Transcript

Well, good morning, church. Welcome, East Gate family. I'm glad to see you. Hopefully you guys are having a great Labor Day weekend. I am.

We went to the beach yesterday, probably the last hurrah for the season, I'm guessing. It was a beautiful day at the beach, so we spent some family time. It was a good time. So hopefully you guys are enjoying your Labor Day weekend. You're choosing the good thing to be here with us, and I'm excited that you are here.

So we're continuing our sermon series that's entitled Real Community, four shared devotions for real community. And we're unpacking these four foundational devotions that have led to this tremendous growth that happened in the first century. The New Testament church, we're talking about the second one, which is a shared family. Now, speaking about family, Pastor Gary is at a family reunion in Bristol, Virginia, right now. And as a matter of fact, probably right about now, he's preaching in his family church, his home church right now.

So we pray for him and that he would bring the word boldly in Bristol, Virginia. So we're talking about family. What does your family look like? Pop this first one up. Are you guys just barely holding it together like these folks here?

You know, how about this one? Is your family just a little bit goofy? You know, how about this one? Maybe you got some black sheep in your family or this one? This one's just disturbing.

I'm glad we never did this in my family. And of course, one of my favorite families, the tv Simpsons family. You know, it's funny. Simpsons have been going on for something like 34 seasons. 34 years, if you imagine that.

And some of you who have some chrome on the side here a little bit, you can probably remember when that show was debuted, and a lot of parents would not let their kids see this show, okay? And I know a lot of people are like, I wasn't allowed to see it when I was a kid because, you know, Bart was so disrespectful to Homer. Nowadays, though, the Simpsons look like a pretty normal family on tv, don't they? They're actually almost a family that you'd almost want to emulate. Not quite, though.

So our definition of a normal family, it's changed a lot in the last few years. And, you know, society is rapidly evolving. We're seeing what is depicted as normal, really going through some changes, you know, that idealized nuclear family that used to be on tv sitcoms way back in the 1950s and sixties, you know, with leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet and my three sons and all those kind of things, you know, that mom and dad and 2.5 kids and the dog, that whole thing that is long ago past. And that's not really a lot of what we see anymore either. I mean, not even just on television, but here in our own congregation, in our own body right here.

You know, many of you have probably come from or are part of a single parent family. That was me. I was part of a single parent home. Right. Many of you have experienced, perhaps within your family, multiple divorces with the complications of many step parents and step kids.

And it just gets really confusing and complicated around the holidays. You know, who does. Who do the kids go with this time? Whose turn, you know? And, oh, my gosh, just hard.

It's just difficult. You know, several of you, like me, may not have been born here in eastern North Carolina. You may not have a large extended family around you, and you may be a transplant. And so, you know, perhaps you're nowhere geographically close to your blood relatives, or you may not even be all that close to them. In the closer sense, maybe nothing.

Okay? But some of you all have been born and raised here. And I'm looking at my black creek friends down here. If you don't know, the Sextons are related to everybody in eastern North Carolina, okay? So if you want to know somebody in eastern North Carolina, just get somebody with a sexton last name, and they probably know them.

I can attest to this. And so you might have a large extended family here in this area, but maybe. Maybe your family just causes you more stress than it's worth. Maybe. Ooh, maybe it's just difficult.

I mean, our families can be quite a source of stress, and there may be pain involved with that. You see, people today are starving for true and lasting relationships. Americans, though, are struggling with loneliness. And we've talked about this from the stage recently, but this is happening more and more, according to the Gallup organization. George Gallup says this.

He says, we are physically detached from each other. We change places of residence frequently. Seven in ten do not know their neighbors. Americans are among the loneliest people in the world. George Gallup said that, and that's really telling, okay, because he would know, right?

He's got his finger on the pulse of our society, and we're not very connected anymore. And a lot of times, what we do, we attempt to cure this loneliness by turning to social media. But a 2023 survey, or, I'm sorry, a study in the National Library of Medicine, they concluded this. It said that it found that the more time spent on social media was associated with higher levels of loneliness, in particular for people who used social media as a means for maintaining relationships. You getting that you get on social media with the idea of connecting with other people, it's actually leading to more disconnectedness and more loneliness.

In my opinion, social media probably ought to just be called media, okay? Because a lot of what the early social media platforms, if you go way back to MySpace and Facebook and other ones, pick your favorite instagram, whatever it is that you like to use, okay. The idea was we're going to connect with all these people and we're going to keep up with all these people. And there's still some of that that goes on to most of what happens on social media now is that it's not really used for communication or interaction with others. Most of the time we spend scrolling through videos that are produced specifically for consumption.

So you're watching some person make some video that they thought was screen worthy or whatever so that you would click on them and you'd watch it. Okay, is that social interaction? No, not really. We're more disconnected from each other, and we need family, we need fellowship more than ever. See, you and I were born needing community.

But sin causes us to be separated from God and from each other. When we come to Christ, though, he reconciles us to God and to one another, and causes us to be devoted to God and to one another. And we'll see this in the book of acts. In the book of acts, Luke describes this authentic community of the first century church. He said that they were marked by four devotions.

Four devotions. Last week, Pastor Gary talked about a shared faith. This week we're talking about a shared family. Pastor Steven next week we'll talk about a shared food, and then we'll wrap this up with a shared focus. Faith, family, food, and focus those four devotions.

We can experience this community when we pursue those four devotions. And today we're going to focus, like I said on the second one, a shared family. And the text is going to give us three ways to having a shared family. And what we're going to do is we're going to reread acts, chapter two, starting in verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, and the fellowship, and the breaking of bread.

And the prayers and awe came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved.

And may God bless the reading of his word. Amen. All right, so we're looking for three ways on how to share in the family of God. Here's the first way. Choose to belong fully.

Choose to belong fully. Now, you might be asking yourself, why are we rereading acts, chapter two? We're going to do this again. We just talked about this last week. Well, you see, this section of scripture is so rich and so powerful that we're going to mine this for what it's worth, because we're going to come at it from four different angles and look at it through the lens of the different devotions.

And so today we're going to look at this idea of belonging to a family. And let me remind you of something that Pastor Gary taught us last week. And that's that first word, and that's translated, devoted. Devoted. Now, this is the greek word.

And James, forgive me, but Proscar Taro. And I'm butchering that. And he's going to tell me how I'm supposed to pronounce it later on, which is fine, but prostor, this is that idea of facing towards. Facing towards it also, you know, devotion, this comes with this idea, too, of being strong and steadfast and earnestly attending to and to be diligent towards. Facing towards really captures this idea really well.

If I'm devoted to my wife, I'm not facing her by looking at my phone or watching the television or looking at someone else. I'm facing her. I'm devoted by turning towards. That's this idea that we see in being devoted. And you see here that we talked last week about being devoted to the apostles teaching.

But you know what? In this text, it actually says that they were devoted to all four of these things. They were devoted not just to the apostles teaching, but to fellowship and to sharing food and to prayer. Now, that word fellowship, this is one of the greek words that all of y'all should know, should learn. So we're gonna pop this up on the screen.

This is the word. Koinonia. Koinonia. This is this idea of a community, this shared participation, something where we all are related in some way. You can have this fellowship, this cornelia, even in a secular sense, you don't have to have it in a church.

So what do I mean by that? We're looking for groups where there's some kind of common bond. So you could be on a sports team or this could be work associates or, you know, perhaps a club of some kind, maybe a band or whatever it is. You know, you can have a shared ability there that something that connects you, and that is Cornelia. That's legitimate.

Cornelia, okay? That's fellowship. Okay? So physical families, those of you who walked in with your family, you have biology in common, right? You guys have some shared DNA.

You guys have biology in common. But I watched, especially in the first service I saw, we had a number of adopted children within. And honestly, that is an even tighter bond than the bond of biology, right? Because your parents chose you. So physical families have biology in common.

But you know what? God's family shares a common spiritual birth. So all of us who have been born again in Jesus Christ, we share that second birth. We share that idea of the newness that we share in Jesus, and we are born into his family that way. So there's the, there's another fellowship level.

Now something that's very interesting here in verse 42 that you should not miss is that they were devoted to the apostles teaching, but it's also the fellowship. It doesn't say they were devoted to fellowship. It says they were devoted to the fellowship. Now that's really interesting. Why is there a definite article?

Why is the, the there? Why is that there? Well, there's got to be something to it. What is the fellowship? Well, this fellowship is christian fellowship.

The fellowship requires the involvement of the Holy Spirit. So in order to have the fellowship, God's got to be present. And now all those other types of fellowships that can exist, whether you're on a sports team or you have military affiliation or people that you work with and stuff like that, those are all still good, okay? But they're ultimately temporary because they're not going to last. But because the fellowship, the Koinonia that we're talking about is with God.

The fellowship is infinite and it's eternal and it will outlast us. The fellowship is what we're aiming for here. Now, the fellowship that we're talking about existed before our creation. If we think about the nature of the trinitarian God, our triune God, Father, son and spirit of, they exercise perfect communion and perfect fellowship before the creation even happened. So they were there in perfect fellowship and we were created to be part of that fellowship.

You were created to be part of the fellowship with God. That's what makes this fellowship different. And you can see this. When that fellowship broken, when Jesus was on the cross and God placed the weight of all human sin upon Jesus, God the father could no longer look upon sin, and that fellowship was temporarily broken. And you can see what Jesus response was.

He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That fellowship was temporarily broken. See, God wants a family. God wants a family. Look at Ephesians one five.

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. He planned that from the beginning. He wanted you to be part of his family, and there's only one way to get into that family. John 112 says, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. You see that?

You have the right to become a child of God through Jesus Christ. You're part of that family. And if you didn't get it from that, hear the words directly from Jesus from John 14 six. And he said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.

Jesus is that door. That faith in Jesus is what causes us to be part of God's family. So at one point, we were broken, and we were enemies of God. But that relationship to God has changed. We're not strangers anymore.

Ephesians 219 says, from now on, you are not strangers. And people who are not citizens, you are citizens together with those who belong to God. You belong in God's family. I hope you're hearing that today. You belong in God's family.

That's who you are. See, God wanted family from the very beginning. And if you ever. Have you ever started reading the Bible? Say, a lot of people do this.

They start, like, in the New Testament. Some people try and start in Genesis, and a lot of people get lost along the way, right? But a lot of people will start in the New Testament and say, okay, I think I can handle that. And they start in the book of Matthew. Okay, now, Matthew is written for a mostly hebrew audience.

And what does he start out with in chapter one? He starts with all the begats, right? He starts with all this list of names. And if you're a brand new student of the Bible, you start reading this and you say, wow, this is hard because there's all these hebrew names. I don't know how to pronounce them, and I don't know who they are.

Right? Especially if you're just getting started and you're like, wow, what is all this? But every bit of scripture is inspired, and there's a reason why that's in there, right? Matthew is trying to demonstrate that Jesus had a family tree. It goes all the way back to Abraham.

And before he was part of Abraham's lineage, he was also in the lineage of David of the tribe of Judah, showing I his royalty. But this is demonstrating that Jesus had a family, and we've already seen that we are adopted into that family through Jesus. You know, in Genesis, chapter two, God says it's not good for man to be alone. And a lot of times we use that scripture in talking about marriage, relationships, and how it's important to find someone like that. But you know what?

It also applies in this context, in the fellowship context. It's not good for anyone to be alone. And let me tell you really quickly, you know, I've got a great job, but one of the things that. That I don't like about it is I'm alone a lot, okay? I'm on the road probably 15 days a month, and I'm sitting in some strange hotel room, and my wife is at home, so she's alone.

And I'm out at whatever city we're at, and I'm alone, okay? Now, we try to. We try to fill that in. We'll go to dinner with the other pilot or whatnot and spend some time, but ultimately, I'm still alone. So it's not good for man to be alone.

And God knew that from the very beginning. He made us, for fellowship, think as well about Jesus's priestly prayer just before he suffered and died in John 17, he prays to the father, but within the earshot of the disciples so that they could hear him. And he said to the father, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Jesus knew he was going to rise to the father and listen carefully to what he says next. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

So Jesus is praying for us to have that same Cornelia, the fellowship that he and the father already shared. That is that family that we would choose to belong fully to. Now, most of you know that I was in the military for 21 years. We moved around a lot. Okay?

My family and my wife's family were geographically separated from us my whole life. To this day, we are still not close to geographically, at least to our family. And so what we always sought to do was find a church where we could have family. So church family was important to us. And from the first, when I first got saved, we got involved in a small group ministry and we were meeting in the UK, in England, in homes, and I got discipled by the navigators in a small group ministry.

That's been over 30 years ago. For 30 years I've been involved in small group ministry, both teaching. I started three small group ministries in three different churches before I came here 14 years ago. Small groups are something that I'm very passionate about, and people who know me know that. That's why I do what I do, because I think it's important.

I know it's important for us to have the fellowship. The cornenia. Now, perhaps you've walked in this morning and you're just checking out this Eastgate thing, and you go, hey, yeah, there's this building over there used to be a movie theater back behind the Taco bell, and I thought I'd come in on Sunday morning and see and maybe perhaps you don't yet belong to this family of which I'm speaking. Well, your entry, as I alluded to, is through Jesus Christ. Today you can accept Jesus and you can follow him and you can have the entry into that family of God.

Now, perhaps you have been a believer for a while. Well, let's examine the state of that family that you're in. Do you consider those other people who are in the faith with you your family? Are they your brothers and sisters, or is it just something we say? Is church the place you come on Sunday morning?

I've got nothing else to do. 11:00 in the morning, I might as well go to church. Is it a loose collection of strangers who just all happen to show up at the same time? Okay, well, one of the things that we talked about last week is our small group participation rate. And depending upon how you count up those who come here, members and regular attenders and stuff like that, our small group participation rate is somewhere between 65 and 80%, which is really good when you compare us to other churches.

But what it does say to me is that there is between 20 and 35% of people who are hearing my voice right now that are not participating in the blessing that small groups provide. And I would encourage you, I would encourage you to check that out. We've got small groups starting up this week, a brand new one starting this week. Come talk to me after the service. I'll help you get set.

So we want to belong fully to the family. Here's the second thing that we need to do to be part of the shared family of God. Decide to live sacrificially. Decide to live sacrificially. We're in verses 44 and 45 here, and you can see that Luke writes that all believed and were together and had all things in common.

And they sold their possessions and belongings and distributed to any who had needs. What things did they sell or what things did they pool? All things. All things. That's everything.

Okay. All the whole, each and every part. Okay. Your skills and your stuff. Okay.

You could also say time, talent and treasure. Now don't misunderstand what's going on here. This is not a socialist or communistic thing. This is not that. Everybody just pulled it in and it was all sitting in one room and everybody took what they needed.

That's not the way to think. Think of this. The best way to think of this is the early church understood that everything belonged to God in the first place and that we were just stewards of what God had given us. And if I'm just a steward, watching over the stuff that God has given me, and I see a need within the body and I can meet it with the stuff that God has stewarded me to watch over, then I should do that. I should do that.

Okay. This is nothing. This is not, okay. Let's pool everything up and everybody gets an equal share. That's not what we're talking about.

Use what God has given you to meet needs within the church.

Now this is needs, okay. This is not wants. This is not desires. These are needs. Okay, now this is interesting.

If you look through acts and you look at how this started to play out. Okay, so we're in chapter two, right here in chapter four. What we see is the apostles are actually the ones that are validating those needs and they're making distributions and stuff like that. But the apostles very rapidly get overwhelmed with this ministry. And anybody who's been in any of these kind of ministries before, you know that when you start meeting needs, it gets pretty difficult because now people come from all over the place and you're trying to figure out who's really needy, who's not.

What do we do with our limited resources? How can we do this? And so the apostles were, you know, getting overwhelmed. And they said, hey, it's not good that we don't preach the word to take care of widows. And so the deacon ministry started in acts chapter six.

And that's what you see here in this church. That's how we model our deacons. Our deacons, Diakonos, they are servants, they are ministers, they're not a decision making body. They are not a rubber stamp to whatever the pastor says. They are servants.

And so when you see somebody that we've identified as a deacon, we have seen that their life lives up to one Timothy and Titus, that these people, these men are true servants of God and that they go out of their way. That's why they're out here serving all the time. That's what the deacons are for. And so they're meeting needs. Now, how did that early church meet those needs?

Well, they had to know what those needs were. Okay? So it's very difficult. If I have the resources that God has allowed me to steward and I don't know of any needs, how can I meet them? So I've got to know what those needs are.

Now, we here in the south, you know, we like to keep our private stuff private. Right. And we like to be polite and not mention certain things. Okay. Well, within your trusted family, you ought to let those people know when there are needs to be met.

Okay. So being private and polite actually hinders other people's ability to get the blessing of meeting the needs that God has called them to do. So allow people to meet your needs when you are needy, that's not being polite. Look at one John 316 and 17. It says, by this, we know love, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? And look at Galatians 610. Therefore, whenever we have opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to those in the family of faith. Now, charity is a good thing, okay, don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. If you are, you know, reaching out to the community and doing charitable kind of things, great.

Okay? But what the Bible clearly teaches is we should help those within the church first because we're family. You would help your family first before you help somebody on the street. Same thing is applicable here. Why?

Because you already know the needs. You already know what they are. You don't have. Have to go back and do a lot of validation like you might have to do with someone that you don't know. Meet the needs within the church and then meet needs outside.

By all means, please continue to do good charity. Good works of charity, that's a great thing to do, but do those for the family of faith. Now, recently in one of our small groups, one of the members had surgery and this was pretty extensive surgery. This was going to be a downtime for quite some time. It was going to take several months, and this person was going to need care during the recovery and the rehabilitation from that surgery.

Before that surgery even happened, the members of the small group called this family and called this family together and said, look, you need to let us know how we can help you. And do not sit there and suffer in silence and do not sit there with unmet needs because you did not want to bother us. You need to let us know how we can serve you. And now I can report today that not only did that family correctly respond and let the needs be known, but a number of members of that group were able to help out with meals and rides, to medical appointments and social visits and the like. Now, I was sharing this illustration with Adam, who's preaching in Rocky Mount this morning.

I was telling him how I was going to use this illustration. He goes, that's my group. And I go, that's not who I was talking about. Okay, so you know what? That's not unusual because this is a regular feature of our community groups.

This is what they do. So as I thought it was fairly unusual, it was happening exactly as I described it at the exact same time in another group. So that's what we do, live sacrificially. So when we belong fully to God's family, we're able to share our stuff. Are you willing to trust God with all that you are and all that you have?

Will you make your stuff available to God and to his family? Your time, your talent, your treasure? First, you need to decide that God's ownership is encompassing everything you've got and you're just a steward of it. Become a tither first and give recognition that God owns it. Then begin to make your skills and your stuff available to your fellowship.

Addressing needs as the spirit stirs your heart. Make it happen when the spirit is talking to you. Be free to be able to do that. So we want to live sacrificially for each other to build that fellowship. Here's the third one.

We want to commit to gather regularly. Commit to gather regularly. We're in verses 46 and 47 here, and what we see here is day by day they attended temple together, break bread in their homes, and receive food with glad and generous hearts. And they praise God. So day by day, day by day, this is daily.

This is a daily devotion of theirs. It was their routine. It was part of a habit. It just happened because it was such an important part of their lives. And it says here that they attended the temple together.

Now, this is really interesting, and I didn't discover this until we started studying this. And again, I don't speak greek, but I've got some great computer tools that do. Okay, so this word attending is that same word for devotion. Okay. Or devoted.

It's that proscar terraro. Okay. And again, James helped me on after service. Proscar terraro. This is devoted to attending.

It's not just attending. This was something that was so important to them that this was a devotion. They turned their face towards temple and were going to do it regardless of what else was going on. They were not just pew potatoes, right? They didn't just kind of come in and sit.

This was something that was so important to them that they wouldn't miss it. This was a top priority, and they attended together. That word together. This is kind of cool, too. I found this interesting.

It's not just that you happen to walk in at the same time like, oh, hey, Joe, you know, not just that. This is that greek word homothumodon. This is of one accord, one passion. So they were so devoted to attending temple and going from house to house that they shared this passion to do it. It was such a part of their lives that they couldn't imagine doing anything different.

And what were they doing when they gathered together? They're at the very end of verse 47, it says they were praising God. They were praising God. So a lot of times we have a mixed or a mist understanding of what it means to worship. We think it's, oh, it's that music that's at the beginning, before that preacher gets on up.

Now we're living a life of worship right now. You sitting under the teaching of God's word. The extolling of God's word is worship. The way you live your life is worship. The way the first century church gathered together was a life of worship.

So part of how they lived their life, when they were committing to gathering regularly, that was building the fellowship. The fellowship was built up by gathering regularly, if you can imagine. Okay, let's say I only saw my wife 1 hour a week. Is that building community? Well, of course not.

We think that's ridiculous, okay? But if you're trying to build fellowship, you're trying to be part of a family, okay? And you only see people time a week for an hour, and you're all sitting facing me. You're not really building a lot of fellowship. Now you're doing something important, okay?

But you're not building a lot of fellowship. A friend of mine likes to say that, you know, if I'm only seeing you on Sunday and on Wednesdays at small group, you're kind of messing up and you're missing out. We should be seeing each other outside of this. And so some of the people that you meet with, and I'm not saying you're going to see all 435 35 attenders of this church, of course not. But you're going to see the people that matter the most to you.

You're going to see the people that you have relationship with. Now, this is important for us because corporate worship that we gather together is for our encouragement. That's the first reason why we want to gather regularly. Look at Hebrews 1025. It says, we should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing.

Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming. We gather together on Sunday mornings to encourage each other. You all are encouraging me just by sitting and listening to me. I can't tell you how much that charges me up. Now, corporate worship is also for our sanctification.

Now, sanctification is one of those theological words which basically means becoming more like Jesus. As we grow in Jesus, corporate worship helps to do that. Tim Keller, the great preacher, says this. He says sanctification can happen on the spot as we sit under gospel preaching and engage in corporate worship. So you are being sanctified right now.

You're becoming more like Jesus just by sitting there. But acts, psalm 542 says, and every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that Christ is Jesus. You can see that sanctification was played out in the early church because they were always gathering together and they were praising and preaching Christ Jesus. Here's the best and final way that it's important for us to gather regularly because it points to a future reality. Corporate worship points to that future reality.

Look at revelation 7910. It says, after this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the lamb. That is what the future is going to look like. We're going to be praising God together, but with people that you haven't even met yet. The fellowship is involved with this idea of gathering regularly.

Now, I was stationed in Korea in 2006, and I was there without my family. I attended the chapel on base, and one day we had a joint service, okay, where all. All the chapel members went out to the softball field because they couldn't hold it in the chapel because it was huge. And we invited the korean chapel from the base because it was a joint base. We had Koreans and Americans there and a few allied people.

And so we were there having a joint service, and at one point, we all sang the same song at the same time, us in English, them in Korean. And it was the most beautiful thing that I have ever heard because it pointed to that which is coming. And you can imagine every nation, tribe, and tongue singing praises to the Lord Jesus. That's what it's going to look like. It's a future reality.

We are building that koinonia right now, right here, and other churches are doing the very same thing. Now, when I was young, family dinner was mandatory, okay? Before my dad died, he insisted on family dinner, and it was every night, right around 530 or so. And, you know, we were always outside playing, and my dad had that way of whistling, you know, when you put their fingers in your mouth and the really loud one, you know, I can't do it. But when I heard that whistle, I knew I was late and I was bad, and I would hurry up and get back in time for dinner, because dinner was at 530, so we'd get in and, you know, we would do that, and we'd have dinner every night.

We could. Now, I tried to model that as well when I was a young dad. So Cindy and I and the kids would gather every night for dinner. Now, of course, my schedule was a lot more messed up than that. His was much more regular than mine was, so I was either flying or deployed or something like that half the time.

But when I was home, we had family dinner, and it was important. We modeled this from when the kids were very little and there were no tvs, there's no phones. Of course, back when my kids were little, nobody had phones anyway, so, you know, it didn't really matter. But there were no toys at the table, nothing to distract. And we had family dinner.

We interacted with each other. We had conversation. Can you imagine that? Actually having conversation and actually talking to each other? It's kind of neat and, you know, but we were building memories together, and it was important because it was one of those things that the kids knew.

This is part of being part of this family. We're going to gather together, and if anything else, dad's away or dad's you know, doing whatever he's going to do. You know what? When he comes home, we're having family dinner. And of course, Cindy did it, too, when she was alone, but it was a lot harder, you know, because she was working, too, with two littles.

That was. But we still tried to do family dinner as much as we could because that was important. That's an important part of being part of the family. Will you prioritize meeting and worshiping together in the church and in the homes? Will you make attending together that big rock in your calendar?

Like, put the. Put Sunday morning and Wednesday or whenever your small group meets, those are in there primarily first, and then everything else builds around it. Now, this week in our community group, one of the members of the community group said something, and I just made my heart happy because this person said, you know what? We know Wednesday night is going to happen. We're going to small group.

No matter what else happens, we're going to go to small group. Unless we're ill, we're going to small group and everything else. We don't schedule anything else on Wednesday night. And it just kind of made my heart happy because that showed the priority that this person had for small group. And I didn't, it wasn't a.

I didn't prompt it or anything like that. It was just what this person said. It made me very happy. Would you miss a family gathering? Like a family birthday party?

Well, we have a party for Jesus every Sunday. We have a party for Jesus on Wednesdays or whenever your group meets. Don't miss that. Don't miss that party. Make it a big rock in your calendar.

Now, men, let me talk to you specifically right now. I see you sitting up straight. Most men today, you know, you all made friendships probably back in high school, maybe in college, and you thought, these are my bros. These are the guys I'm going to hang out with forever, right? And then you get married and you get a career, and you rapidly find out you don't have time for those dudes anymore.

You really don't. And sometimes it might be months or even years between the times that you see these guys that were absolutely your closest buds, right? Yeah. Well, men need that kind of fellowship. And you know what?

We're providing an opportunity for you to do that. The men's retreat's coming up the fourth through the 6th in October. Now let me ask you men. You like being outside? You like the mountains?

You like the woods? Okay, how about you like food? Okay, good food. Do you like hanging out with other men, maybe throwing some horseshoes or playing a game. But especially, do you like sitting under good teaching?

Well, you know what? All four of those devotions we've been talking about all exist in that men's retreat that's coming up. So sign up. And ladies, encourage your men to sign up, too, because they need this. They're only going to get it, you know, one time a year, and that's not nearly enough, but they need this sign up.

Will you choose to belong fully to God's family? Will you decide to live sacrificially with that family? How about, are you going to commit to gathering regularly with God's family? Well, let's pray. Father, I thank you for today.

I thank you for this beautiful Labor Day weekend that we gather together. And I thank you especially for your word that is so rich that we can mine it for that which you want us to know. And so, father, I want to pray first for that person that may have come in that right now does not have a relationship with you. And if that's you, if you are not yet part of the family because you've not made that commitment, would you pray with me? And there's nothing magic about my words, but it's the heart that you share.

And you can just pray where you are and you can pray and think, father, I need you because I'm missing out on that family. I'm missing out on that fellowship that I could have. I'm a broken person. I'm a broken vessel. I haven't been following what you had to say, but, jesus, I know that you have died for me and that you can forgive me of my sin and I can live forever with you.

Would you please become my lord and savior? If you prayed that with me, you're now part of the family. Welcome. We're so excited that you're here. Now.

Perhaps you are within the sound of my voice. And you are a Christian. You've been walking with Jesus for a while, but you're really missing out on that fellowship. You're missing out on that koinonia that can be available to you. Let me pray for you, too.

Father, I pray for those who are missing out, who for various reasons, for medical reasons or their busy kids schedules or their work schedule or whatever it is, it's difficult for them to make that kind of commitment, to really experience the koinonia that you offer. Father, would you help them to find margin, find space in their busy calendar, find priority for you and for God's people, help them to get the connection that they so desperately need. We love you, Father, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.