Lathem Postell: Morning. Sam Jones Methodist Church. Always so wonderful to be here and worship with you this morning. I wanna start as we have really every, sermon throughout August. If this is your first time here and you're seeing this in your bulletin, I know you can't read it from here, this is our Being Sam Jones initiative.
This is our final week, our final push for that to give you the the short version of it. The long version I actually shared in our first sermon in August, so go and listen to that if you want to. I am challenging us, I'm challenging you, challenging all of us to to be the church. It takes so many folks to to make Sunday mornings happen, and and all of this comes down to a deep and sincere desire for us to be a place that tell people about the gospel. Right?
As the pastor, I hope that when I preach, I do my best to proclaim the gospel to folks. But but what I think we all want is that when people walk onto our church campus, when they walk in our doors, they see the gospel proclaimed from the moment they they see somebody who smiles to them and says hello, to the moment they drop their children off upstairs for for kids ministry. From every moment, we want to be pushing people towards Jesus to see the love of God here in this place. And so this is an opportunity for you, as the church, to be a part of that. And so there's various opportunities for service, ushers and greeters, kids, youth, all of those many things, and so I'm challenging you to to think about, filling this out and turning it in if you haven't already.
The goal is for us to do this every year, to constantly remind ourselves of how we're to be serving Christ. It's also a way, right, because time commitments change. What you can do this year, you may not be able to do next year, so we don't want you to feel as if you checking ushers here means that you will have a life sentence and do that until the day that you pass. Right? There may be a season where you need to step back, and we wanna give you the freedom to do that.
So, I told you always I'd give you updates on on where we're at. 86 has been our number, which means if we can get 86 people who who agree and and commit to serving once a month, at least in one area. Right? 86 people helps us to to make that possible. So far, we've had 70 inserts turned in, which is great.
Some of those have been for other service opportunities, not on a Sunday. So if you take those out, my math says that we need 26 more people to step up and serve. I know that we can do that, trust that God will provide. And so I hope that you'll prayerfully think about that. We've already taken up the offering, so you can't put it in the offering plate at this point.
But if you if you want to fill it out and you haven't turned it in yet, come and leave it on the altar after the service, or, we'll be here in the office all this week if you just want to drop it off, and and if you have a question, come find me, do that as well. So thank you again for for thinking about that, and and helping us be Sam Jones here. We're also, this week, concluding our August sermon series that we have been calling return. This has been a month of returning. Right.
School is back in session, schedules are back to normal. Last yesterday, actually, college football finally returned. Right? Even though it was those ugly jackets over there across the pond, it was still at least football. Only reason I'm saying that is because Didi's nephew's on the team, and so I feel like I have to at least say something.
But, all of these things are are returning. Right? Things are back to normal. Even here in the church, Wednesday Night Suppers came back this week. If you've never had somebody invite you, let me invite you to Wednesday Night Suppers.
What you'll find is fantastic food and great fellowship. It's a wonderful thing. Wednesday Wednesday's in here. The room gets flipped. There's tables from 5 to 6.
We're eating, then we have kids ministry, and then Bible studies and choir. It's a phenomenal evening, so come and and be a part of that. There's so many things returning. And so my prayer for us has been that as we return to everything else, that we have spent a little bit of time in the month of August thinking about what it means to return in our spiritual lives. We we always think about how how does this thing how's it returning?
How's it going to impact my schedule? Right? But what would it look like for us to take stock of of what returning to God would look like? And so we've returning to God would look like? And so we've we've talked throughout this what it means to return to God, and then we said week 2 that if we're gonna do that, if we're gonna take that seriously, it means that we're gonna have to turn away from sin.
We can only serve 1 master. If we want to take seriously this idea of returning, we have to turn away from our sin. And in the last 2 weeks of this series, we've been looking at practices, spiritual disciplines, that I believe if we will return to them, it will help us in in our desire to return back to God. Last week was was prayer. And this week, we're gonna talk about something that that maybe at first doesn't sound like a practice, but I think deeply is.
It's the practice of community. If we want to return to God, we have to return to one another. To do this, I'm gonna invite you to turn to our scripture for this morning. It comes to us from the book of Hebrews. We're gonna read from the the 10th chapter, the 19th verse through the 25th.
Let us join together and read this. If you don't have your bibles with you, it should be on our screen behind me as well. Hear this word from Hebrews. Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us through the curtain that is his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincerest sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience, and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.
And all the more as you see the day approaching. Will you pray with me? Loving and gracious God, we thank you for this day, and we thank you for this time that you have given us to gather as your people, and to proclaim your name, and to be reminded of how worthy you are. Lord, we just ask that you set aside all that preoccupies our minds and just here for a moment, for a few minutes, that we focus on you. For it's in Christ's name that we pray.
Amen. I'm gonna ask you a question to start this morning that maybe you've asked yourself, but maybe you haven't. Why are you here this morning? Why why are you and I and I really mean why are you here this morning? Might seem like an easy answer if if it's not something you've thought through before.
Right? I'm here to worship God. That's great. I hope that is your answer. It's at least the answer if I really did come to one of you and ask you that.
I'm not going to do that. It's probably what you would say, right? And I hope and pray that that is the truth. But I also want you, because I'm not going to come and ask you to fill something out or to tell me in person, so so I want you to be honest with yourself for a moment and ask yourself that question. Why are you here?
For some of you, you may not know the answer to that. It's kind of just what you do. Right? I mean, it's Sunday morning, this is your church, and so you kind of get up and get ready, and and you come. You've done that for a while, and and you're probably going to do that again next week.
Others are here because you don't want an argument. You don't have to raise your hands if that's you. Right? Somebody that you love has said, we're going to church this morning, And you said, yes, ma'am. Or, yes, sir.
But but usually it goes one way or the other. Right? A spouse, a parent, or a child has said, we're gonna go to church, and so you're here because you want to be a good relative, but, you know, you might check the the watch every now and then to see how much longer I have. We can be honest. It's okay.
Why are you here? The author of Hebrews here in the scripture that we read today, I think, can begin to help us answer that question answer it answer it gives is this, and it's simple, but we need to remind ourselves of this enough so we never forget. We are here because of what Jesus has done. Don't ever forget that. Don't don't get priorities mixed, right?
We are here because of Christ. Through his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus became our perfect and blameless offering that was given, so that we might be forgiven of our sins if we draw near to God and profess our hope in him. So that we and profess our hope in him. None of us are here for any other reason. You are able to be here because of Christ and Christ alone.
Right? We know that through Jesus, we have been paved away. It it talks about the the curtain. Right? We go to the gospels.
The curtain has been torn. Jesus has given us a way to approach the holy of holies. We are here because of him. That's why earlier we saying he's worthy of it all. That's why he's worthy.
That's why we're here. If you forget that, you have forgotten what any of this is about. We could discuss, right? But this is at the center of it all. If we forget Jesus's role and who we are, we have forgotten the whole point.
We are here because of Christ. But then the author goes on. Right? We we we keep that main thing the main thing. But the author of Hebrews says that in light of this, there's another reason why we should be here this morning.
Right. He says, look. As we hold unswervingly to our faith in Christ, we gather so that others might be encouraged to do the same thing. To spur one another on towards love and good deeds is the way the scripture says it. We're here to be reminded of Jesus, and we're here to remind others of Jesus.
Like so many things, we can kind of boil it down to the to the great commandment. The greatest commandment that Jesus asked about in the gospels. Right? What's the greatest commandment? He says, it's to love God and to love your neighbor.
That's that's why we're here. Right? We're here to love God, and we're here to love our neighbor. We're here to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. You cannot do one without the other.
That's why you're here. If you don't believe me, we can look at the New Testament. And sure, there's scriptures. This is one, I believe, that that argues that, but but look at the whole thing. Here's an interesting fact that maybe you didn't know, maybe you did.
The term saint is used 67 times in the New Testament. Now that, in and of itself, may not surprise you. It's a common churchy word. Right? This this concept, or at least the New Testament concept of saint being someone who, through their profession of faith in Jesus Christ, has been brought into the body of Christ and has been set aside for his purposes.
Right? This is that that New Testament understanding of saints. It's used 67 times in the New Testament. That, again, that in and of itself isn't interesting. The interesting thing is that 66 out of 67 times, the word is plural.
Alright? And that 67th time, my English nerds out there will find this interesting. Right? It's singular, but that's because it's used as a collective noun, which means it's, sure, singular, but it's talking about one group of a bunch of people. That that matters.
That's important. What scripture is trying to say is that you cannot do this alone. It is impossible to do this life of faith alone. If you want to try and follow Jesus on your own, you might want to consider whether or not you're actually following Jesus. It's impossible.
And we've tried to do it for a really long time. It's a tale as old as time. Right? Even back when the book of Hebrews was written, the author tells us to not give up meeting together like some are in the habit of doing. Even 2000 years ago, we thought we could do it on our own.
No. The author is imploring you to realize if you want to return to God, you have to return to one another. Easier said than done. I'll give you that. It it's not easy being a part of a group of people, but it's what makes it rewarding.
Right? What does this look like? What does it look like for us to return to one another? What does it look like for us to engage in this spiritual practice of community? Something that I think should be as deeply ingrained with us within us as prayer that we talked about last week.
Well, again, we can go to the scripture. It's often a great place to turn. The author of Hebrews describes this for us as spurring one another on toward love and good deeds. That's what it means to be a part of a community. Other translations, if you've got a different translation with you, says, stirring one another towards love and good deeds.
No matter how you translate it, it comes from this Greek word of. And I love that this is the word. It actually kind of if we don't understand it, we'll miss the whole meaning. What it's actually telling us, when we use this word in other context, it's being used to describe someone who's in a sharp disagreement. It's only used one other place in in the New Testament, actually, and it's in Acts when when, apostles are actually splitting.
Right? They're they're in a sharp disagreement. If you spoke Greek, you might would use it when you're talking about someone who's been kind of, incited to emotion or to to stir up things within another person. We might would even use the terms today, an annoyance or a disturbance. Spur one another on towards love and good deeds.
To make it simple for you, what I think it means is this, is that as brothers and sisters in Christ, it is your job to annoy others to Jesus. Strange, I'm telling you that your job is to annoy people to Jesus. That's what siblings are for. Right? If you have a sibling, what is the job of a sibling, except if you're in a long car ride, to poke the other one long enough until they just finally explode and the parents have to say something.
Right? That's the the role of, sibling. You are called to be the annoying little brother or little sister of someone in the family of Christ. You're called to to annoy them to Jesus. We should know each other so intimately well that we know one another's struggles and desires that keep us from Jesus.
Right? And if I know you that well, and if we are truly brothers and sisters in Christ, I should berate you. I should annoy you. Methodists might use the term hold you accountable. I I should annoy you so much that you must grow closer to Christ.
Are you following Jesus? Are you following Jesus? Are you following Jesus? Are you following Jesus? Are you following Jesus?
Are you still still addicted to that sin? Are you still addicted to that sin? Are you still addicted to that sin? Are you still addicted to that sin? Are you still addicted to that sin?
Are you pursuing Christ? Are you pursuing Christ? Are you pursuing Christ? Are you pursuing Christ? Are you pursuing Christ?
Are you pursuing Christ? You should annoy one another to Jesus. Fight, push each other's buttons because growth never happens in the places that we're comfortable. Growth only happens in those places where we're uncomfortable, and it's the role of brothers and sisters to push us through that. And you can only have that kind of relationship when you spend time together.
You you can fight because you know that you love one another. You can quibble because you know the details of their lives. This is what it means to spur one another on in love and good deeds. And I tell you, we as as a Methodist should be good at that. Right?
It's deep within our DNA. This practice of community is central to who we are. John and Charles Wesley, names you may be familiar with, they first got the taste of what this could look like when they were at school in Oxford, in London. They they started this group, really by the movement of the Holy Spirit called the Oxford Holy Club, and it was a group of about 8 or 9 young men who got together and said, we want to pursue Christ with one another. So they would gather regularly.
They would hold one another accountable. They would read scriptures together. They would pray together. They would worship together. They would serve together, and their lives were transformed as a result of it.
They grew closer to Jesus. And and I would argue that it starts at the the the 8 or 9 young men in Oxford that ultimately leads us to be here today. Jesus worked through their commitment to to to bring us to a place of faith here at Sam Jones. Their lives proved to us that it is often through the company of others that Jesus draws most clear or most closely to us. Historians, if you are that, you'll know this.
Right? From that Oxford Holy Club, I talked about us here, came the the the Methodist movement. John and Charles went out from that, learned from their experience, and and started creating the the Methodist societies, the classes, and the bands. They said, look, it's important for people to be together in fellowship in community. And so they they formed these groups.
These these band groups, specifically, that that were doing the work of what Hebrews tells us to do. And so these bands, specifically, were groups of 4, 5, 6 people who loved one another enough to ask the hard questions. I'm I'm gonna give you a sample of some of the questions that they would ask each other. Here's the first one. They always started the meeting with this.
What known sins have you committed since our last meeting? That's the start. What temptations have you met with? How were you delivered from those? It's good to hear the stories of how people have been delivered.
What have you thought, said, or done, of which you're really not sure whether it's sin or not? And let's help you figure out whether you did something wrong. Then I love the last one, because it's really almost impossible to answer. Have you anything that you desire to keep secret? Every week, they would gather together and ask one another these questions.
When was the last time you looked someone in the eye and asked them about their sin? Even tougher to answer, when was the last time someone looked you in the eye and asked you about your sin? That's what it means to be frustrating and annoyingly pushing someone closer to Jesus, to spur them on to love and good deeds. One of the fascinating parts about the Oxford Holy Club, though, is not just what they did. It's who was a part of it.
Being Methodists, we know John and Charles Wesley, I've just told you, they were the kind of founding members of that. But we often forget that George Whitfield actually was a member of the Oxford Holy Club. Even if you're not Methodist, if this is your first time ever in a Methodist church, you probably have heard of George Whitfield. He was an influential person in the founding of our country, even though he he wasn't in politics. Right?
He he was an important person in the early formation of our country in the 1700. He was one of, if not the best preacher in the states. Benjamin Franklin, who wasn't really a Christian, didn't ascribe to that, wouldn't have called himself that, wrote in his autobiography how important George Whitfield was. Right? He's not a person of faith, but he saw and understood just how important George Whitfield was to this country, and the impact that he had.
People would come by the tens of thousands. In the 1700, in the tens of thousands, just to have a chance to hear Whitfield preach. He was a better preacher than John Wesley. And I say that as a Methodist. Right?
You can go back and look at him. His sermons are better than John Wesley's. So here's the question. Why then is there a Wesleyan movement, but not a Whitfieldian movement? Why are there Methodist churches today and not Whitfieldian churches?
Of course, all of us in the universal, the church of Christ. But why are there Methodist churches and not Whitfieldian churches? George Whitfield, himself, answers that question, I believe. He he one day, and I'm gonna share with you, kind of a a short transcript of it. He was having a conversation with a mutual friend, someone that knew Whitfield and someone that knew Wesley.
His name was John Pool. And he was asking him about his faith life, and and here's his answer. I think it shows for us why this is. Whitfield, talking to him, said, Well, mister Pool, are thou still a Wesleyan? He had started attending a a Wesleyan band group.
Pool replied, Yes, sir. And I thank God that I have the privilege of being in connection with him and one of his preachers. John said, Whitfield, thou art in the right place. My brother Wesley acted wisely. The souls that were awakened under his ministry, he joined in classes and bands, and thus preserved the fruits of his labor.
This I neglected and my people are a rope of sand. Trying to follow Jesus without other believers is like trying to hold together a rope that's been made of sand. A slight breeze, a small tug, and the whole thing falls apart. You need people and people need you. Scripture is clear on that.
You need to be in worship. Even when the people you're sitting next to are annoying you, you need to be here, and perhaps you need to be here even more if they are. You you need to be in small groups, even when the people you're with are asking you tough questions, questions you don't even really wanna think about, questions you haven't even answered yourself. You need to be there, and perhaps you need to be there even more if they are. You need to be in Bible studies.
You need to be studying scripture. You need to be in word in the word with other believers. Even when they're calling you and and pestering you, well, we haven't seen you in 3 weeks. Where have you been? We miss you.
You need to be there, especially when they do. If you want to return to God, you have to return to one another. You cannot do this alone. Christ is calling you to be a part of the community of faith. Christ is calling you to grow closer to one another so that you might grow closer to him.
Don't give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. Instead spur one another on to love and good deeds. Return to God, but return to one another. Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, Lord, we are thankful for this day that you have made, and we are thankful for the truth upon which we might stand, that we are here solely and only because of your son, Jesus Christ, who came and offered himself as a living sacrifice, that we might be washed by the blood of the lamb and that we might approach the most holy of places in your name.
It's why we're here, and it's why we worship. And so God, in in light of all that You have done for us, we ask that You call us not just back to You, but back to one another, because your scriptures are clear, Lord, that when we are together, we are closer to you. God, like so many 2000 years ago, as the author of Hebrews is writing this scripture, we have gotten out of the habit of being together. What we've done is we've gotten our priorities wrong, Lord. We haven't prioritized the people near us.
And in doing that we haven't prioritized you. Create in us in new hearts, change our our desires, change our wants, make you be the center of our focus. May this community, and the communities that grow us closer to You be our central focus. Lord, You've told us that we cannot do this alone. May we be strengthened by the person sitting next to us and may they be strengthened by us.
That as we go forth from this place, as we do our best to return back to You, we might return to one another. And help us, Lord, to go forth showing the world the power of what it means to be a part of community. For it is in Christ's name that we offer this prayer. Amen. Amen.