Most of you know I have a love affair with definitions, right?
Yeah, don't laugh.
And don't roll your eyes either and say, here she goes again.
Definitions are really important.
They help us to understand things more clearly.
Many of our English words have many definitions.
Okay, take the word love for instance.
Love your dog, love your mother and father, love your spouse, love your children, love of a friend.
All of those are different kinds of loves.
Well, Greek does the same thing.
It has one word and you might find five definitions for it.
And often the meaning depends upon the context of the word.
You know, how is it being used?
Well, it means this in this case.
But today, Greek only has one definition and English has about five.
So, today we're going to look at a word that's very familiar to all of us and that's church.
In the Bible, and all I have is the English transliteration in front of me,
so I have no clue whether I'm saying it right or not, but ecclesia is their word for church.
It means the called out ones, a meeting, a religious congregation, an assembly, the members of a congregation.
So, the called out ones, the members of a congregation, it's the people.
Now, we look at English and church can mean a number of things.
It can mean a building.
I need to go to the church to whatever it is.
It can be an organization.
We say the church, what do we mean?
We mean the Sabbath-keeping church, right?
We can say the church and we mean a local congregation.
That's the Greek definition really, is a local congregation a gathering of called out ones?
We can mean all the SDAs everywhere or we can mean all of God's people everywhere in the world when we say the church.
So, this morning we're going to talk a little bit about the local congregation.
That would be us, right?
We're the local congregation.
So, I'm going somewhere.
What's the purpose of church?
What's the purpose of being a body of believers that gathers together?
What's our purpose?
Instruction.
Oh, structure.
Okay, structure.
Instruction is also one of the things on my list.
Anybody else got something to add?
What's the purpose of church?
Worship.
Worship, good.
Encouragement.
Education.
Prayer.
Fellowship.
Okay, support.
Okay, Sarah, I was waiting for that one.
The purpose is to, yeah.
It's not a club, is it?
Better not be.
How about us foreign no more?
Okay.
I have gone to some organizations around here.
Oh, let's pull out just one example, okay?
I like working with fiber.
I like to spin, make yarn, make stuff with yarn.
I like to do that.
And everywhere I've been, there has been a group of ladies, and sometimes men who are extremely good at it, will gather in a group and they will meet for that purpose to spin together, to share what they're doing.
And I found a group here, but they were the us for and no more kind.
You know, the attitude was, y'all aren't from around here, are you?
Anybody heard that?
Yeah.
I kind of gave up after a while.
It was like, okay, you know, you want your foreign no more.
Is the church supposed to be that way?
Us foreign no more?
No, not at all.
Okay.
And Sarah, external.
We've been talking about internal stuff, okay?
Worship, fellowship, instruction, support.
But we have another purpose besides that, and that's we have a mission.
We have a mission.
Jennifer, your story this morning, yes!
Okay?
We have a mission to reach the world for Christ.
I mean, Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.
Go, make disciples, teach.
Okay?
Teaching happens here, instruction.
But we are to go, make disciples, and teach.
Another external purpose is to minister to those in need, right?
Minister to people, food, shelter, friends, the disabled, the needy.
Minister to other people.
And then there's various and sundering ministries.
This church has a health ministry.
We have a prison ministry.
I think they're letting us back in, aren't they, Lenny, now?
They're letting us back in.
COVID shut us down for what, three years?
Two years.
Okay.
So we're actively engaged in ministry.
I want to do a very poor diagram of the church for you.
Poor circles.
Anybody recognize this kind of a circle?
The Venn diagram.
Okay.
Who's that?
Jesus.
Okay.
So I'm going to put church board, elders, deacons, deaconesses, status quo ministry.
And Jesus is the center of that.
I'm going to tell you that's a very poor definition of the church.
It's kind of isolated.
And outside of that diagram, there are, and I'm just going to use unbelievers.
Okay?
There's the elderly.
There's criminals.
There's those that are addicted to substances of some kind or another.
There's those who are mentally ill.
There are those who are agnostic.
There's some Pharisees out here.
And actually, probably we could put a Pharisee or two on the inside.
That is a very, very poor definition of the church.
All right?
These are the margins.
The margins are those who are outside of our circle.
And our circles intersect.
All right?
They do.
They intersect.
And we interact with each other.
Before we get onto a better diagram of the church, because I want you to look at that for a while
and see if, do we fit this diagram?
Are we fitting in there?
Let's look at what Jesus did.
Who did he interact with mostly?
And who did he reach out to?
Who was the inner circle?
You have to speak up, Lenny.
The sick and the needy.
The sick and the needy out here, right?
Who was part of his inner circle, though?
The disciples.
What kind of people were they?
They were rough.
They were ordinary people.
They were just everyday Joe.
Okay?
And Joe's not here to defend himself, so.
They were diamonds in the rough.
Okay?
Peter, James, and John, likely Andrew, maybe Thomas and Bartholomew were fishermen.
Don't know for sure about that.
Peter, he was a loudmouth.
He, some say he had hoof and mouth disease.
He always had his foot in his mouth.
He always had something to say.
You know, and I said this morning in Sabbath school,
whatever came through Peter's brain came out his mouth.
There's people like that today, right?
Yeah.
Little boys are famous for that.
Okay?
Little boys, they go from think to do.
They don't process.
They think it, they do it.
They don't stop and think, I could get hurt, you know, or anything else.
They just think and they do.
Peter was like that.
I love Andrew, though.
Andrew was one of those fishermen, but the thing I noticed about Andrew,
he was always bringing somebody to Jesus.
Always.
Children, child's lunch.
You look at what Andrew did.
He was always bringing somebody to Jesus.
Here's another one, Matthew, tax collector.
They really weren't fond of tax collectors back then.
I don't think we're real fond of them either, but tax collectors,
they were a despised bunch.
There was Simon, a Canaanite and a zealot, a rabble rouser, a revolutionary,
one who was out to overthrow the Roman government.
Passionate.
That's who Simon was.
Philip, James, Judas, maybe were tradesmen, but not much is really known
about their Brackgram.
We do know about Judas.
He was a thief and an embezzler.
He had his hat and the hand in the pot, and Thaddeus is a total unknown.
We have no idea what Thaddeus did, but we do know that they were all
ordinary, everyday people with everyday, ordinary jobs.
They formed the inner circle, not a highly educated one among them.
No PhDs, no master's degrees, no BAs.
They were just everyday, ordinary people.
They could read because all boys were taught to read, not all girls.
There were a few girls that could read, but not many.
It was the boys that were taught to read.
There were no Pharisees, no Sadducees, no priests, no government or church
officials.
These were the inner core of Jesus' people, of his closest friends and
associates.
Now we're going to look out to who did he reach out to?
Who did Jesus spend time talking to?
One was in our scripture reading this morning where it said that the
scribes and the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners,
and they went to his disciples and they said, he eats and drinks with tax
collectors and sinners.
But Jesus said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician,
but those who are sick.
I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
So think with me for a minute, who did Jesus reach out to?
Everybody.
Leopards, prostitutes.
By the way, we have a prostitution, at least one prostitution ring I know of
in Chattanooga.
It's a really sad, sad situation.
These ladies are trucked in from Guatemala, and they're held prisoner,
and that's what they do.
Jesus interacted with criminals.
He interacted with the blind, the poor, the demon possessed, the outcasts,
the homeless, the mentally ill, unbelievers, Samaritans.
I mean, who talks to a Samaritan woman, especially that particular one?
Romans and Charins.
So let's spend just a bit of time evaluating ourselves as a church,
a local body of believers.
How are we doing with the mission of the church?
The spreading of the gospel?
I know some of you are really passionate about that.
People who give out tracts all the time, who talk to people,
meeting people, they're always trying to draw people in.
God bless you.
Ministry, we have a health ministry, 1890s Days Cooking School,
where we actively interact with the members of the community.
How about meeting the needs of the disadvantaged?
We do do drives for food, Sarah,
and needed items for women's shelter, back to school supplies,
for those who can't afford them.
And one of our local churches, not us, but one of our local churches,
has a day where they actively feed the homeless one day a week.
And it's known where they're going to be, and people gather there.
Okay, so can we pat ourselves on the back and say,
we're doing good, we're doing good enough.
Are we doing what Jesus would do?
Well, yes and no.
He interacted with those on the margins.
And I don't know about you, but I don't do this particularly well.
Maybe with some, but not if you look at the margins out there.
Hmm, you know, if I'm going to value make myself, I will say,
maybe I don't do that as well as I should.
I want to draw a different picture of the church.
First off, the church should not have lines around it,
because lines are borders, usually meant to keep people out.
Oops, wrong color.
Instead of a little J in the middle, we're going to make him central.
And I'm going to put a dot, or dots,
and imagine there's many of them, all of us.
This person is connected to everyone.
And so is this one.
I think I have them all connected now.
Everybody is connected to everybody else.
Do you remember the last time I was up here, maybe two or three weeks ago,
and I talked about coming to Jesus and abiding in Jesus?
The next step, if you come to Jesus and you abide in Jesus,
you have fellowship with other believers.
Now, if we were a great big huge church, it's not possible to know everybody.
You know, the biggest church I've been a member of was 350 members.
I was there for four years.
Did I ever get to know everybody?
No.
What's our excuse?
There isn't one, right?
We all should know each other.
We should all be abiding in Christ.
Jesus should be central to our life.
I think that's a better picture of church,
where we're all interconnected with one another.
But it is also different from the other diagram because
that church reaches out to the margins.
That church reaches out to the margins.
Do you have people in your sphere that fit in the margins?
I think we all do, right?
We all have people that fit in those margins somewhere.
Some of them aren't exactly easy.
Do you have people in your life that aren't easy?
I have people in my life that aren't easy.
So how do we interact with them?
How would Jesus interact with them?
You know, you look at some of these people out here.
These addicted people, they're difficult for me.
Really difficult.
Okay, that's just, you know, because of my background,
they're difficult.
Do they need to know Jesus?
You bet they do.
Can I interact with them?
Yes, even though it's difficult and it's uncomfortable.
I can do that, okay?
Lepers, well, we don't have lepers today, do we?
Not around us.
But are there any people that have social leprosy?
There are people that have social leprosy, okay?
Any teacher knows that.
You have kids in your class that have social leprosy.
The other kids, it's not so evident with the little guys,
although, yeah, she's nodding her head no, yeah,
it's evident, isn't it?
The social leprosy thing.
There are kids that kids will just steer clear of.
Do they need a loving hand?
They do.
You know, I've had students in my class,
especially the younger ones, that cling to me
like there's no tomorrow.
Like I'm the only person in their life,
and everywhere I go to move, I have this kid just as close
to me as they possibly can get.
Are they accepted by the others?
No, they're not.
And they need, although my initial human reaction is
give me some space, child, you know,
but they need that love.
How about adults?
Are there adults that are socially challenged?
Yeah, there are.
There are.
What's our initial reaction?
Or is it to include, to reach out to?
Hey, let's look at some of those others
that were on my list of.
The disabled.
How easy is it to ignore somebody in a wheelchair?
It's really easy.
You just look straight ahead, right?
Do they need us to interact with them, to love them?
Yeah, they do.
How about the elderly, the ones that don't show up very often?
Now, I'm not willing to claim being elderly yet.
My face may say otherwise, but I'm not willing to claim that, okay?
But do we have some older folks that we tend to ignore?
Yeah, okay.
We need to be reaching out to them.
Oh, how about the Pharisees?
They're just plain difficult.
They've got the information, right?
Right?
They have the information,
but do they know Jesus?
Not usually.
Do they need somebody to love them, to take them in?
Yes.
The mentally ill.
They can be really difficult, but do they need to know Jesus?
Yeah, they need to know Jesus.
How about those who are antagonistic?
They're tough, but they're out here on the margins,
and does anybody love them?
They can change.
You are right.
You are absolutely right.
They can change.
It's a challenge.
First, we need this, right?
We need that kind of a church, and then we need to reach out.
Can we do it in an organized fashion?
We need to.
We can do it in an organized fashion.
Can we do it as individuals?
Yes, we can do it as individuals.
It's sometimes safer to do it in groups of two or three.
I'm looking at some of these.
It's safer to do it in twos and threes, okay?
You take the criminal element.
Yeah, if you have an opportunity.
In twos and threes, it's a really good idea, one at a time.
How about the homeless?
I know of a church member who makes lunches and passes them out.
I think that's really cool.
You know, these people that stand on the intersections usually, okay?
I most commonly see them when I'm pulling into Walmart on Gun Barrel.
That's a favorite place to stand.
You can roll down your window and pass out a lunch, you know?
And get the blessing for doing it, and maybe stick a tract or something in that lunch,
something for them to read.
Can we do more?
Yeah.
Again, ask God what you can do.
What fits with your abilities in your circumstances?
We can be Jesus to somebody.
Jesus was somebody to all of those people.
He was somebody to all of the margin people.
Can I be somebody to all of the margin people?
Yeah.
Paul's telling me, yes, I can.
I'm going, woo.
Can I be Jesus to some of those people?
Yeah, I can, okay?
So ask yourself, what fits your abilities in your circumstances?
We are meant to be his hands and his feet.
You know, who do you know in your life that's on the margins?
What can you do?
I don't have solutions this morning.
I'm just giving you food for thought.
And all of us need to ask just one question.
Jesus, what would you have me do?
What would you have me do?