Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 348 - Exploring Healthy Biblical Community

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Ep. 348 - Exploring Healthy Biblical Community · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: When you're kind of isolated by yourself, you have no plan and you think that I'm an island onto myself.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: You're just being teed up for the enemy.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: It's easy to grab the one who's wandering by themselves.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: The enemy doesn't come along necessarily and say all right, here's 30 sheep that are over here, let's just go for one of them.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: When there's one over here by himself, he's going to look for the weakest one.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Are you hitting for a Spurgeon quote?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: When there's one over here by himself, he's going to look for the weakest one.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Are you hitting for a Spurgeon quote?
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Well, some Christians try to go to heaven alone, in solitude, but believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Spurgeon went on to say those who belong to Christ are sheep, in this respect that they love to get together.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Sheep go in flocks, and so do God's people.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I just stole that from Ray, isn't that cool?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: You stole that from Spurgeon.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Proverbs 18.1,.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Whoever isolates himself, seeks his own desire.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: He breaks out against all sound judgment.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So your spiritual strength is tied in your spiritual circle.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Your spiritual strength is tied in your spiritual circle.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Who are you hanging out with Discipleship?
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: it's so important you should be discipling and get discipled at all times.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Memories La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la Gosh, it's terrible.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: You know what's ironic.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: You'll sing it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Where did Mark?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: go Under the table.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: Dear first-time listener, it gets better, I promise.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what's ironic is okay, I've probably heard that song, I gotta say at least a thousand, two thousand times.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I've never heard that version of it.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, but've probably heard that song I've got to say at least a thousand, two thousand times.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I've never heard that version of it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: Okay, but the reason I heard that song so much I think I mentioned before.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: I had a fourth grade teacher named Mrs Berry who married a Russian guy and I think that song's originally Russian.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, she would play that song like daily and memories, but here's the ironic thing that is the only word I remember from the entire song word I remember from the entire song you just tune out after that memories and the rest of guys.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Look, I don't know about you, oscar, you're still well, you're younger than us, but my memory is going.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: I mean you said that before, but it's you just said that.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I probably did, but it's one of those things that you hear older people talk about and then you realize, okay, I'm on the brink of 50 now.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: That's old Mark, you're 53-ish.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Ew.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Ray 90.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: 110.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: But man, it really does happen.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: In fact, I was just shocked before we started because we were talking about a joke that I kind of taught Ray and I threw it out there and Ray, you remembered it.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, of course I did.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, you have a good memory, Ray, Very sharp memory, Very sharp.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: You know the good thing about memories losing, it is you forget your problems.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: What are my problems?
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that helps.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: I think I've been struggling lately with short-term memory loss and I think I've been struggling lately with short-term memory loss.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: That's the one I've used from the pulpit.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: A lot Thanks to Easy.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: That's the joke I taught Ray, yeah it was wonderful.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: But seriously, though, what is it Like?
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Rachel and I freak out all the time because we'll go to say something that we had in our minds and it's gone, gone, it's gone, gone, it's gone.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: You've got to go back to the area you were standing in to bring it back.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Is that?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: serious.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, seriously.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: So if you're standing over in this area by the television, looking at the TV, and Sue comes over to me and says, oh, I was going to say something.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: I said, well, just go back and stand there for a minute, and she does, and that provokes the memory to come back.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Seriously, that's what I use Speaking of memory loss.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: So, ray, do you ever like if you were trying to remember something you had mentioned in bed?
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Do you ever go back and get into the hole in the bed?
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: The hole.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: To remember.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I stay in the hole.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: The hole in the bed.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: You stay in the hole.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: That sounds like a sitcom intro.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: It takes me 20 minutes to get out each morning.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: How big is the ladder that you use?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Speaking of memories, Tenny and I were in the boardroom this morning and Oscar puts his head in and said somebody in the ministry is possessed by an owl, and Tenny says who and he seriously fell for it and I said I'm going to.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's so good.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Seriously, you know that, Oscar.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: And then I slowly started backing away from him.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I'm going to use that one.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's so good, mark.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, never mind.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: You've done enough.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So it gets.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Ray, you're ahead of us.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: It gets worse.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Oh yes absolutely no, please don't tell me it gets worse.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: No old age is like permanent jet lag.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Get ready for it, and if it wasn't, for the gospel, that'd be terrible, oh so.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, is that why you tan your watch around?
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Yep, got to tan my watch around, I've done that for my whole life.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I haven't had my whole life.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Well, explain it.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Well, someone asked me to do something.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Anyway, it's easy.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Do you have anything else?
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: No, no, seriously, I cared for like the first second and a half.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It just makes me sick, mark.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: I call up and say Mark, I've got something important to tell you.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: And I go on for about five minutes and he says oh, I'm back now.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: No, the best is when I used to travel with Ray.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: We're hanging out inside the.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I'm having trouble falling asleep.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Mark, tell me your testimony.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: It works.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I was violently angry with Oscar and Mark for a long time because until the iWatch era Apple Watch, whatever they call it stupid thing you guys didn't wear watches.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: What in the world?
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: I wore a watch.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: You did Uh-huh.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: Maybe it was just Mark who was wicked.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: How could you not?
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: I really don't understand people who don't wear watches they couldn't have fooled one.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Because oh yeah, because I was poor and humble and I gave my money.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Don't give me your phone excuse the time is right no, I don't need to pull it out of my pocket, to be honest, because you guys don't care about time no, it's just part of the culture.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've always had watches, no, but they didn't need it previous generations didn't have watches.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Rachel doesn't really wear a watch.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: She doesn't.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: It makes me mad, well, she doesn't need to, because you wear one.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: To be honest, though, my wife got me a Hamilton Ventura for my 30th birthday.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite watches but I didn't wear it for the time.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I wore it because it looked, you know there are those celebrities that collect.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, there's a million, $2 million.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, ray wanted a $12 million watch.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a $12 million watch.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I asked for it.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: When I retire, $12 million watch.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Imagine if someone amputate your hand to get it Seriously that's crazy, but honestly, this watch here that I've been.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: This is the third one I've gotten.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: That's the exact same one, because I love it so much Did.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I ever tell you guys about my.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It's gotten a good word.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: It's just culture, isn't it Gotten my English?
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: teacher would have said my.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: English teacher would put it in the same category as ain't.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: No gotten's a word, Ain't's a word now too.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: Hey Siri, define the word gotten.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Ain't a word.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Siri's our friend.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It's a very American, a gotten Gotten.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, so you cut her off, come to have or hold, yeah, get.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Well, whatever, it's a word.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: What did you say?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Oscar Ain't a word.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, it says, north is a word as well, ain't a?
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: word it says North American, it's a North American word.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it is, because they're cultured.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: Side note did I ever tell you about my Rolex?
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: You think I'm?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: joking, this is real.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: You just told us before Memory loss.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: True story.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: I used to work before.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Why do you say true story when you're going to tell us a story?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Most of the time my stories aren't true Because you usually lie Like the owl.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: The owl is not a true story, untrue story, no.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: So I you know, way before getting into ministry I worked in finance and I worked for an organization where, if you were the top producer, producer for the year, you got a Rolex watch as a gift, as like a congratulatory gift.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: And I got it one year.
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: Uh well, at this organization we also used to play basketball all the time.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: On our lunches we would go like to a outdoor park and we play.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: And so we went to this park, I put my watch down and we started playing, and then we, like jumped in the pool to cool off and went back to the office.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: I was pulling into the office and I was like my watch, and so I turned around and went back over there and it was already gone.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, you should have left a camera there.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: All right, oscar, confession.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: It was me, it was you it was easy.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: Back when I was a gangster yelling all the time, it was a Rolex.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: It was a Rolex.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: What was it worth, oscar?
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: It was a Submariner at that time, somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: No, it was not, and it was a gift.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: I didn mad, I would have sold it.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: I would have fired you, dude.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I would have fired you so quick?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: How come you're not depressed for the rest of your life?
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: I mean just to watch.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Oscar's not a materialistic guy, he's humble.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, friends, time for a.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I need prayer.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Huh, I've got that song Memories going around in my head, Memories.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: It was from that play Cats, remember?
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: No Cats.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Mark likes cats.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Remember that play.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: They dress up like cats and stuff.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's horrible.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: It's one of the longest running ever yeah.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: It had nine lives.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: It's not perfect that was original.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, Usually I'm looking for a fast forward button when you begin to speak, but that was actually pretty good.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I look for a mute when you speak.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: All right friends, time for a cool, classy comment.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: This is from Sienna Martin.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Sienna Martin and I'm from Southern Indiana.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: I've absolutely loved the podcast.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: It's been so encouraging, thought provoking and convincing.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I love to listen to the podcast while I'm at work and today I listened to episode 21,.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Pride is More Dangerous Than you Think.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: It made me realize that the reason I don't tell people about the gospel is because I'm afraid of what they'll be thinking of me.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I'm proud of the episode.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I would love it if y'all yes, keep the y'alls coming if y'all would pray for me in that area.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: God bless y'all and may he continue to use you to accomplish his will.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Praise God.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I love it when people get conviction from what we share and when it leads to sharing the gospel in particular.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: That word, conviction, is sort of a Christianity word, isn't it?
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Con with it's not normally used in secular.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean to be arrested by the police, convicted.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Ray, how come you've never done that with that word?
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Con-with-viction, vigor, yeah, no, that's a good point, but yeah, no, I think I hear it in secular ways, but not as much as we use it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: It's a good podcast episode if we do it on conviction, yeah, it means guilt, doesn't it?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: The knowledge of guilt, yeah I feel guilty, yeah, who cares?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: All right friends.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: You learned it here.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: And now a radically revolutionary resource.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: This podcast is brought to you by the Ten Commandments Treasure Chest.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm excited about this, me too.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: This is show and tell, by the way, because we're bringing them out now.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, so ray, we have the baby one here.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: This is the baby one.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Listener, real quick listener.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: Uh, if you're listening on podcast platform, you should know that the reason why we say show and tell is because you can watch us on video as well.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Go to livingwaterstv, it's our streaming platform.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: You get a couple days for free and you can see what it's like to watch the podcast, not just listen to it.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Or go to the YouTube channel.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Don't forget the YouTube channel.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Which is what is it?
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Mark?
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: The Living Waters Podcast YouTube channel.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: So people have got to use their imaginations that are listening to this.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Is this even available yet?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: It's kind of available just today.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Who gave you the idea, Ray?
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: I think you might have.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: What do you mean?
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Might have I talked about?
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: gold.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I've got short-term memory loss.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: That's what it is yeah, because we were talking about the treasure chest.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: They have the Ten Commandment coins, which are silver, and I said, hey, make them in gold.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yep, right, yep.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: And Ray went quiet for like three seconds.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: I'm like oh no.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: I know what's going to happen, so tell us what's this Ray?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: This is really, I just love the look of these.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: In fact, I think that the ministry should all dress as pirates, permanently Living pirates.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: It looks like it's a pirate chest, but it's very, very classy.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: There's no hairs on it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Why do I feel like I'm on CV?
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: It's not a hairy chest.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: You should make a hairy chest version.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, six foot six, put fur on one of these Six foot six hairy chest.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm on QVC right now.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: They really are antique.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: There's an antique beauty to them.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so these are filled with the gold ones, gold coins which are more expensive and you give them to people you love especially.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, For the people you hate you get the other ones you also notice.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: This is the Ray Comfort size.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, compared to the other two, this Ray sleeps in this.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: It's got a hole in it, it comes with a bobble head, yeah.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: And then this one, ray.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: What's this one right?
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: This is the standard that has 300 aluminum coins in it.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And the good thing about this is that it just gives you your own treasure chest of your coins and you can see when you're running out and you can get more.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: But Ray wasn't content with 300 and 500.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Ray had to come out with the thousand.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: This is the deluxe.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: This holds a thousand coins.
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: It takes someone intelligent to open it.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, you can do that, yes.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: So that has a thousand unlimited coins the.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Ten Commandments on one side, the Gospel on the other, and they're so easy to give out because you just say to someone here's a coin with the Ten Commandments on it.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: How many do you think you've kept?
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: or broken Kids love them.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: So check them out, friends.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: There they are, yeah, but get them, uh, because you can give the gospel out, ray.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Seriously, this is one of the most brilliant things you can ever come up with.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Did you come up with it?
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Pride?
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: that's horrible thing to say.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah is, you were you born with that face unfortunately.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: All right, don't forget that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: You've got the whatever they're called, just treasure chests.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: You'll see them online Living Waters, magna Adventist Study Bible, living Waters TV, all at livingwaterscom.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: What are you doing, ray?
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Look how protective he is Idolatry.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: All right, don't forget the podcast YouTube channel, like I said.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Very good friends.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: All right, don't forget the podcast YouTube channel, like I said.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Very good friends.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Today we are talking about exploring healthy biblical community.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Community Com, community yeah, healthy biblical community.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Can you better explain what we're talking about?
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because when I first saw this, I thought what are we talking about here?
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well, the body of Christ, the church, is a community.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: It's made up of individuals that are called to be accountable to one another, called to love one another, called to pray for one another, called to serve one another, called to proclaim the gospel together.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Another called to serve one another, called to proclaim the gospel together.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: And we live in an era where this has seriously become just a lost virtue, if I could call it that.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Can I say something here?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: The church is hidden from the world, it would seem.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: You ask most secular people what's the church?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: They really don't know that.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: It's the community of believers around the world.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: The foundation of God stands, sure, having this seal.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: The Lord knows them that are his, and so the true believers are those who are trusting in Jesus, despite their so-called denomination.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, and I think that for most people, they hear the word church or think about church and they're immediately going to the building.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: They're going to just.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: You know, I go to a church.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: You know, rather than seeing, that the church is the community of God's people, that it's not just a place.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: Of course, you can use the word church to describe the place where the saints gather, but ultimately it is the people of God.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: We are the church 100%, and I think this is actually a space in which the church could thrive in reaching the loss, because there is a loneliness epidemic in the world today.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: 50% of US adults report living a lonely life.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: Loneliness increases your risk of premature death by 29%.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: You have a higher risk of heart disease, suicide or falling down stairs.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Well, that, and heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression all of them linked to loneliness.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: And here's the reality is that we know, like it's written on our hearts, we are literally dying for a community, but we are trying, as a culture, to fill the void with substitute communities, with gyms that have a community with gaming, online communities and politics and online tribes.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: But the reality is, none of these communities will satisfy, because none of these communities are the ones you were made for.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: We're in this cultural moment where loneliness is as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, the surgeon general is literally calling it an epidemic.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: And here's what's crazy, too, is that we are more digitally connected than we ever have been in history.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That's the irony, isn't it?
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: These alternative communities will never satisfy us because we were made for something else.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: We were made for God's family.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: You know, oscar, as you were saying that, I was thinking back to the whole COVID shutdown and I think it was really demonstrated that social media is not going to cure the loneliness issue.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Because everyone had it at home.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Still, everyone was locked up and you had access to internet.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, that didn't get shut down, but, man, that became like one of the big things that those who were opposed to the shutdowns were talking about, like the mental health crisis because of isolation.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's usually what happens with solitary, isn't it?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, right they just go crazy because we've been designed to be in community.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: And then you put them in solitary confinement and there's no windows and you can't see birds, you can't hear people.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: You just go insane.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we weren't designed for that.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: It goes back to Genesis 2.18, where God said it is not good that man should be alone.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: He's talking about women, or in general?
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously we know it led to him receiving a wife, but I think it is a general principle that man is not designed to be alone.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: I couldn't stand doing this podcast by myself.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: I'd love to imagine Ray trying to play all our parts.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I love to imagine Ray trying to play all our parts, but this goes even further, back beyond God, seeing that it's not good that man should be alone.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: It's because God exists in community, right the Trinity, and we were made in His image.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Made in His image, and so we were designed to have community and to have that.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: But let me ask you guys this whoever wants to chime in on this?
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: However, there is still a problem in that those who are a part of the church still, when we look at statistics, still declare loneliness.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Why do you guys think that is, yeah, like being in a.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You're saying like being in a crowd of people and they're still lonely, yeah.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: So in other words, sometimes we'll think that is yeah, like being in a.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: You're saying like being in a crowd of people and they're still lonely, yeah.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: So in other words, sometimes we'll think, okay, well, those that are outside the church, we can understand their loneliness.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: They don't.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: They're not a part of?
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: That's a good question.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Let me take a crack at that.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I think that there's some self-preservation that's attached, right.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people that go to church have really joined a club that maybe they're not welcomed or invited or part of something inside the world.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: But if you come to church, it doesn't matter who you are or what you look like or your quirks or your craziness.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: You're welcome here.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: So they come and churches become kind of a fun club instead of a revealing club.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: This is what I'm going through and Instagram and social media.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: There's this self-preservation that's attached to that and we're trying to act like we're somebody that we're not in the midst of it.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: We don't post terrible pictures of us.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: We take 100 pictures of us.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: My wife goes through them and says you can post that one.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: In fact one time my wife posted a photo on her Instagram and she's all, isn't it great.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: And I looked at it.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: She looked beautiful in it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I was cut off from the eyes up, so you couldn't see it, she wasn't wrong.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: That's to give you some empathy for me that would be funny, but that's kind of the way we focus in on us and we want people to think maybe a certain way about us.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And there's a danger.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Part of that Humility is let me tell you about myself, and then you don't know how that person's going to act and respond.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And that's dangerous, because all you've created is a culture club.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Karma, karma, karma, chameleon right, a culture club.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Karma, karma, karma, karma, chameleon Come a chameleon, you come and go.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: You come and go, I don't think our churches, our modern churches, our cultural modern churches, are designed for community.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I'm serious here.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: You go to a local church and someone says I go to your church.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Say, can you turn around and let me see the back of your head?
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: So I say if I'd recognize you, Because that's all you see, the back of a couple hundred people's heads and then they have like a three-minute break where everyone has to kiss each other and welcome to the church and have little hugs and it's not any depth.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: And that's why I really like house churches and that's why I've mentioned before that when I was a brand-new Christian, I was in a church and I realized this that we weren't having community in our church meetings and I tried to move these pews to face each other by myself, these long, big pews, so we'd all be facing each other, so the person ministering would have people here and people behind them in front of them.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: You know that's how the synagogues were designed back in ancient times.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Remember, mark, when we went to Israel, they would show us ancient synagogues and they were designed that way they were, where everyone could see each other.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love what you're getting at, mark, because it points out that the problem isn't always in the way that the churches, the local churches, are designed, though.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: Many local churches are designed to entertain, but we have to be brutally honest, which is that we have a consumeristic mindset.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: We go to church and it's like entertain me, justify my prejudices, show me something worth remembering for this rest of the week.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: And so we show up late, halfway through worship, we leave as quickly as we can so we don't have to deal with the traffic getting out of the parking lot, and we go about our own way.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: And when you look at the early church, specifically in Acts, when you look at church history, thinking of Joseph Tellerman's book, the Church Was a Family.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: Church community was not this thing that was done for 45 minutes to two hours on a Sunday.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: Church community was something that you lived out in the totality of your life.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: It's something that happened throughout the week, at the dinner table as you were raising children.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: It was this all-encompassing experience.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: And I say that recognizing that it's almost ideological to think that way, because it's hard to do that nowadays With the invention of freeways.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: We all live isolated lives.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: We simply don't live near the people we find ourselves in community with.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: But the onus is on the Christian today to find a way to live out a communal life in the context of gospel community.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: Our hearts need it and the church needs it.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: The church needs us to be in community.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, and I think a lot of times there is that perception of, well, I'm lonely man, I mean, church stinks and I go to church, but there's, you know, I don't feel like I benefit or anything like that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: But again, there's a mindset I go to, rather than I'm a part of, and it's honestly almost like walking into a gym watching people work out, going to the basketball court looking at people work out, and then you leave and you're like I don't understand why I'm not getting buff why I'm not losing weight.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Is this your memoir?
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: That's my experience.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: But you know what?
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: You're not participating.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: You can go into a gym and walk out looking the same forever.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: If you don't participate, that's really good.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: That's really good.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: What's that I mean?
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: You know it's not unusual for church services.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: You know, in areas where there's a lot of persecution, that a service is not just that hour service, that when they're going to church they are there all day long.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they come, they serve.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Everybody is coming together, they serve, they set up the chairs, there's worship, there's the announcements, there's the preaching, then there's the movement of the chairs to now prepare time for a meal, to get together and to hang out and to fellowship, and then there's after that let's discuss what was just discussed.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: It's an all-encompassing environment where you are all in and you're learning about people.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: You're learning what's going on inside their lives.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I read Galatians 6 earlier today.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: It says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And I saw this guy responding.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: He said well, real friends carry coffins, not just coffee orders.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: What can I get you?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: We come and we bring that Starbucks order.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: We're being nice, we're being outgoing.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: We're being friendly and what's happening.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: We have no idea what's going on in their lives and we don't share what's going on in our lives.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: We dare not tell people that we are going through something because we live that picture-perfect life of Instagram.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: And if you were paying attention, you would know not to bring that person Starbucks.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Or a creamer no, a creamer for sure.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: But you know, Mark, it just kind of reminded me of when you and I pastored years ago, where we would have barbecues after church in the courtyard and it gave people opportunity to fellowship and to get into each other's lives.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, when we look at Acts, especially Acts chapter two, the early church was constantly together.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Daily they were praying together and preaching the gospel together and participating in the life of the body together.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Can I comment on that barbecue idea.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I realize that after service everybody is going out to eat, everybody's spending the money, and I remember going to the pastor and I said we should have like a barbecue after the services.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Now, usually what do we do, pastor, you need to change this, you need to change that, you need to change that.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: The pastor already has his hands full of other things.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: So I remember saying what I would like to do is I would like to start a barbecue ministry here at the church and I will do the shopping.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I'll do whatever that needs to get done and let me try to raise some guys up around me.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: We'll work the barbecues and we did like hamburgers and hot dogs at first and then it evolved into like kebabs and chicken and carne asada, tacos, quesadillas.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: man, let's do this.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: And so people had to spend their money anyways, and so now they're spending at the barbecue and it was like the whole church just knew you sold the barbecue, you made it a business.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: We made it.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: We made it.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I have $2,400.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So we were there and now we're fellowshipping.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Didn't make very much money.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: We are there fellowshipping, get inside of each other's lives and then that carried over into the home fellowship.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Did you start the?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: barbecues.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not going to answer that, because you're going to say you're a pray.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about daily fellowship.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Remember Eutychus, oh, the guy who fell out of the window At night.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: They had church right through the night.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Oh right.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: That was the type of fellowship they had.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Of course, they had a great preacher.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: All was going on all night.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Put people to sleep Until Eutychus fell out of the window.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: If, you're going to go on and on as a preacher, make sure you can raise the dead.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's funny when you read Roman historians.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: Their critique of the early church was how much time they spent with each other partying and hanging out.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: They just didn't understand.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: They were onlookers, like what.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: They're always together.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: What's wrong with those people, which is a testament to what God intended community to look like.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, yeah, and so I'd love for us to talk about some of the marks of healthy biblical community.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: We often talk about accountability.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: What does that look like, oscar?
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: When we talk about accountability between believers, I think to the unbeliever it's such a foreign concept.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Like what do you mean accountability?
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Like bro, this is my life, I do my own thing, no one's allowed to enter into my business.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: You know, what does biblical community, as it relates to accountability, look like?
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, mark was touching on it.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: It's being, as Timothy Keller would say, it's being both known and loved, and what he talks about often is like, like so many of us are afraid of being known because then you see my deficiencies, my insecurities let's use a biblical word my sin, and that's scary for so many people.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: But to be in a community that holds you accountable is to know your sins, to know your weakness, to know what you're prone to and to love you anyway, which is similar to the kind of Christ-like love that we find in the gospel.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: And so accountability is vulnerability, making yourself known to your neighbor and then asking them to come alongside you and keep in mind, they don't come alongside you so that you can be a more moral person.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: They don't come alongside you so that you can be a more moral person.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: They don't come alongside you so that you can be a better father.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: They don't come alongside you so that you can be a better husband.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: You can be a better father, and a better husband by father, following self-help guides and books.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: Ultimately, the, the scriptures remind us that we are all disciples of jesus and our aim as Christians is to become more like the one we adore, our Savior Jesus Himself, and so accountability is ultimately pulling each other towards the goal of being Christ-like.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: I imagine it's similar to sports If you're on a professional basketball team, you hold each other accountable to the work you're putting in, because you're trying to reach one goal a championship For the Christian.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: The goal is Christlikeness, and we are pulling each other towards that.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Can I just ask a question?
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I imagine somebody listening to this and just saying great, how do I take that step?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: How do I take that step towards that group or that person and just confess?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Do I start with confession something that I've done?
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Then maybe he'll confess something Like where do we?
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: go.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, Mark, because there is that misunderstanding of accountability.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: It's almost like we're expecting someone to come up to us and say how are you doing?
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: What's going on in your life?
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Listen, accountability, in order for it to really succeed and be truly effective, has to be self-initiated and voluntary.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: In other words, we are the ones who need to seek out accountability.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: If you want friends, you must first be friendly.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Like the proverb says, we need to ourselves say look, why do I want accountability?
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Because I want to be conformed more into the image of Christ.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: So I need my brothers and sisters.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Two are better than one, I mean, scripture's clear on that I need.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: And so we open our lives up.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: We say, because how can someone know what's really going on in my heart?
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: And I could even lie and just make stuff up.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: But if I want accountability, it's like we talked about recently with love.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Right, love fulfills the law because it has the right motive.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: So when I want to walk with Christ and honor God, then my motive for accountability is going to be in the right place and then I'm going to be open, I'm going to share my life because I want to be.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: It's not like, let me check off my accountability box, it's I need help because I want to be.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: It's not like, let me check off my accountability box.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: It's I need help because I want to be more like Christ.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: So, brother, here's what I struggle with.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Here are my shortcomings.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I need you to hit me up on this, I need you to pray for me on this, and that's when it becomes effective.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Mark, I want you in a minute, to talk about discipleship.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: So get your wheels turning.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: But, ray, I know the thing that frustrates you more than anything is Tickle.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, don't even talk about it, don't even talk about it.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Panic.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: I think that's a part of the church actually.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: Tickling.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's in first editions.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I'm there.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: But, ray, I know one of the things that frustrates you most is all this stuff we're talking about in church, and yet it's a church that lacks evangelism, the proclamation of the gospel.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing builds unity or brings unity to a church or community like having vision.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: By that I mean we're designed by God to create.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: We weren't just designed.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: God makes this image.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: We don't do anything else.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: We're designed by God to create.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And I remember years ago we had a building program.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Our church grew this is back in New Zealand.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Our church grew to about 200, 300, and we needed a bigger building and so we started on a building program and it was great.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: We designed the building and we worked together to build the building and that brought out so many people's creativity that we didn't know they had.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: One guy could just lay out rocks in a garden.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: It was just beautiful the way he did it, because that was his gifting and that gave us a sense of community.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: We came together on Saturdays and worked all Saturday together and got to know each other rather than just being in church meeting.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: So was that?
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: by the way, was that Pastor Barton's?
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: church no it wasn't.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Hallelujah, hallelujah.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I've never forgotten that it was English, yeah, but he would say hallelujah, hallelujah and Ray told me about him and then we went to New Zealand and I spoke in his church and he kept doing it.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Why are you preaching, no like when you know.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: He got up to the pulpit.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: We're glad you're here today.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: He was introducing me.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Hallelujah, it was so cool.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: He was a tender man.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when someone says something slightly wrong, you just that's all you hear.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: I had a pastor that used to just say Jerusalem all the time.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: He did Jerusalem.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Every time he said it, I felt like no.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, ken Ham says Jerusalem.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: So building programs, they are good, but we should approach them carefully.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Peter wanted to start a building program on the Mount of Transfiguration.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: He says let's build tabernacles.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: And then it says in Scripture for he knew not what he was saying.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: And so it's very important, If you're going to start a building program, don't get yourself into financial difficulty, because we remember the word mortgage means death grip.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: And I've seen churches go into terrible, terrible debt, have a church split and they couldn't pay off the mortgage and it was just horrific.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: So what we really need as Christians is to have a real vision for the church.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Build the church that is, seek and save that which is lost and bring them back to be part of that community, and that will bring a sense of unity and purpose in our lives as Christians.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Amen.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I love what Mark talked about earlier in terms of Thank you.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: The only thing I've ever heard Mark say that was useful.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: So I want to talk about what.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Mark talked about that?
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: The church.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Are you hungry, the bully?
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: But the church did.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: They stayed together and did things together.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: And recently I was asking my son, luke, about doing something and he goes.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sorry.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: After church on Sunday we're going to go door to door with the young adults crew.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: Oh wow.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I'm like yes, it just thrilled my heart.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: They go to church service and then afterwards they're going to go knock on doors and share the gospel.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: It's created in your image.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you're the maniac dog.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: You were amazing.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: What did you do?
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: A thousand doors around your church In our neighborhood.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: yeah, we went all throughout.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: It was such a sweet time.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Do you know?
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: It's biblical.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, mark and I are about to start doing it.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Behold I stand at the door and knock.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Revelation 3.20.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Don't you tickle me.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: You're so scared.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: The idea is just to get you.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: You scared them.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I am terrified.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I'm getting close and I just don't actually do anything I'm going all hot, I'm going all hot, I'm getting all hot in here.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: So, mark, let's talk discipleship.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: That's a part of a healthy biblical community.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to overlap some things that we've talked about in the past.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: What does discipleship today look like?
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: Well, compared to what it looked like in the first century, or when the church seems to have gotten it right.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: We want to make discipleship great again.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Well then, we kind of emulate some things that were done before.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Which was what?
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: It's not just going through a book together, it's not just getting coffee with someone, it's living life with someone.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Right, I'm going to this memorial service.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: You got time to go with me.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm heading over to Costco to pick up some things.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Why don't you cruise on over there with me?
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: And there's these little weird time limits that are attached to it, so it doesn't become so overwhelming.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Remember, jesus didn't say to go into all the world and make converts.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: He said to go into all the world to make disciples.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And if we put that to use to the best of our ability without pulling our hair out, we would see that it's living life.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: It's the good, it's the bad.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: It's how the guy cuts you off and how you handle that.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: It's maybe giving somebody else a park job while you park way over in the parking spot and you park in a completely different place, right.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Isolation is a lot like the devil's lunchable.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: If you would right that you're preparing for him a meal because you're completely left.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Remember those lunchables.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: You have these little crackers and cheese and ham and turkey, right, and you kind of eat it on the go.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Idle time is the devil's workshop, when you're kind of isolated by yourself, you have no plan and you think that I'm an island onto myself.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: You're just being teed up for the enemy.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: It's easy to grab the one who's wandering by themselves.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: The enemy doesn't come along necessarily and say, all right, here's 30 sheep that are over here, let's just go for one of them.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: When there's one over here by himself, he's going to look for the weakest one.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Are you hitting for a Spurgeon quote?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Well, some Christians try to go to heaven alone, in solitude, but believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Spurgeon went on to say those who belong to Christ are sheep in this respect that they love to get together.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Sheep go in flocks, and so do God's people.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I just stole that from Ray, isn't?
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: that cool.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: You stole that from Spurgeon.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Proverbs 18,.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Whoever isolates himself, seeks his own desire.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: He breaks out against all sound judgment.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so your spiritual strength is tied in your spiritual circle.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your spiritual strength is tied in your spiritual circle.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Who are you hanging out with Discipleship?
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: It's so important you should be discipling and get discipled at all times.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: And you know there's a way to get discipled that is outside the bounds of formal discipleship and that is being intentional to glean.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: You know, it's amazing, man, how much mindset affects things, like just changing the channel in your mind and saying I'm going to go into this right now with a different attitude.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: You know, if you just go into times of fellowship and you're just looking to gab and just, you know, talk and laugh, but if you go in there saying I want to learn something from my brethren, that leads you to ask questions, that leads you to take note when they voluntarily just share things from their own life.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: So I think we can put ourselves in a place of being discipled by just changing our mindset and approaching it in a certain mode, you know.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: I think, an important aspect of discipleship.
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: Well, one, two things.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: First thing is, I hear so often the older generation complaining and criticizing Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and whenever I hear them complaining about their laziness, about their lack of interest in faith and whatever the case, it always bums me out because what you are doing is you're unintentionally projecting the reality that you're not interested in participating and helping.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: And that's fascinating because the next generation coming up one.
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: There's an incredible movement amongst Gen Alpha and Gen Z, bringing them back to the church.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: They're starting to increase their church attendance more than even my generation and your guys' generation.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: This is in the UK.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: This is in the United States and in the UK.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: But one of the things that they're most interested in is discipleship, and I think when we talk about discipleship, often what people hear is not discipleship.
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: They think about books and ultimately, what that is is data transfer.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: Data transfer is not discipleship.
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: For me, to sit down with you on the other side of a coffee table and tell you here's the five chapters I just read and here's your big takeaways, now go and do it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: That is data transfer.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: I can get that on the internet.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: Discipleship is like being kissed by the sun.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: It takes time.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: You need to be in the presence of someone.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: They need to see you doing life with your family, with your children, in the workplace.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: When they see your disposition in all of these circumstances, that is when discipleship starts to happen.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: It's a slow process.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: It's not transactional, it's transformational.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: We think about the rabbis.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: They didn't show up and say okay, guys, here's a didactic communication about God's word.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: They said come with me, follow me, walk in my footsteps, sleep where I sleep, eat where I eat, live where I live, and they understood that right when Jesus called the disciples come follow me, they understood.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: It wasn't just, oh, okay, we're going to go and just kind of hang out right now.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: You mean, like, devote our lives to being with you and learning from you, and yeah, that's huge, it was a come to die.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I'm really trying to think through what you're saying there, because it's so profound.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Why is it that we're not getting that today?
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: How is it?
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, was it the way it was said?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Is there something that's kind of missing from the scripture in the midst of that?
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: But they understood that when Jesus called them, that there was a call to be separated from your family.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Let the dead bury the dead and, though nobody else, come with me, I will follow.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: It's leaving your profession, it's leaving your life.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: It's just everything, because I'm following you.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Your people are my people.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: It's just, I'm all in and I'm not going anywhere.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, ray.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: That's the call of Christ.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Right, if anyone comes after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: And the genuine church is a fellowship of true believers.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: And there are some who are lonely because they're disillusioned by the church.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: But if you go to a genuine church and you approach someone and show an interest in them, the love of God will radiate from them to you and you'll become part of that fellowship and you'll get to know good friends, true friends.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: But what we don't realize is a lot of churches got false converts in them.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: That's what Charles Spurgeon said Nobody can do as much damage to the church of God as the man who is within its walls but not within its life.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Ooh, that's an.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Ooh, that's a good one Do it again.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: Ooh and an ah.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Do it again, that's a good one.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: If it's worth saying once, it's worth saying yeah, ray, yes, you want it again.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Nobody can do as much damage to the church of God as the man who is within its walls but not within its life, man that is.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's got.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Where did he get these?
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: things.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: His wife, his wife.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: He never said a word.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: You know, I want us to touch on another aspect Oscar, maybe you can speak to this that I think is often overlooked for healthy biblical community, and that is the whole element of correction and church discipline, because there's just this modern mindset of like, well, we don't want to offend people, we don't want people to no longer come to the church and so forth, but church discipline when you look at Matthew 18, is a big part of a healthy biblical community.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it goes back to what we were saying earlier, which is the church is there for us to become more like Christ, and I think that church discipline has become a.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: It's like this so many churches are hesitant because they want to come off as friendly, maybe because they want the numbers.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: But in addition to that, I've been in a church discipline situation and there are so many people who are friends with the person who needs church discipline who are like this isn't right.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: You shouldn't treat them that way and listen.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: One of the important aspects of church discipline is not that they would be disciplined and removed.
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: Church discipline is a pleading for repentance.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: The desire is to reorient them to gospel community, not to remove them from gospel community.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: Ultimately, church discipline is putting the decision in their hands.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: If you continue going in this direction, I'm sorry but you will prove to not be one of us, and I think you also just painted a good case for church membership, because a lot of times you'll have these non-denominational churches that don't have church membership and when they're found out they just go to another church where there is no oversight.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Amongst the sheep and the shepherds, these huge mega churches, they have no idea who's attending.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Now, there's nothing obviously wrong with mega churches, but, to Ray's point, there should be small home churches within the bigger picture of the church so we know what's going on inside of each other's lives.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think honestly that is sort of the happy medium of you know you havebecause it's good to have a church that has a good-sized congregation.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: You can do stuff in that regard.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: You can mobilize financially, you're able to get behind missions, you're able to do things.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: But I love, within even a bigger church, to have those home groups where they gather together and they're in each other's lives regularly.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I was at a very large church.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I was at Shane and Shane's church.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: It was a huge church the Brothers the Watermark Church right it's in Texas.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I was at Shannon Shane's church.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: It was a huge church the Brothers the Watermark Church right it's in Texas and I was just visiting, I was dropping by and I sat inside of this area.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: It's a huge church.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I think there's a Starbucks down in the foyer, right, it's like that big, and I remember going in and I sat down and there was a gentleman that came over to me and started to talk to me and he says you're new here and I'm like how?
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: do you know that?
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: And his response?
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Well, because we're territorial, in where we sit typically.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: And I sit in this area and I know the people that sit in this area.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Get out of here Right and it was really neat and he wasn't saying it in a bad way.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: He's all I like to know who sits inside my area and I like to see what they're up to.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And he started talking to me about membership In order to be a member at that church and I don't know much about their church, but in order to be a member at that church, it is required for you to serve.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: It's not just saying that's my church, no, where are you now you're going to serve?
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: You have giftings.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Where are you going to use your giftings?
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: And you did begin your conversation with dude what a cool church.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: It's like totally, ah, bruh totally.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: Can I give another mark of a healthy church, yeah, but first I do have to ask you one question Do you think it's possible, because of that church having a Starbucks, that it could be apostate?
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: It's definitely apostate, there's no doubt about it.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: I looked right at Ray when he said it's Starbucks.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Does it have a football field?
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Swimming pool.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Another aspect of healthy gospel community is a community that forgives.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: And this is huge because I'm thinking about the person that's listening.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: That's like man.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: I was a part of a community and I was hurt.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: I was hurt by leadership.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: I was hurt by that community and let me just tell you, if you're listening, I've been hurt too.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: I've been brutally.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: My family and I have been brutally hurt by a church community and I get that sense of being hesitant of stepping back into community.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: I can remember going to a new church and seeing Sit down in the back.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Hiding.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I can remember recently attending a new church and being invited to a barbecue and seeing this beautiful community and looking at it and going man, this is good gospel community and I'm not ready for it.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: But my next thought was that's not healthy, that's not good.
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: I need to step into this, and a big conviction for me is scripture, when Jesus talks about us being slapped to turn the other cheek.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: It's important to recognize that turn the other cheek.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: Could you demonstrate, ray?
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: The mic's gonna slap my face.
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: Turning the other cheek can often be misrepresented as though if they've slapped you, let them slap you again.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: But it's important to recognize.
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: The Jewish saying is if they've hurt you.
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: When he says, turn the other cheek, what it's doing is saying let them kiss you, because that's how you.
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: It was the handshake in Jewish culture.
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: In other words, what Jesus means by that is if someone hurts you.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: Our disposition should be can we try to be friends again?
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: Can we seek forgiveness?
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: And then, when he says, pray for your enemies.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Ultimately what he's doing is he's saying I will good in the lives of the people that have hurt me.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: I want good for them, I desire good in their lives.
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: And so if you've been hurt by church community, I feel you, I've been there, but the Lord desires to reconcile you back to some community, maybe not the community you were at prior, but your heart, your soul, is still desperate for a kind of gospel community.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: People throw away the baby with the bathwater in the midst of that.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Right, that's really annoying, and if you're afraid of being slapped on the face, grow a beard.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: You know, jesus never said to follow my people.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: He said to follow me.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: So we need to know that we live in a frail society with fragile people in a fallen world who make fallen decisions, and it's okay because you fall into that same category.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Community is where we come and we reveal secrets to people and then healing begins and if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: We confess our sins to one another.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going through this.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Will you pray for me?
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: And I like how we send out prayer requests all the time and you don't hear a lot of things, what people are going through.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: You know where it's real personal, but it's like, hey, pray for my dad, he needs to get saved and that's okay in a bigger picture.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: But your intimate, closer friends should know where those speed bumps inside your life that are slowing you down and where you need that intimate prayer Amen.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: You know I was thinking about the role that wisdom plays in good, healthy, biblical community.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: But from this standpoint, oftentimes when we think of wisdom, we think of it from the standpoint of like.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: God, give me an understanding of what to do right now in this situation.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: We don't often look at wisdom in the grand scheme of in what way can I live to make me a healthy believer who also blesses others and functions in the way that I should.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: You know, to me, when we seek wisdom, it should be okay.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be intentional right now to figure out how I can develop into a person who really gets into people's lives, gets people into my life, serves others, become like.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: You know that's what I'm talking about, like that's wisdom.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Wisdom says I'm going to plan.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to just say this.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: How often have we talked about this?
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Like you get an idea, a thought, you're stirred, you're convicted, and then you wake up the next morning and you're thinking about.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: You know how you're going to go play basketball or work out in the gym or go play golf.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: We need to be wise to say, okay, I've been struck by this right now, so what am I going to do to implement long-term change?
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: And we implement a plan and then we begin to do it Because this is nice, we're talking about this.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, healthy vocal community.
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: Right, I don't remember saying that.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: No, I heard you, I heard you go.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: But then the next day it's gone, it's just like it evaporates, you know.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: So we need to do that, and you know, I'm glad, oscar, you talked about forgiveness, because there's something that has been labeled as self-protection, and we can easily get into that when we've been hurt, so good.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: But real love and I'm talking about this outside the bounds of abuse I'm not talking about doing this when you're dealing with an abusive person or a church or so forth, but in a situation where there's just been hurt and pain that's been caused by others, our tendency is to wrap our arms around ourselves and protect ourselves.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: So what that means is we are foregoing our call to keep moving toward others in love, and a part of that can include addressing the issue that resulted in that hurt and pain.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: But you're doing it with a spirit of a desire for true reconciliation.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: That's love.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Love keeps moving forward with open arms, even though we've been hurt, for the sake of God's glory and the health of the church and our love toward our fellow believers and the opposite, because I've man.
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: I'm so glad you said that because I've seen it happen where someone will go well, I am not stepping into reconciliation because I don't feel safe.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: And when we self-preserve, what we do is we prioritize ourselves over God's command to pursue unity with one another.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: And when we self-preserve, it leads to gossip, it leads to divisiveness, it leads to the idea that they're the problem, not me and man.
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: This is so antithetical to as we read the New Testament letters to each other like the apostles are urging each other for unity.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: They're absolutely urging, and think about how.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, if we think our problems are hard in the church today, things were radically harder back then.
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: I mean they had people from polar opposite ends of the world gathering together as a gospel community.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: And this is a calling on us which sort of just leads to another point as well, which is the church should be a radically diverse place.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: I don't mean diverse in like the woke way of using that word.
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: I mean diverse in the way that God gathers all people to himself, because I think often what we do is we feel comfortable in churches that confirm and conform to our own personal prejudices.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: We go to churches with a ton of people that look like us and what ends up happening is that church could look often like a political rally or a social club rather than God's people.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: And I'm just saying like, if your church looks like a Republican party rally or if it looks like a BLM march, it's not the way God intended for it to be.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: And the reality is this is like some pastors.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: They preach to draw those people to themselves and they think man, like God, is using me.
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: I'm growing my influence, I'm growing my following, but ultimately, what does the scripture say?
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: You must decrease so that he may increase.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: Ultimately, the difference between a seeker-friendly church and a church that likes to draw people in because of politics is nothing.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: It's absolutely nothing, because both of them are tickling the ear of men and women.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: I love this quote by DA Carson.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah right.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: Ross is going to tickle me now, because you said that I love this quote by DA Carson.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: He points out that the reason why the apostles constantly exhorted the early church to love one another is because they were natural enemies that were being supernaturally united.
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: He says this the reason there are so many exhortations in the New Testament for Christians to love other Christians is because the church is not made up of natural friends.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: It's made up of natural enemies.
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs or anything of that sort.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: Christians come together because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance.
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: In this light, they are a band of natural enemies who love one another.
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: For.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Jesus' sake, amen.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, so good, oscar Ray.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: I wanted you to address this real quickly because you're one of the most forgiving people I know.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: You to address this real quickly because you're one of the most forgiving people I know and, being a public figure, you're constantly having arrows shot at you.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, he's a public minifigure, like a Lego.
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: don't you do a bobblehead, Large arrows at the minifigure?
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: But you, I mean, and it's not just from unbelievers or atheists.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: There's friendly fire sometimes where other Christians will come at you.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: How do you walk in forgiveness and how would you encourage others to do that?
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what you do is you open your preach for 12 years surrounded by absolutely nasty people that want to spit on you and throw things at you and say all terrible things and even yell at you while you're leaving your car, never to come back, and stuff like that.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: So it just prepares your heart for for being a christian.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: All who live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: I was just thinking biblical fellowship, which what we're talking about is very pleasurable to the human psyche.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Amen, and I'm convinced.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: It may be wrong, but I believe that those who are closest to god are marked by both joy and a healthy sense of humor, and that's pleasurable.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: If you're in a congregation of nasty people and you can make them smile, they become your friends immediately.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: It breaks down barriers and so being in a church that's just filled with joy and filled with people that love to laugh, I think is pleasurable and that's why we shouldn't dwell alone.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Satan watches for those vessels that sail without a convoy.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: George Sinnock said that he's a Puritan.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: He did say Satan watcheth, but I changed that to watches Hope he forgives me.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: And John Wesley said the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: Wow, and he's on a horse going everywhere, so he knew what he was talking about.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah and Mark, sometimes it requires us sacrificing time and even opening our home.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: You love to do that.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: I mean opening your home is a big part of Healthy Biblical.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: It's hard to get in if you don't do that.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: It was always my desire to have a house where the neighbors, the kids, would come over to our house instead of my kids wanting to go to my neighbor's house.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: So we strategically wanted to purchase inside of an area where there was community, where there was people living in the area, where they would want to come over, and so we built the backyard to be such a way where people will want to come and the barbecue is always going.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther said the devil isolates and thereby destroys, and that's his first angle of attack.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Let me isolate the individual.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: You're all alone, nobody knows what you're going through.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: You're a weirdo, you're strange.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Look where he points.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: You're ugly.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: I forgive you.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Mark.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: And then we begin to think through that.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Think about that and the enemy will attack us.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: No greater lie Come outside of that.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And Tozer said nothing fosters growth like the presence of other growing believers.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: It's the coals in the fire.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Take a coal by itself it goes cold, but put it with the other.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Coals the hot coals don't become cold Coals.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: And when you think of what Paul said in.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Ephesians 4, 1 through 3, that was so lame.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: It was his sermon on Macaulay Culkin.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: Ephesians 4, 1 through 3,.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all loneliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: Man, he's tying that in with walking worthy of the calling with which we are called and that leads into pursuing unity, the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: And I love how it describes early church, acts 2.42,.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: And Hebrews 10, 24 to 25,.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: That's the purpose of assembling together.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: It's to stir one another up to love and good works, and that happens in community.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: And then I love Hebrews 3, 12 on.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: Sin is deceitful and ultimately a part of our fellowship with one another.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: Being in each other's lives is to exhort each other.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: So we aren't hardened to speak in each other's lives, to rouse each other up through encouragement.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Speaking of that, the Amplified Bible, speaking of the deceitfulness of sin, uses the words the delusive glamour that a sin may play upon him.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: It's a delusive glamour, that's good.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: Kent Hughes said there's no healthy Lone Ranger Christians.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: Every Christian needs a gospel-centered, scripture-saturated, loving community to grow.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: And he needs a tonto, a tonto, ooh, tonto, ton with Toe, with a toe.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: That's what it means.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: So there you have it, friends.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: If you're not in good, healthy, biblical community, get into it.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: And we have people ask us at times, you know, should I stay in my church?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: There's this, there's that.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: First, try to be a part of the solution, and if you can't be, if there's unhealthy things going on, then you need to find a place where there is good health in terms of biblical community.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: And so do that.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: And again, don't let this just slip away.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: Decide right now.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to do A, b and C in order to make sure that I contribute to good, healthy community and that I have it in my life.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: All right, friends, there you have it.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: Don't forget the 10 commandments, the luck treasure chest 300, 500, 1,000, and soon 10 billion, Ray Comfort will make sure of it, swimming pool size boxes.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: Don't forget the Living Waters mug, the Evidence Study Bible, living Waters TV all at livingwaterscom and the podcast YouTube channel.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, podcast at livingwaterscom Thoughts, ideas, comments we love them.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: We ideas, comments we love them.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast, where we still still yes, still have no idea what we're doing.