____________________________________________________ THE GOSPEL OBSERVER ____________________________________________________ "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19,20). ____________________________________________________ January 5, 2003 ____________________________________________________ Contents: 1) You Are Getting Sleepy, Sleepy.... (Jim R. Everett) 2) Zeal for Christ in the Spirit of Christ (Rick Liggin) 3) Adjusting the Thermostat (Steve Klein) 4) What is the Work of the Church? (Phillip Mullins) 5) News & Notes ____________________________________________________ -1- You Are Getting Sleepy, Sleepy.... by Jim R. Everett A lady once told me that she got tapes of all my sermons -- that nearly busted the buttons off my new suit. But then she added that when she could not sleep at night, she would start listening to one of my taped sermons and would promptly fall asleep with no difficulty. For some unknown reason, people have always enjoyed picking on me and she knew how much people sleeping during the assembly disturbed me. I guess that people going to sleep in an assembly has always been a problem -- Eutychus went to sleep and fell from the third loft (Acts 20:9). Some suggest that the late hour, the hard work that Eutychus had probably done and Paul's long sermon all contributed to Eutychus' fall -- perhaps so. I know that sometimes people are on medication that makes them drowsy. I am also aware that others work late hours. There are also times when stress from traumatic events in life make it almost impossible to sleep at night and, consequently, hinder functioning in the waking hours. I also understand that as we get older we tend to get drowsy when we sit still for awhile. I genuinely appreciate and commend the faithfulness that brings tired people to the assembly -- it is better that they be at the assembly, even as they struggle with fatigue. I am sympathetic with the difficulty they experience and will not complain, unless their snoring is louder than my preaching. I have no sympathy nor commendation, however, for people who willingly stay up late on Saturday night to go cruising, watch a late movie, etc., and find that they are so tired on the Lord's Day that they are unable to listen to God's word. Preparing our hearts for worship involves getting enough rest so that we can arise early and get to the assembly alert and ready to worship. Others, indifferent to the message, doze away. That is an insult to God and also an understandable affront to any speaker. Though Paul was addressing a spiritual problem when he said, "Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ will give thee light..." (Ephesians 5:14), this would necessarily include the unconscious heart in the assembly worship. ____________________________________________________ -2- Zeal for Christ in the Spirit of Christ by Rick Liggin "And it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem; and He sent messengers on ahead of Him. And they went, and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make arrangements for Him. And they did not receive Him, because He was journeying with His face toward Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, 'Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?' But He turned and rebuked them, and said, 'You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them'" (Lk. 9:51-56). In commenting on this text, G. Campbell Morgan made a profound observation; he said, "It is possible to be zealous for the honor of God in a spirit which puts us out of fellowship with God" (The Gospel According To Luke, p. 132). This statement seems to exactly describe the mistake of James and John on this occasion. Their deep sense of loyalty and respect for Jesus caused them to want to defend Him in the presence of those who did not share their respect. Their loyalty, by itself, was not a bad thing. In fact, it was a good thing-and quite admirable. But the way in which they wanted to show their loyalty proved that they had not yet imbibed enough of the spirit of Christ. Their response was totally out of character with His life and (saving) mission. Instead of trying to save the enemies of Jesus, James and John wanted to kill them-with fire from heaven! Here was zeal, for sure, but zeal in a wrong spirit. This same thing happens to us today when we find ourselves despising the enemies of God--hating the sinner, rather than just hating the sin. Oh, we pay lip service to the fact that we only hate the sin, but our attitude, at times, subtly suggests otherwise. We tend to look down our noses at those whose lives are messed up by sin, thinking, "He's just getting what he deserves." Our attitude, even as we try to tell him about his need to repent, is, "You're going to hell and I'm kind of glad of it!" This wrong spirit also manifests itself in the way some of us (especially in writing) defend truth against error taught by denominational preachers-or even by our own brethren. I find myself, at times, in agreement with the point of truth being defended, but completely opposed to and even embarrassed by the spirit manifested in the one defending the truth. Instead of trying to correct those in opposition to truth with kindness and gentleness, in genuine hope that God will "grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of truth" (2 Tim. 2:24-26), we seem to be more interested in being quarrelsome and stirring up strife. When such an attitude finds place in our hearts it proves that we still have a carnal spirit-despite our zeal for Christ. It proves that, despite our loyalty to Jesus, we still have not yet imbibed enough of His spirit. Such actions and attitudes are totally out of character with that of our Lord's. And that carnal spirit, though filled with a loyalty to Him, will cause us to be separated from God. Shall we give up our loyalty to Christ and compromise the truth? Never! Should we continue to zealously defend Jesus? Absolutely! But let's make sure that our zeal is tempered by His godly spirit! Let's not be zealous for God in a way that puts us out of fellowship with Him. No one wins when that happens--except maybe the devil. -- Via Think on These Things, October-November- December, 2002 ____________________________________________________ -3- Adjusting the Thermostat by Steve Klein You've no doubt heard of Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will. I've recently discovered a similar universal truth. I'm thinking of calling it Klein's Thermostat Theorem. It goes something like this: In any room containing more than one person, the thermostat will invariably be set so that half the people will be too cold, and the other half too hot. The follow-up truth, which we might call the Cold Feet Corollary, is that If only one person is in the room, half of his body will be too cold, and the other half too hot. And then there's the Air Adjustment Adage, which states that, Any adjustment to the thermostat will please no more than half the people in the room and only make matters worse. Despite the obvious truth of the Air Adjustment Adage, many people constantly attempt to adjust the thermostat in an effort to make themselves more comfortable. After many years of observation, I can now state with great assurance that 98.3% of the time, adjustments made to the thermostat are aimed at benefiting the person doing the adjusting (or those with similar body temperatures). The remaining 1.7% of adjustments are made to benefit either someone lying in a hospital bed or the President. In Philippians 2:4 God commands, "Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others." Here then is a principle that should guide Christians not only in adjusting thermostats, but also in many other every day actions. When it comes to matters of personal interest, where there is no right or wrong (like the temperature of a room), we ought to be at least as concerned about others as we are ourselves. In matters of opinion or personal judgment (like room temperature, or eating meat, or keeping holidays), our focus should not be on pleasing ourselves, but pleasing others. In Romans 15:1-2, the inspired apostle Paul concluded his discussion of such matters found in Romans 14) with these words: "We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification." The critical issue here is not the temperature of a room, but learning to "walk in love" (Ephesians 5:2). Love "does not seek its own" (1 Corinthians 13:5). Love cares as much for the welfare of others as it does for its own welfare. The Lord Jesus who, "loved us and gave himself up for us" pleads with us to follow in his steps. "Let all that you do be done with love" (1 Corinthians 16:14). -- Via The Bulletin of the Church of Christ at New Georgia, November 24, 2002 ____________________________________________________ -4- What is the Work of the Church? by Phillip Mullins There are so many good causes in the world. There are so many needs that people have. There are so many problems in society that need to be addressed. Of all of these, which ones merit the attention of the church? First of all, what is the church? As the apostle Paul is addressing the Corinthians in his first letter, he says, "To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,..." (I Corinthians 1:2). The Greek word for church means "the called out". It was used to describe a gathering of citizens to decide political matters or a band of men who would go off to war. It is a collective noun and its use in the New Testament indicates that the church is a collection of people. However, the church is not just any gathering of people. As the above verse indicates, it is the body of people who are sanctified in Christ, called to be saints, and who call on the name of Jesus. The church is the collection of people who have been called out of sin to follow Christ. The term can either be used for the entire collection of saved people in Christ (Matthew 16:18) or an assembly of them in a given location, as in the case with the church of God in Corinth. According to the instructions and examples of the New Testament, it is only this local church that organizes and works as a unit. What kind of work does the collection of Christians do in a given community? What are the needs and problems upon which they focus? The local church at Antioch is a good example of the kind of work a local church does. Acts 11:22-30 lists three things that this local church did in fulfilling their divine calling. In vs. 22-24 we see that Barnabas comes from Jerusalem and works with the church in Antioch. Vs. 24 ends by saying that, "...And a great many people were added to the Lord." Therefore, evangelism is a work of the local church. The local church is God's instrument to reach others in a community with His saving gospel. A local church can even participate in the preaching of the gospel in other places as Antioch did in sending out Barnabas and Saul to go to other lands and preach (Acts 13:1-3). In vs. 25-26 of the eleventh chapter of Acts, Saul of Tarsus is brought to Antioch. The passage records that Saul, later called Paul, teamed up with Barnabas to aid this local church. Vs. 26 comments that, "...for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people." This local body of Christ was assembling and securing teachers to aid its members in growing in the word of God. Edification is to be another work of the church. Ephesians 4:12-13 speaks of this work and the goal of it, "...till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." The church is to devote its energies, time, and resources to aiding individuals to grow in Christ. Acts 11:27-30 tells us how that the church at Antioch heard about coming economic hardship for Christians in Judea. They gathered funds and sent them to the brethren there to relieve them from physical need. Acts 2 and 4 tell us about how that the church in Jerusalem relieved needy saints that were within that local congregation. A local church of Christ is authorized to help needy Christians locally or even in another place. Benevolence is the third work that the Lord's church is to do. Evangelism, edification, and benevolence to needy Christians are the only three works that the church of the New Testament did or were commanded to do. It is imperative that if a body of people claim to be Christ's church, that they perform all of these works and these only. For a church to become distracted with other causes, though wholesome as they may be, is to lose its focus and even identity as the church that Christ built. The Lord's church has a distinct reason for existing and it has God-given goals to accomplish. The church belongs to Christ and none of us have the right to change the church's mission. Recreation, politics, community service, and relief to needy non-Christians are not sinful in and of themselves. They can freely be engaged in by the individual Christian. However, they are not part of the mission and work of the church of the New Testament. The Lord is wise enough to know what is the best work for His church. Are we wise enough to respect His will on the matter? -- Via The Manslick Road Speaker ____________________________________________________ -5- News & Notes We want to be remembering in prayer my friend Rick Fleeman of Kitts Hill, Ohio. He is a Christian and works for a company that might soon cease to be. He's also a family man with two young children -- the youngest, being just several months old. Let us pray that all will work out well for him and his family -- and for the company, too. Though several of us have already signed the list (on the back bulletin board) for taking care of the property and building during 2003, there might still be some other months opened for this, if you would like to sign up, too. We are glad and thankful for the presence of each one this day -- and especially to those of you who are visiting with us. We hope to be seeing you again. ____________________________________________________ MYRTLE STREET CHURCH OF CHRIST 1022 Myrtle Street Denham Springs, LA 70726 (225) 664-8208 Sunday: 9:15 AM, 10:00 AM, 4:00 PM Wednesday: 7:00 PM evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (225) 667-4520 e-mail: tedwards@onemain.com web site: http://home.onemain.com/~tedwards/go ____________________________________________________