LHH Culture

It always amazes me how the Bible gives such a clear picture of what church should be:  A tithing community of Jesus disciples who study His teachings and commandments on love and service, and then obey them through words and actions. 

Jesus calls the Church to be a community that cares so much about one another that those not part of it are amazed and intrigued by it.  In this community people are being loved.  And through this love people are following Jesus’ teachings; not because they are commanded to, but because they willingly choose to.  And in this community, people are using their tithes to reach out to others who are struggling to get back on their feet (Not handouts, but a hand up).  

Yet Jesus warns us not to be so wrapped up in the community of the believers that we lose sight of our mission as a church.  And our mission is to seek out the lost and the sick that are in need of the hope only Jesus can offer.  We have to be a community that sees the world the way Jesus does – wanting to see no one perish.

In Luke 15: 1-7, notice who was gathering around to hear what Jesus was teaching – the tax collectors and the “sinners”.

But before we move on, let’s define who these people are.

The Tax Collector – He was Jewish, yet worked for the Roman Government as a collection agent.  His job was to collect taxes from the Jews under the rule of the Roman Empire.  He was regarded as an outcast, and therefore could not serve as a witness or a judge, and he and his family were expelled from the Synagogue.

The Sinner – He was an evil person as well as the one who refused to follow the Mosaic Law as interpreted by the teachers of the law.  He was commonly known by what he did:  a tax collector, an adulterer, a robber, a murderer, and the like.

Now, why would these types of people want to hang with Jesus?  They hung with Him because He did not come to condemn them like the religious leaders of His day.  Where the religious leaders shunned and criticized these types of people, Jesus listened to them – gave them “the time of day.”   Jesus didn’t consider them outcasts.  He treated them like they would want to be treated, which gave Him a voice among them. 

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law blatantly scorned such people every opportunity they got.  They saw themselves as more righteous and were upset that “the sinners” would not listen to them since they were the ones living righteously in “God’s” eyes.

So Jesus took some time to teach a parable to His disciples, which was directly connected to what He was hearing in the murmurs from the Pharisees.

And His point in this parable is this:  Mission to the Church:  Seek the Lost.

Jesus was clearly speaking to the Pharisees that He came into this world to seek and save those who are spiritually lost, not those who think they are doing everything right and don’t need to be saved.  He was saying that the self-righteous aren’t in need of fixing because they already see themselves as not-broken.  He was saying the lost are lost forever unless we go seeking for them.

And so He is saying to us that our mission as a church is the same mission He had in His ministry – to seek those who are spiritually lost and bring them home.

LHH must be a missional church.  

Jesus calls us to reach out to the spiritually sick.  In Mark 2:17 he says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

And these were the ones He reached out to.  He taught and shared with those who were spiritually lost.  The self-righteous were not His target.   He sought out those who sought out Him.  Knowing this should cause you and me to be discerning about whom we seek.

As individual followers of Christ, we have to realize that not everyone is going to follow Christ.  Those who are high on themselves (pious in who they are and what they believe) are not the ones Jesus sought.  Instead, He sought out those who had no preconceived ideas of who He was and were sensitive to Him.

So if we’re going to pour our lives into people who are spiritually lost, then let’s be smart about whom we seek. 

It’s just like fishing – throw out the bait in the water hole, and if you get no strikes, reel it in and move on to another hole.  

There will be times where you get no bites no matter what water hole you’re fishing in.   There will be other times where you won’t be able to get your bait in the water fast enough.   In either case, you’ve got to keep fishing and be selective about where you fish.  Fishing in ankle deep water is probably not going to catch you many fish.

In fact, the best places to fish are in those areas that are tough to get to; therefore not a very comfortable experience to get there.  Yet when there, you ask yourself, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”  With regards to people, these areas are places of pain, struggle, and mourning – the areas where we’re not quite sure how to act or know what to say.  But know this, people who are hurting are more receptive to being found and brought home.  They’ve hit rock bottom or know they are heading there, and Jesus is the only hope they have left. 

So fish for people who are hurting and struggling.  It’s these people who are usually seeking to be found, and Jesus wants to bring them home.

I woud advise you to limit your time fishing in areas that are overfished or are not conducive to holding fish.  With regard to people, these are those who don’t want to believe in Jesus because they know they are right and He is wrong.  These people are going to take extreme work to bring home.  In fact, while you’re trying to lift them out of the hole, they are fighting you to stay in the hole and wrapping your line around debris in the water.

These type of people take a lot of energy and effort, so the best avenue to take with them is prayer.  When you see people whose response to the spiritual bait you just threw them is defiance and argument, then your job is to model Christ through your actions and words – to pray for them – to pray that God open their hearts to hear what you have to share.  Maybe one day they will take the bait.

So we each have an individual mission to share the hope of Jesus Christ.  But if there is one thing I have learned in my 43 years of life, I cannot save the world.  Come on, if Jesus, God in the flesh, couldn’t win them all over to His side, what made me think I could?  But that’s not an excuse to excuse the mission I’ve been called to do.

Therefore I must plant many seeds and pray that God give me opportunity to sometimes share in the harvest.  My part is to be faithful in sharing the message of hope.  God must do the rest.

As a body of believers, our mission is to unite together in opportunities of mission.

We presently support a missionary family to Honduras.  Our goal, with time, is to support more missionaries that will be able to share the Gospel in regions we cannot.

But, though we aren’t all called to participate physically in global missions, each church of the body of Christ has a mission to its community.  This is so much harder than giving money to someone else to do the hard work in sharing the Gospel.  It’s harder because we physically have to participate in the community in ways other than rooming in it and going to work.  It’s harder because we have to meet new people and we have to be prepared to have conversation with them.  And these new people might be “unchurched”, “worldly”, “sinners”, and the like.  It’s harder because there is the fear of what could go wrong.

And LHH has done some of the hard work, though the work is never done.  

We have been missional in the following ways:

·         I use my skills as a former math teacher to come to the elementary school once a week to tutor kids in math;

·         We donated $750 to the Hedgesville Elementary PTO for the inflatables used for their fundraising carnival event so that they could use the money raised to help better the students’ education at the school;

·         We also volunteered time and manpower at the carnival to help them put on a great event;

·         We passed out free water bottles to the guests of the carnival;

·         We have donated boxes of food to families in need from both the elementary and high schools the past two Thanksgivings;

·         We have mown lawns and done yard work for a single mother;

·         We have put in an air-conditioning unit for a gentleman who was really struggling physically in the midst of the heat waves last summer;

·         We have assisted struggling families within the church to help get them back on their feet;

·         We have shared the Gospel through words, love, and action. 

And being missional does not always produce immediate results.

But what are results?  Results are not numbers of people coming to church.  Results are people coming to worship who are being discipled to follow and obey the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Results are disciples.

So LHH will always be a missional church looking to find that one poor soul that is lost to bring him/her home.  And that means we have to believe that each of us are called to do our part in reaching out to them.   

Though remember, the work is never finished because we are led by the Holy Spirit.  And He will continue to provide you and me, the church, opportunities to seek and find the lost – to go fishing.

Just think, as a follower of Christ, where would you be today if no one took the time to invest in you?  To ask you about Jesus?  To invite you to come and bring you to worship?  Would you be calling Jesus, Savior?  Most likely not.

LHH will be missional.  What part of the mission is yours?

LHH Culture

In review of LHH culture, we will be a church who:

1.      Shows LOVE,

2.      Seeks to SERVE,

3.      Desires COMMUNITY and

4.      Values DISCIPLESHIP.

 And as I shared last Sunday, we don’t look at these God-given purposes as separate entities, but rather as cyclical, meaning they intertwine together and are an integral part of you and me as we bring God’s light into a dark world.

Today we’re going to look at the 5^th area of purpose that God envisions for this church.

But before we jump into what God’s Word has to say about it, I need to say that this is one of those “touchy” subjects that many pastors are afraid to preach on and that some in the church feel the pastor should never mention.

Yet it involves the one subject that Jesus spoke of more than any other, except the Kingdom of God.  He spoke of it more than heaven and hell combined.  Of His 39 parables, 11 of them speak of this subject.  And in the Gospel of Luke, 1 out of every 7 verses mentions the subject.

So, I think you’ve guessed the subject is money.  And in particular we’re going to be looking at tithing and how God desires it to be taught, as well as its importance for the people of LHH.

In Luke 21: 1-4, Jesus is looking and watching people as they come into the area of the temple court where offering boxes were set up and women were allowed to be.  He watches as they bring their gifts, their tithes, their offerings to put into the temple treasury.

As He is watching, He notices that a widow has come in and dropped 2 small copper coins into one of the collection boxes.  And so He takes some time to teach His disciples on what He has just seen.

What’s neat to me about the words Luke recorded in his gospel is that he merely recorded a casual conversation that Jesus shared with His disciples.  And Jesus did this often – took the time to teach based upon what He was observing.

What He sees and hears during this observation are coins being deposited - deposited into inverted megaphone shape openings that funnel the coins into the boxes. 

So can you hear it?  Can you hear the coins clanging through the funnel onto the coins already collected?  I can.  I hear that lots of coins will make lots of noise, and a couple coins of the smallest currency will make little noise as they are dropped into the box.

And so does Jesus and His disciples.  And Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, this poor (literally) widow has put in more than all the others.”

Now His disciples, if they were really paying attention, are probably wondering, “What do you mean?  All the others put in large sums of coins and she only put in two of minimal value.”

But Jesus’ point then and for us now is this:  Quality over Quantity.

Jesus is not looking at how much a person gives, but rather the MOTIVATION behind the gift.

Many of the people who were putting their tithes in the boxes that day, were giving 10%, or maybe more, but it was being done out of ritual and vain conceit.  It was done with no thought of the importance and value that comes from giving.  They were giving because they were supposed to give.  They were giving because it was commanded of them in their religion.  They were giving because they wanted people to notice how righteous they were by giving. 

But the people of His day just weren’t getting it; and sad to say, neither do we. 

·         Jesus wants people to give out of GRATITUDE as they remember the gift of forgiveness offered to them through His sacrifice. 

·         Jesus wants those who have been blessed with more to give GENEROUSLY to God rather than keep it for themselves. 

·         Jesus wants people to give out of RELATIONSHIP and LOVE, not out of commandment.

This is a true story by Brian Kluth, radio host of Give With Joy.

A number of years ago, I was teaching a seminar on what the Bible teaches about finances to Christians in Eastern Europe. After the seminar, one of the people came and told me how much the teaching helped everyone. He said during the 70 years communism was in their country, people were told the Communist government owned everything and the government would provide for everyone. He went on to say that communism fell, and people came from America and said that capitalism was the way to go--where people own everything and they have to provide for themselves. He then said, today I learned the best news of all. God is the owner of everything and He is our provider. He learned people must be faithful and generous with whatever God gives them.

Here’s another true example by Brian Kluth that illustrates how God uses tithe given with the right intent – the right motivation.

I heard a missionary tell an amazing story of a child’s generosity. John Bechtel, a missionary in Hong Kong, wanted to start a Christian camp to reach people for Christ. A bankrupt multimillion-dollar hotel and conference center became available for sale. He made an offer to purchase the property and then traveled around the world to raise the millions he would need. But no one was willing to help and he returned to Hong Kong discouraged. Then one day he got a letter from a young girl that included $1 and a note saying she wanted him to use this to buy the camp. John Bechtel prayed and took the girl’s $1 to the real estate closing and the corporation decided to accept the $1 as full payment! Since the camp first opened, over a million people have come and over 100,000 have accepted Christ.

So God wants quality over quantity.  Quantity means nothing if being given for invalid intentions.  He wants our gifts to be given with the right spirit.  Jesus was telling His disciples, my paraphrase, “A little given out of SACRIFICE is far greater than a lot given out of conceit, pride, or indifference.”

And so Jesus says to His disciples to clarify His prior statement, “All these people gave gifts out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Jesus’ point in this statement is:  Tithing = Trust

This is critical.  He wants us to see in this woman someone who was willing to give everything she had because she trusted that God would meet her needs.

God wants to see in our giving that we are giving out of TRUST, and how much to give varies per individual and family.  But it is a very, very important component in our faith journey.

The widow that Jesus saw wasn’t looking for anyone to notice.  She put it in because she wanted to.  Jesus said she gave everything she had to live on into that offering box.  And basically, we can say that her 2 small coins were kind of like today’s penny – not much to live off of.

But yet, she did it knowing that she didn’t have a husband to provide a living for her.  She did it because she trusted that God would provide for her needs.

I think she really understood what Jesus taught His disciples in Luke 12: 27-31.

“Consider how the lilies grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you, not even Solomon, in all his splendor, was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith!  And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.  For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows you need them.  But seek His Kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”

Tithing equals trust.  In order to give – to give of my first fruits and not what is left over (the Biblical definition of tithing) – I must trust God to expand the income I have left.  My mind says this is not possible, but FAITH proves that it is true – that God truly provides for my daily needs when I’m willing to trust Him.

Brian Kluth shared another story on trust in giving.

Steve owned a small business and had an annual salary of $50,000. He went to a conference where Dr. Bill Bright challenged people to give a million dollars to the LORD’s work. Steve told Dr. Bright it would be impossible for his family to give a million dollars. Dr. Bright asked, “How much money did you make last year, and how much did you give?” Steve said, “My salary is $50,000 and we gave $15,000.” Dr. Bright said, “Next year, trust God to help you give $50,000.” But Steve said, “That’s my entire salary!” Dr. Bright said, “Trust God and see how He provides.” With God’s help, Steve’s business did well and his family joyfully gave $50,000. The following year, God helped them give $100,000. Each year, his family lived on his $50,000 salary and gave all their extra income to the LORD’s work. Within several years, they gave over a million dollars!

I share this story, not to guilt anyone, which would include me, but rather to show how it takes trust in order to see God work through our giving.  Giving takes extreme faith because we see the bills and we know how much income we have – it seems impossible to give.  Yet for some reason, living on 90%, with 10% going to God’s Kingdom, goes further than living on 100%.  Can’t explain it, other than it is God’s way of proving to us that He can be trusted in what He says.

At LHH, we will be a community of givers.  Though we pressure no one to give, we understand that in order for God’s ministry to occur – to reach-in to the people of His Church and to reach-out to the spiritually lost - we must give. 

I preach on tithing as a purpose – a vision – from God for this church because we want to be a church that invests into the people of this church.  I believe that tithe is meant to be used for ministering to others, not for paying large amounts for buildings and large salaries. 

So we want to use tithe as a PEOPLE INVESTMENT.  I believe that when people are struggling within the church we want to reach out to them to get them back on their feet.  In response, they will be encouraged to give in their future so that the investment can be used to benefit others who are facing financial struggles like they did. 

And so tithe is not merely a command to do, but rather a way to invest into the lives of people – a way to look like and be the community of believers as we read about in the Bible.

·      We want to use tithe to support the missional efforts of our COMMON UNITY GROUPS.  We believe that the people of the church can use the money more effectively to reach out to the spiritually lost and hurting in their communities.  We believe that by tithing back to the groups we are giving them an opportunity to share the love and truth about Jesus.  It’s called opportunistic evangelism.

·       We want to use tithe to participate in GLOBAL MISSIONS.  We want to help fulfill the command to the church to go into all nations and make disciples.

·       We want to use tithe to increase the QUALITY OF THE MINISTRIES we offer.

·       We want to use tithe to reach out to the PEOPLE OF HEDGESVILLE so as to build bridges to them rather than isolate ourselves on an island waiting for Jesus’ return. 

Remember, tithe is an investment for the future – the eternal – yet it has its benefits for today.  When we tithe we are building up treasures in heaven that will never run dry.  But also, we get to see God work today when He miraculously sees that our needs are met.

Jesus said in Luke 12:  33b, “Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”

It’s often hard for us to do because we only see the temporary – the finite.  We see the trouble we’re facing right now and are just trying to survive in the instant.  But Jesus’ plan for us on earth is to prepare ourselves for the future.  So in order for you and me to effectively do this with our money, we have to learn to tithe.  And in tithing, God is looking for QUALITY AND TRUST.

Will you invest for the future?  Will you invest so that the Kingdom of God can expand through souls coming into a saving relationship with Him?  Will you invest so that your retirement is eternal and will be lavish and extravagant because you invested into the Kingdom of God?

Know this:  This investment is not like the ones we have on earth who gain one day and lose the next.  No, this is the one investment that never loses.  It is guaranteed for life - eternal life. 

LHH Culture

LOVE, SERVICE, AND COMMUNITY are three of God’s purposes for the individuals of His Church.  And the beautiful thing about God’s purposes is that they intertwine with one another to make the follower of Christ strong in and assured of his/her salvation.

LHH must be and will be a culture of people who care for and about one another.  It has to be, if we’re to truly say we are living according to God’s Word – to the teachings He passed onto His children throughout time – to the teachings Jesus gave us about the Kingdom of God.

And don’t forget that the time we are given to walk this earth, when we become children of God, is to be spent preparing ourselves for the eternal life that awaits us in Heaven.  

So knowing this changes our goals – our goals are no longer designed for what this short life on earth has to offer, but instead are based upon what Heaven offers.

Now remember, everyone is a creation of God, but not everyone is a child of God.

You are not a child of God until you make the choice that you need a Savior for your mistakes – your sins.  And it’s through your repentance of these sins that God counts you as His child.  It is through your repentance that God adopts you into His family.  And without adoption papers, we don’t get our name changed to God’s last name.

The choice to be ADOPTED falls completely on your shoulders and mine.  And if I don’t believe that Jesus is the INK that God uses to sign my adoption papers, then my belief in God means nothing.

1 John 2: 22-23 states, “Who is the liar?  It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ.  Such a man is the antichrist – he denies the Father and the Son.  No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

Have you made the choice to be adopted?  If you haven’t, don’t wait until tomorrow.  It may be too late. 

And if you made the choice recently or even today, the process of rearing is just beginning; whereas, the process of rearing never ends if you made the choice a while ago.

When Drew was born into my family almost 13 years ago, he took on the name we gave him – Drew Christian Cardwell.  But that was just the beginning for him and for us as his parents.  Fortunately for those adopted into God’s family, God doesn’t have to learn to be a parent on the fly like we humans do.  He wrote the book.  

But that’s not my point in this illustration.  My point is this, just as Drew has to be nurtured, trained, and loved from his infancy throughout his entire life by the imperfect Caroline and me, God must nurture, train, and love on His adopted children from their infancy in Christ until they come into His physical presence.

And this process of nurture, training, and love is what God desires to see lived out in the people of LHH.

In Matthew 28: 18-19, the church is given its’ mandate to reach out to the world.  And Jesus didn’t call the church to go out and get people saved.  Instead He spoke these words, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make DISCIPLES of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

God’s Big Idea from this passage is this:  GOD WANTS DISCIPLES, NOT PUNCHED TICKETS.

And DISCIPLESHIP is merely applying and following the teachings and trainings of Christ.

So how were the disciples going to do this?  How were they going to make disciples?  They were going to make disciples by baptizing and teaching the new converts to obey the teachings that Jesus had taught them.

And you see there’s a huge difference between those who only want to be saved and those who are disciples.  Those who only see themselves as saved – as having a punched ticket – a “get out of hell” pass – give nothing more to Jesus than mere lip service.  Those who are disciples are being taught the core values of Jesus and are obeying them.

Tell me, who is Jesus more pleased to associate Himself with?  You’re right – the disciple.  With disciples there is RELATIONSHIP, and where there is relationship, there is OBEDIENCE.

LHH must be a culture that reaches out to the spiritually lost and blind of this world.  And when they make the choice to be adopted into God’s family, it is our calling to teach them to obey the ways of Jesus.  In doing so, they are being prepared for a future of eternity with God.

So how will the newly adopted be taught?  They will be taught through YOU & ME. 

We are Jesus in the flesh.  That can be scary – really scary!!!!!!  But if we obey His commands to live the way God has taught us to live, we will be a pretty good representation.  

We should be able to say to those coming into the flock, the church, “Look at me and follow my example.”  There’s not pride in such a statement because what others should be seeing in you and me is the lesson Jesus taught on humility.  If they are seeing this community loving and serving one another, they are truly seeing humility.

What does this really look like at LHH?  How do we become disciples?  How do we disciple others? 

Well, I really believe that the avenues you take in your spiritual growth flow out of you into others who are just beginning their walk.  So the laws of nature say, “You put nothing in, nothing will come out.  You put in more than the capacity can hold, and it has to overflow.”  

You get the picture – the discipleship of others will only be as GREAT as the disciple you are.

And at LHH there are many ways we encourage you to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ; many being organic.  I’ll list five.

1)    Participate in COMMON UNITY GROUPS for a time of fellowship and study

2)    WORSHIP weekly on Sunday morning gatherings

3)    SELF-FEED – spend time daily in God’s Word through reading or listening to the Bible on CD

4)    Listen to CHRISTIAN RADIO – lyrics and teachings, and

5)    FAST AND PRAY – the source of one-on-one communication with the Teacher, Himself.

People need to see in you and me that we KNOW the God we serve.  And the more you know, the more you can share with others.  And the more you can share with others, the greater the fruit you are producing in their lives, as well as yours.

LHH must be a culture of people who VALUE STUDY – people who want to know everything there is to know about God – His principles and His commands.

Not so we can say, “Look at me!  Look at how knowledgeable I am about God.”  But rather so we can fulfill God’s purpose for each of us to go into the world and make disciples.  

After all, if we don’t obey the teachings of Jesus, how can we expect anyone else to follow His teachings?

So where are you today?  No matter whether you just made the choice to be adopted into God’s family or made the choice some time ago, God is in the business of rearing His children, and it’s called DISCIPLESHIP.

LHH Culture

LHH is God’s church – not that we believe we are His only church, but rather that we are His church if we live according to His purpose, vision, and plans.

God’s favor rests on individuals and churches who purposely seek to do His will in the time given to them on this earth.  And some really struggle to find God’s purpose and will for their lives – they search high and low, but never seem to find it.  Why? I mean they really want to find God’s purpose and will for their lives.

The reason for the struggle stems from the following 2 scenarios: 

1)  Some fail to see God’s purpose for their lives because there is pride in their search- they want to do BIG and AMAZING things for God solely for the glamour and fame they will receive as a result. 

2)  The second scenario involves no pride, but the search for purpose produces no results because they only see God’s purposes in the BIG things, missing the answers that are staring them directly in the face.

You know how I know?  I know because I have been on both sides of these scenarios.  I am speaking from experience. 

There were times where I wished I could be like Billy Graham winning tons of souls to Christ – how glamorous that would be!  There were also times where I wrestled with my purpose simply because I didn’t know who God really is.

So through my struggle, I bring to you the answers to God’s purposes that I have come to know.  And notice I didn’t say purpose, but purposes because God has multiple purposes for everyone.  

And these purposes are the culture of LHH that we are to exemplify to one another and to the people God brings into our lives.

We’ve already looked at the 2 purposes that Christ clearly modeled for us. They are LOVE AND SERVICE.

Today we’re going to look at a 3^rd piece of culture – a 3^rd piece of purpose that God envisions for the people of LHH.  We can find this piece in the first body of believers – the first church – as recorded in Acts – Acts 2: 42-47 and Acts 4: 32-37.

God’s Big Idea from these passages is:  CHURCH IS COMMUNITY.

And thank God that He inspired Luke, the Physician, to write down the history of the early church so that we might get a true picture of what church/what community should look like, be like, and feel like.  

Just look at the qualities we see in this group who had no theology/ no doctrine upon which to grapple and fight over.  They clearly had to live out their faith on the fly.  And from them we get our doctrine – the New Testament.

·        DEVOTED to learning and each other – they gathered to learn what the apostles had to teach them about Jesus, and they were more than just a group who casually said “hi” to one another.

·        SHARED with one another – they shared whatever they had with one another.  It was radical what they were doing.  Where no one else in society would take care of and support the widows and orphans, the church did. 

·        SOLD possessions to assist – they sold their possessions from time to time so that the money could be used by the church to assist those in the church who had need.

·        COMMUNICATED daily – they kept in communication daily by meeting in the temple courts (community center of the day) and meeting in people’s homes to eat together and to give praises to God.

You can almost hear the communication and concern these believers had for one another just through the facts that were recorded.  

In my mind I hear, “Hey, how you doing today?  How are things going in your life?  How you doing in the faith?  Is there anything I can do to help?  You know what, I’ve got some extra food, why don’t you come over and eat with me.  And if you need a place to stay until you get your feet back under you, feel free to stay with me.  God has blessed me with so much.  Just remember, what’s mine is yours.  In fact, I heard there was another family who just came into the faith that is really struggling to put food on the table.  So, I’m going to sell that piece of land I have and give it to the church to distribute to this family and anyone else who has need.  After all, Jesus taught us through the apostles that ‘where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’”

I think it’s pretty obvious that church was not merely showing up at the temple once a week, or whenever it fit in their schedule.  

In fact, we see a church that was meeting at the temple to conduct God’s business.  They were gathering with eagerness and anticipation to LEARN from the apostles’ teaching that Jesus, Himself, had taught them.  They were gathering to REMEMBER what Jesus had done for them by partaking in the Lord’s Supper.  They were gathering to FELLOWSHIP and to PRAY.   They were gathering to ENSURE everyone who was in need was receiving the essentials they needed to live on for the day.  And they were gathering in each other’s homes to EAT and to PRAISE God for His bounty and favor.

This was a church that had grown from 120 people to 3120 people in one day, and was without a church building.   Though we aren’t given a clear timeline and don’t know how many of the 3000 that were saved and baptized remained in Jerusalem after the preaching of Peter at Pentecost, we are given a picture of what the early church looked like in Jerusalem for those who did remain. 

And the picture shows us a group of people with a COMMON UNITY – in other words a group in Community.

They LOOKED OUT for each other.  They CARED about each other.  They HELPED one another.  They were doing what God desired to see lived out in them as given to them by the apostles’ teaching.  They were being the Church.

In his book The Connecting Church, Author Randy Frazee writes, “The experience of authentic community is one of the purposes God intends to be fulfilled by the church.  The writings of Scripture lead one to conclude that God intends the church, not to be one more bolt on the wheel of activity in our lives, but the very hub at the center of one’s life…..”

And that’s what we see from the early church – a group whose center is in SHARING LIFE TOGETHER so that the needs of everyone – spiritually, physically, and emotionally – are being met in the name of Jesus Christ.

And this is what LHH will be – a church whose sole purpose is to be united in love and service for one another and to the community God has called it to be in.

To me, there is no greater cause than to be the church as God intended it to be.  It’s beautiful when the body of believers lay aside their PRIDE and JEALOUSY of one another to UNITE in a love for one another that has the world scratching its head.

And through their faithfulness – their devotion to the church of Jesus Christ, "the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Did you know that the huge Redwood Trees in California are the largest living things on earth and tallest trees in the world?  Yea, some of them are 300 feet high (a football field) and more than 2500 years old.  Yet, despite their magnitude and size, Redwoods have a very shallow root system – kind of like the pines of the east coast.

So how do they stand up?  How do they keep from falling when the storms and winds come?  They survive because the roots of these trees are intertwined – tied in with each other – interlocked.  And thus because their root system is interlocked, they support and sustain each other.  They need one another to survive.  And so do we!

LHH must be a culture of people INTERLOCKED with one another to assure our spiritual survival while here on this earth.

What Caroline and I want to do now is model to you that we truly believe in what God has given me to share today.  The Lord has blessed us with a home, as well as a log cabin with 20 acres about 1hour and 15 minutes from here.  Our home, which some of you have been to, is always open to any of you to come for a visit, for dinner, or for any need you need to discuss.  But, the main offering we want to share with you is the use of our cabin.  When we purchased it back in 2007, we saw God’s hand in giving us a place that we could use as an investment for our family and as an opportunity to minister to others.  So if you’re ever looking for an opportunity just to get away from the hustle and bustle of life – for a time of retreat – let us know.  It’s not a resort, nor is it near any entertainment venues, but it is a place easy to get to and will give you a place of solitude, reflection, and relaxation.  The keys are yours if you’d like them.

Church is COMMUNITY.  And LHH will be a place where people will find love and service wrapped up in a community of believers who care for one another.  

Are you in?