Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Good morning. It's good to see you all today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Many of you were with us in the fellowship haul
and joined for our conversation. This information that they took
we did this morning will be helpful for us and
creating a church profile which will then help us with
our process for a pastor search.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We have two more of these gatherings.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The next one will be on September fifteenth, and then
the final one will be on October sixth, So if
you were not here for today for that, please consider
joining us on September fifteenth and October sixth. This is
really essential. It's essential part of our search process. As
Spencer is mentioned to you or we're gonna be working
with Center for Healthy Churches and the best way they
(00:55):
can help us in finding several cans that our team,
our search team will to interview is for us to
be as clear about who we are as a congregation
as possible. The more vague we are, the less likely
they're going to find great people. So we want to
be as clear as we possibly can who we.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Are as a congregation.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So the next two conversations September fifteenth and October sixth,
so please put those on your schedule for those of
you who came in later. You're a guest with us today,
we apologize if you came at ten forty five expecting
the sanctuary to be ready. You know, for those two
sundays in future we'll do the same thing. But we're
glad you're here this morning and we kind of collect
ourselves and worship together.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Let me mention a couple of things to you.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
If you should see blue cards in your pews, so
if you're a guest with us today, we would hope
that you would fill out the card, and we would
love for you to put some of your information an email,
a phone number, address, whatever you feel comfortable sharing, because
we want to be in contact with you and hopefully
begin a relationship together. On the other side of the
card is a prayer card. If you've got a prayer
(02:00):
request you would like the church to know about. Please
fill that card out and in either case put the
card in the offering plate when it comes around. This
evening is going to be our annual church picnic, which
is going to be out.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
At Camponer, the Guy dot Baptis Association Camp. That's gonna
be from five thirty till what are we stopping?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Eight seven thirty. All right, yep, I gave don a
heart attack. We're going to We're gonna stop at seven thirty.
Five thirty to seven thirty, So bring whatever you want
to bring and we're gonna eat it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
If everybody brings a dessert, then we're just gonna say,
well it counts for vegetables today.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So but whatever you bring, we're gonna share together a
meal together five thirty to seven thirty. Those of you
who have to set up please be there earlier about
clock to help do that. Let me also mention that
Wednesday Nights begin this coming Sunday, this coming Wednesday, so please,
if you plan to be here, please call the church
office either speak with Kyle or leave a message or
(02:56):
send an email saying you want to come, tell him
that you want to do Wednesday Night suppers all the
time or just for this week. We got a great
lineup for the whole fall setting up, so please make
sure you come here.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Youth and children also be having their gatherings. Adults will
stay in the Fellowship Hall for their session.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
We're going to begin dinner at five point thirty, so
that gives you a few extra minutes to get off work,
get out of school, get over the church at six
point fifteen, the adult sessions will go ahead and begin,
and we will finish at seven because adult choir begins
practice at seven o'clock and John said he would love
to have anybody joined the choir, so this is a
(03:33):
good time to start practicing a few more weeks and
then they'll start singing for us. Let me also mention
that some of you we said if you could fill
out the forms for today's conversation Congregational conversation number one.
If you were not headle to be with us this
morning and you had to come late, and you have
your form with you, you can head it to Spenser
(03:55):
who's walking out right. Then give it to me, take
down the church office, or sometime this week go by
the church office and deliver it or stick it in
the mail. But please do it this week because they
need the information as soon as possible to begin compiling
the information.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
And that's all I have.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So let's take a deep breath and prepare ourselves for worship.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Please join with me in the call to worship. Praise
the Lord at all times. Let us give thanks to
the Lord with our hearts and minds. Great are the
works of the Lord from dawn until dusk. The wonders
of the Lord are a beauty to behold. The Lord
is gracious and merciful. His righteousness endures forever. The Lord
(06:30):
is known for his wonderful deeds. The works of God's
hands are faithful and just. God's word is trustworthy. It
is established forever and ever. Holy and awesome is the
name of the Lord. To honor God is the beginning
of wisdom. All who wait for the Lord have understanding.
(06:54):
Join with me in prayer. Father, God, Great is your faithfulness, yesterday,
now and always. We confess that sometimes our faithfulness waxes
and wains, depending on our circumstances. And we thank you
(07:15):
for this time together to help solidify our faithfulness. As
we pray together our Father, who are in heaven, How
and be thy name, Thy Kingdom. Come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us
this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
(07:40):
as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead
us not into temptations from evil. For Thine is the
Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Amen, S, S, S.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
S, S, S, S, S, ST.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
Please pray with me, Holy God, in this moment of offering,
we stand before you acknowledging your boundless wisdom and unfailing love.
As we present our gifts, we also lift our prayers
for guidance and understanding. Grant us the wisdom to discern
your will and the courage to walk in your ways.
(11:04):
Bless these offerings and our lives so that we may
continue to worship you in spirit and truth. Almen, S.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
SO S.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
S S.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Spring Song song.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You may be seated before we enter into a time
of prayer. Just want to mention that we want to
lift up the family of Jerry Sutton. Please also, particularly
keep Lenora in your prayers.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I'm not sure all the funeral arrangement at this point,
but we will try to make sure the congregation is.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Aware of those.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Please also keep Joe Barnett and his wife Mary in
your prayers.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Let's praise a congregation.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Oh God, we come to you as school is starting
and about to start in our community, as it rearranges
the schedules that we have had for the summertime, where
we have been vacationing and running here or there, where
we've been sleeping in where grandparents have done extra duty,
(16:05):
spending time with their grandchildren, rushing near the end of
summer trying to get all the school supplies and the
school closed bot as we realized those.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Pants are a lot shorter than they used to be.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
We may, Dear God, for the children in our congregation,
as they have entered into classes again or about to
enter classes.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
May all the anxieties that come with that begin falling.
As routine gets in place and relationships with teachers are started,
and seeing welcoming friends make us feel like we belong.
We pray for the teachers and administratives of our schools
and in our community and ask your blessing to be
(16:53):
upon them. Oftentimes, at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of school, it is so chaotic that sometimes we think,
why in the world am I doing this? So when
those low moments come, Dear God, we ask that you
would remind each of these persons what called them to education,
(17:21):
and give them your strength and perseverance to order things out,
get in the routine, and start making a wonderful difference
in students' lives for another year. We thank you for
their sense of call to this ministry, and it really
(17:43):
is a ministry. We ask a God that you would
help us as a congregation not only to try to
help out our schools, but to pray for our teachers
and administrators. As a society we continue to put more
and more upon their shoulders. We ask our God, is
(18:06):
Marshall University soon begin welcoming students back, that you're also
your grace would be there in that situation as these
students begin their journey into higher education, a launching pad
for their careers and vocations. We think of the situations
(18:26):
that we read about in the news or watch on television.
Our hearts break in the situation going on in the Ukraine,
in the Middle East, in Sudan. We don't even know
hardly what to pray for anymore, but we ask for
your grace and your peace to reign. We lift up
(18:52):
Leonora in this journey through the valley of the Shadow
of Death. She is walking right now now. And for
Jerry's larger family, may we help them with their grief
Show us how For Joe, we ask your grace to
(19:13):
strengthen him and to be with Mary in these times.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
For all those others.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
In our congregation who are recovering from surgery, are about
to have surgery, for.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Those who are dealing with illnesses.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
We just ask your hand to be with them, to
strengthen them, to give them hope, to connect them with
people who will bring a smile to their face. All
these prayers are God. We lift up to you because
we believe you listen to us and you care about us.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
We thank you for your grace in Christ Jesus, We
pray Amen this morning.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Our scripture passage comes from the Gospel of Mark. The
second chapter will begin with verse twenty three. One Sabbath,
Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as they
made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
The Pharisees, the religious leaders, said.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
To him, look, why are they doing what is not
lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, have
you never read what David did? When he and his
companions were hungry and in need of food. He entered
the House of God, the temple where Abatar was high priest,
and he ate the bread of the presence of God,
(20:47):
which is not lawful for any but.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
The priest to eat, and he gave some to his companions.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Then Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
For humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.
Here ends the reading of God's Holy Word. May God
bless it for our hearing and understanding. You can't get
a Chick fil a sandwich today, right, they're closed on Sundays,
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saying for Stuart's Hot Dogs, Jim Spaghetti, TAM's ham and
a few other places. I've noticed, as I've been back
to Huntington the past few months, that there are more
places closed on Sundays here than in Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Because we're all about the money in Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Let me tell you that we're about the money in
Charlotte closed on Sunday. Retail stores and restaurants used to
be mandatory.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Blue laws in.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The United States prohibited many things on Sundays because until
the late twentieth century, Sunday in America was the Christian Sabbath,
a day of worship and rest. Now these laws were
products of trying to observe the Bible's commands about the Sabbath.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Now, last week I told you that.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
There are over thirty commands in the Bible about how
we're supposed to treat.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
The immigrant fairly and justly.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, there's over forty commandments in the Bible about.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Keeping the Sabbath, beginning with the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
By the way, the fourth of the ten commandments, the
one about keeping the Sabbath, also has instructions to make
sure that immigrants rest on.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
The Sabbath as well. So if you own a farm.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And you have immigrants working for you, you can't make them
work on the Sabbath while you're kicking back with a
glass of iced tea.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
They get a sabbath as well.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
If you want to look it up, it's in Exodus
twenty and in Deuteronomy five. You know, in our pastors today,
Jesus thought the religious leaders of his day had met
honoring the sabbath a burden. Notice that his critics were
quick to criticize.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That sentenced that was not in the manuscript.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Critics are criticized, Yeah, don't go together, of course, go together.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
His critics.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Mentioned that he and his disciples were plucking grain from
a field they were walking through because they were hungry,
I guess, smashing up with their fingers and eating it,
which technically was harvesting, which would be work.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And prohibited by the Sabbath. Jesus in response, says, the
Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind. For the Sabbath.
(24:21):
The Sabbath command.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Is the most radical economic policy in the whole Bible.
But often we just think it's about making people come
to worship. How do we honor the Sabbath without going
back to laws which restrict to what people could and
(24:46):
couldn't do. How do we honor it without making it
a burden? Among industrialized nations, were in the United States
take the least amount of vacation days. And it's not
(25:07):
just because companies in the US have an average a less.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Vacation time than European nations.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
A Pew research study last year reported that forty six
percent of workers do not take all their vacation days.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
It's nearly half of US.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
US workers, on average, leave six days of vacation on
the books. Their companies are offering vacation days that they
never take. You know, in nineteen eighty one, I was
a freshman in college, the average US.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Worker took four more days of.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Vacation than they do today. These are attitudes that we
have as people about taking vacation, taking sabbath.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
You know, one of the right things about remote work
is that you don't have to commute to work, which
in Charlotte is getting longer and longer.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Working at home means you also get to center ound
in comfortable clothes.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
You can work in your sweats, your pajamas if you
want too. Maybe put on a shirt if you have
to go on a zoom camera conversation. Even though we
have work that's more casual clothing today, nobody goes into
the office wearing tennis shoes, sweatpants and a hoodie.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Right, But you can do that at home. That's one
of the great things.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
One of the terrible things is is that when you
do remote work at home sometimes it's hard to make
a boundary between work and home. Our phonees have nearly
the capacities just in an inconvenient.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Size as our laptop computers. So many of us, because.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
We have our phones with us at all times, are
doing work when we're out and about. We could be
in the backyard gardening and we get a text or
an email and we feel like we have to answer
it right then.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
It means that many of us never get away from work.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I'll bet a lot of you in here and you
don't have to raise your hand. A lot of you
in here have sent a work email at eleven o'clock
at night.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I gotta confess I've done it too.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
We have blended the boundaries between work and home. We're
always on call, we're hopping on the phone to answer
a work email or text, and we take nearly a
week less some vacation than.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Two generations ago. So how in the world do.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
We let God's command about Sabbath sink into our souls
and rest according to God's commands for us. One of
the problems about honoring trying to honor the Sabbath is
that our world is very different from the.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Biblical world, which was agricultural. Almost everybody in Jesus day
was a small farming peasant. Life was hard, It was
physically hard. The human need for rest was vital. On
(28:50):
a regular basis.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The economic forces of the time would have driven people
to work seven days a week fifty two weeks a
year had it not been for the Sabbath law. The
Sabbath command to rest one day a week was radical.
No other community around Israel had such a command. Without it,
(29:19):
royal and wealthy landowners would have forced the poor to
work every day with no break. See, we think the
sabbath command is a worship command, and it is, but
it's also a justice command, seeking justice.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
For the working poor. In Deuteronomy's version of the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It says so specifically, here's what it says. You shall
not do any work you or your son, or your daughter,
or your slave, or your donkey, or any of your
livestock the immigrant in your towns, so that they may
rest as well. Remember you were slaves in Egypt, and
(30:14):
the Lord your God brought you out from there with
a mighty hand. Therefore, the Lord your God commands you
to keep the Sabbath day. You were not to do
what the Egyptians did to you. This is where this
week's sermon and last week's sermon interact. When God's command
(30:35):
to Moses specifically included immigrants.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
All were to take a rest.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
The blue laws that protected the Sabbath of the United
States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Essentially the same thing.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It was an agricultural economy in the nineteenth century became
the industrial economy of the late nineteenth century early twentieth century,
which for workers offer some one meant harsher and longer hours,
and a disconnection between family and community. Today, however, our
(31:12):
economy is driven by the financial sector, with the service
industry right behind manufacturing and agricultural The most physically demanding
economic sectors now employ a minority of workers in our country,
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and because of the twentieth century labor movement, have more
laws protecting them than those in the financial.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Or service sectors.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Some of these laws, like the forty hour work week,
protect workers better than what the Blue Laws ever could.
For white collar workers, physically resting may actually be the
worst thing they could do to honor the Sabbath. Think
about this for a moment. If you're sitting at a
(32:08):
computer all day, the last thing you need to do
is just rest.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
For those of you who have those white collar jobs,
or you're at desks all the time and make your
own conferences and you're having networking.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Meetings, the most important thing you can do to.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Rest is to rest your mind and probably physically do something.
If you're in that kind of industry, maybe the best
thing you can do on a Sunday afternoon at the
worship is mow the lawn, or go work in the garden,
or take a straight pike somewhere, or some other physically
demanding thing where you can just do and not think.
(32:51):
Jesus's day, we're almost all work with physical labor.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It's different for many of us in our day.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Rest will look different depending on what kind of work
you do. So if we're going to try to honor
the Sabbath, we've got to think about.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
What does rest mean to me? How can I rest
give space in my life and honor God and worship
That may look differently to us depending on what we
do during the week. A second issue that comes up
(33:36):
we're trying to honor the Sabbath in the twenty first
century is when to do it.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Biblically speaking, the Sabbath is on a Saturday the seventh
day Christians except for Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists. Yes,
there is a group of Baptists called Seventh day Baptists.
I mean, let's face it, folks, there's just about some
kind of Baptist group.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
For about anything you can think of. That's just the
way we.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
All Christians except those two groups, have literally been breaking
the Sabbath for two thousand years. Christianity within a few
decades of Jesus's death, began worshiping on Sunday to acknowledge
and to celebrate Jesus's resurrection on Easter Sunday, and to
(34:25):
also distinguish themselves within the Jewish community because the first
Christians were Jewish, so Jewish Christians began worshiping on Sunday
to distinguish themselves from Jewish communities that did not follow Jesus.
In doing so, we set a precedent that the day
(34:47):
you celebrate the Sabbath is secondary. And for two thousand
years we've just said, okay, everybody, let's just make the
Sabbath not Saturday but Sunday.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
In our twenty five seven world. I think we've got
to think about that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
God automatically gave us rest in creation in two ways.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
First, God put the Sabbath on.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
The seventh day, which completed the creation process, as if
God knew that humankind and in fact all the natural
world needs rest, needs a time to refill and refuel,
and God put that into the ordered part of creation
right by spinning the earth around half of the day
(35:38):
we get light, half the day we get night.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And then we invented electricity. Now can work twenty four
hours a day.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Maybe not you as an individual, but your company, your hospital,
your university. Somebody can be working for your company twenty
four hours a day, and some of us do that
to ourselves with our eleven PM emails. If you have
(36:13):
a job that requires you to work on Sunday, and
you may have noticed I'm one of those people, you
just take your Sabbath another day.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That's what I've been doing for several decades now. If
you find out that another day of the week works
better for you, that's fine. It doesn't have to be Sunday.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Find your place to have rest, refueling, and a way
for you.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
To honor and worship God.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Maybe in fact, because your crazy schedule, you just need
to use parts of a few.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Days a week to be your Sabbath rest.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
When trying to honor the Sabbath, we have to get
away from it's only this day.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
In a twenty four to seven world.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
This is how we have to work to figure out
how to honor the Sabbath. Finally, during the Sabbath is
also focusing on what's fair and just for workers and
not just focusing on worship. Surprisingly, full time blue collar
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workers are actually somewhat protected by today's labor laws.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
It's actually white collar workers in management.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
And part time workers that oftentimes have to cobble together
two or more jobs to pay all the bills who
are most vulnerable in our economic system.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
To keep you working and working and working.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
A living wage is a Sabbath issue because if wages
are so low that people have to work sixty hours
a week just to pay their bills, that becomes a
sabbath issue.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
When was the last time a.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Politician talked about labor laws as part.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Of God's command about the Sabbath? Have we ever heard that?
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Maybe it's time we as Christians begin talking about that
to enable people to honor the Sabbath by making enough
money that they.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Can have a day off. Regrettably, sometimes the church itself
doesn't honor the Sabbath.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I was doing some consulting work for a church some
time ago, coaching them on updating their personnel policies, and
one of the things I was doing reading through all
their documents and their pastor's.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Job description stood out to me.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
One of the first lines said, the pastor of X
y Z Church is a full time position, working fifty
to sixty a week.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
I did some ruterentary math.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Seven times eight hours a day equals fifty six hours
fifty to sixty hours. One of the first things I
said to them is we began talking about their policies words,
and I said, you know, it'd probably be a good thing,
is if we as a church did not make our
pastor break the Sabbath command every week. Right, It'd be
(39:30):
good if we expected the Sabbath to the pastor to
work a reasonable amount of hours a week so that
he or she can truly take.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Time for Sabbath. If the church hopes to show the
world how to.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Honor the Sabbath, its congregations should start by the way
they treat their employees. Having boundaries protecting their space when
they're not working, and what our expectations for the toll
amount of time we expect them.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
To work would be helpful. Jesus hold his critics.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.
In order for us to realize the Sabbath is God's
given to us. God's been trying to give us time
in our lives to rest, to ponder, to think, to pray,
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to honor God and in this four seven world, I
don't think this command is more needed than it has
ever been. How can we as a congregation honor the
sabbath so yes we can worship, but also so we
(40:54):
can justly deal with workers in our.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Community and society.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Let us be a church and a society that encourages
rest from work and worship led by God.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
We end our worship service, as we do each week,
with this Baptist tradition of an invitation Him a commitment Him,
as we sing the hymn together. I invite you if
you've never made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
Maybe you've loved God for a long time, but you've
never been baptized and you want to follow Jesus Christ.
Or maybe you have been a Christian for some time,
but you don't have a church home and you're looking
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for churches.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
You've been visiting some churches.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
We would love for you to be part of our congregation,
whatever decision you might have.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I'll be down here in front of the communion table
and will.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Gladly welcome you while we stand together and sing Him
six thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Let's stand together.
Speaker 7 (42:18):
PSSs, SKY SIS S S S s.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
S S.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
S S.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
S stress times SAT.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Never can figure out, like how many seconds I have
to hold the button in right, Like don't hold the
button in a certain amount of seconds, it doesn't work right.
Thank you all so much for today, All of those
who participated this morning. Your participation is just essential and
vital to this process. And if you didn't participate today,
please make sure you get our forms to us this week,
either hand them the spenser myself, put them on the
(44:41):
church office, or stick them to mail this week. That
will help us with our process. So next time we'll
do this will be September fifteenth. Let's see Campbell and Beverly,
thank you so much for leading us in worship today
with your prayers.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
That was a beautiful prayer. I'm going to get a
copy of that. Campbell. Do you also want to say
I'll be gone for the next couple weeks, be out
with surgery, and I do appreciate covet your prayers.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Next Sunday, Janie Stone will be preaching, and then the
following Sunday, Bob Baker, who was your interim earlier, will
be back. So I know you'll love to hear from
both of them in the weeks ahead, and I look
forward to joining you hopefully.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
In three weeks.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Let me also say this kind of concludes the end
of this series of sermons. I've been doing kind of engagements,
biblical engage with the twenty first cent you. When I
get back in September, I'll be doing a series on
faithful parenting in prosperous times.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
So we'll see how that goes. Let's receive the benediction. Friends,
sho go back out into the world.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Love God with your whole being, your heart, your mind,
and your soul and your strength. And love your neighbor
as yourself, which means give yourself a little bit of
grace too.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
And love your enemies so may one day they become
your friends a week and transform the world. And as
you go, know that God, the creator of the universe,
is preparing away for you, and Jesus the Christ is
walking beside of you every step of the way, and
the Holy Spirit, God's Love is swirling around you to
(46:17):
protect you and guide you through whatever you face this week.
So go now with peace. Amena s.
Good morning. It's good to see you all today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Many of you were with us in the fellowship haul
and joined for our conversation. This information that they took
we did this morning will be helpful for us and
creating a church profile which will then help us with
our process for a pastor search.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We have two more of these gatherings.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The next one will be on September fifteenth, and then
the final one will be on October sixth, So if
you were not here for today for that, please consider
joining us on September fifteenth and October sixth. This is
really essential. It's essential part of our search process. As
Spencer is mentioned to you or we're gonna be working
with Center for Healthy Churches and the best way they
(00:55):
can help us in finding several cans that our team,
our search team will to interview is for us to
be as clear about who we are as a congregation
as possible. The more vague we are, the less likely
they're going to find great people. So we want to
be as clear as we possibly can who we.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Are as a congregation.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So the next two conversations September fifteenth and October sixth,
so please put those on your schedule for those of
you who came in later. You're a guest with us today,
we apologize if you came at ten forty five expecting
the sanctuary to be ready. You know, for those two
sundays in future we'll do the same thing. But we're
glad you're here this morning and we kind of collect
ourselves and worship together.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Let me mention a couple of things to you.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
If you should see blue cards in your pews, so
if you're a guest with us today, we would hope
that you would fill out the card, and we would
love for you to put some of your information an email,
a phone number, address, whatever you feel comfortable sharing, because
we want to be in contact with you and hopefully
begin a relationship together. On the other side of the
card is a prayer card. If you've got a prayer
(02:00):
request you would like the church to know about. Please
fill that card out and in either case put the
card in the offering plate when it comes around. This
evening is going to be our annual church picnic, which
is going to be out.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
At Camponer, the Guy dot Baptis Association Camp. That's gonna
be from five thirty till what are we stopping?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Eight seven thirty. All right, yep, I gave don a
heart attack. We're going to We're gonna stop at seven thirty.
Five thirty to seven thirty, So bring whatever you want
to bring and we're gonna eat it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
If everybody brings a dessert, then we're just gonna say,
well it counts for vegetables today.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So but whatever you bring, we're gonna share together a
meal together five thirty to seven thirty. Those of you
who have to set up please be there earlier about
clock to help do that. Let me also mention that
Wednesday Nights begin this coming Sunday, this coming Wednesday, so please,
if you plan to be here, please call the church
office either speak with Kyle or leave a message or
(02:56):
send an email saying you want to come, tell him
that you want to do Wednesday Night suppers all the
time or just for this week. We got a great
lineup for the whole fall setting up, so please make
sure you come here.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Youth and children also be having their gatherings. Adults will
stay in the Fellowship Hall for their session.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
We're going to begin dinner at five point thirty, so
that gives you a few extra minutes to get off work,
get out of school, get over the church at six
point fifteen, the adult sessions will go ahead and begin,
and we will finish at seven because adult choir begins
practice at seven o'clock and John said he would love
to have anybody joined the choir, so this is a
(03:33):
good time to start practicing a few more weeks and
then they'll start singing for us. Let me also mention
that some of you we said if you could fill
out the forms for today's conversation Congregational conversation number one.
If you were not headle to be with us this
morning and you had to come late, and you have
your form with you, you can head it to Spenser
(03:55):
who's walking out right. Then give it to me, take
down the church office, or sometime this week go by
the church office and deliver it or stick it in
the mail. But please do it this week because they
need the information as soon as possible to begin compiling
the information.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
And that's all I have.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So let's take a deep breath and prepare ourselves for worship.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Please join with me in the call to worship. Praise
the Lord at all times. Let us give thanks to
the Lord with our hearts and minds. Great are the
works of the Lord from dawn until dusk. The wonders
of the Lord are a beauty to behold. The Lord
is gracious and merciful. His righteousness endures forever. The Lord
(06:30):
is known for his wonderful deeds. The works of God's
hands are faithful and just. God's word is trustworthy. It
is established forever and ever. Holy and awesome is the
name of the Lord. To honor God is the beginning
of wisdom. All who wait for the Lord have understanding.
(06:54):
Join with me in prayer. Father, God, Great is your faithfulness, yesterday,
now and always. We confess that sometimes our faithfulness waxes
and wains, depending on our circumstances. And we thank you
(07:15):
for this time together to help solidify our faithfulness. As
we pray together our Father, who are in heaven, How
and be thy name, Thy Kingdom. Come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us
this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
(07:40):
as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead
us not into temptations from evil. For Thine is the
Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Amen, S, S, S.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
S, S, S, S, S, ST.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
Please pray with me, Holy God, in this moment of offering,
we stand before you acknowledging your boundless wisdom and unfailing love.
As we present our gifts, we also lift our prayers
for guidance and understanding. Grant us the wisdom to discern
your will and the courage to walk in your ways.
(11:04):
Bless these offerings and our lives so that we may
continue to worship you in spirit and truth. Almen, S.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
SO S.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
S S.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Spring Song song.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You may be seated before we enter into a time
of prayer. Just want to mention that we want to
lift up the family of Jerry Sutton. Please also, particularly
keep Lenora in your prayers.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I'm not sure all the funeral arrangement at this point,
but we will try to make sure the congregation is.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Aware of those.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Please also keep Joe Barnett and his wife Mary in
your prayers.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Let's praise a congregation.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Oh God, we come to you as school is starting
and about to start in our community, as it rearranges
the schedules that we have had for the summertime, where
we have been vacationing and running here or there, where
we've been sleeping in where grandparents have done extra duty,
(16:05):
spending time with their grandchildren, rushing near the end of
summer trying to get all the school supplies and the
school closed bot as we realized those.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Pants are a lot shorter than they used to be.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
We may, Dear God, for the children in our congregation,
as they have entered into classes again or about to
enter classes.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
May all the anxieties that come with that begin falling.
As routine gets in place and relationships with teachers are started,
and seeing welcoming friends make us feel like we belong.
We pray for the teachers and administratives of our schools
and in our community and ask your blessing to be
(16:53):
upon them. Oftentimes, at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of school, it is so chaotic that sometimes we think,
why in the world am I doing this? So when
those low moments come, Dear God, we ask that you
would remind each of these persons what called them to education,
(17:21):
and give them your strength and perseverance to order things out,
get in the routine, and start making a wonderful difference
in students' lives for another year. We thank you for
their sense of call to this ministry, and it really
(17:43):
is a ministry. We ask a God that you would
help us as a congregation not only to try to
help out our schools, but to pray for our teachers
and administrators. As a society we continue to put more
and more upon their shoulders. We ask our God, is
(18:06):
Marshall University soon begin welcoming students back, that you're also
your grace would be there in that situation as these
students begin their journey into higher education, a launching pad
for their careers and vocations. We think of the situations
(18:26):
that we read about in the news or watch on television.
Our hearts break in the situation going on in the Ukraine,
in the Middle East, in Sudan. We don't even know
hardly what to pray for anymore, but we ask for
your grace and your peace to reign. We lift up
(18:52):
Leonora in this journey through the valley of the Shadow
of Death. She is walking right now now. And for
Jerry's larger family, may we help them with their grief
Show us how For Joe, we ask your grace to
(19:13):
strengthen him and to be with Mary in these times.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
For all those others.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
In our congregation who are recovering from surgery, are about
to have surgery, for.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Those who are dealing with illnesses.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
We just ask your hand to be with them, to
strengthen them, to give them hope, to connect them with
people who will bring a smile to their face. All
these prayers are God. We lift up to you because
we believe you listen to us and you care about us.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
We thank you for your grace in Christ Jesus, We
pray Amen this morning.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Our scripture passage comes from the Gospel of Mark. The
second chapter will begin with verse twenty three. One Sabbath,
Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as they
made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
The Pharisees, the religious leaders, said.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
To him, look, why are they doing what is not
lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, have
you never read what David did? When he and his
companions were hungry and in need of food. He entered
the House of God, the temple where Abatar was high priest,
and he ate the bread of the presence of God,
(20:47):
which is not lawful for any but.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
The priest to eat, and he gave some to his companions.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Then Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
For humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.
Here ends the reading of God's Holy Word. May God
bless it for our hearing and understanding. You can't get
a Chick fil a sandwich today, right, they're closed on Sundays,
(21:34):
saying for Stuart's Hot Dogs, Jim Spaghetti, TAM's ham and
a few other places. I've noticed, as I've been back
to Huntington the past few months, that there are more
places closed on Sundays here than in Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Because we're all about the money in Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Let me tell you that we're about the money in
Charlotte closed on Sunday. Retail stores and restaurants used to
be mandatory.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Blue laws in.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The United States prohibited many things on Sundays because until
the late twentieth century, Sunday in America was the Christian Sabbath,
a day of worship and rest. Now these laws were
products of trying to observe the Bible's commands about the Sabbath.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Now, last week I told you that.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
There are over thirty commands in the Bible about how
we're supposed to treat.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
The immigrant fairly and justly.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, there's over forty commandments in the Bible about.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Keeping the Sabbath, beginning with the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
By the way, the fourth of the ten commandments, the
one about keeping the Sabbath, also has instructions to make
sure that immigrants rest on.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
The Sabbath as well. So if you own a farm.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And you have immigrants working for you, you can't make them
work on the Sabbath while you're kicking back with a
glass of iced tea.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
They get a sabbath as well.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
If you want to look it up, it's in Exodus
twenty and in Deuteronomy five. You know, in our pastors today,
Jesus thought the religious leaders of his day had met
honoring the sabbath a burden. Notice that his critics were
quick to criticize.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That sentenced that was not in the manuscript.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Critics are criticized, Yeah, don't go together, of course, go together.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
His critics.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Mentioned that he and his disciples were plucking grain from
a field they were walking through because they were hungry,
I guess, smashing up with their fingers and eating it,
which technically was harvesting, which would be work.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And prohibited by the Sabbath. Jesus in response, says, the
Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind. For the Sabbath.
(24:21):
The Sabbath command.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Is the most radical economic policy in the whole Bible.
But often we just think it's about making people come
to worship. How do we honor the Sabbath without going
back to laws which restrict to what people could and
(24:46):
couldn't do. How do we honor it without making it
a burden? Among industrialized nations, were in the United States
take the least amount of vacation days. And it's not
(25:07):
just because companies in the US have an average a less.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Vacation time than European nations.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
A Pew research study last year reported that forty six
percent of workers do not take all their vacation days.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
It's nearly half of US.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
US workers, on average, leave six days of vacation on
the books. Their companies are offering vacation days that they
never take. You know, in nineteen eighty one, I was
a freshman in college, the average US.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Worker took four more days of.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Vacation than they do today. These are attitudes that we
have as people about taking vacation, taking sabbath.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
You know, one of the right things about remote work
is that you don't have to commute to work, which
in Charlotte is getting longer and longer.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Working at home means you also get to center ound
in comfortable clothes.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
You can work in your sweats, your pajamas if you
want too. Maybe put on a shirt if you have
to go on a zoom camera conversation. Even though we
have work that's more casual clothing today, nobody goes into
the office wearing tennis shoes, sweatpants and a hoodie.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Right, But you can do that at home. That's one
of the great things.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
One of the terrible things is is that when you
do remote work at home sometimes it's hard to make
a boundary between work and home. Our phonees have nearly
the capacities just in an inconvenient.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Size as our laptop computers. So many of us, because.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
We have our phones with us at all times, are
doing work when we're out and about. We could be
in the backyard gardening and we get a text or
an email and we feel like we have to answer
it right then.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
It means that many of us never get away from work.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I'll bet a lot of you in here and you
don't have to raise your hand. A lot of you
in here have sent a work email at eleven o'clock
at night.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I gotta confess I've done it too.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
We have blended the boundaries between work and home. We're
always on call, we're hopping on the phone to answer
a work email or text, and we take nearly a
week less some vacation than.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Two generations ago. So how in the world do.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
We let God's command about Sabbath sink into our souls
and rest according to God's commands for us. One of
the problems about honoring trying to honor the Sabbath is
that our world is very different from the.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Biblical world, which was agricultural. Almost everybody in Jesus day
was a small farming peasant. Life was hard, It was
physically hard. The human need for rest was vital. On
(28:50):
a regular basis.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The economic forces of the time would have driven people
to work seven days a week fifty two weeks a
year had it not been for the Sabbath law. The
Sabbath command to rest one day a week was radical.
No other community around Israel had such a command. Without it,
(29:19):
royal and wealthy landowners would have forced the poor to
work every day with no break. See, we think the
sabbath command is a worship command, and it is, but
it's also a justice command, seeking justice.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
For the working poor. In Deuteronomy's version of the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It says so specifically, here's what it says. You shall
not do any work you or your son, or your daughter,
or your slave, or your donkey, or any of your
livestock the immigrant in your towns, so that they may
rest as well. Remember you were slaves in Egypt, and
(30:14):
the Lord your God brought you out from there with
a mighty hand. Therefore, the Lord your God commands you
to keep the Sabbath day. You were not to do
what the Egyptians did to you. This is where this
week's sermon and last week's sermon interact. When God's command
(30:35):
to Moses specifically included immigrants.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
All were to take a rest.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
The blue laws that protected the Sabbath of the United
States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Essentially the same thing.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It was an agricultural economy in the nineteenth century became
the industrial economy of the late nineteenth century early twentieth century,
which for workers offer some one meant harsher and longer hours,
and a disconnection between family and community. Today, however, our
(31:12):
economy is driven by the financial sector, with the service
industry right behind manufacturing and agricultural The most physically demanding
economic sectors now employ a minority of workers in our country,
(31:33):
and because of the twentieth century labor movement, have more
laws protecting them than those in the financial.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Or service sectors.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Some of these laws, like the forty hour work week,
protect workers better than what the Blue Laws ever could.
For white collar workers, physically resting may actually be the
worst thing they could do to honor the Sabbath. Think
about this for a moment. If you're sitting at a
(32:08):
computer all day, the last thing you need to do
is just rest.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
For those of you who have those white collar jobs,
or you're at desks all the time and make your
own conferences and you're having networking.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Meetings, the most important thing you can do to.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Rest is to rest your mind and probably physically do something.
If you're in that kind of industry, maybe the best
thing you can do on a Sunday afternoon at the
worship is mow the lawn, or go work in the garden,
or take a straight pike somewhere, or some other physically
demanding thing where you can just do and not think.
(32:51):
Jesus's day, we're almost all work with physical labor.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It's different for many of us in our day.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Rest will look different depending on what kind of work
you do. So if we're going to try to honor
the Sabbath, we've got to think about.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
What does rest mean to me? How can I rest
give space in my life and honor God and worship
That may look differently to us depending on what we
do during the week. A second issue that comes up
(33:36):
we're trying to honor the Sabbath in the twenty first
century is when to do it.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Biblically speaking, the Sabbath is on a Saturday the seventh
day Christians except for Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists. Yes,
there is a group of Baptists called Seventh day Baptists.
I mean, let's face it, folks, there's just about some
kind of Baptist group.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
For about anything you can think of. That's just the
way we.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
All Christians except those two groups, have literally been breaking
the Sabbath for two thousand years. Christianity within a few
decades of Jesus's death, began worshiping on Sunday to acknowledge
and to celebrate Jesus's resurrection on Easter Sunday, and to
(34:25):
also distinguish themselves within the Jewish community because the first
Christians were Jewish, so Jewish Christians began worshiping on Sunday
to distinguish themselves from Jewish communities that did not follow Jesus.
In doing so, we set a precedent that the day
(34:47):
you celebrate the Sabbath is secondary. And for two thousand
years we've just said, okay, everybody, let's just make the
Sabbath not Saturday but Sunday.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
In our twenty five seven world. I think we've got
to think about that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
God automatically gave us rest in creation in two ways.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
First, God put the Sabbath on.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
The seventh day, which completed the creation process, as if
God knew that humankind and in fact all the natural
world needs rest, needs a time to refill and refuel,
and God put that into the ordered part of creation
right by spinning the earth around half of the day
(35:38):
we get light, half the day we get night.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And then we invented electricity. Now can work twenty four
hours a day.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Maybe not you as an individual, but your company, your hospital,
your university. Somebody can be working for your company twenty
four hours a day, and some of us do that
to ourselves with our eleven PM emails. If you have
(36:13):
a job that requires you to work on Sunday, and
you may have noticed I'm one of those people, you
just take your Sabbath another day.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That's what I've been doing for several decades now. If
you find out that another day of the week works
better for you, that's fine. It doesn't have to be Sunday.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Find your place to have rest, refueling, and a way
for you.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
To honor and worship God.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Maybe in fact, because your crazy schedule, you just need
to use parts of a few.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Days a week to be your Sabbath rest.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
When trying to honor the Sabbath, we have to get
away from it's only this day.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
In a twenty four to seven world.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
This is how we have to work to figure out
how to honor the Sabbath. Finally, during the Sabbath is
also focusing on what's fair and just for workers and
not just focusing on worship. Surprisingly, full time blue collar
(37:20):
workers are actually somewhat protected by today's labor laws.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
It's actually white collar workers in management.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
And part time workers that oftentimes have to cobble together
two or more jobs to pay all the bills who
are most vulnerable in our economic system.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
To keep you working and working and working.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
A living wage is a Sabbath issue because if wages
are so low that people have to work sixty hours
a week just to pay their bills, that becomes a
sabbath issue.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
When was the last time a.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Politician talked about labor laws as part.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Of God's command about the Sabbath? Have we ever heard that?
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Maybe it's time we as Christians begin talking about that
to enable people to honor the Sabbath by making enough
money that they.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Can have a day off. Regrettably, sometimes the church itself
doesn't honor the Sabbath.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I was doing some consulting work for a church some
time ago, coaching them on updating their personnel policies, and
one of the things I was doing reading through all
their documents and their pastor's.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Job description stood out to me.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
One of the first lines said, the pastor of X
y Z Church is a full time position, working fifty
to sixty a week.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
I did some ruterentary math.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Seven times eight hours a day equals fifty six hours
fifty to sixty hours. One of the first things I
said to them is we began talking about their policies words,
and I said, you know, it'd probably be a good thing,
is if we as a church did not make our
pastor break the Sabbath command every week. Right, It'd be
(39:30):
good if we expected the Sabbath to the pastor to
work a reasonable amount of hours a week so that
he or she can truly take.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Time for Sabbath. If the church hopes to show the
world how to.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Honor the Sabbath, its congregations should start by the way
they treat their employees. Having boundaries protecting their space when
they're not working, and what our expectations for the toll
amount of time we expect them.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
To work would be helpful. Jesus hold his critics.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.
In order for us to realize the Sabbath is God's
given to us. God's been trying to give us time
in our lives to rest, to ponder, to think, to pray,
(40:33):
to honor God and in this four seven world, I
don't think this command is more needed than it has
ever been. How can we as a congregation honor the
sabbath so yes we can worship, but also so we
(40:54):
can justly deal with workers in our.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Community and society.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Let us be a church and a society that encourages
rest from work and worship led by God.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
We end our worship service, as we do each week,
with this Baptist tradition of an invitation Him a commitment Him,
as we sing the hymn together. I invite you if
you've never made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
Maybe you've loved God for a long time, but you've
never been baptized and you want to follow Jesus Christ.
Or maybe you have been a Christian for some time,
but you don't have a church home and you're looking
(41:36):
for churches.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
You've been visiting some churches.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
We would love for you to be part of our congregation,
whatever decision you might have.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I'll be down here in front of the communion table
and will.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Gladly welcome you while we stand together and sing Him
six thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Let's stand together.
Speaker 7 (42:18):
PSSs, SKY SIS S S S s.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
S S.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
S S.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
S stress times SAT.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Never can figure out, like how many seconds I have
to hold the button in right, Like don't hold the
button in a certain amount of seconds, it doesn't work right.
Thank you all so much for today, All of those
who participated this morning. Your participation is just essential and
vital to this process. And if you didn't participate today,
please make sure you get our forms to us this week,
either hand them the spenser myself, put them on the
(44:41):
church office, or stick them to mail this week. That
will help us with our process. So next time we'll
do this will be September fifteenth. Let's see Campbell and Beverly,
thank you so much for leading us in worship today
with your prayers.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
That was a beautiful prayer. I'm going to get a
copy of that. Campbell. Do you also want to say
I'll be gone for the next couple weeks, be out
with surgery, and I do appreciate covet your prayers.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Next Sunday, Janie Stone will be preaching, and then the
following Sunday, Bob Baker, who was your interim earlier, will
be back. So I know you'll love to hear from
both of them in the weeks ahead, and I look
forward to joining you hopefully.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
In three weeks.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Let me also say this kind of concludes the end
of this series of sermons. I've been doing kind of engagements,
biblical engage with the twenty first cent you. When I
get back in September, I'll be doing a series on
faithful parenting in prosperous times.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
So we'll see how that goes. Let's receive the benediction. Friends,
sho go back out into the world.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Love God with your whole being, your heart, your mind,
and your soul and your strength. And love your neighbor
as yourself, which means give yourself a little bit of
grace too.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
And love your enemies so may one day they become
your friends a week and transform the world. And as
you go, know that God, the creator of the universe,
is preparing away for you, and Jesus the Christ is
walking beside of you every step of the way, and
the Holy Spirit, God's Love is swirling around you to
(46:17):
protect you and guide you through whatever you face this week.
So go now with peace. Amena s.
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