Wednesday Evening Service, 8/5/09
Songs
- [ We Want To See Jesus Lifted High]
- [ Sing, Sing, Sing!]
- [ Revival In The Land]
- [ How Great Is Our God]
Message: Eleven Commandments for Being an Effective Christian in our Church
Pastor ThomasThe blessings of God can be like a downpour; extreme and immediate. Sometimes when the downpour comes, you aren’t ready for it. How many of you go about each day expecting a blessing? That’s the way I want you to live each and every day.
1. I will live a life of moral purity.
The world looks at us and judges us every single day. The world uses us as a scale of measurement. They say, “Look at what they’re doing! Look at how they talk!” They use us as an excuse either to get down to business or to walk away from God.
- I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
What is the vocation that we’re called to? It’s not talking about what we do in a church building; it’s talking about what we do for Christ. It’s like a father looking at his son flipping burgers at McDonalds might wonder why he spent so much money for medical school. How much did Christ spend for our spiritual education?
- My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
If much is given to us, much will be expected to us.
- But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
- Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
- For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
- Abstain from all appearance of evil.
- Let not then your good be evil spoken of:
Those two are probably the most important things to maintain. It’s like the story of the truck driver; God doesn’t want us to see how close we can live to the edge of sin; he wants us to get as far away from it as we can. If we expect to grow, we’ve got to be holy: as a church; as a people.
2. I will practice fiscal responsibility.
I asked Dan for some numbers. Before our “coming together”, we would receive $20,000 a week in offerings. But now, we’ve got about $29,000 a week in expenses. Wow! That’s a lot of money! It takes money to make a ministry work. But now our collective weekly income is around $13,000. How long do you think that can last? There are things we’re not doing in ministry because the funds aren’t there. Now, I’m not here to hang you upside down and shake until the money falls out, but have we been robbing God?
- Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
You all know the story of the unrighteous steward. He wass caught being unjust; he was robbing from his employer. So he decided to go to all the people who owed his boss money and cut their bills. So when he got fired, there were a lot of people out there who owed him favors.
- And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
Here is this crook, and God said, “He did good!” He’s lost and going to hell, but as far as making arrangements to take care of himself, he did good. Are you making arrangments to take care of your eternity?
- Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
- But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
In Luke 12, Jesus teaches another parable about a rich man who decided to make himself comfortable instead of being rich toward God.
- But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Does what you do matters? Does it last for eternity? Does it just help you, or does it help someone else?
3. I will give an honest day’s work.
God expects something out of us. Is God getting out of you what he expected? On the day you said, “Lord, I love you; I want to live the rest of my life for you,” did you promise moe than you’ve delivered? You may have met or heard of someone who got their job by lying on their resume. But when we get saved, God gives us a blank sheet to write on what we will.
- For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.
What you have, God gave you. If you’ve got a talent; God gave it to you. And God gave you what you have so that you could glorify him. Is God getting out of us what he put into you?
- For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
- (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
- Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
- Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
- While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.
We’re supposed to be the children of light. We’re supposed to bring brightness into the room. You’ve seen people come in looking like they sucked on lemons; you don’t even want to say “hi” to them. God expects us to be the opposite. He expects us to draw people in, to provoke them to ask “Why are you so happy?” God wants us to be able to share our testimony with people. They don’t want to hear about our troubles and sorrows. God wants us to depend on him to bless us, not just meet our needs and fix our problems. No matter how we feel, we should really live our lives so that others can find Christ through us.
We’ve got to give an honest day’s work. What you do here in this building matters. If you see paper on the floor or dust on something, you shouldn’t say “That’s not my department.” Wrong. It’s your church.
I haven’t always driven the best of cars. I once had a car with a hole so big that Pam refused to ride in it. But you know what I did to that car? I took care of it, because it was what I had.
There was a guy one time, who used to put his boots up on the dashboard. We told him, “Don’t do that,” but he didn’t care.
- And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
What you do both inside and outside of this building
4. I will be flexible and open to change in my church.
If not, you’re in trouble around here. Do you remember Wheaties? They always had different people on the outside of the box, but what was in the box was always the same. We’ve tried many different ways to reach the lost. We will continue to try many different ideas. Some of them have worked, and some of them haven’t. But doing nothing is never acceptable. If we aren’t effective at seeing the lost saved, we have no reason for existence. God doesn’t need another “club” called Christian Fellowship. God needs people who are effective at doing whatever it takes to win the lost in Christ.
Blessed are the flexible, for they will never be bent out of shape.
So what if “we’ve never done it that way before?” Christ brought many changes to the church. But Christ didn’t break the law. He didn’t come to change; he came to fulfill. He brought faith and love back into the lives of the Jewish people. They had lost the meaning behind all the “Do’s” and “Do not’s”.
We’re not here to change the truth. God is still our savior. You’ve got to be holy. You’ve got to be baptized. But you’re not righteous because you got baptized; you get baptized because you love the Lord.
- Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Ask yourself, “Am I so stuck in what I like that I don’t like my church?” The church is the body of Christ. It’s you and I together, saving souls.
5. I will be positive about my church.
God sees the church in a positive light, and so should we. We live in an age of extreme fault-finding. We watch “reality” TV shows that spend all their time picking people apart. We should be more willing to receive constructive criticism than to tear someone else down. If Scott is doing something in the music department, and I’ve got an idea about how he could do it better, I shouldn’t go to Jonathan in the graphics department to tell my idea. If all you’re doing is finding fault, that’s not constructive criticism. The end result of constructive criticism in our church should be the saving of souls. How can we do what we do better, to see more souls saved? You can have the best choir in the world, but if nobody gets saved, it doesn’t matter.
If you think positively about our church, you’ll be more protective of it. Our church is precious. We shouldn’t let anybody talk negatively about it. “If you don’t like the tie I’m wearing; don’t wear it.” If you don’t like sushi, you don’t have to eat it. I like it, but I’m not going to dangle my chopsticks in front of your nose.
My Dad used to like hot-dogs. He got really fancy with them. He sliced them down the middle and stuffed them with Velveeta cheese. He wrapped bacon around them. You know what I’m talking about; he made hot-dogs taste good because we were on a hot-dog budget. But now that I’m not on a hot-dog budget, I don’t have to put up with it.
- Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
- That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
- That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
That’s the way God looks at our church, and that’s the way we should look at our church.
6. I will make an effort to get along with the church family.
We’ve got to trust positive intentions, swallow our pride, and live with charity.
- Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
- Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
- Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
- Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
- Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
Love doesn’t change. God wants us to love each other in the church.
- Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Far too often, in the church, you’d swear it said “Blessed are they that have the last word.”
- A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
- Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
- Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
- Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
- And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
- And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
- Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
- But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
- And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
7. I will be supportive of my church leadership.
- And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;
- And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
Notice that it doesn’t say “for their personality’s sake.” God doesn’t call people for their personalities, but for their heart. It would be so easy to divide this congregation into followers of Pastor Paine and followers of Pastor Thomas. But God expects our church to be in unity. We cannot have a dysfunctional church, because a dysfunctional church is a dying church. We’ve got to put those human things aside and look at spiritual things.
- Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
- Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
- Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.
The leadership must answer to God. We don’t have to answer to you. The final answer belongs to God. If the leaders have to something that is unpopular because it is righteous or holy or simply the right thing to do, you have a choice. You can be like Absalom and sit outside, or you can trust God and stay inside.
- Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.
8. I will be a humble servant, not a prima donna.
God makes us look much better than we really are; he really does. So we should give God the glory, and not keep it for ourselves.
- Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.
- And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him.
Now pay attention to what Moses and Aaron said:
- And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?
- And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.
That wasn’t what God told them to do.
- And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.
That’s what kept Moses from entering the promised land. He took credit for what God had done. Don’t ever finish a Bible study and say “That was awesome” without giving God the glory. If God held Moses from entering the promised land, what makes you think you can get away with your arrogance? We must live humbly before God.
- And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
Peter took everybody’s eyes off of him and put them on God.
- With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
- Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
If you want to keep unity, you don’t do it by puffing yourself up, but by lifting God up.
- This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
There is a phrase: “He is a legend in his own mind.” That happens a lot in the church. We must always remember that it is God who enables us, not we who enable God.
9. I will be content with my life.
If we aren’t satisfied with what we have in our life, we’ll never be able to grow into what God intends for us. If we’re not satisfied, we’ll always be looking at how to get more, and that takes our eyes off God. There’s nothing wrong with having dreams or wanting better things for our families or ourself. But God says,
- But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
We get it backwards. We want all those things added to us, and then we’ll seek the kingdom. That’s not how it works.
- Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
- (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
If you seek first the Kingdom, God will direct your life so that all those other things are added.
- Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
Contentment is a vital blessing in life.
- But godliness with contentment is great gain.
- For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
- And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
How many bedrooms can you sleep in? Then what good is it to have a huge mansion with fifty bedrooms? Don’t look at what you don’t have. Start living for God now and watch how much better your life gets.
10. I will give myself and my family proper attention.
I want you to know that taking out time for yourself isn’t going to the movies. It’s taking out quiet time for prayer. Jesus did it, and I know why. Anyone who has spent time in a leadership position knows how draining it can be. How close can you get to God watching television? God wants you to turn off the TV and the radio. God wants you to take out time to pray and meditate. God wants to talk with you. Then when you
- Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
- That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
- That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
- So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
You can express your love by giving to God. If you do, God will regenerate, rejuvenate, and revive you, so that you can be effective in all that you do.
11. I will never lose my wonder of serving God.
There’s nothing like seeing God work in people’s lives. No words can describe it. We must never lose the wonder of serving Jesus Christ; never lose that wonder that you had when God first touched you. We must always be thinking, “God, if you did it then, I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.
- And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
- But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
- For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
- But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing.
Wow. “Be not weary in well doing” was so important that God gave it to us twice.
- To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.