foolish because they are becoming more and more ignorant of the truth. You say, what truth? Of biblical truth, of holding on to God’s truth above man’s purported truth, especially in the United States. In recent years where the culture in the United States is redefining truth so that now truth is whatever I think, whatever makes sense to me, or whatever others think instead of what God clearly says and what God clearly thinks about matters of life and morality.
It’s what I think. And I hope the same reaction for you that I experience that our hearts are broken in seeing this, but especially when the world’s thinking is then brought into the church so that believers within the church now are falling for that same deception. They’re trusting in the wisdom of the world and what their minds and hearts are telling them, even when it directly contradicts God’s clearly revealed word. The church, he’s saying here, even then but still now, the church just needs to wake up. And we need to hold on to— look at the words— a knowledge of the truth, God’s truth on matters that are forefront in life today, particularly— let me pick 2— particularly related to abortion and sexual immorality.
Even as Christians, we’re missing it on this. It’s pervading the church. A baby is a baby that needs to be loved and cared for at any age before or after birth. Life begins in the womb, period. When that baby was conceived by God, God began to do a new work there.
It’s his will that this child not be aborted?
And you go on down that road and you’re really into trouble. But then the whole matter of sexual immorality— sex is a good thing. It’s a holy thing when it’s within the marriage, the God design of a man and a woman. But anything outside of that, whether it’s heterosexual or homosexual, is sin according to God’s Word. That is very clear in Scripture, no matter what the world says, or our minds think, or our hearts may think, a same-sex attraction does not legitimize an immoral relationship any more than an opposite-sex attraction legitimizes immoral relationships.
You see, we gotta wake up on this kind of stuff too, just like the church at that time needed to wake up on stuff like this as well. When we don’t hold on to God’s clear and timeless truth in relevant matters like the ones that are in the forefront of our culture today, listen, we are doing the devil’s work. That’s what it’s saying. We are falling for the devil’s lies. And yes, that can happen, as it was happening in the church at Ephesus.
That can happen even to believers. They can be deceived, which is why We should be hoping for God-given freedom. The 3rd matter that he brings into focus, verse 26, and that they— and these opposers, these people quarreling, these people arguing, these people who say they have a relationship with God— and that they will come to their senses.
They need to think differently. They will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil. Who has taken them captive to do his will. See, our ultimate hope is ultimately to be delivered from the ruler of this world, the devil himself. One day that’s going to happen.
We’re going to be completely delivered from the devil himself when Jesus comes and he puts an end to Satan’s lies and Satan’s schemes and Satan’s destructive work. But until then, we are desperate, as this passage suggests, we are desperate for the freedom that can only come through Jesus Christ. Who’s Jesus? He’s the one who is the way, he is the truth, and it is his truth that sets a person free, and he is the life. And he is the one who can give us the power and deliver us from the penalty of sin.
And he does that first by us coming into a personal relationship with him at the moment of salvation. What we realize, we say, you know, Lord, I’ve been trying to do my life my way. As if I was the Lord, as if I had it all together. And you come to your senses and you say, God, save me. Save me from my sins.
I long for a relationship with you now and forever. Give me that relationship. That’s to receive the gospel, the good news of salvation that’s found in Jesus Christ. But it doesn’t stop there. It continues daily as we seek to live by the truth, not by the truth out there, But by this truth that then gives us a platform on which to help people out there.
It’s that truth that sets us free. So here’s the point: as long as we are walking in this fallen world, we are in dangerous territory where at any given moment in time Satan’s lies could start making sense to us like they did to Eve. And we could get trapped in Satan’s schemes and we could begin doing Satan’s will even without realizing we’re doing it because it seems right in our eyes and in our hearts. That should be a very real concern because it’s a very real possibility. But to prevent that from happening or to undo the devil’s work when it happens, we got to be diligent in giving attention to these 3 matters that Paul calls into focus.
Number 1, to put an end to quarreling. Put an end to quarreling. And number 2, to aim for loving correction. And 3, to hope for God-given change. You see, that’s the church that we long to be.
That’s the church that God longs for his family to be. A church that contributes in such a way in these relationships that we share that we become an environment of grace and truth. You remember Jesus was known as a person who was full of what? Grace and truth. It’s not one without the other, it’s both.
And when the truth is needed in relationships where something is wrong, we need to go into those relationships with a heart of grace, with a heart of love to correct and encourage each other. But hopefully what that does is it creates an environment, an environment for the Word of God that can be implanted in our souls. To grow and to become something beautiful than we could ever even begin to comprehend. You’ve probably heard me say from time to time I love WindShape. WindShape is a retreat center that is owned by Chick-fil-A.
It’s in Georgia, and I was there again this year a few months ago, and the environment, the people, the facility, the food, the conversations, the service, it’s just fantastic. Just the setting itself is just It’s absolutely beautiful, and when you go there, it makes you just want to be there. When you leave there, you can’t wait to come back there. Everything about the place, it just revives your spirit, it revives your soul, and it supports you in your relationship with God. And you know what?
That’s their intention. That is their intention. Their goal is to provide an environment where people can come and grow closer to God others. And what we just read this morning, what we just looked at this morning, is God providing an environment where people could come and they could be a part of this church family, and it could be a family that fosters in them a love for truth and a love for others.
Whether or not that’s going to happen will depend upon what we believe, how we teach, How we relate to each other, and especially in this passage, how we work through our disagreements, how we get back to a place of unity of spirit in Christ. So today we’re going to finish up our time of worship here this morning with some more very important matters that I hope you’ll connect with. But then we’re going to go out, we’re going to share lunch together. When we go out and share lunch together, you know, as we begin these summer months, it’s an opportunity to say, hey, I’m going to drive a stake in the ground again. I want to be a person in God’s family who is growing in an environment in my life and hopefully being that to others of love and hospitality so that together we share this fertile soil, you might say, for even greater and a more loving and unified work of God in us and through us in the relationships that we share.
Why would we do that? For God’s glory and for everybody’s good. Amen. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you so much for this passage. It just speaks to where the church has been. We recognize that we’ve never really had it right all the time, that there’s always been something in your church, even back in the first church, that wasn’t right. And we thank you for your amazing patience with us, your family. And we still, though, long, Lord, to be the people that you want us to be.
We long to express through our lives and our relationships the fruit that you long to see evident in us: love and joy, peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. We long to see that in increasing measure. May those qualities be true of the church everywhere, but may they be true of the church here. And may they also characterize our birth or adopted families, our homes. May we be those who, instead of fighting with one another, we love each other, serve each other, we experience shalom.
May peace fill the environment that we live in, things that we say and things we do, and in our friendships too. And where we’ve fallen short, Lord, would you just convict us of sin and bring repentance, a change of mind and heart that leads to a change of action through the saving work of your Son Jesus Christ. And Lord, my prayer would be if there’s anybody here today that’s yet to receive Christ as Savior, that today would be the day of salvation for them. They’d say, yes, Lord, I want I want that. And if that’s the desire of your heart, tell God that even right now.
He’ll hear that prayer.
But Lord, thank you that even after salvation, you don’t give up on us. You work in us and through us. And so we pray today that as we take a step forward, that work will continue in significant ways, and it will bring you honor and glory. We will love you better. And we will love each other better as well.
For we pray this today in Jesus’ name. Amen.
