Dale Partridge - Romans 12_9-13 ~ Part 4 - Thirty Marks of a True Christian

00:00:00.000 Today, we are going to continue our sermon through Romans chapter 12, and it's the 30 marks of a

00:00:12.480 true Christian. This is part four, and we're talking about biblical hospitality, biblical

00:00:20.080 hospitality. And I'll tell you what, yes, certainly this is a message for all, but ladies, this is a

00:00:29.020 message for you, because hospitality typically falls upon the women in the church as they are

00:00:36.060 the keepers of the home. But I believe this sermon will be very helpful for all of us. 0.99

00:00:41.900 Now, as you know, this is a pivotal part in the epistle of Romans. We have just recently spent

00:00:49.620 11 chapters talking about orthodoxy, which is right or straight doctrine. And now we are

00:00:59.320 shifting to five chapters of orthopraxy, which is straight practice. Now, this is because Paul

00:01:07.080 understands that right belief is required for right behavior. Now, whenever our behavior is

00:01:15.660 detached from the gospel. Whenever you get someone telling you to do something without being

00:01:21.860 motivated from the gospel, it ends up in moralism or legalism. Now, as we know, R.C. Sproul speaks

00:01:30.500 upon this quite often. He says, right living follows right thinking as the fruit follows the

00:01:38.300 root. To pursue morality apart from theology is to attempt to produce fruit apart from the root,

00:01:47.080 which leaves nothing but the empty husk of moralism. As we know, Jesus says, I'm the vine

00:01:54.940 and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I am in him bears much fruit. From apart from me,

00:02:00.560 you can do nothing. Anything that you do outside of faith in Christ is self-righteous works to

00:02:12.220 the glorification of your own being. And so we must do these acts, all these things in Romans

00:02:18.700 chapter 12, we are to do these things with an effort to have them done in faith from a heart

00:02:26.560 that loves God.

00:02:29.700 Now, Paul understands this

00:02:32.020 and our behavior must flow from Christ.

00:02:36.340 He wants the motive for our obedience

00:02:38.180 to be gratitude for the mercy

00:02:40.520 that's been extended to us in the gospel.

00:02:45.760 He wants us to obey

00:02:47.740 not because we are earning love,

00:02:51.360 but because we are loved.

00:02:54.360 It's the same with our own households.

00:02:56.560 Do you want your kids to obey to earn love, or do you want them to obey because they are loved?

00:03:05.600 Now, verses 9 through 21, Paul presents 30 different commands.

00:03:13.860 And these 30 commands are presented as a kind of series of interconnected exhortations.

00:03:20.640 And each of them stands independently, but they are certainly connected at some degree.

00:03:25.700 Now, at this point, we've gone through Marks 1 through 10.

00:03:29.600 We've talked about Marks 1 through 10, which included some very practical practices regarding the Christian life.

00:03:36.680 We talked about love and good and evil and honor and affection for one another and many more things.

00:03:43.580 Last week, we covered a passage of Scripture that is worthy to put painted across your walls in your house.

00:03:52.520 It was verse 12 that says, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer.

00:04:01.800 These were marks number eight, nine, and 10.

00:04:04.560 Today, we are going to get through so much ground.

00:04:07.800 We're going to do one more verse.

00:04:09.960 I'm kidding here because I cannot seem to get past one verse at a time because there's so much depth in every one of these commands.

00:04:19.520 And so we will be covering Mark's number 11 and 12, and they are contribute to the needs of the saints, seek to show hospitality.

00:04:31.000 Now, much of the previous commands, if we went through commands number one through 10, those commands have been focused on our personal inward expressions of devotion and love towards God.

00:04:43.120 today and next week we start shifting to relational expressions of love and devotion

00:04:51.200 and why does this matter because honestly it makes them much more difficult

00:04:54.300 it makes it much more difficult it's really easy to do something that benefits you

00:04:58.880 it's very difficult to do something that benefits only others

00:05:02.060 and so the focus of this sermon is hospitality

00:05:06.920 honestly the church at large is not great at hospitality

00:05:13.460 We have a low standard of hospitality.

00:05:16.600 Maybe if you live in the South, you might have a higher standard a bit.

00:05:21.680 Maybe if you're in a good church, you might understand and someone taught you hospitality. 1.00

00:05:26.840 We have a absolute famine of older women teaching younger women how to do things in the home. 1.00

00:05:34.380 We live in a feministic generation that is just completely ravaged young women. 0.98

00:05:39.420 and we are in a space where many people don't even understand the standards for what is biblical 0.99

00:05:47.680 hospitality and how do i actually carry that out in my house and so we're going to start

00:05:56.500 with verse 13 which is not as focused on hospitality but it's certainly connected

00:06:03.780 It says, contribute to the needs of the saints.

00:06:09.060 Now, money is arguably the most powerful idol because money mimics the providential nature of God.

00:06:18.060 And what I mean by that is that money, like God, has the ability to give you what you want.

00:06:26.020 Why do you worship money?

00:06:27.480 Because you worship the ability to get you something.

00:06:31.220 And because of that power, it's easy to place our trust, our hope, our security, our joy in how much money we make rather than setting it on Christ alone.

00:06:46.780 John Calvin once said, where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost authority.

00:06:55.220 so how can you tell when money has become an idol in your life

00:07:01.980 well one of the clearest signs is that generosity feels like a burden

00:07:06.380 rather than a joy if generosity feels like a burden to you

00:07:11.660 it's because money has a grip on a dimension of your heart that it ought not to

00:07:18.900 now this verse is commanded generosity but paul qualifies the generosity by differentiating

00:07:28.580 between wants and needs okay we are to contribute to what to the needs of the saints now that would

00:07:38.700 include housing clothing food water essential items like diapers or gas to get to work or

00:07:46.280 medicine. Okay, these are the fundamental understanding of what needs are. Now, I do

00:07:53.720 want to remind folks that an unexpressed need cannot be met. I know a lot of times people will

00:08:02.180 have a need, they won't express it, and they'll actually get bitter that no one's helping them.

00:08:08.120 Nobody knows. And so you need to be humble enough to say, I have a need.

00:08:16.280 and we live in a pride culture that is too prideful to say, I have a need.

00:08:22.920 And instead, what you do is you go into debt to cover needs

00:08:27.300 instead of asking the church or your brothers and sisters for help.

00:08:32.860 That's wrong.

00:08:35.860 Generosity is really a manifestation of Christ's golden command.

00:08:40.540 Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

00:08:44.700 What I mean by that is that I would argue that you should pursue meeting the needs of other Christians with the same urgency that you would pursue to meet your own needs. 0.65

00:09:00.500 It's easy to make a need be like, if I have a little bit left, I'll help out. 0.65

00:09:07.240 Truly, treat others needs how you would treat your needs.

00:09:12.380 now when it comes to christian giving there are really three primary forms of giving

00:09:16.920 giving to the needs of the local church which is the essential reality for sustaining worship

00:09:22.200 we cannot do this without the gifts of the body it's much like israel's responsibility to the

00:09:28.020 levites and to the priests to provide them the ability to worship number two is giving to the

00:09:33.500 express needs of others in the local church which should be heard and pursued wherever possible

00:09:42.140 And the third form of giving is giving to the express needs of the universal church.

00:09:47.320 Might be a brother or sister that's a foreign missionary.

00:09:49.740 Might be another friend or family or ministry that's across the nation.

00:09:54.720 Now, historically, the local church fulfills all three of those categories.

00:10:01.920 We receive gifts for the operation of the local church and the compensation of pastoral time.

00:10:07.180 We do that every week.

00:10:08.460 We also allocate a portion of that to a benevolent fund that we give specifically only to members.

00:10:16.120 And then we also, Lord willing, in time, as our means expand, we will be able to give to other institutions, ministries, schools that we want to plant and start things that we can essentially, hopefully, Christianize this town.

00:10:33.320 Now, having the fact that the church does that doesn't permit you to just close your eyes to the needs of those around you.

00:10:44.820 The vast majority of problems I see around generosity is that people don't know each other.

00:10:50.520 Okay, you got to get people in your house.

00:10:53.760 It's why we do a fellowship meal every Sunday.

00:10:56.860 It's amazing to me that churches can meet and not eat.

00:11:02.200 It's crazy.

00:11:03.320 historically that never happened by the way in the early church it was always meeting and eating

00:11:11.060 so to command us to follow all of these love for one another and yet not provide an opportunity

00:11:19.300 for us to gather with one another is really odd and it's why we do it here at king's way

00:11:26.620 ultimately i think this whole ethic is brought up in this idea

00:11:33.500 in philippians 2 4 let us or let each of you not look only to your own interests

00:11:43.560 but also to the interests of others that's just the point

00:11:48.920 men

00:11:51.540 I want you to learn

00:11:54.440 how to make money

00:11:56.340 the vast

00:11:58.700 problems with generosity is that

00:12:00.620 a lot of guys don't have any money to give

00:12:02.520 because they are either

00:12:04.520 unemployed or

00:12:06.120 underemployed

00:12:07.440 and the church should be helping men learn

00:12:10.400 how to make money and do it well

00:12:12.240 we have projects to fund

00:12:15.960 church

00:12:16.940 we have a school and a homeschooling co-op

00:12:19.680 and a seminary

00:12:21.760 we want to start

00:12:23.520 we can't do it if everybody in our church

00:12:26.680 is underemployed

00:12:28.220 we need men to step up

00:12:30.800 okay mark number 12

00:12:34.060 seek to show hospitality

00:12:36.680 which is

00:12:39.140 the latter half of verse 13

00:12:41.020 now the greek word

00:12:46.340 for hospitality philoxenos is the Greek word philoxenos is the Greek word for hospitality

00:12:55.080 now if you know anything about Greek it's made up of two words philoxenos is made up of two

00:13:03.840 Greek words philo which is one of the three forms of love in Greek right we get where we get

00:13:10.820 philadelphia philo and then there's eros which is the where we get erotic but it's for romantic love

00:13:17.680 and then we have agape which is unconditional christian love the love that god gives us as

00:13:23.840 agape love but philo and then xenos okay you've heard the word that everybody who basically you

00:13:32.460 get called this word if you just love the idea of borders you're a xenophobia right right it's

00:13:38.740 it means stranger. It means stranger. And so the word hospitality in the Greek actually means

00:13:45.180 love strangers. Just simple, love strangers. Now, this is to befriend those who are strangers

00:13:58.920 in your environment. That means your church, and that means your city, and your community,

00:14:06.800 your schools now to clarify hospitality is not some form of christian permission

00:14:16.000 to eliminate borders or just kind of open up everything and everybody should just immigrate

00:14:21.980 here and it should just be a part open to everybody and i want to talk about this because

00:14:25.720 we're here because i think we need a biblical understanding of borders for a second and what

00:14:31.180 hospitality means because this verse always comes up when someone says, oh, this person immigrated

00:14:37.660 illegally into our nation, but Christians are just supposed to have open borders and to love

00:14:43.000 the stranger. And it's totally a perverted understanding of these doctrines. Now, the

00:14:49.800 Bible does emphasize the importance of welcoming strangers and showing hospitality. We are to do

00:14:54.020 that. It does not advocate for the abolition of national boundaries. It also does not advocate

00:14:59.620 for ignoring legal frameworks established by governments. Now, there is a legal and an illegal

00:15:05.460 way to come into a country. So, hospitality is a call to welcome those who are here legally.

00:15:13.000 In fact, to welcome those who are here illegally would be to undermine the rule of law. 0.74

00:15:20.320 And so, we want to uphold righteousness and standards for entering into a country. Now, 0.99

00:15:25.700 I'm on the topic. And so I want to make something very clear because America and even American

00:15:31.340 Christians have perverted hospitality to not just loving foreigners, but actually adopting 0.98

00:15:37.940 their pagan ways. And what I mean by that is, for example, this year, 34 million people, 1.00

00:15:48.440 34 million Americans will start and practice yoga.

00:15:54.340 It's just a great gateway into Hinduism and New Ageism.

00:15:58.580 Over a million Americans convert to Islam and Buddhism each year.

00:16:05.000 Now, where am I getting that? Where am I going here?

00:16:10.220 I'd like to offer several verses that are written to the Old Testament saints regarding the nation of Israel.

00:16:14.460 And I like to apply the principles, the general principles to us in the New Testament, in the nation of America, because our nation was clearly founded as a Christian nation.

00:16:29.600 I just recently read the Mayflower Compact as we went through Thanksgiving, and I thought, man, what a beautiful start to this new settled land.

00:16:40.680 Leviticus 20.23 says

00:16:43.680 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you 0.73

00:16:47.980 For they did all these things and therefore I detested them

00:16:52.120 Deuteronomy 18.9

00:16:53.300 When you come into the land that the Lord your God has given you 1.00

00:16:57.580 You shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations 1.00

00:17:02.680 Jeremiah 10.2 0.67

00:17:05.800 Thus says the Lord, learn not the way of the nations

00:17:09.960 nor be dismayed at the signs of the heaven

00:17:13.760 because the nations are dismayed at them.

00:17:16.580 Exodus 23-24

00:17:18.200 You shall not bow down to their gods

00:17:20.980 nor serve them

00:17:23.200 nor do as they do

00:17:25.780 but you shall utterly overthrow them 0.92

00:17:28.680 and break their pillars in pieces.

00:17:31.360 Now I would argue also that the Great Commission,

00:17:33.780 Jesus, giving the Great Commission

00:17:35.660 eliminates a perverted form of hospitality

00:17:39.720 and let me explain why. Jesus commands us not to conform to the nations. He tells us to conform

00:17:49.700 the nations to us. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father,

00:17:57.240 the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And what? Teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.

00:18:03.100 That is what we are called to do. 0.83

00:18:08.040 Now remember, when a pagan foreigner entered Israel, 0.96

00:18:13.740 so if we just look back for a second to Old Testament Israel and you're a Canaanite,

00:18:22.620 that you're coming into Israel and you want to become a member of that nation.

00:18:28.220 They would be forced to conform to the ways of worship of Israel.

00:18:33.100 Israel's hospitality did not make room for what we call religious freedom. 0.53

00:18:41.160 Now, that's an American thing, religious freedom.

00:18:44.520 It's not biblical.

00:18:46.480 The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength,

00:18:50.700 or know other gods in the Ten Commandments.

00:18:54.180 So religious freedom is not a biblical ethic.

00:18:58.720 and their hospitality was to conform these forwarders to the standards of Israel. 0.82

00:19:11.020 Leviticus 18.26 says,

00:19:12.640 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, 0.71

00:19:18.140 either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

00:19:22.420 Listen to this one, Numbers 15, 15 through 16.

00:19:24.760 it says you and the sojourner shall be alike before the lord one law and one rule shall be

00:19:35.920 for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you so yes the foreigner we are to love them

00:19:43.640 but we're not to overextend that hospitality into unbiblical tolerance now tolerance i feel like

00:19:53.020 in the last 10 years has become this like great American virtue and it's unbiblical.

00:19:59.080 So yes, Christ has called us to Christianize the nations through the gospel and through

00:20:04.740 the doctrines of scripture.

00:20:05.840 So we must constantly welcome those who are legally immigrating into our nation.

00:20:09.460 That's great.

00:20:10.940 And we welcome them with the gospel.

00:20:13.040 We don't adopt their pagan ways and then proliferate them across this nation.

00:20:18.220 And I think a lot of this is struggles because we don't have a Christian identity. 0.74

00:20:22.240 We need a national identity.

00:20:25.500 But what we must not confuse is hospitality as tolerance.

00:20:30.680 Now, I'm going to briefly talk to some other elements of hospitality, which I think are more traditional and helpful.

00:20:38.220 Practical matters of hospitality.

00:20:41.760 This is just one personal concern of mine.

00:20:44.560 I think this is more practical for us here.

00:20:46.820 When a person visits our church, and I think we're actually pretty good at this, by the way,

00:20:52.020 but we want to be a community that walks up to people, meets people, says hello to people.

00:21:00.800 To ignore a person that comes into the church is, at some degree, a disobedience to this command.

00:21:08.500 And it happens. It happens.

00:21:11.360 Such behavior is not loving the stranger, it's loving ourselves, 0.98

00:21:14.200 and it shouldn't be the mark of any Christian church.

00:21:17.360 It doesn't mean we bombard people.

00:21:19.120 It just means that, hey, how are you?

00:21:20.620 My name's this.

00:21:22.040 Tell me a little bit about your story.

00:21:26.520 Our congregation, again, I think is fairly good at this.

00:21:30.180 But we should be hospitable to guests.

00:21:33.120 We should also be hospitable to one another.

00:21:34.540 And I'm going to read a passage from 1 Peter 4, 9 that says,

00:21:37.600 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

00:21:41.920 Okay?

00:21:42.240 There's a text, if you look down at your Bible

00:21:46.700 Look down to verse 13, Romans 9 verse 13 for a second

00:21:49.740 And I want you to see, depending on your translation

00:21:53.540 It has the imperative verb

00:21:57.560 Seek

00:21:58.320 Seek to show hospitality

00:22:01.400 Seek

00:22:03.400 Now, it's incredibly easy to live a life that does not seek others

00:22:10.200 or live a life where you only seek some.

00:22:14.720 Now, affinity, you guys know what affinity is?

00:22:17.820 Affinity is like a natural affection for somebody.

00:22:20.100 It's just, you just get along with that person real easy.

00:22:23.240 Affinity can easily morph into sinful partiality pretty quick.

00:22:29.320 As a pastor, by the way, I don't get to choose who I hang out with.

00:22:34.380 The Lord builds the church and I get to shepherd the flock that the Lord gives me.

00:22:37.600 I might not pick everybody out of a crowd because of my affinity.

00:22:43.840 You know, I might go, oh, well, that family looks like they would get along with us,

00:22:46.500 so we would choose that family.

00:22:48.000 But the Lord builds the church.

00:22:50.460 And there's all types of people in here that you go, man, had you not been in my community,

00:22:54.520 and had I not had the command to seek hospitality, I might not actually have you over for dinner.

00:23:00.420 And that's a beautiful thing that we get to overcome in Christ.

00:23:04.040 now there's nothing wrong with preferring certain people

00:23:07.800 I mean prioritizing family or friends isn't sinful

00:23:09.900 but neglecting others depending on the reason can be sinful

00:23:13.500 and so I would encourage everybody here to seek

00:23:17.500 one another out

00:23:19.340 actually do it

00:23:21.740 one pastor wrote

00:23:24.000 the word for seek is often translated as pursue

00:23:27.180 therefore this means far more than being willing to entertain

00:23:30.780 we're willing

00:23:32.200 it says it indicates going after hosting pursuing it extending invitations and following up

00:23:40.720 oh that was good and personally we our household we've done this by putting one day a week that

00:23:49.320 we host we just have a day every week that we host what's your hosting night what's your hosting

00:23:56.880 night. Honestly, to be a Christian and not have somebody over for dinner every week as a general

00:24:05.960 frequency is really strange. I'd like to encourage us to get a hosting night on your calendar in your

00:24:15.100 house and that we would host a family. And honestly, Veronica and I, we just kind of put

00:24:22.060 people through and hopefully you know even as this church grows uh you know we'll get at least

00:24:31.480 you know a dinner a year with every family in the church you know if we have 50 60 families

00:24:36.320 um now more practically speaking i've enjoyed the definition of hospitality as

00:24:43.640 the act of showing someone their worth.

00:24:48.220 The act of showing someone their worth.

00:24:54.500 And that means that hospitality doesn't end at the invitation.

00:24:59.340 It extends into how you behave with one another

00:25:02.240 at your gathering together.

00:25:07.760 Hospitality is a way of being with others.

00:25:10.580 you can have a hospitable spirit or an inhospitable spirit now let me just offer an extreme example

00:25:21.640 to make a point donald trump says you know what i'm coming over to your house

00:25:28.900 okay and i'm going to pull up and there's going to be no secret service and it's just going to be me

00:25:35.160 and melania and we're going to come to your house for dinner

00:25:37.820 just imagine the moment they pull up in a tahoe in front of your house and they're there how are

00:25:46.760 you going to behave well i would certainly expect it to inform the way you dressed 0.81

00:25:52.400 okay i would expect that it would inform the what you're eating that night it's probably not going

00:25:59.000 to be a flip-flop hamburger night okay it's probably going to be much more fancy than that

00:26:04.660 I also expect you'd probably have all your children waiting at the door to greet the president with handshakes and introductions.

00:26:16.240 You'd probably likely ask if you could take his coat, maybe offer him a drink, a seat.

00:26:23.580 This is just typical normal stuff that you would do.

00:26:25.900 Now, out of those actions, why should any of that change if one of your brothers or sisters comes to the house?

00:26:36.440 It shouldn't. It shouldn't change.

00:26:41.240 Now, too often, this is probably the most important point of the sermon today, because I think this is most practical.

00:26:48.880 Too often in this generation, we believe that casualism communicates closeness and love more than formality.

00:26:59.800 We think that casualism communicates love and closeness more than formality.

00:27:07.040 Let me explain.

00:27:09.040 It's why we have people constantly casualizing.

00:27:15.960 We're hungry for authenticity.

00:27:18.880 That's our word, right, of this generation, authenticity.

00:27:23.280 Now, we think that by being informal, whether it's dinner or wherever it may be,

00:27:29.640 and I'm not saying you've got to all dress like me, okay?

00:27:31.860 I'm just saying is that by being informal, we think that we are demonstrating how comfortable we are with you.

00:27:40.220 You know what?

00:27:41.520 I'm so comfortable with you that I'm going to dress like I dress when I'm cleaning my garage.

00:27:46.940 and that should communicate how much I love you

00:27:51.480 because I trust you so much.

00:27:57.320 But when you host, now again, I'm going to say this,

00:28:00.420 it's normal to dress that way around your family

00:28:03.300 because it does communicate intimacy.

00:28:06.420 But it's because you live in the same covenant household.

00:28:10.200 When I host a different household over at my place,

00:28:15.080 that changes uh we know if you guys look down at your bibles go just look for a second romans 12 10

00:28:24.820 what does it say it says outdo one another in showing honor

00:28:32.180 outdo one another in showing honor and this would include leveraging the tools of dress

00:28:42.560 The tools of environment, decor.

00:28:50.700 All of these things can communicate to some degree honor.

00:28:58.840 Honestly, hospitality is an excellent and vital ministry of the church.

00:29:05.160 It's such a good ministry, hospitality.

00:29:08.840 Many Christians, they wonder how they can contribute.

00:29:11.740 They go, oh, you know, I'm not a teacher and I'm not a preacher.

00:29:15.700 How am I going to contribute to the kingdom of God?

00:29:21.540 Hospitality is an excellent way to contribute.

00:29:26.300 Let me read you something from Richard Baxter.

00:29:29.900 He said, if you cannot preach the Bible and you cannot teach it, you can still be hospitable.

00:29:36.700 For by this you preach and you teach the love of Christ with your actions.

00:29:43.480 Your home can become a little sanctuary where the gospel is made tangible to others.

00:29:50.400 Love that. Love that.

00:29:55.020 Hospitality is merely a reflection of the hospitality shown to you in Christ.

00:29:59.860 Imagine understanding the gospel, that the King of Kings has extended such hospitality to you,

00:30:11.080 and then you reserve your kindness and openness and formality and honor to others.

00:30:20.160 We are not to do that.

00:30:23.940 So the point that I want to make is do not allow this casualized culture

00:30:28.440 to strip away the absolute beauty of biblical hospitality.

00:30:36.840 Do what you can with what you have.

00:30:40.000 I'm not saying you need to pull out the china and pull out the silver.

00:30:44.480 But when someone comes over, bring your best.

00:30:49.800 Show them their value by honoring them with the way you dress

00:30:54.700 and the way that you give them a drink

00:30:58.420 and then the table setting

00:30:59.780 and the meal that you prepared.

00:31:01.380 And honestly, I think that our church

00:31:02.540 does this quite well.

00:31:04.860 But that will create a culture

00:31:07.040 for future families that come to this church.

00:31:09.960 We're not even, I guess we're a year old.

00:31:11.460 I think we're actually a year old today.

00:31:13.660 Praise the Lord, right?

00:31:15.540 We're a year old today.

00:31:18.180 We're going to be celebrating this

00:31:19.400 at our annual members meeting in a couple weeks.

00:31:21.880 But we want to set the standard for hospitality so that as new families come in, they are blown away.

00:31:34.740 Not by us, but by us just doing what the Bible says.

00:31:40.600 And it creates a culture of love and connection that is so much greater than this whole 10 feet wide,

00:31:47.440 one inch deep, thin veneered, weird, casualized culture that we've built over the last several

00:31:55.200 decades. Let's get close. Let's honor one another. Let's bring some formality back. We're all sitting

00:32:01.980 here on the internet looking at pictures from the 1950s wishing that we were back there. You know

00:32:07.000 what happened in the 1950s? People didn't dress like slobs and they walked around and honored one 0.97

00:32:12.660 another, and they shook hands, and we could bring that back, you know. But it takes creating a form 0.68

00:32:23.700 of hospitality that shows people their worth, that communicates the gospel, and restores a Christ

00:32:30.080 likeness of warmth to one another. Amen? Amen. I had a little more, but I'm going to close right

00:32:37.780 there, and I'll put the rest on next week.

00:32:39.880 Let's go ahead and pray.

00:32:43.440 Father,

00:32:43.860 we thank you, Lord,

00:32:45.660 for the blessing of

00:32:49.180 the church,

00:32:50.840 for the teaching of your word, Lord, that we are not left

00:32:53.600 in the dark, but you have expressed to us

00:32:55.820 your desire,

00:32:57.880 Lord, that is righteous

00:32:59.480 and good and wise.

00:33:01.240 And Lord, we ask that you would help us

00:33:03.000 to implement those things into our lives, that we would

00:33:05.460 not be fake Christians, or not be

00:33:07.400 weak Christians or not be impotent Christians, but Lord, that we would have homes that are filled 0.56

00:33:12.280 with gospel reality and that our hosting would change and that our love would change for one

00:33:19.620 another. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

00:33:37.400 Thank you.

00:34:07.400 Thank you.

00:34:37.400 Thank you.

00:35:07.400 Thank you.

00:35:37.400 Thank you.

00:36:07.400 Thank you.

00:36:37.400 Thank you.

00:37:07.400 Thank you.

00:37:37.400 Thank you.

00:38:07.400 Thank you.

00:38:37.400 Thank you.

00:39:07.400 Thank you.

00:39:37.400 Thank you.

00:40:07.400 Thank you.

00:40:37.400 Thank you.

00:41:07.400 Thank you.

00:41:37.400 Thank you.

00:42:07.400 Thank you.

00:42:37.400 Thank you.

00:43:07.400 Thank you.

00:43:37.400 Thank you.

00:44:07.400 Thank you.

00:44:37.400 Thank you.

00:45:07.400 Thank you.

00:45:37.400 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - December 21, 2024

Romans 12_9-13 ~ Part 4 - Thirty Marks of a True Christian

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