Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, September 26, 2024. Church, Church, and More Church!
Good Moring, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Thursday’s edition of Turning on the Lights!
We continue in 1 Corinthians today talking about the tough love that the congregation and their leaders are called to demonstrate whenever sin begins to invade the church.
Leaders get what they create or allow – this being said, what environments are we creating in our churches? And what sin are we allowing?
I pray that you find this talk bother challenging and edifying as you seek to walk with the Lord.
may God bless you and, as we always say, WE WILL SEE YOU IN CHURCH!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, September 26, 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, September 26, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, September 26, 2024
Good morning, good morning, my brothers and my sisters. Oh, right on cue. How are you this fine, lovely, wonderful, sunny, warm Thursday morning? Not. It’s gotten warmer, but it has not stopped raining for five days. So here we are safe and warm inside the sanctuary of the Churchtown Church of God. Turning on the lights getting ready for another day here at the church in Churchtown, little church on the hill. Wonderful little place. There it is right there. That’s it. Sanctuary constructed in 1849. Build it in one year. This rectangle that you’re looking at right here, 1849. Then they added on that and they added on and upstairs and so on and so forth. But this was it. They bought the land early in the year and they had this church here, brick and mortar, as they say, by the end of the year. Amazing stuff, really, really amazing stuff. It’s amazing to be a part of a tradition like this, a tradition like no other. Hi Rosie. So we are here on this Thursday and we are ready to go, big day today. Excuse me, lots of fun today. I don’t, I have worked very hard. Believe it or not, I know that people think that pastors only work an hour, an hour and a half every week. But let me, let me let you go behind. Oh, I love this place. You can call this your office, Rosie. This is my office. Oh my goodness. Anyway, I give you a little peek behind the curtain. I worked very hard to take a little bit of time off today and then next week we’re going to go through next week. But then the week after that, there will be no turning on the lights because Kelly and I are going away for a little while. October 6th is my birthday. She’s taking me away that Friday. We’re not coming back till later in the week. And then we’ll be here for the 13th and that’s all that service is already ready, baby. I’m actually going to be able to sit and relax and not have to do anything. So I’m very excited about that. As you can tell a little bit of time off right before the holiday season, right? The Super Bowl’s coming up. It’s the Super Bowl for the Christian church, Christmas or Easter. It’s gotta be Easter, right? That’s it. That’s the pinnacle of our salvific history when Christ sacrificed himself on the cross. I’ve been listening and reading so many different things and this is a point that Christians, Christian theologians, well-meaning Christians who are well educated get wrong. They say it was the empire that killed Christ. It was man that killed Christ. There was the religious establishment that killed Christ. Nobody killed Christ. He sacrificed himself. He used the prideful, hard-hearted, power seeking, power loving nature of human beings and sacrificed himself. And that’s one of those little key points of Christianity where you think that you can, that we are arrogant enough to think that we killed him. And so that’s just a little pet peeve of mine when you’re reading, like I said, even well-meaning, it’s not like, it’s not blasphemous or anything of that nature, but you say, you know, the religious establishment killed Christ. Nobody killed Christ. He sacrificed himself for our sin. There’s a big difference because this is what flips it on its head. If he is the perfect sacrifice and the religious establishment recognized that, and they take him and they sacrifice him, that’s a whole different ballgame as opposed to him sacrificing himself because it’s impossible for the holy to be blended with the unholy. And so God had to do it fully human, fully man. He sacrificed himself. That man part died and the power of God made that man part rise again. And that he is the first of all who will die in Christ to rise again. Woo. Father, we pray that your word will go out this morning and just penetrate hearts and minds leading to repentance, leading to profession, leading to belief. Lord, we pray your kingdom will grow in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. I urge you to read the church town weekly. Good morning, D. It’s a good one. Urged you to read the church town weekly. I will be, uh, putting it out here shortly after we go off the air. When I do the download for YouTube, send it over to my friend for podcasting. If you’re into podcasts, look up, turning on the lights on Apple or Spotify. We have been talking about church. We’ve been talking about a lot of things. We’ve been talking about some politics. We’ve been talking about some church. We’ve been, that’s called ecclesia, ecclesiology, right? For the ecclesia, the gathering of people that gather to worship the Lord. We’ve talked about the cornerstone of the church being Christ, not people. We’ve talked about the cornerstone, the foundation of the church, the bride of Christ being Christ, not the building. Not people who are teaching, not programs, or as we say ministries. Everything begins. If you, if you want any of those things, it’s like, it’s like what Christ teaches. Don’t worry about what you’re wearing today or tomorrow and all the seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. If your church is faithful to Christ, then your church will go and do what Christ wants your church to go and do. And I think that a lot of churches may miss that point. Good morning, Sandy, because we are as wanting and sort of. Even in a good way, even in a good way, egotistical and, and, and, and we want to have a great church. And so we do things that God never asked us to do. We create things that God never asked us to create. All of that. And, and it let’s just stay in the realm of it’s very well-meaning. Good morning, Josh. That’s still something that you’re never going to know exactly what Christ wants of your congregation, what Christ wants of your church. If you don’t stop and listen and have the heart enough to say that is not where we’re being led. I know the church down the street is doing this. I know that churches everywhere are doing that, man. There’s no peace in that. We’re not being guided in that direction. Lord show us what we are to do. Reveal to us the giftings that you have given this ekklesia, this gathering. And follow that. And that can be hard to do. Again, we’re keeping it in the realm of well-meaning Christians who want to have good churches. Let alone those who just do stuff for the sake of gathering popularity and money and all that. Let’s leave them out of the equation. I still believe that even the most Orthodox, the most well-meaning Christians, we, you, we, you don’t lead a church to serve people. Sorry, folks. You lead a church to serve Christ and by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, he will serve the people. And I just think that’s a little tweak that makes all the difference in the world. I can bring you on camera. I do have all of my volunteers for today or for next week. I have all of my volunteers. I ended up with like seven. I had to put names in a hat and draw them out. So we’re going to have some fun on Sunday when individuals come up and read a scripture and it’ll be the first time that I’ve heard it and I’m going to preach it. We’re not. So we’ll see how well I do with that. I can hear already. Josh is one of them. That’s why I brought, brought, brought his name up. Brought this topic up. Josh is one of them. I can see him like Googling most obscure scriptures in all of the Bible. Go for it, man. That’s what it’s all about. So, you know, my views on church, it’s a hard because it’s one is another layer that God wants to break down in our hearts and in our heart as a Christian leader, as a pastor, as that, you know, you break that down so that it’s even Rosie and completely well meaning. She said, I love the passion that you have for your little church and that language. You have to sort of release yourself of that language. Now, Rosie, I don’t mind one bit, but it’s this church has been since 1840. Well, 1833, God created it. It’s his church. The church universal is his church. This is his church. He’s the pastor of this church. So even just thinking about the language that we use. Helps to break down that pridefulness inside, and then you release yourself to the power of God’s Holy Spirit. What are we to do? And the Lord has led us in some wild directions here at church town for the way that we serve, the way that we give, the way that we handle our handle. That’s the word. Though our views of families in church and children in church and, and as soon as we became in alignment with the Lord on how he would like our church services to look, the Lord has filled this place with families and children. Coincidence. I’m sure. Absolutely. Coincidence. And he brought people, amazing people to work with young children. Coincidence. I’m sure. But no, we fell in line with his vision for us. This is what I believe. And he’s filled the place with generations from little babies that got a baby that was born two days ago, right? A baby that was born two days ago to an 89 year old woman and every generation in between. And we care for each other. These kids run all over the place and people take care of them and they’re learning. They don’t run all over the place. Like total chaos. They’re here. Parents taking care of infants, other people taking care of the toddlers and the older children, and they’ll go from a person to a person and we care for each other. It’s really wonderful. It’s really wonderful and I said, now we’ve had that third baby born. We got to get it. We got to get them all together and we got to get them all singing baby. We got to get them all singing tape and Isla and Abby. I want to hear you all. I want to have to yell so loud. I want to have to preach so loud over these babies. I’m looking forward to that day. So that’s church and that’s church town. This is Corinth. And a lot of things that we learned from the letters is we learn about church from what we shall. Shall we say negative relief? In other words, Paul is rebuking them for something that’s gone sideways. And so from that we learn how it should go. Exactly. And oh, you know, you know it. My goodness, I’ve got come around and grab her, right? So absolutely. It’s just wonderful. It’s just wonderful. It’s just wonderful. I look over there and there’s a little girl over there named Maddie and she’ll be peeking around looking at me and stuff. I’m just like, oh, it’s just wonderful. I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you. Something that even pagans don’t do. This is chapter five. She can. She’s got a set of pipes on her for you guys. You guys that are listening on the podcast, we’re talking about Josh’s baby. Isla. She’s tiny. She’s getting bigger. Of course. Man, she can bring it. Man, she can bring it. And you know what was, it was actually brought up, Josh. When we look at the families that are here that are represented, the men and the women, the fathers and the mothers, and we watch how engaged the fathers are with their children. That was actually brought up in prayer as a commentary last week. Just how amazing it is to watch all of the fathers who are so engaged with their children. And that’s you, Josh. And that’s bread and that’s justice. And that’s Ryan. And I don’t want to miss anybody, but the, it’s just, Ooh, you love to watch families being families, like working like it should. Right. Society tells you doesn’t matter at all. Right. Marxism tells you nuclear family. We got to get rid of it as a foundation of society. It doesn’t matter. The state can replace the father as head of the household. No, it can’t. That is obviously what Marxism seeks to do. And what we see in America today, fatherlessness is that the highest rate ever. And we see the result. And so we have this little sanctuary and families are being encouraged to be families. And as Josh indicated, there isn’t anybody in here that will not help a family. Will not help a father will not help a mother will not help a child. And we want to promote that and strengthen that and give everybody the best chance possible. Amazing kids, just amazing kids. Good morning. And the kids are just amazing. I mean, I left out Sean and baby and baby. She’s not baby Willow. Oh my gosh. I could go on and on because I gush because I’m so proud because here’s. All right. I’m just being selfish now, but Josh and Nikki. Walked with them and perform their wedding ceremony. Brooke and Brad walked with them, performed their wedding ceremony. Taylor and Morgan walked with them, performed their marriage ceremony. Ryan and, and Brent walked with them, performed their marriage ceremony. And then you get to see the literal fruit of their union. And it’s just, oh, I’m going to cry. That’s the wonderful part of being able to do what I do. One of the wonderful parts. So, but here’s the not so wonderful part. And like I said, we don’t really know what’s going on in Corinth, but we hear through Paul’s rebuking what is going on in course. Does that make sense? And so he’s going to try to set things straight. And he says, I can hardly believe the report about sexual immorality going on among you. Something that even pagans don’t do. I’m told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame, and you should remove this man from your fellowship. Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the spirit. And as though I were there, I have already passed a judgment on this man in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit. And so will the power of our Lord Jesus. Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day of the Lord returns. What are we talking about here? Well, obviously the sin that we’re talking about is very apparent. Will you just throw the man out? Well, this is an example of boundaries. This is an example of tough, tough love. This is an example of what we would call today having a person and maybe even guiding a person and being with and surrounding a person as they hit rock bottom. This man’s sin is not going to change until he realizes it as sin. Right? The drug addict, the alcoholic, the sexual addict, the immoral is not going to understand the impact of their sin on themselves and others until there’s nothing, no more lies to tell, no more money to steal, no more. Then they are at rock bottom and you realize, my goodness, I have destroyed myself or I am destroying myself. And meanwhile, you’re looking at people that you love, husbands, wives, children, friends, chamly, and they’re still there. They’re still there and they desperately want to help you again, but they know that to prop you up is doing just that propping you up. The individual is going to have to come to terms with their affliction of sin. Repent, turn to the Lord. Be indwelled by his power. Now you’re surrounded by all of those godly people who are waiting. All of those godly people who will walk with you, all of those godly people who will hold you accountable, but it’s gotta be, you can’t fake that. You can’t walk among them and behave as a godly person. And right in the middle of all of that, you are committing heinous sin. Paul is saying you must exercise a boundary here. If this sexual immorality afflicts the church body, if there is nothing right, leaders get what they create or what they allow. And if the leaders of this church are simply allowing this, why wouldn’t you allow it for everybody else? Leaders get what they create or what they allow. So you want to create a holy environment. You want to create a positive Bible believing as we would say today, holy environment, loving God, loving one another. And sometimes that means I’m going to show you my love by drawing a boundary, creating a boundary between you and I. And as the church family goes, the chamly, we’re going to show you our love by creating a boundary between you and us. If you repent, if you want this, you can have it. By the power of God, you can have it. If you repent and you want this, by the power of God, you can have it. But we, it’s not ours to give and we can’t prop you up in this sin. And we’re just enabling your destruction. So it’s a very powerful passage about some very powerful and uncomfortable situations that occur in a church body. But if you notice up on my pulpit, on the pulpit here, there is both a dove and a sheep dog. Part of our job is to share the love of God, preach the good news. The dove is always representative of the spirit of God and the spirit of God within this place in the sheepdog is representative of the other part of the job I have to do. Don’t mess with my flock. Don’t do it. Right? That’s what wouldn’t Joseph Biden say that don’t. But that’s part of the job. And I didn’t realize that early on because that’s uncomfortable. Having to have some very uncomfortable conversations. And it happens from time to time. So it’s not just some crazed man coming in and tending to do us harm. It is the destruction and deceit and division from the inside out. You’re constantly on the look, not look out for it, because you’re not looking for it, but you’re constantly on guard for that because that’s part of your job as well. So collectively as a congregation, we should be seeking that holiness that we’re called to, and we should be holding one another accountable. So that situations do not grow into division. Right. That can tear a church apart. We used to, and you probably know this term as well. Police yourself, police your area, police yourself. And congregations can police themselves. And one of the, like last week we went deep. We went deep into scripture last week. We went deep into a concept. That’s why I want you to read the church town weekly when I put it out today. Cause it puts a fine point on last week’s preaching. But another way that another layer of protection for the congregation is not just me knowing the word of God and the truth and watching everybody knowing the word of God and the truth and watching out everybody investing in that way. And the way that only way that you can invest in that way is if you know the word of God is so desperately important for the Christian to have ingested the word of God. What’s the old saying. I hope you know the words to all the old hymns because you’re going to need them in prison. All right. Hope you, I hope you memorized all the words to the old hymns because you’re going to need them in prison. We’ll see. But right now we know that we need the shallow, superficial, worldly teaching. That is infecting as many churches as not is not helpful to the individual, to the disciple. It’s not God honoring. Let’s raise the bar people. You’re boasting. And this is what I was talking about. The infection of sin, etc, etc. You’re boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough. Get rid of the old yeast by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth. He’s saying just what I was saying here. This sin, if you simply enable it, will go on. Look at me all crooked here. Why didn’t somebody tell me? Oh, no. Oh, Lord have mercy. What have I done? There we go. Oh my goodness. The sin, you get what you create or you allow you allow this and it’s like a little bit of yeast that will infect the entire batch of dough. You say, it’s one guy, one guy and girl, one man and woman. But there it is for all to see. And the church is doing nothing about it. And the leaders of the church are doing nothing about it. So why not? And you’re going to see this in Corinth when it comes to their worship is out of control. They’re worshiping sex gods and they’re worshiping fertility gods and they’re worshiping and they’re doing all of this craziness. And he’s like, don’t you remember what you were taught? Is that and we come back to this question all the time. Is that not enough? When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin, but I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin or are greedy or cheat people or worship idols, you would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin or is greedy or worships idols or is abusive or is a drunkard or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. That’s harsh, but what about love and embracing? You are more loving by sticking to the truth and the reality that is taught in our holy scriptures that is more loving to draw healthy boundaries and speak with and teach and pray and walk with, but do not enable people afflicted by terrible sin. They know the truth. They’ve been taught the truth. They have people in their lives that are surrounding them, but not enabling them. They’re there. They’re ready for true repentance. Simply saying, oh, well, it’s. You know, whatever. I don’t know. It’s really not that bad or what? I don’t know what you would say or I love this person, so I’m just going to hang on to them. I got to continue to enable them. You’re killing them. They’re going to die and go to hell because you didn’t have the backbone enough to say I got to cut you off. My prayers for you will never stop. My sincere help for you will never stop, but I’m not letting you live here anymore. I’m not giving you money anymore. I’m not. The individual has to come to terms with their own affliction. We all do because we are all afflicted. Don’t stand there or sit there and listen to this and say, oh, I have no sit in my life. Never have never will. I don’t have any weaknesses whatsoever. I don’t have a wandering eye. I’ve never have never will. I have no greed for money. Never had. Stop it. Whether it is major or relatively minor, you have an affliction because you are sinful. Come to terms with that. Repent. And by the power of God, that affliction can be healed. Last verse, last verses. It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside. But as the scriptures say, you must remove the evil person from among you. So. What do we say as we sum this up? The church and the church body, which is comprised of all of the disciples of Christ who make up the congregation, the deacons and the elders and the leaders of that church, those who are in positional leadership are all responsible for the spiritual health of the church. If your view is that you go to church, you pay your money and you get your spiritual dose, you’re doing it wrong. If the church’s view is that come on in, pay your money and we’ll give you a spiritual shot every week, they’re doing it wrong. Is easier way to do it. This is a much harder way of doing it. But congregation is so entrenched in the word of God and in the spirit of God that they can hold leadership accountable. Leadership is so entrenched in the word of God in the spirit of God that they can hold congregation accountable. And together we all submit because all we are, it’s not, there’s no division between these elders. There’s leadership and congregation. We’re just exercising different gifts. We all come together to submit ourselves to the Lord and his vision, his will, his purpose. We set our egos aside. We set our vision of what we may want aside. Oh, we want like, give me a book on how to grow this church. Stop it. If, if you are truly faithful and God wants this church to be 20 people, it’ll be 20 people. If you’re truly faithful and he wants it to be 20,000 people, it’ll be 20,000 people. The key is being truly faithful. That’s what he wants. So Corinth has forgotten that. Corinth lives by the rules of the world. And Corinth allows the sin of the world to infect the congregation as if sanctuary wasn’t a thing, as if be holy as I am holy is not a thing. And Paul is now by proxy in these letters, trying to set things on the right path after they’ve gone sideways. And since we have these letters in our cannon, they’re here for us to learn from as well. And we can learn preventative medicine. Instead of having to receive a letter from Paul, we can prevent that because we have the letter from Paul. We know what to do, and we know how to do it as a congregation together as church. And that’s important. That’s important. Sanctuary. It means something. It should mean something. Church should mean something. It should be different. It should look different. It should sound different. It should be different than the other things that you do in the world. The places you go. Father, we pray that your church will stand with you and you alone. All eyes on you. You are the cornerstone of the church universal. And we pray that for all of the local church, the embedded local churches and all the individuals who are so invested in the local church to do your work, that they rest upon you as they’re foundation. They seek you, your word, your purpose, your will, that your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven through your bride and through every individual who belongs. Lord Jesus, we thank you. And we pray for your guidance. In your name. Amen. Everybody go ahead and say it, because it’s Thursday. I want to see it all in the comments section. Sunday morning celebration Sunday come. Oh, we have music planned. And like I said, we have the stump, the pastor going on three Scriptures that I am going to receive for the first time on Sunday. And I am going to preach and we have so much good music and it’s a celebration Sunday. We have amazing charities that we’re giving to. It’s going to be fantastic. Let’s fill this place up and have a great time. Worshipping the Lord by the power of the Lord. Right. It’s always bring a friend to church Sunday. But you got to go to church. Why? Because it’s important.
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