Welcome to be on Sunday, an extension of the preaching
ministry here at Leamington, Emci am Pastor Jonah Chitty,
joined as always by Pastor Joe Penner, who has a confused look
on his face right now, which is always good.
Hello. Today we're going to be talking
a little bit about a few things. Actually, we're going to talk
about a question that came through to the podcast.
We're also going to be just recapping a little bit of Pastor
Jake's sermon from Sunday. Pastor Jake preached a sermon
from First Corinthians chapter 16.
Woo Hoo, almost to the end of the end of the letter, right?
So that's something to be this. Sunday I don't.
Feel happy about it, sad about it.
I don't know. You just patiently, you just
don't realize how long you're in a book and then you realize you
finally get to the end and it is a little bit exciting to sort of
finish it, but. Yeah, sort of sad though.
I mean it was been First Corinthians have been so rich
and Paul's letter to them teaching us how to live and I
think that's really what it comes down to.
And so Pastor Vick's sermon was entitled The Right Kind of
Giving and it was the first 4 verses of the chapter.
I'll just read those really quick because it's a short,
short section. I'm going to read it from the
Christian Standard Bible. Paul says this now about the
collection for the Saints do the same as I instructed the
Galatian churches on the first day of the week.
Each of you is to set something aside and save and keeping with
how he is prospering so that no collections will need to be
made. When I come.
When I arrive, I will send letters, send with letters those
you recommend to carry your gift to Jerusalem.
If it is suitable for me to go as well, they will travel with
me. So, short passage, but there's
quite a bit of stuff there. Yeah.
Jake had an an outline. You want to go over that, Pastor
Joe? Yeah, well, he started with an
illustration about being excited for Christmas as a kid because
of what he was going to be getting.
And I was going to ask you, I don't know if you can remember a
story from your childhood, maybe something maybe as a Christmas
you were particularly excited for or maybe you something
you're excited for this Christmas.
I'm excited for something this Christmas.
I love Legos. I think I'm getting Legos.
I think I'm getting Legos because I I am the owner of the
Amazon account that they're ordered on.
So it would be a dirty trick if Val and the kids ordered Legos
for someone else, especially the set that I want.
Anyway now I'm excited about that.
But yeah I don't know. I just, I can remember 1
Christmas where I told my mom I really hate gift bags.
Like so please don't wrap anything in a gift bag for me.
I hate them so much. It's not any fun on Christmas
when you get a gift bag. Right, that's fair.
I mean, usually what OK, the excitement of opening the gift
and then you just cut a piece of tape and you pull out some paper
and there it is, right. You got it.
But so my mom being I'm very much like her in a lot of ways.
Like she was just like, OK, she wrapped every present that I got
in paper, but then she put it in a gift bag.
Oh, geez. And so I didn't like she kept
they kept bringing out because we, we do the thing where you
would, you'll pass out all the gifts to each each person before
they just you're sitting around and someone passes out all the
gifts. So you have them all by you,
whatever. And so like my sister was
passing them out and every gift I got was in a bag.
Anyway. That was annoying, but then then
they turned out to be wrapped too.
So that was. I didn't really answer your
question about like what did I anticipate?
But it was a fond memory from Christmas.
Nice. What about you?
You excited for anything this year or have you been excited in
the past? Well, it is funny.
Like I I feel like it is a running joke with guys about
socks and underwear. But legitimately like I'd, if
anybody knows me, they know I love socks.
Dress socks. Funny dress socks.
Silly socks. I, I feel like it's a way I can
not take myself too seriously to wear like socks that are
somewhat funny. So I'm looking forward to that.
You see the posts about on, you know, on Facebook or social
media, people go on, don't worry, guys.
You know, there's a picture of a holy sock and it's like, don't
worry, guys. Only a few weeks left for
Christmas. But your your holy socks are
your church socks. So you need to just like embrace
those for them. Your holy underwear or your
church underwear? Yeah, yeah, didn't.
Think we were going to go there today?
Nope. And we'll go.
We'll quickly run from that so. Yeah.
And so then Jake. Jake had three points in a
sermon. The first one was.
So again, the title was the right kind of giving.
First point was giving is an opportunity.
And so Paul was encouraging the Corinthians to support Jerusalem
and and this was an opportunity that they had to minister to the
needs of others, to those less fortunate.
And so he he did talk about Paul's sacrifice for the Kingdom
and Jesus's sacrifice for the Kingdom as examples for us to
follow. And so his encouragement there
was, you know, we should be motivated to help those who have
less than us. And those are opportunities for
us to be a blessing to other people that, you know, sort of
like the Christmas illustration. You know, rather than us always
focusing on what we what we get, we can be focusing on what we
can give to others, which I have heard.
You know, someone on Sunday actually stopped me and shared
this idea that they were doing this with their kids.
They had got an idea from somebody else that you have your
kids pick gifts for one another, right?
So that at least there's some aspect of them being selfless
even in their giving, right? And so their kids are going to
get presents and so they're excited for that.
But then you can shift their focus and help them to go, hey,
you know what? Here, pick a gift for, you know,
exchange names as kids or. Whatever, we actually did that
in our in our family this year. We've done it a couple years,
but this year and then we, we all went out to, I don't know,
Walmart or where'd we go. Yeah, it was Walmart this time,
and they each got a certain dollar amount.
There's nothing major, you know, nothing like extravagant.
But you can only spend this much money and you have to spend it
on this sibling. And it's funny to watch them
like be thinking through and to go to the toy section and just
in the toy store or Walmart and say, oh, yeah, you can't think
about yourself at all, right. So it's kind of hard for some of
them, easier for some and then harder, you know, and I think
that changes with age. But yeah, that's a good.
It is good to think about. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Absolutely. And then he went on to his
second point was giving should be planned.
And so here, you know, Paul encourages the people to set
aside money every week as they're able.
And it's sort of within that point.
He talked about the fact that it's not about the amount, but
the heart that matters. And he also, he also mentioned,
you know, in Matthew where, where Jesus talks about when,
when giving is focused on our recognition, it's meaningless.
You know, that if we're giving to be recognized or if we're
doing good works out of a desire to be recognized by other
people, then it's meaningless. You know, as Jesus mentions in
that section many times. But I thought that was a
helpful, like giving should be planned because, you know, as as
we were talking about this, we were talking about, well, let
you know, I don't know what the timeline is here for, for when
Paul is planning to come back. You know, is he planning on
coming back in six months or a year?
Or who knows? Maybe he doesn't know exactly,
but it it's also a strategy for getting more money to be able to
take to Jerusalem, right? Because if you say, hey, now I
want you to take a little bit of a little bit of your increase
every every week and set it aside.
You know, when Paul comes, there's going to be a lot more
money that he's going to get to bring to help those people in
Jerusalem. Then if he just shows up one day
and then goes, all right, all right, does everybody have some
money? And then like, well, you know, I
got 20 bucks. And, you know, there's not going
to be as much as if they are systematically giving over the
course of the next few months waiting for Paul to arrive.
Right? Yep.
You'll never like, you'll never like give as much as you can if
you just wait until like the end and you're ready, right?
I think that's Paul's point too. He he also doesn't want to like,
like harass people when he gets there, like when he arrives,
like we're planning to send this on.
We don't want to like spend a ton of time.
I don't want to have to try to spend a ton of time convincing
you, twisting your arm to make you give right.
That's you don't we don't want to collect it when I'm there,
right. Have it already ready.
Yeah, let's make this a non issue and and be ready for this
gift. So yeah, systematic giving.
Well, and we see that a lot in our world today too, right?
Like whether it, you know, as a church, we encourage people to
tithe and that's that same, that same sort of principle, you
know, give on a weekly basis, you know, whatever it is that
you can give, you know, every, every little bit.
Like we sort of talked about this last week a little bit too,
where if you increase your giving, let's say by a
percentage, even if you're starting from zero and you're
going from 0% to 1% giving, that is already going to be a
sacrifice to some extent, right? And so we would encourage
people, you know, to give and to give on a regular basis, to give
to the Lord's work. But then, you know, ministries
that are taking donations, you know, there's all sorts of
ministries out there that you can give.
They all do that too, right, Where they encourage that
monthly giving or you know, whatever it is, this recurring
giving, you know, as opposed to a one time gift.
It's like partnering with that organization to help them to be
able to, to get the word out or whatever their ministry is on a
regular basis. And so you see this like
strategic planned giving. Right.
Yeah, I think it's good. I think like you and I talked
about like tithing recently, it's interesting to think about
giving and like the New Testament's view on it.
And like, yeah, I think, I think that's right.
It's sacrificial giving is the is the norm in the New
Testament, right? In the Old Testament, it was a
percentage. It was like a legalistic thing.
10% give it. New Testament is not as clear,
right? It doesn't say, I don't know if
it like maybe I'm overlooking or I'm not thinking of it, but
like, I think that. But the, the overall thing is
like here he says give in keeping with how you're
prospering. So like if you're if you're
having a good month, increase your giving, you know, given
keeping with what with how you're prospering, like, yeah,
it should be a sacrificial thing, not like to make you like
destitute. You're not trying to make
yourself destitute to raise others up.
But yeah, yeah, I thought it was really good.
And it's good to think about this and especially this time of
year as time with it. It came up, yeah, at Christmas
time, right. You know, thinking about giving
SO. Well, and it makes me think of
like when you think about the world, like, I guess I'm just
thinking of businesses and how different things work.
I, I was hearing the story of, of this or I can't, I hate that
I can't remember right now, but it was, it was this idea that,
you know, this guy was a sale, a sales representative or
something. And so he did this sort of
background work for this person. Oh, that's what it was.
I was with a friend and he was talking about logging.
He had a, he had a, a large chunk of property and he had it
logged so timber. Timber was.
Cut. Yeah, timber was cutting.
So what they did was a guy would come in and he would survey the
whole property and he would mark the logs that need to be cut and
then he would put it out to bid. And then loggers could bid on
what, what they would pay for that job 'cause this, you know,
they're paying to take the wood 'cause they're gonna use it,
right? And so whatever, whatever
company gets the, gets the bid, they pay the amount.
And then this guy who did the work gets a percentage, right?
And so my friend who had hired him, he willingly pays that
percentage because this guy's doing that work, right.
And I, I was sort of thinking about tithing in that same
sense. You know, the Lord gives us the
money that he gives us. He provides for us, he blesses
us. And, you know, as we think about
that example of, you know, I maybe the New Testament isn't as
overt with tithing. This might be one of the most,
the most, you know, out there passages that that seems to, you
know, emphasize that, but that you're giving a percentage, you
know, my friend doesn't even question.
Oh yeah. Well, that guy gets a percentage
because of with the work that he did for me, right?
And we think of like a a realtor, you know, a real estate
agent who I know going in that he's going to get a cut of the
work that he did. And I think that's sort of the
mindset that we need to have when we think about all that the
Lord has done for us. This is our worship.
You know, that the money that he gives to us, we give a portion
of it back to the building of his Kingdom, right to Kingdom
ministries and, and whatever. So that, you know, we can be,
we're not just looking at ways that we can, you know, use the
money for ourselves, but we're actually looking for ways to
build his Kingdom into, into sacrifice for that.
And so I think it's helpful to remember that we are stewards.
We are just stewarding what God has given to us.
It's not our money. And so we need to to be wise in
using that to the best of our ability.
Yeah, that's really good. It's really helpful.
Yeah. You know, I think that's a good
example of like the percentage we should.
We don't even think about it when it's like a business
decision like that. Like it's not something, it's
just what you pay, right? The the percentage of whatever
is like whatever you pay, like the paying the closing cost on
your loan for your home or, or just paying the realtor fee,
right? Like, oh, it's just what?
It's just what you do. Giving a tip at the restaurant.
Exactly. It's just what you do.
And so like, just yeah. But when it comes down to like,
giving in other ways, I can feel it too.
Like you feel the pressure or you feel like the desire to hold
on to, and it's not yours really anyway, so it's really good.
Yeah. So what was this last point?
Giving should be done with discernment.
And so some of these, again, all these things are just my notes,
things that these are just things that I've written down to
the sermon. This may not be all the things
that Jake said, but I know one of the things he said in this
point was that money is tempting.
And so just being cautious, you know, the, the love of money is
the root of all evil. And so we need to be cautious
that we're not being trapped by that.
And so so we need to be discerning in a sense.
But he also talked about being discerning and who we give money
to. And so I think be generosity
doesn't mean that, you know, we're just doormats and like,
you know, that we should just always just give money to to
maybe people who will not be responsible with it.
We can be discerning at times. And so you can use wisdom in
making those sorts of decisions. And so, yeah, which I thought
was helpful. Yeah, I think that this, like
the sermon, Pastor Jake's application was very, it was
very focused on the individual, which is fine.
The passage, though, Paul's not talking to one person.
So I think that's something that that to draw out too.
Like it's, it's it's it's not, it's not wrong that Pastor Jake
didn't do that. I think it's just like something
that that we should think about. Like Paul's talking about like
corporate giving. Yeah, he's talking about like
the church should should have a plan for their money.
The church should have a plan for like what organizations that
they will support. So it's something for for all of
us to be thinking. About which he did have that
that sayings, I think it was towards the beginning of the
sermon where he was talking about to give corporately, you
know, the individuals have to be given.
So you're but you're right though he is.
But Paul is talking to the church and it's like, but the
individuals are going to have to give in order for the church to
be able to be. Able to corporately bless
another, right? Another congregation, really.
Because that's what's happening, right?
And, and something, you know, I, I would assume most people know
this, but maybe they don't. You know, we as a church have a
benevolence fund. And so benevolence is literally
just acts of charity, whether that's to our church, our church
members or our community. And so I would encourage, I
would encourage you all. I mean, even in light of this
Christmas season, if you know, people who are struggling and,
and who need help, we have actually money that we set aside
specifically to be able to help people.
And we want to spend that money. We want to be generous.
We want to be able to help people.
And so that's, that's one way we as a church strive to be
generous with, with the funds that we have as a church to be
generous to other people. Yeah, they would.
That's managed by the, the benevolence ministry is managed
by the deacons, right. So like the ministerial, if you
have a question or if you need their, just reach out to someone
on ministerial and they can help you there.
But yeah, I, you know, the sermon, like it's a four, it's a
four verse sermon. Yeah.
So it's kind of hard to get too much in depth, but the
principles are there. Yeah.
So, yeah, yeah.
So any other thoughts on the sermon from Sunday?
I think just I saw he closed with, I guess just going to his
closing that God is a generous God and he expects the same from
us. And I, and I thought it was good
because you know, God, it, it's interesting.
You know, God knows our weakness and yet he, he, he never lowers
the bar. He always sets the standard
high. You know, you therefore should
be holy. Since God is holy, you therefore
should be holy. And since God is perfect, you
therefore should be perfect. And there's, he never really
lowers the bar. We are always to be striving to
become like God, being like Christ.
And he, he sort of had that, that image at the end too.
You are born looking like your parents.
You die, you die looking like your decisions.
And he, he sort of modified that slightly that we want to look
like Christ. You know, when people see us,
when they see our life, when they see our actions, when they
see the way that we're living, we want them to see Christ.
We want them to see, you know, what would Jesus do?
Yeah, WWJD not what would Joe or Jonah do?
Or Jake, what would Jesus do? Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, I I know that he had mentioned that quote to us
earlier in the week and he was going to use it.
He said it was going to be a spoiler that he would tell us
early. But yeah, I thought it was a
good, a good thought for sure. That we want to, we don't really
care what we were looking like when we were born, but we want
to make sure that at the end of the day is best of our ability.
We can look like Jesus. So, yeah, very good.
You said you had a question that came in.
Yeah. So this is this is a question
that had come in a day, a day after we had recorded the
podcast last week. And so it was a question related
to my sermon, which was all about the resurrection body.
And so the question you. Fool, why would you want to talk
about what's why? Why you foolish person?
So this was a so this, this person said, it's a question
from my daughter. And the question was, if we get
new glorified bodies when we go to heaven, is it the same type
of bodies that people will get before they go to hell?
To which I I had responded with like an exploding mind emoji.
Yeah. Something in like, man, that's
a. That's a pretty deep thought for
a child. Yeah, I was gonna say it's not
your daughter who's 25, It's a daughter who's under 10 years
old. Yeah, who's thinking big
thoughts thinking. Yeah, Mind blown, right.
Not the same type, I would say. I don't know that we would.
They wouldn't get a glorified body, right.
So that would be one of the the caveats, I would say.
But the other overarching answer is, yeah, I think we are eternal
beings. Like, like we have a soul,
right? No, we don't have a soul, right?
Yeah, I sure don't have a soul. Shared that quote from CS.
Lewis We are a soul and our souls are made in the image of
God, which would mean that they would possess some form of like
eternality, like we we're going somewhere for eternity.
That's taught clearly throughout Scripture and that's, that's the
whole basis of like the salvation.
What are we being saved from? Well, we're being saved from an
eternity in hell, right? Like we're being, in other
words, we're being saved from an eternity completely separated
from Christ and our creator, from the from the source of life
and light in the world, in the universe.
You're going to be separated and cut off for eternity.
So yeah, you will have a body that's separated and cut off for
eternity. Revelation talks about that.
You had a quote too that you like.
We're thinking about like that applies to this, right?
Yeah. Clive Staples again.
Clive Staples I'm I'm on a Clive Staples ACS Lewis role.
He shares. He shares this quote.
I I borrowed this book from Pastor Jake.
He might not remember this. I borrowed it from him like a
year ago. Note to self, don't loan Joe any
books. Don't don't loan Joe books.
And well, The funny thing is I was telling somebody this
recently too, Jake. I don't see his name in the
beginning of this book. Actually, that's kind of ironic,
but I've always noticed that he puts his name in the front of
his books. Well, that's why I didn't get
this one back. That's why I didn't get it back,
because I didn't. Yeah.
But I always wonder, I'm like, oh, why does he do that?
And then I started, you know, now that I'm a pastor, I've
loaned my books out to people. And sometimes I'm looking at my
bookshelf going, I'm like, I know I have this book somewhere.
Where is it? And it's like, I must have
loaned it out to someone and they will never remember, right,
that it was mine. And I will never remember who I
loaned it to. And so I'm like, that's pretty
smart. We need a catalogue like
electronic library system for our books.
Yeah. So I had borrowed this one from
him I'd seen on his bookshelf probably about a year ago.
It's called Paved with Good Intentions by CS Lewis, A
Demon's Road Map to Your Soul. And I'm, I'm guessing I don't
know, but I thought, OK, yeah, it does say this has previously
appeared in the screw tape. Letter so excerpts from screw
tape. Yeah, And so this in the
beginning of his book, he has a quote from another one of his
books, but it says I willingly believe that the damned are in
one sense successful rebels to the end that the doors of hell
are locked on the inside. They enjoy forever the horrible
freedom they have demanded and are therefore self enslaved.
And so from that perspective that that those who, who choose
to reject Christ, they don't want God.
I, I, I want to be free from God.
I don't want to be under his thumb.
I don't want to be under his rule.
They really want separation from God.
That's what they want. And he's saying in this sense
that I they get what they want and therefore suffer that
horrible freedom that they have demanded.
And our self enslaved, they've they've now enslaved themself
and they're now going to suffer for eternity that which they
demanded, which was freedom, absence from God.
But then he sort of counters that with what the believer
experiences. Just as the blessed forever
submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and
more free, so them submitting to Christ, submitting to his
lordship, submitting to God and all that he has for us, they
submit themselves to him and it and it in their eternity, they
become more and more free in Christ, experiencing his
goodness, which I thought was a really interesting, really
interesting quote in light of, you know, that conversation with
eternal bodies. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
Yeah. The hard answer is, yeah, we to
to the question, to the, to the little girl's question or a
child daughter. Yeah, yeah.
It does mean that, yeah, yeah. It does mean that you will spend
eternity somewhere. And I think that's the thing
that we need to remember. And even like coming up to the
Christmas season and like we're going to be possibly my family
not right. And my family right now, we're
not going to be gathering with our other family like we already
did, that you're going to be surrounded by people who either
are believers or are not believers.
There are going to be some in every family that's not a
believer. And like keeping in mind the
reality that we are eternal beings, like we're not, not in a
way that's like omniscient, like like God, you know, we're not
that way, but we are. We are going to spend eternity
somewhere like that means like thousands and thousands and
thousands and millions of years in our time.
There is a place that we'll end up And like, you know, we need
to be sure that we're letting people know that there's hope
that you can, you can live eternity with life giving like
God, who, who's the source of all life and light.
Like right, like in Revelation 22 says, he basically says there
is no sun. There's there's the source of
light comes from Christ on the throne.
He is the source of light and hope.
And if you want to experience the eternity in the presence of
light or in the presence of just like utter darkness and despair.
Weeping and gnashing of. Teeth, is that what you want?
Like, you know, so is that really what you want?
Because that's what that CS Lewis quote comes out like.
You know, I don't think that's what people really want.
I think they just want whatever they love their sin too much.
And I think that's the thing we have to, we have to come to
terms we all had to like, do I love my sin so much that I'm
willing to like to like have a moment of whatever satisfaction
and like that I can get here on earth in this current state?
Or do I want to maybe maybe give that up for freedom that comes
in stages overtime in life, you know?
So anyway, yeah, the answer is yes.
Well, and to, to that point, you know, like, and, and what we're,
what we're talking about saving people from is God's wrath,
right? Like, it's not like God is up
there going like, hey, like there's a, there's a Cliff at
the end of the road and like, I'm just trying to stop you.
It's like, no, it is his wrath that he has has made a way for
you to avoid. But.
He's made the way. The way.
Yeah, I have a beef with one of the songs you sang on Sunday
because it says he made a way. I can't remember the song it
was. It might have been the last
song, but it's not. It's not.
You didn't write it, but it's like I I would like, I would
always like, just think, let's just sing.
He made the way there is only one way.
Yeah. So anyway, I didn't mean to cut
you off, but it was like, yeah, he.
Made well, no, I was I was just going to go from there to go.
You know, we, like you said, we need to be telling people the
good news of why Christ came, right?
Christmas. We always hear that Christ is
the reason for the season, but what does that mean?
Like don't just say Christ is the reason for the season.
Like we are saving people from that eternity in hell that we
are eternal beings and we'll go either eternally, eternally into
Christ's presence free or eternally into the absence of
his presence, which is hell enslaved.
And so to that point, we, we were just talking about these
statistics, the one I'll the one I'll share, which will tie into
yours, but. Oh, right.
The about inviting people to church.
I, I read a statistic the other day and I think we may have
shared this before with the church, but over 80% of non
church going people would be willing, would, would consider
going to church if they were invited by somebody.
That's mind boggling. It is so like they're doing
these surveys and these, these people who are not church going
people, I don't know if they're Christians or not, but it's like
over 80% of them say, yeah, you know what?
I I'd think about going to church if some, if someone, if a
family member or a friend invited me.
So invite people. Yeah, invite people to church.
I mean, we, we're closing First Corinthians this coming Sunday.
You're going to preach the last sermon in this book.
And then we have Christmas Day services and we, and even as we
come into the new year, maybe maybe that's a way to say, hey,
you know what? And have you thought about in
the new year, like, you know, how you might change your life.
Maybe you think about coming to church.
Would, would you consider coming to church?
Maybe just asking that question, you know, invite someone.
Maybe they will come. Especially if it's a friend or a
family member. Because honestly, if they're
your, if they're really your friend, right, they might just
come because they, they like you or they respect you, right?
To say, yeah, you know what? And it may be as simple as like,
hey, I know that we've been friends a long time and I've
never really brought this up, but I'm a Christian and I go to
church on Sunday and they'll be like, they'll be like, yeah,
Jonah. I know, right?
They they know these things about it and it's like, you
know, would you just be willing to come with me on Sunday or
would you be willing to come with me on like we're going to
meet there after we open gifts on Christmas morning.
We're going to meet there at 9:00.
And would you just, would you just come?
You don't have to dress up fancy.
Just come. And they like they might not
come that Sunday, but if they're that that day, but they might
come another one, you know, just just ask.
They will come. Most likely they will come at
least once. You know, you don't get it, but
but I guarantee you want it. How they won't come.
You never invite them. Like you're always going to get
a no if you don't ask the question, right?
You can always figure out a way to talk yourself out of inviting
someone to church. So my, my statistic is very
similar to that, except for this guy, Matt Smethurst.
I'm cheering because I think I said it right.
He this source for this question came from church outreach and
attendance campaign. So he put this out on Twitter
and it says why do people start attending church?
So they actually, these people actually start attending.
So 2% said that they they started attending a church
because of an advertisement. So like a Facebook ad or
billboard, a flyer, a Mailer, whatever, an ad, an ad, they got
2 percent. 6% say it was an organized visit.
So like, maybe, I don't know, maybe they were invited by, you
know, some kind of strategic campaign.
Like somebody came to my house, knocked on the door and invited
me to church. Another 6% said that they came
because it was an invite from a pastor.
So Joe, I hate to tell you, if you ask 100 people to come to
church tonight this week, only 6% or 6 people will say yes.
I just got it. I just can't tell them I'm a
pastor. Right, that's true because you
can't tell them I'm a pastor because an invite from a friend.
So like this is this even more than just like a stranger, an
invite from a friend. What we were just talking about
86% of people started attending church because they were invited
to church by a friend. It matters like what we say, how
we invite like this, just the fact that we invite people
matters. Invite your friends, not just
random strangers. You have relationships like a
sphere of influence in your life.
We talk about this in business all the time.
You know, you're not like your, your first target audience for
your customer base should be your sphere of influence.
Those are the people you live with, you live with, you work
with you go to church with all those different things that
that's, that's it's low hanging fruit.
These people trust you already. So, so that's the thing.
Like a friend is going to say, they will say they're going to
start coming. 86% of people said they came because a friend said,
hey, would you come to church with me?
Yeah, I'll meet you out front. You won't have to worry about
finding a seat. I'll find one anyway.
I think it's so important for us to think and keep that in mind,
like just random, like even our strategies, our Thursday night
strategy, right? It's a good strategy.
There's going to be a small percentage of people that say
yes there though. But if they're your friend,
right, the likelihood goes way up because you've got that built
in trust already. And I would argue you've got
that built in God ordained trust because you God ordains your
friendships. I believe that like he's
sovereign over everything. You're friends with the people
you're friends with because God wants you to be friends with
them. That should change your life
too, that that'll all change your paradigms.
So. Well, and it just bring it full
circle to to Jake's pastor Jake's sermon, the right kind of
giving, thinking about, well, maybe you could use
opportunities of generosity to invite people, you know, and
maybe that's and so maybe this is sort of like a like a
lifestyle as opposed to just like a one time thing, right?
Maybe you're looking in friends and family members, you're
you're looking and you probably are already doing this, but
looking for opportunities to bless them, looking for
opportunities to give things to them.
And then, you know, when Christmas or Easter, you know,
those are big ones, those you don't always need to wait for
like a holiday, but then just use that as a, as a place to
launch from there to like, Hey, would you be interested in
coming to church? Or, you know, like build those
relationships, build those friendships.
And maybe it's you bake a batch of cookies and you start handing
them out to your neighbors and you invite them to come to the
Christmas Day service, you know, things like that.
But use generosity as a way to to as an inroad and then invite
people to church. Yeah, I I agree.
There's so many different things you can do, so many strategies
you can take. Yeah, so good.
So do you have anything you like this week?
I guess I'll just hit on this this book I I've Paved with Good
Intentions by CS Lewis. You're going to read this?
Yeah, you got good. You had good intentions to read
this 12 months ago. That is the irony of ironies.
It is like the most convicting thing ever.
It's just like sitting on my shelf there.
I took it from his office and was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to
read this book. And now like for the last year,
it's sitting there like. It's not like this taunting
giant tome of a book either. I'm looking at this book and
it's maybe like the size of a 5 by 7 index card and then it's
like probably 85 pages. Long.
Oh, it's tight. I got through half of it in like
30 minutes. It's a tiny book, but it's just
been sitting there taunting me for a year.
Like you said, I had good intentions to read it.
But anyway, it's just as, as it talks about this idea that, you
know, the screw tape letters, this, this, you know, older
wiser demon is teaching this younger demon how to deceive
people and turn them away from God.
That's the whole point. And I don't have anything in
specific to point out. Just I guess thinking, though,
thinking of demons as having a strategy is interesting because
I've, I've often said this with, with Dave Ramsey, He has this,
this lesson in his Financial Peace University called Buyer
beware. And some of the things that he
teaches buyers there is when you go to the grocery store, like do
you think it is an accident that candy and cookies and things
that kids would want are located on the bottom shelf where kids
will see them? You know, there's a reason
they're not on the top shelf. And so he talks about the fact
that companies are paying lots of money for shelf position to
put their product in line with where the the most likely person
who's going to want it is going to get it.
And that just really opened my eyes the first time I saw it, to
go, they have a strategy and a plan to separate me from my
money so that they can become wealthy.
And I think to think of our spiritual lives in this sort of
same way is to think of how many times are we just haphazardly
walking around, pulling up our phone, walking down the street,
walking into town and putting ourselves in these situations
just randomly. We don't really have much
strategy for the way that we're living our life.
But the enemy does have a strategy, right?
And he's seeking for whom he will devour.
And, you know, I think that changes things to think like, I
need to be living more intentionally and not go, oh,
just at the end of the day, I'll sit on the couch for two hours
and, you know, pull up my phone and just see what to look at.
No, you need to be, you need to have a strategy.
You need to have a plan of attack for your life.
How you will not be putting yourself in Sims pathway.
Yeah. And yeah, just to yeah, that
would really that sort of struck me this morning as I was reading
that book. That's so good.
Yeah. I'm thinking about.
What were you going to say? I was just going to ask about
things that you like. I don't.
You made me use my quote earlier.
No, no, I think like I'm just thinking, thinking about next
year's reading plans, things like that for what we're going
to do as a church. There's so much to do, right?
Like so much to plan for. So maybe we could talk quickly
about that. Our goal for 2025, the Reading
plan, will be what Joe? We are going to do a plan called
the F260 plan and so this is similar to the ones we've done,
but it is actually the one we did.
Two years ago. Two years ago and so it is sort
of like it hits the high points of the whole Bible.
Yeah, the F stands for foundations.
So it's 260 foundational texts in Scripture.
So you're not reading the whole Bible with this plan, but you
are reading through the whole Bible.
So there's going to be passages from every book of the Bible.
There'll be something there. But yeah, you'll read a lot of
the Old Testament, which is good.
I think that was one of the things that a lot of people sort
of I know I missed it this year, the Old Testament like there's
just some something about being connected.
We don't want to be unhitched. We're going to be connected to
the Old Testament. So yeah.
So I'm excited about it. And then the memory verses,
obviously they'll be peppered throughout.
It's not as it's not as strategic like this year.
If you were if you were faithful and memorizing scripture, by the
end of the year, you should be able to say the whole Sermon on
the Mount, which is cool. But this want to be the
foundations 260 plan. We, we, we debated all sorts of
things we like, thought about. Like there's one called the
McShane read Bible reading plan, which makes you read well, it
makes you, it encourages you to read 44 sections of Scripture
every day. There's no two day break on the
weekends. We thought maybe that might be a
little bit much for for many people.
So the foundations 260 plan and we'll be printing those up and
those should be in the four year, I don't know when the last
Sunday of the month for sure. We want you to start on in the
first Monday of January. Maybe, maybe we'll get them
printed this week and have them there Sunday.
I don't know. Yeah, and we would just really
want to encourage people to, to get a reading buddy or a reading
group or something, have someone because because we, we know, I
mean, we've struggled with Bible reading.
And when you don't have accountability, it's easy for
things to to fall by the wayside and to fall off the rails.
And so we really would encourage you, you know, we know there are
some discipleship groups out there, groups of men and groups
of women who are already doing this, holding each other
accountable. If you want to start your own
group or want to join a group, you can reach out to us and ask
about that and, and we can help get connected.
And we're always encouraging people to start groups.
Yeah, and one of the things too, if you're not, if you're like,
if you're just going to do it one other person that is like
the bare minimum we would recommend like read the Bible,
commit to reading the Bible through like through this plan
with someone else. But like, our plan is to, to
give you some way to supplement like how to, how to do a hear
journal. Like, like we're talking through
an idea. I don't want to let too much out
because we're not sure it's going to come, come like be all
fleshed out. But we, we plan to, to like,
release something in this format, like a podcast format or
like a, like a YouTube video format where we show you how to
do a hear journal by giving you hours like saying, Hey, here's
the reading from today. Here's a hear journal from that
reading. And like, maybe you won't do
exactly the same thing, but but it gives you like the idea of
how to do it right. And so like we would, we would
obviously try to use different voices in our church too.
So different leaders in the church offering up their own
interpretation and using the here journal.
But I think that would be we want to help you.
Like, so that's the thing. Like we don't want you to like
feel like you're on an island or you don't know what to do.
We want to give you like as many resources as possible to make
that happen. So yeah.
So I'm thinking all through those things.
So those are the things I like right now.
Also, like the rest of First Corinthians chapter 16, I'm
looking forward to through that text on Sunday.
Yeah, you get to close this out. Trying to figure out what he
means by there's a a wide door of effective ministry and at the
same time many oppose me. So like how's it going to be
effective if you got a lot of opposition right.
So thinking that that's that's fresh on my mind and yeah, it's
going to be fun to close it out. I can be the last one, the last
word on 1st Corinthians. Nice for us.
So yeah. That's good.
I'm excited for. It it would be fun.
Yeah. So, Pastor Joe, you got any
final words for us today? I don't think so.
No, OK, well, listen, don't like if you don't get socks and
underwear, it's going to be OK. I will be a little disappointed
though. Hint, hint, Yeah.
Family, family, who's listening? Hint, hint.
You know, Duluth, Duluth trading in the US.
They make the best underwear ever.
Just so you know, I know that's a weird thing to say on a
podcast based on, you know, Christian things, but like, you
know, Christians wear underwear too.
It's not a secret. Anyway, not where we wanted to
go to finish the podcast, but it was on my mind.
I'm going to pray. To finish this out, is that OK?
Good. All right.
Father, we thank you for the ability to laugh.
It is so refreshing knowing that you created us as as people who
experience a like a wide range of emotions.
And so, Lord, I'm just grateful that that we can laugh together.
Pastor Joe and I can laugh together today.
And Lord, I pray for, for our church, those who are listening
to the podcast, who, who are thinking through like they're
the Christmas season. Maybe they, maybe they have a
friend that, that they, that's been on their heart and on their
mind and, and that they feel like they should invite to
church. So I pray that you would give
them the, the courage to ask, to ask their friend to come to
church. And maybe, and maybe from there,
they start more conversations about the gospel.
Lord, I'm I'm so thankful for those who you have been drawing
to yourself, who have become believers over the last year in
2024, those who have been sharing their testimonies about
their desire for baptism, for membership in our church.
Lord, I'm just grateful for all the things you're doing.
It is easy for us to get caught up in all the different
insurance and outs of what we do here at LEMC, all the different
things we have to do in order to make Sundays and Wednesdays and
all the different ministries we have go and to lose sight of
what you're doing. So Lord, I pray that you would
keep us, just keep us tethered to what you're doing.
Help us to, to look and find ways where you're working, maybe
in the, in the cracks and crevices where we we're not
looking. So help us to to not forget that
that people are the reason that that churches exist.
We want to give you glory and we want more people to come to hear
the gospel so that they can believe and put their faith and
trust in you and so that there's one more worshipper or two more
worshippers who are who are who are giving glory to your name.
So Lord, we, we ask today that you would keep us faithful as
pastors, keep us faithful as church members, keep us faithful
as Christians in our community to share the gospel, to share
the love of Jesus who came as a baby, but who died as a perfect
someone who lived a perfect life as a substitute for us, who
bore, as Pastor Joe said earlier, who who took on the
Father's wrath so that, so that we could be saved from our sin
and to spend eternity with you. Lord, I pray that we would not
lose sight of our of our eternal nature.
And then to keep remembering that though we may experience
troubles in this life, it's all worth it in the end because if
the if we know you, if we, if we believe in you, then we will
have eternal life with you forever.
So I pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.
All right, well, that's all I've got for today.
We hope that you have a great week, a Merry Christmas.
The next one would be released on Christmas Day, if we if we
hold true to our schedule. So we may or may not see you on
Christmas Day. All right, thanks guys.
Have a great day.