2024-03-06- The Church

The speaker acknowledges that his message may be different from what was expected. He focuses on 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and talks about the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. He highlights how these churches, despite facing trials and poverty, have an abundance of joy and are generous. The speaker encourages the audience to follow their example and abound in the grace of giving. He then shifts to discussing the true church founded by Jesus Christ and emphasizes the importance of living a holy life. The speaker mentions different organizations that use the term "church" but may not align with the true church. He urges the audience to be part of the church that Christ built and to strive for holiness. The speaker concludes by referring to the churches in Macedonia and their perseverance through persecution. 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Now I'm going to say right up front, this isn't going to be typical. Generally when we preachers say, I know this is different, it's generally because it's not going the way we thought it was going to go. So I just want to say tonight, I acknowledge straight away, this is something that the Lord had moved on my heart on Sunday. And I knew the portion of Scripture that the Lord was wanting me to talk about. I know where I want to go, and I have tried to prepare to get there. And I'm going to start that path, and if it's not working out, I'm just going to go straight to the end. Close it out, okay? Alright. Alright. 2 Corinthians chapter 8, we're going to read several verses here, starting in verse 1. Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. Basically what he's saying there, brethren, I am making known to you the grace of God that's been bestowed on these churches of Macedonia. How that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded under the riches of their liberality. Now that's not real easy to jump through and run through, okay? But let me go through that a little slower there. How that in a great trial of affliction, first of all, let's skip down just a little bit, their deep poverty. In between the trial of affliction and deep poverty, they have an abundance of joy. That's pretty unusual. And it ends with, it abounded unto the riches of their liberality. Affliction, poverty, joy, and riches. For to their power I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves, praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God, insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also. Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank You so much for our time together tonight. Thank You for Wednesday night meeting. Thank You, Lord, for the riches that we have heard thus far in the service. The songs that we've sung concerning freedom from sin, knowing, Lord, that You walk with us and You are our guide. Thank You, Lord, for what we've heard, how You've walked and dealt with us and made the way for us. I pray tonight that as I go through this message, that You'll speak through me, and the right message will get across to this church, and that we'll be challenged and do what You would have us to do. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Tonight, I'm really looking, well, I'm planning to deliver a challenge. Now, it's not going to be, I mean, just far-reaching. This isn't going to be hard, okay? I have found that when a challenge has been issued, our church rises to that challenge. I've watched it happen. I told you last week or so how that I've been reaching out to others, letting them know when I'm going to pray, that aren't even associated. So I send a little paragraph and say, this is why. I just want to let you know, hey, this is what our church is doing. It's really helped, and I've seen growth through this. So when I reach out to you and tell you I'm going to pray, that's what this is all about. So Brother Bruce Bond, he's my friend up in Indiana. He's the one who texts me every Sunday morning and has done so for over two years now, telling me that he's praying for me. Well, he was thrilled to get that message, and he said, I'm going to take this to my church, he said, because I think it's good. The next night I get a message, I'm going to pray. Awesome. Thank you, Lord. We can be an inspiration. So I've watched as you all have risen to that particular challenge, and I've seen growth in our church, as has been mentioned tonight, sanctification, that when things are brought up, we're not a people who are resistant to push back, but we rise to the challenge. So I have a challenge to give tonight. Like I said, it's not big, it's not huge, it's not going to be hard, but I want to bring something to our attention. And I want to talk tonight about simply the church. The church. The Apostle Paul writes there at the beginning of this chapter, Brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. He's basically saying, I want to let you know, there's churches in Macedonia, I want to share with you what they're doing. I want to let you know this is what they are doing. And he gives this testimony of the good things that the churches, the Macedonian churches are doing. This is the church at Philippi, the church at Thessalonica, and the Berean church. These are the churches that he's talking about. And they're a good ways away from Corinth where he's writing this letter. But I'm telling you, he's saying, I want you to know the grace of God has really been working among those churches. And I want to brag on them and tell you just exactly what has been going on. But as you look there at verse 8, he says, I want you to know about this great grace that God has bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. And then look down in verse 7 at the very last part, it says, see that ye abound in this grace also. So he throws out the example of these three churches and he says, this is what they're doing. And he says, I want you to take notice of it and I want you to do the same thing and step up and to do the same thing. See that ye abound in this grace also. Now we are part of the church of God. I'm not talking about an organization headquartered in Tennessee, but I'm talking about the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. This church is not the result of a bunch of like-minded people getting together and saying, we're going to start this great organization. It's going to be worldwide and we'll pass it on to those that come. No, the church was established by Almighty God Himself. And the Bible says that it was founded by Jesus Christ. It's always been the plan of God for Himself to have a people. And you remember in Matthew 16 and verse 18 that Jesus said, upon this rock I will build my church. That's what Jesus said, I will build my church. So I want to talk about the church tonight, the true church that's been founded by Jesus Christ. There's lots of different organizations that get put together, clubs, social experiences that they have gatherings. They get themselves Optimist Club, Lions Club, the Masons get together, all kinds of different, the VFW, all different kinds of organizations that gather together and they have all these different unique ideologies that bring them together that they agree upon. And there's even lots of places that have the name church on them that have nothing to do with the body of Christ. So I'm talking about the church, not our church. I want our church, we want to be one of those blocks that Jesus talked about. He said, I've got blocks elsewhere that you don't know about, but they're mine and I'm going to bring them all together one day. So the word church in the Bible, literally, simplest form, just means a gathering of people. That's all it is. That's all it really is. But over time, it has gotten the place where the name church means it's a group of religious gatherings. So when we get together for these religious purposes and we talk about the church overall, that's who I want to really talk about in the beginning and we'll get further down in just a little bit. The true church is that church of Jesus Christ that we're all striving to be a part of. We're a light, holiness church. We realize we're not the church. We're not the only church, but we are part of that church. There is a term, and I like to throw people off sometimes, because, you know, the Catholic church. We know what the Catholic church is, the Roman Catholic church. But the word Catholic is actually an adjective that means original. And that's what they claim to be. They claim to be the original church. We are the ones who are descended from the ancient church, the original church. So the word Catholic isn't a bad word. It means that we're the original, okay? So when I tell people, yes, I'm part of the Catholic church, well, I don't mean the Pope, but I am part of the original church. I surprise people when I tell them that I am a Jehovah's Witness, because I do intend to be a witness for Jehovah. I am a part of the church of the Nazarene, okay? The church of God, yep, that's right, sign me up. That's who I am. So others may take labels and gather them to themselves. There are even places that call themselves holiness churches that we would not recognize as a holiness church. So the wording itself isn't important. It's the life that is lived and that we want to be a part of the church that Christ built, the one that He loved, the one that He gave Himself for, to sanctify it, to cleanse it, and to present it a glorious church, not having spot, not having wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So anybody that claims to be within the church and does not line up to this, there's error there. You're with me, I know you are. I'm not telling you anything that you're not agreeing with me. So in the text here tonight, we have these churches of Macedonia that they have been through, in verse 2, great trial of affliction. Now what I find very interesting, they're in a time of great persecutions. First century church. Churches are popping up. They're not popular. This is not going over well in their society. So they're suffering from great persecution. They're having this great trial of affliction, which is probably what led to their deep poverty. They probably can't work because they're not accepted in society, or things have been taken away from them due to persecution. But in the midst of their great trial of affliction, and in their deep poverty, the Bible says there, there is an abundance of joy among these people. Now it doesn't make logical sense. It doesn't say that if the state was to come in, you know, we went through two, three years ago when the state, we allowed, the people of this country allowed the state to step in and say, you can't go to church. And we did it, you know. We didn't know any better at that point in time. We thought they were saving our lives. And then time goes on and we find out they should have never had the authority to do it. Well, they didn't have the authority. They took it and lost it in court. But these people going through this great trial, the Bible says they have this abundance of joy among themselves. Now that's quite amazing. The secret to that is that they had the joy of the Lord, so that whatever persecution came their way, and when they lost everything they had, and that Paul was describing them here as being in deep poverty. So the faith that they had is what really made the difference in the life that they were able to live. And when they had this joy, they did not just simply meet together, their little congregation, and share their joy among each other. And this is where the Apostle Paul is going here. They didn't, Philippi did not keep it walled in at Philippi. They had that great joy, even though they're going through much trouble. But what happened was, in verse 2 again there, in their deep poverty they abounded unto the riches of their liberality. They had, in the midst of their trouble and poverty, a great desire to help others. Now before I go on any further, I may get to the place here and you're thinking, he's going to ask us to be supporting something. He's going to ask us for money to go somewhere. That's not where I'm going. I want to tell you that right up right now. Although that's what this was about, where they were. They were supportive with money. Now we have given. We have done what we can in certain situations and I'm very grateful for what we've been able to do. But this isn't where my heart is tonight concerning money. These churches, no matter what they were going through, they were willing to give of themselves. Now the liberality of their giving did not come because they had a lot. You remember Mark chapter 12 when Jesus noted those who were putting offerings in the offering and they're making a lot of noise and they're going. He said the rich, they're giving it of their abundance, you know, and that's easy to do. I mean it's easy to, when you've got lots of bills, to give a couple of them away. But these were reaching in and they were going beyond their power, is what it says there in verse 3, to their power, to their credit. I bear record, yea, beyond their power they were willing of themselves. They gave sacrificially. They didn't have much, but what they did was they gave of the little that they had. They were willing of themselves to give more and to do more than anybody would ever have expected them to do. So the Apostle Paul was saying, look, they pushed it upon us. They had a gift that they wanted to help with the ministry. No matter what they were going through, they knew somebody else was going through things too. And so they wanted to help. Here's the secret to their generosity. The Bible says that they first gave themselves to the Lord. After that, it was easy to give whatever else needed to be done. So when the church at Corinth receives this letter, they read that of all this generosity of the Macedonian churches, and they are encouraged themselves. I want you to see this example, and I want you to join them in this. So now I want to get where we are, because we know where they were. There were churches that had a heart, I want to help. That's what I want to do. That's my heart. I want to help. We ourselves, we are sitting on a corner out in the country in Grayson County, Kentucky. We are a relatively new church. We've been here for just a little over a year now. Behind me on this wall, there's still shadows of ice cream cone and banana split on the wall there. Now I'm grateful for what we have and how far we have come. I mean, this is fantastic. We've got work coming up on Saturday, 9 o'clock Saturday morning, brothers. We'll get started here. More work to do here. And I'm thrilled. We've got our books that we can open up, reminisce through. I was doing that the other day. We've worked hard, and we've come a long way, and we've got a lot accomplished. But I'm going to take a leap here, and it's not a big leap, it's just a small step actually that I think that there's not one person in this place that would say, we have arrived. We made it. We're here. You know? Apostle Paul could say he had not yet apprehended. We have. Everybody here, I believe, believes that. There are areas that we are in need of improvement, okay? There's deeper studies that we really do need to engage in, and God willing, that He will make time that we will get to those things by whatever means God will make. There's things that we need to understand better than we've...that we lack in understanding so far. There's experiences that we haven't had, that we've talked about, that we've still not had them yet. And then there's areas that I don't even know what to mention because I don't know them yet where God wants to take us. But we're all thankful for where we've come from and the experiences that we've had thus far, but we all know that there's deeper depths to go and there's higher heights to reach. And it would be very foolish of us at any point to get proud and haughty about who we are, what our standards are, the way we live, the church we've established, and what we've seen done here. Now people may drive by us on a Wednesday night or on a Sunday morning or Sunday evening and go by and say, yeah, that's a church now, you know. Look at the cars there. How many? One, two, three, four, five, six, you know. And they might think poorly of us because there's just not very many of us here. They might smirk at us because our building doesn't look like a traditional church. We certainly don't have the largest congregation in the area. If we were to compare finances with churches all around this area, we'd probably come up on the lower end right now, okay? And to others, we may even actually appear like them poor people, them poor pitiful people. Now I'll admit, we don't have a whole lot, okay? We don't have a whole lot. Our pews were donated. Thank God for what we have. We'd love to have something better, wouldn't we? But right now we're not in a place where we can do that. So we don't have much. And if we were to step up and say, we're here to help, there's a lot of people that would look at us with a little smile and say, okay, sure you are, bless your heart. Which might be the same thing that somebody might look at Philippi and say, you're wanting to help? Well, that's very nice of you. It's the thought that counts, I'm sure, but you don't really have much to offer. So when I think about what those churches were doing, they didn't have much the means to do it, but they helped anyway. Now I want to consider right here where we are, this area, there's a lot of churches around here. Did a little search. I'm going to name churches just that I came across. There's Clarkson Baptist, there's Clarkson Community Church, Oak Grove, Mount Moriah, Clearview Baptist, Potter's Hope, Stillwaters Ministries, Little Flock, Antioch Church, Mulberry Flats, Sulphur Wells, Clarkson United Methodist, Cedar Springs, New Life, Assembly of God, Lone Oak Baptist, and Broad Ford Missionary Baptist Church. Just in this area right here. Now, some of the easiest things for us to do is to look at the churches that are in our area and point out how different they are than we are, okay? That's them, but this is us, okay? And before I get too far, I am not into compromise, okay? I want to make that very clear here. But often what happens is we complain when we think about the other churches that are out there of their failure to understand things that we understand. And we might ask the question sometimes, why can't they see? You can't keep on sinning after you've come in contact with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why aren't they preaching that? And we might say, why don't they see that the gift of the baptism of the Holy Ghost is vital with the evidence of speaking in tongues? Why don't they see that? How can they not open up their Bibles and read it and see that? Why are they so given to the worldly amusements and secular entertainment that's out there in the world, and it's perfectly acceptable in the churches that we are around? Why do they feel like that they don't have to dress modestly outside the church as they dress inside the church? And some don't even dress modestly inside the church. But I want to say tonight, I believe that there has already been enough self-congratulating for how much we know that the church down the road doesn't know. It's easy sometimes for us to say, I am thankful that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as the Baptist, or even as the Methodist, or even as that non-denominational church down the road. So here's the challenge. I'm going to say, those churches may look at us and say, you've got nothing to offer. And I'm not saying that we go storming into churches and say, let me show you how, and we're going to hear to straighten you out, and we're going to preach some holiness here, because we probably wouldn't get very far. But I want to look around in our little congregation here, okay? And I want to be bold enough to say, when I think about things that differ us from other churches in this area, such were some of you. So let that sink in. Such were some of you. Somebody in this place once thought being saved and the outward appearance had nothing to do with one another. And you were content to have received salvation and completely ignored dressing modestly or dressing in a way that was godly, or that men may have worn their hair a bit too long and women may have been wearing their hair too short. And there was a time that there's people right here that that didn't click with you. So such were some of you. There are some here, no doubt, myself included, that after having received the gift of salvation, I listened to worldly music. And now we talk about those churches that get out there, I come out of church, turn the radio on, they've got their country music on. That was me at one point in time, okay? So some of us have engaged in the very same worldly entertainment that we today will puff up in self-righteousness and say, Can you believe what they do? Can you believe what they're engaged in? And get prideful because we don't do those things. But my point here is that there's a lot of churches around here. Again, I am not endorsing these churches. I am not saying let's hook up with fellowship. Not in any way. What I'm saying, there are churches in our area that really believe that you pray through to old-time salvation. They believe in conviction of sin and that you get under the power of God. He draws on your soul. And until you pray through to salvation, you're not saved. I've got family that, I mean, my kids got grilled when they got saved. They wanted to know about their experience. Tell me what happened before they could even rejoice to know. Now, I know that they don't see that a changed life is evidence of being saved. They want to know what happened, where it was, and what did you experience, and how did you feel, and all of that. But there are many churches that are all around us that believe in this basic, simple doctrine. You pray through to salvation. We differ on a lot of other things. A lot of these churches believe, like us, that you can only be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And that works has absolutely nothing to do with a salvation experience. Now, I'm not talking about churches with heresies. I'm not talking about churches who deny Christ, or deny that Jesus came in the flesh. The Bible says that that's the spirit of the Antichrist. But there are people that are very sincere in their service all around us. They don't see it like we do, yet. They have believed the gospel, and they have been genuinely saved by God's grace. But we recognize there are problems that are further along. So, I'm asking, this is a challenge, okay, gospel-like holiness church. I want us to take on a burden for our local churches, okay? And again, somebody might think it's cute that we would be willing to pray for their church. That's nice. And they may not appreciate what we have to offer in prayers. We may not ever be able to step in and talk to them about some of the issues, but we most certainly can pray. If we recognize doctrinal error in churches that are around us, instead of us praying, God, shut them doors and get them people out of there. How about we pray that the pastor of that church gets alone with God, opens up his Bible and says, wait a minute here. I'm starting to see something here, and gets nervous when he gets in the pulpit, because now he's got to address something that hadn't been addressed in their church, maybe for 50 years. Or how about praying for the Sunday school teachers, that when they get up, that they have seen something, and they may give a little piece at a time. And I remember C.H. Spurgeon, one of the things, whenever he would want change in the church, he said it would take him six months, I don't know how many months, it would take him months, but he would put pieces in his message. And he said by the time he presented the idea, everybody was already on board. He didn't have to walk in. So if there's teachers that we could pray for, that could start to throw things in, that makes the congregation go, huh, the Bible does say that. Maybe I should think about that. Because isn't that what happened to you? I mean, you're one of them that I really thought of when I was thinking about this message. There's things that you did, you were perfectly fine, you were saved. But God led you. It happened to you. It happened to me. It happened to you, Sister Lindsey. There's several of us that this very thing has happened, that God saved us, but we wouldn't be accepted in the holiness church living the way that we were. Now if people had taken the attitude, go away. Come back when you've got it all figured out and cleaned up and doing right. Now, I understand churches do have a responsibility. And there is a lot of weight that is put into the leadership of churches all around. And they're going to have to deal with that. What I'm asking Gospel Light Holiness Church to do is I don't want to mock the other churches, okay? Often, what I've heard, I've been in church for years, a lot of the stuff that gets preached has nothing to do with the congregation that is sitting here. But it has a lot to do with them people down the road. Now, I say preach it because we don't want error in our church. But let's not preach or teach or talk or get together and congregate about what's going on down at the other church because it doesn't help them. It doesn't bring them along. It doesn't help us, okay? But if we will sincerely pray and say, God, these people are teaching the perseverance of the saints. Once they pray that there's no way that they could lose salvation no matter how sinful they get, if we would earnestly get in prayer, instead of saying, foolish, they need to read the Bible is what they need to do. You know, they're out there deceiving people is what they're doing. They're sincere. I'm telling you, a lot of them are very sincere. They're teaching what they've already been taught. But if they could open up the Bible and God get a hold of their hearts because some little church on the corner in Grayson County is praying for these pastors to wake up and say, hey, I don't think we should look like that. Hey, I don't think we should believe that anymore. How many times have we heard in the past that some Baptist church where the pastor preached against speaking in tongues and the baptism of the Holy Ghost, somebody got the baptism of the Holy Ghost in that church, started to change things. They might have been pushed out, but somebody got a hold of it. And it's not because people who knew mocked them or turned them away. So I want to ask that we would pray for the local churches who are established in the Gospel. I'm not talking about the Unitarian Church. I'm not talking about churches that will put homosexuals into positions and put their endorsement on any of that stuff. But that churches will awaken to the righteousness that is found in the Bible, acknowledging we don't have it all yet. There's probably been a time in every one of our lives somebody could have easily just pushed us away. It had nothing to do with you. We haven't reached perfection yet. We do not have the abundance of the spiritual gifts working in our church. So can we recognize the little bit that we have, like the Macedonian church, I got a little bit and I think I can help. They may not think they want the help. They may not think that we can give the help. But I believe I can get on my knees before God. They may never even know about it. Things may just start changing because God is doing it. So that's the challenge that I'm giving tonight. And I told you it was going to be different. I'd love to see others to have a willingness to obey the Holy Scriptures no matter how the traditions are, because that's how we got here. We came to a place where we started to willingly step away from the desires of the flesh and do what the Bible says. I believe it's possible for people's eyes to be open. Or we can just give up and say we're the only holiness church in this county. We're surrounded by false doctrine. Well, okay, so what are we going to do about it? We can tell those people you shouldn't be going to that church. There's liars over there, deceivers. You don't need to be a part of that. Or we can say we have common ground. We believe that Jesus Christ saves from sin. Okay, we start there. Now, let's give of the little bit that we have. And I'm going to ask our church to really be praying that eyes will be open. When the Apostle Paul, I mean, most of our New Testament is letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to churches. Some of these churches really had some issues. Brother Michael was talking about the Corinthian church on Sunday. And Paul could have. I don't want nothing to do with you folks. No, instead he writes letters. And then he gets upset. Maybe I was a little hard on him. You know, but his whole idea was I want them to come along. He didn't push them away just because they weren't seeing things correctly. Now, I'm going to invite us all in and we'll take a little season of prayer. But I don't want it all to be right here. I want us to take this with us. That in our time of prayer, when we're at the house, that we really start taking a burden for the people here. That's what was on my heart. That's what fell on my heart Sunday. And I said, I don't even know how to get this out. Because I actually thought it was something else. But as I began to pray and seek God about it, this is how he was leading me to talk to us about. So I'd like you to, one, either pray for the churches that are around here. Or if you think I've totally lost my mind, then you pray for me, okay? And you say, I wish, Lord, you'd straighten this guy out. This is, I don't know where he got this. So I will invite, let's all come in and let's find us a place and talk to God. And ask him what we can do to help others find the truth, at least the amount of truth that we ourselves know. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.